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Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 5: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about them, Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 5: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 6: Good evening, a tragic suicide, a likely murder, wrongful imprisonment,
Speaker 6: and gripping courtroom scenes draw readers into this com compelling story,
Speaker 6: giving them a frightening perspective on justice corrupted and who
Speaker 6: should be accountable when evidence is withheld. License to Lie
Speaker 6: Exposing corruption in the Department of Justice is the true
Speaker 6: story of the strong arm, illegal and unethical tactics used
Speaker 6: by the headline grabbing federal prosecutors in their narcissistic pursuit
Speaker 6: of power. Its scope reaches from the US Department of
Speaker 6: Justice to the US Senate, the FBI, and the White House.
Speaker 6: This true story is a scathing attacked on corrupt prosecutors,
Speaker 6: the judges who turn the blind eye to these injustices,
Speaker 6: and the President who has promoted them to powerful political positions.
Speaker 6: The book that we are featuring this evening is Licensed
Speaker 6: to Lie exposing corruption in the Department of Justice with
Speaker 6: my special guests, attorney and author Sidney Powell. Now I
Speaker 6: apologize to our audience. There's been a little mix up
Speaker 6: on blog talk radio in terms of the countdown for
Speaker 6: the program, and so when she called in Sidney Powell,
Speaker 6: she experienced a problem. So I have just emailed her
Speaker 6: back in the last three minutes or so to police
Speaker 6: call back in. So it was a blog talk radio
Speaker 6: technical error. So we should have her on in a
Speaker 6: couple of minutes. She is, Sidney Powell is a former
Speaker 6: prosecutor who became a defense attorney, and we'll ask her
Speaker 6: what that change was and when that change was, and
Speaker 6: we'll talk all about her background and then her incredible
Speaker 6: book here talking about exposing corruption in the Department of Justice.
Speaker 6: And this is an insider's look at something that we
Speaker 6: normally don't get to see and we don't get to
Speaker 6: hear about what's so we hear stories of over zealous
Speaker 6: prosecutors for various reasons. And I being in Canada, we
Speaker 6: have a different system which takes the political I guess
Speaker 6: climbing or political aspirations out of the equation in terms
Speaker 6: of judges and prosecutors. So we have a different system,
Speaker 6: and I believe, just from the experience, from the stories
Speaker 6: I have witnessed through true crime books and through this book,
Speaker 6: reinforces that that's a system that's open to a lot
Speaker 6: of problems. But we hold the judicial system up to
Speaker 6: a higher standard than any other standard, and certainly they're
Speaker 6: afforded that kind of respect, and as such as citizens
Speaker 6: who are tax paying citizens and citizens who believe in
Speaker 6: these systems of government. And this is an extension of government,
Speaker 6: especially federal prosecution, but really the judicial system is an
Speaker 6: arm of the government, and as such we are entitled
Speaker 6: to understand the process and then demand that each party,
Speaker 6: the defense and the prosecution and the judge, abide by
Speaker 6: the rules that are clear cut, possibly evolving, but still
Speaker 6: clear cut. And this will be a book that will
Speaker 6: demonstrate that often that is not the case, with dramatic
Speaker 6: and very very dramatic results. So again I apologize for
Speaker 6: Sidney Powell, but I'm sure she will get this email
Speaker 6: and be able to call back in and we can
Speaker 6: interview her about this book, Licensed to Lie. What we'll
Speaker 6: be talking about in this hour is things that no
Speaker 6: matter who you are and no matter where you were
Speaker 6: in the past, you will have heard names like Alaskan
Speaker 6: senator forty years in the Senate, Stephen Stevens and Ted Stevens,
Speaker 6: pardon me, Senator Ted Stevens. And we will also hear
Speaker 6: about a company that was famous and a golden boy
Speaker 6: in the press for many years and then not so
Speaker 6: much en run American company, and we'll talk about that,
Speaker 6: and we'll talk about her personal experience in this so
Speaker 6: that again we're getting an incredible insider's viewpoint vantage point.
Speaker 6: And so when we talk about problems and we talk
Speaker 6: about things that arise in trials, when you're getting a
Speaker 6: actual account of something from this perspective, this is unique.
Speaker 6: Usually a true crime author is not in this kind
Speaker 6: of position. There are true crime authors that often are prosecutors,
Speaker 6: and there are some great books like Killer Clown and
Speaker 6: Helter Skelter written from of course with the help of writers,
Speaker 6: but still the story coming from the incredible, unique vantage
Speaker 6: point perspective of somebody in that position, a prosecutor prosecuting
Speaker 6: someone accused of some incredible crime, and usually multiple incredible crimes.
Speaker 6: So in this case, a woman, a strong woman advocating
Speaker 6: for the innocent, and incredibly, this is unfortunately a glorious
Speaker 6: example of injustice within the judicial system in America. And
Speaker 6: we're talking about federal prosecutions as well, and so everything
Speaker 6: from murder and suicide and career ruining and traumatization of
Speaker 6: families and the incredible cost of attorneys and the trial
Speaker 6: and the subsequent loss of work, so incredible toll. When
Speaker 6: injustice rears its ugly head again, I'll apologize to the audience.
Speaker 6: I won't give this too much more time. Unfortunately, I've
Speaker 6: had a lot of criticism for not being able to
Speaker 6: have the guests and I coordinate on the time. So
Speaker 6: again I guess I'll take the blame here and we'll
Speaker 6: just wait a few more minutes and hopefully you can
Speaker 6: I can entertain you with some more ramblings. I want
Speaker 6: to also say that I've been looking at a few
Speaker 6: interesting cases is that have come out of Winnipeg, Manitoba,
Speaker 6: and I really have not been focusing on criminal murder
Speaker 6: cases here in Winnipeg. I mean, there are some incredible cases.
Speaker 6: This is the murder capital of Canada and the ninth
Speaker 6: biggest city in Canada and one of the poorest with
Speaker 6: all the ingredients and factors. Therefore the kind of place
Speaker 6: that's a little, you know, quite a bit more prone
Speaker 6: to violence and again murder. And for anyone that's listening
Speaker 6: from Winnipeg, of course they will cringe. But that is
Speaker 6: the truth, that longstanding record as murder capital of Canada,
Speaker 6: and now in comparison to an American city, we are
Speaker 6: still very very low murder rate in comparison. So here
Speaker 6: we are with Sidney Powell. Thank god, and I appreciate
Speaker 6: that you hung around to listen to this. So here
Speaker 6: we go with Sydney Powell. Good evening, Sidney.
Speaker 7: Hi, Dan, how are you?
Speaker 6: Oh fine, thank you, thank you very much. I was
Speaker 6: tormenting the audience with about eight minutes of improm improvatizational rambling.
Speaker 6: We'll say so thank God on the line here. Yes,
Speaker 6: so I already introduced the book in terms of giving
Speaker 6: a synopsis of the book. Let's start with this, Sidney Powell,
Speaker 6: with give us the audience your background before we get
Speaker 6: into this incredible book and this undertaking that you have
Speaker 6: with this book. So give us your your background. I
Speaker 6: understand you were a former prosecutor, so give us your
Speaker 6: legal background please.
Speaker 7: I actually wanted to be a lawyer from the time
Speaker 7: I was five years old. My mother tells me that
Speaker 7: I would go home from kindergarten and watch Perry Mason,
Speaker 7: and at the end of first grade, when everyone asked,
Speaker 7: you know, what do you want to be when you
Speaker 7: grow up, and we had to stand up and announce that,
Speaker 7: I stood up and announced I wanted to be a lawyer.
Speaker 7: And all my life people would say, oh, you don't
Speaker 7: want to be a lawyer. There are too many lawyers,
Speaker 7: And my standard answer was they're not enough good ones.
Speaker 7: So I went to undergraduate school at the University of
Speaker 7: North Carolina. I got my undergraduate degree five AA Kappa
Speaker 7: and did my undergraduate work in just twenty one months
Speaker 7: and proceeded to law school. Interned my first summer after
Speaker 7: law school with the US Attorney's Office in Raleigh, North Carolina,
Speaker 7: and after that with the US Attorney in San Antonio, Texas,
Speaker 7: and that US attorney decided to hire me back, so
Speaker 7: I became the youngest assistant United States and the attorney
Speaker 7: in the country at the time. I graduated from law
Speaker 7: school and was in AUSA in San Antonio. I worked
Speaker 7: in the appellate section there for a year or two,
Speaker 7: then did criminal trial work for a year, civil trial
Speaker 7: work there for a year, and rotated back and wound
Speaker 7: up heading out the Appellate Section for the Western District
Speaker 7: of Texas, where I filed over three hundred and fifty
Speaker 7: briefs and criminal appeals. Became editor in chief of the
Speaker 7: Fifth Circuit Reporter, served on the Bar Association of the
Speaker 7: Fifth Federal Circuit and numerous other organizations. Became an elected
Speaker 7: fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, for which
Speaker 7: I served as president, became President of the Circuit Bar
Speaker 7: somewhere in there, and then went into private practice after
Speaker 7: ten years with the government. I've only actually represented criminal
Speaker 7: defendants in four cases after I left government practice because
Speaker 7: I can't take a case unless I feel like I'm
Speaker 7: on the correct side, so that kind of limited my
Speaker 7: criminal defense work right right.
Speaker 6: In that case, say that you left. You left federal
Speaker 6: prosecution as a federal prosecutor after ten years, and went
Speaker 6: into why was that? Why why did you leave?
Speaker 7: There were several reasons. I thought it was important for
Speaker 7: my own personal growth, and when I looked around and
Speaker 7: saw people that had stayed for longer than ten years,
Speaker 7: they seemed to get jaded and tired and cynical and
Speaker 7: just not have the edge that I felt like I
Speaker 7: wanted to maintain and the freshness and an approach to
Speaker 7: the cases and the practice. So I didn't want to
Speaker 7: get stale.
Speaker 6: Now, in terms of prosecutorial misconduct, and really that's what
Speaker 6: this book is about. Had you experience that as a
Speaker 6: prosecutor and working in an office, had you experience a
Speaker 6: lot of the things that are later that you really
Speaker 6: aptly demonstrate in the book with the stories that you
Speaker 6: have covered in this book, No, I.
Speaker 7: Actually experienced very little of it. I mean we're talking
Speaker 7: twenty twenty five years ago that I was in the
Speaker 7: United States Attorney's Office, and I was in three different
Speaker 7: divisions under eight or nine different US attorneys. None of
Speaker 7: the US attorneys I knew would have put up with
Speaker 7: anything like what I talk about and found in the book.
Speaker 7: None of them would have. I mean, we would occasionally
Speaker 7: have an assistant US attorney who would get overly aggressive
Speaker 7: in argument and say something they shouldn't have, or introduce
Speaker 7: a piece of evidence that was too prejudicial that shouldn't
Speaker 7: have been introduced. But in terms of anybody hiding evidence
Speaker 7: that I exculpated or exonerated a defendant, I never knew
Speaker 7: of any instance of that, and I knew the folks
Speaker 7: in each of our offices very well. I mean, that
Speaker 7: wasn't what they were looking to do. We were taught
Speaker 7: and trained that the job of an assistant United States
Speaker 7: Attorney is to seek justice. And if a criminal defendant
Speaker 7: went free and we had still done the right thing,
Speaker 7: that was the way it was supposed to be. The
Speaker 7: job was not to get convictions, it was to seek justice,
Speaker 7: and that was hammered into each of us. That's what
Speaker 7: I taught in the Attorney General's Advocacy Institute three weeks
Speaker 7: a year for seven or eight years, and that's what
Speaker 7: people taught me. That's what was expected of us. And
Speaker 7: that is why I was so mortified when I saw
Speaker 7: the conduct that I saw. That is reflected and discussed
Speaker 7: in the pages of the book.
Speaker 6: What do you attribute this change?
Speaker 5: Though?
Speaker 6: It must have been, you know, it'd seems a very
Speaker 6: very dramatic change in terms of the prosecution focus, in
Speaker 6: terms of, you say, just to win at all costs,
Speaker 6: rather than the especially the federal court being the highest
Speaker 6: standard of especially under scrutiny, you would think potentially so
Speaker 6: that it's a very very high standard. What do you
Speaker 6: attribute this dramatic change in focus for prosecution.
Speaker 7: I think there's been an unfortunate increase in the politicization
Speaker 7: of the Department of Justice. I think with the advent
Speaker 7: of instant media in all forms, there's been a lot
Speaker 7: more pressure on prosecutors, particularly in the high profile cases,
Speaker 7: to obtain convictions. I think it's a number of things
Speaker 7: like that, and maybe even you know, certain people have
Speaker 7: sought out the job because of the publicity that can
Speaker 7: go with it or the public spotlight that can go
Speaker 7: with it, as opposed to doing the job because they
Speaker 7: want to do it with honor and integrity. I think
Speaker 7: it's a mixture of things.
Speaker 6: Just straight go ahead.
Speaker 7: Sorry, I was going to say definitely. I think in
Speaker 7: the last fifteen years or so, the Department of Justice
Speaker 7: has just become increasingly politicized.
Speaker 6: When you're saying politicized, let me try to understand this.
Speaker 6: Does this come down to, And I know it's in
Speaker 6: terms of people looking to achieve higher positions politically and
Speaker 6: within their own occupation, but is there any consideration to
Speaker 6: the idea of who's conservative and who's liberal, and is
Speaker 6: there any of that involved in this politicalization.
Speaker 7: I think the Attorney General basically sets that tone. There
Speaker 7: are a number of people in Department of Justice who
Speaker 7: have been there forever, and in some ways that is
Speaker 7: a good thing, and in some ways, like people staying
Speaker 7: in the US Attorney's office too long, that's not a
Speaker 7: good thing. I mean, I really don't think anybody should
Speaker 7: probably be in government service more than ten years, and
Speaker 7: that there should be fresh blood flowing through there and
Speaker 7: new ideas and you know, sort of a hunger to
Speaker 7: get things right and actually seek justice instead of a
Speaker 7: jaded or worn perspective on the system. But you know,
Speaker 7: the president gets to pick the Attorney General, and it's
Speaker 7: been more and more characteristic for that office to be
Speaker 7: used sort of as an arm of the executive branch
Speaker 7: with overriding policy considerations, as opposed to an entity that
Speaker 7: seeks to enforce the law in a blonde way.
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Speaker 7: That I think is unfortunate.
Speaker 6: Why would this particular democratic government and president, Why would
Speaker 6: they why would they be inclined to do that?
Speaker 7: I don't know, but I think most people looking at
Speaker 7: this administration at this point, between the NSA issues and
Speaker 7: the president's use of executive orders to circumvent different rulings
Speaker 7: of the Supreme Court and courts in general, would say
Speaker 7: that this administration has certainly done more to put in
Speaker 7: jeopardy the freedom of the press than any other administration
Speaker 7: and history, and has also used Department of Justice to
Speaker 7: seek certain ends. I'm not saying that the prior administration
Speaker 7: didn't do some of that too. There was a big
Speaker 7: controversy with Alberto Gonzalez firing the US attorneys from across
Speaker 7: the spectrum and other issues, But in general, I would
Speaker 7: like to see the Department of Justice restored to an
Speaker 7: organization that purely seeks to enforce the law without regard
Speaker 7: to political perspectives.
Speaker 6: Now, in your book, in the forward, to talk about
Speaker 6: prosecutur proscatorial misconduct, and so for those that don't know
Speaker 6: or haven't heard enough of of the various things, I'll
Speaker 6: just describe them and we can talk about them a
Speaker 6: little bit. Overcharging in terms of the number of charges,
Speaker 6: deliberately mishandling, mistreating or destroying evidence, allowing witnesses they know
Speaker 6: or should know are not telling the truth, truthful to testify,
Speaker 6: pursuing defense witnesses or pressuring defense witnesses not to testify,
Speaker 6: and relying on fraudulent forensic experts. Also during plea agreements,
Speaker 6: overstating the strength of the evidence in the case, and
Speaker 6: making statements to the media that are designed to create
Speaker 6: public outcry, making unproper misleading statements to the jury, and
Speaker 6: failing to report prosecutorial misconduct when discovered. Is this to
Speaker 6: talk about this a little bit? How tell us a
Speaker 6: little bit about this?
Speaker 7: Those are all things that have been outlined by the
Speaker 7: Center for Prosecutorial Integrity, a new nonprofit organization that has
Speaker 7: been formed to try to encourage change in this area.
Speaker 7: They did a study and identified those different aspects of
Speaker 7: prosecutorial misconduct, and Judge Kazinski, in writing the forward for
Speaker 7: this book, pointed to that study and recited those things
Speaker 7: as instances of different kinds of misconduct. The book itself
Speaker 7: deals more with prosecutorial misconduct in the form of hiding
Speaker 7: evidence that would have exonerated the defendants, telling the court
Speaker 7: things that were directly the court and the jury things
Speaker 7: that were directly contradicted by the evidence they withheld, and
Speaker 7: definitely putting pressure on witnesses not to testify for the defense.
Speaker 7: There were scads of that in all the in RON
Speaker 7: related prosecutions and overcharging. Basically, if a defendant was willing
Speaker 7: to plead guilty, they got an indictment on the one
Speaker 7: count or were allowed to plead to one count. And
Speaker 7: if someone didn't plead guilty, then the counts were stacked
Speaker 7: and stacked against them. And if anyone voiced the view
Speaker 7: of the facts or evidence that was different from that
Speaker 7: of the INRON task Force, they also threw in charges
Speaker 7: of false statements or perjury or obstruction of justice, things
Speaker 7: like that.
Speaker 6: Now, when you talk about withholding potentially exculpatory evidence, this
Speaker 6: is the Brady rule.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 7: Supreme Court in a case called Brady versus Maryland held
Speaker 7: a defendant has a constitutional right to the evidence that
Speaker 7: the government has or can obtain that is supportive of
Speaker 7: his defense or would impeach the witnesses against him or
Speaker 7: would affect his sentencing. And there was Brady evidence in
Speaker 7: this case. In fact, the prosecutors that actually yellow highlighted
Speaker 7: it for the judge before the trial, and still after
Speaker 7: the judge ordered them to these summaries of it presumably
Speaker 7: accurate summaries, they still hid the key statements and evidence
Speaker 7: from the defendants while they served a year in prison
Speaker 7: for a crime that wasn't even a crime.
Speaker 6: Now, before we get right into that and trying to
Speaker 6: understand this incredible trial, what's interesting, I think is that
Speaker 6: most people know that if it's a bad guy, a
Speaker 6: really bad guy, then we've watched television and we understand it.
Speaker 6: The prosecutor would be more eager to try to bend
Speaker 6: the rules to bust a guy that or bust people
Speaker 6: that are are monstrous, and they avoid prosecution time after time.
Speaker 6: But in this holding back potentially exculpatory material on people
Speaker 6: that are in business or in government, why would Again,
Speaker 6: that's why I asked the question about politicalization. It seems
Speaker 6: somewhat political or personal or something else when they're that
Speaker 6: zealous and vigorous in their prosecution of people that are
Speaker 6: not what people would think are typically the bad guy.
Speaker 7: Right. There's been an also increasing trend toward what's called
Speaker 7: the over criminalization of the law, prosecutors stretching to make
Speaker 7: crimes out of things that are really civil issues. And
Speaker 7: what separates the civil issue from a criminal issue is
Speaker 7: really criminal intent. I mean, if you don't intend to
Speaker 7: commit a crime against someone, it's usually covered and it's
Speaker 7: still wrong, and it's not that hard to tell. If
Speaker 7: something's wrong, it's usually covered by civil law. And most
Speaker 7: of the inrun and inrun related offenses could have been
Speaker 7: covered and should have been covered by civil law, and
Speaker 7: instead there was so public outrage and public outcry in
Speaker 7: the wake of the collapse of Enron, the Department of
Speaker 7: Justice immediately appointed the Inron Task Force, untethered them from
Speaker 7: the Department of Justice so they had no adult supervision,
Speaker 7: and set them about to find the criminals. And they
Speaker 7: simply got way over zealous in their effort to do that.
Speaker 7: They made crimes out of things. They took pieces of
Speaker 7: different statutes that had never been put together to create
Speaker 7: a crime before, and said, oh, this is a crime,
Speaker 7: and indicted it, and indicted people who were doing business
Speaker 7: deals and thought they were well within the law and
Speaker 7: what they were doing. In fact, they were relying on
Speaker 7: their own corporate counsel and doing it and wound up
Speaker 7: serving a year in prison for something, as it turns out,
Speaker 7: was not a crime, because even the Fifth Circuit would
Speaker 7: not give them bail pending appeal. The outrage was so strong, incredible, incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I mean it's really in times of widespread public animosity
Speaker 7: that lawyers have to work the hardest to protect individual rights.
Speaker 6: Now, where did this media media contempt come from though?
Speaker 6: That was any contribution from again the prosecution itself, or
Speaker 6: did the media just like to spin it a certain
Speaker 6: way the big bad rich people and us against them.
Speaker 7: Well, at the time, Enron was such a huge loss,
Speaker 7: a financial loss and emotional devastation for so many people
Speaker 7: that public outrage was was broad and deep. Houston itself
Speaker 7: was absolutely devastated. I mean, Ron had something to do
Speaker 7: with almost every charity in Houston, you know, gave business
Speaker 7: to all kinds of businesses in Houston, supported I don't
Speaker 7: know how many banks with its smalluble transactions, big banks,
Speaker 7: international banks. I mean, it was. It was a titan
Speaker 7: at the time and well regarded at the time. So
Speaker 7: when it went down so suddenly and so badly, hundreds
Speaker 7: of thousands of people lost scads of money. Some people
Speaker 7: lost all their savings, all their retirement accounts. I mean,
Speaker 7: people had a right to be angry, but for prosecutors
Speaker 7: to put people in jail that didn't belong there and
Speaker 7: make up crimes and hat evidence to do it is
Speaker 7: bad as bad an offense as anything they sought to prosecute.
Speaker 6: Now you write about Senator Ted Stevens and he died
Speaker 6: in a plan accident. But tell us about to Senator
Speaker 6: Ted Stevens and why you included them in this book.
Speaker 6: What does his story demonstrate?
Speaker 7: His story very juxtaposed against that particularly of the Merrill
Speaker 7: Lynch defendants in the Run litigation, provides a very interesting contrast.
Speaker 7: Senator Stevens case was tried by Judge EMMITTT. Sullivan in
Speaker 7: the District of Columbia, and Judge Sullivan was far more
Speaker 7: alert to the possibility of prosecutorial misconduct and willing to
Speaker 7: examine the allegations of that than was United States District
Speaker 7: Judge Ewing Warlin, who was sitting in Houston in the
Speaker 7: midst of the Inron outrage. So just the view of
Speaker 7: to the way the two different trials were conducted as
Speaker 7: an interesting study in examples in themselves and also the
Speaker 7: prosecutorial misconduct. As it turns out when I overlaid the
Speaker 7: two cases as a common denominator in the work of
Speaker 7: a man by the name of Matthew Friedrich, who went
Speaker 7: from being co counsel on the Merrill Lynch Inron prosecution
Speaker 7: to I mean he rose metiorically through the Department of
Speaker 7: Justice upon the backs of the wrongful convictions in the
Speaker 7: Inron cases, to become Acting Assistant Attorney General heading the
Speaker 7: entire Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, when he
Speaker 7: had only fifteen years experience as a lawyer, and he
Speaker 7: oversaw and was the puppet master pulling the strings of
Speaker 7: the trial prosecutors who unseated Senator Ted Stevens, the longest
Speaker 7: serving Republican in the United States Senate, changed the balance
Speaker 7: of power in the Senate and basically helped enable the
Speaker 7: enactment of Obamacare by unceding Senator Stevens. In that case,
Speaker 7: they also hid the evidence that showed Senator Stephens' involvement
Speaker 7: was not as the prosecution had represented and definitely undercut
Speaker 7: the execution's main witnesses. But Judge Sullivan saw that and
Speaker 7: was willing to do something about it. He appointed a
Speaker 7: special prosecutor. He dismissed the charges against Senator Stevens before
Speaker 7: they came to judgment, and he appointed a special investigator
Speaker 7: to investigate the Department of Justice and the prosecutors themselves
Speaker 7: that produced an extraordinary amount of evidence. Hank Schulke and
Speaker 7: Bill Shields in d C were the special prosecutors. They
Speaker 7: wound up producing a five hundred page report, much of
Speaker 7: which is referred to in the book, that outlines the
Speaker 7: various conversations and some of the misdeeds by the prosecutors
Speaker 7: in that case. And again nothing like that. We couldn't
Speaker 7: even get a motion for a new trial heard in
Speaker 7: the case against the four Merrill Lynch executives, and that's
Speaker 7: attributable to the difference in the judges. Primarily.
Speaker 6: You also include the story of Nicholas Marsh. Tell us
Speaker 6: who Nicholas Marsh is and what happened to him.
Speaker 7: Nicholas Marsh was one of the young prosecutors in the
Speaker 7: Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice who had
Speaker 7: been working on what was called the polar Pin operation
Speaker 7: polar Pin investigation of public corruption in Alaska for several years.
Speaker 7: I think it started about two years after the Inron
Speaker 7: Task Force began its work, and Nicholas Marsh worked under
Speaker 7: Bill Welch and Brenda Marsh Morris in the Public Integrity
Speaker 7: Section at Justice and was leading the polar Pen investigation.
Speaker 7: He would have been the person to lead the prosecution
Speaker 7: of Senator Ted Stevens. And at the very last minute,
Speaker 7: after Matthew Friedrich and his deputy Rita Glavin installed them
Speaker 7: were installed and to head the Department of Justice Criminal Division,
Speaker 7: Matthew Freeck rushed the Stevens case to indictment and then
Speaker 7: at i think the day before day after it was indicted,
Speaker 7: took Nicholas Marsh off as lead counsel, put Brenda Morris
Speaker 7: on his lead council, basically disrupted the entire trials team
Speaker 7: and gave Marsh Morris I'm sorry, Morris, certain marching orders.
Speaker 7: Nicholas marsh was upset, needless to say, about being taken
Speaker 7: off as lead counsel, but he was working behind the scenes.
Speaker 7: I think he was third chair in the trial itself.
Speaker 7: His roles were cut back considerably. He felt disregarded and disrespected,
Speaker 7: needless to say, from that endeavor, and it was frustrating
Speaker 7: for him to watch everything that was going on. And
Speaker 7: when the whole case unraveled and it became apparent that
Speaker 7: evidence had been withheld, the investigation turned on the prosecutors themselves.
Speaker 7: Everything I read indicated that the stress of being the
Speaker 7: subject of an investigation was more than Nicholas Marsh could bear.
Speaker 7: He had felt like he wanted to devote his whole
Speaker 7: life to Department of Justice, to the law, and this
Speaker 7: would he thought this would be a black mark on
Speaker 7: his career forever. I talk about what he suffered and
Speaker 7: endured because whether he was right or wrong in whatever
Speaker 7: it is he did. In terms of the Stephens prosecution,
Speaker 7: the ultimate toll was the loss of his life. Because
Speaker 7: this bright, capable, much loved by his family and friends,
Speaker 7: young man wound up committing suicide before Joie finished his investigation.
Speaker 7: And it's I think it's I call it the ultimate toll,
Speaker 7: and it shows the stress that every person who is
Speaker 7: the subject of a government investigation feels. I believe, I
Speaker 7: know the stress on my clients of almost ten years
Speaker 7: of being the target of a government investigation was absolutely extraordinary.
Speaker 7: If it hasn't happened to you, you are extremely fortunate
Speaker 7: and you cannot imagine what it does to your family
Speaker 7: and relationships all across the board to be told you're
Speaker 7: going to be indicted by the FEDS when otherwise it
Speaker 7: the whole world thinks you're a law abiding citizen, and
Speaker 7: you thought you were to.
Speaker 6: Now tell us about the defendant that you chose to defend,
Speaker 6: and you say that it's very rare that you've only
Speaker 6: had four defendants that you've chosen to represent. So tell
Speaker 6: us about this defendant. And because you have a personal
Speaker 6: relationship with this person one way or another, so tell
Speaker 6: us about your defendant and what happens to him before trial,
Speaker 6: after trial. Tell us a little bit about this story.
Speaker 7: Okay. I represented Jim Brown, who was head of Merrill
Speaker 7: Lynch's Global Asset and Leasing management department. Most people don't
Speaker 7: know that Merrill Lynch actually had a significant, significant dollar
Speaker 7: amount of hard assets and Jim's group managed those. His
Speaker 7: role in the case was extremely limited. He actually went
Speaker 7: on vacation for Christmas vacation. All of this happened like
Speaker 7: December twenty one through twenty three of nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 7: It was, and it boiled down to a five minute
Speaker 7: telephone conversation that my client, Jim Brown, was not even
Speaker 7: on between Andy Fastel and at Merrill and I mean
Speaker 7: at Enron and some other folks at Merrill Lange the
Speaker 7: government claim.
Speaker 2: Lucky Land Casino, asking people what's the weirdest place you've
Speaker 2: gotten lucky?
Speaker 1: Lucky in line at the Delhi I guess ahi in
Speaker 1: my dentist's office more than months.
Speaker 3: Actually, do I have to say?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: You do in the car before my kid's PTA meeting?
Speaker 2: Really? Yes? Excuse me? What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Speaker 4: I never went in tell well.
Speaker 2: There you have it.
Speaker 3: You could get lucky anywhere playing at lucky landsloughts dot
Speaker 3: com play for free right now?
Speaker 2: Are you feeling lucky? No? We ne necessary? Voyren my
Speaker 2: long eighteen plus terms conditions of plus what every details.
Speaker 7: The Meryl was being given a guarantee by Enron that
Speaker 7: Enron would buy back Meryl's interest in some power barges
Speaker 7: that were going to be used to provide emergency power
Speaker 7: to the country of Nigeria, actually at the request of
Speaker 7: the US State Department, because Nigeria was in turmoil civil
Speaker 7: war and the country needed electrical power. So Merrill agreed
Speaker 7: to invest seven million dollars, which is a relatively small amount,
Speaker 7: that's less. I think it was less than one percent
Speaker 7: of Gym's Group's investments at the time, and for run
Speaker 7: that was next to nothing. They were a four hundred
Speaker 7: million dollar corporation, so they did the barge deal. The
Speaker 7: government claimed there was a guarantee. The mural guy said no.
Speaker 7: The most they promised was that they would use their
Speaker 7: best efforts to find an industry buyer for the barges
Speaker 7: within six months because Merril didn't want to be in
Speaker 7: the barge business forever. They owned other powers stations then
Speaker 7: some significant power stations in the country, but they really
Speaker 7: didn't want to be long term invested in anything going
Speaker 7: on in Nigeria. So it boiled down to whether the
Speaker 7: deal was a sham as the government called it, in
Speaker 7: that it was alone instead of a properly reported gain,
Speaker 7: or whether there was a guarantee or the or it
Speaker 7: was just alone. Right, long story short, the jury found
Speaker 7: based on what the on the prosecutor's case that was hearsay,
Speaker 7: only they didn't have anybody that was actually a participant
Speaker 7: to the conversations testify. Instead, they proved their case purely
Speaker 7: by co conspirators hearsay, which is why they alleged a
Speaker 7: conspiracy to begin with. I'm sure. So nobody who had
Speaker 7: participated in any of the conversations testified for the government
Speaker 7: and they convinced the jury that Andy Fastau and Jeff McMahon.
Speaker 7: In Ron's treasurer had given Mery Lynch a guarantee that
Speaker 7: in Ron would buy back the barges and Meryl wouldn't
Speaker 7: lose any money on them. My client had actually told
Speaker 7: Merrill and everybody he could find at Meryl not to
Speaker 7: do the deal. He didn't like it. He didn't want
Speaker 7: anything to do with barges in Nigeria. He had plenty
Speaker 7: of power plant investments from his group where he was
Speaker 7: in this country and didn't want anything to do with Nigeria.
Speaker 7: He saw all kinds of risk associated with the transaction
Speaker 7: and he knew there was no guarantee against those risks,
Speaker 7: which is why he was so adamant that it was
Speaker 7: too much risk for Meril to take on. Right, but
Speaker 7: the government convinced the jury that it was the deal
Speaker 7: was a sham, that the guarantee that Meryl that Inron
Speaker 7: I'm sorry had made the guarantee, and convicted all the
Speaker 7: defenders albe Marale defendants of depriving inrun of the honor
Speaker 7: services of Andrew Fastau under the very vague Honor Services
Speaker 7: Statute and the Conspiracy Statute. So these four meyrial executives
Speaker 7: went to prison, being dined even bail pending appeal, while
Speaker 7: we pursued the appeal of their convictions on the Honor Services.
Speaker 7: And in addition, my client, Jim Brown, was also convicted
Speaker 7: of perjury and obstruction of justice for expressing his personal
Speaker 7: understanding of a telephone call that he was not even on. Well, yeah,
Speaker 7: and that was after the prosecutor, Andrew Weisman, who later
Speaker 7: wound up heading up the FBI's General counsel and deputy director.
Speaker 7: That was after Andrew Weisman had told him in the
Speaker 7: grand jury, share your personal understanding with us, whether it's
Speaker 7: accurate or not.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's hard to call perjury.
Speaker 7: Then, yeah, it really is. And on top of that,
Speaker 7: it turns out that all the evidence they hid substantiates
Speaker 7: is identical to what Jim told the grand jury. So
Speaker 7: it was literally true he had been told to give it,
Speaker 7: whether it was accurate or not, and he didn't even
Speaker 7: know who had told him that. It wasn't based on
Speaker 7: his personal knowledge at all. So how anybody can affirm
Speaker 7: a conspiracy and obstruction of justice conviction based on that
Speaker 7: is beyond my comprehension. But the court did for.
Speaker 6: Us that don't know the workings of some of these
Speaker 6: kinds of companies and stocks and such things. Tell us
Speaker 6: why this is such a serious offense anyway. I mean, again,
Speaker 6: coming from Canada, we don't prosecute any there's no white
Speaker 6: collar prosecution like this in terms of how zealous they
Speaker 6: are to give these guys serious sentences. And so tell
Speaker 6: us what kind of sentences that were looking at or
Speaker 6: giving these defendants and why is this why so serious?
Speaker 6: What is it about the crimes themselves as honest services clause?
Speaker 6: What's so serious about the crimes themselves that they weren't
Speaker 6: these kinds of sentences?
Speaker 7: That is very hard to say. All I can tell
Speaker 7: you is that this little elite group of prosecutors decided
Speaker 7: they wanted to send the message to Wall Street. Most
Speaker 7: of them on this team had some relationship with the
Speaker 7: Southern District of New York, and at least Leslie Caldwell
Speaker 7: and Andrew Weissman had been used to prosecuting gangsters they
Speaker 7: called them, and they called these bankers wise guys on
Speaker 7: Wall Street. So they basically used organized crime tactics against
Speaker 7: these businessmen and felt like they needed to send them
Speaker 7: to prison for twenty five to thirty years, even though
Speaker 7: these guys didn't take a dime from anyone. Run made
Speaker 7: fifty three million dollars on this deal, Merrill Lynch made
Speaker 7: I think it was seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 7: on the deal. And these guys were literally just doing
Speaker 7: their jobs that day. The judge, even when he sentenced
Speaker 7: them to three to four years each, said I recognize
Speaker 7: you all were just doing your jobs, but you've been
Speaker 7: found guilty of this offense. Now, of course, a judge
Speaker 7: refused to recognize that the offense itself had been made up.
Speaker 7: They had pieced together parts of different statutes, and there's
Speaker 7: never been a valid honest services conviction in the absence
Speaker 7: of bribery or kickbacks, and there were no bribes or
Speaker 7: kickbacks in this case, so there was no offense. But
Speaker 7: it took us nine to twelve months to get the
Speaker 7: Court of Appeals to recognize that after the district judge
Speaker 7: refused to. So the whole thing was a tempest and
Speaker 7: a teapot made up by the prosecutors who just had
Speaker 7: a thing for these particular defendants and wanted to bring
Speaker 7: Wall Street down a notch after they'd also wrongfully destroyed
Speaker 7: Arthur Anderson LLP, the accounting firm for nothing. We lost
Speaker 7: eighty five thousand jobs over nothing, only to be reversed
Speaker 7: by the Supreme Court nine to nothing.
Speaker 6: Right now, you talk about the personal life of Jim
Speaker 6: Brown and his wife, Nancy and the ramifications of all
Speaker 6: of this. Were you a friend or some colleague or
Speaker 6: an associate before this, you know about your relationship with
Speaker 6: Jim Brown.
Speaker 7: I did not know them at all before this case.
Speaker 7: But when you go through something like this with someone,
Speaker 7: you get to know them pretty well. And we worked
Speaker 7: together in his defense for almost seven and a half years, wow,
Speaker 7: the entire teenage span of his children. So yes, I
Speaker 7: got to know them very well. When Jim was in prison,
Speaker 7: I would talk to Nancy on a regular basis. Was
Speaker 7: extremely difficult to talk to Jim while he was in prison.
Speaker 7: That was a whole new experience for me. I'd never
Speaker 7: had that much trouble talking to a client in prison before.
Speaker 7: But the prosecutors did everything they could to make everything
Speaker 7: as hard for these people as possible. In fact, our
Speaker 7: young criminal defendant was put in a maximum security transfer facility.
Speaker 7: I think it was hundreds of miles from his young family,
Speaker 7: with the worst of the worst.
Speaker 6: Wow, how can this occur without I mean temporarily. Anything
Speaker 6: can happen, I'm sure, but it isn't in someone a
Speaker 6: petition for Again, you know, you have some sort of
Speaker 6: right to be closer to your family unless there is
Speaker 6: some other pertinent reason not to be and communications with lawyers.
Speaker 6: I was very, very shocked. I'm glad you brought it
Speaker 6: up because it was one of the questions I want
Speaker 6: to for you. How common is it for somebody to
Speaker 6: denied access to a lawyer, and especially given who you
Speaker 6: were and who you are.
Speaker 7: I have no idea that it was a fight to
Speaker 7: get to talk to him every single time. And apparently
Speaker 7: he paid a penalty inside the prison for my aggressiveness
Speaker 7: in pursuing my right to talk to my client.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I interesting, Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 7: I don't even know all the details of that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you paint a picture in the book about him
Speaker 6: being roughed up by guards and other than that, what
Speaker 6: was the treatment overall by inmates. Again, we already just
Speaker 6: talked about the guards, some of them not giving giving
Speaker 6: him a hard time. What was his overall treatment there
Speaker 6: and what was the result You described that in the
Speaker 6: book as well. His imprisonment.
Speaker 7: Jim came through it better in many ways and some
Speaker 7: of his colleagues. Jim is a very affable guy, and
Speaker 7: he went into prison with what I call and describe
Speaker 7: in the book an attitude of gratitude because of a
Speaker 7: serious personal experience that I don't want to give away.
Speaker 7: I want to encourage people to read the book to
Speaker 7: understand all of it. But he really went into prison
Speaker 7: with an attitude that he was going to make the
Speaker 7: best of it and try to help other people, and
Speaker 7: that made him a lot of friends. He had a
Speaker 7: few close calls, but by and large, he came through
Speaker 7: it very well and is out now and putting his
Speaker 7: life back together.
Speaker 6: Tell us about the tactics that you used, the strategy
Speaker 6: that you employed to be able to reverse this decision
Speaker 6: and get him really east from jail. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 7: As soon as I read the indictment, I realized it
Speaker 7: didn't state in offense. I mean I had read literally
Speaker 7: hundreds of indictments used to help my colleagues draft indictments
Speaker 7: when I was in the impellate section. It should not
Speaker 7: be difficult at all to read an indictment and tell
Speaker 7: what the crime was. No, and I read this indictment,
Speaker 7: and I reread it, and I reread it, and I
Speaker 7: reread it, and I couldn't figure out for the life
Speaker 7: of me, either factually or legally, what exactly the crime was.
Speaker 7: Because none of the defendants had taken any money from anybody,
Speaker 7: They hadn't taken any property from anybody. To say that
Speaker 7: they deprived Enron of the honest services of Andrew Fastal,
Speaker 7: who was the primary crookedt Inron, all on his own,
Speaker 7: long before these guys knew anything about it would be
Speaker 7: affable if it weren't for the fact that they spent
Speaker 7: a year in prison. I mean, none of it made
Speaker 7: any sense. So my strategy was to take the indictment
Speaker 7: apart and explain to the court how it simply did
Speaker 7: not allege a criminal offense, and to look at other
Speaker 7: cases across the country. There was not a single case
Speaker 7: from any court affirming a criminal conviction on facts like this,
Speaker 7: and that alone meant they should not have gone to
Speaker 7: prison pending their appeal. But they did.
Speaker 6: When did you at what point did you find out?
Speaker 6: How did you find out of the Brady rule infractions?
Speaker 7: Oh, that took forever. That was actually an accident. The
Speaker 7: third set of prosecutors accidentally produced to me. Well, they
Speaker 7: deliberately produced to me a CD, but they didn't realize
Speaker 7: apparently that it had on it the yellow highlighted information
Speaker 7: by the original prosecutors from the trial back in two
Speaker 7: thousand and four. So when we saw the yellow highlighting,
Speaker 7: I realized exactly what it was because they had given
Speaker 7: us a summary of Brady information instead of the actual documents.
Speaker 7: Of course, the defense lawyers at the time it asked
Speaker 7: for the actual documents, and without the actual documents, you
Speaker 7: really have nothing. But all Judge Werlin would order was
Speaker 7: the summary, and he didn't even review that to make
Speaker 7: sure it was accurate. Obviously it wasn't, and we couldn't
Speaker 7: get anything else. He either ignored our motions or denied them.
Speaker 7: So six years later, I review this CD that's produced
Speaker 7: to me, I think on like March thirty first of
Speaker 7: twenty twelve and go, holy cow, I know what this
Speaker 7: is and proceeded to do a motion for new trial.
Speaker 7: We were still in litigation as to whether Jim would
Speaker 7: have a second trial at that point. They wanted to
Speaker 7: reprosecute him, even though the Fifth Circuit had declared that
Speaker 7: the conduct charged in the original indictment was not criminal
Speaker 7: under the Honest Services Statute, and it certainly didn't allege
Speaker 7: a traditional mail or wire fraud because no money or
Speaker 7: property was taken. But the government had come up with
Speaker 7: another new fangled theory to try to get around that,
Speaker 7: just because they were determined to drag him through everything
Speaker 7: they could drag him through, and a large part of
Speaker 7: that was because we had alleged the prosecutorial misconduct right.
Speaker 7: So they weren't successful, No, they were not successful. They
Speaker 7: wound up walking away from the conspiracy in wire fraud
Speaker 7: convictions literally on the eve of the second scheduled trial,
Speaker 7: after running us up right to the last asked. And
Speaker 7: we also thought we had to seek a new trial
Speaker 7: on the perjurying obstruction convictions because the Fifth Circuit had
Speaker 7: affirmed those, But we never got a new trial granted
Speaker 7: on those or even a hearing on it. Couldn't even
Speaker 7: get a hearing on it, despite the yellow highlighting, which
Speaker 7: meant that the prosecutors knew it was both favorable to
Speaker 7: the defense and material to the defense. That's why they
Speaker 7: yellow highlighted it. They had yellow highlighted it as Brady
Speaker 7: before the first trial six years earlier. But Judge Worlin
Speaker 7: didn't care about that either.
Speaker 6: You talk about the wire fraud a couple charges, including
Speaker 6: the wirefry, that were not pursued. Was that because he
Speaker 6: had already served what he would have served anyway more
Speaker 6: than likely?
Speaker 7: They claimed it was because of prosecutorial resources. But yes,
Speaker 7: actually the government had agreed to his release at the
Speaker 7: time the Fifth Circuit came out with its first decision
Speaker 7: reversing the conspiracy and wire fraud counts because he had
Speaker 7: served the maximum term of imprisonment that could have been
Speaker 7: imposed validly on the perjury and obstruction counts at the
Speaker 7: time if those had been the only counts for which
Speaker 7: he'd been convicted. So they had already gotten their pound
Speaker 7: of flesh really anyway. But they were still determined to
Speaker 7: drag him through as much as they could and were
Speaker 7: going to pursue counts one through three until we got
Speaker 7: right up to the eve of trial, and I had
Speaker 7: hammered him with the motion for new trial and the
Speaker 7: exculpatory evidence they'd hidden at that point, so they were
Speaker 7: kind of caught with their pants down, so to speak.
Speaker 6: Now, what about sanctions against these people that have engaged
Speaker 6: in prosecuturial misconduct and judges that were involved as well.
Speaker 7: Absolutely nothing can be done with respect to the judges,
Speaker 7: and virtually nothing kenn or has ever been done about
Speaker 7: the prosecutors. Even after Shulke's report, which was very damning
Speaker 7: of the prosecutorial misconduct in the Stephens case, nothing really
Speaker 7: happened to those prosecutors, two of whom were found to
Speaker 7: have hidden evidence or at least not met their ethical
Speaker 7: obligations in the Department of Justice's own study, one was
Speaker 7: recommended for a thirty day suspension, the other was recommended
Speaker 7: for a fourteen day suspension of pay, and that didn't
Speaker 7: happen for either of them. And with respect to the
Speaker 7: prosecutors in the Merrill lynch in Run case, not only
Speaker 7: nothing happened to them, but they were promoted to positions
Speaker 7: like Chief White House Counsel and General Council, Deputy Director
Speaker 7: of the FIA be ah and Acting Attorney General for
Speaker 7: the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. And Leslie Caldwell,
Speaker 7: who destroyed Arthur Anderson, is now the nominee for the
Speaker 7: Criminal Division of the Department of Justice.
Speaker 6: This is incredible. So again I just don't understand why
Speaker 6: what the motivation is for these people to risk their
Speaker 6: own careers, like.
Speaker 7: They had any risking nothing happens. Prosecutors have what's called
Speaker 7: sovereign immunity. They can't they're protected by the fact they
Speaker 7: work for the government, and it's next to impossible to well,
Speaker 7: you can't prosecute one of them for anything done in
Speaker 7: the course of their duties, and there's no civil liability
Speaker 7: for them absent extremely extraordinary circumstances that are very difficult
Speaker 7: to prove. And I don't know of any prosecutor that's
Speaker 7: actually been held Liabel Civilly and the bar associations didn't
Speaker 7: want to do anything about these people, presumably because of
Speaker 7: where they are now. I don't know. It's just the
Speaker 7: system needs some work.
Speaker 6: Now. Other than you being certainly disappointed from the idealism
Speaker 6: that you went into this profession with and the optimism
Speaker 6: even as a prosecutor, you must be disappointed. But it
Speaker 6: seems like and I'm probably not have to be a
Speaker 6: detective to figure this out. License to Lie is really
Speaker 6: more than just a book. It is your effort to
Speaker 6: enact some kind of change and to inform people, even
Speaker 6: within the judicial system, of specifically what's wrong and why and.
Speaker 7: When that's exactly right. That's exactly right because there are
Speaker 7: things judges can do right now to make the system better.
Speaker 7: We don't have to wait for Congress. Judges can enact
Speaker 7: what's called a Brady compliance order in every case that
Speaker 7: appears on their docket and make the government produce the
Speaker 7: exact the real documents instantly and impose penalties instantly if
Speaker 7: they don't, And pending before Congress as part of a
Speaker 7: bipartisan effort two years ago now is the Fairness and
Speaker 7: Disclosure of Evidence Act. The only group that I know
Speaker 7: of that opposes that is the Department of Justice itself,
Speaker 7: which just makes me sick. And there's also been a
Speaker 7: proposal recently, again bipartisan, to provide an Inspector General and
Speaker 7: give him an authority to investigate allegations of misconduct against
Speaker 7: Department of Justice lawyers because other group, the Project on
Speaker 7: Government Integrity I think it's pogo dot org, came out
Speaker 7: within the last month with a report of over six
Speaker 7: hundred instances of prosecutoral misconduct in the last several years,
Speaker 7: over four hundred of them being intentional, and the Department
Speaker 7: of Justice is refusing to release the names of the
Speaker 7: prosecutors who engaged in that intentional misconduct, or to notify
Speaker 7: the defendants whose cases were infected by that intentional misconduct.
Speaker 7: So they're circling the wagons and hiding all of it
Speaker 7: and protecting the prosecutors, you know.
Speaker 6: For those that live outside of the US. Again, I'm
Speaker 6: from little old Canada here where we barely can convict
Speaker 6: anybody of anything because and we believe we can rehabilitate
Speaker 6: anyone of anything. So it's incredible contrast. We'll say, this
Speaker 6: is at least it seems like and I mean, yours
Speaker 6: is not the only story, but earth is your book
Speaker 6: is the most incredible demonstration and illustration of how the
Speaker 6: tables seems to have have turned in terms of again
Speaker 6: a narcissistic prosecution with political aspirations and wants to win
Speaker 6: at all costs, and does things like have exculpatory evidence
Speaker 6: that could exonerate the who they're prosecuting, but no, they
Speaker 6: go ahead and like you say, a judge who is
Speaker 6: supposed to be the arbitrator, supposed to be the person
Speaker 6: that stands that has the ability to allow or disallow
Speaker 6: again things that would be you know, be a miscarriage
Speaker 6: of justice. It almost seems like there's the sleazy used
Speaker 6: to be the sleazy defense lawyer, we used to think,
Speaker 6: and the virtuous prosecutor. But now it's the virtuous defense
Speaker 6: lawyer with the sleezy prosecutor. It seems that turned.
Speaker 7: I think that's a fair assessment they have in a
Speaker 7: lot of cases. It used to be that judges could
Speaker 7: trust the assistant US attorney, and I still think they
Speaker 7: can in a lot of districts where they have that
Speaker 7: one on one relationship with the assistant US attorney who
Speaker 7: appears in the court day in and day out, and
Speaker 7: they know what kind of credibility that person has, and
Speaker 7: you know what their level of integrity is. But then again,
Speaker 7: you have these high profile prosecutions by main Justice and
Speaker 7: even some slamball assistant US attorneys in various districts that
Speaker 7: they need to be fired. I mean, why the Department
Speaker 7: of Justice lets anyone continue to work there who has
Speaker 7: intentionally violated Brady is beyond my comprehension.
Speaker 6: Well that's the question I would have too. I don't understand,
Speaker 6: you know, for something that we hold up in such
Speaker 6: high esteem, I don't understand there's no control of that.
Speaker 6: It's like having a bunch of cops with a bunch
Speaker 6: of you know that have multiple assault records. It doesn't
Speaker 6: make that much sense in terms of the community.
Speaker 7: You know, in the community, so right, it makes It
Speaker 7: makes no sense to have Department of Justice lawyers who
Speaker 7: intentionally violate the law. I mean, if I were Attorney general,
Speaker 7: that would everyone on them would be fired.
Speaker 6: Now you are naming some names in your criticism in
Speaker 6: this book, and you're not holding too much back that
Speaker 6: I can see anyway. What has been the when did
Speaker 6: this book come out? Or pardon me, when is the
Speaker 6: book scheduled to come out? And what is has been
Speaker 6: the has been the overall reaction, and can you give
Speaker 6: us any personal sort of examples that either so prized
Speaker 6: you or just kind of interesting reactions.
Speaker 7: The book is actually coming out May first. It's available
Speaker 7: for pre order now at www dot licensed to lie
Speaker 7: dot com or Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound Books
Speaker 7: a million. Everybody's got it up for pre order and
Speaker 7: books should start shipping the very end of April May first,
Speaker 7: at the latest, I would think, and it should be
Speaker 7: in the stores by May first. So the only reaction
Speaker 7: so far has been from the few people who have
Speaker 7: seen some galleys and that has all been astonishingly positive.
Speaker 7: People have said, wow, you know, I'm so glad somebody's
Speaker 7: got the guts to tell the truth and have applauded
Speaker 7: my willingness to step out in front on this issue
Speaker 7: and let people know what happened in these cases in
Speaker 7: a way that hopefully every citizen who's interested in politics, justice, law, economics,
Speaker 7: you know, any aspect of our business world and legal
Speaker 7: world can understand.
Speaker 6: Yes, and then you touch on so many you know,
Speaker 6: important historical points in America and really bring the story
Speaker 6: in very You paint a very very vivid betrayal of
Speaker 6: like say Jim Brown and his family going through this
Speaker 6: and Nicholas Marsh committing suicide. So this is this is
Speaker 6: not a book full of statistics. This is a you
Speaker 6: know someone, as I described while I was waiting for
Speaker 6: you to reconnect to the program, is that somebody that
Speaker 6: really has a unique perspective from being a prosecutor and
Speaker 6: then seeing the good and the bad, and so your
Speaker 6: perspective is much more valuable. And with this book very
Speaker 6: very interesting, all the cases that you bring together and
Speaker 6: draw parallels to to make this some very very illustrates
Speaker 6: some very very important points about the judicial system.
Speaker 7: Thank you. I wanted people to see the human story.
Speaker 7: I want judges to remember that every case they touch,
Speaker 7: whether it be civil or criminal, involves somebody's life and
Speaker 7: has a big impact on the lives of more than
Speaker 7: just the lawyers standing in the courtroom arguing the case.
Speaker 7: I always tell my clients this is in my case,
Speaker 7: it's your case, it's your life. And that's what cases
Speaker 7: are about. They're about people's lives and livelihood, and particularly
Speaker 7: criminal cases, and what people go through when they're the
Speaker 7: targets of a government investigation is unfathomable for anybody who
Speaker 7: hasn't been through it.
Speaker 6: Well, it's you know, it's very incredibly perversely ironic to
Speaker 6: think that we have set up this elaborate system. You know,
Speaker 6: we've come so far away from the public lynching and
Speaker 6: hanging and people taking you know, justice into their own
Speaker 6: hands literally, and we now we have the truly innocent
Speaker 6: being persecuted again. And then when these cases are reversed,
Speaker 6: there's no atonement, there's no remorse, and so it's incredibly perverse.
Speaker 7: There's not even any recognition of the fact they've been reversed.
Speaker 7: Most people don't even know that Arthur Anderson, after being
Speaker 7: destroyed by a criminal indictment as the first corporate criminal
Speaker 7: in the history of our country, the case was reversed
Speaker 7: none to nothing by the Supreme Court because the prosecutors
Speaker 7: took criminal intent. Again, they had pieced together parts of
Speaker 7: different statutes to make a crime where there wasn't one,
Speaker 7: and taken criminal intent out of the jury instructions to
Speaker 7: get the conviction.
Speaker 6: Well, it's partly the media too, because that doesn't make
Speaker 6: for good print, you know, reverse goals and you know
Speaker 6: that's not very They love to see someone destroyed, right,
Speaker 6: never mind getting the fact straight. So partly responsible here,
Speaker 6: But as you describe too, I find it this incredible
Speaker 6: relationship between the media that again is another respected bastion
Speaker 6: of again representing the truth when sometimes no one else does, right,
Speaker 6: And it's irresponsible. Yeah again, you know, especially when someone's
Speaker 6: case is reversed, it should be they should really have
Speaker 6: to go out of their way to explain since they
Speaker 6: jumped on the bandwagon of guilt well before someone's actually
Speaker 6: pronounced guilty. I think it's well, it's an ideal world,
Speaker 6: I guess, right.
Speaker 7: Yes, one would hope that our press would focus more
Speaker 7: on protecting individual freedoms as it was originally intended to
Speaker 7: do than being a mouthpiece for the government to achieve
Speaker 7: its ends.
Speaker 6: Yes, and you do touch on in the book too, just,
Speaker 6: and so before I let you go, I touch on
Speaker 6: what you think it demonstrates to the Snowden case in
Speaker 6: hiding out in the Soviet Union and talking about real crimes.
Speaker 6: So tell us what just not to give it all away,
Speaker 6: but really what you touch on in your commentary about this.
Speaker 7: I'm not sure I'm following your question.
Speaker 6: Well, you talk about Eric Snowden and revealing crimes and
Speaker 6: again talking about the US government if they're if they're
Speaker 6: looking for someone to prosecute.
Speaker 7: Tell yeah, ironic, if they want to prosecute you, it
Speaker 7: doesn't matter whether you've committed a crime or not. They
Speaker 7: they'll make it up, and they'll make up the facts,
Speaker 7: and you're going to be in prison. And once somebody's
Speaker 7: indicted anymore, there's no presumption of innocence. The presumption of
Speaker 7: innocence has gone to hell in a handbasket. And uh,
Speaker 7: you know grand juries that used to kind of stand
Speaker 7: in the way between a prosecutor going berserk and indicting
Speaker 7: somebody that shouldn't be indicted, just rubber stamp whatever the
Speaker 7: prosecutor wants. For the most part, I mean I never
Speaker 7: knew a prosecutor who couldn't get a grand jury to
Speaker 7: go whichever way he wanted. So it all boils down
Speaker 7: to prosecutorial discretion. And if the government wants you in prison,
Speaker 7: you're going to be there.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean that always seems to be the case anyway,
Speaker 6: But that you know, I mean having someone appeal their
Speaker 6: case many years later, make it all the way up
Speaker 6: to be a federal court. That's what we see. You
Speaker 6: know sometimes that this is you know, justice has done,
Speaker 6: but how many.
Speaker 7: Years right, ten to fifteen years down the road?
Speaker 6: Yea, that it's an incredible sentence.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, look at all the recent exoneries because
Speaker 7: DNA showed they were innocent. Some have served as long
Speaker 7: as twenty five years in prison for something they didn't do. Yeah,
Speaker 7: that's we've got to do a better job of making
Speaker 7: sure we convict people who are only guilty, not the innocent.
Speaker 6: You know, what I think is interesting too living in
Speaker 6: Canada is that we really are hesitant to file charges
Speaker 6: prosecutors unless those charges are like we won't take circumstances.
Speaker 6: They won't take circumstantial evidence to a jury. We just won't.
Speaker 6: So I know there's a difference in certain way of
Speaker 6: handling the cases completely. You know, I won't get into
Speaker 6: that right now, but it seems fascinating the complete opposite,
Speaker 6: where we almost cannot convict someone without a confection DNA
Speaker 6: and a body will say in a murder case, whereas
Speaker 6: in the US it's they take circumstantial cases to a trial,
Speaker 6: they take not that much evidence to a grand jury.
Speaker 6: They you know, prosecution, as you say, it goes with
Speaker 6: very thinnest of motive and again without intent. How are
Speaker 6: you really filing charges if you can't say this is
Speaker 6: why this person did it, or what this is what
Speaker 6: they actually did. So it seems I guess the other
Speaker 6: people that live in other countries that might be listening
Speaker 6: to this program that the US has. I hate to
Speaker 6: say it, but when you get reports of almost every university,
Speaker 6: every state having a university has an innocence projects from
Speaker 6: over Zellers prosecution, I don't know how you can really
Speaker 6: pound your chest and say, look at our incredible judicial
Speaker 6: system with more people in prison than anybody else on earth.
Speaker 6: And a book like yours, and so many cases of
Speaker 6: again innocent people being imprisoned. It's incredibly ironic.
Speaker 7: Yes, I think our focus has shifted way too far
Speaker 7: toward convicting anyone that's brought before the court and even
Speaker 7: indicting people that don't need to be indicted, as opposed
Speaker 7: to making sure we're prosecuting actual criminals. And when I
Speaker 7: was round later, we really didn't have that much trouble
Speaker 7: telling the difference. I don't know why they're having trouble
Speaker 7: these days.
Speaker 6: That's incredible. Yes, well, you've done an admirable job with
Speaker 6: this License to Lie and incredible story exposing corruption in
Speaker 6: the Department of Justice and from someone that's an insider insider,
Speaker 6: So thank you very much, Jess Sidney Powell.
Speaker 7: For thank you, appreciate your having comments and having me
Speaker 7: on the show.
Speaker 6: Well, thank you very much. It's been very enjoyable. For
Speaker 6: those again who might want to contact you, could you
Speaker 6: give us your contact information and if you do the
Speaker 6: Facebook thing, let us know as well.
Speaker 7: Yes, Licensed to Lie has its own Facebook page. I'm
Speaker 7: on Facebook as Sydney Powell SI d N E Y
Speaker 7: pow E l L and the website is www. Dot
Speaker 7: licensed to lie dot com and books can be ordered
Speaker 7: through that.
Speaker 6: Well. Thank you very much. I wish you the best
Speaker 6: in any kind of change that might come as a
Speaker 6: result of this fine book, and I guess really the
Speaker 6: cause that you are following with this, And thank you
Speaker 6: very much for this interview and have a great night.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Dan, I appreciate it very much.
Speaker 6: Thank you Su