The Women Who Took on Trump (with Robbie Kaplan)

Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Sunday Show. I am your host Tim Miller. I’m here today with my old friend Robbie Kaplan, who absolutely you’re gonna love should be the most famous lawyer in America. She is a partner and founder of Kaplan Hecker and Fink. She wrote

the book then, how two women fought four and one equal dignity for all. I just wanna tell you one reason why I really resonate with Robbie, and I think a lot of you will too. When the Donald Trump monstrosity happened in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen, it shall know for me and for many of you like this was a massive wake up call, and things had to change in our life to respond to the threat and this monstrous threat that our country was facing. You know, many of you got involved locally, starting to engage in politics more, you know, figure out ways that you could be helpful. And I’m just always inspired when I hear those stories.

The thing is at the elite level, that didn’t seem to happen that much. It didn’t seem to happen as much as I had thought it would. A lot of people went back to kind of life as usual and tried to work around and within Donald Trump, particularly in the Republican side, but, you know, really in the elite corridors of America across the board. That was not the case for Robbie Kaplan. She was one of the top lawyers in the country at a corporate law firm and decided that she needed to use those skills to figure out how she could use her background to challenge Donald Trump in the legal arena.

And started this new firm, a public interest law firm that came up with all these creative ways. Some of which are being copied now by Jack Smith and others for going after Donald Trump’s corporate work pre pre his political career as well as, she represented Eugene Carroll in the sexual assault case, that just came to a positive fruition recently. And so I just think her, story is really inspiring. As a result, she’s posed Donald Trump two times. I think it’s a unique status to be the person who has now stared him down twice, and, she gives some some pretty hilarious stories.

Some for the first time on this podcast from those depositions. So, anyway, I I think you’ll enjoy it, and I just Want to say, I really appreciate Robbie. I really appreciate anybody that has stepped up to the plate, in the last eight years, and she did so in a big way. One other thing, she was on holiday, though Robbie’s the kind of person that doesn’t really do holiday, but I appreciate that she took a little time away from it. And so the audio, you know, from the vacation wifi at times is not ideal Sebastian did the Lord’s work to make this good for you, so stick with us on that one.

I appreciate you guys so much. Next up, Robbie Kaplan. We’ll be back with Tim Sarah and JBL on Wednesday for debate preview, and first, our friends at Assetong. Peace.

Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Sunday interview. I’m your host Tim Miller You’re with my old buddy. My good friend, Robbie Kaplan. I told you guys on Wednesday that if we lived in a righteous world, lived in a righteous country. This would be the most famous lawyer in all of America, but maybe not.

So I thought Robbie would be awesome if you just start by talking about what you do. You have a public interest legal firm, Kaplan heckler, and Think. You had a book, then comes marriage, how two women fought for, and one equal dignity for all. We’re gonna get through your big cases. There’s a ton to talk about, including your deposition of Donald Trump.

But why don’t you just start by talking to us about the firm and what the what the idea was behind public interest legal work.

Yeah. So I I’ve got a litigator, my mold out life, My nickname in law school was straight through.

Were they surprised when you came out?

A little bit. And so But I had been a lawyer and then a partner a year early, I made partner a year early in a big New York firm called Paul Weiss. It was the best litigation firm in New York. And I also was attracted to the fact that Paul Weiss, Haley, very deep seated commitment to public interest, and there was kind of a tradition at the firm. Of people like Arthur Ryman, more recently Jay Johnson and others kind of going in and out of government service and going in and out of doing, you know, really mainstream.

I had a really high profile, public interest matters. So, and I learned tons there. It may meet the lower end today. Then what really happened to, frankly, is, Donald Trump got elected president And I thought that there needed to be a focus on Donald Trump by lawyers who were not only committed to public interest, but who had a background in commercial law, in commercial litigation, because as we all know, Donald Trump was engaged in a lot of commercial litigation in his task. And I kinda had this a crazy idea to create a law firm.

Only back up. I thought that I was gonna go work for Hillary Clinton’s Justice department and then I was gonna figure out what to do with the rest of my life. That didn’t happen.

We all had plans kind of went awry back around then.

And so it had this crazy idea to start this firm. And it was I called a new fashioned old fashioned law firm because not certainly public interest. And we have the high profile paying clients. I’m trying to think right now I’m doing a case for Diageo. With our distributor, I have cases for Columbia University, cases, the email.

We represent big companies all the time and rich individuals all the time. But combining with that, practice. I thought it was very important to have a practice that was devoted to doing cases in the public interest. And and we like to divide our practice about a third, a third, a third, a third being kind of commercial litigation for traditional companies and businesses. A third white collar cases, which my partner, Sean Hector, and his team do, and then a third what I call public interest.

And we really believe strongly that if you could apply the standard techniques of commercial litigation, kind of New York commercial litigation to some of the activities that Donald Trump had been engaged in, but maybe you’d see some benefit maybe get your hands on some information as ever seen in light of day. I was right on the merits. I was completely one hundred percent wrong in the tying wing. So we did bring those cases But as everyone knows, Care Hall was only recently tried back in May, and we have a huge fraud class action against Trump that isn’t gonna be tried. Well, I hope it wouldn’t be tried.

Start in January twenty nine.

Well, I wanna get into the timing stuff with you too because that’s actually relevant to the criminal cases that he’s facing. So we’ve got a ton of stuff to talk about there. Let’s talk about the ones that you’ve worked on on the civil side. People are actually more familiar with the aging Carol case and the wind there. So I do wanna get to that.

But let’s start with this other case that you’re talking about, which is just for transparency where we met, we’ve been, you know, talking about how to go after Trump, in this case, me, from the communication standpoint, you from the legal standpoint, Well, just tell people from the start like what this fraud class action case is, because I think it speaks to kind of the heart of what is horrible that Donald Trump that that gets lost a little bit.

Yeah. I would agree with that. So at a certain point in time, people may know there’s some some other things that they’ve led. Donald Trump essentially, it became impossible to continue its real estate business. And the reason for that is, or to effectively continue his real estate business.

And the reason for that is in order to date New York City real estate, you have to be able to borrow huge amounts of money. That’s the only way New York real estate developers do their business. And Trump because of his prior bankruptcies and his not great record with other banks, he couldn’t borrow the kinds of money. The amounts of money that you need just to do to continue that business. So at a certain point in time, largely coincident with celebrity apprentice, which kind of fell into his lap.

He decided that the way to make money that he was right about this was to essentially market himself. That’s what celebrity independence was. That’s what a lot of these other kind of cockamie businesses. He had Trump steak, trump water, Trump university that I’m sure people know about, And one of those money making activities that he engaged in was to sell himself as a celebrity endorser. And he did that for an entity that still exists today known as ACN or American Communications Bulwark.

It’s a company based in North Carolina. It’s a multilevel marketing scheme. No more colloquially as a pyramid scheme. And what that means is that in order to make money, if you engage in this, if you can transact business with this company, You have to make the money not from selling any product, like vitamins, or in this case, video follows. You’d have to make your money by bringing other people in to the network.

That’s the way you make money. The more people you bring in, the more money you make. So Trump embarrassed this company for about a decade period he canceled his relationship or terminated. His relationship only when he started running for president, and a couple reporters weren’t at the Wall Street Journal, and another guy kinda started asking questions. And he decided that wasn’t probably a good idea for him to continue, but he made well over ten million dollars.

This entity ACN markets itself to very, to struggling people, working class Americans, poor Americans, people who really wanna pursue the American dream, at least as they understand it, but they don’t really have the resources or the education to do so in any ways, obviously, the Trump is done. So they kind of got wrangled in to this ACN multiple marketing scheme. Now there’s things that turn out to be super important about it. One thing is ACN brought people in through these kind of stadium size convocations, almost like revivalist meetings. Where hundreds and hundreds of people would come here trump in a in a stadium somewhere.

He would speak and he would get near universal adulation from the crowd, like insane

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Right.

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a massive cheering from the crowd. I yeah. But just think it’s not gonna be directly well as our trial. But I have nothing that’s when he became addicted to it. Like all the Trump meetings are happening after that, all the political things that he’s supposed to he became addicted to that kind of large stadium adulation to racing.

So he was there exclusive spokesperson for a number of years, exclusive celebrity spokesperson, he recorded videos that were used consistently to bring other people in and he spoke at these kind of stadium meetings. His rise ranged from what I would call just generic wise. This is a great company. I know business. I know real estate.

This is a better investment than real estate. You can trust me. That kind of stuff. To I had a bunch of guys do due diligence on this company and they looked at it and they told me that it’s great, one of the greatest investments you could make to just flat out objective lies, like this company sold more video phones than any other company that I’d state last year, just demonstrably, flatly false. To my all time favorite, which is people think I do this just for the money.

I do this because I really like the company. And so we represent A class of really working class Americans are a lead plaintiff one is a a hospice nurse, and another one was a furniture delivery van? And they say that they would do bias about ACN, but they believed in Trump. They believed in trump through celebrity apprentice. Glendly bought into it and lost their hats, their shirts and their hats because of Trump.

So that’s the case. Villilio said I should say he had this company on celebrity apprentice twice. One time for a bonus of a double header and whole hour of celebrity apprentice. Selling these insane video phones. And one thing to know about the video phones is these video phones were being marketed at a time when Skype in other software like that was already available on your smartphone.

Right.

So there was no reason whatsoever. And these are huge phones that looked like much like small computers. They had to be hooked into your phone. They had to be hooked into electricity, and here’s my favorite. You could only use the video phone with the person on the other end, was also using an ACN video phone.

Oh my god. I know it’d be funny if it wasn’t so nefarious and sat. Me, like, in my area of expertise, I think this has been the big failing of the anti trump efforts to expose the big lie before the big lie, the foundational lie about Trump was that he cares about the forgotten man and working people. When he spent his whole life fucking these over.

Yes.

And we tried to do a little bit of that, the twenty sixteen primary. To my frustration, I was a little bit too little too late and and not enough of the ads were on that, and I think the Democrats have done not that great of a job of making that case. And then it’s harder. Once he gets in there, there’s so many other things to talk about so many other scandals. But I think that this is important, a, because these people’s stories are important, but, b, because it goes to the heart of his message.

So, anyway, I’m wondering your your thoughts both on that and the legal prospects case is, as it comes up around the corner.

Which is, part of the reason I think he is able to do that, and the reason he gets all this support from people that think he’s a huge success is fight the celebrity apprentice I mean, Mark Monette was brilliant at it. The show was brilliant. Even Eugene Carroll admitted on the stand that the show was brilliantly done. And we have the outtakes actually from the two episodes that ACN was on, and some of it will play the trial. It’s insane.

It is literally insane.

In what way?

First of all, they’re everyone who’s participating in this show from the celebrities to the ACN guys to Trump and his kids. They all know it’s a scam. So they’re all talking off camera knowing that this is a scam. And

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Right.

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again, with going through, I think it’s his addiction, He’s like talking to some of the celebrities about no one can get more people into a stadium than I can, Star Jones. Can you get five thoughts, you know, it’s crazy though. And they talk in the video, the athletes in the video about how they’re all gonna use this phone. At Trump will work, and it was gonna be really popular. They couldn’t wait to get their hands on these great video phones.

Suffice to say, I deposed various numbers of the trump org. And that ball was never used, don’t have never seen it before. It was just all a big hoax. The other thing that was super interesting was we deposed some of his celebrities who are on the shows that, again, hawk these AC and video phones, including mar I think I could say just her name, Molly Matlyn. Who actually because she’s deaf knows a hell of a lot about video phones because deaf people obviously have to use video phones.

And so she She’s

the one who’s on West Wing.

Yeah. So she threw out a very interesting testimony about whether these video frames made any sense whatsoever for anyone. Again, I think a lot of that will come out of the trap. In terms of the prospects, I think they’re extremely strong. And the reason is because it’s all documented.

All his lies are either in writing on video, documented in plain English. I took a deposition twice, one of this case I wanted to meet you in Carol. And in this deposition, for seven hours, I just asked him questions at which he was locked in. Is this your signature? Is that you on the Fugio?

Who’s the guy who you send the the due diligence? She’s locked in and everything. It’s hard for me to imagine. A jury not being persuaded. I mean, the facts here are just of a woman.

If we could persuade the jury, a jury that was not exactly, Estalia Litzwick said, an avocado toasty eating jerky and aging Carol that I’m very confident that we could persuade a jury in this case where the facts are really it’s not me said she said. It’s all it’s all documented.

The Eugene kill case was the one that had the one juror that was like a Tim Pool fanatic because nobody ever brings this up. Whenever they’re like, oh, it’s biased jur biased juries in the deep state. I was like, no. It’s like regular people. Like, this guy was a Tim pool.

It was a Maga, kind of a lefty turned Secret Podcast.

It’s crazy about it is the judge in this case. So, I was thinking did a great job, but he for jury selection, He does it like speed dating, honestly. It goes around the courtroom, and you would have, like, forty seconds with each shirt. It’s not And he asked the questions, and you don’t even get to ask anything. And this guy who was this is a crayton shirt was wearing a white shirt, black pants, and a black blazer, One of the questions Judge Capital asked of, what what do you get your news?

Ben Evan wan, including myself, including the court reporter, thought he said temple. That’s what the transcript says. I actually thought he was maybe an orthodox jew because we’re he was wet. That was a tough job, though. And then I think, someone from the daily b like, three or four days later, figured out that he actually said, Tim pool.

Tim pool. Fear to say that we had a bit of a heart attack. We asked the judge to strike him. The judge brought him in for questioning twice and was satisfied that he could be impartial. So we stayed on the jury, and it was a unanimous jury verdict, so he definitely voted our way.

That’s amazing. On on the deposition, so which deposition was second Carol. Carol. So did he remember you from the ACN deposition? Okay.

I’m gonna tell a story that’s never come out before, Brett. I think he

could tell

the story.

It’s exciting.

So at the end, of the ACN deposition. Yeah. Or he was very frustrated because he’d been locked in all day on this, you know, really and nowhere to move. Clearly he of those who have been saying talking about this, and immediately he started to talk, and someone said, off the record off the So they make sure that the stenographer and the videographer had shut down the system. And he said to me, are you ready?

Are you well, you’re obviously sitting down. Take a breath.

I’m ready.

He said to me, see you next Tuesday. Fortunately for me, I had no idea what that meant. So I looked at it and I said you talking about, sir? I called SARSha. We tell it, sir.

I’m coming back on Wednesday.

Why would you tell him, sir? You’re giving him another SIR story to you. But anyway, okay.

We get into the law part. Take a step as we get that security. And my associate of sodomy loving, do you know what that means? And I said, what are you talking about? And they said, see you next Tuesday means, excuse me, cut.

It was a a Bob popular term, I’m sure, you know, Tim that Roger Stone popularized about Hillary Clinton. I’m very glad, honestly, that I didn’t know what it meant. Cause I stayed calm in both definitions the whole time. Had I understood what that meant at the time? I’m sure I would have lost my temper.

Find another arc and fight another record. Unfortunately it wasn’t available.

Off the record. I think I’ll trust your word over his on that one. And so then when he does see you the next time for Jean Carroll, What was his me and Mike? I mean, was he like this fucking woman again? Like, what was he thinking?

Design, I think she was who were aggressive, even more aggressive, it’s possible to admit. So a lot of ways that the definition were attack was attacked by me. You were to disgrace, you’re a half. At one point, he said, I’m not as typey. Sorry.

He didn’t wanna offend me, but I wasn’t his type either, things like that.

No problem there, sir.

I I’m not I I wanted to say thank you. I did not. I really stayed calm. I I mean, you know me too. I’m not known for my, you know, Zen like qualities.

But I really should come. And when he would do that, I will kind of look up at him and I would say, are you done yet? Because I have another question I wanna answer, and then it would start all over again.

Kinda how I treat my toddler during a tantrum after a tantrum.

Kind of it. Are you

finished stamping yet? We moved to the Jean Carroll case. We’re going after him again. What is the status of that case right now?

Our knowledge is done. We do have the term of the issue of whether he sexually assaulted her again. That’s over. But because of some complexities having to deal with the first time that he defamed her, he was still president. In that way, it’s all this whole host of complicated federal issues.

That case was still valued. It went to DC’s Court of Appeals and then came back. The tone, that’s what I’m talking about the course not moving so quickly. And so all that’s left to do is to decide what were the damages to Eaching Carol for the first time that he defamed her, which was in June twenty nineteen. Those are the highest due images in the case because that’s when the whole thing came out.

That’s when he was president. That’s when there were, I think, something like hundreds of millions of impressions on social media. And so all that the jury has to do in that case, it should take more than two days is decide what the damages were for that first defamation.

Want to go back to that deposition with Carol. For the people who aren’t familiar, some, I’m sure some of you saw this in the news, but, like, the epic moment from that deposition is when He looks at a picture of her, who’s he said is not as type. He thinks it’s Marlon Maple. So just walk us through how that seemed to be and what is happening in your head. As he just steps in this entire pile of shit.

Bur, but the crazy parabot is, I can’t say that I’ve never tried to trick a witness. And a definite date. That would not be true. Look, I guess. I might have done that sometimes wrong.

But that’s not what this was. When we were talking about when eugene Carroll, when the excerpt of eugene Carroll book came out of New York magazine in the summer of twenty nineteen. And he said he volunteered that he’d seen a photo of her. Of him with her. And I said, oh, okay.

I said, I think I have that photo, and I asked my colleague, and I pull it out. And I say, is this the final that he was just referencing? And that’s when he literally, independently, not a response to question. He looked at it, and he pointed to it, and he said, oh, that’s Marla. And I said, something like, what are you just throwing?

I’m so shocked, and he said, Myla. And then Elena Habba is where a media jumped in and corrected the record, but here’s the thing that hasn’t come out, which is great. I think it had a big impact on the jury. Then he was classic top, because once Olin had clarified for him that it was not, in fact, Mola Maybles, her second wife, it was in Jean Carroll, he said, oh, well, I the photos, I guess the photos just blurry blurry. So it was classic trump.

This is not a blurry photo. It’s like a getty, it’s photograph. The jury saw the photo. And at the closet, I said to the jury, that’s classic trump. That’s what he does.

He will lie about anything anywhere at any time. If he thinks it’s to his advantage. He really made this mistake. It dawned on it. He made this case all of a sudden.

The photo is blurry. Tell us better than the original mistake in certain way.

I mean, the whole, like, element of it is like, reminds me of a little phase when I was in middle school, I could admit to listeners where sometimes I would just lie to my mother about things. She’d be like, what grade you got on the test? I’d be like, Hey. Like, I know that in two weeks, she’s gonna say Right? But I I couldn’t help myself.

Right? I’d I’d a brief compulsive lying phase as a middle schooler. He has that at like age seventy, seventy six.

Correct. You

know, and it’s like, you know, what and that’s what this was. I’d love to say it. It’s like dementia and he’s losing his mind or his glasses or something. Is it. He’s just had, like, it’s contrarian, compulsive lying.

Oh, and how’d you think about dealing with that as deposing him twice?

Swombi is so fun. I, you know, and and I think maybe well, it’s probably one eugene Carroll case, honestly, because he just can’t help himself. Two other good examples for eugene Carol. One I asked somebody ever gone to Bergref Goodman, which, by the way, is two blocks away from Trump Tower, and literally across the street from the Plaza Hotel video for many years. I asked a question.

You can see the line kind of it’s kind of like a tornado. You can see a gathered junk as it goes on. So crunchy says, no, maybe a little bit, but not very often. Then, he says, no, they’re not that I think about it. Maybe my wife’s shot there, but I never shot there.

And then he says, oh, no, no, I never went into Booker Goodman. So we put out in the standard trial, two formal Burger of Goodman employees from that period in time, Also, for one of whom saw him outside the store, and one of them, I think the other of him was aware that he shopped at Bloomberg Goodman. So, again, and we didn’t get into evidence, but in one of his books, with the judge delighted in at the end. I think he thought like enough Robbie. Like, I’ve been out there.

In London’s books, he says he recommends that people buy people gifts from BergDorfgooden. So, again, he just can’t help himself. Yeah.

Well, he probably didn’t not write the books. So it’s just like also, it’s just like lie upon lie.

So, AJ and Carroll at point in time had a TV show on Lager Ailes’ first network called America Talky. The show was filmed at Fort Lee, which is where they had studios. And her show was broadcast. It was live. I think it four in the afternoon, and then they ran a rerun every night, I think she was on at ten and Roger Ailes who had his other talk show was on an eleven.

So at this deposition, I say, oh, were you friends with Roger Ailes back at this time? It was nineteen ninety six? He said, Mel, I had to come friends with him in very recent years. Then a trial, we show the video of Donald Trump, be deposed by Roger a in November nineteen ninety five, so it’s pretty soon before this happened. They’re talking about their killings.

It’s very clearly that they, at least, on camera, are good friends.

So being depote, they interviewed on the show.

Being interviewed on, sorry, on the show, excuse me. They interviewed on the show, and we showed it as a jury. And we said he said he didn’t know he didn’t care I’ve seen it with Eugene Carroll. He knew, we’re gonna go back to studio. He knew because when he watched the show at home, these were the old days, he had to watch it on the TV to that channel.

And if he was, like, a little bit early, he would see EG Carroll.

How is EG doing? I guess, before we move on for that, I would love to hear, just kind of her mindset through all What a brutal process?

Anna brutal, which is literally one of the most courageous people I’ve ever met. She’s doing great. She really said afterwards that she feels that way she got her name back. She is the kind of the incredibly charming, brilliant, eccentric writer. You would expect her to be and She just goes on and on doing what she does.

It’s amazing.

Oh, that’s good for her. Okay. I wanna get into some of the other amazing stuff that you’ve done. The start of the firm might I think I have this right. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Like, like, basically the first big public interest case you took on as you were leaving was this lawsuit after the Charlie Sykes bill, unite the right rally.

Correct.

And I guess let’s put it this way. Had you not done it? Like, maybe nobody would have done it. Right. Like, it’s not as if that there was somebody coming to you and saying, hey, oh, we need to make we need to do this lawsuit.

It was like, you identified this saying that these guys had you just tell the story. Talked about how you got into the Charlie Sykes bill lawsuit.

Small. They’re department of justice, namely the civil rights division of the public justice, which was started after in the twenties to deal with these very issues should have done it. Jeff Sessions was on the AG call me crazy. I didn’t think he was gonna do anything about it. And so it thought to me, like, someone needs to do something about what is obviously a terrible violence conspiracy that violates the civil war, the statutes that implemented the civil war amendments.

So we dusted off. We will first pick up to dust off the KK Q Act, which hadn’t been used successfully since the nineteen fifties. They were really they’ve been used for kids who went on buses down south and they were killed. There have been a couple cases that were successful then, but it hadn’t been used successfully since then. Italy dusted it off and brought a civil rights conspiracy against the leaders, the organizers, and then a couple of the foot soldiers, including the bag and drove into the crowd who engaged in the violence in Charlie Sykes.

And at the time, this is what’s so crazy about it. At the time, I I had no idea of two things. One, that I was starting a vogue for bringing this. Cases under the civil rights statutes, a lot of the laws, the cases today, including the Trump prosecutions are bought under those statutes, a lot of the January six cases as well, the civil cases. This is the

this is kind of an important point. Let’s just pause there for the second. So do you think that that, obviously, had a direct impact on that. Right? I mean, like, these guys are kind of searching around for for statutes under which they could charge Trump for these, like, obvious crimes, but that are unprecedented in a lot of ways.

And and so the fact you were successful in Charlotte, well, do you think that there’s a direct line on using this statute?

In legal circles, there’s no such thing as plagiarism, so I’m more than happy for people taking that in yes. Yeah. I think you do. And and some of the earliest suits that were civil suits brought against January six and those were all under similar statutes. So, yeah, So it was that, and then b, the fact that the defendant’s in our case, so the first maybe for the first time that became famous, it probably wasn’t the first time.

For the first time, we’re able to use social media to organize a violent conspiracy nationwide. Obviously, also ended up being a very big deal leader as we saw on January sixth. And at the time, I had no I I hope was hoping it was be a one off. I didn’t think this was gonna be a pattern. After these laws were passed, if people wanted to violate these these civil rights statutes, they would they were don a white robe and a hood, and they would go into the forest, Alabama, Mississippi, and they were lynch, African Americans.

Tanae, you don’t need that. All you need, it was the ability to get on your internet, get on discord or one of these other websites. Where there’s a hashtag. You have the nominee by definition. And you don’t have to be local people in the for Alabama.

These guys came from all over the country. Right. Well, the the ability of people to to engage with this kind of conspiracy today. I’m not saying that was anyone’s intent with social media. But using social media is pacified.

And again, same thing on January sixth, obviously. It’s

interesting. I was I interviewed the head of the South Carolina Republican Party couple years ago. He’s like, was one of the remaining, too conservative for me, but normal types, you know, not a queuing on crazy. And this was something that he observed Right? When I was like, how has the South Carolina party gone so nuts?

And he’s like, because these guys can organize. You know, he’s like, we always had these guys. There’d be two people in Shartenberg and two people in Columbia and two, right? But but now it, like, makes it a lot easier for them altogether. And he observed that that that’s how they were taking over local parties in South Carolina.

So anyway, the Charlottesville case so, essentially, you sue the leaders and and a couple of the foot soldiers in this Well, what do you think impact that had? Cause that part now oath keepers are in other groups that have still, you know, it it still exists. Obviously, domestic extremism on the rise. But specific unite the right, alt right, Richard Spencer thing really has kind of fizzled.

So It’s it’s done. You’ve seen a lot of wolves, unfortunate. So you’ll see people like I in Pittsburgh, things like that, poe, etcetera, that they’re terrible. But they have not tried to engage at least as far as underwear since then of kind of this mass violence that clearly was the goal of Charlotte, so and they accomplished their goal. So I mean, I think it’s pleasant to tell.

I mean, if we’re gonna We finally have verdicts. We’re on appeal, but we’re gonna we’re gonna bankrupt these guys. And to the extent they have any money and what so I’m gonna take every penny they have, including Richard Spencer who definitely has money.

Yeah, he’s still popping around on social media. I see him sometimes. Like, he’s trying to rebrand a little bit kind of as a soft nazi.

He disemboweled some of his earlier beliefs, I think.

Yeah. Mhmm. Well, bankrupting Nazis. That’s a win. You know, getting Trump for sexual assault, getting some money out of him is a win.

So that’s pretty good. I wanna talk about the biggest win, I think, for us, from a personal level, which was the the Windsor case in front of the Supreme Court. But before we do that, I’m curious about just your legal expertise of the criminal cases. So we’re looking at the two Jack Smith cases, the Georgia case, you know, things that our listeners obviously care about is what you alluded to the beginning timing. What is your just assessment, you know, just putting it outside or putting on your legal, eagle hat for, like, whether you know, it’s possible that we might, you know, get some kind of resolution or some kind of action between now and, you know, the Republican convention.

Look, I hope I’m wrong. But given the circumstances that I’m aware of, I think that the case that has the best chance, may you have the only chance? Of getting to trial before the election is probably the federal, the Dex Smith, January sixth trial. The florida case should have a judge who seems like she wants to slow roll things. You have all kinds of security issues that they’re bringing up in terms of the documentation.

That time. So I hope that that’s in certain ways the easiest case to prove. But unless you have a judge who’s really moving to push it forward, that’s gonna be hard to get to trouble. For the election. Atlanta, there’s gonna take at least six months, maybe a year, fighting about where the case should be should happen in the first place.

Charles gonna say should be should be moved to Federal Court. That’s gonna take a lot of time.

I’m sorry. I thought Federal Court was biased. I thought the DC deep state was biased and he wanted the in the states. That that’s only in certain cases and other cases he wants it in DC?

Here on Federal Court, which was great for us, but that’s same thing. So that’s gonna take time in Atlanta. And the conspiracy while credibly compelling is very complex. A lot of defendants. That’s a big thing to try.

January six, you have a judge who’s very experienced to boost things quickly, and you have a great prosecutor in Jack Smith. So I’ve that’s where my hope is, but look, I hope I’m wrong. I’ve never looked so much wanted to be wrong in my life.

I bet the merits of them, I mean, let’s just just of the three you know, obviously, they’re different kind of views, but you feel like they’re strong cases against them.

Every shift. Well, hold on. I mean, I think Ford is open shot. I don’t know. What his defense could possibly be there.

It’s it’s in fact that he was showing Iran battle plans to to women at at Benminster’s true old state. The other two places are more complicated, but it sounds like they have such overwhelming testimony, from Republicans. That it’s gonna be very hard, I think, for him to put on much of a defense. The one thing we still have in this country, and I sound a little bit pollyannaish. I don’t mean to be pollyannaish, but

I love this.

When you put facts forward in a court of law with the wills of evidence or you can’t lie or if you do lie as in Carol, you can show the lies. I still have faith, especially from Carol, the juries are gonna follow the facts of the law. And so I think Even if for the even if it’s, jury that all voted for Trump, I still think the prosecutors have a extremely high chance of of prevailing.

So, on the dumb and dumber, so you’re saying there’s a chance scale. What do you think is the chance to, like, you know, he actually goes to jail from one of these cases?

I think his best chance of getting getting jailed and that is the, around the case. The federal guidelines and the federal sentences for this stuff just are debts and yard. It seems to put a of former president jails is a BFT, and it may happen, but it seems to me harder.

So I shouldn’t leave the champagne on ice, you don’t think.

Well, I wouldn’t leave the champagne. But, yeah, I I’d give it to you that he’s very scared of that. For sure.

On the right, you’re hearing now increasing you know, Agita over going after his attorneys in the Georgia case, and all the ramifications that go along with So as an attorney asked to make these choices, I was just curious what your thoughts are about about that. I mean, about Jenna Ellis’s exposure and and Rudy and all those guys.

Some people, most attorneys, I think, feel an incredible obligation to adhere to certain standards. And to only do acts with our legal and only recommend that your clients do things that are legal. And most of the time, ninety nine percent of those time, those lines are pretty obvious, and you know when not to cross them. And based with the allegations, in the Atlanta lawsuit and in the DC lawsuit are true, and I have to assume they are. Those were not close questions.

Those attorneys cross lines if any a first year law student would know not to cross. Why they did that? I’m not a psychologist. I’m not gonna try to explain that. But it’s not an attack on the attorney client privilege or the attorney client relationship.

It’s an attack on a on a group of people got together. Just decided to break the law. Jeff Clark, by the way, is is long doing one of my favorites because he’s the guy who removed the evening Carol case to try to stall it. From state court to federal court on the theory that the government of the DOJ should defend. He signed the original removal papers, the West Wall petition, so he’s been on my radar screen for a long time.

Okay. So while we’re on champagne on ice questions, the Clark Rudy Ellis, like, it seems like their exposure in Georgia is pretty, pretty real.

Very Will Saletan especially everyone in New York has been commenting, especially all the lawyers. Rudy Giuliani when he was US attorney, he was famous for kind of reviving the repo statute and using to get the hall host of people. The irony that that’s today what he’s been charged with is is I don’t even have an adjective to describe it.

Yeah. So the craziest thing about that with Rudy is if in two thousand two, he had just flown to Sicily and and tired and drank wine and ate pasta and greeted visitors who wanted to come kiss the ring, like, we that you had a renamed LaGuardia after. And, like, here he is looking down the face of real jail time over a statute that he was famous for. Klayna, wipe the story.

Why is he volunteered to go to the Ukraine for Trump? It’s a He couldn’t stay on not to be in the mix. That’s gotta be it. Right?

Yeah. I think the desire to be in the mix, which I’ve written about a lot, I think is a big part of it also. I think alcohol poisoning probably not helping him. Okay. I’m gonna lose you here.

So I wanna feel feelings. We know the result of the Windsor case, obviously, which has been good for me, married, and I’m a child. I took Kindergarten this morning. I just kind of wanna go back with you to, like, when you met Edith and and kind of like, what Was the origin story of that case and, like, how confident did you feel? And just kind of just tell us that The dime store version of that story got getting to the Supreme Court.

It’s all in all kind of the randomness and maybe not so randomness of life. What happened is I gotta call from a friend of my wife’s who was a head runner, did like legal head happy, and who said, I know this woman, Eighty Windsor, I had to pay a huge tax bill when her spots the Aspire died, and she’s been looking for a lawyer, the the day groups have turned her down when she talked to her. When this friend of mine said that to me, I knew exactly who she was. It only came out after the case because we had put this in our brief. But the reason I knew exactly she was is rushed forward flushed backwards, excuse me, eighteen years.

When I was in my third year law school, I came out of the cloud that I was not so eager to come out of the cloud. I’m so weighted to the last possible minute.

I’m sorry. I’m not gonna age you and say what year that was, but the last third year of law school is not too late. About a a redacted number of years later, I didn’t come out to my mid twenties. Okay. So I think you did pretty good.

So so one of my parents came to visit me in New York, but yet it was my dad’s walkway that was gay pride. And so they kinda had to wind their way through gay pride traffic to get to my apartment. My mom got to the apartment and started kind of bitching. What’s with these bikes on bikes? What’s with this?

What’s with that? I said to her mom, please stop as moms often do. She continued. I said, please stop again. She said, why?

Why do you want me to stop? Are you gay? I said, yes. And in the most kind of like a bad Jewish suburban soap opera, she literally walked to the quarter, of the apartment start hitting your head against the law.

I stormed out a Thanksgiving dinner, so we can do a whole separate podcast about, the, about coming out disasters and how stereotypical they were. So, anyway, we can go ahead to toe to toe.

By the way the public network moved, if this really isn’t a criticism, I’m definitely given It’s that’s not an issue anymore. But — Yeah.

—

if you can touch it, I’ll just feel a little low that summer. And I started to ask around. I need to see who kinda sees this psychologist who deals with Gaili issues. That’s what he talked about then, deals with Gaili issues. And I kept getting the same name.

The name I got was Theo Tiger. So I actually saw the aspire every patience. I know that I saw him more than twice because I was moving to clerk for a judge in Boston to the fall. Then in those liu’s, which were in Theo already paralyzed from multiple sclerosis. So she she was in a wheelchair.

So you’ve met in her living room. And then during those sessions, she talked about eating. Here’s the crazy part. I remember telling me about this brilliant raffleletician she was married to, and how great their life to be a bit together. Now, I understand now.

That she was saying that to me because I was so despondent at the idea that I could ever have that, that she decided to tell me to make to give me copies. It was a good thing that she told me. But flash forward eighteen years, and I get this call. I called Edie Windsor, and she’s like, okay. Why don’t you come over?

And I said, okay. I didn’t have to have a store where she lived. I knew exactly where she lived. I walk into the apartment. It was like going back to the scene of an accident.

I was like, oh my god. And I told her the story. He he wasn’t that interested in the story. She’s like, about my case. I was like, fine.

And that’s how it happened. I knew I I thought that Edie would win her case at least through the second circuit. I I thought her chances were very good. Americans understand taxes. They really understand unfair taxes.

And the idea that she would pay all this money just because she was married to a woman rather than a man seemed to me fundamentally unconstitutional than I thought we’d prevail. But I didn’t know at the time that one case would ultimately get to the Supreme Court, but I didn’t know that was gonna be our case. That’s why we’d be done at the Southern Circuit.

Right.

And it just so happens if that’s the case they chose.

How?

Basically, what happened is the solicitor general decided early that the like, so of course, you get involved. We did this thing, glad that was very rare. Today’s very it’s not there at all. Health SURFort judgment, which is where you ask the Supreme Court to decide an issue before it’s ground to a circuit court. They did it, like, once every five years, six years back then.

Today, it happens multiple times a session. But and they wanted to get lightly sell wanted to get decided, Alicia, they had picked a case out of California because our case was still at the trial court. We then got a decision from the second circuit that was on exactly the grounds that the Department of Justice Salt were the light grounds. And so our case went from being number four on a four in the rankings to number one. And that’s why the second part, they followed the SG’s recommendation and took our case.

You know, talked me through victory day. What was it like when it came down? You know, did you go get a margarita after?

So, we were in New York City. The Supreme Port does this. Most other countries top courts actually tell Pete the one their decision is going to come down. But why would they do anything that’s that nice or less sadistic dog? But they do not.

So they have these decision days in the summer started.

It wasn’t the last day. I assumed it would have been the last day.

It was, but we it could have come down for, like, three or four days before that. So three or four to skiing days or that. We all got together in my apartment because it had it was a hot summer. It had the best air conditioning. But I’ll gather it on, the my dining table with our laptops on Scooter’s blog, refreshing, refreshing, refreshing, refreshing, see what’s gonna happen.

You need to get very frustrated. At a certain point, Arie Levy’s article in New York or says he said, fuck the Supreme Court, which she did say. And she was saying it about that. She was like, aggravated that she didn’t have a decision.

Yeah.

Finally, it was the last day she was like, I’m not even coming. I said, no lady. We were definitely coming. And we’re doing the same thing again, so like it’s a report time. And the minute we saw that decision was by Kennedy and that the dissent was by Scalia We didn’t even have to read another word.

We knew we’d won. There’s this great photo of it. We had a photographer there of complete insanity broke out in my apartment. I’m screaming. My wife is crying.

And then Obama called a few minutes later to congratulate Edie from Air Force One. I think she she hung up on him by mistake at least once. And then, like, the rest of the day, immediately loved it. She deserved it. She loved it.

She was kind of riding around the city of New York. Like, I even know what celebrity to compare her to. Like, we would drive down the street. People would come up to the cars to touch her.

Little many ticker tape parade, I think.

We’d have been celebration of Stowebel.

You were worried it was gonna be five four either way. Was that the was it just Kennedy? Or what was your level of confidence?

We thought we had Kennedy whole breed, everything he did was written to appeal like Justice Kennedy. Like, we signed in. It’s late. He written all the United States cases at that point, so we could cite his own cases. But during the argument, the chief justice was particularly irked with me.

I think it’s fair to say. And we took that as a signal that he knew that we had Kevin. That he realized that he was on a losing side. So we looked pretty nervous.

Robert’s then, but why was he arced with you?

Because he realized that we had Kennedy, I think. Oh, god. That’s the way we read it. I mean, we had there’s no way to know it’s like weeding Cheeley’s, but that was our best guess.

A grateful gay nation. Thanks you. Okay, last thing. I I had a this is a pet one for me, and so I’ve I’ve never talked to you about but you guys also at at your firm did the, NCAA in a kind of gender equity review and a bunch of other stuff. And so I just kinda wanted to get your position from your standpoint.

I, like, I’m of the view, like, I think that women’s basketball in particular, but other women’s college fourths are, like, really on the cusp of kind of taking off into being very big. And I don’t know people appreciate it yet, like in the way that women’s tennis is because of the way that men’s sports in college besides football are gonna get smaller because the really good ones are just gonna skip to the pros. And that’s not that’s true because with NIL now, like, girls basketball, like, the good girls can stay around for four years and build a relationship with communities. And, like, you know, all that. And so I I do think it’s — Exactly.

—

it feels like, like, the NCA has, like, utterly failed these athletes in, like, a million ways. So anyway, I was just wondering what your big takeaways were from your kind of review of all that.

First big takeaway, we hired an economist to be in the analysis. It was exactly what you just said. Was that you know, one of the arguments for not having equal treatment for the final four was that men earn so much more and it was so much more valuable. And I finally, when we got assigned to do this, I was like, we just need to know the truth. I don’t know what the truth is.

I’m not an economist, but I’m firing economist to tell me the truth. And we can he’s got deleted analysis and he completed exactly what you said, but the growth potential for women’s sport with basketball and other is just jaguar miss. And it’s not being exploited, and the TV contracts alone are worth a fortune, and that the NCAA has to pay a lot more attention to that. The contracts are for a new, I think, in a year. And they are paying attention to it.

So that’s good, and there’s a lot more money that’s gonna be coming in. So, basically, the way you didn’t see A unc double a was divided up. It was men’s basketball. And then everything else. And it was kind of nuts to like just have a men’s basketball contract, and then everything else is part of one contract.

So I think that’s all gonna get divided up, and then CWA is gonna get a lot more money, and that’s a good thing. Shucka of all, you know, this was the year they had the file for during COVID. So the men are in Indianapolis, the women are in Texas. And just stupid I mean, I don’t know how else to put it just stupid stuff, but the men were getting like steak and lobster buffet dinners. And the women were getting dinners that look like what you get on a on a plane with a little bit of in

jail.

Yeah. And not eating a lot of food. Like, a little bit of salad. Like, it was crazy. And and and I don’t think again it was intentional.

I just think it was the way men were seen as the kind of the premier brand, but obviously that’s not okay. And so we pointed out a whole bunch of different things. It’s my understanding that much of it has already been corrected.

Did you look at all into the pay for the kit? Or and I all not happened yet?

I know that just in past. But hit not and go.

The big drama, for for the girls sports now among NIA, is pretty girl privilege, which is, like, like, you know, on Instagram, you can do It’s like my old thing, if you get brought back to do another review is like they need to figure out a way to divide the pie. They’re like making too much money to not not divide the pie. A little bit better. This is Bernie, socialist Tim. Former Republican socialist Tim is coming out a little bit.

Oh, here. Because there’s no fortunately, there’s no pretty girl NII in in the law. So

Yeah. I I think you had done pretty good. Robbie, this has been so, so marvelous. What my final question for you is, You’ve just been a dog on the bone with Donald Trump since twenty sixteen. So I think maybe what we connected over.

You know, I was maybe a little more complicit than you, but you had to have the life changed. We’re like, we’ve gotta beat this fucking guy. It’s now about eight years later, it’s still going. These cases are gonna go he’s gonna have the election twenty four, but these cases are gonna go into twenty five. Once he’s finally whatever, whether it’s jail or or just not presenting or whatever.

Are you, you know, are you moving to the Hampton? Do you get to retire and take a break? Do you see a light at the end of the tunnel in the post trump world? Are you just focused on squeezing him for every penny he’s got first, and then we’ll see what happens.

I grew up in the eighties. I’m a go the weekend then. And I never thought there was a wagon years that I could be living in historic time. I’m really terrible about, like, when we were gonna have Danny’s music and, like, they’re gay wise, that would be good. But it was generally, I knew it was gonna be relatively normal.

I don’t think we’re winning in normal times, frankly, and I think there’s just too much work to do. Even once Trump is finally defeated, which I think will happen. The danger of social media that we touched on earlier is petrifying. And something has to be done about it. You can’t have for to give first one example, young girl, starving herself to death because of Instagram.

That’s just insane. And so, like, I kinda was born to be a fighter. So as far as I, probably my family’s not happy about this, but I’m gonna keep on fighting.

I love you, Robbie. Thank you so much for taking the time. You’re so busy. You’ve been very generous with your time. Get back out there.

It’s just

kinda squeeze that motherfucker. Take his money. We appreciate you. We’re all grateful to you. And, I hope to see you next time after New York.

Thanks so much. Take care, Tim. Bye.