Sponge Brain Shart Pants

Prepare to have your mind blown as we unravel the intricacies of Trump's hush money scandal with a mix of shrewd analysis and unapologetic humor. We kick things off with a game that's as revelatory as it is irreverent, setting the stage for a deep dive into the trial that's shaking the foundations of campaign finance law and presidential accountability. As we dissect the roles of key GOP figures and the covert media strategies employed, you'll find yourself both enlightened and entertained by our razor-sharp commentary on the potential election interference and the lengths to which some might go to secure power.

Our conversation boldly navigates through the maze of Donald Trump's infamous patterns, tying together the Access Hollywood tape and the covert Trump Tower meeting. We shine a spotlight on the guardianship of Bill Barr and the 'catch and kill' tactics of David Pecker, exposing the murky underbelly of political media. As we strip back the layers of legal immunities and financial maneuverings, we tackle the glaring questions about integrity that loom large over media and politics today. This episode isn't just a chronicle of events; it's an invitation to question the very fabric of journalistic and political ethics.

Strap in for a rollercoaster ride from the jaw-dropping antics of the Supreme Court to the relatable bedlam of family vacations. With personal anecdotes peppered throughout, we break down the complexities of presidential pardons and potential criminal conspiracies with a blend of light-hearted banter and incisive critique. The stakes are high as we explore the legal labyrinth surrounding presidential actions and the zany world of political tabloid journalism. You're in for an episode that's as thought-provoking as it is jovial, proving that deep analysis doesn't have to be dry.

Transcript

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Trump's Hush Money Scandal Unraveled

Speaker 2 0:01

And before we get started , we do got to play like a . We have to play a game of fuck marry , kill between and hear your choices . You can . Well , your options are Byron , Noam , Corey , Lewandowski or your dog . What you're going to do .

Speaker 1 0:20

I have to marry my dog .

Speaker 3 0:23

Well , not killing , I'd rather . Oh , damn it . Can I say that out loud ?

Speaker 1 0:28

Luna , fuck a dog , I'd rather fuck Cory .

Speaker 3 0:30

I'm not fuck Cory , kill him . But .

Speaker 1 0:35

I guess I'm gonna marry Luna .

Speaker 2 0:43

It's a tough one , huh .

Speaker 3 0:47

Well , the dog is not getting killed . That's the . He's out . He's not getting killed . So we're the , we're between the other two you have a dog no , but let me tell you what christy .

Speaker 2 0:57

No , let me tell you what christy gnome did dog . She married byron , she fucked cory lewandowski and she killed her dog huh you know what ?

Speaker 3 1:11

and it's so crazy because ever since the story broke , married Luna for you . Look at Christy Noem . I see her , so I can see her crazy eyes and I'm looking at him like she's a psychopath like you know what cory lewandowski was ?

Speaker 2 1:32

staring directly into them , motherfuckers , why he ?

Speaker 3 1:35

that is true , but he , he's also well , he's more of a sociopath , and I don't think he has the balls to kill somebody or an animal .

Speaker 2 1:44

No , I mean , but you know , in terms of fuck marry , kill , like I mean , I guess his version of fucking his dog would be Kristi Noem . One , two , three , four . Hey , this is D-Night .

Speaker 3 1:59

This is Carol , this is Ty .

Speaker 2 2:01

And you're listening to the Pardon the Insurrection podcast , where , of course , not only are we not pardoning the insurrectionists , we're also not granting them immunity either . Yes , we aren't the Republicans on the Supreme Court , and I don't say Republicans lightly , I say that with purpose . They ain't conservative , they are Republicans . Oh and quick shout out to you know , colin from Sheets and Giggles , my man , we in there . So it's been a whirlwind week . First we have to welcome Carol back from vacation . Hope you enjoyed it down there in bright , sunny , warm Orlando .

Speaker 1 2:36

You also look delightful this evening . Yes , oh , thank you ?

Speaker 2 2:40

Yeah , welcome back . You missed out on a bunch of crazy nonsense . Did we even get the opportunity to talk about that guy who set himself on fire ?

Speaker 1 2:48

I don't think so . No , I think I read about that while I was at the happiest place on earth and I was like no , no , no , no .

Speaker 2 2:56

That stuff doesn't matter here Of course , trump's lawyers were doing a lot of setting themselves on fire in court as well , in in multiple venues , but we'll eventually get around to that . So , of course , you know trump's criminal trial for the hush money election interference case and , yes , we have to be specific about that because it wasn't just hush money . It was intended to violate campaign finance laws to keep that story about trump having an affair with the porn star and a stripper out of the headlines right around the time of the 2016 election , where his campaign was most vulnerable , right after the Access Hollywood tape dropped , where everyone I know was making jokes about grabbing people by the pussy Not like jokes . In terms of , yes , we support the idea .

Speaker 1 3:40

You took a breath .

Speaker 2 3:42

Sorry .

Speaker 1 3:42

I thought you might never breathe the idea you took a breath .

Speaker 2 3:49

Sorry , I thought you might never breathe . Uh , yes , um , anyway , there's no knees on my neck today . But so everyone I knew was joking about how ridiculous it was that like something like that could happen . Were you on tape saying something that ridiculous and then it suddenly disappeared from media coverage less than a day later because of the infamous Hillary Clinton email dump from WikiLeaks that they got from the Russians . Coincidence , I'm sure , painted the Trump campaign into a corner where they were willing to do just about anything to ensure that no more damaging information from about Trump .

Speaker 1 4:31

Yes , he was willing to make sure his lawyers spent their personal money to do anything for him or delay payment as long as possible , with hopes of not having to make good on his deal that would have constituted the election interference , yeah , but we talk about stormy .

Speaker 3 4:50

How much did he play ? Pay karen , dougal karen mcdougal 150 .

Speaker 2 4:57

So what happened is so david pecker talked about he talked about this on the stand how , after they made an agreement in 2015 between himself , michael Cohen and Trump to catch and kill these harmful Trump stories . But not only that , there's also an agreement to put out harmful stories about his opponents , and we'll get to that in just a second . But the Karen McDougal thing . So Pecker was like all right , cool , we got this story Seems pretty bad Consulted with Trump and corn and they were like pay her off .

Speaker 2 5:29

And he's like all right , here's this 150 K . And the way they kind of uh , the way he organized those payments were to make sure it it appeared as though it didn't come from Pecker specifically Like use the former employee to kind of get around the news becoming public to his uh , you know , the , the employees of his company , kind of I don't know , they went through an extraordinary level of concealing these payments . But yeah , the 150k was like all right , here you go and it kept it quiet . But Trump never paid Pecker back for that . And when it came time to pay Stormy , Daniels .

Speaker 1 6:14

He didn't pay him . He didn't pay someone . This is my shocked face Shocker , shock .

Speaker 2 6:21

Color you surprised , I guess .

Speaker 2 6:24

Yay , I can finally do visual jokes , yeah yeah , we're so used to being on being an audio medium we don't know how to handle ourselves now that you can see us . But yeah , so after , after , trump didn't pay , uh , didn't reimburse pecker for the , the , the payments to um karen mcdougall . Uh , not only was pecker like I don't know about paying this stormy daniels thing because y'all didn't give me back , but he also just didn't want to be associated with the porn star which I I guess I can kind of understand the argument . Uh , his , his line of reasoning in that regard was , like you know , our biggest carrier is Walmart . So I'm going to draw the line somewhere .

Speaker 1 7:08

But Playboy is fine .

Speaker 2 7:10

You know , look , playboy is a very Figure battle . Yeah , figure battle . Hey look , playboy does slightly more .

Speaker 1 7:20

You only have to assume they had oh nothing .

Speaker 2 7:23

Playboy does slightly more tasteful content than the things Stormy Daniels were engaging in . If you want to judge in that regard I mean , you know , I'm personally not I feel like the line is thin , but I can see some argument . And of course you know there's all kind of journalistic articles that Playboy would do . They would do exposés .

Speaker 1 7:45

Yeah , yeah , I guess I was thinking it was more of a judgment of the woman than the judgment of the content .

Speaker 3 7:51

Yeah , but Playboy actually used to do really good content in their articles , like when they have the long . They have the pictures and the long articles .

Speaker 1 8:02

Well , otherwise , what would men have told their wives ?

Speaker 2 8:10

No , but you know what . You're actually right . Like the interviews specifically and there are a lot of exclusives that they they did over the course of their their long run there they were very high quality . I mean , look , it's not what stormy was doing , okay , yeah , just to put that out there .

Speaker 2 8:26

But so I think one of the things the prosecution nailed with making pecker their first witness is that not only was he so clear and convincing and and straightforward and forthright , I mean he was kind of endearing . And I don't mean that in terms of like , I like the guy because I think he's I mean , obviously he's got a lot of flaws and a lot of problems but I think , in terms of like , his presentation to in the courtroom , to the jury , made him a believable figure and the story he was telling was so compelling that he's forever shaped the course of this trial Like the jury is going to look . They're going to look at the rest of the evidence presented over the course of the trial through the lens of the information that Packer testified about in terms of this being a strategy to influence the 2016 election . You guys got any thoughts on that ?

Speaker 3 9:22

You know , what I would also say about Packer is that he didn't come across as someone having an axe to grind , and I think that that made a lot of well . That makes also a lot of difference . Like he didn't come in , like he was somebody that was out for revenge or that he was like out to get . He's like this is what happened and like it is what it is . This was what it was , and he just laid it out there and I think that that gives sorry . I think that that gives him more credibility in a lot of ways .

Speaker 2 9:56

He doesn't have all the same problems . He has none of the problems that Michael Cohen has .

Speaker 3 10:00

None of the baggage of being a part of the Trump inner circle in a way that everybody was trying to cover their ass or everybody was trying to . You know , he was like I was . This Also he's got immunity .

Speaker 2 10:18

Get to that in a second .

Speaker 1 10:20

I'm just saying it helps to . I would imagine someone would be more candid if they had immunity .

Speaker 2 10:27

Fair enough . Here's another thing , ty . How do you feel about the fact that Trump's never publicly said anything bad about David Pecker ? Then they're like raise a red flag , shouldn't that be like ? Oh well , then he must really have the dirt .

Speaker 3 10:41

Exactly , that is exactly it . Because even after and you know , anytime anyone has testified , anytime someone has said Trump is boom , boom , boom , he's all caps lock , captain , caps Lock this stuff . Oh , I met him and you know he uh , was uh , whatever that trump says about people , but he did not , he didn't push back or say anything , and that says more than anything trump could have said right because that tells me that he has , that David Pecker has the goods on .

Speaker 2 11:21

Trump . He has to , and , like the only the two people Trump's never said anything . Well , yeah , I guess the two people he's never said anything about David Pecker and Judge Cannon , and you see how Judge Cannon is in the bag for him . So , considering the fact that Pecker is out here , you know blasting Trump , you know no pun intended . He clearly must have some insight into a number of misdeeds done by this guy

Trump's Pattern of Criminal Behavior

Speaker 2 11:47

. But so one of the first things the prosecution established was , like this meeting in Trump Tower in 2015 . Again , it's very reminiscent of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr and the Russians . It's basically the same . It's like hey , you know , we need you to help us out if some bad stories come out about me and we need you to dig up dirt on our opponents . It's literally , it's basically the same agreement , right , yeah , so isn't it kind of funny ?

Speaker 2 12:16

It's ironic that the Trump is such a creature of habit that when he engages in these criminal conspiracies , if they work one time , then he just tries them indefinitely . Are you suggesting a pattern of criminal behavior scheme ? He literally did that with the russians , where they basically killed the the access hollywood tape by leaking dirt about hillary clinton , which was not actual dirt . There was nothing harmful in those emails , but it did capture the . The news , like the entire news ecosystem focused on that , and not only that . Once bill barr was in office . What did Bill Barr do for Trump Like ? We have a literal example of it in this case , where Bill Barr went after Michael Cohen and then made sure to kill that investigation , so nobody went after Trump afterwards , bill Barr acted as Trump's personal fucking lawyer .

Speaker 3 13:16

Like in every case that trump was facing bill barr , he was like he was trump's personal legal city . He said , yes , exactly , he was his personal legal thug . That's it . You know , and oh you know , bill barr comes out . Everything that he said when he was , you know , talking about trump and the january 6th thing and stuff , and everything he says is is gratuitous . Uh , you know , bill barr is shrewd , if nothing else , I mean he's basically newt gingrich with black hair well , he was more than just trump's lawyer .

Speaker 2 13:59

He was his david pecker yeah , yeah and he was trump's pecker because trump's pecker clearly wasn't enough , he had to get another one anyway , lots of women have described it sorry , yes , insufficient yes , they've described it as insufficient .

Speaker 2 14:15

Uh , so a couple things about pecker . Back in 2019 , uh , and you all might remember this , there was that story of Jeff Bezos and his affair said that Pecker was apoplectic . That is a quote about the Washington Post investigation in the Pecker's company and that's why they were going back and forth and it was like the Washington Post was particularly focused on these connections between AMI and the Saudi royal family , something that we likely won't have the opportunity to get into , but maybe you can do some digging out there if you're listening into some the links between the Saudi royal family and you know Packers payments , because we're not entirely sure where he even got the 150K to pay off McDougal . But you know there's a lead for you to follow if you're bored .

Speaker 3 15:21

Well , I mean , there's a lead for you to follow if you're bored . Well , I mean , he's a journalist . Well , using that term loosely .

Speaker 2 15:26

And as .

Speaker 3 15:26

I can attest , journalists don't make any fucking money . So where he had that kind of scratch that he could just give up and hand off with no , Well weren't they paying him ?

Speaker 1 15:42

Wasn't he part of the scheme ? So maybe he was skimming off the top . There we'll find out about what other sort of things do you think he got immunity for ? Do we know his immunity deal ? I'm assuming it was private I'm assuming it was .

Speaker 2 15:52

It only covers the things that he testified about , but we don't , so trump wasn't actually paying Pecker Part of the deal was that , you know , trump coverage was good for the magazine , so that helped him out in that regard .

Speaker 2 16:07

And then negative information about Trump's opponents was also good for the Inquirer .

Speaker 2 16:13

The thing where , like some of it fell apart as far as Pecker's testimony is concerned , like some of it fell apart as far as Pecker's testimony is concerned , he was saying it was a mutually beneficial relationship because of that .

Speaker 2 16:22

But then , on the other hand , killing these two negative stories well , three , if you include the doorman supposedly having a story about Trump allegedly fathering a child with a maid , those stories probably would have been good for the publication . So killing those actually cost Pecker quite a bit of money , and that's not even if you just count having to pay them off . But yeah , who knows where the money was coming from . Again , we don't have enough insight into the financial arrangements to figure out where that money came from within the company to make any kind of judgment . But one of the things that's probably important to note is Pecker did talk about how they did have a habit of catching and killing these stories , not just in terms of Trump specifically , but they had a history of it . But they usually paid like five or 10 grand for a story . They were never paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for anything .

Speaker 2 17:19

And that's why pecker had to go to go through , go to great lengths to cover up the payment , because people on the floor would have been like what the fuck is this ? Why are we in bed with trump spending all this money to help him out ? Um , and carol , as you were saying earlier , pecker not only was granted immunity , uh , by the Southern District of New York in the Michael Cohen investigation , but he was also granted immunity by the Manhattan DA's office , and I think that's actually a detail that we didn't know until his testimony here . And the thing is , he was granted immunity in the Manhattan DA's office .

Speaker 2 18:03

For ratting out Michael Cohen , right ? No , no , no . That was the Southern District of New York , this Manhattan DA agreement . That was in 2019 . That was before Alvin Bragg even got there . So they , the Manhattan DA's office , was looking into this for quite a long time , in case people were wondering like well , what the fuck Were they just sitting on their hands the whole time ?

Speaker 3 18:24

Well , yeah , I mean Cy Vance had the case before Alvin Bragg took over . You know his position . So this has been a longstanding investigation into what was going on .

Speaker 2 18:41

it didn't just appear out of nowhere , no , advance was also looking at the financial fraud crimes , but he passed on those for whatever reason . I don't know why he didn't believe that case was strong enough , because once we heard the evidence oh , he did , he got a .

Speaker 3 18:54

He got a fucking fifty thousand dollar donation yeah , well , look , that's , that's it .

Speaker 2 19:00

Okay , magically dodging this bullets all the time there's got to be some shenanigans going on is that really enough to like retire in shame ? No , no not retire , but it's enough for some people to look the other way everywhere . Occasion , uh . But part of that agreement , though and while you , like you alluded to Carol , that it would be incentive for someone to be super forthcoming Part of the agreement does also allow for Pecker to be prosecuted if he lies on the stand , so he could spend a stand in Rikers too , just like .

Speaker 3 19:34

Weisselberg yeah .

Speaker 2 19:36

So , you know , he's got to be truthful and forthcoming , otherwise his ass will end up in jail too . And man , it's just been so crazy here lately . I just like I can't believe that we're at the . Let's stop and back up and zoom out for a second here .

Speaker 2 19:53

Trump is on trial for crimes , yes , for crimes , yes . And we're like in the middle of testimony , like there's there's testimony , there's been opening statements , like we've had multiple witnesses at this point , uh , and we're two weeks in and it's absolutely fucking bonkers , like I can't believe , like just I , and I gotta tell you because it's like just a deluge of haters on the internet telling me all this time , for years and years , trump was never going to be held accountable for anything . He's going to get away with all of it . And I was like okay , like unfortunately , because of , you know , the office of the presidency offering him a level of protection that practically no other criminal defendant would ever get . It's going to be a process getting here , but we're gonna get there . It's gonna take some twists and turns . Just hang in there and people were just , you know , shitting all over me . Will call me when he's indicted and then he gets indicted will call me when he's in court . He's in court . Will call me when it will like all right man , damn yeah .

Speaker 1 20:54

I have .

Speaker 3 20:54

I know a lot of people who keep pushing the yeah they keep moving the goalposts and keep pushing it back and there's yeah , like they're the pessimism and and yeah , okay , in a lot of instances I've been pessimistic too . However , like this case , which everyone shit on , is being the worst case of him being there , like the , you know , classified documents , this , this , this and that this case was like just like bottom of the barrel of the cases and this is literally the one that will probably be the nail in the coffin and be his downfall . So that's been pretty interesting .

Speaker 2 21:47

I wasn't in that group of people that were sharting all over this case . I was like , yeah , I can see how , in comparison , these other things don't make it seem . You know it pales in comparison .

Importance of Trump's Crimes for Presidency

Speaker 2 21:56

But if you think about it like , this is the origin story for trump getting into the white house to get the protection to being president in the first place . Like if trump hadn't committed these crimes , in all likelihood trump wouldn't be president because he didn't win the popular vote .

Speaker 2 22:10

And people like forget . They're like , oh , hillary clinton , she ran a terrible campaign . She knows she got three million more votes than this dude did . Yeah , right , and if this story or any of these stories that pecker covered up , had it dropped , especially at like in october , late in the race , it would have been a wrap . Trump would have lost , he would have never been president . Maybe he wouldn't have got an indictment for this , but he wouldn't be in the white house . We would have president clinton . Uh , and just like . Like , everything that trump did after the fact hinges on this crime and that's why this is so important and that's probably why the DA's office took the time to organize their witnesses in such a way that Packard you know he led the charge , so to speak , in making sure to paint this trial in a proper light .

Speaker 3 23:01

I honestly think , I think that the prosecutors did this to like start it off with a bang and put this in the jurors heads , because if they was like you know , like if you're watching a movie and it starts out slow and then you're sitting and you're hanging in there , you're hanging in there , so by the time the end comes , even if it's good , you're like man , I checked out like an hour ago , you know of that .

Speaker 2 23:23

No , absolutely .

Speaker 3 23:24

And this would be the same thing If they were starting with something else that wasn't , as you know , kind of hard hitting , that the jurors would have checked out like this is a nothing burger burger . So by the time it would have gotten to pecker if they had saved him to last that the jurors would have already been so fucking disenchanted and checked out that it wouldn't have made so . Doing it with this it's making them like , well , damn so now , as you said , d everything that they hear here on out , they're going to be looking at through the lens of david pecker's testimony , because everything everyone else says , every other witness , they're going to be putting it into the context of how this started and what david pecker set the stage for yeah , and I think , like you said , he doesn't have a smart move and he doesn't have the hangups of Cohen , like you said , like Cohen going first and the baggage and the baggage of it .

Speaker 2 24:24

Because there is so much more .

Speaker 3 24:26

With Pecker , yeah , they had their he and Trump had their relationship , or what have you . But with Cohen there are so many other things and you know , just being honest , full disclosure here they could make a case that Cohen just has an ax to grind and so he's coming at it from a different perspective , in a different way .

Speaker 2 24:47

So it could give some kind of doubt that is why cohen's going to be in the middle and they're going to sandwich him with pecker to begin with and someone nearly as captivating at the end . And you're not even really going to be thinking about cohen or at least the jury won't by the time they make this decision . But hey , carol , here's some of these funny headlines and I mean not funny , but like they're actually somewhat ridiculous Some of these headlines that Pecker published on Trump's orders because they , like they had , like , such a relationship with Donald Trump .

Speaker 1 25:17

The man , the legend Ted Cruz , shamed by porn star donald trump , gets the duke's blessing . Bungling surgeon ben carson left sponge in patient's brain . Hey , you know how fucking crazy that is carol the thing without a story .

Speaker 3 25:35

the ben carson stuff is wild for me it is amazing .

Speaker 2 25:39

Can you think of all right , it's 2016 . Yeah , it's the primary . And then you go to the grocery store and you see , as you're walking to the checkout , like hanging on the magazine rack .

Trump's Legal Arguments in SCOTUS

Speaker 2 25:52

Ben Carson left sponge in patient's brain . He was doomed .

Speaker 1 26:00

Is that from 2015 ? He wasn't . If this is 2016 , he wouldn't be in the race anymore .

Speaker 2 26:05

Yeah , 2015 , yeah .

Speaker 1 26:08

All right , because he would I mean Trump would just have like a gratuitously mean or just pointless story planted too . Why not , like that guy dared to challenge me ? He would go .

Speaker 2 26:18

Jfk's secret son endorses donald trump and now he's thinking now , rfk is campaigning to be trump's running mate . That's hilarious . Um , yeah , donald dominates . Uh , this , this is this one was great . Obama's half brother cheering on donald at debate ? Like this is this is beyond wild . Um , this one . There was one about , um , the the five mistresses that ted cruz has . Oh gosh , yeah , like so . That one actually made it into like mainstream news , like normal news outlets were actually talking about that , but we should imagine him having sex at all , let alone with five women .

Speaker 1 27:02

That's exactly true and that's how you should have known that it wasn't real .

Speaker 2 27:06

Because who's gonna sleep with ted cruz ? The only person , yes , not even his wife . Um , uh , this one , donald trump blast ted cruz's dad for photo of jjfk assassin . Remember how we were talking about , like , how absurd it was . Like , of course , ted cruz's dad didn't have anything to do with the jfk assassination , but that we were even having that conversation is absolutely wild . And that was all .

Speaker 2 27:36

All of this stuff was cooked up by David Pecker and Michael Cohen , like Cohen literally had like the ability to sign off on these headlines and these stories . But , yeah , so just absolute bonkers . And again , like just the lengths that these dudes went to in secret to coordinate all of this but to try and keep Trump , trump's fingerprints off of it . It reminds me of the fake elector plot , where Trump went through all of this work to try and coordinate these fake electors but pretend like he had nothing to do with it . And they just show up at the Capitol on January 6th for Mike Pence to be like oh damn , I wonder where these electors came from . Oh dog , you know where they came from . You was right there cooking up the plan with everybody . It's just absolutely wild . But so we'll move on from did he really cruise to victory ?

Speaker 2 28:33

as Ted .

Speaker 1 28:34

Cruz's endorsement .

Speaker 3 28:40

I don't think that's actually the case , carol and he also claimed that Ted Cruz stole the . What was it the Iowa caucus like , when Ted Cruz won one of the major caucuses and he claimed that it was stolen it was rigged .

Speaker 2 28:55

Yes , and so there you go like get another instance of of trump claiming elections are rigged when he loses . Um , and look again . All of this is just setting setting the stage for his multiple attempts to cheat in 2020 and to claim that the election is rigged in 2024 if he loses . But so we're going to move away from the . Trump trial is as enthralling as it is .

Speaker 2 29:39

Earlier this week , or rather earlier last week , donald Trump's lawyers got their case in front of the Supreme Court , arguing that presidents , in fact , shouldn't be allowed to be prosecuted . They should have absolute immunity , regardless of what they're being charged for . And I don't know if you all listened to to the oral arguments there , but I listen to them live and I gotta tell you some of that shit was mind-blowing . I'm like I can't believe we've reached the point where people like a legitimate lawyer or is making these insane arguments in front of the Supreme Court . And not only were the arguments insane , some of the justices were entertaining them as though , like this is a legitimate legal argument that we should be having here that part .

Speaker 3 30:16

Like that part is the worst for me because , yeah , his lawyers are going to make the most insane and ridiculous arguments , but these people that have been appointed to the highest court in the land are actually giving it those arguments . Credibility is sickening as fuck to me , like , and I can't . I was like , literally there are three people who are the only adults on the fucking court to challenge and ask real questions . It's fucking ridiculous . And let's not even get into fucking Clarence Thomas and him not recusing himself .

Speaker 2 31:03

That was too many fucks in a row , Ty .

Speaker 3 31:06

Oh , sorry oh wait , wait , sorry .

Speaker 1 31:09

Beep , beep , beep , beep , beep beep .

Speaker 2 31:11

Yeah , where to start . Hey , you know what You're right .

Speaker 1 31:14

Let's start with .

Speaker 2 31:14

Clarence Thomas . Why is Clarence Thomas on this case when we all know that his wife is an unindicted co-conspirator ?

Speaker 1 31:24

I know , because there are no rules of judicial conduct , that apparently that the Supreme Court think apply to them and no one is holding them accountable I think you nailed it .

Speaker 2 31:34

Yeah , that was so professional .

Speaker 3 31:36

I just thought that he thought that jenny would kill him in his sleep so , but I like your argument way better because that was way more professional .

Speaker 3 31:45

But , yeah , no , absolutely . They feel that they are the lifetime appointments . They feel that they are above the law . They feel that they are the lifetime appointments . They feel that they are above the law . They feel that they are above Well , I wouldn't even say above scrutiny , because I don't think they care about that in their attitudes and how they approach , going about the legal arguments , and it literally when , when republicans talk about a kangaroo court , scotus really is a kangaroo .

Speaker 2 32:22

Yeah they are the spider-man meme like and clarence .

Speaker 2 32:25

thomas is so bold about it . He he's like he was literally downplaying what happened on January 6th in court , like during the oral arguments , and that's how you know , dude knows how bad it was . It's like you're the only one out here trying to make it sound like it was nothing but . But , carol , as you , as you were asking about some of the arguments . So one of the arguments Trump's lawyer was making and that the judge justices didn't really entertain they they appear to be , they seemed fairly disappointed with this argument , but he made it anyway was this idea that presidents should be immune even if they order the military to assassinate their political rival .

Speaker 1 33:06

I did hear that one .

Speaker 3 33:07

And , and you know how , how short termterm memory works , as I remember when they wouldn't take up the case during Trump's bogus election stealing claims and when they declined to take up the case declined to take up the case there were pictures with nooses around the neck of Kavanaugh and Barrett coming from MAGA and how soon they forget that they are not immune to his revenge , wrath , vengeance , whatever yeah , one of the things I was saying about how short-sighted it will be if they decide to grant , you know , presidential immunity to some of these claims is like , okay , what if Trump is reelected and he doesn't like something that the Supreme Court rules ?

Speaker 2 34:04

Well then he can just have y'all assassinated and y'all can't get in his way . No more Very short-sighted here . And look , no one talks about this . This is super important january 6th information . You know sorry to rehash stuff from four years ago , but a lot of this doesn't get ironed out of the media . One of the underreported plots from january 6th is how the proud boys had a plan to occupy the Supreme Court Right . So they weren't just going to like keep Congress hostage , they were also going to take over the Supreme Court and make sure the justices could use the Supreme Court to somehow hand the election back to Joe Biden . And they were also going to camp out at the White House and make sure the military couldn't remove Trump .

Speaker 1 34:51

So it was like they know that the Supreme Court can conduct sessions remotely right .

Speaker 2 34:55

That's not important , carol . The point I'm just they're not called the smart boys . Sorry , go on . Yes , exactly the point there , but they are proud .

Speaker 1 35:06

They're proud . A lot of people are proud of their ignorance .

Speaker 2 35:14

Just the point there is that the justices were potential targets on January 6th and no one's brought it up . No one brings it up when they have these oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court . No one brings up the fact that Clarence Thomas's wife was communicating with the fake electors and Mark Meadows and John Eastman , and she's intricately involved in the plot . No one mentions these things and the justice because no one brings it up . The justices feel entitled to pretend like none of these things ever happened in order to come to conclusions that benefit Trump regardless .

Speaker 3 35:43

But I thought that they formed an ethics committee to look into their own crimes . Diamond .

Speaker 2 35:49

Yeah , well , look even like there's the fundamental , this fundamental theory about the way that law works , in that no man should be the judge in his own case . Well , clearly , the Supreme Court has forgotten that . But another argument that Trump's lawyer was making is that should a president engage in a coup , specifically ordering the military to stage a coup so that he can remain in office , that that is an official act and that presidential immunity should apply . Now , a lot of these arguments . It was insane . Oh yeah , it was fucking boggles .

Speaker 3 36:29

That argument was insane . Oh yeah , it was , for the barbers argument was insane . And he said it with a straight face and sonia sotomayor , she was like all right , I'm pretty sure her brain was broken at that point . Then she was like okay , so what you're saying is like well , you know , we need to get into the technical facts of of this . And then if it was just like if , if , if , if , if , that that that was the key word in every argument that trump's lawyer made it was like well , if it comes to that , or if this was if , and she's like yeah and I'm just really surprised that .

Speaker 3 37:14

I mean I wish that kagan would be more vocal , um , and I always I feel like sotomayor and katanji brown jackson yeah , they'd be on it vocal yes on the court . Yeah , I would really like to hear more from kagan . I feel like she's been in the background like a lot like not disparaging her , but I would really like to have her be more present .

Speaker 2 37:45

I mean , look in the grand scheme of things , I don't think these oral arguments are going to have much influence over the actual decisions to come out from the court . So Kagan can do her work in rebutting some of the ridiculous things that the conservative justices will say in the majority . But I think part of the problem just again like these , are bad faith actors , right .

Speaker 2 38:10

So one of the things Roberts brought up and again . So , first of all , trump's lawyer . Initially his position was that absolute immunity for presidents , point blank period . And then it was like , well , absolute immunity for presidents in their official acts , in somewhere of the range of like the outer limits of their official acts . And then it was like he basically conceded it was hit or miss . And you know , maybe these , like this particular case , should be sent down to the lower court for more fact finding about what is and is an official act and and what should be given immunity . And that is actually the delay tactic to have it sent back down to a lower , lower court so a ruling can be issued , so Trump's lawyers can appeal it and then send it back up to the Supreme court . And that'll delay yeah , that'll effectively delay the trial until after the election , which , in a way , is granting Trump a form of immunity , regardless of what the justice is rule Cause if he wins the election , he's never going on trial for this but that's a , that's a good .

Speaker 3 39:16

That's a good . No , actually that is a great point . Yeah , like basically kicking the can down the road to take away their accountability for having to make a ruling ?

Speaker 1 39:21

yeah , will they necessarily say that they can't continue the case ?

Speaker 2 39:24

they hit the case yeah , they're going to stay the case . But so , beyond that and I think a lot of people are already aware that , like , delay is the whole game , and again , you know insiders from Trump's people said that they already pulled off the heist . This was the heist getting it in front of the Supreme Court and getting this delay . But one of the things Justice Roberts brought up which I thought was particularly interesting , which I thought was particularly interesting , aside from saying that Ford's pardon of Nixon is is one of those things that people agree upon now to have been one of the better presidential decisions , which is absurd . It was a ridiculous decision . He never should have granted Nixon that pardon . Nixon's ass should have went to jail and then dudes could have learned that . Hey , you know what ? I'm in office . I have to abide by the law , as the constitution says .

Speaker 3 40:10

you know just , I'm in office , I have to abide by the law , as the Constitution says . You know just the president's consequences .

Speaker 2 40:15

But one of the things Roberts was saying that I found to be Well , look , we haven't had enough consequences for lawbreaking presidents , but that's another story for another podcast . The thing that Roberts was saying that caught my attention was this argument that it was possible that Ford's pardon of what he was asking the solicitor general from the DOJ was Ford's pardon of Nixon . Could that have been considered obstruction of justice ? Was that interfering in the investigation of Nixon ? And the reply from the Department of Justice was no , because that's you know , the president has our court to bail Trump out of being prosecuted . Could we be prosecuted for obstruction of justice is the way I interpreted that , and I don't think anybody else has picked up on .

Speaker 3 41:24

No , that , no that I hadn't even thought about that D , that I hadn't even thought about that D . But you asking number one the question , I think was a very good question , because that it's like oh wow , I didn't even think about that . Um , with Ford's pardon , but also what the intent of asking the question was , yeah . So it's the same thing like when I tell people , like when they talk about the interview with Putin and the Santa commercial like after he kind of emasculated Tucker Carlson , and he was saying in the interview on Russian TV and he was like Biden is good for America , he's better for America .

Speaker 3 42:05

I said , but what he didn't say was Trump was better for us . What he didn't say was Trump was better for us . And that's kind of the same thing , because , no , that's the same kind of principle in the way that you put it . What Robert said , but what he was really asking was oh yeah .

Speaker 2 42:22

That puts in the same vein Of all the crazy shit that was was like batted around at the Supreme court , that one per like . My ears really perked up when I heard that because I was like , oh , he's talking about himself there .

Presidential Pardons and Criminal Conspiracy

Speaker 2 42:34

Clearly , obviously , you know a president , granting a pardon isn't a crime . But you could construe like if the granting of a pardon was part of a criminal conspiracy , then maybe the pardon isn't valid , and it could be , you could prosecute a president for that isn't valid , and it could be , you could be , you could prosecute a president for that . So let's imagine like oh , you know , I've been convicted of a federal crime . I need a presidential pardon . President's not going to pardon me , but what if I offer him , you know , $100,000 bribe ? Does that make the pardon illegal ? Is the president ? Can the president be held accountable for that ? I would say yes , not for the pardon itself , but the bribe .

Speaker 2 43:10

Well , what if part of a criminal conspiracy is , you know , your president , your vice president , is aware of the criminal conspiracy . You commit the crime , you get busted and the agreement was to , if you get caught , resign and let your vice president ascend to the presidency and issue you a pardon . Well then , is that part of a criminal conspiracy ? I mean , I guess you know I'm not a lawyer enough to like detail the ins and outs of whether or not that's uh worthy of prosecution . But what if there is an agreement between supreme court justices and a criminal president to grant him immunity should he be indicted for engaging in criminal ?

Speaker 3 43:49

acts , believing that their you know misdeeds will not be prosecuted or not be gone after against . That is a very , very good point , man . I'm impressed . Good deal .

Speaker 1 44:03

Oh , dee's smart , I'm not just a pretty face .

Speaker 2 44:10

You say that you've gotten all made up and you've let your hair down and you're looking all beautiful over there .

Speaker 3 44:15

With her red lipstick .

Speaker 1 44:16

I was just traveling today .

Speaker 2 44:19

Yeah , all right , yeah , so do you get jet lag from flying north to south ? I don't remember .

Speaker 1 44:25

No , I'm not jet lagged , I'm just tired .

Speaker 2 44:27

No , I was just asking .

Speaker 1 44:31

You think taking the kids to Disney World is relaxing ?

Speaker 2 44:35

No , that's like a vacation from your vacation .

Speaker 3 44:38

Yeah , you should have left him there for like a week and came back home and just decompressed .