Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20150526

Case or this one. The mere appreciation are not corruption. Word for word out of the Supreme Court decision and Citizens United. The District Court refused to give a standard goodwill instruction. A gift or payment given with the general ayatollah for some unspecified nature benefit is not a prize. Here one of our principal arguments was the governor believed Johnny Williams is giving goodwill gets in the expectation he would get the access and credibility that come with it good faith was your defense. That is what you said. Our defense is good faith. We did, your honor. If the governor acted in good faith, he didnt have criminal intent and there could be no crime. There would be no crime. Because the jury doesnt understand the true scope of official acts and the jury doesnt understand the difference between a permissible goodwill gift in a prohibited bribe. If he acted in good faith it doesnt make any difference. It doesnt make any difference. If he acted in good faith then it couldnt have criminal intent and arid email crime. I think if the jury believes you closed the Closing Argument. You closed it off. You closed the argument off after that say they acted in good faith. Thats because after every jury instruction that is all we were left with two rv was good faith. You werent seriously impaired in their ability to contact your defense as a result of not giving the goodwill instruction. Absolutely, your honor. That the government i know you said you withheld or werent able to make the arguments you had planned to give the jury instruction committed the governments Closing Argument take advantage of the failure to give the instruction that you wanted . The government repeatedly argued to the jury at everything as innocuous as posing for a photo opportunity for simply arranging out anything more. All of the things constituted official governmental action. I think no reasonable jury could conclude governor mcdonald violated the law. Even if you disagree, its altogether possible the jury did agree. Under these instructions to juries still required to or authorized to convict because everything as innocuous as hosting a cocktail party, suggesting a meeting without requesting anything happen at the meeting simply pass the lawyer to feel an issue. Under the instruction and the District Court gave the jury was required or authorized to conclude that those were prohibited official acts and that is clearly reversible for the same reason wrapping. Too closely analogous cases if anything are far worse than this one. The governments theory here was no express agreement. No express agreement. Likewise Johnny Williams notwithstanding chuckle immunity would only testify some form of unspecified health and clearly not enough under the law and the classic goodwill gift. That is why the governments theory all along was to confer agreement from a pattern of distant loans on one hand and a pattern of official acts on the other. If there were no official acts, theres no patterson from which you and very correct agreement and hear none of government cross the line in the jury was never told that line or any other line existed. The jury was told a line existed by the quote of the statute to begin with. You begin your Closing Argument with a quote. So the term official action means any decision or action on any question matter caused superseding controversy which may at any time depending. In other words the person who is giving the benefits to the public officials, if there is no pending upon which they give to them, then there is no crime. But its areas, then that makes it a crime under the statute. Two responses your honor. I submit the forest could argue over the meanings of the azores until the cows come home. It is impossible, which is why the instruction immediately after quoting the statute does official action of fire just to find that includes those actions clearly established by federal crack this as part of the official position. It tells the jury i told you this is what it means. That includes every step towards achieving an end which is why the government could argue something as innocuous as a photo op was included notwithstanding an official act to a potential include everything under the sun and refused every conceivable limit on the otherwise allencompassing instruction. Going back to the issue about whether the statute alone clearly wasnt here. It was defined broadly enough to allow the court to find perfectly lawful conduct. Here i think if you properly instructed the jury between one hand and advocating for specific division on the affair, nothing will qualify. Sun diamond also answers your question. It makes Crystal Clear and the secretary of agriculture gives a speech to farmers and usda policy even though he has issues pending before him that is not an official action. The same definition applies here. Maybe jefferson is wrong. Not at all. Jefferson didnt address the issue. Access on the one hand and advocating for a specific station on the air. It was irrelevant in czech . Goes to the heart of our case here. The jury was never told that existed. If i could offer you another example, suppose Johnny Williams asked the governor who should i talk to about getting studies and governor trained to answer that question. [inaudible] without that part of the hypothetical, official acts under the jury instruction in the governments definition simply answers a question. That is the reason it is fatally overbroad. It sweeps in lawful conduct. I was admittedly take the dataset and by the way ill arrange a meeting that likewise doesnt cross the line because if it did, you wouldnt be opening enough for federal prosecutors to pick and choose target a much virtually every elected official in america. The official act is not limited to quid pro quo. It also applies in the very same definition that means that a wealthy donor makes a Campaign Donation or to a Charitable Foundation after an important meeting at the state department delamere and the recipient are the gratuities prosecution. No one ever thought that was the case. [inaudible] did you have an argument in front of the trial court . Absolutely. Is that transcribe somewhere . Yes the way it unfolded as we had a series of objections that apply to a broad array of instruction. But the courts permission i laid out objections and we went during the two different points in the argument. I asked the court would you like to repeat what i said at the beginning. He offers the court a lesser included part. I dont think the instruction that all of it is an act of love. Was there any discussion about the part of it . So just the last paragraph. Page 7342 the appendix where we requested the following providing your credibility a reputational benefit is not an official acts. To find an official act of the questions he must decide whether to charge conduct constitutes the practice and whether it was intended to work it in fact influence a specific official decision. Im on 756. What part of 753 was your ultimate back position that the District Court . Or did she say all or nothing . That was our fallback. Maybe if you can help it with 753. You are looking at the proposed construction. The charging conference i understand theres sometimes a give and take here in what i ask you in the charging conference was there any giveandtake. Did you say some of the sentences are not required by the law at least in my view as we sit here. So which ones what we did is we reduced it to two specific requests. This is page 73 so you changed it . Now what i made clear his first we wanted our proposed instruction. As an alternative we requested the court gave two additional instructions that page 7340 and 7341 of the appendix. I can read it to you. If it tracks the language in 753 . Not verbatim. Already. Your honor, it is quite clear as in sun diamond as in the rabbit case, the District Court gave an all encompassing instruction that swept in lawful and unlawful activity. I would like to focus on one last point before turning to pretrial publicity. Our instruction in itself and the charging conference were clearly correct statement of law that went to the heart of our case. Even if you disagree with that what cannot instruction in the clearly object to that on its face has been facially overbroad and not instruction is facially overbroad for the same reason the instruction was facially overbroad. It allowed the court to conclude or the jury to conclude that lawful conduct like merely setting up a meeting or merely hosting reception constituted a subtle use of governors and was a step towards achieving an end and therefore was an official act like answering the question who should i talk to or posing for a photo op at the government argued to the jury with an official act. At the very heart it was encompassed upon the court asked that in the United States to instruct the jury in the clearest possible terms on what the lines of distinction were by likewise refusing to give a standard goodwill instructions to the District Court violating the principle of the jury was permitted even if they completely agreed with us as to what the fact of this case showed. Now im happy to answer any further questions the court has on this issue. All of this of course, although we talk about it seems we have a fair and impartial jury. Here however we dont even know we have that. This is one of the highest profile criminal prosecutions in virginia history. Both sides wanted the elaborate questionnaire. There was giveandtake about what questions would be on the questionnaire. Not really. We jointly submitted a written questionnaire. Both of us agree to it. Before hand. That questionnaire included the question have you formed an opinion about the guilt or innocence based on every trial. Inexplicably District Court when he sent it out to the jurors he struck the question. The jurors were not asked to be formed an opinion based on exposure to pretrial publicity. Were there any questions . Where theyve been exposed to it and one question about opinion. Have you expressed an opinion to someone else exposure. There are plenty of people maybe not in the court room who dont feel the need which is why we and the government agreed heidi formed an opinion. They fill out the questionnaires. He got a group of jurors there all said we need this question. The judge said what is your problem . There are these a jurors and they cannot then were asked the question. Isnt that right . No your honor. May i explain . You named the aid. If i could explain when we got to the hearing. Its clearly wrong. When we got to the hearing we specifically said for those jurors exposed to hand the questionnaire, page 1690 the transcripts he said no im not asking the question. You have to make a determination based on the questionnaire we have here that is when he conducted his en masse standup sitdown proceedings. Everybody sit down. Than a third time was had your honor we cant trust the credibility. Then your honor what you are getting mad at page 1692 of the appendix the defense attorney made clear he was calling up those who had answered those who have expressed an opinion. Then we caught up to a jurors. What happened next is highly instructive. Recall that the jurors who answered yes to the question have you expressed an opinion and the very first one we were mistaken. The governments attorney pointed that out to judge that there and said that first juror they called up has not said yes to the question as he expressed an opinion. He answered no and heres what judge spencer said and im quoting an page 1696 of the transcript. Im sorry man. We thought there is something in your questionnaire. So you may have to see. It is Crystal Clear at every stage of the proceedings from the written question or two showing up at the hearing to object in the hearing to the end of the questioning, what happened to the District Court, do you have any more . The response was not on pretrial publicity. Yes your honor. But that is because theater be ruled. It is very difficult to be a trial lawyer. Much easier to be a peel. I couldnt agree with out more. You have to keep making the connection. And we made it three times your honor. With all due respect im cannot possibly constitute a waiver. I would point out waivers the legal issues subject to de novo review and i do not think you can credibly read the transcript to conclude we waved at in the written questionnaire inexplicably appeared the government actually agreed at the beginning to geriatric a question on this. It is that it would drive the decision if somebodys exposed to pretrial publicity they have to be your deer do not have a list of questions. Here is what judge spencer said. You have to identify the people you think should be struck for cause in the court will make an assessment based on the information we have on not asking these questions. Not aware of a case anywhere. The individually brought attention. Which were not by definition but could only bring up those who answered other questions beyond mere exposure to pretrial publicity because we specifically said we want to question every juror based on their mere exposure to pretrial publicity. So when they stood up that they had been exposed to pretrial publicity you wanted to question each of those in the court would not permit you to do so. The court only permitted you to do savin and they said they had an expressed opinion. Exactly. The people standing up if you can give it a fair trial, sit down. Precisely the procedure that Supreme Court did when they said unless the court has further questions no doubt each juror was sincere when he should be fair and impartial to the petitioner. Psychological impact requiring a declaration is often his father. Who amongst us would answer the question no one asked if its a fair trial. That is why individual is required. Thank you very much your honor. May i please the court. Your honor, i would like briefly to pick up where the argument left off on the point about the pretrial publicity. When the District Court said after doing the collective questioning that the defense counsel could bring a jurors said they wanted to individually questioned, the court did not limit in any way the defendant should just asking about the question of whether someone had expressed an opinion. If you read the transcript when the court started doing the individual questioning of jurors will see that defense only citing a variety of reasons for why they wanted to question somebody. There was a point where they offered a reason to question somebody in the court said no i will not let you ask a question so that is not a sufficient basis. A fair reading of the record would say give me a reason when you give me a reason. We will not sit here and automatically question every single one of these. How many are sitting out there . 115 . 145 i believe. Are you saying the defense never said i would like to question all of the prospective jurors who were exposed to pretrial publicity in the court said no you cant do that. That is what the opposing counsel just said. The way i would put it is the courts that gave me a particular to the juror reason but didnt say look you can only call a people who they expressed an opinion. They tie it to the questionnaire. I think he was looking for a reason none of the questionnaire. There were 99 questions. They brought up the exposure to press, express an opinion on a variety of a feeds for individual questioning. At the very end at the very end he said do you have anyone else and they said not on pretrial publicity. I think my colleague is asking you a question of what happened before that. Did the government have heard jack to the defense asking jurors about their exposure to pretrial publicity . Right. Would have been know, the government never objected to that . What we said the court should ask about that in the questionnaire. The questionnaire where we requested a question about have you formed an opinion. This court did not lose that question. There were a variety of other questions and then at the hearing when defense counsel wanted to question every single juror we said how about as an intermediate step to a question everyone who said they had followed the case very closely or somewhat closely in the District Court said im not going to do that. So every single juror stood up when asked the question have you seen any pretrial publicity about the case . Is that what happened . Right. Every juror . That is correct. The court asked two questions. First, if you have read heard or seen something immediate stand up for me. Then the chorus that based on what youve heard relating to the case, if you are able to put aside whatever youve heard listened to the evidence and be fair to both sides, i want you to sit down. That is an appendix page 963. Stand up sit down process to the court . No. The question i think we have or that i have for what the council said was after there had them to stand up sit down they said no we want to have an individual ordeal of each of these people to discuss pretrial publicity. Is that what happened . The District Court said no. What the District Court say . A people came out. Right. How did that happen . We want to question everybody. The proposed an intermediate step of the people who said they followed the case very closely or somewhat closely. The judge. Not that we dont think that is required but out of an abundance of caution though that review. Im not going to do that. Ill do something of my own devising. The defense counsel gave me a reason. In terms of my closet and he is saying youve got a very wholesome questionnaire. Give me a reason for why you want somebody brought up here. They offer a variety of reasons and cited them in the transcript not just pretrial publicity. Out of the questionnaire. And then the judge questioned a series of people and of people and at the end they say we dont have anyone else on pretrial publicity. Did ask questions on other things after that . The last part was not a pretrial publicity. There was an additional question. We review of that. Yes, that is right. This court cases and baker and bailey. The court said collective questioning is permitted and both of those cases involve collective questioning whether defendant hadnt gotten what they wanted on the questionnaire. The case has the added benefit that the parties were armed with very extensive questionnaires in the course that gave me a reason and i will questioned further and then i got to the end of it in the court said anything else and they said no. I would like to focus to begin with that the defense counsel has focused on is the key problem which is proposed jury instruction number 58 on official acts. Join appendix 753. And that instruction is just erroneous because what he says their proposal is erroneous. Thats what youre saying . That is why protein some of that maybe you can discuss that. Tell me what you think is erroneous. No, we dont take issues with those. They basically gave those. Once you get into the third paragraph you start having error where they suggest that a Government Official decision on whether to attend an event of others who attend the meeting to respond to a phone call pending before the government. They are suggesting a meeting can never be an official at the man is clearly wrong. Jefferson involved plenty of meetings with this court concluded for official acts. This is the corruption. The mere appreciation or access of of corruption with that of an error . I dont think the short answer is no. I dont think the Supreme Court in writing Citizens United was meaning to provide a definition formally for bridal law. It captures the notion a few black in agreement. Talking about Campaign Finance. If you lack an agreement to Exchange Things of value for official at then you know youve gone beyond ingratiation access. A bribery agreement is more than ingratiation. Did they ask for instruction that included that sentence . In addition to the first two paragraphs . I dont believe so. The only outscored in the context its presented here. Is that what youre saying . No theres official action that specifically happened. Today he pointed starting on join appendix page 7340 and saw that position datasets to convey the official must receive the payment in exchange for promising to perform some specific official act that takes out the conduct provision and then he says a gift or payment with a generalized hope of some unspecified benefit is not ride. That is the way its ingratiation access. We had good instruction. Word in agreement. What you have worried his ears he and then you had the over quid pro quo appendix 7669 which says the official masters he the item of value and performance of any official act. And then you have goodfaith instruction which judge king pointed out they labeled critical defense and that is appendix 7360 at the charge conference in the goodfaith instruction captures the notion a few receive the gifts without an agreement in good faith you are not guilty of the crime. So that point is substantially covered by the lack of agreement in good faith. Not provided them with ample basis to make the argument. Mr. Cook who links to me like the instruction given is correct as far as it goes. But it talks about being that could be crime and it doesnt say anything that is not a crime. That is the just of what the appellants argument is here. Maybe you can address that for me. First of all do think it is fair cared position. It doesnt say all these crimes but that they can be crimes. Bright. Theres several points i would make in response to that. The court begins by saying that the term official action means any decision or action on in the question matter. So it has limited the ultimate standard for an official act. You have to meet that. As the court was pointing out, they begin their closing by emphasizing those very restrictions. It seems to me if the court repeated the sentence or every other sentence that wouldve me be charged more even. You think that one mention of that. You have several points. Maybe tell me about your other points. The other point is to have considerable discretion in choosing the specific wording for the District Court and you have cases like patterson for the court has set although more specific instruction might have been desirable, the court did not abuse its discretion in choosing the particular wording. Is also the principal to let counsel or do factually in terms of the Legal Standard rather than having the judge may counsels argument for them. And there is the broader point to that win what happens is you have offered to the judge a large collection of instruction the judge concludes are wrong. Then you have a long conference for a budget of proposals are submitted to the judge specifically either have their own flaws again or things substantially covered. But some point the judge is it responsible for coming up with good proposals. That makes sense. Ultimately it does not, does not come up with a good proposals because the Defense Authority does not based on the law. They come up with her puzzles that were erroneous or didnt train on the point they are now suggesting. Here is another way to put the point. They have proposed and continue to propose a series of restrictions on official action that are just wrong. They keep going back to Something Like a formal executive process, voting on bills granting contracts. Youve got to have some policysetting authority at stake. That excludes a host of a lowerlevel employees and government doing with a case about prison officials are Prison Guards is a good example of that. They have arguments about things the government provides which is jefferson the court said look a benefit that a Foreign Government in nigeria for example, is going to count. Here in contrast we have a steady can you give me the site to read the goodfaith instruction is located . Join appendix 7692. I was actually given . Yes. The point where they sent their critical defense they also have said categorically that meetings and events are never official acts and that is not true. Theyve also suggested you have to accomplish the goal of the bribe payment and that is definitely not true under athens and brewster who is said to quit proquote what you have is them operate in a lot of instructions that are wrong in the judge saying i am not go in there and ultimately won a District Court is exercising discretion in choosing the instruction it doesnt have to come up with the more reasonable at intermediate steps never offered. That is what i was trying to talk about the charge which i dont remember hearing much about. There are lots of papers so maybe it was there somewhere. Whether they came back as their fallback position was sent to. When you are sort of taking off these things, you would but do not the proposed instruction number 58 and not relying principally on what they argue now on appeal as the charge conference you know theyve now directed your attention to 7340 and for that he discovered by that concept was available. Authority covered. Yeah its available to them. Qaeda prosecutor long time ago. We used to require the objections to be made after the instructions were given to the jury are required to the deliberations. That would boil it down. Then heres specific objections to the instructions as given. Then after i was overweight, he he or she would tell the jury to bring them back in to get the more instructions. We always thought it required that. You lot didnt do anything about that. You just set them out to deliberate. Nobody ever raise that kind of question in this district . Your honors exactly right. Rule 32 d. Requires that to observe the points because then they boiled it down. You are at the end of the line. What do you want now. The rule your honor has a lot of sense in so far as what it does business as after the judge has read the instructions to the jury, that is the point you have to register at the action. That is what the rule says. If you dont reserve it it specifically says if you dont do it that way and you raise on appeal the rules are there. Did they raise that . After the corporate the instruction there is no objection. E. G. Make the objection . Nobody said a word. In fairness, this is the point did we have a better record on appeal if things were done that way . Whether its preserved or not. I thought that before the judge or after the judge deliberated i thought the defense counsel did they sound thing at some point they say we have objections. That was before the instructions were given. The judge says ive been over this several times. He told them your objections are preserved. But then he instructed them that we dont know whether he instructed them word for word. We assume he did. That is why we listen very closely. You remember when the colleague was arguing he was talking about judge bo died. Sure. In that case one of the key points from that case is that you did not have the 201 definition provided to the jury. You had something that was really broad for official action was under the cloak of office which does not have the limitations here. So the case in which he just had straight forward instructional air because he didnt capture the requirements of official action. I thought the pc right to us aloud the court said Something Like reading just the statutory definition is not enough. I dont believe that. I may be mistaken. It did not use a definition that fits the statutory language. I would say the other thing not everything is something that we agree with. Part of the problem is not only did you have an instruction that didnt track the definition but the Court Analysis didnt take tethered to the language either, which in this courts opinion and jefferson was tied directly to the statutory definition and not go and that is why jeffrey is a much more hopeful case to the court. Thats exactly right. You say that this case is stronger than jefferson. Because it involves an executive rather than a legislator . Thats right. So the respects in which i think jefferson is a stronger case. Admittedly the conducts their involve a lot more money and jefferson ended up with a longer sentence. There are important ways more equated and more crow. How is this a stronger case . What was promised there in this case what you have is ultimately what Johnny Williams wanted with statefunded Research Studies and coverage in the state employee medical plan. That is more squarely within the realm of what governments do then the various trade and the various Business Ventures in africa that were taken the jefferson case. In that respect you have something much more cores to what the u. S. Government is doing. Secondly, you have the influence being exerted here in the official act being taken on are all directed at the chief executive employee. Jefferson was essentially lobbying the foreign Government Officials over who he had pretty limited powers. They want the United States government to be friendly to them. But its a different matter when you have someone like the doctors at the state universities getting the governor of the state saying that this is a good thing. That is a more dramatic when the highest Government Official. Before you finish, i want to ask you one question about the good will instruction offered that was taken out of dennys. Did the government objected that. It is the correct statement of the law. Im trying to think in the context their proposal on 7340 still has a specific official action requirements, which read out in our view the course of conduct scenario. Jennings that both were true. You could have an agreement for an official specific act with this course of conduct theory which is what we have here. Included in that the government found it objectionable. There may have been some followup backandforth that perhaps well hear about. What they had been offering was just the goodwill gift. I dont know that we wouldve object to it. What they offer is the proposal that got rid of the course of conduct theory repeatedly upheld by the court and jefferson and jennings both. They certainly argued gifts. No doubt about that. Right. But at some point we dont have to offer proposed instruction for them. They made multiple tries with errors in them. Has to offer legally correct. Factly. Decays strikes me as one where this is not an earth shattering observation, but theres not even really much argument about that. Some have proposed we can sort of look at these and we have a very strong case that we dont need as much. Well, i would say about that, the nature in the sense that when you see somebody getting 177,000 worth of payments in cash and that is informative about peoples motivations and what they are doing. You still need to meet you dont have to have the official act, but there has to be an agreedupon official act. Five official acts . Sure. Weve got five actions. It would have been a difficult case. That would suffice. Whether the government would have persuaded the jury that there really was an agreement here and corrupt intent, you know, not sure whether we wouldve secured a conviction. Though when you have a two year pattern of conduct and the timing of it in this case is just devastating for the defendant. Youve got him going on the vacation at Smith Mountain lake Vacation Home if he drives a ferrari home. He lies about his saying there was no racial use and of course there was. 90 minutes after getting home, he an email to bill hazel was guided and Johnny Williams has a lot of junk and refers to them as they take tax man. Send a deputy in the morning to meet at the mansion with the studies have an auto block. Bill hazel despite his views the next morning says right away will do in the official goes. Again, when you go to the winter when the defendant is trying to negotiate a new lung, please send the email i to williams asking for the additional money and where he says to you a minute call your lawyers in the documents, that was a reference to the earlier phone call about getting an additional loan. Next minute later he wrote to ike saying please see me about the issue that uva and vcu when several weeks earlier the first lady had written to the governor said he about the clinical studies that uva and vcu said here is the beaufort johnny. Ps called and no one will return his calls. And then, the first lady follows up and says the time is expired. You can finish your sentence. The point is the time he showed agreement robustly in this case. Thank you very much. Appreciate your argument. Thank you, your honor. Just a few brief points. First it technically accurate instruction can be misleading by omission. That is precisely what the First Circuit held a knife point the court to page 295 of the decision for the cloak of office is not inherently a novel or objectional of the official act. It permitted the jury to readily consider as criminal conduct both that it describes the comdex not potentially is. The day they are site the statute explain the statute to the jury. The First Circuit decision was turning on whether it be with the official act. But the court held was because the instruction could encompass lawful action, in theory if you instruct the jury the official action potential includes everything under the sun. When in fact does not potentially include everything under the sun. So this is a fuzzy area. An area where there is some official action. Some might exclude nonofficial action and some gray. The District Court only instruct it on the act. At the goodfaith instruction. Theres no criminal intent and there is no crime. If he does it in good faith, theres no crime. On the character witnesses to testify to his good character that he was honest and could be believed. A lot of leeway on that. Character evidence alone is enough to prove he acted in good faith. In good faith truly does open up we have nothing left. Its good faith is what saves us come you truly have prosecutors from my sins. Give us your defense during the jury charge conference. That is what id like to turn to next. The instructions we propose were plainly correct in the jury conference in the proposed instructions. I would like to address the claim they were wrong. The government said they would be categorically excluded. That is unambiguously false. Page 753 of the 53 of the joint appendix of their proposed instruction. Nearly ranging the meeting, attending an event, hosting a reception by making a speech by not standing about official acts are subtle practices of the official. The decision on who to invite, whether to attend is not an official act because your appreciation is not corruption. We are not seen anything about meetings categorically excluded. If you turn to the instructions on page 7340 and 7341. That is word for word out of this courts opinion and jennings. They claim somehow is misleading because it doesnt conclude. And judge spencer said now. Presumably because as jennings made clear there is no difference between a specific type of official act. Jennings uses the terms interchangeably because the specific course of interaction is more than one instance of a specific type of official action. The instruction we requested there is word for word out of jennings the one from page 7340 to 7341 and includes the goodwill instruction. Likewise, the net instruction we propose some 7341 providing your credibility or reputational benefit to another is not an official act. The questions he must decide our whether the charged conduct constitutes a prior date and whether the comdex was intended to or did in fact influence a specific official decision the government actually makes. The government doesnt actually have to give you anything. No, but it has to influence a decision straight out of the d. C. Circuit. The paragraph is out of jennings but the second paragraph is something altogether. First one and then the other. Finally going to pretrial publicity. If you look at the transcript it is Crystal Clear we specifically said we want to deal with the question manager route that was exposed to publicity. The court said no. That is why the portion of the transcript issue by issue a section of the hearing where we were talking about pretrial publicity. That is where he repeatedly said we couldnt question anybody simply because of their exposure and conducted to stand up sit down proceedings in august to call forward witnesses to raise issues other than their exposure to publicity. We were not allowed to question because they were exposed to publicity. I think you were the assistant of the United States that case. They asked the jury have you formed an opinion based on exposure to pretrial publicity . We were denied the basic question. To this day we have no idea whether the 12 jurors stepped into the box having formed an opinion against the governor based on their exposure. A longstanding Public Servant committed no crimes. We respectfully request the conviction be deferred if we appreciate the argument and the very good papers on the case. We would like to come down and then well take a short recess. But we take a recess, anyone who doesnt want to hear our second, third and fourth cases may leave. About what to expect in the next couple weeks, on the republican side of those interested in running for president. Guest well well see a lot more people get into the president ial race. Starting in june you will see a whole crowd of people jumped in. This week we look at the democratic standards of vermont into their rate and we will see on the republican side Rick Santorum. This number of cores will be a competition to get some momentum. Also as well, George Pataki showing interest as new york governor. Hes been off the stage for quite some time. But i was with him in New Hampshire couple weeks ago and hes making a dogged effort. He doesnt have much momentum. People have forgotten a lot of the Younger Voters in the republican party. He believes multiple terms in new york. Also a record of experience with a difficult path for him because he doesnt have the money he needs to compete. Postcode you talked about the debate after. Its sort of the wall street journal takes a look at how some television station or Networks Plan on who to invite. Give us a sense of what the strategy will be. It also depends on polling if im correct. Guest it will. It will be fascinating to watch how this unfolds good the Republican National committee has tried it has more control over the process at this time. Dictating who can be at the debate. Instead it is the networks making these decisions. They are going to have 10 people on stage. 10 candidates. You will have to be declared and in the top 10 of pulling according to the last five national polls. Cnn hosts the ensuing debate. They will have two tiers. There is not really a process guest its going to be based on the networks own decisions and thats going to lead to unrest in the field and a lot of these candidates who were perhaps not going to make it will be very frustrated. Host the wall street george includes a compilation of polls about whos charting where, jeb bush, scot walker rand paul, Mike Huckabee on the top of that list. To the primary process does this envision a long primary process, and does the gop want that . Guest it sounds almost fanciful to say it, but because this field has more than a dozen contenders, this could actually go all the way to a convention. And this is something that Top Republican officials have relayed to me privately. Thats not seen as anything that could happen absolutely but it is definitely a possibility. Because the process has been elongated, theyre going to have all these debates, and then the primary itself will have a lot of contests together early next year. But because the superpacs and the way a lot of candidates can get an angel benefactor and survive for a long time in the way that Newt Gingrich did last time Rick Santorum did in 2012, you could see candidates even if theyre not winning primaries stay in the race. And the Media Coverage and the buzz that a strong debate performance provides that also is fuel. So this could go long, and it could be a very long contest. Host robert costa you mentioned Bernie Sanders. Tell us about what to expect in burlington, vermont, today. Guest this is someone whos a selfdescribed socialist, proudly so. He is a true progressive, someone who will be a competition and threat for hillary clinton. The former secretary of state is wildly popular in the democratic party, but she has some skeptics as well, those people who wanted elizabeth warren, the senator from massachusetts, to run. Theyre disappointed she isnt. Bernie sanders is the next best choice. And look for him in iowa to really try to connect with the grassroots progressives there the liberal voters who are antiwar antibig bank. And in New Hampshire, neighboring vermont, his home state, he could also be someone who could put up some significant support and numbers. But well have to see if he can be more than a fringe candidate in the polls and i think he will be because at this moment hes the only other real alternative to hillary clinton. Host and you called him a threat. You really think that . Guest a threat . Not perhaps in terms of winning iowa and New Hampshire at this point but think back to 2004 howard dean, with his message and momentum and just a little bit of money and a lot of young people supported him, he was able to really become a threat to kerry. I think Bernie Sanders because iowa has been a state that in the past has gone to far left candidates if he can get 3540 in iowa and then go into New Hampshire near his home state, he could provide a problem for clinton. Not exactly for the nomination, but he could easily pull her to the left and maybe even become a threat eventually. Well have to see. Host robert costa who reports on these things for the washington post. Mr. Costa, thanks for your time morning. Guest thank you. And congress in recess this week. While they are, cspan2 is in booktv in prime Time Starting at 8 p. M. Eastern. Tonights focus economics with the author of hall of mirrors the great depression, the Great Recession and the uses and misuses of history. At 9 10 the author of house of debt, and at 9 30, henry paulson. At 10 10 the author of we are better than this how government should spend our money, and prime time tonight on cspan, freedom of speech and a discussion hosted by the National Constitution center with unc Professor William marshall on the impact of the Campaign Finance system on free speech. Heres a look. One of questions about freedom of speech is is it a value in and of itself, or is it there because its designed to promote democratic Decision Making . And depending on how you view on that you might come out to different kinds of results on some of these Campaign Finance cases was theres something because theres something the matter with a system where the first thing you ask about a candidate is how much money can she raise. And a system in which somebody has to sit in a room 20 hours a day dialing for dollars in order to be competitive. Or a system in which poor people do not really have any access to the decisions that are being made. Thats troublesome. Its troublesome, also, for government to do any regulation. Ive got to agree with that. So you have a deep, a deep conflict going on there. But its not an easy result on either side. And the first thing i tell my First Amendment students is if you think this is an easy decision on east side, rethink it on either side, rethink it. Just part of the discussion on freedom of speech. You can watch it tonight at 8 00 eastern over on our companion network, cspan. This summer booktv will cover book festivals from around the country and top nonfiction authors and books. This weekend were live at bookexpo be america in new york city where the Publishing Industry showcases their upcoming weeks. In the upcoming books. In the beginning of june, watch for the annual roosevelt reading festival from the franklin d. Roosevelt president ial library. In the middle of july the nations flagship africanamerican literary event and at the beginning of september were live from the Nations Capital for the National Book festival celebrating its 15th year. And thats a few of the events this summer on cspan2s booktv. Three months after the shootings at Charlie Hebdo magazine in paris, a panel of american editorial cartoonists talked about role of political satire in journalism at long island university. They spoke for about an hour and 20 minutes. Let me quickly introduce our panelists. Tomorrow gary trudeau will receive the george polk career award. His doonesbury comic strip has attained the status of a Great American institution. For 45 years he has spared no public figure or illconceived policy in a you seek sat unique satiric approach. He stands alongside to such legendary cartoonists as walt kerry, paula conrad and our next panelist, jules pfeiffer, at the end. Jules feiffer brilliantly probing [inaudible] appeared in the be Village Voice for 42 years. In ordered 35 books authored 35 books, hes written novels, plays and an acclaimed autobiography. He received the george polk award way back in 1961. He said to me just the other the other minute that this was the first major award he received. It took our colleagues up at Columbia University another 25 years [laughter] to see the light and recognize him with a pulitzer prize. [laughter] [applause] political artwork and writing cut across multiple platforms. Her work can be found in the new york times, paris review and the Permanent Collection of the museum of modern art. She has drawn in Guantanamo Bay abu dhabi migrant camps and rebels in syria. The guardian has characterized her as equal parts william s. Burrow and cirque de soleil. I would add lenny bruce to the mix. [laughter] django gold, the Senior Writer for the onion, unfortunately will not be with us. He got stuck in chicago where theres bad weather and problems with planes flying out. Our moderator is Ron Rosenbaum the distinguished journalist and author. All i will say about him is that it is said that he wrote an article in 1971 that interested a man named steve jobs in computers. [laughter] i want to ask everybody to, please if you havent already, turn off your cell phones. There will be a q and car accident late aero q a hater on. Thank you. [applause] thank you, ralph. Thank you all for being here. Im honored myself to be among these artists since im a person who has trouble drawing stick figures. But at least we have is some of the best and brightest at what is really a crucial moment in the history of free speech. I mean once there were censors once there were state laws who would jail dissident cartoonists and graphic artists. Now we have murderers. Were meeting just three months after 12 people were murdered in paris and i read yesterday that there are police still in paris newsrooms. And so it makes it even more an honor to be with these people, because theyre brave, theyre talented, and theyre facing a different kind of world, i think. So the first thing i want to say is respect to all of them. George packer and the new yorker recently said the problem with free speech is that its hard. Selfcensorship, hitting the mute button is easy. And you not only have to be brave, but you have to be smart and you have to be funny and that aint easy. So id like to start with the polk honoree gary trudeau, who i had the honor of being at yale with when he started writing his cartoons. And i hes done something in response to Charlie Hebdo that is i think, a brilliant slight of hand, pull the rug out from under these people job. And, gary, could you walk us through what youve done . Sure. Are we going to be seeing it back here . Yeah, there we go. I suspect you can all read that clearly enough. Ill the problem that i thought this presented for all of us as american cartoonists, at least in talking with my colleagues, was that we were so ambivalent professionally. And dont really relate to the satiric culture of the french. And we dont really have a Charlie Hebdo in this country. And, you know jules is more of the world of edgy cartooning, just being in alternative newspapers his whole life. I had my career was in family newspapers, so i have a different set of constraints and a different set of imperatives. And in talking with my colleagues, we agreed on a number of things. One, obviously, we are all horrified by these murders, more so because they were part of our small global family of political cartoonists. But secondly we couldnt identify with what they had done. And ill get to that in a moment but let me read the cartoon first because this expressed finally, it took me weeks to figure out how to do this. We got okay. So up at the top mike is saying what a motley crew. Folks, the murdered french cartoonists may have slipped from the headlines but their imperishable creations head on. Live on. Not to mention [inaudible] and then in the last panel you hear an off stage voice, mohamed here, may i join no, and put some clothes on. [laughter] not hilarious, but it was important for me to figure out how to honor the cartoonists without necessarily honoring the specifics of what they did. I would not have drawn mohamed. Now, thats not to say that i stay away from the issue. For years ive written about islamic terrorists. And all the way back to the satanic verses which earned me a bodyguard for a while. Its not that i think my, you know i hate to speak for a group so i shouldnt, but its not that american cartoonists, um dont love the edginess, the fight, the doing battle in the name of things that we think are important, its just that the american tradition as was the french trig at one time is always to punch down. I mean, punch up, not to punch down. And the big mistake we feel our colleagues in france made was that they created a very insidious situation in which they actually caused the mainstream muslim public in france to align itself with and to sympathize with their outliers, the terrorists. Theres enormous sympathy in france for them. And this is not a great accomplishment. This isnt something to be applauded. And this happened because, because their approach was one of provocation, not challenging and confrontation. Not to start a dialogue, but simply to provoke simply to hurt. Now, maybe jules feels differently speaking from the alternative world, but well, i never saw myself as part of the alternative world. [laughter] because there wasnt one when i began. I was just looking for an outlet in which i could express what liberals back in the 50s postmccarthy didnt know they had, which was First Amendment rights. So when people went around saying what they had to say on a specifically possibly dangerous level only in small rooms or small bars and over big drink cans when they felt brave drinks when they felt brave because it felt like a very dangerous time in this country. Because they might lose their jobs. And since i was unemployable and had nothing to lose, i could say whatever i damn pleased. And felt giddy and excited about doing that. There was the thing i felt about the cartoon then and i feel about the cartoon now is its not so much commenting on a particular political point at moment or something thats happening in the news its bringing along an audience that has been groomed to think in a certain way and teaching them by the method of humor and in my case panel by panel by panel how to think in a different way how to look at a different perspective how to consider another point of view. So it wasnt necessarily ability slamming somebody about slamming somebody over the head whether it was somebody i hated like nixon or someone else. It was making people think. It was all about because we, much of our lives then and even more of our lives now were being brainwashed. And to try to cut into that crap and point at an alternative view and to do it through humor which took away the defensiveness of people who didnt, who werent about to allow the point of view to be attacked without, you know, saying getting defensive about it. Well, if youre funny, they tend not to be defensive. Is so doing all these things and trying to turn it into, on specific issues week after week and learning as i went along. And so thats basically how i saw it. I didnt think it was about democrats or republicans or this guy or that guy. I thought it was about what this country was what it had become, what it should be and what i hoped it would be and what it certainly wasnt. And what it certainly isnt now. Molly, what was your reaction to the charlie cartoon . My god can, my god, i was on a personal level devastated. As gary said cartoonists are a small global family and although i didnt know any of the cartoonists personally, i did know people who knew them. After that i was angry at so many different people. I was angry obviously, at the murderers, i was angry at the prancing brain politicians from every single repressive country in the world every single country that spies on dissidents from the u. S. To saudi arabia were using the murders of cartoonists that would have torn them a new one on as a way to posture on their stillwarm bodies. I was angry at the crackdowns on the free speech in france after the cartoonists were murdered. There was actually a parody cartoon of one of Charlie Hebdos covers that a young muslim in france was arrested for posting on facebook. And i was angry at the americans who cant speak french who were commenting on these cartoons and making it seem like, you know, some regrettable choices by some men with very, very long careers were the totality of who they were as opposed to, you know one regrettable choice out of a lifetime of thousands of cartoons. Yeah, i mean, a lot of, a lot of rage, i would say, was my reaction. You know, theres a question i meant to ask of all three of you. Its come sort of before the whole charlie thing which is is there something and this is a question for each of you that made you an oppositional kind of person growing up where you could see through the pieties and it made you angry and it made you funny . [laughter] well, jules knows, i like to blame him. [laughter] his work was very influential in my finding a career path. I cant blame him entirely because service kind of accidental. I was doing the strip in college for as a kind of sports strip. And i was scouted in the first five or six weeks i was doing it and offered my current job. Its a story my kids hate. [laughter] on every level. I had not put in the 10,000 hours, id put in maybe 30. [laughter] and was given this opportunity. And so i had to put in the 10,000. I ended up putting in the 10,000 but it was yeah, yeah. Kind of after the fact. [laughter] and i was making all my mistakes in full public view. But jules was very influential for a number of us. His was the first strip at least that i was aware of, where the main point of the strip was about idea, was about a subject, a serious subject. And i always imagined and, jules, you may have a different explanation for it but there wasnt much change in the artwork from image to image in your early cartoons in the 50s. And i always thought oh, thats just to get my attention and Pay Attention to the words and to whats being said. And that i thought, that maybe came from your love of the theater as well and, you know, that you love dialogue. But i really took all that to heart and, of course i was of the counterculture. I was in college at a time when people were pushing against every institution. And so when i graduated from college i thought it was perfectly normal that i would take those interests and those concerns politics, rock and roll sex, drugs, all the things that had bubbled up to the surface in my life during those four years and take them into the comics page. Well most editors were unfamiliar with those subjects being on their comics page. So there was a lot of crossing of red lines early. Thats why i find it so difficult to be talking about a red line now with Charlie Hebdo because, you know i i was i had that debate over and over again weed to haves. At one point, this is just how clueless and young i was, i got so tired of getting thrown out of newspapers, i sent a questionnaire to editors, i dont know if i ever told you this jules. And i said which of following subjectings should i not address, and then i put a list of things a is for abortion [laughter] and just a whole long list. And sent it off to, like, a dozen leading editors. And amazingly, almost all of them took the bait, and they checked the boxes. [laughter] this is forbidden, this is not. [laughter] and finally, i heard from a wiser head, and he said this is just bullshit. It has nothing to do with the subject. Its how you treat out. Its how seriously you take are you serious as a satirist. And if that if you can convey that, if you can convey that seriousness of purpose that youre trying to move people to thought and to judgment, theres nothing you cant write about. And i think, you know oneover proudest moments one of the proudest moments of my career was two or three years ago when i wrote about the texas sonogram law and transvaginal probes language thats not usually in the comics [laughter] and i was kicked out of about 70 papers. But all temporarily. All those papers, id built up enough sort of credibility as a serious commentator that they said okay, this one isnt quite right for our community for any number of reasons, but and, you know, that doesnt mean you have to go away it just means we cant hear your voice week. Well, im not entitled to have my voice heard in hundreds of communities every year. Thats a privilege. And lots of times i get that, but sometimes i dont. And that its called editing, its not called censorship. Identify always defended the editors ive always defended the editors that have thrown me out of their newspapers because thats their job. They make dozens of decisions every day as to what belongs and what doesnt. How about you and i think being dropped from a paper is a form of quality control. You know youre still being effective. [laughter] if they run everything you do, you must be doing something wrong. [laughter] it shows that youre still dangerous a little bit . Yes. Or that you have touched a sore point for that particular community. You know . Not all my, you know smoking mr. Butt strips made it into North Carolina papers. Laugh when i wrote about frank sinatra, i went dark in las vegas. [laughter] jerry brown same thing in california. So there are going to be regional, you know, the most recently i did something about jeb bush and the dallas paper threw it out because it was too political. Too political . The mans running for president. [laughter] so i think, i think one of interesting things were seeing right now, though, is the death of that sort of context, the death of seeing anything targeted for any particular community. Because once things move away from print and move towards online r everything gets decontextualized. That was a lot of what happened with Charlie Hebdo. These little, tiny, knockoff 1 of the paper i think pretty awful very often cartoons were made to stand in for an american audience that wasnt familiar with the entire paper. No one anymore is seen as the whole body of their work. Everyone is speaking to everyone and its very strange and its doing something very disconcerting to art, i think. Yeah. Except the charlie artists did highlight specific things they did. Theyd said we are doing this for a very particular reason. Yes. And i think just because you can Say Something doesnt necessarily mean you oh, i agree with you. Must. Rights do come with responsibilities. No. In absolute agreement w. I think theres a huge difference between what you should be legally permitted to say and what it makes you a horrible human if you say. I think tabloids that exist to shame women for how they look in bikinis are the work of disgusting humans who should be mocked whenever they go outside. [laughter] and i dont think these two things are contradictory at all. Yeah. Jules, you had some fairly strong words to say about the state of american cartooning, particularly newspaper cartooning in recent years. Well, gary, you may know the figures better than i, but i think were down to Something Like under 200 editorial cartoonists. Does that sound right to you . More like 45. More like 45 . Yeah. When i started it 200 editorial cartoonists who made their living from a home paper. Yeah. Where they got salaries and benefits. Benefits . [laughter] well, Health Insurance whatever. Fantasy world. If youre, if youre trying to cut a budget of a newspaper a full salary versus paying 5 for syndicated work and i would venture out of those 45 across this vast nation maybe five of them are worth looking at, you know . Its always been a small minority. I mean, not everybody was as brilliant as paul conrad or herb locke or [inaudible] down in louisville or a few of the others. Bill mauldin who was extraordinary and won and in the early 60s was doing such strong cartoons, unlike most of the cartoonists in our midst, on race and civil rights that his editor on paper i dont know whether it was the post dispatch or sun times at the time told him to go to work for the daily worker because he was, he was actually talking real stuff about civil rights that was going on. And this was unheard of at the time. You know you included in one of the things what i thought was a brilliant take on liberal hypocrisy over civil rights. Can we see that one now jules . Oh yeah. You want to its a i guess this is the early 60s. Black man with shades [laughter] he says, i dug jazz. And whitey picked up on it. I dug hip, and whitey picked up on it. I dug rock and whitey picked up on it. I dug freedom, finally lost whitey. [laughter] so what i loved among our american racists is that every part of black culture that is available, they will pick up. But not blacks. They will pick up the music, theyll pick up style, theyll wear their hats backwards, they will act cool, they will get a certain sway to their hips, but actually acknowledge that there are other races not just blacks but other races that are worth tolerating, thats a nono. So you can plunder, and thats what whites have always done. You can plunder other cultures in this case black culture but you cant let em into the club. Thats a nono. And did you get backlash from liberals who didnt like to see their hypocrisy exposed . Oh, i dont the answer to that question is i dont know. I didnt get that much feedback. You get a lot of feedback. I didnt get the voice readers didnt basically, didnt communicate with me except on very weird issues which had nothing to do with anything. [laughter] i didnt get much feedback. Which was both disappointing to to me, but also, you know, allowed me to to just Pay Attention to what i wanted to do. I got wonderful attention from figures in the black community and that made me feel good. And when i did a collection of cartoons on civil rights, it was bye yard rustin who wrote the introduction to it, which i found a great honor. This was the man who not only organized the march on washington but on a personal level taught me everything that i knew about race. When i was out of the army and looking to meet girls at leftwing places [laughter] i went to a pacifist group called the fellowship of reconciliation where then an unknown speaker named Bayard Rustin was speaking on civil rights and i thought what can he tell me . I know everything about civil rights. You know, lynching is bad. And then he started talking in a way that changed my entire life and the way i looked at things and the way i worked. He said that the most important issue in america is not the cold war and the fight with the soviet union is its that we never resolved the issues of the civil war. We are still fighting the civil war. And this is not about how white liberals should give blacks a break. This effects the fate of the negro, as he called them then. Its about all of us and what he had to say then is familiar now because its become accepted rhetoric. But it was radical and revolutionary and blew my mind apart. And i got to know him and learned from him and it really, really affected not just the cartoons on race that i did but on everything. We tried to figure out what are they telling us and what is really going on, and how do i how do i broach this in the way that it communicates to a reader . Something i was thinking about this morning when i was watching the video of that black man, scott, who was shot eight times while running away. Are there some things that are just too awful to caricature, to capture in visual terms or just, i dont know break out of the frame . Well, as awful as that was lets wait for the trial and see whether hes found not guilty. Very which is the american way. The shocking thing is just that theyre even putting him on trial in the first place. Thats only because of the bravery of that guy who filmed it. And the story of that guy this young man, this barber from the dominican republic, was at first he thought of erasing this. His first thought in the free country of america, erasing it because he might get into trouble. And then he took it to police headquarters, and the way they treated him, he said is, feet do your stuff. He got out of there knowing that if he turned the tape over to them, first of all hed never get his phone back [laughter] and that tape would never be seen again. How about you, gary . Are there some subjects not necessarily this one no. Ill give you an extreme example of that, and im sorry jan gos not here djangos not here because its his organization. When 9 11 happened, pretty much there was a moratorium on humor. In fact essays were written on is irony dead. Right. And the late night shows went dark and all of us, you know were so stunned and didnt know how to respond in a way that would be socially useful. The onion did an interesting thing. They said, you know, comedy is not opposite of serious comedy is the opposite of despair. And so how do we direct a response that confronts that despair. So is their headlines two days later were i wrote em down just because life becomes a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. What . One of them, i think, was life becomes a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. I dont remember that one. It was god clarifies, dont kill rule. [laughter] hijackers surprised to find severals in hell. Selves in hell. They got thousands of letters from people all positive, who doesnt who werent shocked that a response to horror would be humor, because humor thats the salvation. The reason humor exists is precisely because life is such a bitch. [laughter] so this was a wonderful response, and there were thousands of letters that poured into the onion, you know . And then dave letterman, everybody else kind of figured it out a couple weeks later, and they all came back on air and realized oh, yeah, weve got a job to do. Were actually part of the healing. You see the same thing throughout syria and lebanon right now where these activists are having their lives threatened by isis, and instead of giving in to despair, they have reacted with vicious mockery vicious, hilarious mockery. Theres a syrianproduced web series of, like, actors making up like albaghdadi and making fun of them, theres a rock band in but beirut saying they want to put bras on cows. [laughter] thats really been turn today to great effect towards isis right now. And do the thing is authoritarian bastards throughout the world of every stripe, religious or, you know, secular, just authoritarians of every kind, they hate humor. They hate cartooning. It gets under their skin. Theres just something viscerally irreverent about it. This kills them. When hitler, um, when hitler was in power one of the things he made a specific list of was cartoonists in england who had drawn mean pictures of him. He specifically wanted to find these people and kill them because they had hurt his feelings just that much. When i i had an interesting incident in terms of someone i had angered. I went down to began can mow bay in the summer of 2013 we just show mollys guantanamo oh there we go. Great. When i was many guantanamo, i was forbidden from drawing the faces of anyone who worked there which is why i drew these. I think if youre going to be censored, you draw the censorship. But when i went to guantanamo, i made a lot of fun of the press tour the way that, you know, they sort of tried to ingratiate themselves with journalists. I pointed out sort of the absurdities of the place and, man the military was so angry at me. One press officer could up my editor at vice and said that i quote made him look like a tool. [laughter] its interesting, do you think theres something about the visual that is more or, as you say gets under the skin or even the best verbal satirists, it the fact of caricature . Is it making them look ugly . Well, its the immediacy of it. Its immediate. You have to read a whole essays, but you just see it hits you right . And also theres no barriers to it theres no linguistic barriers. You dont have to speak fluent february. To know that french to know that picture at the beginning was a really mean caricature of someone. They laugh through time, space borders and languages, and they just go straight into your eyes, and thats why they have that visceral impact. Thomas nast who was our precursor in the 19th century most of his audience was illiterate. Thomas nast, people are great cartoonists in new york who made fun of tammany hall. Tammany hall corruption. Yeah. And, in fact, he, the major his nemesis fled new york, and he was captured in spain wasnt he . Yeah. [inaudible conversations] on nast cartoons. William tweed who said, you know in his rage against nast he said i dont care what they write about me, nobody who votes [inaudible] but them damn pictures. [laughter] and nast pictures were extraordinary. There were a number of Extraordinary People at that time. Kepler and some others. Do you think theres a, at all a fine line between caricature and sort of of offensiveness or oversimplifying or stereotype or is the best kind of visual representation one that somehow evades a stereotype . Well, again i think it requires a brain and an opinion. I mean not just Lyndon Johnson had a big nose, so ill do a big nose and ive got Lyndon Johnson. The best Lyndon Johnson was by david levine, the greatest caricaturist of the last half of the 20th century, most often in the new york review of bookings. Lbj had a famous gallbladder operation, and there was a photograph of him because he was a famous bulgarian absolutely garon, and in the picture hes holding up his shirt and showing his scar from his gallbladder n. The new york review, its a wonderful caricature of lbj the same picture but the scars of vietnam that hes proudly showing. And that seemed to sum up the vulgarity of the president , his personal possession of the vietnam war which is why we kept escalating. And, i mean, it seemed to be profound comment on so many things that were going on at the time and nobody and a cartoon got them all in one one shot. And brilliantly. Do you think there are any things that for any of you are beyond the limits that you wouldnt touch . Well, i mean, its always a personal question and i think that what you can do a good job touching very much depends on who you are. I mean i think that i would never draw muhammad myself, it would you would never what . I would never draw muhammad myself i certainly wouldnt have drawn him like the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo did. It would be stupid, itd be punching down, as gary said. If someone who was living in a Muslim Country did a picture of muhammad or if they even published the Charlie Hebdo cartoons like bloggers in bangladesh did one of whom was murdered recently, thats not punching down, thats challenging a power structure. Its fundamentally different to criticize the community from within and without. I mean, i think the producers would have been a fundamentally different thing if it was a bunch of germans, you know, doing it. But i mean, seriously imagine if the producers was an allblond german cast and crew and writing team. It would have been a different had a different feel to it. [laughter] so yeah, i think that what your personal limits are and should be very often they come from who you are and what sort of place you occupy in a power structure. Well, i agree with that. I dont think im not quite sure where your questions coming from. Theres certainly no subject that i, you know, stay away from. The subjects that i have not collided with on my drawing board are really a failure of imagination, not of nerve. Theyre just i cant think of anything thats either entertaining or insightful to say about the subject. Its not because i fear the repercussions of its interesting you mentioned your drawing board. I think people might be interested in just what the physical layout of how you produce these you sit at a drawing board, and do you do first draft cans and then revise . Drafts and then revise . No. I do the work the same way ive done it since i was in grad school, and i was doing the strip while i was a grad student. I just draw the pencil, and then i send it to an assistant who inks it in. If its a sunday, it goes to a third assistant who does the color work on it. So really first draft thats it. And its always in the nick of time. Theres no time for [laughter] you know, theres no time for revisions. You know, i think some artists are, need to have that kind of structure. I need to have once a week when i can say thats good enough do you have, like, a special room where you do it . Well, i do have a studio, yeah. But ive worked everywhere through the years. Its been we have portable skills. We can work anywhere. How soon after you write the script do you think you have to sit down and draw it . I mean do you leave any time . Is there any time to leave because of deadlines . No. No. I mean you just and for that reason i have to take the ideas as they come in order. So say theres a story arc that goes from a monday to a saturday. I may come up with thursday first, and then i have to reverse engineer it and figure out how i got there. So you create your own problems, but the desperation is such that if you have an idea, any idea youve got to use it. [laughter] so i mean im sure youre asked all the time what do you do when you dont get an idea, and the answer to that for most of us is thanks for not noticing. [laughter] how about to you, molly . For instance, this seems like a work of much time and effort. That took about, i want to say, 20 hours maybe. I start out with these rough schedules that are illegible to everyone in the world but myself. Then i take a big piece of paper i put it on the floor, i soak it with water drip dye into it the get that texture and then i start drawing. And i use old you quail nibs because they drip everywhere, the steel nib that is you put in i dont know but it sounds interesting. [laughter] like if youre looking at how they wrote in little house in the prairie and like that. So i ink theres little house on the prairie. Obviously. I think so. Sort of sepia tones. So i ink and i pencil simultaneously because i am too distractible to sit down and ink. Drawing for me is like picking scabs or something. [laughter] did you do this while you were at gitmo . No. I did this when i was at home. I kept a really detailed sketchbook while i was at guantanamo, including the basis of this. I actually developed those smiley faces because i was in the courtroom and they had an official court censor there who would sticker and look through my sketchbook and he was allowed to cut out anything he didnt like. Really . Yeah. And what sort of things didnt they like . One was faces of anyone who worked there. I see. Oops. Thats what i did instead. And it was interesting because the second time i came back i think that they realized how grim it looked to only have these blank masks for the faces, and so they found me the most attractive soldiers ive ever seen in my life [laughter] and they said i could draw their faces. The most attractive nurses involved in force feeding they presented to me. Oh, thats wonderful those arent exactly smiley faces. No, theyre well theyre smiley faces from the eyes up. Smiley faces through a nightmare. Thats my thing. And, jules, what did you start with pen and ink from the beginning . Tell us, like, what well, i started with pencil because that was what i was most comfortable with, and i would write first pencil or ball point pen, the dialogue, try to figure out the idea. And for me it was always the idea that had to come first. And after a while, i discovered what worked best is not knowing where i was going. Knowing what i was upset about or wanted to comment on, what i was pissed off about, but not how i i was going to do it. And did what classic improvisation and theater comedy does which they did at second city what mike and elaine did. You start with an opening line. And sometimes that remains the opening line and sometimes its not. But with the opening line, thats panel one. And then panel two follows, and it givens to write itself. It begins to write itself. And it begins to take you on this trip. And by the third panel, ive figured out where im going, and it takes it goes forward or it has to be thrown out and start over again. So its a constant trial and error. But theres a point in mind. And i kind of know what the point is. And when my case, in the kind of cartoon i did it often had to do with how use of language official and unofficial language. Its, you know the distrust for government and the contempt for government and hatred for government that we now find with the tea party and on the right really began on the american left. And it was that, the belief on american left that nothing they tell you is the truth, nothing government says is true was what i believed in part to be so. And there was enough evidence to back it up. I mean, there were at time that i was starting there were Nuclear Tests, underground Nuclear Tests and the government was always bringing out statistics to show there were no harmful effects of radiationing from the leaks that came from these Nuclear Tests as sheep and cat m were falling cattle were falling over out west. And john wayne eventually got cancer from working out there. So to duke so i did a cartoon called loom on which the government is announcing, as people fall over, that there are no harmful effects of radiation. To take the language we use to fool people, to lie to people to mislead people and to satirize the way out of hand to make it funny what was really going on in a way that would make people, i hoped, think about it and consider it. That was the game. Was that one about the ad man trying to come up with an ad to convince people that fallout is good for you. I fell for fallout. [laughter] that was one of them. Yes, that was one of them. Heres a question. I guess youre probably aware of this whole question of trigger warnings that has come up recently in discourse. Am i are people familiar with this in which survivors of trauma feel that they should be protected from being reminded of it because it would cause ptsd and therefore, a lot of traumatic things that happen to people from beatings to rape to whatever. Those who bring up that subject are responsible for warning people who may want to leave the room or Something Like that. Do you think that this is something thats going to eventually affect your work . I mean, as ive understood it from people who, you know, my friends who do work on trigger warnings, they view are it more like having an ingredients label on food so that you know whats in it, and if you have an allergy like if food contains peanuts, you know . For me, i personally think trigger warnings make a lot of sense in specific communities. Like if you were on a web forum of people who were recovering from anorexia, they might have a trigger warning if people mentioned their weight, you know . But ive always heard really amazing critiques of trigger warnings by people like roxanne gay who worry it will be used by College Student toss avoid engaging with material that makes them uncomfortable. I think its a very complicated issue. But the idea that in a College Class you might warn students if you were discussing race doesnt seem particularly onerous on anyone it doesnt seem particularly bad. There is this phrase that you call grownup [laughter] which assumes that after a period of years where you get kicked around and disappointed and this and that happens, you arrive at a condition within yourself where once you had to open a bottle and throw it to pour it down because somebody said something or did something, youre able to, oops shrug it off and say fuck it and go on. [applause] if we are so sensitive and so watchful as to not hurt people who are hurtable in so many ways, we get a generation, we get several generations that never grow up, and im looking at all of you. [laughter] and i think one of the things weve given up on is the notion of behaving like grownups. Our leaders dont and often in families we dont. And its something to aspire to, and the only way you do that is to take, you know, i used to get bitter and angry and pissed off and not speak to people now who will piss me off and we will have a wonderful conversation ten minutes later. You know that im no longer into grudges or getting mad for very long. It doesnt make any sense. And it doesnt win anything. And the only one who loses is yourself. Gary, i guess you were asking for trigger warnings or Something Like that when you sent, like, that list of boxes to check or Something Like that . Yeah. Whats whats your biggest, what are the biggest scary subjects for editors these days . Well, you know, i can only talk about my own experience because i dont know what theyre shutting down in other strips. Yeah. And i know thats that there is a double standard and that sort of this, you know, neither fish, nor fowl. Im not quite a conventional comic strip artist, so i know other strips are held to different standards. I cant really tell you what theyre being, you know, what kind of constraints theyre under. Im not, you know, i havent heard, you know, any amber light warnings from editors for years. Uhhuh. You shall not write on any particular is religion okay . Religions fine, you know . Reproductive issues are fine. Drugs are fine. Its theyve given up on you. Its how you deal with it. [laughter] yeah. Just threw up their hands. [laughter] i mean i think the only thing youre really not allowed to do in america for the sake of your career is youre not allowed to say american soldiers are bad. What . Ive actually done that a few times. [laughter] but not generically. Yeah, not generically. For specific reasons. And my, you know, very among my very first strips were depicting, you know, behavior of our armed forces in vietnam. Now, admittedly, it was told from a kind of hippie fantasia perspective why cant we all get along and, you know, the viet cong terrorist who befriends the american g. I. , and i had a, you know, a somewhat inauthentic view of what was going on over there. But ive, you know, thats been a very rich source of material more me, is trying to for me, is trying to understand the military issues. And obviously if i make blanket statements about troops, thats not going to help me in trying to deal with their issues. So ive written about ptsd and many of the other sorts of wounds that warriors come home with. And its not that i try not to antagonize them its just for me its always been the brass just because im a liberal yeah. Feel that theres no good reason for me to be welcome on military bases and such. But enough we got enough feedback from the field saying, no no, the guys writing about our issues that, you know, i think my breakthrough was in is 1990 when i got a letter letter from the thenchief of staff of the army just before desert storm saying were getting a lot of good strong response from the soldiers who seem to feel youre connect to their issues, which i was because id been getting a lot of letters from them. So i was invited over, and i was brought over by a tank commander. At first i couldnt get out of the country because to get in theater in those days you had to go through saudi arabia, and you needed a visa. And i had the misfortune of just, of timing of spending a week writing about how the saudis were sitting out the war. [laughter] and all their i dont think men were in young men were in country clubs while we had 500 1,000 troops in the desert. So i couldnt get a visa. [laughter] this went on for a week. There were 2,000 journalists down range, and i couldnt get a visa. So i get this call from a guy named dill nash who was the commander of a tank command and he said i hear youre having trouble getting here. I said, yeah, kind da. Come here anyway. So i arrived in riyadh at two in the morning and i got closer and closer to the immigration desk and i thought this is not going to go well [laughter] and at the last minute, a side door opened and a couple of g. I. S came, picked me up took me out the side door, stuck me many a helicopter oh. And that told me, you know, when 9 11 happened, the given reason everyones sort of forgotten this, but what bin ladens stated reason was the military presence in saudi arabia. Theres no question they owned the country at that particular moment. Everything they could do whatever they wanted. And they acted like it. And, but i was flown to this base, and i was met at the helo pad by colonel nash and he said, you know, i was reading you when i was in vietnam when i was a lieutenant, and i was trying to keep them alive in a hateful war and i always kind of was curious about you