Multilateralism we get nervous when we have a u.s. President talking about America 1st NATO still faces many divisions including over its relationship with Russia and how to address terrorism Frank Langfitt n.p.r. News London Ukraine meanwhile is still lobbying for entry to NATO However hangry says it will block Ukraine's membership until Kiev reinstates the rights of $150000.00 ethnic. Who are banned from speaking in their native tongue including education the NATO summit was wrapping up today in Britain upwards of 700000 Americans are at risk of losing their food stamps the troubled ministration has finalized a rule that will require states including those with unemployment rates higher than the national average to meet stricter criteria for enabling certain work eligible adults to continue to participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program the administration says the rule change will save the country 5 and a half $1000000000.00 over 5 years roughly $36000000.00 Americans rely on food stamps the Dow closed up $147.00 points this is n.p.r. News. Support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include Amazon Studios with Honey Boy written by and starring Shiela both the autobiographical Honeyboy traces shires early childhood as a young actor and his stormy relationship with his father now playing in theaters. It's the show that. Places. You. In this. Place. Just outside of l.a.p.d. Headquarters nearly 50 black lives matter activists shouted the name of a 30 year old man killed by 2 police officers last year. Mack was running with a kitchen knife through the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw mall police responded to reports of a man and a mental health crisis the civilian run police commission found the officers violated policy when they shot him while he was on the ground black lives matter activists want the police officers fired what we want to talk about today is what happened with. Really as emblematic of what happens to black people. Here in. The black wives matter regularly appears at the weekly police commission meetings and they often protest outside but on this day it's different today they have a high profile supporter I'm here to join the family of. Black lives matter Los Angeles and to be honest I'm sure many many many people here in the Los Angeles community. To be terminated for their violation of l.a.p.d. Policy. In this case. That's former Secretary of Housing and Urban develop. And not coincidentally presidential candidate on Castro Democratic presidential candidates have been all over l.a. This year stumping for many votes on Super Tuesday in California they've eaten talk Ohs and appeared at Hollywood fundraisers they've talked to entrepreneur isn't striking workers the Castros the only one who showed up at a black lives matter event case here W.'s Jerome Campbell spoke to Castro about why he's staking his single digit support to come out strong on police violence and talk to activists about whether Castro's appearance actually helps their cause Julio Castro probably won't be president his support has dropped so low he didn't qualify to be on stage at the last Democratic debate but black lives matter co-founder Dr Molina glad he showed up anyway so we appreciate you for being here and a genuine and authentic way and we pray that your presence here is a challenge to everybody else to use this moment to say that we have to do the work of justice regardless of the outcome of election. Black lives matter does not endorse any candidate says she believes the federal government has a role to play in securing justice for communities facing police brutality we need the federal government to intervene and these really corrupt systems an interlocking system so policing the district attorney's office but also the entire city and county is kind of in cahoots and it leads to the deaths of our people Castro agrees during the October presidential debate he used a question about homicides committed with handguns to address the police shooting of Tatyana Jefferson who was killed in our home in Texas you all saw a couple days ago what happened to John a Jefferson in Fort Worth a cops showed up at 2 in the morning that her house was she was playing video games with her near her nephew she didn't even announce himself and within 4 seconds he shot her. And killed her through her own window she was in her own home and so I am not going to give these police officers another reason to go door to door in certain communities because police violence is also gun violence and he. She called the names that Tatiana Jefferson he called the name like Juan McDonald He called the name Mike Brown from the debate stage we haven't heard any other candidate do that and so I think it's not just a matter of him kind of trying to win some additional support I think that this is something that we seen in the campaign from the beginning although many of us weren't paying attention Castro pointed out the role of the federal government to nods of agreement from the crowd I also believe that across this country local communities need a strong partner in Washington d.c. That will help ensure that we do what we can to end this kind of tragic death and violence. It goes beyond focusing on the police so it's important that when we think about holding police accountable that the emphasis is on accountability not additional investment in police right we need mental health resources we use the workers we need afterschool programs we need housing we don't need more police and Abdula says she's open to having this conversation with other candidates besides Castro he's not the only one to respond Bernie Sanders did also respond his team met with the family with a mother of Christopher Deandre Mitchell But Senator Sanders has not been out yet Sanders has a visit to Los Angeles planned for next week and Abdula says she hopes he will appear with her group soon for k.c. R.w. I'm drunk Campbell. Well coming up a gay show gone big calls it quits and what began as a tiny You Tube show made its way all the way to Netflix You're listening to greater l.a. R.w. . Support comes from station Arts Center a world renowned Creative Arts Complex in Santa Monica with more than 20 fine art galleries presenting exhibitions of local and international artists hosting community and cultural happenings and educational and nonprofit event more information. Dot com. You're back with greater l.a. And k c r w m speech here take us the l g b t Q series East Siders just released its 4th and final season on Netflix it's a series that follows the complicated and layered lives of friends living in Silver Lake centered on a Relationship Challenge gay couple who sometimes bounce from bed to bed. With excess when to read something usually a lie to their face and give them a fake number when I'm done but here we're still in the truth I mean you have to give me your number. There. What was your name. Clifford. The show's trajectory from You Tube series to Netflix has been almost as messy kid Williamson created the series he plays cow in the show he's also the writer and the director the creator of the whole should being high kid Williamson thanks for having me you bet Congrats by the way on this final season you almost didn't get a 4th season because you. He's had to raise a bunch of money right yeah we've crowd funded every single season of the show and raised nearly half a $1000000.00 Now through Kickstarter did you do that the 1st year we did we absolutely did our 1st season we raised $26000.00 and we thought that was a lot of time and quickly found out that that's literally nothing in terms of making a professional t.v. Show and you did that for You Tube the right when you were just putting it on You Tube You know we started the show back in 2012 when I was a graduate student at u.c.l.a. Getting my m.f.a. In playwriting we shot the 1st 2 episodes in our actual living room cell financed the whole thing for $2000.00 and a stick of gum to hold it together and put it on You Tube not really knowing what to expect because back in 2012 what was a web series really for people who don't know this show I mean explain this web series called The ciders Lisa Evers is a dark comedy about a gay couple in Silverlake California and there are sad and funny lives. There are a little bit messy Callen Tom I play Kal Van Hansis who's a 5 time daytime Emmy nominee for his work on as the world turns the world turns us right place Tom and we have an incredible ensemble as the show goes on I including Will I'm from repulsed drag race Stephen Corey you know from happy endings and Traci Lords plays my mom it's just the coolest squarest cast out there Tracy Lords the porn star Traci Lords the actress. She's a phenomenal actor is salt actress Have you seen cry baby have you seen John Waters have you seen her as a lot of them are sometimes seen trying to litle of mind she's legendary and she plays my mom and she plays your mom on the show she came on a few years ago right yeah she started in season one tell us a bit about how the the show came together because you 1st launched it as I mentioned on You Tube How did you get to Netflix we had a long circuitous journey from You Tube. We started and put the 1st 2 episodes on You Tube And like I said we didn't really know what to expect. And they quickly went viral and even know that a gay dark comedy where people in bed and have like quickie conversations about their relationship issues could even go viral but it did and it got all of this blog coverage and we were approached by Logo Viacom network to. Distribute the rest of the season when we made it on their digital platform from there and went to their cable channel because I guess it performed well online as a t.v. Movie we started working with Wolf idio which is an. Independent film distribution company and made deals with Amazon streaming and Hulu and full screen and video on demand to premiere the 2nd season and then after that we finally landed on Netflix where the show just exploded and has had an incredible sort of growth over the last couple of years finding a global audience because they subtitled it in more than 30 languages so it's out there worldwide now on Netflix and that's even in some countries where being gay is legal I'm from Mississippi and to get messages from people living in Iran or Saudi Arabia or Nigeria who say that the show made it feel less alone has been one of the greatest honors and privileges of my life why Silverlake my husband and I moved to Los Angeles 1st in West Hollywood didn't really find our footing and then after our lease was up there we moved to Silver Lake and I just fell in love with the neighborhood I fell in love with the people I fell in love with the gay bars and the kind of alternative community that exists out there and act bar and fault line in the Eagle and I just found it to be a really interesting artistic vibrant community when when you were putting the show together did you have any rules about casting gay men or women in the roles of gay characters I don't believe that there should be hard and fast rules surrounding that but I think it's really important that you allow people to tell their own stories and that you don't. You don't. Blew sequester people away to the corner and you know I feel like far too often queer people are not allowed to play clear characters are not allowed to inhabit their own stories are allowed to tell their own stories it's a frustration of mine it's part of the reason why I wanted to make the show so it has become a big priority for me to seek out actively seek out new talent and to make sure that we have that kind of representation in front of and behind the camera that said we have an amazing actor playing gay on the show who is straight in Leith in Burke who plays Derek We also have gay actors playing straight like your husband like my husband a sensibly for the 1st 3 seasons Surely you know there's a plot twist is a. Really boiler alert Yeah but I didn't want to anyway the character doesn't label himself and I'll just leave it at that you think there's a generation because when we talk about gay program number one there were no gay networks 20 years ago right now now there are and there are gay distributors film distributors there are ways by which you can put those things out there but do you think things have have changed just far as how we see. The Q community I think we've actually just seen unprecedented growth in advancements in the last 10 years I see a direct link between the advances in the representation and the advances in l.c.d. T.q. Rights I don't think that it's a coincidence that we have so much more representation and also people see our humanity more I think that these things are absolutely linked there are a lot of gay relationships on the show a lot of gay sex a lot of intimacy on the show as well let's hear so. What do you. Tell you. Now. Grocery stores stores convenience stores sex couples on their brown film in the. Verse. Wow. Could could you could you have made a show like this 10 years ago or 20 years ago I don't know that I could really make a show like this now if I was working through the traditional studio and network system seriously yeah we're we're allowed to make whatever show we want because we greenlight the show we kick started the show but you're on Netflix somebody in some office is saying hey you can't do that or you shouldn't do that or we think you should do this better I mean thankfully they decided to put it on but we had complete creative autonomy then yeah we are an independently produced project so we have more in common with an indie film that gets picked up from a festival and aired on Netflix than Affleck's a regional and an award winning project by the way the show's received 8 Emmy nominations you've won other awards too you've been subtitled as you mentioned in more than 2 dozen languages you've you've had to raise all the money to get the last season on the air. You know again what was the response for you guys when you were you know just fledgling and just out there for the 1st time we looking back were so innocent and not just because we didn't want to put gay sex scenes on You Tube but I was very mindful to not be exploitative in any way in the early seasons everything is pretty in post-coital and only really in seasons 3 and 4 Do I allow the show have I allowed the show to really actively explore sex and in the same tradition that a show like secure on h.b.o. Or fleabag on Amazon explores sex is it's a part of life it's a part of relationships and to just kind of shy away from it entirely I think would do the characters a disservice and to do that do the audience a disservice but in those early days I don't want anybody confusing us for a. Soft core porn distributed on You Tube so I was very careful about what we did and did not show you've done this for 4 years you said you've established it 7 years ago on You Tube why and why and it now I feel the good stories have endings and I think that this one has really run its course I want to leave the characters in a good place I want to leave the audience in a good places you leave them in a good play we'll see I mean there's no no's it's not necessarily a happy endings kind of show but I do believe in love and I do believe in these characters love for one another so we'll just we'll see what happens with the characters as a lot of different relationships this season in many ways it's a dialectic on love when you have a relationship straight relationships open relationships monogamous relationships relationships that are just starting out and real issue relationships that have been you know coming up on 6 years so that's something you don't really get to see a lot of either is long term queer relationships explored in long term and narrative frameworks I can't think of another show about a gay couple that spans the course of 7 years of their relationship kit Williamson who's the creator and writer and star of the series a siders all 4 seasons right on Netflix all of them get Williamson thanks thanks for having me. Well just ahead l.a. Has put on fire a few times in its history wildfires riots fires political fires how fire in Los Angeles has been represented and has affected markets That's next in case you haven't used greater. Case the sponsors and. Pretending to open under the big top of Dodger Stadium January and under the big banner and center March 18th more information. This is greater l.a. On k c r w Welcome back I'm even on such a rainy day it's hard to forget about all those wildfires that have touched large swaths of greater l.a. And California over the years so it is only be fitting that Wilding cran this is a gallery in the arts district is making fire the centerpiece of its latest exhibit l.a. On fire it's a collection of work from 50 artists whose lives have been touched by fire literally and metaphorically our art insider Lindsay Preston's opposite her in chief at The Contemporary Art revue Los Angeles she's here to tell us all about how Lindsay one point of the inspiration for the show was 1968 paintings famous one titled LACMA on fire what is the significance of Russia's painting for this exhibit Yes of the curator Michael kind of use this painting as inspiration for the show it's not actually in the show but this is a very famous painting in the editor's shaded literally showing LACMA on fire so it's burning and this was in the sixty's shortly after the last my campus had been belt so I had this really kind of intentional jab at burning down our monuments are kind of burning down these modern a structure is. Interesting only enough now Lachman is that building is about to be demolished since their real renovating their new campus so has this kind of cyclical. Notion to it not to mention all the fires that have directly threatened the Getty and LACMA in the past I know that I know the show explores this conceit that was set up by writer Joan Didion pretty famous writer the city burning is Los Angeles is deepest image of itself. She wrote that in a book called slouching towards Bethlehem in 1980 at about the same time as the Rache painting and she goes on to say Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe of apocalypse how does the show explore about yeah I mean I think beyond just fire I think that quote gets to the heart of just chaos in l.a. And I think a lot of times when we and the media and Hollywood kind of depicts l.a. It's like apocalyptic and kind of raw and greedy and sort of unfolding and they're artists that kind of take the notion of fire towards that chaos and towards this kind of socio political chaos in artist Conrad Ruiz paints this very famous image from the l.a. Times of a man pushing a shopping cart of diapers during the l.a. Riots for example and there's a fire in the back rows in 1902 right right when Didion wrote that this was back in the sixty's we were still fresh on the watch riots of 1980. Again you mentioned cyclical The These things have happened and keep happening absolutely and you know there are other artists like Juan Capistrano that talks about some of the shootings that have happened in l.a. And that kind of fire to you know many of the fires or are there say natural some of them have been set obviously but natural and unnatural when it comes to the chaos of say riots sure that we were talking about climate change on the issue of wildfires to factor into the show because we're talking about this sort of new. All right we were a large dry I mean again it's hard to look at the window today and say oh my gosh we were in such a big drought but over the years you know fires played a big role in what we're doing here in California it went from fire to snow in the mountains within a week like that's unprecedented and there's a quote in the press release from Cal Fire that talks about there is no fire season anymore this is just us this is our around here around. And I think that was a major tenet of the show and some of the artists have actually been affected by all these fires yes sadly it's not uncommon for artists studios to burn down either because of kind of natural fire or electrical fires in some of these warehouse buildings talk a little bit about Albuquerque Yes So wow so she had her house and studio and archives up in Malibu and really all of it burnt in the wall see fires so she's a really well known l.a. Artist and her whole archives over 30 years of work was actually promised to the Smithsonian and they burnt in the walls so it's just this really tragic example but she's a beautiful artist that really talks about kind of rebirth and energy and in a way I think she's looking at this and trying to kind of parse out the positive aspects surrounding the event so in that submission she's showing these 3 lenses camera lenses that she had pulled from the fires on her property and they're obviously not functional but they have this kind of charred relic status now and they've become something different so I think she's really looking at those objects as kind of representing rebirth in a way the show's title Lindsey comes from a photo series featured by a French artist named Michelle of their Tell us about his photos yes so they're called l.a. On fire this series and he's a French filmmaker and he was in l.a. . Shooting a film and he kind of through a friend got access to the sheets Goldstein house which is a big like beautiful modern architectural house it's in The Big Lebowski like it shows on Hollywood often. So he photographed himself swimming naked in the pool at this modern kind of monolithic house and then those photographs are overlaid with these sort of abstract images of fire so it becomes again like to go back to this ad Rache burning it's sort of like burning down the monument burning down these kind of modern architectural staples in l.a. And the curator Michaelson Skee really talks about l.a. As always kind of breaking and remaking itself and I think those photos kind of get at that idea it seems like Lindsay this is sort of the l.a. Flashpoint right like like like you look at all of the things that the the topics that these artists are exploring and it seems like the only place that this could happen is Los Angeles totally it's such an l.a. Show I mean with the wildfires happening but also themes around kind of metaphysical and kind of spiritual ideas of rebirth social political issues gentrification like it's all in the show and it feels so l.a. With burning freeways and palm tree is like it it really represents this undercurrent of l.a. Politics as I mentioned earlier this exhibit l.a. On fires of the wild in crayon gallery Preston's upis our art Insider You can check out more by the way from Lindsay by signing up for her weekly art insider newsletter k c r w dot com. That's going to do it for us today tomorrow we take you to a special funeral for the forgotten the. Next it's all the president's lawyers with . Impeachment. Thanks to you at home thanks for being here. There was. Well he was a lawyer for me for one of many you know they they would say the lawyer and then they like to add the fixture Well I don't know the fixer. Already knows it's the way John started yes. He'll get his facts right I understood Michael Cohen very well. What turned out he was a very good lawyer frankly. This is Josh Barrow host of case here W.'s left right and center you're listening to All The President's lawyers the podcast about president trumps legal issues with me as always is Ken white Ken is my co-host he's a criminal defense lawyer and he was formerly a federal prosecutor He also blogs at Popat dot com Hello can Hello Josh So the impeachment report is out from the House Intelligence Committee and as we taped on Wednesday morning the House Judiciary Committee is just starting its own impeachment hearings So let's talk about this big report what do you make of the case that's laid out by Adam Schiff and the committee's majority Democrats the Intelligence Committee you judge I haven't read it thoroughly enough yet and I would say nobody has it's a long report it's got a lot of supporting material and I think it's going to take some time to absorb it but from what I've seen so far it does set out a fairly well written well organized strong case for the Democrats argument about why they think that Trump should be impeached it puts all the evidence that's been brought forward tied together and makes the case that what we know which is that Trump almost certainly told Ukraine that it had to announce an investigation of $100.00 Biden's company in order to get military aid and access was a violation it was bribery it was extortion it was a campaign finance violations it was abuse of power that's the fundamental case and then there are a lot of indications that. Democrats are also looking at other theories including obstruction of justice for the failure to cooperate with the probe obstruction of justice historically which may reach back as far as to the Muller probe and just in general being. How to in put it not being Presidential a question that you've been hearing from a lot of commentators is more or less what's the rush this has been a very quick impeachment process once Democrats decided they want to go forth with impeachment it's likely that they'll be done they will have impeach the president by Christmas and just a few weeks and they're doing that even though there is information they haven't gotten they complain extensively here about how the White House and top administration has stonewalled them and it also looks like they might have some significant success obtaining more testimony and more evidence if they took more time there have been some people who've been coming forward and testifying even though the administration has been urging them not to there have been some favorable court rulings that we'll talk about in a moment for congressional investigators who've been trying to obtain information regarding the president and so one question is you know why not take a few more months build up more of a case learn more information might learn more about the president's wrongdoing and Adam Schiff addresses that directly in this report he says quote Given the proximate threat of further presidential attempts to solicit foreign interference in our next election we cannot wait to make a referral for full for impeachment until our efforts to obtain additional testimony and documents wind their way through the courts the evidence of the president's misconduct is overwhelming and so too is the evidence of his obstruction of Congress so the argument there is basically we have enough to go on here and time is of the essence and we need to do this now is that convincing to you. I think it is and I think the arguments that more evidence could be gotten is somewhat overstated it I mean the argument has been made fairly well for instance law professor Jonathan Turley who is no fan of Donald Trump is nonetheless being called by the Republicans as a witness during this hearing is making that argument before the committee today basically saying that you know the president should be impeached only on a more thorough exposition of the evidence but here's the thing the trumpet ministration has resisted at almost every turn has blocked almost every effort to gather evidence and the notion that more material significant evidence that doesn't just bounce the rubble is really going to be obtained quickly probably isn't true yes there are some court rulings going in favor of people trying to get information from the administration but each one of those the administration is taking all the way up to the Supreme Court and you can anticipate that the unwilling people that they're seeking to put before Congress will refuse to answer questions in generally obstruct and that they will be back once more in court for more delays add that to the fact that we are talking about here a general alleged scheme about interfering with an election and that we're now less than a year away from the next election I think ships argument is plausible The other thing that makes it plausible is the nature of what they're currently talking about doing remember that impeachment has 2 stages the 1st is the house impeaching which is really an accusation and the 2nd is the Senate trial so the House impeachment the accusation is more like an indictment or a criminal complaint and while as a defense lawyer I would certainly be happier if prosecutors and police did a more thorough job before making an accusation the level of thoroughness that's being to me. Ended up the house here is not consistent with what you generally expect from the accusatory stage of a proceeding so they've already gone well beyond what you would normally expect before someone would get for instance a grand jury indictment of somebody so basically some of the fact finding is the Senate's job well yes exactly some of the fact finding is the Senate's job or the job of whoever is going to make the case to the Senate who's going to act in the prosecutorial role before the Senate and if they can't present the evidence then then that's on them one of the things you say is that one of the broad accusations against the president is that his behavior was unpresidential and I realize you're being a little bit loose in the characterization here but I think you know it's a long report and there's a lot of complaints against the president in here some of which I think are stronger than others but also some of which I think more clearly go to the sort of wrongdoing that you ought to impeach over than others and in particular there's been a discussion of the extent to which the complaints against the president are about policy disputes that a certain policy that has a pro Ukrainian bent is a good policy the president was not so pro Ukrainian That is a bad policy and in some cases this regards the president not doing things that he was obligated to do by law when they say you know the president didn't disburse military aid to Ukraine I think it is a very solid complaint to say that that was duly appropriated by Congress the impoundment Act requires the president to spend the money the Congress told him to spend just because he disagrees with Congress about something doesn't mean that he gets to overrule their will but the complaints in this report seem to me to go farther than that and for example there are sections making the case just about how support for Ukraine is an important goal of u.s. Policy it says the multiple witnesses including Ambassador William Taylor Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent Vin Laura Cooper testified that the security assistance to Ukraine is vital to the national security to a United States and Europe unquote. I guess my question is what what does an argument like that what is that doing in a report like this about impeachment that sounds like a policy argument against the president that is relevant in legislation and saying that he didn't follow the legislation is valid but just saying that the policies and acting is bad strikes me as beside the point why I think almost everything we've seen coming out of Congress as opposed to say Muller has reflected 1st of all the work of many hands and 2nd of all some conflicting ideas about what should or shouldn't be the subject to the dispute so you clearly have the work of some people who are trying to focus it on what's impeachable and keep it narrow and that's probably shift in some of the other people with sort of prosecutorial experience courtroom experience but you also have the hand of a lot of people who want to make political points as well I do think that the fact that Trump was going against lot of his advisers is somewhat relevant just for context in other words why people noticed. That he was going a different direction that it was not anticipated and that it puts his actions into context not that he you know decided to pursue in a somewhat abrupt or problematical way something that everyone was agreeing to pursue which is the way you could describe for instance the Obama administration's approach to Ukraine when Biden probably unfortunately participated in this request to fire prosecutors there instead what you have is him going really just off on his own and I think that's the way that some of that information is legitimate but Josh I think you're completely right that it's a mistake for them to play too hard on that stuff because it makes it political as opposed to a legitimate basis for impeachment and even though impeachment is whatever Congress says it is ultimately I think it's a mistake and reduces the credibility for them to do well. Too much on things that are really are the president's call the policy calls to a large extent this report summarizes information that we learned over the last few weeks as witnesses testified either in private with the transcripts about testimony later being released or when they testified in the open before the committee I think the the Newseum thing out of this report the thing that people have been most looking at and saying that they didn't realize this is information that came from apparently phone records of Rudy Giuliani and of left Parness one of the thumb headed henchmen associated with Rudy Giuliani has been indicted for campaign finance violations and basically showing all the calls between you know Rudy Giuliani in the Office of Management and Budget Giuliani and Parness Parness and Devan oon us the ranking Republican member on the Intelligence Committee calls with John Solomon this journalist of The Hill who put out a lot of the articles essentially alleging a Ukrainian conspiracy to support the election of Hillary Clinton how would the committee have obtained all those phone records could have been through subpoenas for instance we don't know whether or not they issued subpoenas to phone companies those phone records and you know we saw some complaints of varying degrees of hysteria about how this is violating the rights of the people who are on the calls and that's not so actually it's well established for many years that you don't have an expectation of privacy in the type of phone records that merely show who called whom when as opposed to the actual transcripts or recordings of calls so this type of information is very classic prosecutorial case building and they could've gotten it through requests or demands subpoenas to the phone companies and this sort of thing where you show the lines of Who called who exactly when and you compare those to the events is often very powerful in demonstrating some sort of conspiratorial mindset and also very useful in proving a case is there any attorney client privilege. Ation here I mean one of the things that we saw here were calls between Rudy Giuliani and some phone number at the White House and now I guess we don't know that Giuliani was speaking with the president he did speak the press with the president we don't know that they spoke about privilege matters because the president's relationship with Giuliani extends beyond sort of a normal attorney client relationship but even if they were having calls about privilege matters as I guess the only the content of the call is privilege not the fact that the call happened that's right so in litigation you have things called privilege logs where you refuse to turn over a particular e-mails between attorney and client but you say I'm refusing to turn over this e-mail of December 5th between attorney and client so you have to reveal the existence of the communication so no to the extent that people are yelling about how this violates attorney client privilege or 4th amendment rights of anyone let alone the president simply not right what did you make of the Republican response to the well I guess the Republican memo came out 1st but what did you make of the Republican report on the impeachment investigation into the president well creative writing is always been one of my favorite subjects Josh So you kind of enjoyed it it showed a lot of heart. A lot of enthusiasm. I think it was very much purely aimed at the base so the democratic publication which again I think people should read and it's going to take some time to read it right. Showed at least some concern about credibly persuading people about setting out a case that has some impact not just on people who are eager to listen to you and agree with you the Republican statement on the other hand is very much a red meat Fox News to the base type of thing saying a lot of things that are just sort of silly and doing a lot of wild theorizing an echoing some of the more bizarre conspiracy theories that we've heard throughout this procedure So what's going to happen now. I mean the Judiciary Committee is starting its procedure will be the Judiciary Committee that actually decides on articles of impeachment presumably heavily based on this report from the Intelligence Committee which would then be sent to the House what's the how long is that process going to take when are we going to know what they're impeaching over well I mean that's up to them but they are telegraphing that they want to do this fast it certainly appears that they want to report it out of the Judiciary Committee before the end of the year so I would expect the recommended articles of impeachment to be released before the end of the year and then you know the Senate's going to have a lot of control once the House votes on how long the Senate trial takes and how quickly it starts this opening hearing in the Judiciary Committee has some law professors you mentioned Jonathan Turley who is the witness that the Republican minority proposed to basically say that this is a rush to judgment the law professors that Democrats have called are all sort of liberal aligned in their ideology and Jonathan Adler the libertarian law professor at Case Western was tweeting basically asking why didn't Democrats call any of the many conservative legal experts they could have gotten to talk about why Donald Trump ought to be impeached it feels like I would be more effective in terms of making a case to the country that this is not a left right issue that there is a strong conservative case for impeachment it would also be effective for twisting the knife with Republicans I mean they could have even called Judge Andrew Napolitano who is not one of America's leading legal experts but he is a major Fox News figure who has turned on the president and has been talked very forcefully about how the president has done many impeachable things here why not call one of those conservatives to light the president on fire instead of just calling liberals was a good question I think it's a good thing that they're not calling people who are primarily t.v. Talking heads but I don't know if they have the confidence to call the sort of the never trump crowd of conservative legal thinkers I think that they may still. View them with a certain level of suspicion they may worry that they're too easily manipulated on a cross by the Republicans to you know take shots at the democratic process that's been going on here and I think that they maybe just don't have. They don't have the confidence and in their case or in themselves to call people who on most other issues disagree with let's take a quick break and when we come back we can talk about Devon Una's Rudy Giuliani and all the president's. 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This is Josh Barrow and I'm back with Attorney Ken white on all the president's lawyers So let's talk a little bit more about Devon notice who's the ranking Republican member on the House Intelligence Committee he was the chairman of the committee before Democrats retaught the majority this year and so 1st of all newness has a bit part in the report that was put out by the majority Democrats because it showed these phone calls between newness and left Parness the Giuliani henchman What is it what does it mean for newness to be involved in this case conceivably witness of importance in this case while also leading the Republicans on the committee. Well he's been a big trump supporter from the beginning he's been a very vigorous elbow thrower to everyone on the Democratic side and he's definitely been one of the people carrying the message that this whole thing is illegitimate and that what we should really be looking at is Democratic corruption and so on and so forth I think tying him into this whole network of people reduces his credibility makes his own participation look more problematical and I think was substantially complicates his hobby which is suing people for defamation over things they say about him so on our wall there are now a number of pieces of red yarn connecting between newness and other people and I think that that's going to be the subtext of any responses to any questions he asks and any particular patient he has and I also think it's going to put him off his game somewhat Yes So you mention the hobby of these defamation suits he has sued Liz Mair the Republican political operative who has been dogging him for some time he has sued his local newspaper The Fresno Bee He has now sued c.n.n. He sued c.n.n. Demanding 435000000 dollars He says c.n.n. Defamed him on a report the relied on information from left Parness who says that he heard that newness traveled to Vienna Austria for a meeting last December with Victor shuckin who is a former chief prosecutor in the Ukraine and says that he never traveled to Austria last December he did not meet with shock in this c.n.n. Report as false and defamatory and he's out form of 35 $1000000.00 So 1st can you talk about the numbers that these numbers mean anything you always hear these news reports that say so and so file $100000000.00 lawsuit you can write down any number you want in terms of the damages they are demanding Right that's true and Adam Sterling the foundation for involved individual rights in education pointed out yes to. Hey that noon is approaching the $1000000000.00 mark in terms of all the money that he is demanding in his various defamation suits which suggests his ego must be pretty substantial to be bruised that badly a 1000000000 dollars worth but yes generally those numbers are just sort of. Emotive like accusing someone of Rico they're primarily about the rhetorical effect and not about anything remotely connected to reality they're an m o g or a string of exclamation points so this is argument if we you know set aside all of the sort of you know political argumentation and you know slagging c.n.n. As the least trusted name in news and all those extraneous stuff in the filing but what he basically says is that this stuff isn't true that Parness was lying about him and that c.n.n. Should have known that Parness was untrustworthy for reasons including that Parness is under indictment for this campaign finance crime and should not have relied on his accusation for its reporting So let's let's stipulate for a 2nd let's suppose that that's true that notice didn't go to Vienna he didn't meet with shock and the c.n.n. Report is wrong did c.n.n. Defame new ness if it got this story wrong by lying on by by relying on left part of his word when love Parness was not telling the truth well to show that they defamed him newness would have to show actual malice because he's a public figure and actual malice in the defamation context doesn't mean ill will it means knowledge that the statement was false or reckless disregard about whether it was true reckless disregard as more than negligence or screwing up it means that you had before you substantial evidence that something was untrue and he ran with it anyway so I think that's going to be very difficult here the phone calls we mentioned earlier though the web of connections with partners are going to make it even more difficult it's going to be really hard for him to show that c. . Man should have known should have realized and had before multiple indications that Parness was lying about this particular thing given how hooked into all this he's been but Josh you know I think to some extent we're giving newness too much credit to look at this and analyze it appear in a legal way I don't think you can put aside all the slagging of c.n.n. Or newness wrapping himself in the American flag and a text of this rather remarkable defamation suit I think it's primarily a press release a political statement rather than a sincere actual legal for attempt to get money and I think increasingly a lot of these lawsuits that we talked about are like that what if the c.n.n. Report is true and he really did go to Vienna for this meeting has perjured himself by by making this filing saying it was false. Yes perjured himself because he hasn't said anything under oath in whether or not he's made a deliberately false statement to a federal government entity by filing something in federal court that generally has not prosecuted you come up with a theory about it but it would be a problematical one because of the right to petition the government that's in the 1st Amendment so no I haven't ever seen someone prosecuted for filing a lawsuit like that and I don't expect it would ever happen you have to remember also that it's not just a defense that c.n.n. Published a true defense or that they reasonably thought that it was a true statement some of the other defenses they can use are that it was substantially true that even if they didn't get the exact details of where he met someone wrong that it was substantially true that he was deeply involved in this process there's also the defense frankly that it was impossible to harm new Mrs reputation any more. The man has apparently already been utterly devastated by a pretend cow on Twitter and c.n.n. Might be able to point to his other defamation lawsuits and say basically look by the time we came around by your own word your reputation was in tatters it was impossible for us to harm it any more just look at what you've said in these various lawsuits and that would be an amusing way to play it let's talk about Rudy Giuliani Gabriel Sherman the reporter at Vanity Fair says that Rudy is on the outs with the president the president is mad about Giuliani making 2 of these cracks about having insurance if the president throws him under a bus he has good insurance Giuliani says he was just talking about health insurance he apparently called the president to assure the president that he'd been joking the president apparently is also mad about various news reports suggesting that Giuliani had been using his connections to the president to try to make money through dealings with other people who would like things out of the trumpet ministration. Says the president has. Order Giuliani off television which surely pleases some of the President's advisors who have wanted him to get Giuliani off t.v. For months so the president runs hot and cold maybe he will love Rudy again tomorrow but it seems to me like it could be quite hazardous for both the president and for Rudy if the 2 of them get crosswise with each other and start trying to undermine each other's position Oh it certainly could be and it's kind of hilarious because they're both absolutely acting in accordance with their character the way that they've acted for years and everyone expected them to act so for either of them to be matter expressed dismay is kind of silly it kind of shows that they're not thinking but absolutely every time Rudy gets mad he says things that he shouldn't say that undermine the president's case the president is the same the best defense in a situational like this is for everyone to hang together instead of hanging separately and if they're going to be mad at each other and not cooperate in hopefully shutting up and not letting things out then that could be very bad for them. So what could this insurance be I mean the Rudy may know quite a bit about what the president has been up to here with Ukraine and everything else he appears to be at the center of a lot of this stuff but I would assume some of their communications might be privileged because Giuliani is the president's lawyer among other things that he is for the president Giuliani could also have a duty of confidentiality to the president that extends beyond legally privilege materials there might still be things that he that he owes you he has an ethical duty to the president not to divulge. But I guess some of this depends on the extent to which he really is the president's lawyer I don't think there's a code of ethics for sort of shady fixers right Josh I think you just thought more about Rudy Giuliani's obligations and he has in his entire life so I don't really see him being too bad by those sorts of considerations as this impeachment process rolls on Congress is continuing to try to get various documents and records relating to the president's dealings I think it's likely that they will continue investigating the president even after the impeachment process is over the Manhattan district attorney has also been trying to get the president's financial records from his accounting firm I feel like there are now too many of these cases to keep track of but the just seems to me to be that the president keeps losing everywhere he's been suing to either keep information secret or to prevent people from testifying. Well he certainly losing almost all of them at least eventually So there are now 2 cases with pending request for cert to the United States Supreme Court there are certain now to be a 3rd now that a Court of Appeal has rejected his argument in the case of Deutsche Bank which has been asked for records relating to his taxes and that's pointing to a lot of pressure on the Supreme Court as to whether or not to take any of these cases over the smart thing which would be just to wash their hands of the whole thing but you're right Josh we definitely need a chart maybe we can get some sort of Mirch going here with a mug with a chart of all the different lawsuits on it we have to keep updating the mug you know that's problematic but there are I think at least 5 going on big ones primary ones that have to do with attempting to get Trump's records or attempting to force someone close to trump to testify when will this be resolved I mean the Supreme Court will eventually make that decision about whether or not to take these cases when should we expect that. I suspect we will see this month some decisions from the Supreme Court whether to take either the case of the House subpoenas seeking tax records or the case of the New York state grand jury investigation. Maybe for this new one that just came out about Deutsche Bank I anticipate that will also be taken to the Supreme Court and we'll probably hear a yes or no or that rather quickly to maybe January February there was much more that we could talk about and there are some things that we will be talking about next week including the impending inspector general report about the origins of the 2016 investigation into the campaign its links to Russia we've learned some about that report. Coming out that next week if you have questions about the president's lawyers in his legal send them to us and find us on the case or w. Where you can the voice mail 310853514 all the president's lawyers produced by Sarah fair record. Simon composed our theme. Thanks for joining us and I will be back next week. Golden Voice presenting comedian Trevor Noah on Friday December 6th at the Staples Center tickets available at. Www dot com. Reported Donald Trump promised to drain the swamp How's that working out for America we can always improve our expertise but replace the experts with people who know nothing is idiotic was America great here with the ruling. Good afternoon on Wall Street today the Dow closed 146 points up marketplace will give us more detail on stocks and finance news that's next right here on member supported. Santa Barbara. With.