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Welcome back from your weekend we're going to do something similar today to what we did last Monday which is trying to help you understand to the extent that we understand in this huge sprawling be 100 page constantly mutating Russian slash Victorian British novel that is the presidency of Donald Trump and the investigations into him as both a president and a candidate there's a lot you know there is a lot even if I needed a hobby to keep up on all of this you might struggle and so we're going to look at a few of the little pieces here and and we're going to go fundraising break in about a half an hour after that I'm going to open it up to your phone calls too I don't necessarily purport to go the answers to questions so try to make comments not questions anyway but we're going to begin by talking to Ryan Goodman founding Co editor in chief of just security He's a professor of law at York University School of Law and served as former special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense he and a co-writer and you write have a really and interesting piece right now just security it's also crossed published over at Slate dot com So 1st of all welcome to our show Ryan Goodman thanks for having me on so as we try to process these come charging instruments that were presented on Friday one of the things that you've written about I mean these they all have these little pieces to about men and and so the charging instruments against Michael Cohen As I understand it come from actually kind of 2 different sources one from us. Ernie's office southern district of New York u.s. Attorney's office the other coming in from the mall or team new we can start with that 1st one the 1st one seems to focus on one of the many subplots you know that would be the payments through Michael Cohen to use 2 women who allegedly had relationships. With Donald Trump you just push that out a little bit sure so that's when your description of the 2 separate strands and the southern district of New York attorney's office seems to be the one that right now I would say has the most threatening piece of the puzzle for the president in terms of issues of legal jeopardy and basically the major issue is that these hush money payments were well in excess of what could be a campaign contribution there one reporter did they involve corporations making the payments to a shell company and things like that and the issue is that Michael Cohen has pled guilty to making these payments to the 2 women in order to benefit the Trump campaign during the election and that's critical because a very different difficult piece of it for prosecutors is usually proving that intent that Michael Cone wasn't just paying these 2 individuals in order to help Trump's reputation or Trump's concern that his wife or family would find out but rather that it was purposefully to help the campaign itself and that's what makes it a federal crime an election law violation right so I mean this is one that I've been wondering about for a long time prior to all this is if I were from lawyers I would be saying well no we knew from the campaign we did because we didn't want Maloney of the now we don't want anybody to know nobody wants anybody to know this stuff so how do we know it's a good day in violation apparently because by Cucolo and said he did it for this purpose right that's right and. He also there there are multiple pieces of it so he actually builds the Trump Organization at the same time he bills them for these payments his billing them for other payments of like technical work that he didn't hiring particular company to do something that was campaign related so he's put it all together and I don't think it's just going to be Michael Cohen's word there or other individuals who have apparently being given immunity to appear before the grand jury by the Southern District of New York and they would potentially corroborate Cohen statements and one would think that the southern district would not file this kind of sentencing report if they didn't have other information to back up what Cohen saying right so. And so Michael Cohen is kind of the linchpin to both of these things because these are charging instruments against him but tell me why you think that this is I mean we can get to the bowler one in just a 2nd which is used to involve more of the Moscow towers of light which to me to my own brain untutored are used to me that's the ticking time bomb or as Donald Trump would say these mocking gun so you can tell me why you think the the start was Stormy Daniels and character Dougal is it just because it's moving faster and it's a kind of a need or more compact case to prove that's right it's moving faster we have much greater clarity the southern district of New York has already basically told us what they think the president's involvement was in this criminal scheme by making a very direct statement on a Friday night Doc Friday documents which included that the president had directed and coordinated the activities of Michael Cohen So that's all I mean by it in terms of what we actually have. Clearly out of the offices of any of these federal prosecutors deaths the clear very specific explicit statement. By the federal prosecutors and Senator state of New York that of the president's criminal involvement in the crime and then I do think that there could be much worse coming down the pike from the mother team and the Russian vest a Geisha and and there were some sprinklings of information from the Miller team on Friday and that could be even worse for the president and I do think something that was surprising to me out of those smaller documents on Friday is that he does seem to be smaller seems to be tracing the steps all the way to trump he identifies Tromp symbol of men with Michael Cohen's outreach to Russians which many people thought well could even have Muller prove some level of collusion with the campaign really actually be able to Tenet on Donald j. Trump himself there are some signs that that will happen so let's just stay for 2 more seconds where the southern district of New York and the MacDougall and Stormy Daniels things it seems to me like once again if somebody does reads about the stars as opposed to prosecuting cases one of the things that jumped out at me was that notion you mentioned payments before that they really had set up kind of a false narrative about payments that there was a sort of argument that Cohen had been retained in this very general way that involved monthly payments to maintain that so-called retainer and none of that was the case and Cohen is prepared to testify the back to to me that's where you pretty clearly have a demonstrated attempt to conceal something going to interfere with an investigation that's right and the creation of fraudulent documents on the part of the Trump Organization and the executives who signed off on that so I do think that one of the. Avenues that this might take is that we'll see United States versus Trump or as a criminal case because you can indict an organization and it sure seems as though the prosecutors believe that the organization was directly involved in this fraudulent kind. Cover story for the payments to come on you know there's also it's interesting the way some of this stuff has been hived off to use the term people's views in these days to southern district of New York but to other federal prosecutors in as well I would guess a you know there was going to worry a few weeks ago when Mr Whitaker was the acting attorney general that maybe he would start Buller down well you can't shut all these things down but there's also going to the way in which it takes a little of the pressure. That Trump likes to direct at Moeller off of Muller I mean the acting. U.s. Attorney in the southern district of New York is our understanding right now is a trump appointee it's a little harder to say that he's on some kind of and other that's right so the one trump appointee though is recused in the southern district to come keeps running into these problems of the people that he wants to be illegal to him having to be recused but the Southern District I think that's completely right they are by norms that have settled over a long period of time quite independent from main Justice so that the Justice Department doesn't really ever interfere in their work so for the White House to try to do it or met would occur to try to do it would break all sorts of norms of course many norms these days are being unsettled and disrupted but that would be a particular firewall that I think many people inside the Justice Department would be extremely concerned about and therefore this hived off investigation prosecution has a life of its own the on the control of the president and I do think that kind of dovetails back into how the president and Whitaker think about the mother investigation because there's a train that's left the station and it's got the president's name on it and there are potential criminal violations that look very real and threatening coming out of the Southern District of New York so for them to even be thinking about the mound as Asian they might want to pay much more attention to something that's already happening right so as you say that trains are on the tracks and moving. So let's look at the other a miller document from the Moeller document from Friday about Co and this does talk a little bit more about this purported Ripper proposed Mouse Guard tower project to me that's always been the source of great interest just because of the amount of money that's involved and but also there's some new things I think you know in the sentencing document do I mean there's some reference maybe to yet another Russian state actor or something or some Klein who was trying to make some kind of contact with Trump through Cohen I mean there's quite a bit going on there I don't know if you had a particular thing that jumped out at you you know I think the piece that jumped out at me is the elements that come up in 2015 so it puts everybody thinking about a different kind of a timeline and that in fact these overtures from the Russians to Cohen come in November 25th saying it comes from an individual who says he's deeply connected to the Russian Federation and that he wants to organize a meeting with Putin and. Trump And to have quote unquote political synergy which suggests that they want to help the campaign and lo and behold the only reason that Cohen rejects the overture is because Cohen thinks he already has a conduit into the Russian government through Felix say to him there and in Russia Moscow tower deal and that's everything I just said it actually in the document so this is I think Mahler telling us something I would think deliberately which is lo and behold let's think about the potential collusion and Russian interference as part of the g.o.p. Primary we're told on November 25th scene and I think that kind of raises the issue for all Americans regardless of party to think about what went on here and in fact there's another little data point or nugget in the Mahler document on Friday which he also talks about which is that proceeding that overture from the Russian to Cohen in November is Cohen going on a radio interview and. Temper saying. That he thinks it'll be a great idea for Putin and Trump to meet and he had previously lied by saying that there was just a. Hair brained idea that he thought of spontaneously and then the Mahler document says no he actually came forward and told us that that was specifically planned by Donald j. Trump himself and that Trump was trying to make an overture to the Russians so that September 2015 so in terms of setting up the lines of communications at the very least this notion of political synergy I think that it's potentially quite significant and how even just think about the political ramifications let alone the legal ramifications and we should say of the Mouse Guard tower and all of its grand your speculative grand jury was never built but to me one of the things that I'm the most interested in as we go forward I mean as you I think alluded to a little while ago from now has an immunity from Muller as a given immunity deal to Mr Weisel Byrd who's the chief financial officer of the Trump organization and I would imagine knows an awful lot about numbers I have a lot of questions about where was enough money coming from to build this tower and how was money going to come back to the Trump Organization terms of organization although it's sort of an atrocity it's run by his sons. I to me. As are I watched this part of all is investigation on full It seems to me you know it's a longer game than Stormy Daniels in term McDougal But there's an awful lot of money on the table going down the road with this story I don't know if you want to comment on that you know it's I do think it's a place to keep one's eye on and it's difficult to know what all of the moving parts are or were for this deal I do think that you know there are various interesting elements to it like this report that came out that and it was corroborated by a number media outlets that the deal. Included us I think a $60000000.00 apartment for Putin himself which would have been a potential legal payoff that when Cohen reaches out to the Russians and has a conversation with senior Russian officials Secretary he actually asks them for about financing and that was actually in their original Buzz Feed story about the Moscow town deal where they are actually thinking about financing to Russian banks and that seems fitting He will host them on a number of levels I think for Mahler these are important questions but I don't think that Mahler's necessarily going to go into financial crimes he's only going to but it's important to him to go into these deals and understand them for getting a grip on motive could pro quos and the like that could form an understanding of the relationship between Trump himself the campaign the organization and the Kremlin so running Goodman as we go forward I mean it seems to me and you've alluded to this do that Muller You know when he does these so-called speaking indictments or these kinds of sentencing instruments like the ones you about on Friday he's people asked when the Moeller report coming out well you could argue the bull reports coming out in installments basically more of a serialized novel I'm sure it'll be a full report in some way but he's trying to tell a story right now because it's and it's probably important at the political level of a lot of this stuff that the story be understood seems to me you as a journalist are trying to do a similar thing to this is an extraordinarily complicated and difficult story for the layperson to understand I know that you've done stuff like you know just security dot org offer a perjury charge which been very useful as I'm trying to get on with all this stuff maybe you can say something about that I mean there's an explanatory journalism function that needs to get done so the American public understands what kind of story it's in the middle of. That's right I think it's so damn difficult and dizzying. And many people I think just don't know which piece to try to track and where they should keep their eyes focused so it's a hard set of work for those of us who are trying to translate what's going on to a wider audience and translate the kind of legal jargon and legal ins and outs to a wider audience and deaths some of the task but in some sense this material is very rich it does tell a narrative there's almost a narrative arc to some of it and the ways in which I think I completely agree with you that Muller instead of waiting for this final report he does seem to be filling in the different pieces of the picture is incredible narrative of the Moscow tower deal and that document that came out and that's part of what we have to kind of do and it's it's pretty incredible the story that's being told and I think that it's also important to kind of break through all the noise and some of these smaller documents are the most reliable documents in the sdn why documents and trying to understand what's not dissin from ation what these federal prosecutors with and huge amount of experience have been able to document and are willing to prove in court and I think it's also there's a burden on those of us who are trying to do the translation to be faithful to what we know and what we don't know so just as a way of example I did think that people got out ahead of their skis by saying that the as d n y has accused President Trump of committing a crime there are certain elements that still required they would have to prove that Trump himself made those hush money payments or organize the hush money payments to help his campaign rather than to help his own personal reputation reputation and so we said that under security to pay help people understand that other claims they may have heard over the weekend. And. Weren't exactly accurate in terms of saying that they've accused him full blown I do think they have accused Donald Trump of directing federal crimes by Cohen So fall in terms of purposes many people might think that's enough for them. But I think that's part of the difficulty here and another part of the difficulty is understanding the you know the scope or significance of different developments so how big a deal is it that these are federal crimes that are being placed right at the president's doorstep and the prosecutors I thought actually were trying to engage in a form of public education in their document and asked in why where they say things that are very. Easily accessible and kind of give the context of how important they think what the allegations here amount to and they say things that are I think just remarkable for Americans to hear which is that they say things like you know these crimes are so severe and that's why they should come with a heavy imprisonment and they say things like quote sorry they say things like that that the campaign violations quote struck a blow to one of the core goals of the federal campaign finance laws transparency quote and then they also say that Cohen at the direction of turncoat deceived the voting public by hiding alleged facts that he believed would have had a substantial effect on the election and quote so I think that's important and I think that was also what's lost to some degree in the punditry back and forth in the spin as to how small and the just process crimes or things like that I think it's a very big deal what happened on Friday very big deal it's a it's a significant moment in history in terms of the Justice Department saying what they said about their own president All right well there's much more to come and obviously starting in January a lot of things change or the house uterus of dreams is over Aaron will have lots more to talk about but will a pause for now writing Goodman. Great to talk to you founder of founding coeditor and Chief Justice of the already a professor of law and why you School of Law and served as former special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense Thanks for doing this today thanks so much for having me now I'm going to say to you people who are listening what's going to happen right now is we're going to take a little break some very nice people are going to ask you to support public radio if you support public radio during our show well it means to us anyway that you like in particular the kind of work that we're doing here whether it's the kind of work we do today or on some of our more fanciful days and so if you would make the call during our show we'll get a little bit more credit for it and then when we come back from that break the break only 5 minutes long all right so when we come back for that break I'm going to take your phone calls are not Ryan Goodman our Dr I won't have as many answers as he does but if you want to just talk a little bit I mean maybe even a little bit about your own anxieties as we go forward as these stories are in spool or just the sheer difficulty of comprehending it all I mean it really you could make it a full time job and still probably not understand more than 75 to 80 percent or so we'll take a little break we'll come back meanwhile support the show support the station support the concept of public funds to. Visit her. I'm never sure. I'm going to. Play this one. So this is a little confusing this is me again but what we're doing here is doing a pledge break we're asking you to pledge the money to the station and we decided rather than having. The nice people who usually come in here and do it well most of them are nice right I mean I write about Scott could be a very tough cookie but most of the people who do this are very nice we thought we would have our entire staff come in here and all the people who work on the show come and talk to you about why it is we do what we do and so what we're doing there we're hoping that you will call in at what number but you couple 180-584-2788 or go on line it to npr dot org click the Donate now button and so let me tell you consider that was Betsy Kaplan the senior producer of the show John of the McNichol one of the other producers is here the new kid on the block Scott Reed is producing for us now and also producing for we'll have seen where we live is here and Golden Globe nominated filmmaker Carlos me here is here your film of but you couple of brushing dog's teeth is doing very well at the on the festival circuit here I mean all I did was hold the phone so I think you are and he did a lot and I worked very hard for that video I would work on my acceptance speech just what you do in the Golden Globe for me there's a lot of people if you think 1st I just want to thank the Academy they're going anywhere else you know if you had to go and look all right and we also have of course somewhere we can't really see right now but she's like the voice of God kind of a wolf there somewhere so I don't know maybe somebody you can pick up the ball here and just talk a little bit about why it is we do things the way that we do I mean but you know I'm going to start again just because you and I. Got involved in starting this kind of Monday show yes so we should talk a little bit about the Scrabble since that's what people are listening to and that may be what they like but we we've been doing this for a couple years now right and part of it was because often we would have a show scheduled for Monday and then something really bad or interesting would happen over the weekend and one day Collin command stamping his feet complaining about how we had this show scheduled for Monday and we couldn't do what he really wanted to talk about so we decided to leave Monday open and just do news from the weekend right Does that was creaming I was showing. It was terrible actually had a couple people's cars in the parking lot was out of sight about it but you know I mean John had my parents one of the things we do here and by the way as we're talking about all this. Off we're kind of hoping you're going to call in 180-584-2788 they're really nice people there who are going to take your call you can make a pledge pledge 100 dollars pledge make a monthly gift whatever it is you want to do or go online to w. Npr dot org where you see all these wonderful things that you can get back but I think it's fair to say one thing we do a lot is like say how could we do the show differently Right right and we've done a lot of different things with the scramble it used to Originally it wasn't maybe as so purely newsy as it's been sort of in the Trump era we've leaned towards call some weeks to to get the audience on the air talking back to us or sometimes it's 3 different experts in 3 different segments about 3 different things that happened over the weekend so it's got you just a few recently started to produce some of these Monday shows and the surprises for you about that so I would I did the 1st one a week ago and. You were like Don't worry about it don't just don't spend your Sunday worrying about this stuff well just start fresh on Monday morning it lined up in a line up some guests then and we'll go from there and I was like that just does not work for me because you know I'm like too nervous about things so on Sunday morning I started like 10 o'clock and I had these people cell phone number so it's people like the slate dot com and The Washington Post and I was sort of expecting like you know calling them and like getting them in like getting them screaming at me like why you interrupting my Sunday but they were also pleasant and like appreciative to be on the show so that was really cool to me we both love the good will with these good yeah and also they don't get the weekends off so we just got a couple minutes left I want to make sure that both Wolfy and Carlos get to get to talk I don't Carlos you are relatively new here at the station say something that will make someone want to give a pledge based on what you've seen I mean I know Scott got the nickname has the new kid on the block but I feel like I'm the New York it on the block point anything else does when you read your job and just seen how you guys work behind the scenes and say and how a show comes together very quickly I'm kind of like Scott I'm working on a show co-producing a show with Jonathan tomorrow and I'm sweating. Underneath all these clues is what I'm getting at and it's a lot of hard work and it's amazing just crazy how much work actually goes and actually everything in real life shows already happened but you know we're talking about so will be just you can get us out you get the clock so rev up the break for you're hearing from some people who work really really hard in an industry that let's just say your money goes a really long way here and so when you make a pledge you're supporting the great work that these people do that get it but get everything to your balls. No no no no. No no I don't want you to Anyway the point is I know are preaching to the choir but give us a call and support this amazing market these very talented and hard working people the numbers 105842788 or w. Npr dot org slash donate thanks and if you do have your balls your doctor. Definitely here Dr support for Connecticut Public Radio comes from spend the holidays at the Harriet Beecher Stowe center take the new interactive tour view our Victorian Christmas display learn about Harriet Beecher Stowe as life and work leave feeling inspired details that Harriet Beecher Stowe dot org. This week in This American Life there's this lawsuit over whether hybrid admissions discriminates against Asian students because of the suit lots of students of March and selves to the registrar's office to look at their own files. Or who thought she was a great writer read that the admissions officer thought through wasn't so hot an Asian student learned something that made him uncomfortable he had to rethink a bunch of stuff a story this week. Hope you can join us tonight at 9. To make the top priority coming up on the next on point the Wisconsin g.o.p. The lame duck power grab and what the political maneuvering means for democracy plus we talk with the director of a new documentary about the life of Maria Colace to this day one of the most electrifying singers in the history of opera that's coming up on the next one point from n.p.r. . Tune in tomorrow morning at 10 Good evening and thanks for joining us I'm Bruce barber and you're listening to an encore presentation of today's college McEnroe show. All right so those pledge breaks are weird because we recorded the last week so there's a way in which they sort of they depart from space in time or something but I hope that you do find that maybe a r Rahman say better about is that kind of different way to listen to a pledge break listen to the people who actually work on the show many of them people whose voices you don't hear and then I do ask you to be generous in terms of supporting the show it's important to you all right so we actually did do this kind of listener survey a survey monkey survey a while ago and we be asked one of the questions we asked one of the many questions we asked was how people liked the format where sometimes on Monday we dedicate all or part of the show to phone calls and the answer was pretty overwhelmingly positive about dedicating our part of the show to phone calls so that's what we're going to do right now. That may be some risk attached to it or may not be. The risk would be if nobody called anyway then hours 860-275-7266 we're going to be talking about I have some specific questions for you about your relationship to the news of the Moeller investigation the trump of presidential problems generally speaking so I'm going to put those questions out but you know whatever it is that you need to say about that whole realm of news is fine with me 860-275-7266 so I've decided that one of the most interesting things to me is I'll put out some more substantive questions about the case itself in just a 2nd and maybe even some things that are not questions but one of the things that's become interesting to me is how do people who are not of the news business and who are not professors of law and who don't have podcast or how do people who are just living their lives and consuming news how do they follow the story how do you get news about this story I mean do you feel as though you know you have assembled kind of a reliable network of source. This could be New York Times Washington Post it could be n.p.r. Could be Rachel I find people just referred to are now by her 1st name. Or i Robot e-mails I often need kind of the hard stuff. So that there's certain little podcast and things like that that I listen to although they like for example law if there is a place where you can really go and get out about this stuff except that at La Fere there are very much policy nerds and policy wonks in this case is not the only thing that they're studying so when they do a comprehensive podcast about the mole or investigations or the state of the Justice Department kind of post or the state just post Jeff Sessions it's really comprehensive it's really good sometimes a let's do it twice because I learned so much but they don't do it often enough to be happy so I'm curious to know why 1st of all how people manage to follow such an incredibly complicated story or do you ultimately just decide you can't follow the story but I also want to talk to you about a wide range of stuff in fact see I'm going to put out some of my ideas are here but I see Adam from New Milford is up on the board right now already he called 860-275-7266 let's see what he wants to say Hi Adam you're on the air. So my my question was has a liberal leaning listener Do we really want Trump to be possibly a pizza have Mike Pence president and also what are the odds that if he took a seat how I like what we did with Nixon where he ends up being pardoned by b.p. So obviously we want just that they don't want a president who can do whatever they want but. Do we risk having haha Salie worst president for half the country didn't vote for Trump with Mike Pence in office what is there are strong. Dingy. Possibly waiting to see what my last say before possibly. Moving on a sort of impeachment proceeding right I think it's a great question and I sense in the wording and intonation of your question Adam that you you doubt very much that impeachment at least as currently understood would be the most worthwhile way of approaching this situation or am I in my imputing too much to know it's true I feel like Trump can kind of get away with. Whatever you want to get away with if you don't get impeached because again it could possibly just be part and where if you lose this the 2nd oh you know action 2020 and then and then I think it comes down 1st of all the American people get to speak again and hopefully popular vote him out because again remember Hillary did win the popular vote and then we get to vote him out and then 2020 Well I guess to come down and actually I don't force a lot on him and hopefully not a situation where the. Republican president just part of an so I let him get away with crimes right Ok so this is a great question and a great point I'm just going to. Pop you on hold or or maybe just drop the call and just talk about this for a 2nd but I think you raise some really interesting stuff 1st of all I would agree I mean let me say 1st of all the 1st thing you have to do when you think about this stuff and we don't do this very often is think what are my real goals as an American citizen in this situation what do I really want do I want the country to be as healthy as I can possibly be or do I want to die what do I specifically want this jerk and the White House to you know pay for everything that he's done so far which is more important to me and those 2 goals are not irreconcilable either but you have to sort of think about them anyway. If you're being goal is to punish Trump then every possible form of punishment is on the table and if you if your main goal is to get him out of office then impeachment is probably your fastest road if that road to be traveled but as Adam suggests if you are doing that at least partly you for policy reasons all you're going to get out of that prior process is President Mike Pence who will be more dignified and less wantonly inappropriate and probably. Bubbly Kerry last potentially criminal baggage with them but he won't do any of the things you want him to do if you're left of center Ok so that's all pretty obvious will is just part of that for a 2nd I think a big win sort of a bad idea I think it's going to be tough for the country to go through yes you can't do it if you don't have the numbers and you run the Senate right now there aren't even remotely close to the numbers you would need to do impeachment so you can't do it if you don't have the numbers or if you don't have sufficient flips on the Republican side in the Senate enough so that you could get a vote to convict unless all you want is impeachment impeachment of course is sort of the 1st of 2 stops. So I actually think that there's probably just technically if you just you know I what one recent interview that I would recommend listening to is Elizabeth Holtzman a former member of Congress she was on one of our favorite shows The just with Mike Pesca and Slate The podcast sometime last week I think and she's got a new book out about impeachment She also has to has been through impeachment she's a pretty persuasive case that you know in terms of what you need to do in impeachment it's already there. Like legally technically but of course impeachment isn't strictly speaking only a legal or technical process it's a political process that one it's one that requires a massing of public will so you know there gets a lot more complicated I also want to say we're going to continue to take phone calls here 86027572668602757266 I think everybody has I'd love to hear how are you following this story and b. What do you I think everybody has sort of different scenarios in their heads like how does just sort of lead one out imp impeachment but you don't get what you want you know. Or impeachment and the best possible things that. Happen for the country don't happen so that's number one number number 2 you know might be a very different kind of scenario My guess is an Adam kind of alluded to this too in a way a lot really does depend on the 2020 elections assuming that President Trump seeks reelection and he probably will particularly have some of these criminal charges within the Moeller operation begin developing in a certain way because you're strongest I have covered a lot of politicians who are in trouble for political corruption at the mayoral level and the gubernatorial level not really at the presidential level I mean I you know stood back and beheld what was happening there but watching them at the gubernatorial and mayoral level I always think the more power you have the more you have available to trade so when you see a politician who's really under the gun a governor or a mayor or something like that who's really under the gun and you wonder why hasn't this person resigned already resigning which you know takes so much of the light and heat off this person well part of the answer is part of the answer is that this person doesn't want to give up any of the power because the power gives you a little bit of an ability to affect some of the ways that an investigation might go or a process in a legislative body might go but also the thing you have to trade you if you haven't treated it yet and you know want to give it up. So I would imagine that he's going to seek reelection in 2020 and it's going to be really important and I mean the other thing that he could do is not seek reelection and exercise his pardon power remember the pardon power can be exercised you know even after a November 2020 election he still president until the new president gets sworn in and presidents do all of this all the time they do you just hand out you know a late late pardons and commutations and stuff like that he pardoned people like crazy things. And to remember is not everybody can be pardoned there are people at least as far as with the way that we understand it there are people who have been given immunity who therefore can't be pardoned because they've already been given immunity they can be charged they also can't claim the 5th Amendment because they've been given immunity and that would be the case it appears for example for the chief financial officer of the trumpet ministration he has been given as I understand it blanket immunity which makes it hard for him to take the 5th also makes it hard to pardon him not charge of anything you watch that happen the him the immunities that are given out I mean there's sort of 2 ways to get to compel testimony from somebody one of them is the way that you've seen with Flynn and Man of War and Cohen you get him you get them you grab them you grab them with whatever potential criminal charges you can you grab them by the elbow and you pinch really hard and you see what they'll give you in order to get a better deal but the other way you can get Belak testimonies to not charge people with anything and to make sure that they can't be charged with anything and then it becomes much harder I think Susan McDougal For example when I click cases I'm pretty sure she had immunity it's one of the reasons she went to prison because she still would testify and you can't take the 5th you can't refuse to testify on that basis if you have immunity All right our number is 862757266 I want before I take David I want to point out 2 interesting linguistic developments of today every day brings new linguistic developments so we have the word smocking Earlier today President Trump in a tweet and he did this twice in the same tweet which indicates that he does think that there is such a thing as a smocking Garvey's there's no smoking gun no smoking gun as c k o j so it's possible that we have a president who does not have to spell the word smoking or he's inventing a new world where you can never really tell or he wants us to talk about smocking instead of talking about stuff he doesn't want us to talk about and the other linguistic development is the glass. Kessler who leads the fact check organization of The Washington Post which is one of the 3 or 4 depending on whether or not you count Snopes one of the 3 or 4 major fact checking operations in the country they're the ones who read based on Pinocchio's 123 Pinocchio's 4 binoculars was the worst as of today he has introduced bottomless pit Nokia but the bought a bottomless Pinocchio rating and what that is is 1st of all I think Len might be losing his mind under these circumstances but also it's for situations in which a lie is just been repeated and repeated and repeated and resists fact checking because the person is telling it doesn't care that he or she is being fact checked and so that person that statement can now get a bottomless Pinocchio It's like a whole new kind of Law All right let me get a call from David and then we're going to take a quick break just do credits will come back we'll talk some more here's David in Hamden Hi. I think. Thanks for taking my call The only this is just a comment I've lived in the New York media market for a long time and I've heard Howard Stern and Don Imus have. Trump on the phone. And I think we all year know what this person is really like and I just hope that now what's unfolding maybe there'll be a little bit of a comeuppance and that the rest of the country or they might really come to understand what this guy is really about all right well there's a lot to say about that but I actually need to go very quick break here and then we will come back we'll wrap up our conversation so here we go. He. Says to. Keep the same lesson in. This is. Just. Me and the station. Support for Connecticut Public Radio comes from Harvard Pilgrim health care health plan created for people not for profit with coverage that's evolved over the last 50 years to fit today's modern needs get more and give your employees more get to Harvard. Learn how a skilled manufacturing career in Connecticut's high tech industry can be a path to a bright future watchmaking the future. Spirit also on Facebook Twitter and Instagram. Or the future part of American Graduate getting to work made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with the support of the c.b.i. a. Metro Hartford. Company all tech electronics and Pratt and Whitney. I'm Peter O'Dowd at 32 Underwood is the youngest black woman ever elected to Congress and while she's. To be the next speaker. Because of the very clear that this moment in our country is calling for great leadership. That type of leadership is not one. That's next time on here. I hope you can join us tomorrow afternoon it. Was previously recorded. If there's no smoking gun that mean that everything's Aki donkey or their chance. From a. Today show is produced by Betsy Kaplan and make a on Wolf Amanda fish preordered take it for the 1st 14 screenings of Aqua Man the part about Carrie was played by bottomless Pinocchio tomorrow a show about vice and Wednesday another live visit from Jill Sobule is back in town to perform in the Twain House library and now back to Cali Yes Jill Sobule who we can call her the best guest we ever had because that would hurt the feelings of our many other guys but she could be actually And so what we like to do is bring her in studio and essentially later do whatever she wants to do and she'll be performing at the tween house in their library I believe is Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday. So get your tickets. By a lot of tickets for Tuesday because we want to be in a really good mood when she shows up here on Wednesday she's also in pretty good mood anyway so that's what we because we're on Wednesdays show would just be me and joe joe and whatever Joe wants to do which is usually pretty much fun and funny all right here is Peter in middle Haddam Hi Peter hello your I just want to point out 2 facts one of which is if Trump were to accept the part. That is its mission of kill is it though I mean. I because the constitutional power of pardon is pretty pervasive are I'm not sure that it is an issue of kind of pardon pardon but if it is still at it mission you can argue. Where there wasn't a crime committed so to accept a pardon is to work at mit that you have committed a crime all right what's your what's your 2nd point and 2nd point is that should tense decide to pardon our fear was leader that only relates to federal crimes. And so in all the various states that he's committed crimes that what apply he can still be prosecuted and every state that. They've committed crimes that is absolutely absolutely the case and I wouldn't be surprised to see I mean 1st of all I'm not sure that you anybody can reliably assume that Mike Pence is going to pardon Donald Trump and own troubles are made to try to pardon himself that's like almost a theological question whether you can do that or not Muslim not 100 percent sure that we can say legitimately say that anybody who subset of pardons has admitted guilt I will research that and. Bring back some answers on it pardon is one of these powers however that is you know not very it's almost an. Illimitable it's there are very few limits placed on it and how it can be used so so we'll see I guess we'll see that's the answer to that one thing that I want to say I didn't get any answers to my question how do people follow this I should have just made everybody who calls him tell me how do you follow this story what is the tool What are the tools that you're using German journalistically or otherwise to follow this story. One thing that I will recommend and it's a hard thing it's so hard to recommend Buzz Feed to anybody because you know you get on the home page of Buzz Feed and it's all cats and car dash ins and like Worse worse things than cats and part as you say. But I mean if you can sort of get past that presentation Buzz Feed's. Investigative staff is pretty amazing and so if you go back I actually do think everybody has a little theory about this what this case is really going to be about. Out what's what it what is really going to come down to in terms of maybe the most impeachable offenses or the most imprisonable offenses or the most egregious offenses my personal working theory is that it is about the trial Moscow tower and it's about the money it's about where the money was going to come from and how the money was going to come back. And if you want to read a really good piece I think the guys who really have this really understand this are these 2 Buzz Feed writers Anthony Cormier and Jason Leopold and their reporting on this has been stellar what you want to look for some are there you have to sweep away all those cots and card actions or both speed and look for a piece came out in May called Trump Moscow the definitive story of how Trump's team worked the Russian deal during the campaign there are a lot of stuff in that story that now is just coming out in some of the charging documents and sentencing documents and indictments I mean there's sort of had a lot of this stuff for a while there are really really good reporters All right so that music means that we're almost out of time so let me just quickly say thanks to everybody who helped out today almost let us know if you like the way we're doing things if you like these kinds of shows we've got a one week pledge game being right here at the station which means that people are going to talk to you about supporting the show in just a couple of seconds I should say as a kind of an experiment we're trying for 3 of the 5 days this week the people who talk to you in these little breaks like the one that's coming up will be us in a prerecorded thing we just thought it would be better if we ourselves the producers and host of the show tried to explain to you what the heck are those we're doing and why you should do what I know break we have about 3 minutes to convince you to support w. N.p.r. At 180584278 if you like what you've just been listening to a little bit under the pressure here because we're doing our brakes a little bit different than we've done that before I'm here in the studio it Colleen and Carlos and Scott and Jonathan who you heard if you were listening to the show earlier so I'm going to end Wolf and will be I'm sorry working I think it's on the other end up with this really when you think you feel even more pressure is that this is going now this is. And this is my life do you understand what I go. To now I'm going to turn it over to somebody else anybody pick it up really just quickly reiterate the phone number 180-5478 if you like. You just heard if you like the kind of creativity that we're trying to do here call 180584278 day because a nice pledge we would really appreciate that we get credit for it too or go on line w. Npr dot org slash donate you can do it that way you know what it would you recently as we did a survey. 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Retraced most of those replies back to the Connecticut public board of directors and so much of the listeners are really way actually cause you can win through the survey or anything jump out at you about sort of you know how people react to us I mean for me the biggest takeaway was the engagement and just people who are willing to sit down and spend 8 minutes of their time just to tell us what they think about us and that's a really big takeaway and if you can fill out the survey now you know it don't feel that it's too late but you know you could still donate Barrow and you call the number and you talk to a real human being you can tell them what you think then we see everything that if you if you have any secrets or any sort of confessions when you call and make a pledge at 18052788 we see everything so if you didn't get to do that survey you can still tell us what you think and shall send us your complaints about Collin that's what we printed really like. To call or pledges $30.00 a month and killed the guy in Wichita Falls 20 years ago All right Scott give us the phone number one more time Scott's due to this or having him practice the phone number for sure it is 180-584-2788 or you can go on w. Npr dot org perfect I said you're going to have this theory that if anybody's list that when you listen to the show or you listen to the station during fundraiser fun drives if you can say the number along with us then you should probably be a member Yeah I think that's right so you can try to get it there but it ready oh yes it's a good one. 5. 27 sounds coming. It's a letter we are passing the course from played on and so we got about 10 seconds after the show if you call now that sends a message to the people who read our paychecks 180-584-2788 thank you so very much . On the next fresh air we remember a wreath a frank and listen back to the interview recorded in 1980 told the stories behind some of her songs China. Coming up tonight at 10. On the next On Being need to throw human lend a solutions lens with psychotherapist obvious Klein and journalist Rebecca Traister It's profoundly emotionally difficult to do that kind of assessment of unequal power with our most intimate emotionally tight relationships I'm Krista Tippett joining us. Tonight a lot of. This is Connecticut Public Radio w n.p.r. And w n.p.r. H.d. One merit and 90.5 w p k t w p k t h d one Norwich 89 point one w e t w f m Stamford at 88.5 w r o Y's Southampton at 91.3 and w. Npr dot org. Chicago it's This American Life you can call me. Jasper Jesper with an easy Jesper Yeah Ok And it's here. Jesper and Petr Those are actual names Yeah it's not a joke. And just. The 1st time they've ever agreed to do an interview about this thing that they created or even identify themselves as the creator of that thing the thing that made they said it all began back in 2000 and. 15 they were basically hanging out killing time together strong through Facebook board the location for this at work supposed to be working because he had a lot of free time at the job now we were working all the time working really hard as for the During the last break and I did one of you said yes and he said no. They're working in radio and and also in Norway Anyway they noticed on their friend's Facebook feeds very common people are posting lots of like inspirational images with inspirational words and it kind of looked like there was a system behind the whole thing like it kind of felt like a machine should be able to do this. Robot could probably make that could make an inspirational quote After all there are so formulaic every day might not be a good day but there is good in every day if out and yesterday stand up today the secret to getting ahead is getting started. So just print pattered said to program a computer to create these to generate inspirational sentences and paste them on to stock photos of you know beaches and starry nights and people staring into the distance and what's interesting is how quickly the program kind of took on a mind of its own like at 1st they said the computer really did generate very typical kind of predictable inspirational quotes they said that wasn't terribly difficult but they gave it a bigger vocabulary and thought it a string together a wider variety of sentences the kinds of sayings that it started to crank out started to evolve as they got more random they got funnier and darker and again oversell this but but it's true actually sometimes kind of profound. Started to take on a personality the personality that it actually has now now I can I can remember very well the moment. We were looking at the quotes and it wasn't what we had imagined it felt like something that we had in Korea. I say some of these on my laptop Here's one. Ok So each one is a quote on top of some. Contemplative image this one 1st one picture is a nighttime sky and I don't know maybe that's the Aurora Borealis and the word say I love is an animal eating your brain. This one here is a close up of a coin it has never think of it as a job Think of it as health insurance which you know. People definitely feel some people about their jobs and I love this one Ok so this is a picture of Big Ben It says when you're eating dinner don't forget that everything and everyone will someday be gone forever a bunch of them have this kind of like cold water in the face wake up to reality slap you across the cheek sort of quality to them there's one that says there's a photo of a man this is a manager starry sky says your time on earth is random woman offers of what spark are simply your average a man stands on a shore it says don't explore your true self it's not worth it but us and them are not like that here's a picture of a spiral galaxy it's all you need in order to travel to Mars is a boy. And a flag. Which in a certain way you know is actually kind of true like you know these are all made very machine they're made by a bot and like a certain number of them do seem like gibberish and education can be like an angry child what does that mean or be fine systematize spouse finity. Ok. But a surprising number of these like they not only make sense they seem to have something on their mind they have something to say.