Let’s Get Wildly Off Topic

Episode Notes

Transcript

Above the Law – Thinking Like a Lawyer

Let’s Get Wildly Off Topic

10/29/2019

 

[Music]

 

Intro: Welcome to Thinking Like a Lawyer with your hosts Elie Mystal and Joe Patrice, talking about legal news and pop culture, all while Thinking Like a Lawyer, here on Legal Talk Network.

 

[Music]

 

Joe Patrice: Hello. Welcome to another edition of Thinking Like a Lawyer. I am Joe Patrice from Above the Law. I am unfortunately not joined in the studio by Elie Mystal but he is reaching us through the power of technology. Hello —

 

Elie Mystal: I just wanted to talk to my friends one last time.

 

Joe Patrice: Oh you’re one of those people who still thinks these movies are good huh?

 

Elie Mystal: Yes I think that the new ones are good. I liked the middle one more than other people, obviously I thought Force Awakens was awesome and I couldn’t believe what the new — we’re talking about those Star Wars trailer for people who are not getting the reference, the thing about the new Star Wars’ trailer that really got me is that the emotional weight of the trailer was goddamn C-3PO —

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

 

Elie Mystal: Which is shocking because he’s not usually the person who does the emotional heavy-lift.

 

Joe Patrice: Interesting.

 

Elie Mystal: So we’ll see if that actually works out. I saw an interesting theory because I was saying one of the — he has this line where somebody’s working — they’re working on his brain and they’re like 3PO what are you doing and he goes I just wanted to look at my friends one last time. So it seems like 3PO is about to sacrifice himself and I mentioned that I was shocked that three 3PO’s cowardice which has been a part of my entire life like 3PO being a coward has been something that is true for my entire freaking life.

 

I noted that his cowardice was not there and that kind of hit me but then somebody on the Internet wisely pointed out, you don’t know how that scene ends. It could end with post just saying 3PO stop being ridiculous you’re not going to die, like the scene itself could be an example of his cowardice we don’t know yet but I’m excited for the movie.

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah, you devoted a lot more time to this than most folks. So yeah so while you were watching trailers I was out in lovely San Diego where it is still 87 degrees as it turns out and learning a little bit more about trends in legal technology, in particular legal technology aimed at smaller law firms, I was at the Clio Cloud Conference which is always a great show. You can read more of the coverage of it on Above The Law because stories will be up about the time there. So that’s what I was doing while you were you were doing that.

 

Elie Mystal: San Diego is a great place.

 

Joe Patrice: I got to be honest I’m not a huge San Diego fan. I feel like it’s the sterile Boston of the California cities. It’s the one that like just feels like it’s a little too constructed and a little to artificially clean. I don’t know.

 

Elie Mystal: I just — hey Boston is not artificially clean.

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah it is though like —

 

Elie Mystal: They’re purposely grungy.

 

Joe Patrice: Oh no, no.

 

Elie Mystal: And also like I just I’m sorry I can’t — I can’t imagine Boston in 86 degree weather all the time.

 

Joe Patrice: Well there’s that.

 

Elie Mystal: Completely changes the culture of everything right like Boston where people were happy I just know that’s —

 

Joe Patrice: Like for all its irritating qualities I feel like there’s a spirit motivating Los Angeles and I feel like San Diego’s spirit is we’re not Los Angeles and that’s really it and at a certain point that’s just not enough for me. It’s fine, it’s warm and whatever it’s by Tijuana whatever but otherwise I don’t know the food’s good though.

 

Elie Mystal: Food is excellent. The best Tex-Mex available in the lower 48.

 

Joe Patrice: Bold statement but okay.

 

Elie Mystal: And most likely all 50 right because I don’t think you got a lot of great Tex-Mex coming out of Alaska. I have tried it though so I don’t want it sir.

 

Joe Patrice: I feel I feel as though Texas right there in the name though.

 

Elie Mystal: I think Tex-Mex is a quite bad actually.

 

Joe Patrice: Well —

 

Elie Mystal: The barbecue in Texas that they got that going like really good Tex-Mex so Southern California over Texas any day. This is not what I want to talk about.

 

Joe Patrice: Okay.

 

Elie Mystal: What I want to talk about with you is and we’ve had a couple of stories about this week on Above The Law who within the orbit of the Trump administration needs to be disbarred first? Your options right now —

 

Joe Patrice: Giuliani —

 

Elie Mystal: — are Giuliani, William Barr, Don McGahn I think he got thrown in there as a potential.

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

 

Elie Mystal: Like who needs to go down first?

 

(00:04:59)

 

Joe Patrice: Giuliani is the only one who’s done anything that strikes me as disciplinary problematic at least or allegedly I guess we should say still but the accusations against him show somebody who’s actually done something that could be disciplined everybody else seems still aboveboard.

 

Elie Mystal: Well I want to give you a second so explain to people what why you think Giuliani has committed actual ethical 00:05:25.

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah well I don’t necessarily need to. My friends at the Justice Department, have been very good about explaining why and have mostly but through his cronies but it appears as though he has utilized his buddies to basically defraud the government in a sense. I mean I don’t know so that would be the legal terminology for it but that’s what’s — certainly what it looks like colloquially if true and that’s — yeah that’s the sort of thing to get to you — your license yanked.

 

Elie Mystal: So I generally agree that Giuliani is the most obvious candidate and the most the one who’s almost trying to set his law license on fire but I’m going to make a case for Attorney General William Barr also to be disbarred. Certainly the New York City Bar thinks so.

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

 

Elie Mystal: We have a post up on Above The Law from Elizabeth Dye kind of detailing the New York City bar’s kind of argument against William Barr and one of their quotes is because the respect for law essential to our nation’s governments, the Attorney General of the United States bears specially responsibility to see that our laws are administrated for the benefit of American people.

 

The Attorney General is and must be seen as a representative the nation and advising the President and other federal law officers. Barr has clearly failed to do this like and I tend to agree that and as a disciplinary manner it’s more of a case for impeachment of Barr then disbarment of Barr.

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah exactly.

 

Elie Mystal: But let’s be clear like William Barr’s attitude towards his office is one of a defense attorney with one client that being Donald Trump as opposed to the United States top lawyer. He has been knee-deep in it, and appears to be knee-deep in all of the schemes that Trump and Giuliani were concocting with the Ukraine or sorry Ukraine not by Ukraine I learned —

 

Joe Patrice: You’ve been playing — you’ve been playing risk too much.

 

Elie Mystal: Yes exactly. So it seems like he is knee-deep in all of the Ukraine scandals. He has been gallivanting around Europe trying to convince other countries perhaps to investigate Joe Biden or other Trump political rivals. He’s been to Italy doing some of this stuff. He buried the whistleblower complaint or at least tried to. One of the reasons why the impeachment process playing out the way it is with all of these kind of closed-door depositions in front of the House Intelligence Committee is because William Barr has received I think last reports I saw were three criminal referrals about Trump’s behavior none of which he has decided to follow up on. So this top American law enforcement official is instead of acting like that, acting like Trump’s bagman and that to me should attach with some form of disciplinary action because he is violating the standards and the norms and the ethics of his office.

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

 

Elie Mystal: But you would agree — but you think that punishment should be removal from his job not loss of his law license?

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah it doesn’t seem like it’s — it doesn’t seem as though it’s a disciplinary thing per se. I guess you could stretch it to say that at the point that you win the link to his clients are the United States and not yeah maybe but yeah I don’t know as though this is a disciplinary claim but I fully understand why an advocacy group would draw that distinction. I mean it is valuable to them, it is a way in which they can raise awareness of what they do. So I don’t fault them for it but it seems though the person who is in most danger of losing their license is not him.

 

Elie Mystal: What about Don McGahn?

 

Joe Patrice: I mean okay he didn’t do anything that I can tell.

 

Elie Mystal: Well arguably he — we don’t know because he will not test — let’s start here sorry. Let’s start here — he’s refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas that is a potential — that should be viewed as ethical violation right at the top.

 

(00:09:54)

 

Joe Patrice: Right so your position is Eric Holder should have been disbarred. He also declined to submit to congressional subpoenas.

 

Elie Mystal: I’m saying you can make it — I’m saying you can make that argument yes.

 

Joe Patrice: Sure.

 

Elie Mystal: I’m saying at the point where you have a duly issued subpoena from Congress and you are ignoring it, that should be viewed as an ethical violation.

 

Joe Patrice: I mean but it’s — but there’s a good reason why it isn’t which is that congressional subpoenas are incredibly problematic because we have the lessons of the Oliver North era that if you ignore a congressional subpoena there’s not really much that can be done to you but if you comply with it that evidence can often be used against you and arguably could be used against you, as was against North though he ultimately was able to beat that on a on a bit of a technicality at the appellate level but that can be used against you in a criminal case. And so —

 

Elie Mystal: Come on that’s like saying if you evade the cops they can’t catch you but if you submit to the cops they could do all sorts of things to you, no.

 

Joe Patrice: No it’s —

 

Elie Mystal: It’s part of — it’s complying with the law is not optional.

 

Joe Patrice: Right and that’s why I’m sure he would comply with a law enforcement subpoena, congressional subpoenas though are ignored for this very reason that they are concerned that this is going to be used against them in a life and limb sort of situation as opposed to a public grandstanding situation.

 

Elie Mystal: Are you sure he is going to comply with if the court rules that he must comply with the congressional subpoena, are you sure McGahn’s going to do that?

 

Joe Patrice: With a congressional subpoena — that one’s — that one’s if he — I’m more the point that if he’s ordered to comply with a US Attorney’s Office or state prosecutor’s subpoena then he would, yes. With a law enforcement — a law enforcement agency that has the power to jail somebody, I think there is no question he would comply but the sound legal advice would be do not comply with congressional subpoenas to the extent that anything you say there will put you in jeopardy potentially when it comes to a criminal prosecution.

 

Elie Mystal: The other argument for disbarring McGahn is that he was a party to the President’s attempted obstruction of justice. Now I don’t know how much — I don’t know how much we want to — how much credit — here’s the question how much credit do you want to give McGahn for I guess resisting the obstruction of justice right, reducing Trump’s potential obstruction of justice to mere attempted obstruction of justice by not carrying through it would appear on some of the orders that he was given, how much kind of moral and then legal credit do you want to give him for that?

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah this goes to why disbarment proceedings are probably the wrong forum for all of this. If you believe that somebody was involved in a criminal endeavor the prosecution of that thing must probably necessarily come first because the idea of having a disciplinary committee pass judgment on that without robust records being built in the criminal side is probably not good.

 

Elie Mystal: Well so your — so it is your contention that you cannot and I think and we — we’re kind of skipping over the issue of whether or not McGahn aided and abetted the obstruction of justice or whether he was actually preventing the obstruction of justice and that’s a live issue I think but your position is that even if he was aiding and abetting the obstruction of justice because the obstruction has not yet been prosecuted McGahn cannot be disbarred?

 

Joe Patrice: I’m not making a blanket claim about that but yes I think it would be much better, it is in the better interest of legal — of the — I was going to say Bar Association’s but it’s not always them, they’re different ways in different states that it but the licensing agency it is in the best interests of the licensing agency not to endeavor to prove criminal violations within it’s fairly by design not criminal process within not one with the criminal protections as a way of then dealing with somebody’s license. It would be much better if you believe that what has happened is a criminal violation if that is being done through a criminal prosecution with the protections that that carries with it.

 

Elie Mystal: But see but this is where Trump the administration’s argument and the ridiculous Office of Legal Counsel memos argument that the President can never be indicted or investigated as President. This is where that argument breaks down the entire system of justice because what you’re essentially saying is that because Trump cannot be indicted for obstruction of justice while he’s the President then Don McGahn who is not the President of United States also cannot be held accountable for his actions in that obstruction of justice because you haven’t indicted the President first which of course according to OLC you can’t.

 

(00:14:58)

 

Joe Patrice: Right, right.

 

Elie Mystal: So Trump’s ridiculous protection or alleged protection under the OLC memo doesn’t just extend to the unique personage of the President of United States. It basically gives carte blanche for the rest of the people in his branch of government to break laws without ever being held accountable for them.

 

Joe Patrice: Right but that — that problem is implicit regardless of the issue that I’m talking about, right? The question of whether or not those people can be held accountable by the justice system due to that argument exists independently of what you’re proposing which is the idea that I mean a disciplinary committee, three random lawyers in the state who happened to be pulling the duty of being on the committee that year choose to have the — do they get the ability then to take away the guy’s job based on trying to without any access to evidence decide whether or not he committed a crime, that’s the problem I’m talking about.

 

The problem you’re talking about that’s wholly separate, is that there is a problem with the way in which this whole executive privilege and whether or not President, sitting Presidents can be indicted but that’s sitting over there regardless of what’s going on. The question at hand is put aside that do you think it would be better if people could lose their professions based on slapdash investigations without the benefit of the criminal justice system that I think is problematic.

 

Elie Mystal: I would not call Muller investigation slapdash although I do think it was incomplete —

 

Joe Patrice: Sure.

 

Elie Mystal: — your argument your argument is – is —

 

Joe Patrice: — that’s a grand jury — he set up situation that should have lead to a grand jury indictment absolutely, that’s it, that doesn’t jump over the hoop then to say that the Committee of Randos get to take away the guy’s job.

 

Elie Mystal: Let me turn it around on you on like this then your argument then is as you must know the exact same argument that Antonio Brown is going to make or that Ray Rice made, that these non criminal slapdash investigations about their misconduct should not be the reason why they lose their jobs.

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah, no and absolutely and that is a perfectly fair argument about what the extent of due process is when it comes to personal — private contracts as a at-will employee. Yes that is a fair argument is one that traditionally they lose because organizations can choose whether or not they should have people on their staff based on all sorts of things but that yeah that’s going to be the argument.

 

It’s the same argument that Tom Brady was making too like that is a customary response that if there’s something that’s really a crime it should be dealt with through those mechanisms and not — it’s also the argument of a lot of these Title 9 claims too whether or not people who were accused of sexual assault at the collegiate level but it never goes to a criminal prosecution.

 

How far are you able to go in meeting out some sort of punishment without going through the system that’s designed for that purpose and it’s a sliding scale. They’re places where I think that there are protections, they’re robust enough that you would be able to do that and others where there aren’t. It’s makes it a difficult question but that’s what I can put plate here.

 

Elie Mystal: You can’t possibly be arguing that the due process protections in place for an Antonio Brown are somehow stronger than the due process protections in place for a Don McGahn?

 

Joe Patrice: No my argument is the NFL was able to say they aren’t hiring somebody. That is a function of their contract that is basically limitless because of the way in which that contract has been negotiated and they can say we feel like regardless of how it’s been proven they don’t get to work here and that’s a matter of their negotiation of the collective bargaining agreement. I don’t think that has anything to do with this.

 

Elie Mystal: The Bar Association could also say that we believe that Don McGahn should lose his license regardless of how the criminal process has played out.

 

Joe Patrice: One of — one of these things was a collective bargaining agreement that was actually negotiated at arm’s length by a bunch of people. What you’re doing is trying to suggest that we retroactively throw a bunch of rules on the licensing for regime. That doesn’t make a lot of sense.

 

Like I understand that you just kind of think that everybody in Trump’s orbit deserves to be put on the rack and that may well be true but that’s just not how this all works. So your better argument is the one you were making earlier that the fight over what the limits of indicting sitting Presidents and the people around them are is a fight that needs to be had and dealt with and the results of that follow in due course but there — it isn’t an end run around the legal system no matter how much people might like to have one.

 

Elie Mystal: How do you think the fight will play out at the Second Circuit that exact fight where Trump’s lawyers on appeal just for listeners who haven’t been following along, so you know Trump’s arguing that he does not have to turn over his tax returns.

 

(00:20:03)

 

That his accountant doesn’t have to turn over their financial documents, because the President not only could not be indicted now they’re arguing that President cannot even be investigated while he’s in Office.

 

A district court said that theory was essentially ridiculous, because it would give the President unlimited power. The Trump people obviously appealed straight away to the Second Circuit, and on appeal in front of the Second Circuit, the Trump lawyer William Consovoy, I think I’m pronouncing it wrong but you can Google it.

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

 

Elie Mystal: Trump’s lawyer actually said that he was asked if it was true that Trump could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and face no legal consequences and Trump’s lawyer said yes, that in fact Trump could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and he would not be able to be even investigated for that crime, much less indicted or held accountable to that crime. That is the argument Trump is making at the Second Circuit, do you think it will hold up at the Second Circuit, Joe, and do you think it will hold up at the Supreme Court?

 

Joe Patrice: I would certainly hope not in either case, it is an aggressive and ridiculous argument to go that far and so yes, I think that that would not succeed and I would hope it would not succeed. I would even hope that people who are political actors would see — want that not to succeed for the obvious reason that that precedent would be traumatic for them on all sides as it would play out through the ages.

 

I mean I guess if we don’t care about stare decisis anymore, maybe they could do that, but if you have any belief that precedent matters I would assume that this would not be a well received argument.

 

Elie Mystal: I don’t know about the Supreme Court. I think I also think that –

 

Joe Patrice: Sure, but that’s not like, yeah, but sure, you don’t know — fine, but like we are not — we don’t control any of that, we control what the actual legal reasoning should be and yeah it would — it seems like that should be something that would fail, what happens I don’t know.

 

Elie Mystal: Yeah, I don’t think — I don’t think it does fail, and this is why I want all the Trump people on the fucking rack, because they have long since stopped playing by anything resembling the rule of law. They’ve long stopped playing within the norms. They’ve stop playing within the rule.

 

Joe Patrice: Sure, okay.

 

Elie Mystal: And your insistence on trying to use the book to catch them the right way just means that as they continue to throw away the book, burn the book, pretend the book doesn’t exist, it just means they keep getting away with their crimes and their lawlessness.

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

 

Elie Mystal: Now Democrats remain unable to stop them.

 

Joe Patrice: No, in fact — in fact quite the opposite. Most of the issues that are happening now are the result of previous small transgressions that were met with by people saying, well we — they’re not playing by the rules so we don’t have to either and it just enables them, because their interest is not in having a system that works, their interest is in having a system that doesn’t, because that benefits them long term.

 

If government is broken that benefits them long term and so that’s what they want to do, and they really could not find better agents than the people who go on TV and suggest that we can throw away the rule of law now because they did something wrong.

 

Joe Patrice: And you know it’s — right for them.

 

Elie Mystal: It’s already succeeded for government.

 

Joe Patrice: Yes.

 

Elie Mystal: It’s already succeeded.

 

Joe Patrice: Yes, you have been a wonderful agent for them in all of the stuff that you’re saying.

 

Elie Mystal: Your both sidism is one —

 

Joe Patrice: No, that’s not a both sidism. It is not.

 

Elie Mystal: It is both sidism.

 

Joe Patrice: It is not, it is not. It is in fact, no, no, no, oh no.

 

Elie Mystal: These people, these people have taken this country by the balls, all right. They refused to play by the rules and all you’ve got is Harry fucking Reid, all right. These people stole a seat on the Supreme Court. They put a 00:23:43 on the court.

 

Joe Patrice: This is the sound that we play when –

 

Elie Mystal: All we have is Harry Reid.

 

Joe Patrice: This is the sound we play when Elie does the thing that he inevitably does midway through an argument which is get incredibly loud as opposed to make arguments.

 

Yes, no, it’s very — it’s been very bad, but you don’t want to, you want to set up a situation that deals with that through a setup that we can then live with long-term. When you act in a way that breaks down these rules for good, it only leads to a situation where future abuses happen.

 

As we’ve talked in previous episodes about the flipping the script kind of idea that you have to deal with it by not doing what they did and saying well now that’s good for us. It has to be some sort of a change and you’ve wrote a good piece. I think it got cut out, but I know you wrote it. A good piece about the filibuster and how it can’t be released, it has to be changed, because that’s the only way in which it can work long-term is if we do things that make it difficult to exploit but still maintain it.

 

That’s the situation here too, and the idea that you set up a situation where people’s disciplinary committees are now doing criminal prosecutions, that’s not a particularly useful way of getting around that, because it opens up all manner of abuses. You want something that will deal with it long-term, and that’s hard and it’s unpleasant but it’s — it’s difficult times and difficult work.

 

(00:25:07)

 

Elie Mystal: There has been for long the suggestion on the change of the filibuster is not to completely get rid of it because there is still some value to the slow process.

 

Joe Patrice: And protesting – and protecting —

 

Elie Mystal: Minority.

 

Joe Patrice: Minority, yes.

 

Elie Mystal: But it’s changed the filibuster back to the way that it used to be if you ever watched you know Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, change it back to a talking filibuster, right.

 

So instead of right now what we have is a procedural vote where it’s like oh, I filibuster and then you go to the bathroom. No, you want a filibuster, you stay your ass on the Senate floor and you talk until you drop.

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah.

 

Elie Mystal: A filibuster.

 

Joe Patrice: And it forces you to be in the public eye and be judged by the court of public opinion which a lot of — a lot of unpopular things are done under the guise of filibusters and if they were forced to defend them they would not succeed.

 

Yeah, no, I think it’s a great idea and it’s exactly the kind of solution to breaches of the rule of law that is necessary, it’s a solution that sets up a condition that makes the hack impossible while not ignoring the original institution. That’s, that’s the problem and the challenge of how we deal with all this, because much like what Harry Reid did basically when the filibuster was being abused in the past was take the wrong path, as opposed to the path that you just outlined, his solution was, well, I’ll just get rid of it and what do you know the next thing that happened was we just got rid of it for Mitch McConnell.

 

And so that’s why it’s so important to as unpleasant and difficult as it is to sit back and try to think of ways in which you can think outside the box and come up with innovative solutions that build on institutions of the rule of law rather than try to collapse them.

 

Elie Mystal: No matter what Harry did when Mitch McConnell had the opportunity to steal Supreme Court seat he would have and he would have changed the filibuster. Once he got a majority in the Senate Mitch McConnell would have changed or messed with any rule he had to mess with in order to get Neil Gorsuch into that seat and he would have done it to get an alleged attempted rapist into that seat.

 

Joe Patrice: Yeah I —

 

Elie Mystal: Mitch McConnell does not care about your rules.

 

Joe Patrice: See I actually — I actually think that if it were a talking filibuster at that point you would have seen — Gorsuch probably would have still been the case, but Kavanaugh could have been a different situation, but I think Gorsuch probably still would have been and they would have utilized all those hours to try and make the claim that golly this is just taking so long and they’re just dragging this out for no reason. They’d build that sort of narrative which true or not or a valid or not, would be a strategy and it’s one that they could have potentially won, but and Gorsuch they would have suggested — over time they would have played up, he’s fairly reasonable yadi yadi yada and try to get that done.

 

Kavanaugh would have been a much more difficult situation though, who knows, there is some argument to be had that they may well have thought that if it dragged out long enough the popular opinion would swing back. Unfortunately history is somewhat on their side. Clarence Thomas as that dragged on kind of got the public back on his side unfortunately. So, maybe they had a value to that.

 

The point is there were avenues for them to take that would not have been as long-term destructive. They might have still won but they might have been able to win within institutions that could help long-term.

 

Elie Mystal: They stole the seat. I don’t think there was any coming back from that.

 

Joe Patrice: Right, but the stealing of the seat had nothing to do with the filibusters or anything like that.

 

Elie Mystal: Yeah, I agree with that. I am saying like, once you steal — what I’m saying once you steal the seat, once you’re halfway through the river of blood, it doesn’t matter, like the institution is broke, right. I looked –

 

Joe Patrice: Sure. I mean —

 

Elie Mystal: This has been broken — this has been broken since Bush v. Gore and nobody’s fixed it and nobody’s trying to fix it, all the Democrats are doing is losing, right. Like it is a system that has been broken since Bush v. Gore, Republicans broke it then figured out how to win on the ashes and the Democrats are still — are still fighting a 1999 fight.

 

Joe Patrice: I mean I — yeah, all right. I’m sure that is a compelling narrative. There are a lot of problems, the Bush v. Gore thing is absolutely a situation that leads towards brokenness, but there had been many other instances in the 20 years since then that have been more – that lend more optimism to the resiliency of these rules. The current situation while problematic and in need of reform is in the grand scheme not as bad of a reflection on the brokenness of everything then, then it could be.

 

(00:30:00)

 

There’s certainly hope but the more that it’s dismissed and treated as hey government is nothing that you can rely on, the more powerful that the opposition to your point of view becomes.

 

Elie Mystal: Right. I don’t see how they can get any more powerful than they are now.

 

Joe Patrice: I mean, yeah, they could not have a 38% approval rating. But — and with that said there are reasons to suggest that they have severe structural weaknesses as is, but with all that said, yeah, so that was the longest gear grinding ever so we will now transition to, no, we’ll just — we’ll just ignore the actual topic, then and move on.

 

So thanks for listening, you should be listening. Subscribe to the show, giving it reviews. You should be reading Above the Law, you should read @ElieNYC, @JosephPatrice, both on Twitter.

 

You should be listen to The Jabot which is Kathryn’s podcast. You should listen to the other offerings of the Legal Talk Network and with all of those things said, we will be back with you hopefully with more of a five to six grinding of gears next time we are out of the gate.

 

Elie Mystal: Peace.

 

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