Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to arrest the only five and local show that takes you into the belly of our criminal justice system, cohosted by Mike Brooks and Atlanta criminal defense attorney Dan conaway of Conway and strickler pc. Good morning, everybody was arrested with your host, Mike Rook and criminal defense attorney Dan conaway.

Speaker 2: 0:19

We appreciate everybody listening this morning. Dan, how's it going this morning? So far? It's gone pretty good. Good, good, good. Well, we got a lot of. We've got a lot of great topics to cover this week and we're going to start off with one about day, uh, a diplomat's husband, uh, who was going to, you try to use his wife's diplomatic immunity. But before we get to that, wouldn't give you an update on a, on a, on, on something we discussed about a week or so ago. Remember Dan, we were talking about the Atlanta Police Department and there was an audit that was done here with the body cams. Right, exactly. In audit that was done on the use of the body cams by the members over thousand members that have been issued body cams of the Atlanta police department. Well, you know, it didn't look too good for APD with the audit and a and just recently a police chief, Erica shields. Well, she, she wasn't real happy with the audit. And you know, Mike, it's amazing. Often those audits can, uh, can cause the unhappiness and situation. Yeah. Well, in this particular case, she basically said, look, the police body cameras are not meant for decoration. Which I went, Ooh, I think chief shields' is pissed it up. But uh, and that was, you know, that was awarding after learning of the results of that, of that independent audit because they didn't have been an audit as, as we, as we told everyone, it showed that many officers don't even bother to charge the units and when they are properly turned on, some of the supervisors are not taking the time and the effort to even review the footage. Dan. So chief shields' was at a city council meeting where members told the chief that citizens paid millions of dollars for the body cams and taxpayers will don't do not like the nonchalance manner in which some officers are dealing with a policy that the city believes is important. And uh, basically the body cams are to be turned on whenever a cruiser pulls out on a nine one, one emergency call or when the officer has citizen contact and chief shields' totally agreed with the city council and she said that any officer who fails to comply faces a penalty of what she calls in the wallet, which means she's going to start fining people groups all the way through suspension and good for her because the technology's there, the are supposed to use

Speaker 3: 3:00

it for everyone's safety and for everyone's help and they should be doing that. So that's exactly right. Kudos. Kudos.

Speaker 2: 3:06

Yeah, I agree. And, uh, you know, I, I want to see, you know, as I told you, I want to see this program. I want to see it do well because again, we talked about it. I mean, I think it's, it's good for law enforcement and it's good for the citizens. It's good for both. It really is. So there's a case out of New York City. Dan were a 46 year old British diplomat. Well, she frantically called police at about 9:35 AM, about a little little over a week ago and said her husband had beat her in the face, but police eventually had to let the man go because he used her diplomatic immunity. Now Yosef Ama, she's 37 years old, was arrested after he refused to talk to police and slammed his apartment door on an officer's and causing an injury. But the police couldn't hold him because he claimed diplomatic immunity, as I said, using his wife's immunity. And she works. She's a diplomat for the United Kingdom based at the United Nations. Yup. That is. I looked, you know, having been in DC for all those years and you know, they stopped people. Oh, you can stop me. And I'm claiming diplomatic immunity. I tell you this particular case of domestic violence, not good.

Speaker 3: 4:29

Well, I can tell him like this interesting because, uh, uh, this case goes directly to all the issues that involve diplomatic community. Um, and, uh, just as an example, if you go to the Department of State's website, a US Department of State, they have a, a whole section on diplomatic and consular immunity and there's a section within that guidance for law enforcement and judicial authority. So basically the rules for law enforcement. Um, and so essentially what it says is it says several things that, uh, certainly support diplomatic community, including the fact that it's an ancient concept that goes all the way back to the ancient Greek and Roman governments. In fact, historically the Greek, both the Greek government, the Persian governments, the Egyptian governments, Babylonian governments were talking about, well over 2000 years ago had diplomatic immunity because that way,

Speaker 2: 5:19

well, it goes back that far.

Speaker 3: 5:21

Yeah, because you can sit because he thinks about it. If you're, if you're a Greek diplomat, right? And you're going over to Egypt. Sure. Right. Well, the last thing you want to do is be subject to the laws of Egypt. Uh, especially at a time when, let's say law enforcement and law and order and due process, we're not fully developed, say 2,500 years ago, right? So you go back and so you want to not to be subject to those laws because otherwise you couldn't, you couldn't get anything done is the diplomat or it can be threatened, thrown in prison, thrown in jail, beheaded, you know, 10,000 lashings, whatever the punishment of the day was. So that's the basic principle behind it. So they do enjoy, uh, a large amount of protection from local law enforcement. This is the opposite of your average citizen that we've talked about before where, for instance, if you're in Dubai, right, you're subject to the laws of Dubai. Uh, it doesn't matter that you're a US citizen or a citizen of France or wherever when you're, there, you are under the jurisdiction and the laws of that country, however, that under diplomatic immunity for a special class of people, uh, they are not subject to the laws for the most part, but it's a couple of big butts. Yeah, I mean, and this is a big one, diplomatic immunity does not run with the person. Now the family of the diplomat, in this case, the husband, it does run with a family and that makes sense because again, if you're a diplomat and you're trying to negotiate a treaty on something or, or you're working at the United Nations like this, uh, this, like the victim in this case, the alleged victim I should say in this case, uh, uh, is, uh, then you want your family protected in case some other group doesn't like what you're doing, but diplomatic community ultimately rents with the country, not with the individual. So therefore the country can pull it up if they choose to. And there's a process laid out under international law so that although diplomatic and constantly immunity certainly exists and they've been with us, their treaties that exist, there was always kind of a customary thing that goes back over the centuries. Like I said, uh, there's diplomatic community officially recognized as back in 17. Oh, eight by the British parliament. Uh, and then we're under different conventions, including the Vienna conventions, have diplomatic relations. Here's the thing, because diplomatic community can be waived by the host country and immunity runs for the country, not the person. If you have a serious situation where you have the violent crime such as domestic violence and also assault on a police officer or the hand on the door, you've got at least two major crimes there. And I would argue probably has some type of false imprisonment charges. Well, uh, because he's not a know, you're not allowing the police end up into the situation. And then finally you've got domestic violence is similar to yes, is it can technically be a misdemeanor, but it's a particular type of misdemeanor. It's similar to like a dui where they are taken seriously because of the problem of escalation the next time around somebody could really be hurt,

Speaker 2: 8:27

right? Well, this woman, she reportedly had redness and swelling to her face after, after the incident, uh, but she declined medical treatment. But, uh, you know, there's, but now there's a, there's a US Congress woman out of New York that is trying to make it. So there's Mr Howe Maroochy can be prosecuted

Speaker 3: 8:45

and that's. And there's a full process for that under the treaty were uh, uh, what we'll do is she, through the State Department, will petition, uh, the United Kingdom and requests diplomatic community for this particular situation be waived, which is fully up to the United Kingdom whether they choose to waive it or not, but if they choose to waive that, then all the sudden, uh, the gentleman in this situation, uh, will face charges because once he loses his diplomatic community, which is ultimately up to the United Kingdom, not up to the United States, not at the diplomat and not up to him. Then if, if a united team chooses to do that, then he can be prosecuted for domestic violence and the related violations in New York.

Speaker 2: 9:30

Now with this whole diplomatic community then, because, you know, when I was in DC and I said, you know, all the time people were claiming different ag community and we could, we throw our dispatcher, we had the, we had the capability to call the 24 hour desk at the state level

Speaker 3: 9:44

apartment. And it talks about that on this website are.

Speaker 2: 9:46

Oh yeah, yeah. And, but you know, there's, there's, you're dealing with, with, with diplomatic missions counselor and also some international organizations.

Speaker 3: 9:57

That's true. Yeah, there are, there can be organizations that can be protected through consular immunity. It depends, partly two things. One, it depends on the role, like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, right? Those kinds of things. So you've got that. And then two, you've got the, um, the issue of the, again, the host country, uh, or rather the country from which depends on, at Hales. And that is where the organization, let's say it's an international organization like the under the European Union, well then they can have the same type of immunity. But again, the key thing here is that it always runs with the person, excuse me, it always runs for the country. It does not run with the individuals so it can be waived and there's a process for it so that when you do have someone who's in serious violation of the laws of the host country, in this case, the United States where the host country under those circumstances, there is a process through which the country can waive diplomatic immunity and then the person can be brought to justice in the host country.

Speaker 2: 10:56

Interesting. Well, I have, I have a couple more questions that I want to ask you about diplomatic immunity and, uh, I think, I know I listened to this would probably have a lot of questions as well, and maybe we'll hope to answer them when we return. You're listening to arrested with Mike Brooks and criminal defense three. Dan conaway on the new talk one. Oh, six seven. This is arrested with Mike Brooks and Atlanta criminal defense attorney. Damn conaway, you're listening to arrested with Mike Brooklyn criminal defense attorney Dan conaway on the new talk one. Oh, six slash seven. Thank you for joining us over. You're talking about, uh, Dan was a diplomat's husband who as a who allegedly, you know, I've always say allegedly now, oh, allegedly assaulted her in a domestic violence violence incident. And then he slammed the door of the apartment on NYPC officers hand injury net officer. They couldn't arrest him. No, because he claimed diplomatic community using his wife's immunity because she is a diplomat for the United Kingdom, uh, assigned to United Nations. Now we're talking about, um, some of the different things that, you know, maybe that, that it's not the individual, it's the country in a, whether it be a, you're using a united Arab Emirates or in this case United Kingdom, now they can waive immunity and possibly get this guy arrested. But how, how, what kind of process do they have to go through to. They have to go through the United Nations to have, to go through State Department. How does, how does it really work? It's actually not that.

Speaker 3: 12:34

Call it a process. Um, we were talking about extradition before. Yeah, it's Kinda the same kind of thing. It's the State Department, a is set up for this kind of situation. Uh, where you've got an issue that's an international issue that needs to be discussed, it needs to be hashed out between the leadership of the two countries and that's what our State Department is there for. Um, and so what they'll do is they'll reach out. And in the last article I read about this, the representative from I'm the representative from New York who was discussing this issue was very clear. She said that, um, domestic abuse cannot be tolerated. No, regardless of whether it's committed by diplomat or not. And uh, she's asking that she's asking that, uh, that the, the, the United Kingdom formally wave a formerly wave, uh, the immediate diplomatic abusers, diplomatic immunity, and in this case.

Speaker 2: 13:29

So it was representative Carolyn Maloney, congresswoman for Manhattan from Manhattan

Speaker 3: 13:34

on the east side. Yep. Um, and the thing about this is, um, is that it's pretty straightforward. What you do is she will start with the State Department. She will put together a packet, a similar to an extradition packet, but it's a, it's a consular packet that basically explains the situation. It'll lay out the investigation, it'll have the police officer's investigatory report. You'll have a summary of everything, everything will be drafted up and then it will be submitted through our State Department ultimately to, uh, the United Kingdom and then at the United Kingdom will choose a, through their consular services to decide whether immunity should be waived or not, but it's not a ridiculously cumbersome process. The key thing that, that if a ms.dot, if representative Maloney wants to be successful, right? Uh, the main thing is that the packet that is sent to the United Kingdom is complete. You want to make sure that all the documentation, all the information is in there so that they can make a, a good decision because it is a big deal to waive diplomatic community because again, especially for art, just to take our diplomats, we have diplomats in parts of the world where, you know, also there's all sorts of problems going on in those countries, right? Yeah. All sorts of unrest. And so you want protection for your diplomat. So it's not something that is waived lightly. But in this particular case, a representative Maloney I think has a stronger arguments and, uh, certainly it's a situation where a diplomatic community may be waived and we'll see

Speaker 2: 15:00

edsurge now, who is, who is covered? Is it a, is it, is it consular staff? Is it a honorary consulate offices? Just regular old employees and working in and in and a foreign embassy here in United States

Speaker 3: 15:13

broad. Um, and, and, uh, without going through everything, the bottom line is that, uh, and for those interested in this, you can go to the State Department website. It's right online, uh, but beyond that, uh, if you look at that and then you look at the Vienna Convention on Dematic Relations, uh, which was passed, which is from the 19 seventies. And we're a part of that, that governs a lot of this. The bottom line is that, uh, it, it really does extend, but not only sends the diplomats and their families and servants, servants means employees as well as for lower rankling diplomatic mission personnel. Uh, and this is a, this is the law from 1790. Wow. Uh, which was adopted from the law in 17. Oh, eight. Which Great Britain did. And then when we became a nation, we adopted it in 1790. And then again, the current Diplomatic Relations Act is from 1978. So

Speaker 2: 16:06

it's been around forever. It's crazy. I had no, I had no idea it was that old.

Speaker 3: 16:10

It goes back to the Babylonians and the Greeks and they each ships in the Persians. Um, so the, the issue here is that you want to really do provide broad immunity because again, if somebody, if you want to get to a diplomat, right? Many times the best way to do it is not through them. Let's say you don't want them to negotiate in particular type of treaty, right? The best way to do and think about it is to go through their family or to go through maybe a prized employee of theirs or something like that. And so it really does provide broad immunity so that all countries can come together, discuss issues, discuss issues which may not be popular in resolutions to problems, especially transnational international legal issues and other diplomatic problems that may not be popular in the host country

Speaker 2: 16:58

interest if that's the whole point. So where can people go if they want to read more on the diplomatic immunity,

Speaker 3: 17:04

they can go to thing, go to the State Department website, just type in a US Department of state and then type in constantly diplomatic relations and boom, the whole pdf that pops up. Gotcha. Uh, and then the other thing they do, if they really want to, if they want to fall asleep,

Speaker 2: 17:19

she read the Vienna Convention on

Speaker 3: 17:22

counselor relations. That that's, that's really nice and long and ended.

Speaker 2: 17:25

If you're INSOMNIAC, you'll be asleep in five minutes. Go by the way folks, if you haven't picked up or if you haven't read Dan's book, arrested battling America's criminal justice system, you are missing out. You can pick it up on Amazon, Barnes and noble. A just any place online. And also@wwwdotarrestedbook.com. There you go. Good stuff. You're always into arrested with Mike Brooks and criminal defense attorney Dan kahnawake. Well, Dan, there was a, a special counsel. Robert Mueller recently put out a, uh, a memo and it dealt a little bit possibly with hints at, we don't know how damaging it really is, but maybe damaging Russia information from former trump attorney, Michael Cohen, who also was recently just sentenced. What, so what, what do you think is in this memo? Ah, I think

Speaker 3: 18:30

there's all sorts of fascinating things in all these memos because we've got memos from both a muller investigation. Right? And then we've also got a, a memos from the southern district of New York prosecutors, prosecutors. Um, and so, and again, just to be clear, these are two totally different things. Uh, one is the appointed counsel, special counsel for the Russian collusion investigation. That's the Robert Muller. Yeah, that's Robert Butler. And as special prosecutor investigation is always do, it doesn't matter against whom they're directed. It can be Bill Clinton, it could be trump, it can be anybody, because if you just look at over the years what happens is they always morph, so it started as Russian collusion, right. Then went into obstruction of justice and then now, then this case in the southern district of New York against Cohen was a spinoff of that under southern district New York.

Speaker 2: 19:25

Oh, let me ask you something. I'm not, I don't know if I'm a big fan of special counsels in this particular case. It seems to me that Robert Muller with this whole Russian collusion, they are basically targeting president trump, you know, one way or the other and it seems like they are targeting. They've got someone in their sights, whether it be president trump or anyone. It's just the whole spacial council concept. It's like they have someone in their sights and then they go about trying to build a case against this person and they bring people in like a turret, their attorneys, everything else. Trying to dig things up because so far I haven't heard anything of any Russian collusion, but some of the other people who are, um, around president trump, you know, manafort, uh, and others, they're finding other non associated cases that are building against them. What do you think of the whole special council concept?

Speaker 3: 20:27

I think the issue with the special, the special council concept in general is that it's a dangerous concept to our democracy. And the reason is, is that, and again, it doesn't matter who it is because if you go back and look at the Reagan administration, if you go back and look at the Clinton administration, if you go back and look now with the trump administration, right? Um, they all had special council's going on and when special, the issue is special counsels is that, um, is that they tend to be brought by the party that lost the presidential way. There you go. And so what, and what happens is they start off with a very specific mandate, but then they morphed into other areas. Now what's happening with this, with the muller investigation is very typical. It's typical. It is a typical federal criminal investigation from the point of view of this is what the government does. There is nothing worse than the world. Uh, it is literally hell on earth, right when you were under federal criminal investigation, you have the vast power of the federal government aimed against you or your company or entity. Right. And so under those circumstances, just to start there again, it's one of those issues where the power that the power that special counsel has with the federal government behind them is immense and therefore is ultimately a threat to democracy in and of itself. Interesting. And it's a lot more to go with that, but

Speaker 2: 21:53

yeah. Yeah. We're going to talk more about the special counsel and specifically about Robert Muller and uh, and Michael Cohen and his sentencing, you know, is he going to even give more cooperation with the southern district of New York and maybe possibly with the spa with special counsel. Robert Mueller will be talking about all of that. Coming up on arrested with your host Mike Brooks and criminal defense street gang, cutaway on the new talk, what it was six, seven year into arrested with your host, Mike Brooks and criminal defense attorney Dan Kinda, you know, during to break we were talking about a special counsels and that kind of thing. And, and, um, web hubbell during the whole that Kenneth Starr, special counsel and all of that

Speaker 3: 22:38

kind of start to same, the same thing again. What started with an investigation to a real estate deal. The Whitewater right? Uh, ended up morphing over and over again until we got to Monica Lewinsky. So. Right. That's the problem with special counsels is that one, they're politically based to a, they never, they never stayed to their original goal. Right?

Speaker 2: 22:58

So yeah. So calling it a wound up and I wound up, actually I was in federal court that morning for a grand jury and then I got paged. Hey, we need you to walk. Webb Hubbell and his wife over to the DC cell block and have him booked in after they were indicted. I was like, okay, then what? I'm doing a port walk, walk out, there's all these cameras. I had no idea what was going on, you know, with this particular case.

Speaker 3: 23:20

Nice. We saw webster Hubbell at a, uh, a continuing legal education conference 10 years ago. Very nice man. Real Nice Guy. And He, you spoke highly of you.

Speaker 2: 23:30

I'm sure he did. Yeah. He and his wife. It's root. It's a rude awakening when you bring someone who's never been in the belly of the beast exactly. Into, uh, into central cell block in DC. Oh my goodness. It's not, it's not the four seasons, the sounds and the smells and everything else. There were, there were a little, a little upset, let's put it that way. What we're talking about Michael Cohen and you know, and, and Robert Muller and special counsel. Well, there's a sentencing memo that was written by special council, Robert mullers legal team, and um, it's sparking interest and maybe some hints at about a possibly what president trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen may have told prosecutors investigating the Russian interference and the 2016 election, you know, how far do you think this really goes?

Speaker 3: 24:25

Uh, you know, and uh, my, you talking about a slippery slope, that's where we will see where this goes, but I'm on the face of it. It's, again, it's very typical of the way federal criminal investigations work in that they, what happens is, is they can't get, let's assume that the target is a Donald Trump president. Trump. Okay. And again, I want to be clear, I don't know he's the target, but it appears to be based upon these memos that he is, the sure does. So let's assume that that's the case. All right? So what happens is, what they do is they go after other people and then they do one of two things. And in this case you have both examples. One, they provide diplomatic immunity. Uh, that was done for a Mr Pecker and the American media executive who is in charge of a believer. It's a esquire, the national esquire magazine. National Choir Choir. Yeah, yeah. When you go to the grocery store. Sure. Yeah. Um, so I was like, the national choir is always right there at the local kroger. I would like to read it all is fascinating. Um, so, uh, so, you know, so he's in charge of that and um, he, he and his entire organization was granted complete prosecutorial immunity to talk and provide information to both the southern district of New York and this is a federal prosecutor in Manhattan and then two to the smaller and the special counsel thematic DC.

Speaker 2: 25:51

Now, are they, are they working together? I know I'm supposed to be. I, yeah, but yes. But yes, they are because I'm sure, I'm sure there's, there's, there's agents, FBI agents who are working out of the New York field office that, you know, yes. They usually take their cases to a STA southern district of New York button, this particular location. You're still an agent. There's no fence, you know, between special counsel. He just did what you. Exactly.

Speaker 3: 26:17

We all know each other and so, and absolutely. And it's, it's nothing, it's not a stretch to say that, uh, the president trump has not the favorite individual of the southern district of New York prosecutor's office. Exactly. I'm licensed in New York and George, I practice in the southern district, uh, and in other Manhattan courts as well as Georgia. And so I'm very familiar with, um, but okay, so in this situation, here's the issue. The issue is, and I'm going to really stick right now, uh, with, with the Cohen issue, right? Right. And we can look at the other one another time. That's the one involving American media and all that, but looking at the cone one, again, the argument is fairly simple and that is, is that the basic thrust of the memo is that, um, Cohen did the things that he did with respect to making these payoffs hush money payoffs they're being called, which is one concept for it too, would be a, um, uh, you're, you're, you're, you're paying for the person's confidentiality. Uh, three would be a response to extortion, which is what this really is. If you look at it under the law, both these women were essentially working to extort money right out of Donald Trump. An extortion is called black male. Sure. Uh, it's a crime. However, the issue here is that as the alleged victim or a victim of black male, you have a choice. You can pick up the phone and call the police or two, you can do something like a confidentiality agreement, nondisclosure agreement or hush money. Yeah, but that's very common and they're very common. Certainly were very wealthy people from the point of view that they are targets of opportunists who go after these folks to put them in an embarrassing situation so that then they can demand money and extort money out. So there's nothing new or different about this with president trump versus the whole lot of other people. We've handled these cases for people who've come in and said, listen, this is what I did. This is what happened. And uh, you know, uh, uh, I need some help. Right? And one of the first discussions we have to do is just something that we're going to go down and talk to the prosecutors about, of having this individual restaurant prosecuted for extortion. In this case, these two young ladies who made these charges were to a. is there some. Do you want to do some sort of confidentiality agreement? So now,

Speaker 2: 28:38

but it's not illegal to pay to give someone money. It's not. The big question is where'd the money come from?

Speaker 3: 28:43

And the thrust of the memo is that this was all done at the direction of Donald Trump. President trump to Michael Collins. So, but there's a couple of issues there because they're, first of all, there's an interesting article, people interested in this and it's in the national review, uh, by Andrew Mccarthy was a former federal prosecutor. Why trump is likely to be indicted by the Matton US tourneys office. The first thing is that you can't generally be indicted while you're in the office, so long standing role as president. And so, and that's where I host all sorts of reasons. Um, but then, uh, beyond that, uh, you had the issue of the statute limitations, which I believe runs around 20, 21 in this particular situation. So you've got that issue. Secondly you've got, but you do have the issue of being indicted. It is not that difficult to indict somebody, right?

Speaker 2: 29:33

No. So you can indict a ham,

Speaker 3: 29:35

indict, a ham sandwich, right, and uh, and it oftentimes happens. So obtaining an indictment, it's not difficult and indictment is not evidence of guilt. Sure. An indictment is simply charged, brought by a bar by a prosecutor so they could do that, that would be done in the federal district, in the southern district in New York, but so, and the, the thrust of the memo and the thrust of the indictment would be a, that trump directed this, this was all done at his direction, that he advised a colon to break the law or to behave in whatever manner necessary to make this go away so that you can be implied that he was saying break the law or something like that. And that's a, that's an argument there. Now on the flip side, you've got another issue. On the flip side, you've got the fact that, and Timmy, this is the real crux of the fence. If I was representing president trump, he does have, I think, several good defenses here. One is to me, the number one issue is that he's not a lawyer. Colin's lawyer. Absolutely. So, uh, in this case, uh, then candidate trump goes to again, he's being extorted by these two ladies who are demanding money, uh, and to hold this over his head. And so he goes, what, what does he do? He goes to his lawyer. Okay. So, uh, when, uh, when I was say my law professor, a professor mind in first year law school said this, I've always loved this because it's very true. When clients come to your office, they don't come to you with a legal case. They come to you with a problem or they come to you with pain or both. So in this case, trump is the client. He comes in and says, I've got a problem. I have pain. You're the lawyer, fix it. Well cause one is supposed to understand the election laws. Exactly. So he's the one who's supposed to do everything. Right. And I can tell you, I took a look to make a difference. If, if trump had was an attorney, I think it would give stronger. I think it will be a stronger argument for the prosecution of trump or attorney. For instance, a Edwards who was prosecuted under the same theory and he was ultimately acquitted, right, uh, had the same issue, but he was a lawyer or he was a very, very high, highly trained plaintiff's attorney for years, whereas Donald trump is not an attorney. So Donald trump is a private citizen. He goes to his, he goes to his lawyer and says, fix this, you know, make this go away. You know, this is going to cause pain and embarrassment of a family. Uh, it can be bad for my campaign. It could be. This could be that I don't know how to do it. I don't want to violate any laws. I, I've, I've, and I can tell you, and remember, I'm a criminal defense attorney, right? Right. I have never in 25 years of practice had a client come to me and say, uh, go break the law, Mr Conaway so I can get off for ever. They always come in and tell me their problem and then it's my job to figure out how to do it legally within the confines of the law. And just there are several. The defenses we can, we can talk about this more in a bit, but the one thing I want to raise up here is I pulled the campaign finance, which are mentioned in the sentencing memo. I'm an attorney. I don't practice campaign finance law. I can tell you I couldn't forget, understand it. That's one of the. It's one of the longest is the most ridiculous statutes I've ever seen and so and that's why the civil via the civil fines are involved, right? Because you can easily wear to this. The Obama administration ran afoul of it. So therefore I think part of the issue here is trump's not a lawyer. The law is very complex and he relied upon Michael Colin.

Speaker 2: 33:14

Well, and the other question is, was this really campaign money or was this trump's own money that was used to pay off a stormy daniels and a former playmate model? We're going to talk about that at a whole lot more. Coming up on arrested with Mike Brooks and criminal defense attorney Dan kind of way on the new talk one. Oh, six slash seven years in jail. Arrested with Mike Brooks and criminal defense attorney Dan conaway. And if you haven't picked up Dan's book, arrested, you are missing out. It's arrested. Battling America's criminal justice system by Dan cutaway, esquire. So pick it up online or what's, what's the website for the book again? WWW arrested book.com. There you go. Get one today. Well, we're talking about trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen and uh, and, and the sentencing memo and then we're going to also talk about Michael Cohen's sentence that he got, which is three years and how much really really do, but we're talking about campaign finance, Dan and, and the money that was paid out, allegedly, you know, uh, uh, and what prosecutors are saying is a violation of campaign finance laws to stormy Daniels and to the former playmate playboy model. And I'm. One of the questions is coming up and it, could it be a defense for Michael Cohen is a, you know, well, or even if they're going after president trump, you know, is this really money that was used in for the campaign or is this the private money of a, of then candidate trump?

Speaker 3: 35:02

Well, and Mike, that real, and again that goes to the crux of the issue. You've got two issues here. One, you've got the criminal intent issue, right? Right. Oh yeah, that is there as well. The question that you're talking about is more specific issue and that is a significant legal question about whether these hush money payments or nondisclosure payments here at qualifies in Cannes in kind campaign contributions. There is nothing illegal per se and making a nondisclosure agreement, they are quite common as we've talked to pure. The criminal law comes into play only if the nondisclosure payment is deemed a donation for purposes of influencing a political campaign. So you got two issues there. First of all, you've got again and just very briefly with a criminal intent, if your intent has to be to influence the political campaign, uh, the second, the first part goes to the technicality of the law, which is, um, is it deemed a donation? In other words, is this payment deem to be a donation in this particular case? Uh, both issues are going to be at stake. Both are going to be pushed if there is, let's assume for a minute, uh, it's 20 slash 21 and finally a, uh, uh, the southern district of New York indicts, president trump, who's now citizen trump, right? Okay. Or let's assume that there's a, uh, an impeachment and the house and others a trial in the senate or if he gets reelected and the statue of limitation. So we don't know what's gonna happen there, but let's assume somehow president trump, uh, becomes in jeopardy or citizen trump ends up in jeopardy. Okay? So both those issues are going to be at stake. One is the technical legal definition of what that nondisclosure payment, whether it can be deemed a donation for influences for influencing a political campaign unless just focused on that one for a minute. Okay. The issue here is, is that again, you've got a president trump who is relying on his lawyer to make sure that it's not, that's the whole purpose of having a lawyer exactly right, is so that they follow the law and do things properly. Uh, and so and secondly, uh, simply because, uh, Michael Collins has, has said, yes, I did this, I did this at the direction of a Donald Trump that he did what? At the direction of Donald Trump? Well, uh, uh, I think it's certainly reasonable argument that president trump said, figure this out and solve it. Right? And then make it go away, man. Right? I'm in trouble. I don't know what to do. You figure it out. You're the lawyer. And so under those situations would be his job, meaning Michael Collins jobs, the attorney to make sure that nondisclosure payment is not deemed a donation for purposes of influencing political campaign. The client normally has a right to rely on that. Let. Let me ask you one thing with all this. When all this first started and when they raided his office, Michael Cohen's office in Manhattan and we started hearing what was really going on, but my big question was, where is the attorney client privilege here? How does that play into this? You know, I, can you just say, no, I'm not going to talk to you. You know, because attorney client privilege or normally normally the answer is yes. The, um, the issue is, is if the, if the attorney's conduct a is such, or if the client's conduct is such as to arguably be criminal, are above the law, then under certain circumstances that can be waived. But certainly if I'm the. If, if I'm the defense attorney in this case, one of the first motions I'm going to file is that the whole thing should be thrown out because of breach of touring client privilege. Gotcha. Attorney client privilege is one of those privileges that really still exists. It's one of the most sacred privileges we have because when you're in trouble, when you're facing a problem, and again, clients don't come to lawyers with legal cases, they come to lawyers with pain. That's it, right? That was my torts professor in first year of law school at emory a, and they do come with pain, you know, I'm supposed to figure it out. Well, in that situation, you know, they're coming to you and they have to be able to talk to you confidentially. Absolutely. If they can't, then they can't tell you what's going on. Right? And so, uh, some types of confidentiality had been watered down over the, over the decades. Um, but attorney client privilege is still sacred. And uh, you know, I was talking about clients, I think it's being recorded. It's just me and the fake tree in the corner of the conference room and neither one of us can talk, right? Uh, and it's really, really important. And so that's my first motion. But other, other potential defenses here is, does a campaign violation qualify as a high crime and misdemeanor? Uh, and I think, again, this is an issue that Andrew Mccarthy, the national review brings up and this is a, this is a good, I think he's right on point on this one because there's, there's two issues here. Let's look at both the Reagan special counsel back in the day, but the whole, you know, the, the whole Sandinista conduit through all that. And then also, let's look at the Clinton one. First of all, both of those situations happened when they were sitting presidents. Secondly, I'm a to hear private citizens was still candidate trump or president trump was candidate trump private citizen to doesn't really qualify as a highest high crime and misdemeanor. The argument here is white white does it. Well, it's an interesting argument, but there's two reasons. One, remember Edwards was acquitted under a similar situation, John Edwards. That's right. Secondly, and more importantly, there's a civil fine component. These things are generally handled with civil fines. The Obama administration had the same issue, right to the tune of something like$2,000,000, almost three, almost 3 million, but you, they got a find right and still have fines are created in these situations under federal law where you have a complex regulatory scheme like the election laws. And again, if you look at these election laws, the law is very complex, so you have administrative law meant to govern and regulate which people can run a foul of even lawyers. Sure, if they're not careful, and certainly private citizens who couldn't read, I mean, if you really want to fall asleep, try reading that thing, start with the Vienna convention, but then switch over to the financial, be asleep in five minutes. Um, and so under those circumstances, the idea is, is if you run a foul of it, unless you have really specific criminal intent, it's very high intent. You have to have to break the law then a is always settled or generally settled. Well, the flying. So they've got that issue. There's another issue here too, um, with respect to the defense. And then is that goes back to the whole intent thing. Um, what was the intent here, right? If the part of the intent is embarrassing because you want to stop embarrassment and those kinds of things, uh, if part of the issue is that you're worried that if you, that if you make a wrong move here, you're going to be a face further extortion from other individuals, right? All these kinds of things can come into play under intent. And so the government has certainly, uh, certainly structured and blows here. The bloods are strong that the kind of blows you would expect from a government who is after a target. Sure. In this case, purportedly president trump and his administration and uh, and they're doing the job the way that federal prosecutors do that at the same time as an all these types of cases, there are defenses, there are ways to diffuse it and there are ways to fight it in court. And you're seeing that on both sides of the ball in this case. It's crazy.

Speaker 2: 42:51

But, uh, and, and we know that Mike crazy but typical. Yeah, it is. And I really just want to stress that fed these, these, when you get involved in investigated by the federal government. Yeah, it gets crazy quick. It does. Well, next week we'll take a look at, uh, at the sentence. And how much time will Michael Michael Cohen really do? Thanks for tuning into arrested with your host, Mike Brooks and Dane caught away under new talk. What does six, seven. We'll talk to you next week.