TikTok morons who stole money from Chase would be well advised to pay it back; Russians are indicted over a scheme to pay right-wing YouTubers; Judge Tanya Chutkan considers presidential immunity.
Be interested to see if any of the right wing influencers that were going to be featured at the now cancelled J6 fundraiser at Bedminster were RT targets. Also was trying to parse if that event would have been parole vilolations for some. None of this do I know. But it was fun to drink margaritas to.
Another reason to bring a "small potatoes" case is to advance the law. Even if the case isn't a big deal, you can use a strong set of facts to get a bunch of good case law that you can cite in other, more challenging, cases.
(I don't know anything about FARA, or to what extent DoJ feels a need to move the law forward on it.)
If this were a movie starring Jacob Wohl and his band of criminals, several mob bosses would have taken out a hit on him by now. An amusing but tense thriller; would the hit man actually take him out or would Wohl rope him in on the scam to escape? Maybe the Coen brothers would write the script and direct.
I don't understand the legal relevance of this fake billionaire being western European. Given he wasn't an American didn't the FARA obligations attach regardless? And as I understand that the creators were told the money came from this European doesn't that mean they were knowingly violating FARA?
The reference to the fake billionaire being in western Europe is less about his supposed origins and more a matter of his allegedly being in Paris but clearly operating on Moscow time.
That said, this is a good question on a more general level. As far as I can tell from the indictment, there are three sets of people involved:
1) The Russians charged in this indictment, who were also "hired as consultants" by Eduard Grigoriann, a fictitious Belgian they had created to pretend to be the source of the money going to the creators. These are employees of RT, which was sanctioned out of legitimate operation in the US.
2) Laura Chen and not-that-Liam-Donovan ("the founders"), former RT contractors in the US and Canada who set up the US end of the corporate plumbing that got the money to the creators, ie Tenet Media. According to the indictment, they knew Grigoriann was fictional, that their "contractors" were RT employees, and that RT would generally be doing the decision-making about what Tenet Media did.
3) The content creators, who (at least as alleged) knew that the main investor was foreign but understood themselves to be actually working for the US-based Tenet Media, a theoretically for-profit company.
My best guess is that Tenet Media is the relevant "agent" here, and if Grigoriann were a real Belgian who was paying into that company with the goal of making money, Tenet would fall into the FARA exemption for "bona fide trade or commerce". Since the lie was the claim that Tenet Media was a for profit company with a Belgian investor rather than a mildly re-worked set of contracts between RT and its regular contractors, only the people involved in that lie are potential FARA violators. But also this explanation involves weird corporate law stuff that I don't really understand.
Hey would you folks consider covering these two Texas civil suits about the “Trump Train” incident in 2020? I was stunned to read that the police lawsuit settled last year — on what I can only assume was some ugly evidence.
Maybe this has already been touched on in other episodes, but I'm kind of baffled by how FARA is considered constitutional. Like imagine if a republican government created the AARA (Abortion Agent Registration Act) that required anyone taking money from Planned Parenthood or NARAL to post all sorts of personal details on some public database. Wouldn't that be correctly viewed as an unconstitutional attempt to chill speech based on content even if the speech itself wasn't regulated?
I agree that I don't understand how this is constitutional. Even if the Russians may not have the constitutional "right" to influence the American people, our citizens do have the constitutional right to listen, don't they? And don't we as Americans then have the right to further that speech once we've heard it? If it's an American saying it, then it it's protected. Why shouldn't Chen and Donavon (and all the others) be able to say whatever they want regardless of the source and the reasoning? Or even if they are being paid to say it? For the record, I'm a real leftie and I'm not trolling here. Could you please clarify this in a future episode?
You have the right to listen and to further the speech - and as I understand it, FARA won't stop you from doing that as long as you disclose the source. To me there's a right (kind of? I guess?) to know that the speech is on behalf of a foreign country; it's somehow different from anonymous speech by a fellow citizen, who's a legitimate participant in our political discourse, and definitely different from a registry based on content (e.g. abortion).
Would "The Gentlemen" please opine on the decision by a DA in Georgia to: 1. QUICKLY indict a 14 y/o as an adult on multiple murder charges; 2. Indict the child's father on multiple charges based on his failure to oversee his son's access to a weapon. What are the "rules" to indict a minor as an adult? Can the state have it both ways ? This in a state with very "generous" firearms laws. Very much enjoy your banter. Thank You
With regard to indictments of foreign nationals who might not otherwise set foot on US soil, does it also effectively ban them from countries with extradition agreements with the US? Would they be arrested at immigration based on being on a list or would the DoJ need to specifically ask for their detainment? I don't imagine these influence brokers are as well off as the oligarchs who got burned up by western sanctions after the invasion, but everybody likes to do vacations and work trips abroad.
I'm also not sure how much I believe these podcasters' claims of ignorance regarding a brand new funding source that wants to feature specific content. If someone offered you dudes a bag of money to do a separate show purely about Hunter Biden, would you look the gift horse in the mouth?
Josh missed a golden opportunity to make Ken say the email when he was soliciting donations from the Russians.
For anyone who missed the "stabbed with an umbrella" allusion... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella
Be interested to see if any of the right wing influencers that were going to be featured at the now cancelled J6 fundraiser at Bedminster were RT targets. Also was trying to parse if that event would have been parole vilolations for some. None of this do I know. But it was fun to drink margaritas to.
Hey!
Tide pods were a tumblr trend, as I recall.
Another reason to bring a "small potatoes" case is to advance the law. Even if the case isn't a big deal, you can use a strong set of facts to get a bunch of good case law that you can cite in other, more challenging, cases.
(I don't know anything about FARA, or to what extent DoJ feels a need to move the law forward on it.)
If this were a movie starring Jacob Wohl and his band of criminals, several mob bosses would have taken out a hit on him by now. An amusing but tense thriller; would the hit man actually take him out or would Wohl rope him in on the scam to escape? Maybe the Coen brothers would write the script and direct.
I don't understand the legal relevance of this fake billionaire being western European. Given he wasn't an American didn't the FARA obligations attach regardless? And as I understand that the creators were told the money came from this European doesn't that mean they were knowingly violating FARA?
The reference to the fake billionaire being in western Europe is less about his supposed origins and more a matter of his allegedly being in Paris but clearly operating on Moscow time.
That said, this is a good question on a more general level. As far as I can tell from the indictment, there are three sets of people involved:
1) The Russians charged in this indictment, who were also "hired as consultants" by Eduard Grigoriann, a fictitious Belgian they had created to pretend to be the source of the money going to the creators. These are employees of RT, which was sanctioned out of legitimate operation in the US.
2) Laura Chen and not-that-Liam-Donovan ("the founders"), former RT contractors in the US and Canada who set up the US end of the corporate plumbing that got the money to the creators, ie Tenet Media. According to the indictment, they knew Grigoriann was fictional, that their "contractors" were RT employees, and that RT would generally be doing the decision-making about what Tenet Media did.
3) The content creators, who (at least as alleged) knew that the main investor was foreign but understood themselves to be actually working for the US-based Tenet Media, a theoretically for-profit company.
My best guess is that Tenet Media is the relevant "agent" here, and if Grigoriann were a real Belgian who was paying into that company with the goal of making money, Tenet would fall into the FARA exemption for "bona fide trade or commerce". Since the lie was the claim that Tenet Media was a for profit company with a Belgian investor rather than a mildly re-worked set of contracts between RT and its regular contractors, only the people involved in that lie are potential FARA violators. But also this explanation involves weird corporate law stuff that I don't really understand.
"The even simpler “glitch” where you can get money just by pointing a gun at a bank teller."
*slide racking* Josh Barro taught me this!
Hey would you folks consider covering these two Texas civil suits about the “Trump Train” incident in 2020? I was stunned to read that the police lawsuit settled last year — on what I can only assume was some ugly evidence.
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/09/trump-train-biden-bus-trial
Disappointed that you didn't discuss the degree of legal liability of the influencers behind the Glitch.
Maybe this has already been touched on in other episodes, but I'm kind of baffled by how FARA is considered constitutional. Like imagine if a republican government created the AARA (Abortion Agent Registration Act) that required anyone taking money from Planned Parenthood or NARAL to post all sorts of personal details on some public database. Wouldn't that be correctly viewed as an unconstitutional attempt to chill speech based on content even if the speech itself wasn't regulated?
I agree that I don't understand how this is constitutional. Even if the Russians may not have the constitutional "right" to influence the American people, our citizens do have the constitutional right to listen, don't they? And don't we as Americans then have the right to further that speech once we've heard it? If it's an American saying it, then it it's protected. Why shouldn't Chen and Donavon (and all the others) be able to say whatever they want regardless of the source and the reasoning? Or even if they are being paid to say it? For the record, I'm a real leftie and I'm not trolling here. Could you please clarify this in a future episode?
You have the right to listen and to further the speech - and as I understand it, FARA won't stop you from doing that as long as you disclose the source. To me there's a right (kind of? I guess?) to know that the speech is on behalf of a foreign country; it's somehow different from anonymous speech by a fellow citizen, who's a legitimate participant in our political discourse, and definitely different from a registry based on content (e.g. abortion).
Would "The Gentlemen" please opine on the decision by a DA in Georgia to: 1. QUICKLY indict a 14 y/o as an adult on multiple murder charges; 2. Indict the child's father on multiple charges based on his failure to oversee his son's access to a weapon. What are the "rules" to indict a minor as an adult? Can the state have it both ways ? This in a state with very "generous" firearms laws. Very much enjoy your banter. Thank You
Is Lauren Chen a US citizen and does that matter?
weren't some bot sites shut down... several hundred?
With regard to indictments of foreign nationals who might not otherwise set foot on US soil, does it also effectively ban them from countries with extradition agreements with the US? Would they be arrested at immigration based on being on a list or would the DoJ need to specifically ask for their detainment? I don't imagine these influence brokers are as well off as the oligarchs who got burned up by western sanctions after the invasion, but everybody likes to do vacations and work trips abroad.
I'm also not sure how much I believe these podcasters' claims of ignorance regarding a brand new funding source that wants to feature specific content. If someone offered you dudes a bag of money to do a separate show purely about Hunter Biden, would you look the gift horse in the mouth?