They folks big news out of New York this week, federal prosecutors charge the Brooklyn Subway, shooting suspect of carrying out a terrorist attack, and the transportation says in New York, lieutenant governor Brine, Benjamin resigned following question: why indictment on bribery and fraud charges for allegedly taking part in it Illegal campaign fundraising scheme in other news, a jury, picked it another January, six writer on charges, including obstruction of Congress. The jury rejected the defendants. Efforts to blame is actions on Donald Trump and the big lie. Choice. Vance and I discuss all of this and more on the cafe. Insider podcast today we're sharing a clip from the episode with listeners of stay tuned, to hear our full conversation and access all other cafe: insider content, private membership for just one dollar. For one month, you can do that. A cafe dotcom com, Slash insider, that's, Cathay, DOT, com, slash insider! We look forward to having you as a part of the

wider community. It's a great day, a good start to the week a lot of interesting legal news to discuss. Indeed before we get to that couple of announcements, one if you're in the

New York area or plan to be in the New York area. We have another live program, I'll be interviewing at the Great Hall at Cooper Union Next, Tuesday April, twenty sixth, at six, thirty p m the mayor, the fairly recent mayor new mayor of the city of New York, Eric Adams and tickets. Guess what guess? What the prices Joyce? What's the price paid free wow? It's a public service, free tickets live taping of stay tuned. With me and Mayor Eric Adams of the city of New York, you can get your tickets reserve your spot at cafe, dot, com, slash events and then one more thing. If we may ask your indulgence, stay tuned with Preet is nominated for a Webby, which is a fancy award for digital stuff for best individual episode category. Regarding the twenty twenty one interview I did with Jerry Blackwell and Steve Slicker, the two lead prosecutors in the trial of Derrick

oven, please vote for us. Gotta carried out com, Slash, Webby and the link will be in the shown us so pretty close to home. For you yet again, you're Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin resigned last week he resigned after the southern district of New York. You're old Office indicted him on bribery and fraud charges he

allegedly, was part of an illegal quid pro quo sort of a scheme where he was putting public money in in people's reach in exchange for campaign contributions, not, I think it's important to say as the lieutenant governor but prior to taking office as the lieutenant governor. These are the kind of charges that I think are familiar to both of us and you've certainly indicted cases like this in the past. What do you think of this prosecution? So it's interesting in a couple of respects and, as you point out, the conduct at the heart of the indictment relates to the time that grind Benjamin was a state senator in New York and also during a time when he ran for controller, are generally speaking, quid pro quo, honest services, fraud cases that we brought against sitting. Politicians when I was in office- and I think this is true around the country- tended to be of the following type politician- receives or ask for a bribe

in exchange for official action of some sort, voting particular way in a bill or make an authorization of money that would be in the interest of the person paying the bribe, but the bribe would be pocketed NGO directly into the wall. It with a bank account of the politician right to the quid pro quo. The quid was something that was personally helpful to the person who is being bribed. Sometimes it was envelopes of cash. Sometimes it was by way of of fees or other things that could be hidden. We want a lotta cases like that. They can also be a quid pro quo criminal case, if you do official action directly in exchange for a contribution, but I think the standard is higher and more difficult to prove, because it's very hard to explain how a politician put fifty thousand dollars

in his pocket. His personal bank account from somebody who had some interest before that political body right like why? Why are they paying you money? When you didn't do any work for them? You just did your job. You voted a particular way in a bill, it's very different when you're talking about political contribution, because campaign donations generally speaking and there's a twist here, but campaign donations are lawful. It's our political system, people give money and they hope and expect. This is the dirty thing about polity, some people might mention from time to time. You have and expected that politicians than about your way- or maybe you give the money in illegal campaign com motion, because they have supported your interests and generally Thinking, there's nothing wrong with that. That's just politics, as usual, is driven by money driven by political contributions that have to follow. Some set of rules to here is gonna, be a little bit more difficult than the garden variety case, because the defence and by the way the defence lawyer here is very Berkeley, may remember from impeachment he's a very good Lord,

and he's going to argue and how well the arguments will be. This is just politics. You know there are some attributions made and they were not connected directly to the official actions that were taken so the we'll have to prove. I think, a little bit more directly. The quid pro quo less left to influence and more requiring direct connection of the two things in it, because we have this system the Eve sort of laid out where there's bribes that are illegal and quasar, bribes, that perfectly legal contributions, the question is always line drawing and where do you draw the line and the Supreme Court's trajectory in this entire area, whether its bribery or on services, fraud or any other sort of political misconduct has been to make it more difficult for prosecutors? To prosecute public officials, I think where it sort of ends up, you know I I can,

Member a time probably I'll, just pegged to the Bush administration, where, in my office we would do honest services, fraud cases, cases where you had politicians who owed its duty of honest and fair services to the people who elected them and who would do something else. Maybe they would do no taker side job in the two year college system, in about and get big payments of money, never showing up to do any work for the two, your college system and then kicking back benefits to folks there that sort of a classic. I think example of the kind of case that holds up, but there are sketch sheer cases and where the Supreme Court ends up is with Virginia Governor Macdonell, where they say you know just arranging, meetings for people or even promoting their products. That's not enough

You need a more classic quid pro quo in order to prosecute and that I think your correct pre is the issue in this case. Is there enough of a direct connection between what's given in what sought, in this case Britain to be a conviction so switches. Wales is interesting. There's someone in the indictment referred to Assisi One and that for prosecutors. We all know that means conspirator, one The cook is better. One is not identified by name that standard practice in the southern district elsewhere, the person is readily identifiable from surrounding information, and so the press has identified cc one as a business person named Gerald Migdol

the government will never confirm whether that identification is correct or not, but it doesn't sound like they've waved the press off of that, and that was my practice as well. I dunno, if it was yours, it's possible to have it wrong, but it's quite doubtful. They have it wrong because having multiple outlets have reported that cc, one is Mr Mcdonough, Mr Migdal, if that's in fact cc, one was himself arrested back in November on charges of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and other crimes, and, what's interesting to me, is huge, In that circumstance, you get a person who's arrested that person flips in their prison provides evidence against someone higher up in the food chain, hypothetically lieutenant governor of the state of New York, and then you you build your case ordinarily. If that person has pled guilty and has flipped, they will be referred to as a cooperating witness and it will be CW one not cc one. Does that mean anything to you, yeah

I mean it really. Does it's an interesting sort of a situation here? I don't know. Could that just I thought. Maybe I was over reading that to tell you the truth, and maybe it was just the way that you guys used that in your office. But do you read more into it? It doesn't necessarily mean anything that there might be reasons why they don't want to identify. At this moment the person is someone who has pled guilty and is cooperating witness. And often you have it in a case where you worried about violence. This is a white collar, no fraud case. So what don't worry about that so maybe means nothing or maybe it means that there's some problems with MS witnesses and he's not coming. Testimonial, witness at trial against lieutenant governor, but I just knew does not something I heard people talk about are mentioned, but it struck me. The information that they have in the indictment is very specific and although it could certainly come from places other than Migdol, perhaps there were people around him.

Or even in Benjamin's office who were aware of these details. It looks if you read the indictment like he should be the one who is giving up this information, but there could well be either a testimonial problem or or maybe he's Paul man of Fort right. Maybe he not into it part way in backed out one other thing that I would note- and I wonder what you think of this and if you think it's a wrinkle or a complication for the government in this case, I don't think it is. But it's just interesting. The allegation is. the brine Benjamin, the elected official provide fifty thousand dollar authorization of money to a charity of Cecy one and in exchange for that he pressured cc one to bring him in a number of small donations in part, so he would have campaign funds, but in part also because of the matching programme in the election he was running in and- and you get a lot of money? If you get real money from people and let us make clear the cc

committed an independent crime by engaging straw donors, so pretending that money was coming other people, including members of his family, but they were actually coming from him and that's illegal left to do it. so embedded in all. This is a straw donor scheme that itself unlawful, but there's no allegation that Lieutenant governor was aware that there was a straw donor scheme. The allegation is that there was the quid pro quo in exchange for donations. He engaged in official action. Do you think there's a does any issue or problem, or is it of interest to you that there's no allegation that the central defending here knew about the straw donor scheme? You know it is sort of interesting, I mean it could just be that they don't have enough evidence or that there was a strategic reason not to thanks for listening to hear the full episode had the cafe dot com, slash insider, the membership for just one dollar for one month. That's cafe, outcome, slash insider to them

if you have chosen to join the insider community. Thank you for supporting our work the.