Objections: With Adam Klasfeld

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Litigating Julian Assange’s Extradition (Feat. Jameel Jaffer) Jun 22, 2022

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After the U.K. formally approved the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, First Amendment groups in the United States expressed broad opposition to his prosecution. Does he deserve it?

Prosecutors accuse Assange of conduct that go well beyond traditional journalism, including conspiring to break into a U.S. military database, gaining unauthorized access to an Icelandic government computer, and picking targets for hacker collectives to breach. One of those targets was the New York Times, prosecutors say.

Still, Jameel Jaffer, the director of the prominent Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, calls Assange’s prosecution a “dagger to the throat of press freedom.”

In the latest episode of “Objections,” Jaffer fields questions about some of the toughest criticisms of Assange, from U.S. prosecutors and others, and says that in the end, the case is about more than him.

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Was the 'Big Rip-Off' Legal? (Feat. Robert Maguire) Jun 15, 2022

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Toward the end of its most recent public hearing, the Jan. 6 Committee released a roughly two-minute video laying out how former President Donald Trump and his allies raised $250 million off what they called the "big rip-off."

According to the committee, they pitched a supposed "Official Election Defense Fund" that did not exist in order to fight bogus claims of election fraud that even Trump campaign officials knew were false.

What's more, a top official for an anti-corruption watchdog that's one of Trump's staunchest critics says Trump is likely to escape any criminal or civil liability over it—at least, based on what's currently known about it.

"It is incredibly frustrating to learn how many things are highly unethical, but probably legal, and this is probably one of them," Robert Maguire, the research director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld."

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Unpacking 'The Jan. 6 Strategy' (Feat. Shanlon Wu) Jun 08, 2022

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The Department of Justice turned up the heat on the Proud Boys by charging the extremist group's leader and some of his accused co-conspirators earlier this week with seditious conspiracy.

For one former federal prosecutor, that development served as a prelude for the Jan. 6 Committee's main challenge in their upcoming hearings over the attack on the U.S. Capitol: demonstrating who allegedly provided "brains" to their "muscle."

"They did not come up with the legal theory behind why interfering on that day was going to change the outcome of the election," said Shanlon Wu, a former general counsel to ex-Attorney General Janet Reno. "They didn't come up with the idea, 'Hey, we can put these slates of alternative electors in states like Georgia.' They were just the muscle. And where there muscle, there's got to be a brain. The muscles not moving involuntarily there."

The day after the interview, a federal judge wrote in a ruling that Trump's legal team referred to "the January 6 strategy" in an email well before the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Wu breaks down the committee's challenges during their debut hearing, where they are expected to present their initial findings, disclose previously unseen material and hear from two witnesses.

Wu breaks down how the Committee might make its case to the American people.

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'A Tale of Two Trials': How the U.S. and U.K. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Cases Diverged (Feat. Teresa Silva and Gavin Millar) Jun 02, 2022

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After a Virginia jury handed Johnny Depp a resounding victory in his defamation battle, Amber Heard's legal team floated new messaging: The verdict was a "tale of two trials"—the U.S. trial that the Pirates of the Caribbean star won and the U.K. one that he lost.

The latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld" takes a deep dive into the differences between the two legal systems, featuring an exclusive interview with Swedish criminologist Teresa Silva, whose peer-reviewed critique of the U.K. ruling made her the toast of Depp's online supporters.

Prominent British barrister Gavin Millar, who represented an investigator reporter for The Guardian in another high-profile defamation battle involving Cambridge Analytica, picks apart the similarities and differences between the two systems. Both interviews took place on the day of closing arguments in Depp and Heard's U.S. case, before they delivered their surprising—and, by some accounts, contradictory—mixed verdict.

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Ex-FTC Official Who Battled Facebook a Decade Ago Reflects on D.C. AG's 'David v. Goliath' Fight Against Mark Zuckerberg (Feat. David Vladeck) May 25, 2022

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When the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in 2018, the now-former director of the Federal Trade Commission bureau that put Facebook under a consent decree about a decade ago recalled feeling "pissed."

Now a professor at Georgetown Law, David Vladeck led the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection when it put Facebook under a consent decree specifically aimed at curbing its privacy violations. Facebook's violation of that order during the Cambridge Analytica scandal resulted in a record-breaking $5 billion civil penalty against the social media giant some six years later.

After the federal government dropped the hammer, the fallout continued on the local level in a recently filed lawsuit by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine (D), who accused Zuckerberg of being "personally involved" in the decisions that led to 2016 election manipulation. Racine described his litigation as a "David v. Goliath" battle in a recent interview with CNBC.

On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Vladeck agrees with that analogy and says that accountability for Facebook will only come when Zuckerberg feels pain from regulators.

"Unless Zuckerberg is responsible for compliance, there really is no other way to threaten Facebook," Vladeck said.

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Meet the Woman Organizing Nearly 70 AGs and DAs Who Won't Prosecute Abortion Cases if Roe Is Overturned (Feat. Miriam Krinsky) May 18, 2022

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By the count of some advocacy groups, more than half of U.S. states will likely ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is stricken down, and 12 of those already have such laws on the books—just waiting for a Supreme Court ruling to activate them.

"If in fact we see our highest court in the land wipe away 50 years of settled precedent and deem Roe v. Wade to be 'egregiously wrong,' the balance is going to shift to the state courts," Miriam Krinsky, the executive director of the advocacy group Fair and Just Prosecution, observed on the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld."

A longtime former prosecutor, Krinsky has been gathering dozens of elected district attorneys and attorneys general from coast to coast who have vowed not to enforce any laws criminalizing abortion. That list, by her organization's count, has grown to nearly 70 elected prosecutors to date.

"I think we're going to see elected local prosecutors become the last line of defense in many instances, and seeking to use their settled discretion to protect these kinds of decisions—and refuse to bring them into the criminal legal system," Krinsky said.

In this episode, Krinsky describes organizing elected DAs and describes how state courts will become key battlegrounds if the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion overturn Roe resembles its final form.

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A Scholar's View of Supreme Court Leaks—and Why Chief Justice Roberts Presides Over an 'Accountability-Free Zone' (Feat. Steven Lubet) May 11, 2022

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Despite the aftershocks of Politico obtaining and publishing a draft majority opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, monumental Supreme Court leaks have a history dating back centuries.

Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law Professor Steven Lubet unpacks that tradition on the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld" and explains why he believes the chief shares some responsibility for what he calls the Supreme Court's "accountability-free zone."

The Supreme Court is the only one in the United States never to have adopted a code of conduct, and it has remained silent in the face of controversies involving justices, on the left and right.

In the episode, Lubet traces the development of the first U.S. judicial code of ethics to former President and ex-Chief Justice William Howard Taft, and he explains efforts after Watergate to make those guidelines mandatory, rather than aspirational. He also unpacks ongoing efforts in Congress that would require the Supreme Court to develop an ethics code, create new mechanisms for recusal, and expand access to court proceedings through live-streams.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene's Lawyer Defends Client's 80-Plus Memory Lapses and 'Marshall Law' Text (Feat. James Bopp) May 04, 2022

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When Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) took to the witness stand in an administrative courtroom in Atlanta, she answered a number of questions mostly related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol with variations of "I don't remember" or "I don't recall"—more than 80 times by her challengers' count.

Attorneys for Georgia voters seeking to knock her off the ballot under the 14th Amendment's Section Three disqualification clause characterize her lack of recall as "half-hearted post-hoc attempts to distance herself from the violence" that took place on that day.

Offering a full-throated defense of his client's sworn testimony on Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," her attorney James Bopp Jr. calls that nonsense.

"This isn't a memory test," Bopp said in a lengthy, rambunctious interview.

A longtime attorney for prominent GOP causes, Bopp has built a career around high-profile legal battles involving the First Amendment. Most notably, he spearheaded the Citizens United case that produced the landmark Supreme Court ruling relaxing campaign finance laws. On the podcast, Bopp is pressed on Greene's misspelled text message about "Marshall law" to former President Donald Trump's ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows. Bopp also sounds off on his quickly-withdrawn series of lawsuits after the 2020 presidential election and why he believesTrump'slawyers did a "terrible job" trying to overturn it.

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Lawyer Who Grilled Marjorie Taylor Greene Opens Up on 'Insurrection' Candidacy Challenges and Whether Donald Trump Is Next (Feat. Andrew Celli) Apr 27, 2022

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Across the country in Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina, candidacy challenges have bubbled up in courthouses seeking to knock politicians off the ballot for their alleged support of "insurrection" on Jan. 6. On Friday, the challengers advanced farther than ever before toward that goal in a evidentiary hearing in Atlanta, where Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) had been forced to testify under oath about her activities before the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The lawyer who faced off against Greene inside that administrative courtroom opened up on his interrogation in the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," tackling such questions as the historical meaning of insurrection and whether candidacy challenges like these are leading up to an effort to disqualify Donald Trump in 2024.

"One step at a time," remarked attorney Andrew Celli, in an interview recorded two days after he went toe-to-toe against Greene.

At the heart of the candidacy challenges is the third section of the 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War and barring anyone who swears an oath to the Constitution from engaging in or aiding an insurrection against it. Greene took her oath of office on Jan. 3, 2021, and for the challengers, her actions over the ensuing three days was enough to trigger that constitutional remedy. A federal judge already has allowed them to advance that challenge on the law.

Indiana University Law Professor Gerard Magliocca also speaks on this episode about his testimony in Greene's case about how insurrection historically has been understood in the United States.

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Meet the 'Depp Heads': Pirate Flag-Waving Johnny Depp Supporters Flock to Defamation Trial Against Amber Heard (Feat. Angenette Levy) Apr 20, 2022

Show notes

They call themselves the "Depp Heads"—the Johnny Depp superfans who travel from across the country to a small county courthouse in Fairfax County, Va.

Every morning, they wait in line as early as 5 a.m. in order to be among the first 100 people to secure a wristband that will allow them to attend the trial between Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard, who accused the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star of domestic abuse in 2016.

Law&Crime's correspondent Angenette Levy details the travels, origins and beliefs of the "Depp Heads" on the latest episode of the podcast, "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld."

"Remember the Grateful Dead you had the 'Deadheads,' right?" Levy asked. "They were the people that traveled around and followed Jerry Garcia and the rest of the band and went from city to city. Well, now we have apparently 'Depp Heads.'"

On the first day of jury selection, Depp Heads were out in full force from across the country, and Levy taped interviews with those who flew in across the country, including California, Minnesota, and elsewhere. Miniature pirate flags—an allusion to Depp's breakaway role as Captain Jack Sparrow in "Pirates of the Caribbean"—waved in the breeze outside the courthouse with constant regularity, and handing them out to eager recipients was Minnesota mom Kristina Gibbons, who had brought her four children with her.

"Only two of them are here right now," Gibbons told Levy.

On the podcast, Levy describes her travels among the Depp Heads, describes other scenes from the courthouse, and explains why the case found its way from Hollywood to a courthouse in Fairfax County, whose defamation laws have made it an attractive jurisdiction for people ready to litigate over bad press.

The music is "Hoist," by Andy G. Cohen. "Objections" is produced by Sam Goldberg. Michael Deininger and Ashton Schwinn run the YouTube page.

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