Objections: With Adam Klasfeld

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Michael Cohen Calls 'Bulls**t' on Manhattan DA's Claim That Donald Trump Investigation Is Still Alive (Feat. Michael Cohen) Apr 13, 2022

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Barraged with criticism after two top prosecutors resigned in protest, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) released a statement last week insisting that his investigation into former President Donald Trump remains ongoing.

Not everyone, however, is persuaded, particularly Michael Cohen, whose congressional testimony sparked the probe into Trump some three years ago.

On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Cohen holds nothing back about his confidence in Bragg to pursue the 45th president, splashing cold water on the Manhattan DA's claim on CNN that he is pursuing new evidence and leads.

"I call bullshit on that," Cohen sounded off. "I know the evidence that they had. I was responsible for providing them with a lot of it. I also know that Alvin Bragg came out and made a statement that there's some new evidence that we're going to follow and that's what we do. I call bullshit on that. There is no new evidence that we did not discuss."

Beyond the Manhattan DA probe, Cohen discusses reports about Trump's children and the Jan. 6 Committee and his civil lawsuit over being sent back to prison after announcing plans to write a book, a sequence of events that one federal judge found to have been retaliation.

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Josh Duggar’s ‘Destruction’: The Story Behind the Ex-Reality TV Star’s Worst Download (Feat. Matthew Carney and Jack Staton) Mar 30, 2022

Show notes

This episode originally aired on June 22, 2021, and it's being rebroadcast with a new introduction.

During a bond hearing in May, a Homeland Security Investigations agent described some of the horrific material allegedly found on the computer of former reality TV star Josh Duggar, who was recently convicted of child pornography crimes.

The agent testified that one video titled "Daisy's Destruction," showing the rape of an 18-month old girl, ranked among the "Top Five worst of the worst" that he ever had to examine.

Law&Crime's podcast "Objections" explores the crime case behind that video, created by Peter Scully, an Australian man dubbed by international tabloids as the "world's worst pedophile.” Scully is currently serving a life sentence in the Philippines for human trafficking and rape.

In the episode, Australia’s ABC correspondent Matthew Carney describes reporting from the crime scene following Scully’s arrest, and Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Jack Staton generally describes the fight against child exploitation globally.

Warning: This episode involves disturbing subject matter.

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Reporters Behind the Sarah Lawrence Sex 'Cult' Exposé Recount Origins of the 'Fascinating, Troubling Story' (Feat. Ezra Marcus and James Walsh) Mar 23, 2022

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Some four years ago, a reporter learned from fellow Sarah Lawrence College alumni about a "troubling" website about an ex-student there. The website, whose address had been in the student's name, looked like an attempt to blackmail her with written and videotaped false confessions. Two reporters researched that lead extensively before publishing an exposé titled “Larry Ray and the Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence.”

The central figure in the article, Lawrence Ray, is now standing federal trial in Manhattan on a 17-count racketeering indictment, and the woman on the website, Claudia, has been testifying against him for three days. She claims that Ray forced her into prostitution to the tune of $2.5 million over the course of four years, in key testimony for Ray's sex trafficking count.

On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast “Objections: with Adam Klasfeld,” the authors of the New York Magazine article that first uncovered the unsettling case—Ezra Marcus and James Walsh—describe the origins of their discovery and their impressions of the ongoing federal trial.

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The Thorny Policy Question Beneath the Pro-Trump Media's Furor Over a John Durham Filing (Feat. Julian Sanchez) Mar 16, 2022

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After special prosecutor John Durham filed a document claiming that a tech executive "exploited" internet traffic data to find derogatory information about Donald Trump, the allegation instantly set off a furor on the political right.

"The most striking example I recall hearing was Jesse Watters on Fox saying that Durham had disclosed that Hillary Clinton paid people to hack into Donald Trump's home and office computers in order to plant evidence of Russian collusion," the Cato Institute's senior fellow Julian Sanchez recalled on the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld."

Describing Watters's assertion as "impressive" in its falsehood, Sanchez added: "Literally no part of that sentence is correct."

Specializing in issues of technology and civil liberties, Sanchez explains on the podcast that the actual story buried beneath the mound of overheated rhetoric is a thorny problem of privacy in an age of bulk data analysis.

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After Exposé on Turmoil Inside Manhattan DA's Office, Ex-NYC Prosecutor Weighs in on Future of Trump Probe (Feat. Julie Rendelman) Mar 09, 2022

Show notes

Once considered one of most dangerous criminal probes orbiting the former president, the Manhattan district attorney's investigation that led to indictments against Donald Trump's business and former associate Allen Weisselberg now stands in turmoil.

Officially, the investigation continues, but two of its top prosecutors—Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz—resigned late last month. A recent New York Times exposé on the heated arguments preceding their departure suggest both men strongly disagreed with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's reluctance to bring charges against Trump himself. The Times quoted Dunne explaining his need to "disassociate myself with this decision because I think it was on the wrong side of history.”

On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," former Brooklyn prosecutor Julie Rendelman provides insight on line prosecutors' disagreements with district attorneys—and what this clash could mean for the future of the Trump probe.

"You've heard that saying, 'You can indict a ham sandwich,' and in many ways, it's true," Rendelman notes. "You can indict a ham sandwich. It doesn't take much to get you indicted. It takes a whole hell of a lot in order to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone is guilty. And with Trump, it's not just about whether he cooked the books. It's also whether he intentionally cooked the books for the purpose of some level of criminality."

Rendelman, a former homicide prosecutor behind the upcoming Law&Crime podcast "Without a Body," explains how an investigation deals with the absence of seemingly crucial evidence. Her podcast draws from her prosecutorial experiences to show how investigators proceed in a homicide case where a body is never found.

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Financial Sanctions in the Wake of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Draw Global Attention to 'Criminal Services Industry' (Feat. Drew Sullivan) Mar 02, 2022

Show notes

Ratcheting up the financial sanctions that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden announced a dedicated Department of Justice task force to go after Vladimir Putin's oligarchs during Tuesday night's State of the Union address: "We are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets. We are coming for your ill-begotten gains," the U.S. president declared.

Investigative journalists have long traced the opaque flows of Russian oligarch money around the world, and few have done it as tenaciously and effectively as the European collective Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," OCCRP's co-founder and publisher Drew Sullivan describes how Putin and his oligarchs hide their money through what he calls the "criminal services industry."

"These law firms and banks are really helping these relatively provincial, Eastern European leaders to suddenly find that they could steal money and move it offshore, bring it back in another form and get done what they wanted to get done," he noted.

Sullivan also details the "laborious" process through which reporters uncover assets hidden in layers of "nested," anonymous corporations. Devastating sanctions to Russia's most important banks prompted Putin over the weekend to effectively threaten nuclear war, a development Sullivan construes as a sign that the global financial backlash to his war on Ukraine has hit the autocrat where it hurts.

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Sandy Hook Chronicler Charts Families' Litigation Against Alex Jones and the 'Battle for Truth' (Feat. Elizabeth Williamson) Feb 22, 2022

Show notes

As the 10-year anniversary of the mass shooting approaches, families of Sandy Hook victims have been racking up a string of legal victories. Nine of them reached a $73 million settlement last week with insurers for the arms manufacturer Remington, the maker of the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle that gunman Adam Lanza used in the massacre.

In her soon-to-be-released book “Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth,” New York Times feature writer Elizabeth Williamson charts the families' longstanding litigation against InfoWars broadcaster Alex Jones, who defaulted late last year on a string of lawsuits about his conspiracy theory that the shootings that killed 26 people inside the elementary school—plus the gunman and his mother—did not happen.

Discussing the book on the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Williamson describes Sandy Hook conspiracy theories as a template for others to come.

"Sandy Hook was the first mass shooting to create these viral conspiracy claims online," she said in an interview. "Then, it was every mass shooting. Then, it was Pizzagate. Then, it was QAnon. Then, it was coronavirus, and then, it was the election."

Late last year, Jones defaulted in defamation litigation, and he faces a damages trial in the spring. The book will be released on March 8.

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Inside the Steve Bannon-Linked 'Psy-Op' That a Texas Butterfly Preserve Director Says Shut Down Her Border Refuge (Feat. Marianna Treviño Wright) Feb 16, 2022

Show notes

The leader of a Texas butterfly preserve vividly remembers the day in July 2017, when she saw five workmen around the levee of her refuge, three of them wielding chainsaws, cutting down trees and mowing down vegetation.

"It was a shocking moment," recalled Marianna Treviño Wright, the executive director of the now-closed National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas. "I said, 'Who are you, and what are you doing here? And they said, 'Well, the government sent us to clear this land for a border wall.'"

Little did she know at the time, Treviño Wright said, that her fight against the construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall would plunge her into a years-long battle with prominent figures in MAGA-world, including ex-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and possibly, former President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Nor did she know, she says, that her well-publicized court battles against those powerful forces that be would make her the target of QAnon-style conspiracy theories that would shut down her preserve and make her fear for her life.

In an extended interview with Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Treviño Wright describes how her 100-acre haven for nature lovers and lepidopterists leapt into national headlines — and became a lightning rod for right-wing conspiracy theories with a history of provoking violence.

After years of this campaign, she says, an alarming incident involving a fringe congressional candidate in Virginia shut down her refuge indefinitely weeks ago. Its doors remain closed as of publication.

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Federal Trial Against Ahmaud Arbery's Murderers Puts Justice Department in 'Politically Difficult' Spot (Feat. Ken White) Feb 09, 2022

Show notes

As Ahmaud Arbery's murderers prepared to plead guilty to federal civil rights charges last week, two of the men appeared ready to tell a judge that they chased and killed a 25-year-old man because he was Black. Those admissions would have represented a long-delayed reckoning in a case that animated the racial justice movement globally and drew attention to what many described as a modern-day lynching in the Deep South.

Then, the deal fell apart, with Arbery's family denouncing prosecutors for even contemplating such a plea agreement.

On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," prominent legal commentator Ken White—better known by the nom de plume Popehat—unpacks why that happened, what it means for the criminal justice reform movement and what to expect at the trial which began this week with jury selection.

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Oath Keepers Founder's Estranged Wife Tells Why She Asked a Judge to Keep Ex in Jail (Feat. Tasha Adams) Feb 02, 2022

Show notes

When Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes first had a detention hearing following his seditious conspiracy indictment, his estranged wife Tasha Adams felt certain that he would be locked up and kept away from her and their six children.

Then, Adams noticed an alarming report in Politico report suggesting that a federal judge appeared ready to let her ex loose.

"I got a little panicked," Adams told Law&Crime in an interview with Law&Crime's podcast "Objections." "I really thought it was a done deal. Like, I didn't not expect any chance of bail whatsoever."

In an extraordinary interview, Adams details why she told a judge she wants to keep Rhodes in jail. She also details her allegations of physical abuse, the history of the Oath Keepers, and her fears that Rhodes may harm her children and become a "Brownshirt" acting as an "unseen arm" of former President Donald Trump, if released.

Read more about the episode here: https://lawandcrime.com/objections-podcast/oath-keepers-founders-estranged-wife-tells-why-she-asked-a-judge-to-keep-ex-in-jail-fears-hell-take-their-kids-and-become-brownshirt-for-trump/?utm_source=mostpopular

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