Weekend Law: SBF Gets 25 Years & Trump's First Criminal Trial

Published Mar 29, 2024, 9:56 PM

Former federal prosecutor Michael Weinstein, a partner at Cole Schotz and Bloomberg legal reporter Ava Benny-Morrison, discuss Sam Bankman-Fried being sentenced to 25 years in prison. Mary Ziegler, a professor at UC Davis Law School, discusses Supreme Court arguments over the abortion pill. Bloomberg legal reporter Erik Larson discusses Donald Trump’s cash crunch and his first criminal trial starting on April 15th. June Grasso hosts.

This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio.

One time billionaire in crypto whiz Sam Bankman Freed was sentenced to twenty five years in prison for stealing eight billion dollars from customers of his now bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange. The thirty two year old told Judge Lewis Kaplan and his sentencing on Thursday that he was sorry about what happened at every stage, but the judge wasn't buying it, saying Bankman Freed was not truly remorseful and that he perjured himself when he testified. I've never seen a performance quite like that, Kaplan said. The judge also ordered him to forfeit eleven billion dollars. Joining me is Bloomberg legal reporter Ava Benny Morrison, who was in the courtroom for the sentencing. Ava set the scene.

For us, so it was packed courtroom. Sam's parents with a Joe and Barbara, who've been there for most of his court appearances. They were sitting together in the front row. There was also a victim of FCX. He gave statement to the court on path of many other victims who had lost money when sex collapsed at the end of November twenty twenty two. Other than that there was a lot of press there. Sam was wearing a beij prison issued uniform. He looked a lot slimmid than he used to, having spent the past seven or eight months in prison in Brooklyn. He didn't really look back at his parents or engage with anyone in the public gallery.

Bankman Freed's attorney, Mark Mucasey wrote this sort of impassioned plea for leniency, saying that Bankman for you should serve no more than six and a half years in prison. What was Mucasey's argument like at the sentencing.

It was definitely impassioned. You could hear a pin drop in the courtroom when he was talking to the judge and really trying to paint a picture of a man who was largely misunderstood but had been painted as a villain, as a financial serial killer over the past or almost two years. He provided the court a bit of an insight into the struggles that Sam Bang mcfreed has faced throughout his life. That he's always been especially awkward, he struggled to fit in, faced bouts of depression. Referred to a journal entry he made once saying that he doesn't feel happiness or pleasure at all and feels like that there is a whole in his brain. He even referred to comments that Sam's own mother made, saying that there is a terrific sadness at her son's core. Mckazy said that he found that quite crushing and really sort of jarred with the perception that we've got of Sam Bankman free from the government as this very calculated, cunning forwards who went out to steal millions of dollars from customers and enriched himself and expand his business empire. And a couple of points during mccazy's address, Sam Bankman fried appeared to become a little bit emotional. He was looking down at the table, fidgeting. At one point he wiped his nose and he was blinking quite a lot when mccazy was talking about his parents and talking about Sam's brother and talking about some of the struggles that he had in his life to fit in.

And the prosecutors had argued for a forty to fifty year prison sentence.

Yes, so right after mccazy finished about impassioned address, Nick Rose, one of the assistant US attorneys stood up and counted that straight out of the gate. He said that Sam Bankman Free knew what he was doing was wrong. He was focused and obsessed with power and influence. He gave a lot of money to different political parties because he wanted to be influential. He wanted to grow his business empire, and he was willing to use other people's money to do it. So there were definitely two different sides of Sam Bankman Free that were portrayed in the courtroom.

And then Bankman Freed spoke for about twenty minutes tell us how he came across.

He started by talking about how he had let down the people that he built FTX with and had let down the customers. He said that you know, today isn't about him and the hype of the children he may not be able to have because he's in prison in the future, but this was about the customers who had lost a lot of money. Then he circled back to a lot of the arguments that he has made in the past about customers being able to recover their money. He doubled down on claims that there was always enough money to repay creditors and STX could have kept going, but was allowed to yes, alimeter reservice. This the hedge fund would have folded, but FTX would have been okay and customers would have been okay as well. He also took a few gigs at the bankruptcy estate and the new administrator of FTX. This was an argument that didn't go well during his testimony and sort of left the judge at least feeling like he wasn't showing any remorse. He was admitting that, yes, he had made mistakes, he'd made a bad bet, but he wasn't ready to admit to Romdoy.

Reading what the judge said in sentencing him, it sounded very stern and just unrelenting.

Yes, Judge Kaplan listened to everything Sam had said and that he's defensili had said, but in the end he was pretty stern in his characterization at Sam. He said that he had committed some various serious crimes here and there was a real risk that he could offend again. Yes, he was brilliant, and he was intelligent, and he had a great mathematical mind, but on the flip side, that also put him a danger of reoffending again because if something appeared to be a good bet and there was a likelihood that it might succeed. Then that motivated him and it encouraged him to do certain things. So Judge Kaplan said that he wanted to hand down a sentence that would potentially prevent him from doing that again for a very long time and deter others from committing similar crimes.

So how did Bankman Fried react when he heard twenty five years?

He didn't react at all. He was standing up between his lawyers at the table. He had his hands clasped in front of him, and he was either gazing down at the table or just looking towards the judge. You could see as the judge was handing down the sentence and lining up different years and periods with the different offenses that Sam seemed to be trying to do the calculations in his head. His eyes were dining around the room. But in the end, when Judge Kaplan said that the total sentence was three hundred months, Sam certainly didn't seem surprised. I think he had been bracing himself for this moment for a very very long time, and to him, twenty years is the same as forty years.

Quite a day in court, Thanks for taking us inside the courtroom. EVA. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Ava Benny Morrison. Joining me now to analyze the sentence is former federal prosecutor Michael Weinstein, a partner at Cole Shots twenty five years. Was this a harsh sentence, a fair sentence? How would you characterize it?

Well, it's pretty much down the middle. It's a pretty even sentence based upon the amount of loss here, based upon the judge's conclusion that he misled the jury during his testimony and the type of impact he had on victims.

So we talked about the risks of SBF testifying as far as the jury verdict, but not the risks as far as the sentencing, and his testimony came back to haunt him. Judge Kaplan increased the sentence in guidelines range after finding that SBF had perjured himself at his trial, and he said when he wasn't outright lying, he was often evasive, hair splitting, dodging questions. I've never seen a performance quite like that.

Yes, that's pretty remarkable for a federal judge to say that about a defense if you're testify, To put it bluntly, you know, his testimony was a calamity during the trial, and it's a catastrophe after trial and for sentencing.

He found that SBF had committed witness tampering before he was remanded into custody when he communicated with the former FTX General Council. Is that a stretch? It always seemed to me like there was room for different interpretations there.

Well, look, if you're a defense attorney, you want to argue that there was no witness tampering and that you know, what he did doesn't qualify under the federal statutes for such. But as a prosecutor and as a judge, when a defendant does reach out for or send signals out to witnesses or potential witnesses, that's very concerning. And I think that's how the judge viewed it, is that Sam Bankman Free just overstepped the line in trying to communicate with or sending signals to witnesses. And that's a no no, especially in the judge who's this experience and have seen those things go very badly.

Bank Matfreed's defense attorney made this impassioned plea for a lenient sentence, but the judge didn't buy any of his reasons, including his contention that the victims would be repaid in the bankruptcy.

I think that the judge concluded essentially the thought that there was a victimless crime, which is what the defense is trying to argue, was both misleading, flawed, and speculative. And so I think the defense did the best they could with the hand that they were dealt. And certainly the defense lawyer, very talented, very eloquent, and very experienced on his feet, just didn't have the facts and didn't have the client that could really be appealable to this judge. And this judge has been sitting for a very long time, I think twenty nine or thirty years, so he's seen enough and heard enough and observed enough to be able to cut through a lawyer's arguments, as good as they may be, and really get to the heart of the issue, which is what he did here, and that's why he put him away for twenty five years.

So SBF said in his statement to the judge, I'm sorry about what happened at every stage. It haunts me every day. But the judge said that he lacked real remorse. If SBF had said more, could that have.

Hurt his appeal it potentially could I think that SBF still hasn't come to grips with what he did and how he did it. The judge certainly doesn't think that he has taken full responsibility for his actions. And you know SBF is going to have a long time to reflect upon that.

He and said he intends to appeal the sentence and the conviction. What would be the grounds for appealing the sentence? Is it unusual to see a sentence like that knocked down?

It is if the calculation, for example, that the judge used was inaccurate, or if the case law or the cases or the factual provisions and basis that the judge used was inaccurate, or for example, there was something in the pre sentence report which was inaccurate. All of those things are reasons why you would challenge a sentence. But obviously you're dealing with a very experienced judge, You're dealing with a high profile case, so in all likelihood a challenge of the sentence is likely to not be successful.

How much of this sentence was about setting an example and warning about crypto and the financial markets.

Look, I mean, anytime you have a situation like this with such high publicity, you have to step back and say, the prosecutor brought this case not only because a crime occurred, but also brought the case to send a signal to the crypto industry because government regulators have become very concern that it's just the wild West, and they had to reind it into a certain degree. And I think by extension, the judge felt as though he had some obligation as well to clarify that even in the wild West of crypto, there are boundaries. There are guardrails that you cannot cross, and fraud is one of them. And as a result of that, that's why he sentenced them to what he did.

The judge made a lot of rulings that limited bankmin Freed's defense, for example, preventing expert witnesses from testifying. I assume that that's going to be part of the appeal if it is. How difficult is it to get a reversal based on those kinds of decisions by a trial judge.

So the child judge is going to have broad discretion and the appellate court is going to look at whether or not what he did was so manifestly improper it would have had some material impact on the trial, and those are two very high burden, very high hurdles to crossover to have the conviction overthrown. I just don't see it happening. You have very able counsel on both sides, both on the government side and on the defense side, pre trial related to those motions, and you have a judge who obviously seriously and thoughtfully considered those arguments and then made the decisions he did. So I think the uppeal generally is an uphill battle.

Finally, so you have the three cooperators who turned against SBF and pleaded guilty to their roles and testified. They are coming up for sentencing now looking at his twenty five year sentence, is it likely that they'll get a stiff sentence or could they walk away without any prison time?

So I don't foresee them walking away without some sentence. They certainly would not get decades in prison as Sam Bateman free did. I think Number one, they came out early and agreed to fleet guilty. Number two, they gave cooperating information and cooperated and testimony. And number three they provided essentially the blueprint for what occurred, and that gave the government the ability to go after Sam Bankman freed in the trial and triangulate against him so that he was really boxed in at that point. He really was, you know, the eight hundred pound gorilla that they needed, and they convicted and they want to put in jail. The others are equally important, just not as important, and they will have a harsh sentence, but it's certainly not going to be anywhere close to what he just got.

It's going to be very interesting to see what Judge Caplan sentences them to. Thanks so much, Michael. That's Michael Weinstein of Coal Shots. Coming up next, the Supreme Court appears likely to back access to the abortion pill. I'm June Grasso and you're listening to Bloomberg. This week, the Supreme Court took up the divisive issue of abortion for the first time since overturning the constitutional right to abortion in twenty twenty two. But even most of the conservative jo justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade appeared wary of the legal attack on MiFi pristone, a drug now used in more than half of the country's abortions. Justices from across the ideological spectrum were skeptical that the anti abortion doctors challenging the FDA's loosening of regulations from if a Pristone had standing or suffered the direct harm needed for them to bring the lawsuit. Here are Justices Katanji, Brown Jackson, and Brett Kevanaugh.

I mean, it makes perfect sense for the individual doctors to seek an exemption, but as I understand it, they already had that, and so what they're asking for here is that in order to prevent them from possibly ever having to do these kinds of procedures, everyone else should be prevented from getting access to this medication.

Just to confirm understanding issue, under federal law, no doctors can be forced against their consciences to perform or assist in an abortion.

Correct joining me is reproductive rights expert Mary Ziegler, a professor at the UC Davis School of Law. Mary, just about everyone who listened to the oral arguments is of the opinion that a majority of the justices will turn away this challenge to MITHI pristone, is that your opinion as well?

Yeah, it is. I think that it seemed that most of the justices were convinced that the plaintiffs in the case didn't outstanding.

Before we talk about standing, tell us about the merits argument. The anti abortion doctors were making.

The argument at least that the alliance for hippocratic medicine the plaintiffs wanted to make was twofold right one, that the FDA didn't have the authority either to approve mith Cerystone back in two thousand or to lift subsequent restrictions on the drugs in twenty sixteen or twenty twenty one, the argument being that the FDA hadn't been careful enough with the science to make all of those decisions. And there was a related argument on the twenty twenty one changes, which are what permitted abortion for reasons of telehealth, their activists argued that the federal Comstock Act, which is in nineteenth century obscenity statute, prohibited the mailing of abortion related items. So the SEA couldn't have had the authority to approve telehealth because doing sowhat of violated federal law. So those were a lot of the arguments that Inferior the Court could consider. We don't imagine they'll be in a majority opinion because we think the plaintiffs will likely be held not to have standing. But some of those arguments seem to capture the interests of some of the conservative justices for down the road.

Abortion opponents have looked at the Comstock Act as a possible way to stop medication abortions. Do you think that that is a fight that will happen down the road in right?

I mean, so in this case, you know, if these plaintiffs don't have standing other plaintiffs, could we know that at least on the Comstock Act front, that both Justices Thomas and Aldo signaled some interest in the idea that the Comstock Act bans mailing abortion pills and maybe other abortion related items as well. So I think, you know, whatever comes out of this case may not be a final resolution.

So, as you said, the justice is from across the eyedelogical spectrum expressed doubt that the doctors and the organizations had standing to try to overturn the FDA changes. What do you think was the heart of that argument.

The plaintiff's argument essentially was a speculative argument. Right, So they said, there are complications that inevitably ensue when people take MITHI pristone, and some percentage of those people with complications will end up in the emergency room. And then they said, it's reasonable to assume that some of those patients might end up in our emergency rooms and it may be the case that we have to treat them, and then that may cause us a conscience based injury. The problem with that, according to many of the justices, was one, none of that may happen. This is all just possibilities, and two that it seemed that there was a mismatch. Is Justice Katanji Brown Jackson put it between the remedy the plaintiffs were seeking and the harm they suffered. She and Justice Scorsich asked, you know, if the problem here is that doctors we have to act against their conscience, why can't those doctors just get a conscience based objection. Why do they have to go all the way to taking a drug potentially off the market for all Americans. So there were clearly problems withstanding from the beginning, and that's why we saw it being such a focal point at the argument.

So Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked only one question in the ninety minute argument. If he said, just to confirm on the standing issue, under federal law, no doctors can be forced against their consciences to perform or assist in an abortion. Correct? He asked thislictitor general. It's unusual for a justice to ask only one question during these long oral arguments. Do you think he was trying to deflect attention away from himself when there's been so much discussion of his concurrence in the Dobbs case.

And I think Kavinaugh just thought this was an easy case. I mean, I think there was a signal that, you know, these doctors, if they had conscience based harms, they weren't going to be forced to do anything they didn't want to do because they already had protections under federal law. And that that made the kinds of injury they were talking about even more speculative. I don't think, you know, a lot of the justices seemed to think this was an easy case, and I think Kavanaugh may have been more unplugged from the argument for that reason.

Now, there was also a claim. We we talked about the claims of the doctors, the organizational standing, and just as Elena Kagan said, you need a person who's your person, did the organizational standing claim fall even worse than the claim of the doctors?

I think so? I mean, I think even Justice Thomas seemed doubtful about the organizational standing claim, suggesting that it just proved way too much.

So.

The argument that the organization had made was that it was expanding resources and time to fight Micha christoone that it would have liked to use on other pro life work. And several of the justices, again including Justice Thomas, who you would think would have been one of the most sympathetic to the point, has said, well, if that's true, then coult in any social movement group bring any lawsuit and say simply the fact that the lawsuit was an expensive resources they wouldn't otherwise need to bring, and that gives them standing. So there was arguably even more skepticism of that claim than the ones involving the doctors.

Justice Gors really tore into the fact that a nationwide injunction was issued here. Let's listen to what he said.

We've had. One might call it a rash of universal injunctions or vacatures in this case seems like a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule or any other federal government action.

The justices have complained before about out these nationwide injunctions, but yet they don't do anything about them. Might they in this case?

It's possible, I mean, clearly Justice Gorsich would like that to end. You know, I think there was sort of a soapbox moment where this is been a pet peeve of his, and he took an opportunity to hold this case up as an example of what's wrong with universal injunctions. I don't know if that's going to be too far afield from the issues at hand. Given that this ruling is likely to center on standing, Justice Gorsich may write separately to complain about universal injunctions. I don't know if the majority is going to do anything in this case. I'd be sort of surprised if they did so.

Mary, If, as everyone thinks, they take the off ramp and rule there's no standing here, I mean, does that leave the question open for other groups to try to challenge if a pristone.

It potentially does.

So.

We know that in the trial court several conservative states have sought to intervene. The US Supreme Court allowed this case to proceed with about joining those cases or those parties to the present matter, but they are before Judge Kasmeric. If they don't end up having standing, it's not hard to imagine that other conservatives will try to assert it. General Prelogger alluded to the possibility that she thought those other parties don't have standing either, and that was a point Justice Alito wanted to make a big deal about, essentially to say, well, if these people don't have standing and nobody is standing, isn't that a problem. But I don't think we know at this point that support would rule out other people potentially having standing.

The anti abortion doctors brought this case before a sympathetic, very conservative Texas judge, Trump appointing Matthew Kismeric, and that meant the appeal went to the most conservative circuit court in the country. Do you think that the new policy to curb judge shopping might have stopped this case from being brought before Kasmeric?

It's interesting. I don't know. I mean, I would hope we have to see I think how those changes play out in practice. That's certainly the outcome they're designed to achieve. But I guess I would say we'll have to wait and see how they work in practice.

And something like eight states have been stockpiling mifipristone in the event that the Supreme Court ruled against the FDA.

Here, Yeah, they have, and they've been also start piling in missuprostal and other drug that would be used as an alternative.

You know.

So mythipristone and misterprostal are used together now in medication abortions. Misuprostal on its own can also be used to produce a medication abortion, so there's a possibility that that would also occur.

The Supreme Court is going to hear another abortion case in April over Idaho's total ban on all abortions except when necessary to save the mother's life. The Biden administration had sued, arguing that hospitals that get Medicare funds are acquired by federal law to provide emergency care, potentially including abortion, no matter if there's a state law banning abortion or not. Why do you think the Justice is took that case.

I don't know. I mean, I think it's likely they don't agree with the Biden administration's interpretation of the law. They've let Idaho's ban, which has some of the narrowest exceptions in the nation's stand while the litigation continues. I think They clearly think that there's something wrong with what the Biden administration is doing. The interesting question is what that they think that this statute simply has nothing to do with abortion, or that they think it's likely that the language of the statute, which refers to an unborn child, actually limits in some ways what doctors, potentially even in blue states, could do. So I'm not sure which of those possibilities we'll see.

Will that case be more of a test of the Dobbs decision than the mythipristone cases.

Yeah, it definitely will, in the sense that we're much more likely to see a ruin on the actual merits of the question rather than a decision on standing, which I mean, obviously, it's important that the Court still recognizes guardrails on who can sue, but it doesn't give us much of a into the substance of abortion law post Dobbs in the same way that this other case could.

With all the controversial cases the Court has this term, including those involving Donald Trump, is it surprising that the justices are taking up two cases involving the divisive issue of abortion in a year when abortion is basically going to be on the ballot it is.

I mean, I think you know, we already know that the Court has had problems with its reputations since the Dobbs' decisions, and we also know that the Court in Dobbs itself essentially proclaimed a lack of concern about those issues, right, essentially said, if people don't like this and they don't like what we're doing, they can kind of stuff it. It's not our job to care about that. We're not concerned about that. And taking two abortion cases in a term, which is very unusual. I mean, before Dobbs, the Court would often not take an abortion case more than you know, sometimes once a decade, So two in one term was pretty exceptional. So I think it shows you that the Court is not worried about the damage that's been done to its reputation and is ready to continue full steam ahead.

Well, we'll find out how these cases come out by June. Thanks so much, Mary. That's Professor Mary Ziegeler of UC Davis Law School. Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, Donald Trump's win loss record in court this week. I'm June Grosso, and you're listening to Bloomberg.

I'm very rich.

I built an unbelievable company.

All my life I made money.

I made money.

I've always been good making money.

I have made billions of dollars in business making deals.

Donald Trump loves to brag about how much money he has, and the former president is in fact richer than ever. His social media company debuted in trading this week, and the former president's net worth sword to seven point two billion dollars. But when Trump faced a deadline on Monday to either pay the full four hundred and fifty four million dollar civil fraud verdict against him or post a standard bond for one hundred and twenty percent of the judgment or risk having New York State starts seizing his assets, the billionaire said he didn't have the cash to cover it, and claimed he'd have to sell properties at a loss to raise the cash. Trump was saved from having to make that decision when a New York appeals court handed him a financial lifeline and cut the bond by about two thirds to one hundred and seventy five million dollars. So I greatly respect the decision of.

Depelloped Division that I'll posted either one hundred and seventy five billion.

Dollars in cash, or bonds or.

Security or whatever it is necessary, very quickly within the ten days.

But Trump's financial strains are far from over, as he faces four criminal trials else And on Monday, a Manhattan judge refused to throw the hush money case out or delay the trial, further, ruling that Trump's first criminal trial will start on April fifteenth.

I don't know how you.

Can have a trial. It's going on right in the middle of an election.

Not fair. Not fair.

Joining me is Bloomberg legal reporter Eric Larson, who's been following these cases and rulings. For the first time. Trump is joining the ranks of the world's wealthiest five hundred people on the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index. How did he get there?

Well, the short answer is that his media company, Trump's Media and Technology Group, is now a publicly created company through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company or a blank chat company. This has been a long time in the banking it's really stored after when public and more than double his net wealth, at least on paper. He had been at around three billion dollars and now he's over.

Seven, so Eric say, on paper. And despite this new level of wealth, for him. He said he couldn't make the bond.

So the problem for Trump in court this year so far has been cash. He lost that defamation trial with Eijen Carroll and had an eighty three point three million dollars damage award. He had to post a bond to put that on hold while he appealed. That bond was over ninety one million dollars. And then, of course, shortly after that, he got hit with a four hundred and fifty four million dollar penalty in the New York Attorney General civil fraud case that she woned trial. And he was facing the prospect of posting a one hundred and twenty percent bond in that case in order to put that verdict up hold while he appealed, and that would have been a bond around five hundred and fifty million dollars. He got a big reprieve though, from the New York Appeals Court, which lowered the bond in that case to just the one hundred and seventy five million dollars. He said he's going to pay that with cash. He means to that by April fourth, to put that unfold well the appeals, but before the appeals for lowered that bond. He was saying in court filings that he did not have enough liquidity to cover both these two big bonds. Bus has reserved to run his company. So, notwithstanding everything happening with Trump media, he was in a position where he did not have enough cash to pay that bond.

Just recently, so the appeals court cut his bond by sixty eight percent. Do we know why they decided to do that?

We don't. The court issued that decision branding Trump's motion to lower the bond without saying why. He didn't give any indication at all, so we're just kind of less wondering. Obviously, there's a range of reasons why the court might have taken this action, anywhere from simply having mercy on Trump to let him post still a significant bond of one hundred and seventy five million while challenging the verdict and the penalty in that case. You know, the word no specific victims in this trial, so it's not as if there are individuals out there waiting and concerned about getting their money back. Although the Attorney General Leticia James, she did say that she did not trust that Trump would pay the penalty if it were upheld on appeal that he should be forced to pay the full amount of the bond.

To put it on full.

Mully appeals. So, you know, the other argument that some people have said is that the appeals court may be somewhat skeptical of the huge Stama toward in that case, and perhaps that's the reason they were comfortable lowering the bond. But again that's the speculation on both sides. We don't have any specific reason why it was lowered.

And shoot social he said on Sunday, keep your hands off Trump Tower. So he continues with this relentless push for donations from his supporters, well at the same time bragging about how wealthy he is.

Right, So, Trump.

Has used tens of millions of dollars donate to his re election campaign to cover his legal bills. Can't use that to pay damage awards in these civil cases that he's dealing with, but clearly his legal fees. He's facing four significant criminal prosecutions on top of these two civil cases. So he's really been racking up the fees and sending a lot of his campaign money on that. His campaign is being far outpaced and fundraising by President Joe Biden's reelection campaign. So really, you know, every dollar would seem to count in terms of trying to reach voters with his donated campaign money, but instead Trump is using a lot of it to pay legal bills, and on top of that, his fundraising is falling behind. So you know, you have to juxtapose the fact that we have a billionaire even before Trump media started trading. Now he's estimated to be worth seven billion or more or less, and he's still asking individuals to send him five, ten, twenty dollars to help him with his campaign, which of course a lot of that will go to his legal bills. So it's an interesting dynamics to say.

Now, on Monday, he got the good news from the New York Appeals Court about the bond, but bad news from Manhattan Judge Wan Murshan that there would be no further delays in the hush money trial and it would start on April fifteenth. It was supposed to start in March. Explain why there was this delay.

Sure, yeah, that trial was originally supposed to start in March twenty fifth, and instead it was delayed for several weeks and there was actually a hearing on March twenty fifth instead, and that is when the judge set to April fifteenth trial day. But the reason that it was delayed is because there had been a late production of tens of thousands of pages of documents related to the case and handed over by federal prosecutors. Of course, this is the Manhattan District Attorney's case, but there was a related federal case in Manhattan, an investigation into Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, who, of course several years ago sweet is guilty to various campaign finance crimes related to his work for Trump. And of course Cohen is going to be a star witness in this upcoming case, and so Trump's defense wanted to get a look at everything related to that federal case to see if there is anything in those documents that could help them with their defense. So they raised a huge fuss about this production, and even the Manhattan DA that yet a thirty day delay is warranted because of its being handed over. But Brad this this attorney accused Trump and his lawyers of wildly exaggerating the significance of these documents and by the way, requesting them from the federal costcutters months and months later than they could have. So I think for the prosecutors. It's not like the last minute delayed pastic that has been sort of cooked up here, and frankly, the dudge seemed to see that way too. At that hearing, the judge One John really laid into Trump's lawyer Tod Blanch he's a former federal prosecutor, and said, waited months. You requested subpoena these documents in January. You could have s seen events in June July last year. And also there has been a previous hearing in the Gate just back in February where the Trump's defense had argued for a delay of the trial but never mentioned that they were waiting apparently for all these documents to be handed over. So the judge was pretty annoyed and said that he sort of expected better from a former federal prosecutor.

And Trump's lawyers were claiming that this was prosecutorial misconduct.

The judge disregarded this issue, said that it wasn't prostitutorial misconduct, which is what the defense alleged, and in fact, he shot that down so hard. The judge was really annoyed that they'd even brought it up, because it's such a serious allegation. To make and they just kind of threw it around based on this documents being handed over late. The judge that you haven't provided any evidence to suggest misconduct whatsoever, and yet you make this serious allegation. The judge was very upset by that and, as I said, declined to delay the trial further and set the trial pace.

On Tuesday, the judge issued a gag order in the case that had been requested by the DA. Who does that gag order cover?

So the gag order prevents Trump or anyone at his direction from publicly commenting about the prosecutors or potential witnesses or the jurors during this trial. So this was requested by the district attorney and the judge granted it based on Trump's history of conduct around this type of behavior in regards talking about judges and prosecutors and jurors and the family members. So the judge said that he balanced carefully the First Amendment rights of the former president against the fair administration of justice and determined that in order for text the everyone involved, given Trump's platform and millions of followers, that he needed to be restricted in this way. This, of course, does not prevent Trump from denying the allegation and saying, you know, a lot of other things about his rivals and the witch hunts, everything else like that. It's urginented at preventing personal attacks that could put people's safety at risk. You know. Even one of the criminal cases against Trump in Washington, of course, accuses him of inciting a deadly insurrection at the United States Capital as part of his plan to overturn the result of the twenty twenty election. So there's quite a bit of evidence that Trump's words have impact, and the judge does not want to take any chances here, especially after we saw in the two civil trials that Trump does have a hard time with his filter in court. He was picked out of both trials. He clashed with the judge, he muthered under his breast, had to be warned or about saying things that the jury here. So this is just the judge's way of trying to prevent any of that from happening in his courtroom, and we'll see how effective it is.

The gag order did not cover the judge or his family, and already in a social media post on Wednesday, Trump attacked the judge for rejecting his request to delay the trial and for imposing the gag order. And Trump apparently cite a bogus social media account to make a false claim that the judge's daughter had posted an image of him behind bars. There's a lot going on here and the trial hasn't even started. Thanks so much, Eric. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Eric Larson, and that's it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Podcast. Remember you can always get the latest legal news by subscribing and listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast, slash Law. I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg MHM.

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Host June Grasso speaks with prominent attorneys and legal scholars, analyzing major legal issues an 
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