good evening welcome to this Brennan
Center event at New York University School of Law
my name is Melissa Murray I'm a professor of law here and I'm also a
member of the board of the Brennan Center the Brennan Center is a
bipartisan on partisan Law and Policy Institute that works to reform and
revitalize and we're necessary defend the systems of democracy and justice you
can follow the Brennan Center's important work online at Brennan Center
org as well as on Facebook and Twitter this last year the Brennan Center has
worked diligently to address new and alarming assaults on the norms of
constitutional democracy including assaults on the rule of law and the
Independence of prosecutions and the furtherance of executive power and
overreach part of that work has included partnering with tonight's guest Preet
Barra Preet and former New Jersey governor christine Todd Whitman have
co-chaired the Breton's centers national task force on the rule of law and
democracy the task force has published a series of proposals intended to relieve
the pressures currently threatening our democratic institutions and we are
grateful for preached for leading that effort since serving as the US Attorney
for the Southern District of New York Preet has become a distinguished scholar
in residence here at NYU School of Law in his spare time he has created a
podcast stay tuned with Preet and he has written a book doing justice a
prosecutor's thoughts on crime punishment and the rule of law we know
that many of you tonight have questions about priests record as a prosecutor and
the impact that that work has had on communities of color we welcome your
questions whether they are animated out of admiration or prompted by a more
skeptical position this is a University and part of a university shared norms
are at the heart of our democracy a free and spirited and open dialogue I hope
that we can achieve that tonight to watch this conversation tonight we are
joined by Margaret Hoover host of the political show firing line
on PBS so please join me in giving a warm welcome to Pete Barrera and your
moderator Margaret this doesn't count unless you say into
the microphone welcome Preet Bharara hi thanks for
writing a book so we get to talk to you yeah you're welcome
it's a doing justice a prosecutors thoughts on crime punishment and the
rule of law it's an auspicious day to have you here am i under oath
do I have to appear in the house tomorrow is a former US Attorney always
under oath just by default of having been a US Attorney no all right girl
scouts honor I am dying to know just like everybody
else did you watch the hearings today I
watched them till about 2:00 p.m.
And then I recorded the beginning of what I
do every week the podcast stay tuned with Preet available in Apple podcast
com have you guys heard much cream freed has a very successful podcast that he
launched after being fired by President rap yes I like the lis juxtapose
successful and fired in the same sentence it's very well that my mom will
appreciate that so I watched so I watched a lot I watched the first four
hours of it and it was interesting you know a lot of a lot of it to focus any
folks watch it or see some of the reports so I thought was interesting
among other things what were all the debates about language and language is
important and and one of the most interesting debates and and on lots of
different words including what summary means what what what and phrases what
get rid of means what suggests means what cooperation means on summary it
seems like a very sort of pedantic semantic argument like what's a summary
and you'll recall that the report was delivered confidentially from the Muller
report from the special counsels office to the Attorney General William Bar on a
Friday March 22nd I guess and then two days
later bill Barr provided a letter to the public into the Congress that he kept
saying four pages based on a 448 page report which he kept saying was not a
summary but it was something in which he merely summarized the principal
conclusions but he but he was very adamant it's not a summary it's not a
summary and I kept not understanding why was it so important not to call it a
summary and then as we learned last night from reporting then we got the
copy this morning there were not one but two letters sent by special counsel
Muller saying you know we got some summaries right why don't you use ours
and so just the final point is I feel like the reason in part that he was
having the semantic addiction to not calling it a summary was he wanted to be
able to say I don't want any summaries and mine was not a summary and Muller's
was and we're not doing summaries and if you understand that then you're a lot
smarter than I am so were you I mean were you surprised when you saw
maybe you saw the report hit at 7:00 last night maybe he's not first Monday
morning were you surprised that Robert Miller went to the extreme to the to the
to the trouble to write a letter bar and then to leak it the day before bar went
up to the hill I don't know that he leaked it well I know that it was
conveniently placed in the presses hands and right before regardless of whether
Muller did it or not were you surprised to learn that Robert
Miller wrote this letter because he was concerned about Mars non summary yeah
and it's a summary does that seem to you I'm personally and professionally
and but people who know him a lot better than I do all said it's a very unusual
step for him in his bar himself I think said in testimony today you said we know
what's with the letter when he does call me when people write a letter they're
not just doing it to make their point to the other to the recipient of the letter
in the moment they're doing something for posterity and their doings they're
making a record in the same yet they want the trail and I don't think and by
the way is not just one letter was two letters he always we now have learned on
Sunday the four-page non summary summary summary thing comes out on Monday
Bob Muller transmits his own actual summaries that
could have been released and then and then on Wednesday the letter that was
released this morning he says you know what you've left a misimpression I don't
have the exact phraseology in front of me so he did it twice on top of having a
conversation I think he thought it was a big deal and the weird thing about it
also is that I think that letter speaks for itself
and shows that Bob Miller was very concerned about what the public's
reaction was and their understanding of what the report was gonna be all about
because there would be this delay before the full report would be brought forward
to the public and he didn't want to let it lie and I think that's I think that's
incredibly significant thing do you based on what you saw today believe that
attorney general Barr mislead the American people about the contents of
the Miller report so there's various verbs you can use I was asked on
television today did he perjure himself because there are these exchanges you
have that have mislead and then we got the purge off so I don't we're gonna go
in that direction yeah I warm up to it look I think he wasn't forthright I
think he wasn't not like you know the standard it's funny all day today it
seems like every senator was asking questions that went to the issue of
whether or not a crime was committed as to posed to whether or not a bad thing
was done and you would think the standard for the president itit's is
something less than a crime that provable beyond a reasonable doubt
felony and so when you ask this question about attorney general bar you know you
teach assistant US attorneys who are I think a little bit lower than the
Attorney General when you get a direct question from a quote from the court the
kinds of answers he gave would it would have a judge calling me probably to say
you know you had a prosecutor in my office in my courtroom today and you
know he was technically I guess correct and parsing his words very carefully but
he was trying to know to mess around with the truth and with the words and I
won't tolerant know very few judges would tolerate the kind of rhetoric and
I think lack of transparency that was shown by the Attorney General today so
in your book doing justice you say in the end law doesn't do justice people do
so to that end is the Attorney General of the United States
doing justice I you know in connection with I mean there's a lot of things that
you're in general doesn't overseas with respect to the thing that we're seeing
now how he dealt with the mullah report how he dealt with questions about the
mullah report how he has inserted himself on the issue of whether the
President did or did not obstruct justice on all of those things I think
given what his role is supposed to be you know one of being the the attorney
for everyone as opposed to sort of you know a PR specialist for the President
or the president's personal lawyer I think he's I think he's deviated from
his from his role so what's the remedy for that I mean you know you're not well
I I'm surmising you're not willing to say that he's perjured himself no no I'm
not saying that and I wouldn't say that perjury is quite complicated as I
understand it anyway that it's perjury also requires you know no offense to any
members of the Congress perjury requires asking you know very deft asbestos
specific questions and follow-up questions so there's no doubt about the
meaning of what was asked and there's no doubt about the meaning of what was said
in reply and I watched some of the testimony today and I watched some of
the playback and it was playback for me on television also and yeah you know
there was misleading word misleading I'll adopt that as you saw bar do today
there are ways to explain why you thought the question asked for X and you
answered why I think it takes a little bit more to show that a crime is
committed you say you know what is the remedy you know there's there can be
political accountability he was he was confirmed on a party-line vote it's not
a lot you can do to deal with an attorney general lots of folks including
you know people who are in politics and who are running for president have
called for his resignation as of today I don't know that that will
amount to anything I think the president is very happy with how his attorney
general is representing him and I don't think you know he wanted to fire Muller
over and over over again I don't think is gonna do that with the Attorney
General bar I think if you want a remedy for either that or anything else then
you need to do something different at the ballot box in 2020
so it's your view then that constitutionally the ultimate check on
an attorney general that has no impartiality from the chief executive of
the United States is is that the ballot box it's the people rather than any
functioning of government within these okay look it can be you know when I was
in the Senate some years ago working on the Senate Judiciary Committee staff we
opened an investigation that was undone on the pipe on a bipartisan basis
against not against but involving the Justice Department in the politicization
of the Justice Department had they're doing hiring and ironically the firing
of US attorneys back in 2007 and and because there was a bipartisan basis for
not having confidence in then attorney general Alberto Gonzales at some point
in the summer of 2007 he went on his merry way along with the Deputy Attorney
General did turned to his chief of staff and a number of other people that can
happen who felt that he had lost the confidence of the American people in the
Senate so so that that's how it can happen politically but I didn't see
today any any any Republican senator voice anything but but admiration and
support for bill bar in fact there's one Republican senator can we just we're
just going to do a little bit of political analysis today and then we're
getting to the book because this is all part of the book as well because it's
about doing justice but there was one Republican senators today that said it's
over isn't it and then he he went into this we've got to investigate the
investigators are you commit Lindsey Graham I'm talking about Lindsey Graham
yeah you dropped the f-bomb on national television did you see that I won't do
that tonight gives you all sorts of runway so so I mean what is the the
danger or you know the your view frankly of that path being pursued investigating
the investigators look the worry it look I think I think that's gonna happen I
mean I think they're going on I mean do you do you think that there are real
challenges and problems with the FISA warrant did that come through your
office when you worry I don't know did or did not
FISA warrants or had not handled by main justice in the National Security
Division and there's a FISA Court in Washington we don't so it's not part of
your jurisdiction all you didn't deal we didn't we don't do fives we don't do
sizes so but look there were reasonable basis and
faith basis for doing lots of different things the problem is if it looks like
and it is based on political retaliation against you know rivals in politics and
it looks like a vendetta as opposed to a good-faith inquiry into whether or not
people have committed misconduct then that's I think a huge problem a lot of
these things that people are talking about have been examined there were lots
of there are lots of read backs of the texts that are bad they're problematic
and they're not good by between Peter struck and Lisa page a lot of that has
already been the subject of an Inspector General report both of those people
testified at length before Congress so I don't know what further thing needs to
happen there other than a deflection from things that are happening now with
respect to the president you know no one should be able to escape investigation
or accountability or liability just because they happen to be in a position
to be able to claim this is a political vendetta you have to worry about that
also but when it looks like a political vendetta when when you have lots of
evidence that Donald Trump the president States has taken people aside and said
privately to them can you lay off this person like Michael Flynn because he's a
friend of mine and an ally of mine or could you go after so-and-so because
they're an adversary of mine well then that doesn't give you a lot of
confidence that these things are being undertaken in good faith and the idea
that the fact that an investigation didn't end up you know with an outcome
where a special counsel says that a crime has been committed and part of
that reason it's because you have this office of legal counsel opinion that
says you can indict a president the fact that you didn't end up with an outcome
that said crime cannot you know I think you know an orderly society in a fair
society necessarily mean that the investigation was corrupt at the outset
because it can't be the case that prosecutors and investigators think well
unless we end up with a charge at the end people are going to say this whole
thing was nonsense and then we should be investigated also that can't be the
result either so one more question with respect to the Miller report and that's
that it is seems that Muller sidestepped the opportunity to look at the
president's finances and the two questions I have everyone do we
know that do we know that for sure well you know you know that on unredacted
parts yeah right so do you is do you think that he did
and it was redacted no I don't know do you know well because bill Barr was
asked today point-blank if Bob Muller reviewed certain kinds of certain
certain aspects of Donald Trump's finances and whether he had reviewed
Donald Trump's taxes and he said he said he didn't know so if he doesn't know
then I don't know that's not necessarily true as the former US Attorney of the
Southern District of New York I mean do you suspect that other jurisdictions
will explore the opportunity to review the president's tax returns and finance
yeah I think that's reasonable to expect I think probably my old office
which with which I don't have any you know personal knowledge anymore I
haven't for two years you know the reporting is that they're looking at the
Trump Organization and they're looking at things relating to the inaugural
committee the state attorney general in New York has been looking at the Trump
Foundation and filed a petition in connection with the Trump Foundation and
there's lots of things to look at so I imagine they will be and those other
offices use Attorneys offices or State Attorney General's offices will not be
cabined and constrained in the same way that Special Counsel Bob Muller was
because his mandate was very specific and his ambit was very narrow and these
other offices or not it also you know means that those kinds of things if they
lead to fruit they may not you know people can look and they they see smoke
but they may not find fire and then you walk away but but those things are
harder to shut down that's sort of the next obvious question that you were
probably going to ask how does it work it's a little bit harder although it's
possible I guess it's a little harder for you know someone sitting very high
up like the Attorney General to reach into another you into a local US
Attorney's Office who let's say hypothetically is on the verge of
seeking an indictment against someone who's an affiliate of or an associate of
or maybe even a relative of the sitting president and it's a good-faith
indictment based on financial transactions or something else and for
that person like Bill Barr to say no don't do that I think there would be a
lot of objection to that and there could be resid
nations and there could be noisy resignations and I and I think you would
get a congressional it's just a lot harder to stop something in its tracks
if it has had a natural good-faith life that unfolds in a local US Attorney's
Office that's all right so I'd like to get to the book because I mean maybe
you'd been thinking about writing a book for years but truthfully you know you
you wrote this book cuz you had a little bit of time on your hands that you have
because the president Trump after being elected phoned you and said he was going
to keep you on and then he had me over to his place
I mean his office right you mean to Trump Tower Tower
yes it's kind of a split with the 26th floor of Trump Tower is very cold but
across in his place yeah it's like his pad I think right
it's his pad and so he had you over so you went when he was president-elect I
did and then he becomes the president and he calls you on the phone and this
is in March or so and and you don't call him back
correct and you don't call him back because so he called me a couple of
times when he was the president-elect which I thought was odd and peculiar
because he's hopefully busy you know learning going to going to president
school and I have I have a particular kind of
jurisdiction in the Southern District including Trump Foundation the Trump
Organization had his pass his pad certainly and um and you know Obama
never called me and I served under him for over seven years so you're wondering
what's up and you know people Mary's people have said from time to time
well you know the president doesn't understand you know protocols Donald
Trump has not been in government before he doesn't get it he hasn't read the
memos in that the Justice Department promulgates about these things and what
I said to them in responses you know I told both my deputies in the Southern
District about those phone calls I told the head of transition for the Justice
Department for Trump about those phone calls and I also told my dad and my dad
is um is now then is you know 78 year old Indian immigrant retired
pediatrician from New Jersey and I believe has not read any of the
promulgated guidelines and when he found out that the president-elect was calling
me he says I don't like that so he understood that's that doesn't seem
good that he's calling you and but I thought it was all and I again I advised
everyone and nothing untoward was said it would do we shot the breeze he was
like what's up read how he called me two days before the inauguration what I
thought like don't you have a speech that you got a write Bannon was working
on it well he claimed it's funny he claimed he said apropos of nothing and
without my asking he said yes I can't do an impression of
him I'm sorry he said yes I'm writing it all myself he felt the need to say that
to me any said and it's all about unity do you remember remember the carnage
it's American carnage this American carnage alright so so so then we get I'm
sorry so then we get to so then but then it's dipped so then he becomes the
president and it's March 9th it's a Thursday and I get a message from the
White House secretary the president saying that the president would like you
to return the call and then I paused and I called in my deputy June Kim and we
discussed you know what do you do and it seems odd I think to people who have
bosses and particular responsibilities were being in your position which Donald
Trump was for me really staying on I could call the boss back not so simple
as that in the Justice Department and this is before I knew about these weird
conversations that he had with Jim Comey about Michael Flynn and about loyalty
and all these efforts to say that you know Jeff Sessions done recuse himself
and his job is to protect me and now even in recent times these reports of my
successor Jeff Berman should Unruh cues himself so ostensibly or hypothetically
he could protect Donald Trump or Donald Trump's you know personal lawyer Michael
Cohen but you have an inkling about these
things and I thought it's it's not going to go well whether it's an innocent
conversation or not because what are people gonna think of this side you know
so to the side call that was not done through protocols it was not done with
the Attorney General the Attorney General clearly had no idea that the
president was calling me and I thought no good can come of it
and so I didn't return the call and in 22 hours later I was asked for my
resignation I can't connect those things for certain but they seem unlikely not
to be connected you can't stop there it's never the president of the United
States I suppose not this one so so here's me so you had this time on your
hands and you write a book and and the book is
you have every opportunity to make it a trump book or to make it sort of a
review and a criticism of the Trump administration or how there's a lot of
those books and and you decided not to do that instead what you did is you
wrote really an ethical primer on making the right calls in the justice system
people who are going through the justice system and and what they encounter what
you encounter in the course of a case from beginning to end to end and it's
it's really about morality because doing justice is about the right people making
the right calls and that's when you have justice and in the indigent criminal
justice system where did you get your moral compass to the extent I have one I
think from my parents so if you read the acknowledgments and I have a lot of
people to thank a lot of people to acknowledge and the very last paragraph
of the acknowledgments even after my my kids and my wife is are my parents who
if they're any South Asian immigrants in the audience you might appreciate that
they wanted me to be a doctor not a lawyer and and I say you know my mom and
dad never especially wanted to eat and my brother also became a lawyer and we
both married lawyers so it's very disappointing to my parents they never
especially wanted us to become lawyers but the first people from whom I think
my brother and I learned about principles and about justice and
fairness was from my parents not because they taught it not because it was their
profession but because they modeled those things those virtues and those
values every day so I think it was I think it was them and then I had great
teachers and then I had you know other mentors you know after that in the law
you write false allegations wrongful convictions excessive punishments
miscarriage of justice are often holy the results of human failing not flaws
and the impersonal machinery of justice so one of the elephants in the room
tonight is a recent CUNY law report that details the Bronx 120 raid which
happened when you were US Attorney can you tell us what the Bronx 120 rate was
so and I appreciate their people who look another chapter in the book let me
just start then we take a couple minutes on this so another chapter in the book
deals directly with criticism that you have to face if you do anything I think
that's significant and certainly if you're a prosecutor you can face
criticism and I've faced in my office's faced criticism of being too tough and
not tough enough depending on your perspective depending on the case and
sometimes in the same case people that we didn't go far enough it or or we went
too far and there have been allegations about you know motivations about why you
do things I've been bit I was banned from Russia because of a case we brought
against Viktor boot ban from Turkey as well I'm not I might not be officially
banned from Turkey but I think yes III detail you know a set of circumstances
in which in a very serious way in the country of my birth accusations that I'm
you know purposely targeted people of South Asian descent Indians in this
country and elsewhere for prosecution because I was somehow self-loathing and
wanted to prove something according to one article to my white masters
presumably Eric Holder and Barack Obama so so so so so so criticism criticism ISM
is it part is part of the job and part of the lay the land Donald Trump didn't
make up witch-hunt I actually had an assistant compile all the times that
significant targets had called said witch-hunt and it would have elongated
the book by double so I just so the fact that people have a criticism I think is
okay and you have to have a good and honest debate what what I worry about
with respect to criticism is if it spawns I think suggestions not based on
evidence like some of these accusations from my the country of my birth that a
particular action was taken or intended for racist reasons or for personal gain
I mean they're been all sorts of accusations about how we handle the
financial crisis or didn't handle accountability in the financial crisis
and so the first thing I'll say is you know the people that I know the
professionals either the NYPD or the FBI or the DEA or in my own office in every
case that I'm aware of and they made mistakes and by the way I'm very honest
in the book about things that no maybe we didn't do perfectly maybe things that
I overstated and I shouldn't have I got rebuked by a judge I talked about that I
don't shy away from it but but in my experience whether you believe it but
people believe it or not on the Bronx one twenty case or anything else the
intentions were good and people were acting in good faith and I like in a lot
of places in New York the overall crime rate as that Keeney report suggests and
and the related intercept article suggests the overall crime rate in the
country has gone down and so that's causing I think correctly
a good and and honest rethinking about how we go about dealing
with crime and how we go back tooling with punishment um but there are still
places where crime is a huge problem one of the first things I did when I was
used attorney was good a Newburgh New York that had a significant gang problem
in fact the homicide rate in Newburgh New York a little bit north of the city
was four times what it was anywhere else in New York and I met with the community
there the first community meetings I had and I went I met with moms and all
african-american moms who said you have to do something here in the first mama
we're meeting at a meet you know meeting in a setting at a community center
setting I lost his son to gang violence and she's telling the story and people
you know grown men and women are crying in the room and then the next mom speaks
and I'm thinking what could be worse than what the first mom said and the
second mom says I lost two sons so you know the people in that room I'm getting
to the main point in a second but the preface I think is important so people
understand where I'm coming from and you can disagree and you can people can have
heated arguments and that's all fine but I want people to understand where we're
coming from and the people in that room in Newburgh New York we're not talking
about East Chester Gardens yet committed themselves to taking serious action and
we brought big gang cases and we did big takedowns of Crips and bloods in
Newburgh because the community was crying out for it and because we cared
about the victims in the community who were also people of color yeah the
people who were charged were people of color and and and members of gangs and
associates of members and gangs and other enablers of them but the interest
was in helping the community and making it safer
so just so people know that the Bronx 120 was occurred three years ago and it
was the largest gang rate in New York City's history and it swept up a hundred
and twenty members gang members of gangs who well one of the criticisms is they
were not all members of gangs and as the the announcement said and as the
indictment makes clear there were some people who were members of gangs and
associates of games with members and associates in the same way and people
can criticize the rhetoric in the same way that when we have done large mafia
takedowns you charge some people who were made members of the mob and then
also their associate some people who were involved in criminal activity as
well so so I appreciate the criticism that you know some of the rhetoric that
surrounded that criminal action made it seem like every single person was a
member of a gang and there was a taint on the part of folks who are maybe not
as as criminally liable as the people at the top but do you think it's possible
that individuals were swept up in that gang raid that actually weren't I've not
only just violent criminals but weren't that shouldn't have been so I should
issue another caveat so I was fired ten months after that case I don't have
access to the docket I don't know what all the dispositions are I can't argue
sort of you know line by line in case by case as to what as to what happened in
every particular instance and so I think the Southern District of New York
no should respond and people should ask them what's going up so I have some top
line views and that is I'm not aware of anything in any of those cases where
somebody was charged didn't commit the crime I think there might have been a
couple of cases I think there may have been a couple of cases where prosecutors
decided not to pursue but again I don't know all the details of this because I'm
not there anymore I don't know what the dispositions have been and also by the
way as in any case of this size it takes a while for the for the the outcomes to
be determined and things might still be under seal is it true that the most
culpable person was as culpable you know that the least couple person was as
coupled as the topmost person no of course not but the situation that the
NYPD came to us about and that members of the community came to us about and
that law enforcement was discussing was you know a highly increased rate of
crime and not just regularly a violent crime in a section of the Bronx where I
think there were eight murders that had gone unsolved six of them ended up
becoming solved because of the cases that we brought and that's why and
that's why that was done now I think another criticism that is a perfectly
valid discussion to have is why why is law enforcement doing a takedown of that
size in the first place and what does it mean for communities of color that's a
legitimate discussion to have what I want people to understand is whether
it's right or wrong and it's a debate to be to be I think welcomed is why does
law enforcement do that in any instance it is an article of faith and maybe even
a fetish on the part of law enforcement that deterrence works and maybe some
evidence shows it does some of them says it doesn't but in lots and lots of
contexts at the Justice Department and elsewhere there is a view that if you do
a one-off case if there's a robbery problem somewhere or as a public
corruption problem or there's a health care fraud problem the arrest somebody
in January wears another person in February arrest five people in March
nobody gets the message and nobody is deterred and so it has
become standard operating procedure at DA's offices and at the Department of
Justice also again whether you agree or not agree to try to figure out ways when
you think that there's a you know a problem of crisis proportions to do
large takedowns we have done it with a mob a million times the department
justice would send around missives to all the US Attorneys offices when they
wanted to make a statement and have a turn effect in health care fraud for
example and they would say if you've got any health care fraud case
could you please plan to either speed it up or pause it if it's ready already
until say May 1 of the following year so that we can announce to the world Eric
Holder and United's attorneys all around the country would say we've had enough
of this problem health care fraud and I'm not meaning to compare you know the
the prosecution's in the Bronx to health care fraud what I'm trying to explain is
a law enforcement tool and strategy that is used in that in those kinds of cases
in mob cases and gang cases in other words and there may be you know
legitimate reason to say well if you sweep up everybody all at once whether
it's health care or it's the mob or it's a gang case there are some people who
may be you know we're undeserving of that appellation of being in a gang even
if you're careful in the indictment to say well some people are gang members
some people are associates but the intent of it as I've said a couple of
times now was to try to reduce crime and try to reduce you know the feeling of
public safety hazard in those communities I think that the question
some of the criticisms that I read today or is that technique a sledgehammer
rather than a scalpel and and is there a way to refine that technique in a way
that it might be more precise so it's not to ensnare entire communities or
groups of young men yeah look I think that's I think that's a discussion I had
well but you say cripples communities um I mean I said that is that there's a
there was an op-ed in the Gothamist today about a father who absolutely
conceded that gang violence exists and that criminal enforcement has to help
with that he lost her daughter to gang violence and then he also lost his son
in in this round up the rocks 120 and who's
now stacked my criminal justice I think he ended up pleading out to conspiracy
to sell marijuana and so there's there's two sides of the coin here and I kept of
course the criminal justice system is imperfect know by the way the Crone
justice system I say I say often that no serious social or medical or even public
safety problem is ever going to be solved purely by prosecution but that's
the opioid crisis corruption on Wall Street
corruption Albany or or anything else there's lots of causes and lots of
issues in sure we should always be thinking about better ways to do things
there are always circumstances in which you can decide to do one thing versus
another thing but another thing to consider you know I understand the
report had you know various analyses of things that happen I think without
complete information but one important metric you would think that I don't
believe was addressed and maybe law enforcement had it wrong maybe I had it
right but I don't believe it was addressed what was the level of crime
before that case was taken down and what was the level of crime and the feeling
of safety after that case was taken out it would seem to me that if you're
really talking about all the issues relating to crime that that's something
to consider also the structure of your book it's structured in four parts
inquiry akasaki accusation judgment and punishment so it mirrors the trajectory
of any case that you litigate as a prosecutor and in the inquiry section
you had a fascinating anecdote about your personal relationship with the
Menendez brothers trial and I didn't kill them yeah it sounded that sounded
worried so we come to learn surprisingly that actually the Menendez brothers were
the ones who viciously murdered their parents but you're you had a personal
connection to this case and it taught you one of the seminal lessons that you
talk about doing justice so tell us about what
how are you tied to this case so indirectly and it's the first chapter
after the introductory chapters in the book and you know somebody once asked me
when I was thing about writing the book it was there something that happened in
your life before you went to law school that is informed how you think about
being the US attorney and how you think about criminal justice and I hadn't
thought about in a long time and I remember the story of the Menendez
brothers and the reason it came up was my best friend in high school his woman
named Jessica goldsmith Barzilai and she was year behind me and we became very
very close she's my best friend to this day oldest and best friend you should
maintain friendships with people he went to high school with and I had heard
about her her family's best friends growing up Jose and Kitty and Jessica's
family and Jose and Kitty's family they lived like near each other in New York
City when they were young and try to make things happen and I had heard about
their boys Erik and Lyle for a long time for years through through high school
and one day Jessica calls me up in the summer before my senior year of after my
freshman year at college I guess it was and she says La Kitty and Jose had been
killed and not just kill but massacred with shotguns so badly that Jose's head
was almost severed from his body and she's crying hysterically on the phone
her parents are very upset and we had a discussion but you know who could have
done this and the police thought it was a mob hit because of the violence of it
and Jose had been in the in the Hollywood industry and they had some
reason to think maybe it was that and to cut a long story short and you'll read
this in the book dutifully hopefully is every couple of months she would call
and there be some development in the case and at some point she called and
said well they arrested the boys how could they have gotten it wrong and we
discussed you know how it is that the police can sometimes get cases wrong and
then a few months later she called so well it turns out that the boys are
admitting that they killed their parents but they're pleading self-defense of
some sort and with that's the night that I've described in the book at some
length how we spent we literally talked from from night till dawn and the
question is Jessica had were not you know what's the criminal penalty what's
the viability of the defense the question was a very human one and it was
you know these were my family's best friends and we went you know we went to
the memorial service and the kids were very upset what did we miss
like what was happening that family that it could be true
that these boys one of whom Jessica always said she had a crush on don't
tell her I told you that how could it be that what did she miss about that family
that they could kill their parents and by the way it was not a an instant many
people follow the story it didn't happen sort of in the heat of the moment it was
a it was a meticulously planned parricide after which the brothers did
lots of things that led the police to them including spending their
inheritance money and it taught I think me and her although she didn't enter you
know the law you know an important but very shattering lesson you can never
really know another person and I think I said I say something in the book like
you know and you know sometimes it's the case that all evidence and intuition to
the contrary the privileged sons of millionaires Massacre their parents and
so I think about that and maybe this is not good but in a certain line of work I
think it is when people say so and so you know I don't I don't think those
people did it I always think about the Menendez brothers and you have to drill
down further in the accusation part you you know one of the critiques that's
come out in the conversations about your book has has been an angst from some who
wished there had been more justice done to those who were involved and
responsible most responsible for the financial crisis in 2008 but one of the
things you talk about in your book is walking away when there isn't enough
evidence yeah so there's a whole chapter called walking away and I think we're
discovering the you know the reaction in the public psyche when people put pin
all their hopes on a prosecutor whether it happened I think recently yes I wrote
a piece for Time magazine about Bob mother last year in which I just trying
to have a similar phrase in the book about ways in which some people treated
me you know prosecutors again have they have a binary function right you charge
or not charge and you've heard that word a lot
and you said earlier you know it's it's a very blunt instrument and it's
actually not possible to do perfect justice with prosecution because
sometimes people do bad things and it's not enough to charge them sometimes
people get away with things also but you can only do what the law permits you
can't go beyond what the law permits and so sometimes the hardest thing in the
world is believing the people acted recklessly or negligently or corruptly
or greedily and acted in a scummy ways to use an official legal term but if
there's not enough evidence to prove criminal intent beyond a reasonable
doubt then you can't bring the case and sometimes it takes other mechanisms in
society to cause people to be accountable and that's true when you're
talking about you know Donald Trump if you think he's guilty of obstruction of
justice and it can also be true in matters like the financial crisis so you
talk about I mean a lot of a lot of reading the book is getting a sense of
what it's like to be pre para and what it's like in the courtroom and you have
this moment where you describe while you're waiting for a verdict
it's a verdict of a very high-profile hedge fund manager it was convicted of
insider trading not to give away what the verdict was but it was well-known
and you tell a story about it and also how your family internalized that yeah
so look I'm gonna go back to the to the question were asking earlier about the
criticism you know but part of what's revealed in that CUNY report and in the
accompanying intercept article is I think a deep human discussion of the
impact of prosecution on individuals on people to get charged and to the extent
people think prosecutors don't care about that if there's a prosecutor
doesn't care about that and doesn't feel that then they're in the wrong line of
work and part of what I do in that in that
chapter on the verdict is I describe you know what it's like at the moment of
conviction at the moment of conviction it's a Sat it's a sad moment it means
that you know the only reason prosecutors have their jobs is because
society is imperfect and there are people who do bad things
and orderly society has determined that in some of those cases a judgment has to
be rendered of guilt by their fellow citizens and then also maybe separation
from Liberty the what's more awful than that it's a terrible thing so I just
want to make that point with with respect to two verdicts generally I tell
the story because people get nervous about verdicts I mean one good thing
about the American system even though prosecutors have a high rate of
conviction you never know what's gonna happen I've had cases where I expected a
conviction it didn't happen in cases where – look this is a very close case
and it could go either way and the opposite happens and so there was a
matter of the US vs Raj Rajaratnam who was one of the first big insider trading
cases we brought after an indictment in 2009 and the jury was at 11 days which
is a really long time and obviously the prosecutors were very you know nervous a
lot of people were saying well maybe the case hadn't gone in well and that the on
the 11th day the jury comes back with the guilty verdict and it's fairly early
in my tenure and I'm you know what everyone was gratified about that
because we we thought that the person should be convicted and then the next
day the New York Times writes a story about my tenure as US attorney and it's
says some nice things and there's a nice picture and so I went and I bought you
know 45 copies at the Times and I brought them home and my daughter at the
time I was ten and I never asked her to do this before she hasn't read the book
yet but she's ten years old and I thought you know it's fairly easy to
read article and it's kind of nice about her dad and I said you know honey would
you want to read this and she's said okay and she's had she's bespectacled
and she's very precocious and so she reads the article at the end of the
article she pauses and I can see her sort of like squint and she's looking at
the last nine last lines me saying some you know prosecutorial finger-pointing
stuff about how you know Wall Street we're not done something like that and
she looks up at me and I'm like looking at her expectantly did he see what nice
thing she's gonna say and she says daddy why are you such a drama queen so when you ask like how do you keep
humidity one way is to have a daughter like that children so what's that you've
prosecuted you know Wall Street tycoons Osama bin
Laden's son-in-law son-in-law Somali pirates al-shabaab and al-qaeda
assassins terrorists and paid assassins against the the breath of all the cases
that you've prosecuted what gets your juices flowing the most what is the most
exciting for you or the most gratifying so you know I'm gonna object to the
premise of the question because it's the first part get excited by your work well
you should get your juices flowing I think if you're a prosecutor I mean that
like if you if you're what excites you the most I'm trying to understand how
you're at its want to make it clear that's gratifying I'll say what's most
gratifying and it'sit's another area where I got a little trouble once what's
what's most gratifying in some ways is to be in a position to pursue cases and
hold people accountable who really should know better and who really hold a
public trust and whose crimes are really really galling and those would be your
elected officials because we've got a lot of cases that I think we're very
important and held a lot of people accountable including powerful people
not everyone the people would want but a lot and the times where people would
stop me in the street and even the CSO's the court security officers in my own
office building were when we brought cases against politicians in Albany
because everyone thinks you know what everyone likes to cheat you represent us
and a public corruption crime is one whether you vote or not it affects you
whether you care about politics or not it affects you with your democrat or
republican no matter who the politician is who represent you in your district it
affects you and so you have no choice but to be affected by that
there's already a lot of I think you know disillusionment with politicians
and because they're not doing their job as a lot of people think and they engage
in you know a certain kind of behavior that people don't love and then on top
of that if you're lining your pockets because you got elected to office that's
really really upsetting to people and so that's gratifying in a couple of things
in particularly we did you know innovations that we had you know it is
the case under the New York state constitution that if you get removed
from office if you serve in Albany even if you're convicted of a crime you get
to take your pension that you guys pay for like til you die and we figured out
a way under the law again some people criticize this also through through
through criminal forfeiture to take back those pensions you know what that was
pretty gratifying I was personally gratifying mean not not many US
attorneys have taken down the the sitting at chair ahead of the assembly
and the majority leader of the state Senate and both of them were I don't
know if I'd call them equally corrupt but both of them were deeply corrupt and
your office and one a Democrat and one a Democrat it's important for people to
understand in this I think heightened politicized moment when there are
accusations that people bring cases against those who are their political
adversaries and vice versa that here and here in New York we prosecute my office
prosecuted and continues to Democrats and Republicans alike based on their
conduct not based on their affiliation we're gonna go to questions from the
audience and I have lots of awesome questions here on these note cards so
we're gonna start with a fun one hey Preet hey we're gonna reenact here like
it's that your podcast hey Preet who would your top three candidates be if
you could make nominations to the Supreme Court thanks Dave quote close
walkie Dave I don't I can't name particular humans but but I'll say um
people well say said this is a slight dodge I would nominate somebody who
didn't go to Harvard or Yale for one stanford – will you include
Stanford in that yeah screw Stanford no I'm kidding I love I went to Columbia
Law School but but I think I think first what we need more women on the court there's that great line right that Ruth
Built that I saw recently Ruth Bader Ginsburg was asked I forgot exactly how
it goes which you know how many women on the court how many women do there need
to be on the court we've to make you happy and she said nine which I thought
was a great line but but then something else I think is important I think Sandra
Day O'Connor I did agree with everything that she wrote in all of her opinions
but you know great justice and great American and she had experience not only
as a jurist and as a practicing lawyer but as a politician she served in the
state legislature and I think what you have now in the court is you have a lot
of people who are very everyone they're all smart but but they've all had the
same kind of experience they've all come through and been you know some version
of academic or jurist or practiced appellate law not that many of them have
really been trial court judges and on these questions especially one you know
there's a case that that that hurt certain public corruption prosecutions I
think people who have had some political experience so long as it doesn't make
them you know crazy partisans is really important in the court like how life
works in in the in the give-and-take and the hustle and bustle of politics and I
think Sandra Day O'Connor had that and brought a perspective to the court that
was really important so you'd like to see people who have had not just more
women but people who had different kinds of experiences before getting to the
court and another thing that you'll never see and that is appointing people
to the court without a hundred percent knowing with great accuracy how they're
going to decide every issue you have you have a little less independence because
you know presidents are being very very very cautious in who they appoint
knowing that they want to maintain a certain kind
balance on the court even still you could never protected that Justice
Roberts would vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act know there remains
some surprises you have called this is a question from the audience you have
called Rikers a place where this is a quote where brute force is the first
impulse rather than the last resort a place where verbal insults are repaid
with physical injuries and where beatings are routine while
accountability is rare so after your office's report you achieved a
settlement with the city of New York that required sweeping changes to Rikers
Island and contributed to reforms of jails and prisons across New York it's a
long question Mayor Bill DeBlasio will also announce a plan to close right the
prison at Rikers how do you feel about the plan to build smaller jails in all
the borough's that are closer to courthouses and do you feel that civil
rights of inmates will be protected better this time around
so thanks for the question um just by way of background in all this discussion
about how prosecutors offices think about what they pursue and think about
communities of color and think about underprivileged folks and think about
overlooked people and who needs the help of a prosecutor's office
one thing that I'm most proud of and I have a whole the second to last chapter
of the book is about this is how much effort we made to protect the rights of
inmates at Rikers Island which I think I described in the in one of the first
sentences of the chapter as basically a broken hellhole
because there's way too much violence there's way too much resort to force as
as the first option as opposed to a last resort and so I'm very proud not only of
the fact that we entered into a suit and got a consent decree and got you know
7,000 more cameras and better disciplinary rules and better training
mechanisms and all sorts of things for a population of people by the way that a
lot of politicians really don't care about and hadn't cared about and in the
prior administration had not done much about at all but not only that but also
for the first time I think in a decade bringing very serious hard-hitting
prosecutions against correction officers who had engaged in violence against
against inmates vulnerable inmates who were
you know in jail pending trial it's really hard to reform a culture like
that and I'm very honest in the book about saying sometimes that takes
something more radical than just putting in more cameras so that there are fewer
places where guards can visit violence upon inmates and so I think you know an
answer your question I think all things should be considered you know maybe you
shut down the place maybe you break it up I was talking to people recently who
worked on that case because I invited some of them invited one of them to a
class I teach her NYU and you know sometimes a culture a bad culture can
get it embedded into a place sort of like asbestos baked into the walls and
you have to do something radically different so you know I'm not
proclaiming necessarily that that's the right thing to do but I think it
deserves very very serious attention this is sort of a fun one I think I know
the answer because I read your book if you haven't if you hadn't been fired by
Trump would you have continued to work for the administration it's hard to see
how I could have lasted you know I think if it wasn't fired that day we've been
fired at various other junctures along the way you know I I don't I don't know
that the part of the reason it depends on whether or not that if the dude had
stopped calling me or not but but you made a decision when you
after you went to his pad yes I wanted to stay working for ya and I'll tell you
why I did and this all hopefully this makes sense because people scratch their
heads like what are you talking about you knew and I had a we had a family
meeting be my kids I thought I told them the
Donald Trump wants to meet with me to keep me on and my kids thought that was
like the funniest dad joke of all time and I'm like no it's true and they're
like what so I I understood my job to be not serving the President Barack Obama
had a photo opportunity with all the Unites States attorneys back in I don't
know 2011 or 2012 and some of my colleagues have posted this on Twitter
and it's really unbelievable when you think about it in the current
environment choice fans my very good friend who's that whom you might see an
MSNBC from time to time the northern history of Alabama she posted this and
so we had this photo opportunity and the president States comes out the former
president who never called me thankfully and he says he congratulate sus on our
service and he thanks us for our service that's all of us everyone Pat Fitzgerald
Joyce management everyone and he said I just want you to know I appointed you
but you don't serve me you don't answer to me you don't work for me you work for
the public and your loyalties is the Constitution how refreshing is that
right you know and by the way there was there were no cameras there there's no
television there there's no court reporter there that's it what he thought
and what he felt and it's hard to explain to you how proud it made you
feel to be sir we knew that that's how I think about the job but to hear the
president say it it's really extraordinary and then you hear this
president say the opposite thing and so when I when I agreed to meet with Donald
Trump I had a little speech I hello sermon I gave I said presumably you know
you're asking me to stay because you're you appreciate and respect the work that
this office has done and how it has been independent and how we don't care about
I had to say those things on the record on the record and then I expected maybe
naively at least with respect to the president to be kind of unmolested in my
job and then he was calling me and you know my
you as that he thought he wanted to cult if I was important to cultivate a
relationship with certain kinds of people including the FBI director
general and also the US attorney in the jurisdiction where he has a lot of
business and a lot of interests and if he if and so I thought it's related to
your question how could you possibly work in an administration where you
don't agree with the policies of the President and don't you know maybe he
wasn't your guy which he was not you can do it if you're independent and you're
left alone to manage your affairs and manage the affairs of the district in
the way you think is right and just and I wasn't given an opportunity look
at the first test of that when he called in returning the call and I was asked to
go so it's it's a weird hypothetical question you ask because I think he was
important to him to cultivate a relationship with the person in that job
and so I don't know how much longer if you love me alone if you'd left you
alone you would have done it if you left me alone and and I and I was never asked
look Sally Yates got fired because she took a
principled position that she thought was right under the law and the facts and
they fired her for that so I had no illusions after that that there could
come a moment that Steve Miller you know vice-president Steve Miller
when when he when he when he decides to impose some nutso policy you know that
says no Muslims ever and and if my office were asked to defend that I had
no illusion that there might come a time where I might have to do the kind of
thing that Sally or some other people did and then I might not be able to last
but in the absence of those things if I were left alone never asked to do
something that I wasn't supposed to do I think I would have continued in the job
because the because it's a I'm a political appointee but the people in my
office they're not I have no idea what their party affiliations are you know
you don't ask that you don't care about that you're not allowed to ask that you
don't want to ask that you know the the bulk of work done by these US Attorneys
offices around the country notwithstanding this you know all this
turbulence about Trump and lock her up and lock him up most cases that are
handled there could be controversies that
been talking about tonight based on what makes sense in the interest of justice
but they're not political you know robbery even the public
corruption cases really aren't so political so long as everyone
understands but you don't give a damn if you're a Republican or a Democrat you
know you follow the law you follow the facts and so that's how it's always been
you know I don't know that George Bush didn't call the United States Attorney
in the southern or in Texas so you can do the job if you're left alone and
you're not asked to do something that's political and all the people who are
doing these jobs in all these offices around the country
it didn't matter I started as an assistant US attorney when George W Bush
was president I'm sorry what in 19 in 2000 who's
president being in 2000 Bill Clinton well it was president and I remember as
a young project and then George Bush because right my job didn't change at
all there was no difference at some point they switched out the pictures of
the President the Vice President in in the lobby of one st.
Andrew's Plaza but
but the mass of work and their exceptions to this like the Civil Rights
Division at the Department of Justice it's different depending on who the
president is and what the policies are but the vast majority of work that's
done doesn't change so I'd like to end this with an anecdote that you tell at
the end of your book because your book is called doing justice and it's about
you know people hopefully good people making ethical decisions moral decisions
in order to implement through and work through the mechanics of the justice
system but you tell a story at the end and you mentioned the Muslim bands the
end of your book in the context of going beyond justice about the the final the
first few days after 9/11 when a white supremacist in Texas decided to take it
upon himself to take vengeance upon Muhammad Atta and Al Qaeda and to go I
think the phrase he used was he thought it might be no michael strowman who said
it was his duty to kill some Arabs so so he succeeded he killed two Arabs and
then he walked into this is in Texas and he walked into a Texaco mini-mart and
shot Roz biown in the face with a shot off
barrel shotgun and left him to die except for that he didn't die he did not
and he this this gentleman survived after a series of surgeries he lost most
of most of his vision in one eye but he was a devout Muslim prayed five times a
day and after healing and getting his life back together thought about the
person who tried to kill him and decided to forgive him and he mounted a campaign
to spare strohman life who at that point then was on death row in Texas yeah can
you tell the rest of that story you've told most of because I have it well no
no I look so can take one step back quickly yeah so a theme of the book and
a theme of my time as the US Attorney is yes we are a nation of laws not men and
that's important and it has a very that's you know it's AB it's a it's a
bedrock principle of our constituency and of orderly society but what you miss
in that formulation we talked about at the beginning is that people do justice
and you can have a perfectly written constitution and a perfectly written
statute and if the people who are responsible are not you know ethical and
have integrity and are acting in good faith and even if they are sometimes as
it's been you know discussed here with respect to me and others you're not
going to get justice but the people matter and you know liberty and
injustice live in the hearts and minds of men and women and I have this whole
book about stories of how the law works even though the law has limits and then
I end with the story as you say because there's there are things that the law
can't do you know the law can't cause you to forgive people the law can't
cause you to love people though I can't cause you to appreciate your neighbor
the law can't teach you grace I think the first line of the chapters you'll
not find God or grace in formal legal principles and you don't and if you
really want something beyond you know formal legal justice which is not
coextensive with justice generally then you have to look to extraordinary people
and that extraordinary person is race boo-yan who you mentioned and he gets
shot in the face and you mentioned he's a devout Muslim and he still has pellets
lodged in his forehead and when he prayed five times a day touch his head
to the ground he felt pain and a reminder of almost being murdered by
Mark Anthony strowman and so he launches this camp not don't only forgives him
which how many of you would do that and then tries to spare him from death row
in the connection with the murder of someone else after 9/11 the New York
Times did an interview with Mark Anthony Stroman who was on death row and and
asked him what he thought and it turns out that even on death row
Stroman had learned of the campaign by this person he tried to kill who was
trying to save his life and he was asked you know what do you think well you make
of that and Stroman says things like you know
hate has to end hate does a lot of damage in the world
and he said how much he appreciated that there was a man whose life I tried to
end is now trying to save mine and then mark it and those were among
his last words and then he was executed and well so I say you know I'm not a
proponent the death penalty but you know that was the law in the in Texas and so
I say for formal justice whatever that is the machinery of justice unfolded and
ground on and that was done but I think there's a more important lesson than
whatever then whether you know the formal machinery of justice ground on in
the way it was supposed to under the law and that is that you had an example an
inspiring example of a person who was shot in the face left for dead who
decided that this other person who had killed tried to kill him and killed
other people was capable of redemption and in the process elevated himself from
victim to kind of hero and transformed the very person who had
tried to kill him and that's a lesson for everyone who
relies too much on formal notions of justice that if we actually want society
and the country and communities to live in harmony and to believe in something
called cosmic justice and have people get along and appreciate each other no
matter who you are what your color is what your background is you're not gonna
get that from a cold statute although that can have a role you're gonna get
that from learning to overcome lots of human failings that you have like race
boo-yan did about that person and I could think of no more inspiring example
to end the book with the news story of race bullion at Marc Anthony's Roman
with that we're gonna end it there prepar thank you very much for being
here thank your book the book is the book is doing justice