Crypto Critics' Corner

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Episode 140 – Sam Bankman-Fried’s Trial is Going Great (feat. Molly White)

Sam Bankman-Fried's Trial is Going Great (feat. Molly White) – Crypto Critics' Corner

Bennett and Cas are joined by Molly White (@molly0xfff) to discuss the ongoing testimony of Sam Bankman-Fried. Molly's newsletter Web3 is Going Great Protos Coverage of the Trial This video was recorded on November 1st, 2023.

Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin are joined by Molly White to discuss Sam Bankman-Fried’s ongoing testimony.

This episode was recorded on November 1st, 2023.

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English Transcript:

00:00:05:04 - 00:00:11:04
Cas Piancey
Welcome back, everyone. I am Cas Piancey. I'm joined, as usual by my partner in crime. How are you today, Bennett?

00:00:11:04 - 00:00:12:21
Bennett Tomlin
I'm doing well. How are you? Guess?

00:00:12:21 - 00:00:23:11
Cas Piancey
I'm hanging in there. It's a little early for me today, so I. If I look tired, it's because I am. But we're joined by a super duper special guest today. I believe this is her third time.

00:00:23:11 - 00:00:28:00
Cas Piancey
Joining us, Molly White. Hi, how are you? It's so good to have you back on.

00:00:28:00 - 00:00:30:19
Molly White
I'm doing well. I'm really excited to be back.

00:00:30:19 - 00:00:51:07
Cas Piancey
Awesome. Yeah, well, we're having you on because you've been going to the trial for Sam Bankman-fried repeatedly and over and like over the course of the past week or so. And like the rest of the journalists that we've had on, we were hoping to discuss what you've seen and how you felt about it and what the kind of pulse of the courtroom has been.

00:00:51:07 - 00:01:09:06
Cas Piancey
We get to discuss with you the very final Sam Bankman-fried cross-examination and time on the on the witness stand. So why don't we just jump in? Yeah, Like the last day of testimony for Sam Bankman-fried. How did that go for Sam? What what was the what was the tone in the courtroom?

00:01:09:06 - 00:01:12:14
Molly White
it didn't go great. I will say

00:01:12:14 - 00:01:19:02
Molly White
You know, I have sort of a habit of covering things that are going just great. And I would say this handbag for your testimony is going just great.

00:01:19:02 - 00:01:20:16
Molly White
he took the witness stand.

00:01:20:17 - 00:01:27:12
Molly White
He first did his direct questioning with his defense team, which went okay.

00:01:27:12 - 00:01:48:11
Molly White
And then he did cross-examination with the assistant U.S. attorney, Danielle Sasson, which did not go well. And then there was an opportunity after that point to have his defense ask a couple more questions. And, you know, he's clearly a lot more comfortable when he is talking to his own defense team, which is understandable.

00:01:48:11 - 00:02:00:03
Molly White
I mean, like that absolutely makes sense. But he is very uncomfortable and evasive when talking to the cross-examiner and I think does not come over like it doesn't come across well.

00:02:00:03 - 00:02:07:08
Bennett Tomlin
I heard Sam Beckman Freed's memory is a little bit less than stellar to when he was in kind of this high pressure situation.

00:02:07:08 - 00:02:10:05
Molly White
Well, his memory was fine when he was talking to his

00:02:10:05 - 00:02:11:08
Molly White
defense attorney.

00:02:11:08 - 00:02:26:17
Molly White
I observed, you know, he was recounting events from when he was like an intern at Jean Street, which would have been almost ten years ago at this point. You know, they were asking him about what he was and was not trained on when he was at

00:02:26:17 - 00:02:27:10
Molly White
Jean Street.

00:02:27:10 - 00:02:46:19
Molly White
And I don't know about you, but like, corporate training is not the most memorable thing in my opinion. And so but he's talking about yeah, you know, we were you know, it was really important, according to the Jane Street folks, that you don't ever do any front running and all this kind of stuff. And so he's telling his defense attorney about this.

00:02:46:19 - 00:02:59:07
Molly White
And then as soon as he starts talking to the cross-examiner, it's like his memory just goes blank. And he's like, I don't know. You know, and he's talking about events that are significantly more recent. They were, you know, within the last year or two.

00:02:59:07 - 00:03:04:03
Molly White
And there are events that were very important. You know, it's like his company is

00:03:04:03 - 00:03:08:01
Molly White
he thinks his company might collapse or he's trying to,

00:03:08:01 - 00:03:12:08
Molly White
you know, have a conversation with someone to get funding or whatever.

00:03:12:08 - 00:03:17:15
Molly White
And suddenly it's like he can't remember it, even though you would think that might be a very memorable moment.

00:03:17:15 - 00:03:31:23
Cas Piancey
you actually brought up there's I think the line was and how how do you define market manipulation? And he said it. Jane Street It was a bad trade, which I I've never heard that definition of a market manipulation before,

00:03:31:23 - 00:03:58:16
Molly White
Yeah. And they had to, like, stop the courtroom for a second to clarify that this was Sam Bankman-fried Reed's definition of market manipulation. And if at any point the jury needs, like the more legal definition, that is not what they should be considering and that the judge will provide that. And this has happened several times at this point, actually, where, like Sam, David Freed will say something that's like legal adjacent.

00:03:58:16 - 00:04:14:05
Molly White
I can't remember what the other thing was. But there was one other thing that this happened with, too. And the judge was like, just so we're clear, this is not the legal definition of this term that actually has a specific meaning. This is Sam Beckman phrase, special interpretation of it.

00:04:14:05 - 00:04:18:18
Cas Piancey
like, why is Sam able to answer these questions from the defense team so readily?

00:04:18:18 - 00:04:36:16
Cas Piancey
Obviously, I think everyone's aware like you're going to be able to answer the defense questions a little bit easier than the prosecution questions. Understandable. But I want to I want to just dissect that a bit. Right. Like, why were the questions for the defense from the defense team so much is in what ways where they so much easier than the

00:04:36:16 - 00:04:37:19
Cas Piancey
prosecution's questions.

00:04:37:19 - 00:04:44:10
Cas Piancey
Why was he unable to answer the questions appropriately from the prosecution's side?

00:04:44:10 - 00:05:11:16
Molly White
the questions from the defense attorney to Sam Bankman-fried have an entirely different purpose than the questions from the cross-examiner. They are like, imagine the most softball interview you could ever have. They're just teasing him up for these, you know, answers about how he was so busy and he was working so hard and he had so much going on.

00:05:11:16 - 00:05:35:14
Molly White
And boy, he really regrets that he didn't pay more attention to what was happening. You know, And it's very much this opportunity for him to tell the good story and craft the narrative to what extent there is one about what happened. And so, you know, they're they're very friendly questions. And he's had the opportunity to rehearse them with his defense team

00:05:35:14 - 00:05:41:02
Molly White
for, you know, months at this point, honestly, because he meets with them

00:05:41:02 - 00:05:44:02
Molly White
most days and has been doing so for a long time.

00:05:44:02 - 00:05:50:07
Bennett Tomlin
he meets with them when he's not doing a temper tantrum in the jail and just refusing to come to the meeting room.

00:05:50:07 - 00:05:52:15
Molly White
Yes, except for those moments.

00:05:52:15 - 00:06:05:19
Molly White
But like, you know, every day, I think both maybe before and after court, he has the opportunity to meet with them and then they're meeting on weekends. They've been prepping for months, you know, before this trial. So this is all very rehearsed

00:06:05:19 - 00:06:12:03
Molly White
and it honestly comes off that way sometimes. You know, I think he's doing his best to seem natural when he's answering these questions.

00:06:12:03 - 00:06:15:21
Molly White
But there are portions of it where, like you can tell he's practice the answer,

00:06:15:21 - 00:06:19:08
Molly White
but like, that's kind of expected. You know, that's what you're supposed to do.

00:06:19:08 - 00:06:26:09
Molly White
Whereas with the cross-examiner, these are questions that are intended to nail him. You know, they are trying to catch him

00:06:26:09 - 00:06:32:14
Molly White
in a lie or admit to something that is, you know, related to

00:06:32:14 - 00:06:33:15
Molly White
the case.

00:06:33:15 - 00:06:49:02
Molly White
They have all of this evidence to corroborate their questions. So they you know, they're asking him questions that they already know the answer to, but they know that he doesn't want to answer them because if he does, he could, you know, implicate himself in some of this wrongdoing.

00:06:49:02 - 00:06:51:04
Molly White
And so he's sitting there trying to not

00:06:51:04 - 00:06:58:19
Molly White
answer their questions while also knowing full well that they're going to say like, do you recall saying this, blah, blah.

00:06:59:01 - 00:07:04:12
Molly White
And then when he says, no, he doesn't recall, they're immediately going to pull up evidence that he said that very specific thing.

00:07:04:12 - 00:07:11:22
Molly White
there's no winning when you're talking to the cross-examiner. Like you're not going to answer the question in a way that they're like, you know what? That actually makes sense.

00:07:11:23 - 00:07:18:07
Molly White
Like, they they know the answers and they're trying to nail you down. And so it's a very different,

00:07:18:07 - 00:07:18:19
Molly White
vibe

00:07:18:19 - 00:07:27:09
Bennett Tomlin
I'm starting to think of 45 day media tour before your arrest can make it more challenged going to have an effective criminal defense.

00:07:27:09 - 00:07:45:03
Molly White
You know, it's starting to look that way. Yeah, I was I was talking about this a little bit earlier. Like most people, especially nowadays with social media and, you know, that kind of thing, have some corpus of like past statements that any prosecutor could draw upon.

00:07:45:05 - 00:07:57:01
Molly White
I don't know if anyone has the volume that they were provided so kindly by Sam and Freed when he went and spoke to all these journalists. He testified

00:07:57:01 - 00:08:08:08
Molly White
that he spoke to something like 50 different journalists during this period in like November to December of 2020, to the period between the collapse and when he was arrested.

00:08:08:13 - 00:08:19:02
Molly White
And honestly, I was like really only 50. I feel like that's actually kind of low. But maybe he wasn't counting, you know, the sort of one off people that he was chatting with or like the Twitter spaces or whatever. So

00:08:19:02 - 00:08:25:03
Bennett Tomlin
he doesn't count Twitter spaces where random journalists yell at him about wire fraud. Those don't count.

00:08:25:03 - 00:08:28:03
Cas Piancey
I was going to bring that up because Molly was in that space as well.

00:08:28:03 - 00:08:35:13
Cas Piancey
two people who asked the most hard hitting questions were you and I, Molly and mine were hard hitting because I was yelling at him.

00:08:35:14 - 00:08:38:19
Cas Piancey
Yours were hard hitting because you were asking him good questions

00:08:39:01 - 00:08:40:19
Molly White
I thought yours were good questions there.

00:08:40:19 - 00:08:57:04
Cas Piancey
was reflecting on the moments that we got to ask him some questions. And I was thinking like, this is so interesting to me that he thinks that that same tact of like, I'm going to you know, what I'm going to do? I'm going to confuse them and just bogged them down in mindless bullshit.

00:08:57:04 - 00:08:59:06
Cas Piancey
So I'm going to force them to

00:08:59:06 - 00:09:02:03
Cas Piancey
not know if I actually answered the question.

00:09:02:03 - 00:09:15:07
Cas Piancey
he seems to think that that's going to work in a court of law with a jury of his peers as well. Where I'm like, that is a terrible defense strategy. They don't want you to speak to them like they're idiots, right?

00:09:15:07 - 00:09:15:19
Molly White
Right.

00:09:15:19 - 00:09:28:05
Molly White
he has this tactic of, you know, you'll ask a question, he'll just start talking, he'll talk for a minute straight, and by the end of it, you're like, well, that had nothing to do with what I was just asking about.

00:09:28:07 - 00:09:56:04
Molly White
And he'll have gone off on something totally different. And this worked to some extent with journalists, I think. I mean, I think that it was clear when he was being evasive. It's not like people didn't notice he was doing it, but like he's not under oath. You're not doing a cross-examination. You probably don't have all this evidence just behind you, ready to pull up to prove that he's made conflicting statements and he can leave at any time like he, I think, refused to talk to you at one point.

00:09:56:04 - 00:10:11:07
Molly White
That's not the case during this cross-examination. He is under oath. So anything he says, you know, you could perjure himself. She's got exhibits teed up that she's spent months preparing. And any time he goes off on this long winded rant,

00:10:11:07 - 00:10:19:00
Molly White
she can either stop him and say that he's not answering the question, or one thing she's been doing that I think is actually really effective is

00:10:19:00 - 00:10:22:20
Molly White
she'll ask the question, he'll spend a minute yammering

00:10:22:20 - 00:10:28:22
Molly White
and then at the end of that he'll stop and she'll ask the question again, like basically in the same words.

00:10:28:22 - 00:10:49:05
Molly White
And sometimes his defense lawyer will object to that, saying he, you know, asked and answered. He already answered this question and she'll say, no, he didn't. And the judge will say, no, he did it, and then you'll have to do it again. And so not only is that actually making him answer the question that was asked, it's also demonstrating to the jury as if they didn't already notice.

00:10:49:05 - 00:10:51:04
Molly White
I mean, this is very clear when he's doing this, But

00:10:51:04 - 00:10:59:12
Molly White
it's very much underscoring to the jury that he is trying to not answer the question, which is not a good impression to leave the jury with.

00:10:59:12 - 00:11:18:06
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah, I think it was in Lewis's book, but it might have been in someone else's where Bankman-fried talked about how in interviews with journalists, he would always try to answer the question he wished they asked instead of the one they actually asked. And you see him repeatedly kind of do that with the prosecutors and stuff like that in the courtroom.

00:11:18:10 - 00:11:42:14
Bennett Tomlin
And like you mentioned, Danielle says, and the rest of the prosecutors are like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what I said. That was not the question set. No one said net asset value except for you. That's not what we're discussing, Sam. And so that has been enjoyable to see, to see like these prosecutors really do such a good job of sticking to him as he tries to do bullshit,

00:11:42:14 - 00:11:48:11
Molly White
right. And he has this other thing that he does, too, which has been really common, which is you'll ask him a question.

00:11:48:11 - 00:11:52:16
Molly White
You know, they'll ask him a question like, do you remember saying something to the effect of

00:11:52:16 - 00:11:53:07
Molly White
but at the

00:11:53:07 - 00:12:08:00
Molly White
and he'll say something like I don't remember anything in that exact phrasing or he'll say, I don't remember anything during this time period where I said something like that. And they'll have to come back and say like, I don't care what words you said.

00:12:08:02 - 00:12:28:05
Molly White
Did you say anything in substance that sounded sort of like this? And also, at least once he has said he's tried to use that tactic and say, I don't remember anything in those exact words. And then they pull up evidence that he said something in those exact words. So it's like, okay, great. Now you've actually completely contradicted yourself.

00:12:28:07 - 00:12:31:13
Molly White
So his usual tactics, I think, are really falling apart.

00:12:31:13 - 00:12:32:06
Molly White
And

00:12:32:06 - 00:12:39:14
Molly White
I mean, it seems kind of unbelievable that he wouldn't expect that. I think everyone expected that to play out that way. But I think

00:12:39:14 - 00:12:44:03
Molly White
he just doesn't have that level of self-reflection or something where he thought this might actually work

00:12:44:03 - 00:12:45:11
Cas Piancey
one of the moments that I

00:12:45:11 - 00:12:56:06
Cas Piancey
keep reflecting on and makes me almost like sick to my stomach to think about if I was a defendant is that they specifically asked him about spending.

00:12:56:06 - 00:13:06:05
Cas Piancey
believe this was related to Zeke Fox, who is a previous guest of the show. He wrote number go up. It might have been about a different journalist either way. The

00:13:06:05 - 00:13:15:04
Cas Piancey
prosecution said something along the lines of like, hey, so did you say this to this journalist? I don't I don't recall.

00:13:15:06 - 00:13:45:18
Cas Piancey
Okay. Well, did you more or less say something like this to a journalist? I don't really know. I can't. I can't I couldn't tell you. So are you suggesting that the journalist is lying? And he was like, I'm not sure. And it's just like, So really, this is you against the entire world at this point, Sam, Like you're suggesting that journalists are literally making up quotes like, I've never heard of any journalist worth their weight ever doing anything like that.

00:13:45:18 - 00:13:49:14
Cas Piancey
So just moments like that, that were earth shattering for me.

00:13:49:14 - 00:14:06:09
Molly White
Yeah. And I think that really helps to undermine his whole argument because he's obviously said at several times things that have conflicted with the testimony of various other people, including especially including the other executives who have pleaded guilty at this point.

00:14:06:09 - 00:14:07:02
Molly White
And

00:14:07:02 - 00:14:11:12
Molly White
so he's basically saying effectively that they were lying and he was telling the truth.

00:14:11:12 - 00:14:20:20
Molly White
And now he's saying not only were they lying and he was telling the truth, but now journalists were lying and he was telling the truth and all of these people were lying. And he was the only one telling the truth.

00:14:20:20 - 00:14:22:23
Molly White
And it's like the more he does that,

00:14:22:23 - 00:14:31:02
Molly White
the less believable it is that anyone was lying. Because it just sounds like that's the strategy is he just says, no, no, no, everyone is lying.

00:14:31:02 - 00:14:31:14
Molly White
But like

00:14:31:14 - 00:14:49:12
Molly White
so there was this vast conspiracy between Caroline Johnson, Gary Wang, Nishad Singh, and, you know, this journalist who has probably never spoken to any of those three people. It's just not it's it gets less and less credible the more he tries to use that approach.

00:14:49:12 - 00:15:11:08
Bennett Tomlin
it's fun to imagine what it would imply if Sam Bankman-fried was the CEO of FCX, did own this massive portion of Alameda Research, was the director for all of these different entities, signed off on each of these different documents, viewed all these different balance sheets as the metadata shows. And somehow we're still not aware of a.

00:15:11:08 - 00:15:12:00
Bennett Tomlin
Single.

00:15:12:00 - 00:15:24:18
Bennett Tomlin
Crime that happened around him when he was surrounded by these felons engaged in this multibillion dollar criminal conspiracy. Look, he's not just naive. Apparently, he's just like blind.

00:15:24:20 - 00:15:29:10
Bennett Tomlin
You could just, like, reach, reach, trust, or maybe just take his wallet.

00:15:29:10 - 00:15:31:12
Bennett Tomlin
It'd be like, my wallet.

00:15:31:14 - 00:15:38:23
Bennett Tomlin
Apparently, he's just got no clue what's happening around him is apparently apparently what he settled on is his defense.

00:15:38:23 - 00:15:42:00
Molly White
Yeah. And there's actually two things on that I think that are really relevant.

00:15:42:06 - 00:15:44:12
Molly White
So one is

00:15:44:12 - 00:15:55:12
Molly White
I was basically doing the same exercise, which is that I was trying to match because at this point they're basically not trying to prevent present a narrative of their own. You know, they're not trying to say

00:15:55:12 - 00:16:01:19
Molly White
no, no, what the defense team is saying or what the prosecution team is saying is wrong. This is what actually happened.

00:16:02:01 - 00:16:03:05
Molly White
They're just trying to say

00:16:03:05 - 00:16:10:05
Molly White
maybe the prosecution isn't right on this and they're trying to poke holes in things, but they're not trying to explain what actually happened.

00:16:10:05 - 00:16:14:08
Molly White
my little exercise has been to try to piece together what

00:16:14:08 - 00:16:18:07
Molly White
they're doing would imply would have happened because they're not doing it.

00:16:18:07 - 00:16:25:16
Molly White
And so there are these points where, like they're talking about I think the most memorable one for me is when they were talking about Nishad Singh

00:16:25:16 - 00:16:26:19
Molly White
making these

00:16:26:19 - 00:16:33:08
Molly White
transfers, backdating these transfers as to make it appear as though there was $50 million more in revenue than

00:16:33:08 - 00:16:38:17
Molly White
there actually was, because Sam Bankman-fried desperately wanted the revenue number to be over $1,000,000,000

00:16:38:17 - 00:16:39:20
Molly White
for 2021.

00:16:39:20 - 00:16:54:23
Molly White
And he's saying that he had no knowledge of what Nishad Singh was doing. And Nishad just basically came up to him and was like, fix the revenue problem, boss. And then he was like, Cool, sounds good. And that was it. And I'm like, imagining what would have been going on inside Singh's head if that was the case.

00:16:54:23 - 00:16:58:03
Molly White
And he's like, okay, so he is committing fraud

00:16:58:03 - 00:17:04:04
Molly White
on behalf of his boss who is not aware that he has committed fraud and has not asked him to commit fraud

00:17:04:04 - 00:17:06:00
Molly White
for no benefit of his own

00:17:06:00 - 00:17:14:20
Molly White
like what is what is the story here that Michod was like? I just feel like doing fraud today and I like Sam so much that I'm going to make sure that he gets what he wants.

00:17:14:20 - 00:17:15:03
Molly White
Like

00:17:15:03 - 00:17:16:18
Molly White
it's just not plausible.

00:17:16:18 - 00:17:18:19
Molly White
And then the second thing on that is

00:17:18:19 - 00:17:20:23
Molly White
you mentioned that, you know, basically

00:17:20:23 - 00:17:29:17
Molly White
his story is like, I'm a big dumb boy and I didn't realize what was going on around me and, no, everyone is doing crime. And I only just realized it after the fact.

00:17:29:17 - 00:17:30:06
Molly White
And

00:17:30:06 - 00:17:32:12
Molly White
he definitely was trying to make that argument.

00:17:32:14 - 00:17:39:17
Molly White
And actually, during the charge hearing, I realized why the prosecution has been really pushing on that,

00:17:39:17 - 00:17:56:02
Molly White
where they're saying like, so your testimony is that you learned about this $8 billion hole that or this bug that caused it to appear as though $8 billion was missing and you didn't ask more questions, You weren't trying to figure out what happened.

00:17:56:02 - 00:18:00:15
Molly White
You just were like, okay, well, I hope it's fixed. And you moved on

00:18:00:15 - 00:18:09:13
Molly White
they went into like great detail asking about that. And I realized that it was because during the charge conference they asked and were granted

00:18:09:13 - 00:18:10:05
Molly White
for

00:18:10:05 - 00:18:25:17
Molly White
an instruction to be added to the charge document about conscious avoidance, which is basically like if you have very good reason to believe that a crime is happening

00:18:25:17 - 00:18:31:14
Molly White
and you just sort of plug your ears and look the other way, that's not really a defense.

00:18:31:16 - 00:18:32:16
Molly White
And so

00:18:32:16 - 00:18:40:09
Molly White
they drew upon this whole thing with the $8 billion bug to say that like the fact that he is testifying at least that he didn't

00:18:40:09 - 00:18:49:12
Molly White
ask more questions, he didn't dig into that is, you know, sufficient to add this instruction. They also called back to something during the short Singh's testimony where

00:18:49:12 - 00:19:03:08
Molly White
I think this is also related to the bug, and he said something about how he tried to have a meeting with like Caroline and maybe Gary and Sam Bankman-fried, and he said that Sam Bankman-fried basically made it up an excuse not to go to the meeting.

00:19:03:10 - 00:19:07:13
Molly White
And so based on those two things, the judge was like, absolutely, let's add this instruction.

00:19:07:13 - 00:19:13:00
Molly White
So the idea that he's just like, you know, covering his ears is is really not sufficient

00:19:13:00 - 00:19:18:14
Cas Piancey
that's really interesting to me because the only thing I was I kept thinking to myself, I didn't realize that that was a

00:19:18:14 - 00:19:32:18
Cas Piancey
caveat that was thrown into this, because everything I kept thinking in my mind was, he's going for criminal negligence. They haven't charged him with that. So he's just going to desperately attempt to persuade the jury to believe that this isn't fraud.

00:19:32:18 - 00:19:41:09
Cas Piancey
There was no criminal intent here. He wasn't trying to be a bad guy. He was unaware of all the criminality occurring

00:19:41:09 - 00:19:42:04
Cas Piancey
in

00:19:42:04 - 00:19:44:15
Cas Piancey
FCX and Alameda Research. And I think

00:19:44:15 - 00:19:49:19
Cas Piancey
that what you're describing pretty much negates any reasonable expectation that that

00:19:49:19 - 00:19:56:05
Cas Piancey
defense could actually fly, because the only way that he would be able to not

00:19:56:05 - 00:20:05:20
Cas Piancey
see the problems that FCX and Alameda research is by plugging his ears and closing his eyes like they're there's pretty much no other way that this could work out for him.

00:20:05:22 - 00:20:10:17
Cas Piancey
So yeah you've just negated the main defense tactic that I've been thinking about this entire time.

00:20:10:17 - 00:20:11:17
Cas Piancey
And now I'm just curious

00:20:11:17 - 00:20:13:08
Cas Piancey
the hell the plan has been

00:20:13:08 - 00:20:16:00
Cas Piancey
for the entire trial. Now I'm really now I'm really confused.

00:20:16:00 - 00:20:19:16
Molly White
I think that's a great question. But I think, you know, I don't think there is much of a plan.

00:20:19:16 - 00:20:28:20
Molly White
I think they're just trying to introduce doubt wherever they can and hope for the best. But like, they're really don't have much to work with.

00:20:28:20 - 00:20:39:02
Bennett Tomlin
but at least you have to feel bad for the 30 year old child who just had no idea what was going on around him. Right. I mean, all these 30 year old children being unfairly prosecuted.

00:20:39:02 - 00:20:39:14
Molly White
it's funny,

00:20:39:14 - 00:20:44:10
Molly White
his demeanor does come off like a sullen teenager,

00:20:44:10 - 00:20:53:16
Molly White
but not in a way that you're like, maybe he is a big dumb baby. It's like it's in a way that you're like, so he's a 30 year old sullen teenager.

00:20:53:16 - 00:21:13:18
Molly White
You know, It doesn't come off well, in my opinion, but there were points during his cross-examination where he looked like he was sulking. And at one point he got almost like sarcastic with Daniellele Sassoon, which I don't think is a good strategy like that. Doesn't that doesn't win you any points with anyone, especially not the judge.

00:21:13:18 - 00:21:16:11
Molly White
I think he is immature in a lot of ways.

00:21:16:11 - 00:21:19:12
Molly White
And that came through pretty clearly on the stand.

00:21:19:12 - 00:21:25:03
Bennett Tomlin
sarcasm being a bad tactic. Understand is why I personally have never stolen $8 billion.

00:21:25:03 - 00:21:28:22
Molly White
I need to avoid it myself as well because I would fall apart up there.

00:21:28:22 - 00:21:30:02
Cas Piancey
I'm sure that it's

00:21:30:02 - 00:21:31:14
Cas Piancey
not an easy place to be.

00:21:31:14 - 00:21:33:10
Cas Piancey
But I do think that all of us are

00:21:33:10 - 00:21:49:05
Cas Piancey
aware that maybe sarcasm wouldn't be the tack tactic to go with in terms of trying to garner your freedom. We probably all wouldn't. We probably would have all already pled guilty. So this is there's

00:21:49:05 - 00:21:52:16
Molly White
I mean, I don't think it was an intentional tactic. I think that

00:21:52:16 - 00:21:57:10
Molly White
Danielle Sassoon is very good at like getting under his skin, I think.

00:21:57:12 - 00:22:16:06
Molly White
And he at one point basically it got to him and he snapped and then he he sort of pulled it back after that. I think maybe he realized that, like, I shouldn't have done that. And so you sort of recompose himself. And to be honest, he is more composed than I expected him to be,

00:22:16:06 - 00:22:17:04
Molly White
which is a low bar.

00:22:17:04 - 00:22:18:11
Molly White
I thought it was going to be

00:22:18:11 - 00:22:20:12
Molly White
an absolute shit show up there.

00:22:20:12 - 00:22:22:10
Cas Piancey
when we had Sam Sam Kessler on

00:22:22:10 - 00:22:24:03
Cas Piancey
he said something quite surprising

00:22:24:03 - 00:22:24:20
Cas Piancey
that I,

00:22:24:20 - 00:22:28:09
Cas Piancey
am going over in my brain, which is that

00:22:28:09 - 00:22:30:00
Cas Piancey
Sam Bankman-fried came off like,

00:22:30:00 - 00:22:31:00
Cas Piancey
likable

00:22:31:00 - 00:22:32:14
Cas Piancey
kind of and I was like,

00:22:32:14 - 00:22:37:00
Cas Piancey
that is really, really, genuinely difficult for me to believe because of

00:22:37:00 - 00:22:38:10
Cas Piancey
the rounds of interviews.

00:22:38:10 - 00:22:43:03
Cas Piancey
You know, the 50 journalists that he spoke to you, the spaces, all this stuff that he did

00:22:43:03 - 00:22:51:08
Cas Piancey
pre trial, that I was like, this guy never sounds like a nice guy who you would want to spend time with.

00:22:51:08 - 00:23:00:15
Cas Piancey
But Sam Kessler said when the defense team had him on the stand, he sounded he sounded quite likable, Which yeah, I still

00:23:00:15 - 00:23:02:03
Cas Piancey
don't quite understand that.

00:23:02:03 - 00:23:10:17
Molly White
Yeah, I think he did to some extent. I mean it's a little challenging, sort of like you just described for me to sort of set aside my own opinions here.

00:23:10:17 - 00:23:11:08
Molly White
But

00:23:11:08 - 00:23:16:22
Molly White
he, there were points at least where he, you know, said something that was kind of funny or,

00:23:16:22 - 00:23:21:23
Molly White
you know, was a little self-deprecating in a way that I think probably did come off well

00:23:21:23 - 00:23:23:18
Molly White
and which I was also surprised by.

00:23:23:19 - 00:23:31:07
Molly White
Like that is not historically his strong suit. And I think he often comes off as very arrogant or

00:23:31:07 - 00:23:36:19
Molly White
evasive, like I said. And so there were points where he was able to sort of,

00:23:36:19 - 00:23:38:10
Molly White
say something that was funny, like

00:23:38:10 - 00:23:40:21
Molly White
they had shown the prosecution had

00:23:40:21 - 00:23:50:09
Molly White
been really hammering on this point around the extent to which he used private jets and they, during this line of questioning, showed this photograph of him

00:23:50:09 - 00:23:53:08
Molly White
asleep on a private jet where he looks

00:23:53:08 - 00:23:56:02
Molly White
very disheveled and he's asleep.

00:23:56:02 - 00:24:02:11
Molly White
And, yeah, it's like not flattering. The photo is basically like up his nose. You know, it's just like not a good photo.

00:24:02:11 - 00:24:12:12
Molly White
remember thinking when they showed that, I was like, Well, that's just weird. You know, it seemed like unnecessary. But they like to do this, like, illustrate the story they're trying to tell.

00:24:12:12 - 00:24:16:21
Molly White
And so when that came back up yesterday on redirect,

00:24:16:21 - 00:24:20:22
Molly White
his lawyer said something like, You recall testifying about private jets.

00:24:20:22 - 00:24:37:09
Molly White
You recall they even showed a photo of you on private jets. And he said something like, Yeah, a really flattering one. And like that got a little bit of a laugh, at least in the overflow room where I'm in. There's there's a very big difference between the vibe in the overflow room and the real courtroom where you're not allowed to laugh.

00:24:37:10 - 00:24:41:07
Molly White
anyway, so like, there were moments like that that that did come off well, I think

00:24:41:07 - 00:24:47:11
Molly White
I don't know if on the whole he came off as likable. Like for me it was like there were moments

00:24:47:11 - 00:24:49:09
Molly White
it was not overall

00:24:49:09 - 00:24:50:14
Molly White
compelling

00:24:50:14 - 00:24:58:19
Molly White
persona that he was presenting. You know, I think I think overall it was mostly evasion is what I really came away from, from it with.

00:24:58:19 - 00:25:02:15
Bennett Tomlin
Was there anything content? Was facts material?

00:25:02:15 - 00:25:16:15
Bennett Tomlin
He was actually saying that really struck you? Facts that gave you a little bit of a different perspective on how FDX or Alameda was operating or anything that you felt was important to highlight from the actual content of what he was saying.

00:25:16:15 - 00:25:31:16
Molly White
this has been a really interesting thing because, like, I've been following this case so closely that basically nothing that they talked about in during both the during any part of his testimony really was a surprise to me. There were a couple things where I learned more and

00:25:31:16 - 00:25:49:13
Molly White
not in a good way for him. So one thing they gave more detail on was this incident that was in 2021, I believe, where a trader on RTX took positions in mobile coin and a token called BitMEX.

00:25:49:13 - 00:25:51:08
Molly White
And I think maybe some other things

00:25:51:08 - 00:26:08:12
Molly White
that were these very illiquid tokens. And they took this large position and we'd already heard about this to some extent, like we knew some details about this. And there had been testimony earlier in the case. I want to say from Gary, I don't remember it was Gary or Nishad, but one of them testified that

00:26:08:12 - 00:26:11:16
Molly White
basically there was this huge loss that FCX suffered,

00:26:11:16 - 00:26:19:04
Molly White
and they said that Sam Big Me Freed transferred that position to Alameda Research basically because he wanted to hide it from the balance sheet

00:26:19:04 - 00:26:24:22
Molly White
because after his balance sheet, where sheets were far more public because of the investment structure there.

00:26:25:00 - 00:26:45:06
Molly White
And so by transferring it telling me to research, fewer people would know that there had been this loss, which was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Well, during Sam Reid's testimony, he was asked a little bit more about how this happened and he basically said that Gary Wong, Nishad Singh and Ryan Salem

00:26:45:06 - 00:26:47:13
Molly White
learned of this position and told him about it.

00:26:47:13 - 00:26:50:16
Molly White
And for some reason he said, according to him,

00:26:50:16 - 00:26:59:02
Molly White
he said that he was going to take sole responsibility for monitoring this account and he would make sure that,

00:26:59:02 - 00:27:06:04
Molly White
you know, if they were doing something shady, he would stop it. But if they weren't, he didn't want to, like, liquidate them when they didn't need to be.

00:27:06:04 - 00:27:08:18
Molly White
And so he he was like, don't worry about it.

00:27:08:18 - 00:27:18:01
Molly White
I got this. And then he did not have this. He was he said basically he dropped the ball. He wasn't paying enough attention. And sure enough, they were able to exploit.

00:27:18:01 - 00:27:30:09
Molly White
He said during cross-examination something about exploiting the risk engine. And I was like, That's interesting. And so I was when he was talking about that, I was picturing in my head like, there is some bug in this risk engine.

00:27:30:11 - 00:27:35:09
Molly White
It was some sort of code vulnerability that this person was able to find and exploit.

00:27:35:09 - 00:27:38:12
Molly White
think that's interesting because that's kind of what I like to pay attention to.

00:27:38:12 - 00:27:39:12
Molly White
Well,

00:27:39:12 - 00:27:40:10
Molly White
during

00:27:40:10 - 00:27:47:13
Molly White
redirect, and I still have no idea why his own team would bring this up because I feel like this just makes him seem worse. But

00:27:47:13 - 00:27:54:13
Molly White
during redirect, they went back to that story and he testified that it wasn't a code bug.

00:27:54:14 - 00:27:55:08
Molly White
He had

00:27:55:08 - 00:28:19:19
Molly White
basically turned off the automatic risk engine for this account and was manually setting parameters on this account to try to stop them from doing anything that would lose FDX money. And he messed it up so bad that they were able to make off with like $800 million. And I'm like, Why would you see that? Like, why wouldn't you just let them think maybe there is a bug in the code or whatever?

00:28:19:19 - 00:28:33:22
Molly White
Because like, the cross-examiner just didn't try to go there. You just offered this information yourself. You know, like that seems worse. So I thought that was really interesting because it just explains how that exploit happened. And

00:28:33:22 - 00:28:37:12
Molly White
it also just makes no sense to me as far as strategy is concerned.

00:28:37:12 - 00:28:48:17
Bennett Tomlin
It does seem strange to highlight that your risk engine you bragged about to Congress was something you would sometimes manually bypass and in doing so cost almost $1,000,000,000.

00:28:48:19 - 00:29:02:07
Bennett Tomlin
That doesn't seem like, you know, this is the risk engine the CFTC should enshrine is the default for all of crypto. You know, it doesn't seem to mesh perfectly with that when you describe it as I personally set the parameters,

00:29:02:07 - 00:29:06:12
Molly White
Yeah. My only guess is like that he was trying to say

00:29:06:12 - 00:29:21:19
Molly White
there wasn't an issue with the risk engine and therefore the fact that I didn't disclose the issue with the risk engine is acceptable because there wasn't one because they had tried to ask him a little bit about the degree to which he disclosed

00:29:21:19 - 00:29:23:08
Molly White
the issue that had happened.

00:29:23:08 - 00:29:31:06
Molly White
And so, like, maybe he was trying to get around something there, but I really don't I that's as best as I can guess, because I really don't understand why he did that.

00:29:31:06 - 00:29:40:03
Bennett Tomlin
it might honestly be just that like he feels like he knows the technical right answer and he's like, what you said was technically not right.

00:29:40:03 - 00:29:54:16
Bennett Tomlin
Let's get the details right here. Here's how I fucked up. We got to be we got to be specific here. I didn't fuck up making the risk engine. I fucked up by exempting a bunch of people from the risk engine and not disclosing it. Let's be clear.

00:29:54:16 - 00:30:06:17
Molly White
But to be fair, this is during his redirect. His defense attorney could be like, let's stop there and just make him stop talking, which is probably what they should have done as far as I can tell. And they did not do that.

00:30:06:17 - 00:30:07:19
Bennett Tomlin
They weren't expecting.

00:30:07:23 - 00:30:08:10
Bennett Tomlin
More.

00:30:08:10 - 00:30:11:01
Bennett Tomlin
Confessions. Well, he was on the stand

00:30:11:01 - 00:30:13:19
Molly White
be it just totally got them by surprise,

00:30:13:19 - 00:30:16:18
Cas Piancey
That shouldn't catch them by surprise, given who their client is.

00:30:16:18 - 00:30:22:02
Cas Piancey
So the other moment that I want to call attention as we're as we're discussing, this kind of craziness

00:30:22:02 - 00:30:23:17
Cas Piancey
in regard to

00:30:23:17 - 00:30:25:05
Cas Piancey
Sam's answering,

00:30:25:05 - 00:30:35:08
Cas Piancey
is this moment that Inner City Press posted about I'm sure it's in the transcripts in a better, better way, but this is the general summary of what was said,

00:30:35:08 - 00:30:37:06
Cas Piancey
says Daniellele Sassoon says

00:30:37:06 - 00:30:38:17
Cas Piancey
These were your decisions, right?

00:30:38:17 - 00:30:42:23
Cas Piancey
SBF says, No, I may have authorized these decisions to which

00:30:42:23 - 00:30:49:07
Cas Piancey
Sassoon says Anthropic, That was you. And Salman says, Yes, five

00:30:49:07 - 00:30:56:09
Cas Piancey
Yes, the $35 million apartment. That was your decision. That particular one was

00:30:56:09 - 00:31:02:21
Cas Piancey
we're talking about over $1,000,000,000 worth of bad decisions when when she brings these all up,

00:31:02:21 - 00:31:06:01
Bennett Tomlin
almost to 1.1 to Genesis

00:31:06:01 - 00:31:07:02
Cas Piancey
she didn't bring up Genesis.

00:31:07:02 - 00:31:11:00
Molly White
She did bring up Genesis, but he sort of didn't acknowledge it.

00:31:11:00 - 00:31:17:22
Molly White
There was actually kind of a weird moment there where I think maybe the prosecution got confused by the fact that there are two Genesis is.

00:31:17:22 - 00:31:21:20
Molly White
And so there was a little bit of confusion there, and I don't think he ever actually answered that question.

00:31:21:20 - 00:31:27:08
Cas Piancey
As Ben has pointed out to me, there's actually like ten Genesis blocks in in the world.

00:31:27:08 - 00:31:37:08
Bennett Tomlin
Well, there's Genesis blocks. There's Genesis Digital assets, There's Genesis Capital, Genesis trading, Genesis lending, Genesis Global Genesis,

00:31:37:08 - 00:31:44:15
Molly White
Yeah. And there were there are two that are specifically involved with the Apex trial, which is the genesis lender, which lent the there's three

00:31:44:15 - 00:31:54:07
Bennett Tomlin
Genesis Digital assets, the Bitcoin miner they invested in Genesis block, the over-the-counter trading desk they own in Hong Kong and Genesis lending slash Genesis.

00:31:54:07 - 00:31:59:20
Bennett Tomlin
Well they also Genesis trading has come up too, because they were engaged in some over-the-counter trades with them.

00:31:59:20 - 00:32:03:14
Molly White
I consider Genesis trading in the Genesis lender to be kind of the same thing but yeah

00:32:03:14 - 00:32:12:15
Molly White
I forgot about Genesis. BLOCK But anyway, there is this, there is this pie chart and it just said Genesis on it and he's like, I don't know which Genesis this is. And that could have done better for sure.

00:32:12:15 - 00:32:29:01
Cas Piancey
after all of this back forth about whether or not Sam Bankman-fried authorized things, whether he was actually in charge, whether the CEO actually had any idea of what was going on at the company. Three of the largest transaction fees that they ever made. She Daniellele Sassoon, was like, So was this you?

00:32:29:01 - 00:32:29:15
Cas Piancey
And he's like,

00:32:29:15 - 00:32:38:12
Cas Piancey
Yeah, that was me. And you're like, okay, so sorry, what the fuck is your defense again? I'm so confused. Like, you just admitted

00:32:38:12 - 00:32:41:04
Molly White
same thing where he's just trying to quibble over language.

00:32:41:04 - 00:32:48:06
Molly White
You know, she said something like, Did you direct this investment? And he's like, I don't know if I directed it, but I probably authorized it

00:32:48:06 - 00:32:55:02
Molly White
or, you know, I was involved in the decision or something like he just he's just trying to get around the whole idea that he directed it, which

00:32:55:02 - 00:33:00:14
Molly White
I don't think is effective. You know, it's like he's he's trying to be like, well, technically.

00:33:00:17 - 00:33:19:09
Molly White
And that's just not coming across well, especially because often the technical distinctions he's making are not important at all. And at one point he tried to he tried to argue with her, saying that he spent or that altimeter research, spent money. And he said, I don't know if I would put it that way.

00:33:19:09 - 00:33:22:06
Molly White
I think they use money for something, something.

00:33:22:10 - 00:33:26:01
Molly White
And she's like, socially, they use money to pay

00:33:26:01 - 00:33:39:23
Molly White
the lenders. And he said, yes. It's like, so they spent money to pay. You know, it's just like a totally unimportant distinction that he was trying to draw and not useful in any way to his defense.

00:33:39:23 - 00:33:49:13
Bennett Tomlin
Sam really just loves to embody like first year philosophy student who doesn't really understand anything but really is loving the thrill of arguing,

00:33:49:13 - 00:33:50:05
Molly White
Yes.

00:33:50:05 - 00:33:58:19
Cas Piancey
there's a documentary. If anyone who I got to be in this, it's it's called Ruin. It's a documentary about FCX by the Bloomberg Originals folks.

00:33:58:19 - 00:34:01:08
Cas Piancey
And there's this moment where they show

00:34:01:08 - 00:34:03:03
Cas Piancey
the George STEPHANOPOULOS interview.

00:34:03:03 - 00:34:06:13
Cas Piancey
And George, I think this was also shown in

00:34:06:13 - 00:34:17:15
Bennett Tomlin
can't be lent, can't be loaned out. And he's like whispering, can't be loaned out, can't be loaned out.

00:34:17:15 - 00:34:21:11
Cas Piancey
He's like, I'm not sure you actually answered my question. And he's like.

00:34:22:14 - 00:34:23:10
Cas Piancey
Yeah.

00:34:23:12 - 00:34:41:04
Cas Piancey
And you're just like, okay, this guy is hunting desperately to come up with, as I don't know which one of you just said this, but as like a first year philosophy student being like, I've got to figure out a way to steal man. This I don't know what to do here. There's just got to be a way for me to to negate this argument.

00:34:41:04 - 00:34:44:20
Cas Piancey
And you're like, you're so done, it's over.

00:34:44:20 - 00:34:50:21
Cas Piancey
Has That just been the entire trial. Molly Is that like, is that been it? Is that a good summary of what we've seen?

00:34:50:21 - 00:34:56:09
Molly White
Just about yeah. I would say trying not to answer the questions and then,

00:34:56:09 - 00:34:57:17
Molly White
most of his

00:34:57:17 - 00:35:07:19
Molly White
defense like the whole defense strategy really has been him going back over things that other witnesses said, events that they recounted,

00:35:07:19 - 00:35:14:05
Molly White
recounting the same events and giving a very different spin on them. And so, you know, there were these very

00:35:14:05 - 00:35:17:19
Molly White
memorable moments in court where, like Naushad was

00:35:17:19 - 00:35:28:11
Molly White
testifying about this conversation that they had on this balcony of their penthouse where he was sort of confronting Sam Bankman-fried about this missing 8 to $10 billion.

00:35:28:11 - 00:35:32:07
Molly White
And it was very dramatic. And the Shard was so upset and worried. And

00:35:32:07 - 00:35:33:07
Molly White
and Sam

00:35:33:07 - 00:35:37:00
Molly White
gives his version of events where he was like, we basically just talked about marketing,

00:35:37:00 - 00:35:44:05
Molly White
you know, and so, like, totally different stories coming out on the stand where you're being asked to just totally,

00:35:44:05 - 00:35:51:09
Molly White
disbelieve all of these multiple witnesses who have given completely contradictory versions of events.

00:35:51:09 - 00:35:59:12
Molly White
So I would say that's probably the big summary of of the the defense. So far is just saying, like, you just got to believe, Sam, everyone else was lying.

00:35:59:12 - 00:36:03:08
Cas Piancey
Do you think there's any reasonable,

00:36:03:08 - 00:36:06:11
Cas Piancey
any, any suggestion or room

00:36:06:11 - 00:36:09:18
Cas Piancey
that you've seen for a possible mistrial here.

00:36:09:18 - 00:36:25:13
Molly White
Yeah, I think so. I mean, there's always that possibility, I think. And I think that that might be what he was going for. You know, I think the idea that he would take the stand and suddenly the jury would unanimously find him not guilty of seven charges is just so

00:36:25:13 - 00:36:30:22
Molly White
divorced from reality that, like it just doesn't seem remotely plausible.

00:36:30:22 - 00:36:39:16
Molly White
But, you know, I could see them hoping that he is somehow personable enough that one juror is like, well, maybe he didn't do it. Or at least

00:36:39:16 - 00:36:44:16
Molly White
I'm not confident enough that he did that. I'm willing to say beyond a reasonable doubt

00:36:44:16 - 00:36:46:11
Molly White
at which point someone could

00:36:46:11 - 00:36:51:17
Molly White
hang the jury, basically. And then, you know, they might have to retry the case.

00:36:51:19 - 00:36:54:00
Molly White
So I think that's a possibility.

00:36:54:00 - 00:36:55:21
Cas Piancey
hung jury to be clear. Hung jury.

00:36:55:21 - 00:36:58:21
Molly White
guess you asked about a mistrial. So that's a separate thing.

00:36:58:21 - 00:37:07:08
Cas Piancey
Well I think a hung jury is much, much more likely that you can at least get hung up on a few of these counts. I think there's seven counts in total like

00:37:07:08 - 00:37:11:20
Cas Piancey
you. Can you can get hung up on one or two of those maybe. But like

00:37:11:20 - 00:37:15:02
Cas Piancey
also a lot of these counts are directly related to one another, right?

00:37:15:03 - 00:37:18:15
Cas Piancey
Like it's multiple counts of wire fraud. It's multiple counts of bank fraud. Like,

00:37:18:15 - 00:37:36:11
Cas Piancey
I don't think that these jurors are going to be like, well, you are guilty of this count of bank fraud, but these other counts of bank fraud, I don't think so. I don't see it playing out that way. Maybe anything's possible. Meanwhile, I do think when there's one count of money laundering or something, maybe they get hung up on that.

00:37:36:11 - 00:37:41:12
Cas Piancey
That's possible. But from what I can tell in terms of a mistrial, in terms of anything.

00:37:41:12 - 00:37:42:20
Molly White
Yeah. Sorry. I did the

00:37:42:20 - 00:37:46:00
Cas Piancey
it's okay. No,

00:37:46:00 - 00:38:03:11
Bennett Tomlin
and a hung jury, to be clear, is a type of mistrial that can result in a retrial. And the churches, they're hung then just for any any technical people watching. We should be clear. No, no, none of us are lawyers. We just all like to commentate. And this.

00:38:03:11 - 00:38:10:15
Molly White
Also at one point said on the stand that he's not a lawyer, in case anyone was wondering that, that was very funny.

00:38:10:15 - 00:38:21:14
Cas Piancey
think we all understood that when the objection sustained moment happened and he decided to answer the question anyway, I think everyone was well aware that he is not a lawyer.

00:38:21:14 - 00:38:28:11
Molly White
Or when he tried to say that maybe his answer wasn't admissible and the judge was like, Let me worry about that.

00:38:28:11 - 00:38:31:13
Bennett Tomlin
He is maybe a banker, though, If not a lawyer, he's a banker.

00:38:31:13 - 00:38:33:10
Bennett Tomlin
At least that he ran a bank

00:38:33:10 - 00:38:34:04
Cas Piancey
So,

00:38:34:04 - 00:38:36:13
Molly White
so FDX must have been a bank, I guess.

00:38:36:13 - 00:38:50:11
Molly White
Yeah. So I don't know about, like, a mistrial that would, like, basically prevent the case from being retried. I don't. I don't really know. I don't know if I know enough about the specifics, how that would happen to, to really opine on that.

00:38:50:13 - 00:38:58:14
Cas Piancey
yeah, I mean, as far as so just as far as I know. And I also I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I know, you need something pretty egregious, Right?

00:38:58:16 - 00:38:59:12
Cas Piancey
Right, right.

00:38:59:12 - 00:39:07:05
Cas Piancey
as far as I know, you need something very egregious. You need a defense team that is utterly incompetent. You need evidence that hasn't actually been

00:39:07:05 - 00:39:12:02
Cas Piancey
given to the defense team or you need like things that are very egregious to occur

00:39:12:02 - 00:39:16:05
Cas Piancey
where there's a mistrial and they're like, my gosh, we have to throw the whole case out like that.

00:39:16:07 - 00:39:25:02
Cas Piancey
The chances that it's going to happen here are so, so minuscule. It's hard to imagine, as you said, a hung jury. Hung jury, far different

00:39:25:02 - 00:39:26:02
Cas Piancey
because

00:39:26:02 - 00:39:30:17
Cas Piancey
we would have to know what's going on in the heads of all of these jurors. And we can't.

00:39:30:18 - 00:39:46:10
Molly White
Yeah. I mean, I think that you know, everyone involved in this case from a legal perspective, has been very careful about sort of crossing their T's and dotting their eyes. There's been a lot of procedural stuff that looks very intended for that purpose.

00:39:46:10 - 00:39:51:09
Molly White
I think some people have spoken about incompetent defense just in the sense that

00:39:51:09 - 00:40:11:07
Molly White
some people, you know, really are having trouble, myself included. Honestly understanding what his defense team strategy is. It seems like it's been very haphazard. They are just sort of throwing stuff out there. You know, they during a lot of their cross-examination, they would do stuff where they would begin to ask questions and it would look like they were getting somewhere.

00:40:11:07 - 00:40:15:09
Molly White
And then they would just sort of abandon that train of thought before they got anywhere with it. So

00:40:15:09 - 00:40:21:06
Molly White
some people have been saying that, like the defense team is doing such a bad job that he could get

00:40:21:06 - 00:40:22:13
Molly White
this incompetent

00:40:22:13 - 00:40:24:18
Molly White
defense

00:40:24:18 - 00:40:27:22
Molly White
mistrial, which I think is really not the case. Like

00:40:27:22 - 00:40:32:18
Molly White
you have to have a really egregiously incompetent defense, I think for that to fly.

00:40:32:18 - 00:40:42:17
Molly White
And this is just that like there isn't a good defense to offer and they're doing the best they can with what they have. But that's not incompetence. You know, that's just

00:40:42:17 - 00:40:46:13
Molly White
you can't it's hard to defend someone who doesn't have a strong case. You know?

00:40:46:13 - 00:40:58:23
Cas Piancey
and somebody who went out and did a media tour and did, you know, like all this other stuff that that Sam Bankman-fried did really hurt his own ability to defend himself and for any any lawyer team to defend him.

00:40:58:23 - 00:41:01:09
Cas Piancey
So, yeah, I agree with you there. In general,

00:41:01:09 - 00:41:02:16
Cas Piancey
the last bit I want to bring up

00:41:02:16 - 00:41:11:04
Cas Piancey
is that the other conspiracy theory still getting thrown around is idea that there's going to be a presidential pardon for Sam Bankman-fried.

00:41:11:04 - 00:41:19:08
Cas Piancey
Well, why would there be a presidential pardon for Sam Bankman-fried I'm just going to run through the conspiracy theorists line of thinking here for for anyone who's listening.

00:41:19:08 - 00:41:20:12
Cas Piancey
Why would he do that? Well,

00:41:20:12 - 00:41:25:08
Cas Piancey
same man. Freed was like one of the top. I don't know if it was the number one or the top two

00:41:25:08 - 00:41:26:03
Bennett Tomlin
Second,

00:41:26:03 - 00:41:31:09
Cas Piancey
second biggest donor to the Democratic Party and Joe Biden in the presidential run up.

00:41:31:09 - 00:41:38:05
Cas Piancey
He's donated to all kinds of Democrats. He's donated to all kinds of Democratic causes.

00:41:38:05 - 00:41:42:20
Cas Piancey
well, isn't that reason enough to grant him a presidential pardon? So,

00:41:42:20 - 00:41:47:15
Cas Piancey
Molly, can you tell me why that's not necessarily the brightest line of thinking?

00:41:47:15 - 00:41:57:16
Molly White
I think that is so out there. I mean, that's like flat earth or type of conspiracy theory. That's not like I mean, that's so, I think detached from reality.

00:41:57:16 - 00:42:11:04
Molly White
It's true that Sam I mean, Freed made a lot of donations to the Democrats. He also made a lot of donations to Republicans. He was making a lot of donations to causes he thought or to, you know, politicians he thought would benefit him.

00:42:11:06 - 00:42:17:14
Molly White
He was mostly just donating to crypto politicians is sort of what it came down to. He was doing this strategic thing where he wanted to

00:42:17:14 - 00:42:32:19
Molly White
try to make sure he was supporting people on both sides that were friendly to crypto. And, you know, he definitely did make large donations to Democrats. But like, I don't I think it's being overstated a little because his public donations were the ones to Democrats,

00:42:32:19 - 00:42:38:17
Molly White
and his dark donations are the ones that came out later and those were a little bit more bipartisan.

00:42:38:17 - 00:42:46:09
Molly White
Let's just say. So I think the whole idea that like, he spent a lot of money, he basically bought himself a pardon is really just not

00:42:46:09 - 00:42:47:04
Molly White
plausible.

00:42:47:04 - 00:42:56:10
Molly White
There are a lot of people who have donated a lot of money to causes and still are charged with crimes. I think it's reasonable to say that, like money definitely buys you

00:42:56:10 - 00:42:59:01
Molly White
an advantage when it comes to the legal system.

00:42:59:01 - 00:43:20:20
Molly White
You know, you might be less likely to be charged in the first place or, you know, all these different things like that. But once there is this strong case against you, which the government has pretty much nailed you on, the idea that you're just going to have this get out of free car, get out of jail free card that you can pull out of your back pocket because of past donations, I think is just really quite unreasonable.

00:43:20:20 - 00:43:50:08
Bennett Tomlin
think it was really valuable there that you highlighted that Sam Bankman-fried explicitly talked about how his goal was to give as much to Republicans as to Democrats, and that he was really just trying to buy influence. And I think the other dynamic that Cass and I have talked about here that is regularly forgotten is that at a certain level, those donations mean that politicians are now in a position where they cannot easily like show deference towards them, make men freed because the attention is on them.

00:43:50:08 - 00:44:18:12
Bennett Tomlin
Now, if Biden, whoever were to try to show some amount of seeming preference towards Joe Biden after these donations, you're giving away multiple news cycles for that decision. And in exchange you get a broke fraudster. Tur, who's been separated from most of his centers of power, influence and wealth. Right? It's not a trade that makes sense politically, even if you assume every political actors like a craven Evie Maximizer.

00:44:18:12 - 00:44:22:06
Cas Piancey
I think that's actually the most important part that you bring up right there, Benet, is that

00:44:22:06 - 00:44:27:20
Cas Piancey
if if SBF leaves jail tomorrow, he leaves jail a broke kind of

00:44:27:20 - 00:44:35:11
Cas Piancey
a pariah. Nobody wants anything to do with Sam Bankman-fried. No one wants to work with him. He doesn't have a bunch of money. He doesn't have a bunch of

00:44:35:11 - 00:44:38:13
Cas Piancey
sideline cash that he can give to politicians.

00:44:38:13 - 00:44:46:18
Cas Piancey
Again, to be like, Thank you so much for giving me this presidential pardon. There are examples in the past of politicians like Bill Clinton giving

00:44:46:23 - 00:44:48:14
Bennett Tomlin
Marc Rich, you.

00:44:48:14 - 00:44:53:06
Cas Piancey
people like Marc Rich, where it pretty much was bribery. I mean,

00:44:53:06 - 00:45:03:08
Cas Piancey
it's hard to look at it as anything else where you have a top donor to the Democrats and Bill Clinton and then he gets a presidential pardon, but right before Bill Clinton gets out of office

00:45:03:08 - 00:45:09:21
Cas Piancey
and then he gets to be a billionaire, a free billionaire who can still donate freely to the Clintons and to the Democratic Party.

00:45:09:21 - 00:45:20:18
Cas Piancey
So there are past examples. But the requirement there is that Marc Rich left prison, a rich man, still a rich and influential, influential man, whereas

00:45:20:18 - 00:45:25:00
Cas Piancey
Sam Bankman-fried has nothing. So there's no good reason. Pardon? This guy

00:45:25:00 - 00:45:43:19
Bennett Tomlin
Well, and even in the Marc Rich example, like what, three months after the pardon, Bill Clinton was quoted as saying, like, yeah, that really wasn't worth the headache for me or the party. This was a dumb choice. And like, we can debate whether or not Bill Clinton's statements to newspapers and in public are an accurate representation of what he thinks and believe.

00:45:43:23 - 00:45:52:01
Bennett Tomlin
But like even there in that case, where this person he was releasing was still powerful, there was a huge amount of blowback that had significant costs.

00:45:52:01 - 00:46:10:20
Molly White
Yeah. And I was just going to say also, you know, with a presidential campaign coming up, if Biden just, like, jumped out and pardoned Sam Bankman-fried, right now, the degree of scandal that he would be inviting in doing so before a presidential campaign is like, it makes no sense. There's there's absolutely no.

00:46:10:20 - 00:46:14:13
Molly White
Yeah, I think again, I think this is just like so far fetched

00:46:14:13 - 00:46:21:10
Cas Piancey
I. I know, I know, I. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's just that

00:46:21:10 - 00:46:28:23
Molly White
get so many people, like in my Twitter replies that are like, he's going to he's going to get off on all these counts or he's going to. Yeah, just like all this, all this stuff like that.

00:46:28:23 - 00:46:30:08
Molly White
And I think people are really

00:46:30:08 - 00:46:33:18
Molly White
jaded about the justice system for very good reason,

00:46:33:18 - 00:46:47:13
Molly White
and especially when it comes to people who have money. But I also think that, you know, the likelihood of him just suddenly being found not guilty on all seven counts after that strong of a case and that weak of a defense. It's it's just

00:46:47:13 - 00:46:48:09
Molly White
unreasonable.

00:46:48:09 - 00:46:49:10
Molly White
I think.

00:46:49:10 - 00:46:52:06
Cas Piancey
100%, 100% agree with you on that.

00:46:52:08 - 00:47:21:04
Cas Piancey
And yes, there's reason to be cynical about the U.S. justice system, if that's if that's the discussion we're having. But on that note, I do want to say a couple of things. One, Molly White does Web3 is going great, so we haven't plugged her website yet. Web3 is going just great. It is a beautiful resource for anyone who wants to just check on all the craziness that is constantly going on in cryptocurrency and web3 and whatever you want to call it.

00:47:21:06 - 00:47:28:05
Cas Piancey
So that's a fabulous resource for anyone out there. But also, Molly, you've been doing these really wonderful livestreams. I don't know if that's only for

00:47:28:05 - 00:47:32:15
Cas Piancey
the court case or this is something you're going to keep doing where it'll be like weekly or something like that.

00:47:32:15 - 00:47:33:12
Cas Piancey
Either way,

00:47:33:12 - 00:47:43:04
Cas Piancey
I have very much enjoyed. They've been super insightful. If anyone wants to just hear someone recap their time every day after the the court cases,

00:47:43:04 - 00:47:47:16
Cas Piancey
highly recommend checking out Molly White's YouTube channel, so we'll link to that too in our show notes.

00:47:47:16 - 00:47:54:05
Cas Piancey
Is there anything you want to shill I guess without being so crass?

00:47:54:05 - 00:48:06:01
Molly White
Yes. I also write a newsletter that's newsletter dot Molly dot net which is more frequent update on things and a little bit of a longer form format than Web three is going to scrape

00:48:06:01 - 00:48:14:12
Molly White
the livestreams have mostly just been for the trial because after I get out of the courthouse after 8 hours, it's like my brain just is melting out of my ears.

00:48:14:12 - 00:48:23:12
Molly White
And so it's easier for me to just talk rather than try to write something coherent at that point. But I might try to do some more stuff like that. So yeah, stay tuned.

00:48:23:12 - 00:48:23:23
Cas Piancey
Awesome.

00:48:23:23 - 00:48:28:10
Cas Piancey
Okay, great. Well, that was fantastic. Thank you for joining us, Molly.

00:48:28:10 - 00:48:40:23
Cas Piancey
we have one more guest coming. I'm just going to mention it because we mentioned her and pretty this is the only episode where we didn't mention her next episode. We will be next episode covering the trial will be having Elizabeth Lobato on.

00:48:41:04 - 00:48:52:12
Cas Piancey
So please everyone tune in for that because she is honest to God, probably my favorite journalist in the whole world. So please, she's going to have a lot to say about it and she's always insightful and wonderful.
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2 responses to “Episode 140 – Sam Bankman-Fried’s Trial is Going Great (feat. Molly White)”

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