Crypto Critics' Corner

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Episode 165 – Elon Musk’s Valentine’s Day Massacre

Elon Musk's St. Valentine's Day Massacre – Crypto Critics' Corner

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss the gutting of the Southern District of New York by an illegal and unconstitutional order to drop charges against Eric Adams so he can better cooperate with the Trump Administration.Read more hereAdditional resources: Initial MemoDanielle Sassoon's ResponseEmil Bove's response to Danielle Sassoon's resignationHagen Scotten resignationReporting on additional resignationsAdditional episodes mentioned in this episode: Episode 163 – What the Elon Musk coup means for FinanceEpisode 164 – CFPB RIP 🪦Playlist of videos about Sam Bankman-Fried trialThis episode was recorded on February 14th, 2025.

Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin discuss the gutting of the Southern District of New York by an illegal and unconstitutional order to drop charges against Eric Adams so he can better cooperate with the Trump Administration.

This podcast was recorded on February 14th, 2025.

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English Transcript:

00:00:05:01 - 00:00:14:23
Cas Piancey
Welcome back everyone. I am Cas Piancey, and I'm joined, as usual, by my partner in crime, Bennett Tomlin. How are you today?

00:00:14:23 - 00:00:18:11
Bennett Tomlin
I am angry and ashamed of our country. How are you, Cas?

00:00:18:11 - 00:00:23:16
Cas Piancey
Yeah. Feeling similarly. Feeling disappointed. I'm like a disappointed dad. Today is what I am.

00:00:23:16 - 00:00:25:03
Cas Piancey
and an angry dad.

00:00:25:03 - 00:00:27:01
Cas Piancey
So let's talk about why.

00:00:27:01 - 00:00:30:22
Cas Piancey
The primary thing we're discussing right now,

00:00:30:22 - 00:00:34:21
Cas Piancey
that is happening as as we're recording it, we don't know what the outcome of this is going to be.

00:00:34:21 - 00:00:40:09
Cas Piancey
it's not necessarily something we do talk about, but we're going to be talking about it because it does relate to us

00:00:40:09 - 00:00:45:01
Cas Piancey
we're going to be talking about the Southern District of New York and how,

00:00:45:01 - 00:00:48:14
Cas Piancey
the administration is attempting to get them to drop,

00:00:48:14 - 00:00:51:08
Cas Piancey
a slam dunk case against Mayor

00:00:51:08 - 00:00:55:18
Cas Piancey
Eric Adams of New York City. So, Bennett, can you can you just go into it?

00:00:55:20 - 00:01:44:05
Bennett Tomlin
On February 10th, Emil Bove, the acting Deputy Attorney General of the United States, issued a letter in which he stated the intention for the charges against Eric Adams for his almost cartoonish corruption to be dropped in light of the difficulty they were presenting to Eric Adams in cooperating with the Trump immigration enforcement activities. This seemed to all reasonable observers like a blatantly illegal and unconstitutional quid pro quo, in which Eric Adams ability to cooperate with the policy aims of the Trump administration were exchanged for these charges being dropped.

00:01:44:07 - 00:02:17:15
Bennett Tomlin
After this letter was released, Danielle Sassoon, a former clerk for Antonin Scalia, a Federalist Society associated lawyer and one of the two prosecutors who helped put Sam Bankman-Fried in prison for 25 years, wrote her response to this. And it went over exactly how problematic this ask was. And there's a couple of things I want to pull out from here, including perhaps the most telling one.

00:02:17:15 - 00:02:21:06
Bennett Tomlin
And fans of The Wire will recognize the problem with this part.

00:02:21:06 - 00:02:41:06
Bennett Tomlin
There's a footnote that says, I attended a meeting on January 31st, 2025 with Mr.. Both Adams's counsel and members of my office. Adams's attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the department's enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.

00:02:41:08 - 00:02:50:10
Bennett Tomlin
Mr. Bove admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion.

00:02:50:10 - 00:03:13:13
Bennett Tomlin
Are you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy? Bove asked the attorneys working underneath him. Because it is, of course, typical for these attorneys to take notes like this. We saw these type of notes out of SDNY in the Ryan Salame case after their meetings with his attorneys when they were discussing, like his proffer, his plea deal and the various details around that.

00:03:13:15 - 00:03:34:04
Bennett Tomlin
These contemporaneous notes by the attorneys of these various United States Attorneys General offices are an important part of the record of how their negotiations with these opposing counsels and how their investigation into these case is going. But Bove wanted to make sure these weren't written down because it would represent a record of this blatant corruption.

00:03:34:04 - 00:03:36:06
Bennett Tomlin
Sassoon’s letter also included

00:03:36:06 - 00:03:41:11
Bennett Tomlin
I do not repeat here the evidence against Adams that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed federal crimes.

00:03:41:15 - 00:03:52:00
Bennett Tomlin
Mr. Bove rightly has never called into question that the case team conducted this investigation with integrity, and that the charges against Adams are serious and supported by fact and law,

00:03:52:00 - 00:03:53:17
Bennett Tomlin
and said things like

00:03:53:17 - 00:04:03:11
Bennett Tomlin
Adams's advocacy advocacy should be called out for what it is an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of case.

00:04:03:11 - 00:04:15:13
Bennett Tomlin
It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams's opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy policy matters, with a dismissal of a criminal indictment.

00:04:15:15 - 00:04:36:09
Bennett Tomlin
Nor will a court likely find that such an improper exchange is consistent with the public interest. She continued I remain baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached. In seeming collaboration with Adams's counsel and without my direct input on the ultimate stated rationales for dismissal,

00:04:36:09 - 00:04:43:06
Bennett Tomlin
Mr. Bove admonished me to be mindful of my obligation to zealously defend the interests of the United States and to advance good faith.

00:04:43:06 - 00:04:55:15
Bennett Tomlin
Arguments on behalf of the administration. And Danielle Sasson, one of the best prosecutors in the place where the biggest white collar fraud cases are prosecuted was like this order makes it impossible to do that.

00:04:55:15 - 00:05:01:15
Cas Piancey
I think it's worth, talking about, another attorney who has now spoken out,

00:05:01:15 - 00:05:03:19
Bennett Tomlin
So before that, we should get to,

00:05:03:19 - 00:05:27:01
Bennett Tomlin
After this. At the end of the letter, she says, if you are going to continue with this order, consider this my resignation. Emil Bove then wrote a letter in response, where he accused her of losing sight of the oath and said that it is her obligation to interpret the Constitution exactly how the president and the Attorney General do, or she is derelict in her duty.

00:05:27:01 - 00:05:43:06
Bennett Tomlin
And he also claimed he also confirmed that he did order members of her staff to stop taking notes. And his stated reason is leaks. It's complete bullshit. And then this leads into what I think you were leading up to, which is,

00:05:43:06 - 00:05:48:01
Cas Piancey
the assistant US attorney, SDNY Haggen Scotten and,

00:05:48:01 - 00:05:51:03
Bennett Tomlin
Who was the lead prosecutor on the Eric Adams case.

00:05:51:03 - 00:06:05:19
Cas Piancey
Lead prosecutor on the Eric Adams case wrote a response to this because they're essentially there was suggestions about like, I it's like, I don't know, they're how much they care about America or something. Like, I don't even know how to interpret that reply.

00:06:05:19 - 00:06:07:01
Cas Piancey
Scott and said this,

00:06:07:01 - 00:06:30:12
Cas Piancey
There's a tradition in public service of resigning in a last ditch effort to head off a serious mistake. Some will view the mistake you are committing here, in the light of their generally negative views of the new administration, I do not share those views. I can even understand how a chief executive whose background is in business and politics, might see the contemplated dismissal with leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal.

00:06:30:12 - 00:06:54:15
Cas Piancey
But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way, if no lawyer within earshot of the president is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion, but it was never going to be me.

00:06:54:15 - 00:07:02:18
Cas Piancey
So you can feel the contempt with which these attorneys have for this administration and the way that they're behaving.

00:07:02:20 - 00:07:08:15
Bennett Tomlin
And I think, to be clear, like I said, Danielle Sassoon clerked for Antonin Scalia.

00:07:08:15 - 00:07:12:16
Bennett Tomlin
This lawyer clerked for John Roberts Hagen Scotten clerked for John Roberts.

00:07:12:16 - 00:07:13:18
Cas Piancey
They're conservatives.

00:07:13:18 - 00:07:33:05
Bennett Tomlin
These are former Scotus clerks who clerked for, like, the top conservatives on the court. These. This is not some like crazy woke liberal anything. These are conservatives who are steeped in the conservative legal tradition around the Constitution, and they are aghast at what is occurring.

00:07:33:05 - 00:07:56:20
Bennett Tomlin
Since that letter, there has been reporting that suggests all of SDNY’s public integrity line attorneys have been brought into a room where DOJ officials are basically telling them, one of you is going to sign this motion to drop these charges, or all of you are being fired.

00:07:56:20 - 00:08:01:23
Bennett Tomlin
Utterly unspeakable interference by the executive in the like.

00:08:01:23 - 00:08:34:18
Bennett Tomlin
Proceedings of the Department of Justice. And like the process of the justice system in the United States. It is like an order of magnitude more egregious than the Saturday Night Massacre that eventually led to Richard Nixon's impeachment and resignation. This act alone should be enough to damn politically every single person involved, and maybe even involve, like, illegal, unconstitutional exchanges of goods that should land some of these people in prison for their actions.

00:08:34:19 - 00:08:48:21
Bennett Tomlin
But most foundationally, they represent a fundamental attack on this nation, our nation. And like failure to grapple with that in the very near term is going to have massive ramifications.

00:08:48:21 - 00:09:16:07
Bennett Tomlin
In the hour or so since we finished recording, the total number of officials who have resigned as part of this is up to six. And reportedly, according to Reuters, one has agreed to file the motion. People have speculated that this is going to be a very interesting hearing to see how this lawyer presents this motion. Just wanted to come in here from the editing bay, quick to interject that.

00:09:16:07 - 00:09:32:13
Cas Piancey
Yeah. We're in big trouble. I need people like I can't, I don't I can't shout, I don't want to yell. I don't want to be obnoxious. To people I'm trying to convince. So, And I'm trying to convince you. I know how crazy this sounds, but it's for your own good.

00:09:32:13 - 00:09:39:18
Cas Piancey
There are people who are really just keen on this idea that, like, oh, if you break the system down, then the rebuild will be better.

00:09:39:21 - 00:09:59:07
Cas Piancey
And, none of them speak from a point of experience. They've never lived through that. They've never seen it play out. And I can guarantee you that having a dictator, as opposed to a democracy, that we have had the wonderful, luck of having for for as long as we have,

00:09:59:07 - 00:10:02:02
Cas Piancey
it's not going to be good. So that is where we're headed.

00:10:02:03 - 00:10:14:22
Cas Piancey
And another reason that we can confirm that is because it seems like the white House now and Elon Musk and his and, you know, unelected officials can now just take money from whatever city they see fit.

00:10:15:02 - 00:10:55:12
Bennett Tomlin
Yes. So we've already talked on here about how the administration has been illegally and unconstitutionally impounding payments authorized by Congress. They were ordered to stop this by a court. And yet there are multiple states who are suing or ordering that the administration is actively not complying with that court order. Since that court order. They have gone further and are attempting to use ACH automated clearinghouse reversals to take funds that were already distributed to various cities and organizations back, presumably under the automated clearinghouse fraud provisions, which is an utterly false pretext to take these funds back.

00:10:55:17 - 00:11:26:10
Bennett Tomlin
And again, these have already been appropriated by Congress. And this is another form of impounding. And they're ignoring the court order, which is even more troubling when you realize that both Elon Musk, the current special government employee with the broadest mandate humanly possible, and JD Vance, the vice president of the United States, who is one tainted burger way from controlling the world's largest nuclear arsenal, both have said on X, the everything app that they are likely to ignore judicial orders that interfere with the functioning of this administration.

00:11:26:16 - 00:11:51:10
Bennett Tomlin
That is fundamentally a public acknowledgment that they intend to act as authoritarians. This is an open and public acknowledgment that they are dictators. They are openly stating it. They have impounded congressionally improve funds and intend to ignore the judiciary. They are placing the executive above all, as though Elon Musk and Donald Trump are a two headed king.

00:11:51:10 - 00:12:15:19
Cas Piancey
and people I know. There's going to be people in the comments no matter what. There's going to be people in the comments and people who think you guys need to focus on, you know, just pure fraud or pure crypto or whatever. And I and I just want to say that we're talking about this stuff because the, the one, the wonderful way that we've had such a powerful dollar and, and such a hyped up economy for so long is because we have rule of law in this country.

00:12:15:19 - 00:12:22:10
Cas Piancey
and right now we're talking about dismissing the rule of law in this country, about being like the court is the president.

00:12:22:16 - 00:12:41:01
Cas Piancey
And I and I don't think people understand what that means, I really don't. Yeah. Cry liberals. But like no you're going to try to like when you start getting hurt by this and you want to say something and speak up about it, you, you won't be able to because you can get arrested for it now or something like the the rules are different now.

00:12:41:01 - 00:13:15:19
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah. The. The most liberal prosecutor in all of the United States Attorney General's office is probably less liberal than I am right now. And Hagan Scotten and Danielle Sassoon are not at all liberals. These are like Federalist Society people. Antonin Scalia and John Roberts. My fucking God. Like they this is. JD Vance is publicly called. It de-Baathization like this is fundamentally like Hitler clearing the Strauss out of the Nazi party or Stalin clearing everyone except for Stalin out of the Communist Party in Russia.

00:13:16:00 - 00:13:27:05
Bennett Tomlin
Like this is fundamentally not even them staying aligned with the broader conservative movement. This is a small number of people who have seized the levers of power and are instituting a dictatorship in front of your eyes.

00:13:27:05 - 00:13:35:00
Cas Piancey
Yeah. So many people talk about being constitutionalists, and it's like, well, these people clearly don't give a fuck about the United States Constitution, but

00:13:35:00 - 00:13:41:16
Bennett Tomlin
They're also not even competent. They can't even host a fucking WordPress website without letting anybody who wants to fuck it up.

00:13:41:16 - 00:13:56:14
Cas Piancey
Yeah. That's because so they they've been talking about all this transparency. Elon Musk did a press conference with Donald Trump where he used his his child as a shield the whole time. Basically like had him on his shoulders. You know, this little boy who did not need to be there?

00:13:56:14 - 00:13:58:22
Cas Piancey
was so creepy and so weird.

00:13:58:23 - 00:14:18:09
Cas Piancey
And then he didn't actually answer any questions. And similar to to things I've heard from people in power before, when he was pushed back on something he got very wrong, I believe it was that condoms had been sent to Gaza. And he said, why are we sending condoms to Gaza? And then they were like, It's Gaza, Mozambique, it's not Gaza, Middle East.

00:14:18:09 - 00:14:38:14
Cas Piancey
And he was like, won't you know, people are going to make mistakes and, change it afterwards. And it's like, well, so you're canceling the condoms you sent there because you didn't understand it, and now you're like, whoops, I it's so unreal. And there is no transparency there. Your website or like posting on X when you don't know what you're doing anyway, that's not transparency.

00:14:38:14 - 00:14:42:11
Cas Piancey
That's you breaking shit and not caring.

00:14:42:13 - 00:15:03:12
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah. So when. When people have pressed Elon on his multitudinous level of conflicts of interest and clear, brazen disregard for the law of the Constitution and the history of the Republic, his response was, we can't be doing anything wrong because it's transparent. And when asked about this, he pointed towards the DOGE website or the waste.gov website, which is connected to the DOGE website.

00:15:03:16 - 00:15:40:13
Bennett Tomlin
And at the time he said this, that website didn't exist. They quickly stood up the website using non-government servers and non-government services and then mirrored the Doge X account over to the website and said, now there's a website. Since then, these people, these technical geniuses, is these cyber security aficionados. They left the database like completely open and unprotected, and people have been just pushing random edits to the website and really, the most insulting part of all this is DOGE is supposed to be looking for government departments that are not doing their job efficiently.

00:15:40:19 - 00:16:05:00
Bennett Tomlin
They are operating out of the United States Digital Service, which was a group set up after the HealthCare.gov website debacle to ensure that United States websites and technical services operated better. And then they issued a website and technical service that doesn't operate well. So DOGE is a government department that is failing at its congressionally stated purpose. They want to eliminate a government department that's not doing what it's supposed to.

00:16:05:02 - 00:16:07:16
Bennett Tomlin
Hey, let's talk about DOGE you fucking idiots!

00:16:07:16 - 00:16:12:05
Cas Piancey
Doge, which I think is still. Is it? It's still not a real I. It's not a government department.

00:16:12:05 - 00:16:40:14
Bennett Tomlin
they run their employees out of the United States Digital Service, which is a real department kind of. But Elon Musk is also not acting head of USDS, and the acting head of USDS has said they've had, like, no contact with Musk of the DOGE team. And so that just further emphasizes how Doge is a mirage meant to give a bunch of tech, like libertarian pilled groypers from Silicon Valley, access to the United States government in the United States Treasury, all of the United States assets.

00:16:40:14 - 00:16:41:18
Cas Piancey
Yeah. We're fucked.

00:16:41:18 - 00:17:03:01
Cas Piancey
And anyone who's celebrating that and things like liberal tiers, like, Enjoy. Enjoy it now. Enjoy it now. Because they're the autocrats don't just come for the for the people they don't like at one moment. They'll come for you eventually, too. So, that's where we are. I think I'm super disappointed. And it seems like the only way out of this genuinely

00:17:03:01 - 00:17:14:04
Cas Piancey
is like the military dudes doing something, or US marshals doing something, and that that puts us in a really tough position because that means we already aren't a democracy anymore.

00:17:14:06 - 00:17:18:18
Cas Piancey
So, like, if that's where we're headed, it's a lose lose situation for us.

00:17:18:18 - 00:17:45:05
Bennett Tomlin
We don't want to be in the position where you have a military junta setting up a provisional government. Right. But we are also in a position where the leaders of this administration have publicly stated their intention to violate court orders, and they seem to actively be violating court orders, which means we're in a position where it seems the US marshals have an obligation to arrest certain people in order to enforce the court orders and ensure the appropriate separation of powers.

00:17:45:07 - 00:17:56:21
Bennett Tomlin
And so Elon Musk needs to be arrested to save the Republic is the place we are at. And that's dangerous and absurd, but it is where we are.

00:17:56:21 - 00:18:10:14
Cas Piancey
And, you know, it's a lose lose for America. For every citizen in America, for the government, for, the judiciary. It's really a lose lose for all of that. But I will say it's a win win for CasCoin.

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