The Trump Trial Is On, and Lordy There Are Transcripts!
Added 2024-04-24 10:49:50 +0000 UTCEpisode 1026
The transcript is in! The first official written record from the first trial of a former President in U.S. history was just released hours before recording, and we dig in for a first look from the first full day of proceedings (Monday April 23rd) to find out which of the 45th president's many misdeeds the court ruled that prosecutors will be allowed to bring up during cross-examination. We also indulge in some dramatic readings of each party's opening statements, and discuss what we can learn from them about the Manhattan DA's case and Trump's defense to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Much more to come!
We then check back on last week's round of Thomas Takes the Bar Exam to see how Thomas did on questions about a thieving magician and a lying philanthropist before turning to this week's challenge: an arsonist who doesn't understand how fire works.
1. People's Sandoval Notice filed 4/17/24
2. Transcript of proceedings in People v. Trump on 4/23/24
Comments
anyone have a copy of the linked transcript as a PDF? the link in the show notes is now broken, and the court website makes us navigate through the transcript one page at a time. UPDATE: someone else already asked: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24602160-2024-04-22-pv-trump-transcript-042244 (sorry i didn't look thoroughly before asking myself). although page 823 is missing 🙁 still, should the shownotes be updated to help others avoid the same issue? probably a good practice to capture and separately host documents in case someone (lol some court) disappears them again.
Jobu Tupaki
2024-04-25 23:33:48 +0000 UTCThomas pulling a "we're all textualists now" joke out of thin air is beautiful evidence of his sustained, hyperfocused commitment to delivering approachable legal communication. you rock!!
Jobu Tupaki
2024-04-25 23:23:42 +0000 UTCYAAS PLS! 😭😭😭 would totally pledge this as an adhoc patron goal!!
Jobu Tupaki
2024-04-25 23:22:08 +0000 UTCThis question is just screaming out for an answer phrased as the parody song "Jenny did start the fire", but I'm not going to do that to avoid falling afoul of the song/poem ban! I think the answer is B, as I agree with Thomas that murder requires specific intent, but I think hurting the elderly couple should count for something as opposed to a situation in which no one was injured.
Cheers to The Onion, the greatest media outlet in the history of humankind
2024-04-25 14:37:35 +0000 UTCThomas I think this is a strong choice for how to handle the trial without you and Matt having to go crazy with even more episodes. It does need regular coverage and I can’t tell you how relieved I am that OA is back cause you & Matt are doing exactly what I need to break this down. I’m reading plenty of media coverage but it’s your conversations that really help me digest it all. The semi-dramatic reading of the defense was a nice touch lol I hope for a solution on the new transcript format cause one of my first thoughts from hearing about it is now OA can cover this much better.
M. D. Nova
2024-04-25 11:12:56 +0000 UTCGreat now someone out there has to make it their valiant effort to copy/paste all the text into a Gdoc every day and disseminate that. Or maybe code a way to scrape it all. This is really appalling. They went from sudden transparency to obstructing their own transparency. I tried a few options between online OCR sites and iPhone methods and honestly iPhone copy paste seems to take the shortest amount of time. Just pulling the page up on safari and copy/pasting from the image. But I imagine it would be possible for a programmer to write a script to pull all the images, then they could be mass OCRed. I feel like this could be successfully crowdsourced and really wish I had the time to organize, there’s just no way I could commit with how much I have to work. I’m trying to think of what subreddit would be most focused on this and any that are larger than ours. The subs for organizing tend to be small compared to the ones for venting. I’m hopeful that a nonprofit or open media outlet will jump on making this properly accessible again. I don’t know what influenced their decision to do this in the first place so don’t know if a public outcry will make a difference.
M. D. Nova
2024-04-25 11:09:03 +0000 UTCYou don't seriously pace around in America do you?
Tom Evans
2024-04-25 06:53:58 +0000 UTChard agree.
lauren
2024-04-24 22:08:27 +0000 UTCT5BE. nice. could actually be T6BE. (temporary trump trial (&) thomas takes the bar exam)
lauren
2024-04-24 22:07:34 +0000 UTCPretty please find a way for Eli to read if Trump testifies! DUGYOABC, your Patreon name is amazing
Katie Byrum
2024-04-24 20:59:56 +0000 UTCTrump is ADHD combined and enhanced by malignant narcissism
Test Ease Interpreter
2024-04-24 19:27:36 +0000 UTCI came to say the exact same thing! Matt and Casey reading the lawyers with Eli Bosnick reading Trump just HAS to happen!!! Throw in Tom C to read the judge as icing on the cake
Two Fabulous Thespians
2024-04-24 19:24:20 +0000 UTCDetrimental? That patron question answer song was a BANGER.
SpunRightRound
2024-04-24 18:13:46 +0000 UTCGet the GAM guys to do the voice acting! Eli as Trump! Find a way to get Tall Tyler in there too!
Don't use bad yarn as a life line in a fae yarn store. The yarn fairies will immediately remove it and you will get lost.
2024-04-24 16:47:37 +0000 UTCThis is absolute madness--the link no longer works bc it looks like they changed the format since the time that the PDF was posted at the time of recording last night to a useless non-PDF image format which requires the reader to click through each page with no option to download (unless I'm totally missing something?). Fortunately someone backed the PDF up here and I hope people will continue to scrape these so that we have an easily accessible format because I am going to lose my mind trying to cover this if I can't scroll and skim. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24602160-2024-04-22-pv-trump-transcript-042244
Matt Cameron
2024-04-24 16:07:43 +0000 UTCyeah lol okay I cringed when I listened back to that this morning--I was being *way* too flip about that! All I was trying to say was that it's not always strictly *necessary,* but of course it is always best practice to state the basis for your objection on the record and, as happened here, if the judge is unclear you'll be called up to sidebar to discuss it anyway. (I started my career doing criminal appeals, so I've certainly had to make my share of arguments around exactly what an objection meant and if it was properly preserved. ) There is a whole explanation here re: Merchan's instructions for how he wants to run this trial and standard jury trial practice but I'll save that for Friday
Matt Cameron
2024-04-24 14:56:00 +0000 UTCI appreciate the move to fewer TTTBEs, but that’s probably because I’m a numbskull who doesn’t like learning/thinking of the one bar exam I swore to never take again.
Daniel N. Robbin
2024-04-24 14:41:18 +0000 UTCAbsolutely. Lawyers should never assume this. A single, respectful objection is all you need.
Daniel N. Robbin
2024-04-24 14:39:22 +0000 UTCbeep boop fellow human
Daniel N. Robbin
2024-04-24 14:37:17 +0000 UTCTry this and click on Transcripts: https://ww2.nycourts.gov/press/index.shtml
Lydia Smith
2024-04-24 14:33:42 +0000 UTCIt works for me after I verify I'm a human. Is there....something we should know about you, Daniel? 🤖👽
Lydia Smith
2024-04-24 14:32:19 +0000 UTCDamn. The link to the transcript no longer works.
Daniel N. Robbin
2024-04-24 14:28:54 +0000 UTCOH GOD MATT IT'S NOT JUST A MOVIE THING TO PRESERVE OBJECTIONS. I work as an appellate clerk and cases are definitely lost because trial counsel thought the grounds for the objection were apparent from context and the appellate court disagreed.
Dr. Clerk
2024-04-24 14:01:42 +0000 UTCJust listened to intro banter to this episode. Thank you for not letting trump consume every episode. I like this proposed format, since it leaves room for other news and we can still be informed.
Meridaandmouse
2024-04-24 13:55:06 +0000 UTCHoping you stick with or revert to 2 bar questions! One person’s two cents.
Lawrence Frank
2024-04-24 13:40:23 +0000 UTCTrump might play golf but he doesn’t walk the course. He rides in the cart, unlike the pros. An 18- hole course would be a lot of walking but he sits. So I would say that makes him a man of inaction, not action.
Lawrence Frank
2024-04-24 12:06:38 +0000 UTC
