America’s Lawyer E12: The Supreme Court of Michigan has thrown out criminal charges against government officials involved in the Flint Water Crisis, and we’ll explain why that happened. The US Supreme Court has sided with a group of doctors that over-prescribed painkillers, we’ll tell you all about that story. And a million voters have now abandoned the Democratic Party in favor of the GOP – we’ll tell you what that could mean. All that, and more is coming up, so don’t go anywhere – America’s Lawyer starts right now.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Hi, I’m Mike Papantonio and this is America’s Lawyer. The Supreme Court of Michigan has thrown out criminal charges against government officials involved in the Flint water crisis and we’ll talk to you about why that happened. The US Supreme Court, well, they sided with a group of doctors that overprescribed pain killers. We’ll tell you why they took a position like that. And a million voters have now abandoned the Democratic party in favor of the GOP. It’s a good story you need to be aware of. All that and more, it’s coming up. Don’t go anywhere. This is America’s Lawyer, and we start right now.
Criminal charges against the officials responsible for the Flint water crisis were thrown out by the Michigan Supreme Court last week. And I have Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins with me to talk about that and many more stories. Wow. What a disappointment, huh?
Farron Cousins: Disappointing, but unfortunately not surprising.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, yeah.
Farron Cousins: You know, this is an issue I, I’ve talked a lot with Jordan Chariton who’s one of the investigative reporters, pretty much has been on the ground in Flint more than anybody else. He’s done a fantastic job. We had a conversation earlier this year.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: Where he mentioned that Dana Nessel, this new Democratic attorney general was basically attempting at the time to kind of throw out.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, yeah.
Farron Cousins: All of this, almost like it was something she didn’t want to deal with whatsoever. And so, because of that, they, I think intentionally, I mean, I’m gonna assume it was intentionally. I can’t, you know, say for sure, but it seems intentional that they botched these indictments to the point where the court really had no choice but to throw them out.
Mike Papantonio: Well, I mean, come on. First of all, Nessel, everybody thought she was gonna be the local hero. Well, she turned out to be just another villain. I mean, as a matter of fact there, what, when she came into office there were 15 state politicians that were involved in this and she made all those cases go away, 15. Then she appoints a single one person to say, this is the grand jury. Now granted some places, you know, it’s, it’s at least information that you can take to a real grand jury. You talk to one, that information goes to multiple grand jury, but here they brought the case and one person was, was the grand jury. And she knew what the flaws of that were. She knew what the Supreme Court of this state was gonna do. Any doubt?
Farron Cousins: No, absolutely no doubt in my mind that this was all intentional, because one, we’re talking about political prosecutions here because we’re dealing with politicians.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: But these are politicians that made decisions that killed people. They killed them from Legionnaires. They’ve, you know, essentially crippled an entire generation with lead poisoning.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: We’re gonna see those effects for, you know, 30, 40 years and beyond at this point. And she didn’t want to deal with that, you know. I mean, these were real, very simple charges to make.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: You have the emails, you have the text messages, the phone calls, all of this was on record. These officials, you know, a lot of Republicans, some Democrats, but all of them making these decisions knowing people would die and she botched it.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. The, the term, the term is willful neglect of duty. Okay. This, there’s a statute there. Most, most states have a statute like this. It’s where the conduct is so bad that it, they, the conduct in this situation, it wasn’t that they just, it wasn’t that they didn’t know. It’s once they got the information, they tried to phony it up. They tried to cover it up. They tried to save themselves. They, they even destroyed data. They destroy, they destroyed information that shows how bad, how bad a job they did on this issue. The, this is infuriating. This is one of the state employees. State employees should not be prosecuted or demonized for just doing their job. Did you see that?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, really just doing their job. They killed nine people from Legionnaire’s disease. As you point out, they have affected an entire generation with lead poison.
Farron Cousins: I mean, look, you, you go up to bat against some of the biggest, you know, polluters, the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. If you had the kind of documents that she had on these people, that’d be a slam dunk case for you. You could walk in and they wouldn’t even know what hit ’em because it was so glaringly obvious. And yet, in this case, it takes a certain amount of just, I’d say willful neglect of your duty as attorney general.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: To botch this case.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Again, it comes back. She knew with, if you have a one, a one person grand jury, that’s gonna go real bad, real fast. But it was political paybacks for her. She was going after Snyder, who was a Republican, not a great Republican, by the way, not even a great politician, by the way, not a very kind person, by the way. But she was going after him. She was Democrat. And then rather than just playing fair, just say, let, let’s let the system take care of itself. Let’s, let’s do this straight up. She appointed a one person, one person grand jury, acting like she didn’t know where that was gonna go.
One of the largest accounting firms in America was hit with a massive fine that was revealed that they had their accountants cheat on their ethics exam. I had, I, I swear to you, I read this article, this is a CNN article, and I had to read it a couple times. I thought what they were talking about was that they were cheating in the way that they evaluated the ethics of other corporations, which is what they’re supposed to do. But no, they cheated on their own ethics exam. Pick it up from there.
Farron Cousins: Right. You’ve got Ernst & Young, which again, one of the biggest accounting firms here in the United States turns out that they have had countless people that work for them to get their, you know, CPA license to be able to do the auditing of these other companies that were cheating to get the license.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: So you’re basically hiring these people who clearly were not smart enough to, to, to pass their exams on their own, clearly not qualified to do this, but Ernst & Young knew these people were cheating, possibly even encouraged it.
Mike Papantonio: Well, no, they did encourage it.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: They encouraged IT. Matter, matter of fact, KPMG, which is another huge accounting firm in 2019 were caught for the same thing. And what they were doing was actually telling them how to go about cheating. Ernst & Young was doing the same thing. Ernst & Young comes out and says, well, there’s nothing more important, this is their words, as disgusting. This is a spokesman for Ernst & Young. There’s nothing more important than our integrity and our ethics. And we’ll stand behind our conduct all the time. This is what they say. And they know that the people that are out supposed to be auditing other corporations and saying is what this corporation is, what they’ve done, first of all, is it legal? Second of all, is it ethical? These are the people making that decision. The people who cheat, who cheated on their ethics exam.
Farron Cousins: Well, well, you know, isn’t this, like, this is just Wall Street though. This is what Wall Street is. They’re so bad at ethics that they have to cheat at it.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And, and, and a hundred million fine. Okay. One of the biggest fines we’ve seen, it’s still pathetic.
Mike Papantonio: It doesn’t mean anything.
Farron Cousins: It’s pathetic because they knew what they were doing. They got away with it for as long as they could. Now they just have to pay the cost of doing business.
Mike Papantonio: Well, I mean, look, lawyers would have their license taken away.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: I mean, it’s, it’s not even a question. You would have your license taken away. Why, why wouldn’t they do that here? What’s different with Wall Street it is, is than the way the ABA treats their attorneys. Take their license away is the, is the answer here.
The Supreme Court has sided with doctors over, who overprescribed opioid painkillers to their patients. They were running pill mills. That’s what it was. And as you know, we handled the national, we’re still in the process of handling this national opioid case that’s going on. And there’s no question that the pill mill doctors knew exactly what they were doing. They knew they were killing 150 people a day. They knew exactly what the ramifications were of selling fentanyl in, in numbers that were just staggering. But the Supreme Court justice Breyer of all people, justice Breyer says, well, they didn’t get a good jury instruction because there wasn’t enough, there wasn’t enough emphasis on intent beyond a reasonable doubt. Pick it up from there.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Yeah, this is absolutely disgusting. I mean, you basically, you had this unanimous ruling.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: You know, Breyer who now is gone from the court. Thank goodness.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: But says, eh, a little unclear, you know, you couldn’t really prove the intent of these doctors.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. It was.
Farron Cousins: And all of the evidence says, no, the intent is clear. These doctors understood that you’re giving people enough fentanyl to kill them and kill several other people.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: there was no excuse. There was no reason or rationale for the amount of prescriptions these two doctors involved in this case were prescribing to their people.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: This was clearly a way to get pills out there on the, the market.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. They had deals. Okay. They had deals with the distributors, the distributors, whether it was McKesson or AmerisourceBergen or Cardinal, they, they would pump pills into the pill mills. They would go to cities like, you know, where there’s a thousand people and sell 6 million pills through these doctors. These doctors were simply part from a RICO standpoint, they were simply part of that criminal conduct. And so I, I just, I, I looked at this decision on this. I go, wow.
Farron Cousins: Well, well, you know, and see, that’s the part of the, the story that I think a lot of people miss, you know, we know about the manufacturers. We, we know about the distributors of the medication.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: But people always forget, none of this is possible without that prescription from the doctor. That is where it originates and that is where this plan basically takes off from people like these.
Mike Papantonio: The, the distributors would actually, they would search the country and they would have lists of who ran the pill mills. And they would put more emphasis in those doctors. They would, they would do everything they could to implement as much material, as much narcotic going to that doctor as they could. It was part of their plan. And these guys, they were part of it. And the Supreme Court says, ah, they didn’t get a good, there was no, no good jury instruction on that. Really?
More than a million Democrats have switched parties in the past year, making a, it’s really creating a serious problem for the Democratic party. Farron, what is your take? This, this to me, if I’m a Democrat looking at it, I’m, I’m seeing the suburban swing votes that are leaving the Democratic party. That’s what’s happening.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. This is terrifying for the Democratic party. It’s also 100% predictable. We have seen a Democratic party that’s been in power now for 18 months. We just concluded the 18th month. So what have they done? What have they done to show you that they, they understand your problems? That they’re addressing the issues? And the answer is unfortunately for these voters, nothing at all. Their lives have, in fact, gotten worse, you know, economically, you know, politically with as divided as we are. And they looked at this and they said, look, I’m not gonna be a part of your club anymore because the public always does that. Right. They bounce back and forth every two years or so. That’s natural. But not in these numbers.
Mike Papantonio: This is, this is different. This is different.
Farron Cousins: It truly is.
Mike Papantonio: Well, you’re seeing it in Denver, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Iowa. I thought the study was interesting. It was done by the AP and they really spent a lot of time trying to figure out what are these things, according, I’m just going from the study. But they found it that there’s this rejection of this woke leftist thing that the Democrats came in and tried, tried to sell. Okay. In other words, in other words, deal with, don’t deal with trying to reshape culture in 18 months, you know, don’t try to, don’t try to force something down my throat in 18 months that I don’t wanna listen to. Talk about politics, engage in good political change, do some good stuff for us. And, and that’s all they had to do here, but it, it’s kinda like the same, I don’t know if you followed the deal with, with Netflix, same thing’s happening with Netflix. They’re finding that all of this effort by Netflix to reshape culture, let’s, let’s change the way people think about this cultural issue. That’s where Netflix is getting killed right now. And there’s an exodus of left, of, of Netflix because people wanna be entertained. And the same thing with politics. They just want politicians to talk about politics that improve their lives. They don’t wanna, they don’t wanna be preached to about cultural change.
Farron Cousins: Well, here’s the interesting thing about that too and you’re not wrong about people, you know, leaving the party about that obviously. But the Democrats are not actually pushing that. What, what’s being pushed is the Republicans pretending that the Democrats are pushing this.
Mike Papantonio: Ah, okay.
Farron Cousins: And then trying to, you know, and not trying, they are passing all of this culture war legislation.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: Addressing problems that aren’t actually real, but the legislation now creates a lot of problems.
Mike Papantonio: So in other words, it’s not,
Farron Cousins: It’s a messaging issue and the Democrats failed
Mike Papantonio: Okay. The me, your point being, it’s not the Democrats that woke up one day and said, hey, let’s force feed the American public these cultural changes. These, the way that we think about our culture. Let’s force feed them that. You’re saying that that wasn’t really part of the intent, but the Republicans have done a good job taking that and making the American people believe this is what the Democrats are doing. Did I get that right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And they obviously put the Democrats on their heels on these issues. So then the Democrats, when they talk about them, the Republicans can then highlight it and say, see, look. Now they’re shoving it down your throat again. It, it’s honestly, from a political standpoint, not saying I agree with any of it.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: It’s a smart strategy by the Republican party because they have smarter strategists than the Democratic party does.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And then as the Democrats try to undo this culture war legislation, Republicans then get to come back and say, but they’re not focused on the economy.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, I think it’s.
Farron Cousins: They’re not addressing inflation.
Mike Papantonio: I think, I think it’s a good point, Farron. The only thing, the only thing, the caveat to that is that you’re seeing it in other areas too.
Farron Cousins: You, you certainly are.
Mike Papantonio: You’re seeing it, you’re seeing it with the media. For example, CNN and MSNBC, it’s almost as if the public woke up one day, they said, shut the hell up. I don’t, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna agree every time you’re trying to shove some cultural change down my throat, I don’t wanna agree with that. And their numbers went down. Same with, same with Netflix. Same with Disney. I mean, just take a look at that. But I really do buy into your idea that maybe it didn’t originate from a political standpoint with the Democrats, that the, the Republicans had just been smart in taking it, making it look like that.
Farron Cousins: Right. And, and like I said, once they get the Democrats to have to address these issues, then the Republicans go out there like they are right now, you look on social media. The Republicans are saying, listen, Democrats are all focused on, on the Roe decision and they’re not talking about inflation that’s hurting you and your family at home.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: They create the issues, force the Democrats to have to address it and then hit them for not doing the stuff.
Mike Papantonio: Real quick before we go onto the next segment, Farron. I’m, I’m interested, you’ve talked about, and I agree with you. I, I’ve, I’ve taken a look at everything I can read about it. Is that they, there, there’s this belief that I, I think there’s a groundswell belief that Roe V Wade decision is going to really be a big, big change for the midterms. I, you and I have talked about it before you, you’re of the opinion, where do you fall on that? Do you really think it makes that big of a difference?
Farron Cousins: If the election were today, you know, week and a half away from the decision, sure. Anytime beyond that, no. The public does move on. I mean, eventually we’re gonna hit a point where the public, I mean, and I’m talking within six months, the public’s gonna be like, well, it’s pretty much it’s always been that way.
Mike Papantonio: Mm.
Farron Cousins: They will forget about this. The anger will subside because you can’t sustain anger for that long.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: So they will move on to the other issues. They’ll keep getting hit economically every time they go buy groceries, every time they fill up their tank with gas. I, I’d love for it to be a political issue in November, but I don’t think it has, it’s not, it’s not gonna be.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. I, I think you may be right. I, I don’t think it’s a groundswell change.
Farron Cousins: No.
Mike Papantonio: It, it, it, it could be, but the way even, it’s almost as if the media is even playing a role. I, I, every time I watch some story about it, it’s almost as if they have the, the really oddball fringe out, you know, throwing F bombs and attacking this person, attacking. And, and you go, that’s not really the way most people think. They just want the, they want the logic on how bad this decision was. They don’t want to go, let’s go kill this person or let’s take this, this, you know, really big step towards doing away with the Supreme Court. But that’s the kind of, that’s the kind of edge you’re seeing out there right now. And I think it’s, I think it’s hurting them.
Farron Cousins: Well, and not to mention you have a lot of people right now that yes, even though the conservative court did this, they’re furious with the Democrats for literally sitting on this issue for 50 years.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And not doing anything about it.
Mike Papantonio: And not legislating.
Farron Cousins: So this could, this could hurt the Democrats because it showed the voters the threat from the Republicans was real. The Democrats ignored it. They’re not fighting for you.
Mike Papantonio: Didn’t rise to the occasion to actually do anything about it.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
A majority Americans say that it’s time for term limits for the Supreme Court. This ties right into what I’m talking about. As you watch this discussion, rather than, look, there are so many great reasons to talk about this being a bad decision, but it doesn’t start off with let’s do away with this Supreme Court. Let’s start a super majority requirement for the Supreme Court. You see the problem there, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: It’s just, who’s in power at the time. Right now, it’s the Democrats and they, this would be good for the Democrats in their mind. A, it’s never gonna happen. B, all it does is creates this possibility that if it does happen, the next party that’s gonna be in charge are gonna be the, gonna be the Republicans. I don’t, I don’t get that logic.
Farron Cousins: Listen, I, I, I’ve, I’ve always been a big fan of term limits.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Not just for the Supreme Court and every federal court, but for Congress as well.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And, and I think a lot of these members of Congress who have literally no idea who they’re talking to on any given day, according to reports, they’re a great argument for term limits.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: And this is where the country needs to go. And I’m glad we’re finally starting to see people wake up because yeah, you’ve got, I mean, Clarence Thomas was appointed by George H W Bush.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: He has been on that court for 31 years, an entire generation.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: On that court. And time’s up, buddy. And you got a lot of other ones too that have just been there for far too long. They hang on for too long. And most importantly, they lose touch with what actually happens in the real world. And to me, that’s the biggest problem, not just with justices, but with the politicians, too.
Mike Papantonio: Articles that are coming out and they make a lot of sense to me, if you’re a Supreme Court judge, you’re Kav, let’s say you’re Kavanaugh. You have been attacked while you were going through the process, justifiably so on a lot of issues. You’ve had now this, this outcry about, you know, it’s okay to, I mean, he had his family at risk. You understand that the man’s family was at risk by some leftwinger who believed it was a good idea to go carry a gun and threaten the family. With, with Thomas right now, whether you dis, whether you agree with them or not, I’m not even talking about, do you agree.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: We, we don’t agree with most of that.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: But if you’re Clarence Thomas, you now, you have your wife under attack. You’re under attack. You’re being called everything in the world. And at some point, what effect does that have on a, on a Supreme Court judge, when you have limitless power to do what you wanna do, do you think that’s a good idea?
Farron Cousins: No. I mean, you’re absolutely right about that. And look, we got an interview from the New York Times from 1993, where Thomas’ clerk said his goal because what he went through during his confirmation, his goal was.
Mike Papantonio: To get back, to get even.
Farron Cousins: For the next, yeah, next 43 years make liberals lives miserable. That is what he said.
Mike Papantonio: That’s what, well, that’s my point.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: That’s my point. And so you’re a Supreme Court judge, whoever, whoever you are, you know, whether you’re Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, it doesn’t make any difference. You’re under this attack from the left. How can you not get to the point to where you hate them so badly that every chance you can take, everything you can do to shut ’em down, you’re gonna do? I don’t know, I don’t know a living breathing human being that this doesn’t have an effect on. And I don’t know why people don’t see that.
Farron Cousins: Well, and, and not to mention, you also know that you can do this with really no oversight whatsoever.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: You know, we, we’ve never actually impeached a Supreme Court justice here in the United States, at least not impeached and removed. So they know that, look, I can do whatever. I cannot recuse myself.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: I can sit here and just basically tell you, yeah, I’m only doing this because I hate you and nobody’s gonna stop you. And that to me is one of the best arguments for term limits.
Mike Papantonio: It’s, it’s, well, it’s the argument. You don’t go after the king unless you can get rid of the king. You see what I’m saying? You don’t start a war with the king unless you can get rid of the king. And that’s, what’s happened with the Supreme Court every time this kind of thing happens. I don’t care how strong they are from a personal character, this affects their ability to be objective.
School shootings in America have now hit their highest number in over 20 years. Wow, no surprise here. But this was a startling kind of number. This was done, this was done by the National Center of Education and Statistics. What did they find, Farron?
Farron Cousins: 93 incidents in the 2020, 21 school year, 43 resulted in fatalities, 50 involved injuries. But 93 shootings at schools here in the United States, public and private, which means on a typical 180 day school year, every other day, every other school day in this country, somebody’s getting shot in one of our schools.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and the, the, the problem with it is the statistics speak for themselves. I mean, you can’t hide these statistics. These numbers have gone, I mean, they’re startling numbers. This is the highest total in the history of keeping up with these kind of statistics. And you can only hope that look, maybe, maybe some good comes out of the, the, out of the effort to do something. I mean, the red flag law, I love it. You know, can, I love the idea of enhanced background check for people that are under 21. The idea of if you’ve been convicted of abuse of any kind, of spousal abuse, you can’t get a gun and without having to jump through some hoops. The, this is all good stuff that the, the idea of having youth mental health facilities that are, that are improved and expanded.
Farron Cousins: And, and I think the more I think about it, especially after seeing these numbers, that may be the big one.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: Because yeah, we understand we, we got more guns than anybody else. You and I have talked about that. But we also, we gotta get to the root of why this is even happening.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: You know, we have to get really into that psyche, talk to these people, try to figure out, avert problems before they happen, because, because it is as, as you and I have again talked about in recent weeks, it’s not just that we have the guns. What is making these people want to use them against children? That’s what we have to get to the heart of.
Mike Papantonio: I think we’ve talked about this on other shows where the, the expansion of social media has also enhanced and almost put on steroid, steroids, the enhancement of bullying.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: If you look at every one of these shooters, you go back, you take a look, they’ve been it’s, it’s the same pattern. You know, they, they’ve been called losers and they, they’re the folks that sit up in their room all day long at home, eight hours a day on, you know, whatever they do. They’re isolated. They’re not really involved in what’s going on around the school or whatever. And so it’s that, in that bullying aspect of social media is now coming to the forefront. Matter of fact, some good friends of mine are bringing some, bringing some cases that I think are going to prevail here. And that it is has, how does social media enhance the ability and, and, and actually promote this notion of bullying? I think there’s, I think there’s something to this and the best article I’ve seen about this overall picture talks about that with each one of these people, each one of these kids that have been involved in this, there’s been some history of that.
Farron Cousins: Well, and you know, another part of that too, the other side of it really is that not only are these people experiencing more bullying because of, you know, the online presence, they also have their own communities of people who, you know, kind of have the same issues where they talk about violence.
Mike Papantonio: Ah.
Farron Cousins: Where they all, you know, kind of feed off one another.
Mike Papantonio: You’re talking about blog. I mean, a blog or message boards.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Message boards and things like that. And, and so you get these people who hype up these feelings of hate that you have. So that’s another big part of it, you know, that’s the second half after.
Mike Papantonio: But that’s the, but that’s the social media vehicle.
Farron Cousins: Right, right, right.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And so again, with the mental health screenings and things like that, we, we have to start teaching parents like, look for these signs.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, right.
Farron Cousins: Because it’s not just the kids, the parents, be an active.
Mike Papantonio: Be a.
Farron Cousins: Parent.
Mike Papantonio: Be a leader, a parent.
Farron Cousins: Really.
Mike Papantonio: Walk into their room and say, what the hell are you doing, kid?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: You know what, let me, let me read what you’ve done on this computer. I mean, it doesn’t take a lot to do that. And you go.
Farron Cousins: I, I mean, sometimes it really is as simple as saying, turn that, come on, we’re gonna, let’s play monopoly.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, yeah.
Farron Cousins: Let, let’s play a board game. Let’s play Scrabble. And I’m not kidding. I mean, look, I, I, I have a 19 year old who, who has moved outta the house and he calls us every now and then he says, hey.
Mike Papantonio: Let’s play Scrabble.
Farron Cousins: Can I come over? We’ll do like a game night.
Mike Papantonio: Oh that’s great. Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Because those little things like that.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: Do have such an impact. And that falls on the parents.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: That’s not on the kid. That’s on the parents
Mike Papantonio: I mean, what’s wrong with walking through the door and saying, you know, Mary, Joe, I wanna see what you’re doing. Let me take a look at your history on com, I wanna see what you’re up to. What’s wrong with that?
Maxwell, well, she’s been sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking and prostitution operation. You know, I, I gotta tell you something, this, there is nothing, nothing would just, you look at this woman sympathetically about. And I think the, the people that appeared in court, she was described as a manipulative, cruel, manipulative, cruel, merciless monster. Okay. Of course, that’s not what she’s projecting now. The, the, her lawyers are projecting, oh, the poor thing. Her daddy was killed when she was a child. She was abused as a child. There’s so many things we need to forgive her for. No, not really. She was, this is, she was involved in extensive child exploitation. She got 20 years. I wish she could have gotten more.
Farron Cousins: I, I, I, I think this is an individual who should never have had the option of walking outside of a prison ever again.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: 20 years is not enough for what she did.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: I mean, the trauma these, these women carry with them now forever for eternity, for also not giving us the names of every single person that used these women. Because to me, that’s the part of the story that has to get told. I don’t even care how we get it out of her.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: But we have to get those names.
Mike Papantonio: She has the story.
Farron Cousins: She does. And it’s, it’s beyond time because yeah, It’s Eps, what Epstein did was unforgivable, what she did was unforgivable. But they were doing it for all these people.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. You know, Farron, I, I loved what this judge did. This is judge Alison Nathan, did the sentencing. She did the calculation. She says, well, if I calculate, I’m gonna, she was up front. I’m gonna calculate the worst I can do. And then I’m gonna add some to it. So she calculated between 15 and 19 years. And she says, you know what? That’s not enough. I’m sending you away for 20 years. And I, I, I think it was exactly what had to happen. You know, I’m, I’m actually seeing the media soften up on this woman, like the poor pitiful woman. She was a manipulative, cruel, merciless monster. That’s the way she was described by the people who came to court and said, look, you took my child, okay, who came from a broken home. Who, you enticed them with a hundred dollar, a hundred dollars here, a hundred dollars there to give Mr. Epstein a massage, and then involved, in, involved the children in some type of sex act. You did that. And you, you know, you, you, you, you preyed on these children who were, some of ’em were runaways. Some of them were just coming from an absolute poverty. But they came, a lot of ’em came from broken homes. They were just, she, she would target these victims. She’s the worst of the worst where it comes to predators.
Farron Cousins: Right. One of them told the story about how she was just a young girl at Mar-a-Lago of all places and Maxwell is the one who approached her, manipulated her, recruited her. And she told that story in court. And she said, there is there’s no, this woman has no redeeming qualities.
Mike Papantonio: Mm-hmm.
Farron Cousins: She is just as evil as Jeffrey himself was.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
Farron Cousins: And maybe even more so, because she knew what she was doing. She used her, she said, femininity.
Mike Papantonio: A veneer.
Farron Cousins: To, to entice them. Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: She would put up this veneer, look, this isn’t so bad. You know, go in there and have sex with a guy. He’s gonna give you a hundred dollars and you go home and finally you can pay for stuff that you can’t buy because you’re, you’re living in poverty. This is, this is awful, awful story. Is she, is she gonna pull through or is it gonna be another Epstein story?
Farron Cousins: I, I hope she does because we have to have those names. I hope that she has some kind of contingency where maybe she’s written ’em down somewhere.
Mike Papantonio: And is looking to.
Farron Cousins: Where we’ll find it.
Mike Papantonio: May, maybe have the pri, the sentence reduced.
Farron Cousins: Right. But so far, nobody, nobody that had sex with these women has faced justice. And that is unacceptable, you know, for what we know.
Mike Papantonio: Well, prince Andrew’s next.
Farron Cousins: Well, let’s hope so. And there’s, you know, a lot of high profile politicians.
Mike Papantonio: Oh yeah.
Farron Cousins: And, and, and tech people in the US.
Mike Papantonio: The number of Wall Streeters is off the chart, from what I.
Farron Cousins: Wall Streeters, scientists.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, yeah.
Farron Cousins: I’m, we need names and we need ’em now.
Mike Papantonio: I agree. Farron, thank you for joining me.
Farron Cousins: Thank you.
Mike Papantonio: That’s all for this week, but all of these segments are gonna be available on this coming week, right here on this channel. And you can follow us on Twitter @AmericasLawyer. I’m Mike Papantonio and this has been America’s Lawyer where every week we tell you the stories that corporate media won’t tell you, because their advertisers won’t let ’em or their political connections just don’t allow for it. We’ll see you next time.
