Speaker 3
It feels apt that you're covering it as like a cultural, you know, event because as you, as you said, it's, it is like a new fraud, but it's also, a huge massive fraud. It's gambling. It's international. It's like, it's all of these things at once. And it's crazy to me how much of this is like on Twitter or like, you know, you guys are, you were like going through her tumbler. I guess we're into a new time, you know, like this didn't happen with Bernie made off. This didn't happen in the O8 crisis. People were not hunting on Twitter to find what someone
Speaker 6
said about, I don't know,
Speaker 3
mortgage backsecurities. That wasn't happening.
Speaker 4
Cass, there's a scoop in there. If you find Ben Bernanke's tumbler.
Speaker 1
I feel like we got a fabulous fab email here or two, but, but no, I totally, I totally know. You mean, like, I mean, that's what it has always been so interesting. I mean, about all of this, Sam in particular, but in the article I wrote about Caroline, like you
Speaker 2
look at Caroline's social media presence
Speaker 1
and you can just kind of trace her, you know, her trajectory and kind of see her as the person that she became and was and who she met and who she like was crushing
Speaker 2
on, you know, and what weird and,
Speaker 1
and also to her like compelling theories, she was like getting excited about. And so that was interesting to read. And also honestly, I went back and read, you know, she quoted from this book called, you know, Reminisances of a stock operator that was written in like, I think I want to say 1923 a hundred years ago. So it's a century old, but when you read it, it's like reading Liarspoker by Michael Lewis, who's another character in all
Speaker 4
of this. It's very contemporary feeling. What has been like most telling moment or most impactful takeaway from your time in the courtroom so far? I think it's honestly
Speaker 2
been seeing the way the prosecution has a crafted a very
Speaker 1
elegant narrative, which I it's actually been kind
Speaker 2
of inspiring as a writer.
Speaker 1
I'm not someone that thinks a lot about like
Speaker 2
tries not to think too much about like that, the bricks and bones of things, because I'll I'll go crazier than I already go when I'm writing, but it's actually been kind of motivating to see the way that they kind of drop things in early on, don't
Speaker 1
really beat anyone over the head with it and then return to it later. And you're like, oh, I remember hearing about that guy or that entity or whatever it is. And I think like a
Speaker 2
good example of that is this is a crypto story and a lot of the jurors aren't exactly people that are well versed
Speaker 1
in crypto, but they've
Speaker 2
kind of like shown how this is just a, this isn't just a crypto crime. Like this is just a tale as old as time, kind of old school.
Speaker 1
Money is coming in on one side and going out the other side and it's not supposed to. And they've just done a good job of like showing that while not like speaking down to the jury and still incorporating a lot of the complicated aspects and
Speaker 2
stopping to explain those things to them, but also stopping to explain simple concepts. And I think they really just like honored the jury in a way that I'm sure the jury feels that they have gotten a lot of the important information. So, but yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1
so I know you had Danny on and he was talking about the Australian Santa Claus forensic auditor, Professor
Speaker 2
Guy, the expert witness they had going into it. I thought to myself, like this might be kind of a tedious bit of testimony. It's a lot of like when you hear forensic accounting, but they,
Speaker 1
it was like a very simple PowerPoint with arrows. And we had already heard about all these entities and all these payments that we saw had already come up. Like we already knew K5. So then you see the volume of transactions going to K5. And I just think about the juror seeing that and they can have a little light bulb moment in their head the same way I did sitting there like that same guy, the Kim Kardashian relationship broker, they're giving him like increasing to a billion dollars. But that's what's really stuck out to me is how they like woven things in very expertly.
Speaker 3
I think you're right because I've mentioned, I think in a review, I did of Zeke Fox's book, Number Go Up. I mentioned how he does a really good job of explaining. It he's mostly explaining scams and frauds and stuff like that. He's not he doesn't delve into like, here's how Bitcoin works or something, right? Like he's he doesn't bother doing that. That's not the point of his book. So like on cryptocurrency Twitter, there's so many people who are like, why aren't why aren't they talking about tether? Or why aren't they talking about this exchange or this person or this? And I'm
Speaker 7
like, well, they don't have to. There's no need to bring
Speaker 3
in like a bunch of complicated shit. Ben and I started this podcast and it took us three hours to try to explain tether to no one. Like that's not even to a jury. Like, so I think you're right that it's not it's not even dumbing it down. It's just being respectful and saying like, okay, we're focusing on the fraud part of this. And that is not that has nothing to do
Speaker 2
with decentralization or immutable ledgers or whatever. Exactly. I could like imagine the prosecution that confuses the jury so much by being like, and then the blockchain is and
Speaker 1
it's like, no, it doesn't. You know what?
Speaker 2
Like, it's very simple. It's very old. It's very something
Speaker 1
you've seen before, something we all know. And the judge has been kind of the proxy of that. Like he's been, I
Speaker 2
noticed that sometimes he asked questions in terms of like, oh, so it's like a car loan. And you
Speaker 1
know, so he like, he puts it into terms where it's like, it doesn't matter that this is Genesis lending to, you know, like you don't don't don't worry about that. It's a car loan. It's a depreciating asset. You know, it's a, you know, whatever it is. And so
Speaker 2
that's been like kind of my biggest takeaway that the I think prosecution was very effective on that front. You mentioned K5 there.
Speaker 4
Could you talk a little bit about what K5 is and what Sam Bankman freed's relationship
Speaker 2
with this firm was? I think it was in the shots testimony. Um, it could be wrong about when it was first introduced, but it was the importance to Sam of these kind of relationship brokers. And, you know, um, something that I've noticed the prosecution doing throughout is that they never miss an opportunity to show the extent to which FTX and Sam were in like the popular, um, imagination and sightlines. They show him on Good Morning America.
Speaker 1
They always have to put things in the record. So they want to introduce the fact that Shaquille O'Neal tweeted in terms of FTX. And so you've got this prosecutor saying they're
Speaker 2
saying, who is Shaq? And then it's kind of, you
Speaker 1
know, Shaquille O'Neal is an NBA player, but Sam was very excited about this new relationship he had with K5
Speaker 2
and the relationship brokers behind it, who were these kind of Hollywood power players. And he had been to an
Speaker 1
event and he wrote an email very excited about, I think, Kim Kardashian. It was funny reading the list of things and seeing who he was like excited about. He was like, I bet if I gave him, you know, 12 hours, I could get a dinner with, it was like Elon Musk and Kardashian. It was like his, Ariana was on it. It was like one must be on it and like two other people. It was like his idea of like the hardest to get for people in the world. So to
Speaker 1
was then wanting to invest into the tune of like a billion
Speaker 2
dollars and was kind of in the process of ramping up in that investment, this sort of joint venture. I was looking at some
Speaker 1
of the SPVs that K5 had and it's kind of a murderous row of a lot of the, you know, the, the hot
Speaker 2
tech companies of that era that he wanted to be involved with. And so it was just, you know, to the jury, it was just another story about how he was trying to become like a power player
Speaker 4
beyond just the crypto sphere. And Kate, you mentioned Shaq there. K5 also introduced to my believe to Larry David, who is obviously in their famous Super Bowl ad. And I believe Tom Brady as well. So several of like these key figures who are out there like putting FTX in the minds of people who aren't hosting cryptocurrency podcast. K5 was important. Oh, and Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, I think came through K5. I was going to say the Clintons were definitely adjacent to all those two. Yeah. Yeah. And Clinton and Blair, eventually came down to Scaramucci and Bankman Freed's crypto Bahamas conference where they were speakers. Yeah. And Scaramucci. So like what I was, I started saying earlier and
Speaker 2
interrupted my own self as usual, but like, um, even when they were doing like phone records and they had to kind of do the nitty gritty of like asking this FBI phone analysis, like, what was he doing on this date? And the reason they're doing that is basically to establish jurisdiction for why the Southern District of New York is trying this case. So it's, you know, it's kind of just that procedural kind of thing, but they don't miss an opportunity to tie each location to an email
Speaker 1
or a Slack message or a DM about like a social engagement that Sam had.
Speaker 2
And it was so funny how they did it.
Speaker 1
Cause I noticed it was
Speaker 2
like, started with like business associates we've heard of.
Speaker 1
Then suddenly it was like, you know, I forget like a celebrity. And then it was like Eric, like the mayor, Eric Adams,
Speaker 1
then it was the governor, then it was
Speaker 2
former president Clinton.
Speaker 1
And you know, and then it's like a, you know, some kind of minister of Saudi investment asking for an internship for his son. Like it was ever us. Like no matter how, how you get no matter what circles you're in, like someone's son needs an internship. So that was, you know, they've
Speaker 2
kind of done that same thing throughout. Like that's
Speaker 1
kind of how they even got, you know, the, the Kelsey Piper conversation into evidence was like kind of in a similar way. It was in the context of like, how does Twitter work?
Speaker 2
And then they sort
Speaker 3
of built into that. The moment that I ended up reaching out to you, um,
Speaker 3
the show was you, you were. We're applying. I have no need to name names. You were replying to someone and acquaintance and friend of Bennett and I had a tweet that was entered into, uh, into evidence and you were letting him know, like, hey, you were entered into evidence today in the trial. And he was like, which tweet. And it was something about it. He was being sarcastic and trolling and saying something about adding more funds into
Speaker 5
his FTX account as everything was collapsing. And I, and
Speaker 3
tell me if I'm getting this wrong, but I believe it was entered into evidence because Sam liked that tweet. So
Speaker 1
long story short, you know, yeah, I was sitting in, in the courtroom and I see kind of, yeah, someone I know on Twitter to be a, you know, a ship poster. And it's, it's a tweet that's kind of like playing into the, it was during the collapse and he's like, you know, he, I'm paraphrasing, but it's very like steady lads. Like I'm, I'm adding more funds. You know what I mean? Like, I know I'm, I'm mixing
Speaker 3
a mixing metaphor. It was basically, it was basically requoting do quan. Yes. You're right. Yes.
Speaker 1
That's what it was. That was the, that was the gist of it. And the SPF liked it and the in the
Speaker 2
context of why it
Speaker 1
was, why it was entered into evidence. They were sort of using it as an example of what does it look like when SPF likes a tweet? What does it mean to like a tweet? Like they were
Speaker 2
interviewing, I think like a camera if it was a Twitter. I think it was a state, a Southern District of New
Speaker 1
York employee who was in on the social media team who, you know, extracts the forensic analysis. It's like, I'm like, Sam, you know,
Speaker 2
Mr. Yeah. So that was why the tweet was an evidence, but they never missed an opportunity to show something that the jury is going to see. And maybe
Speaker 1
they'll remember that in their mind, someone opened an account, but it's not like they had to prove that this was like, as
Speaker 2
they always say, like, it's not entered for the truth. It's entered for the state of, yeah, mind, which, you know, my first
Speaker 1
day in court, I had to turn to someone to be like, what does it mean when they say this all the time? You know, I'm, I'm
Speaker 2
a novice and court, just like anyone. And
Speaker 1
I've, I've gotten very familiar with that. But it's interesting, like kind of to see how that works and what can and can't go into evidence.
Speaker 2
But yeah, so that tweet was kind of was an
Speaker 1
example of that. And it was very funny when the, the tweeter found out he was now,
Speaker 3
you know, entered into the record. And it's been entered into and like, you know, I was excited.
Speaker 1
Was that your Caroline's testimony? I can't remember.
Speaker 3
Yes, I believe that. Yes. It's interesting to me how it's spanned. It's like this trial spans both the celebrity world and this like exclusive, you know, billionaires club and all this crazy shit that we think is real and I guess Israel, you know, that, that kind of stuff. And then meanwhile, it's also just
Speaker 5
Twitter that we're all on and interacting with and seeing the same stupid posts and it's getting
Speaker 3
entered into evidence. It's, it's wildly weird. It just is such a weird sensation. And then reading your article, it just feels like it's really weird to be in the courtroom too. Like the energy feels weird. It sounds like
Speaker 6
everything is odd all the time. And a little off like,
Speaker 7
can you, can you give me a sense
Speaker 3
of the courtroom? I just, yeah, I appreciated your description. Sometimes I wonder, like, am I reading too much
Speaker 2
into, oh, I think the
Speaker 1
jury yawned at this moment. But to me, like, and when I was pitching this to my editors and kind of explaining how I would want to cover this, I was like, to me, this is like covering
Speaker 2
like a sporting event. And I don't say that to diminish it. But like,
Speaker 1
it's kind of like, you know, you're capturing like the swings of emotion and the people involved and the fact that it's humans. And just when you think that you can like bet on what's going to happen, like some, someone comes out of the woodwork and does something strange. And so I think like I've felt it most when two of the cross-examination. So like, I thought Caroline's cross-examination, they just like weren't landing anything and you could just look around and look at the jury. And it just was easy to see that even when they would sort of try it, like, there was a few times when they tried to sort of bring up the like, you wanted to crush the competition. And they're implicitly referencing like another of Sam's like one time girlfriends, but the jury doesn't know that. And they didn't like ever say that. So you could like watch those things just not just sort of wither on the vine. And you could just feel it. You could just watch the jurors, like looking around.
Speaker 2
And then there's other times when you can see them looking back and forth. And I thought his job's cross testimony was a time when the defense actually was, you know, doing a good job of like, I don't know, just, you know, nudging him like in a way that I thought
Speaker 2
were going to do to Caroline Moore, just getting under his skin, kind of making him look a little squirmy.
Speaker 1
He's obviously of the three kind of inner circle people that testified to me was the most emotional guy. And that was clear through all of his testimony direct and otherwise. But
Speaker 2
they dug into that a little bit. And I don't think they undermined anything that he said, but
Speaker 1
I think you could just see the difference in like what was successful
Speaker 2
just in watching the jury kind of be
Speaker 1
enlivened by it and going back and forth, like the volley of it versus just being like, what are they? Talking about FTX fiat account, like, nomenclature,
Speaker 3
like, I mean, that's like what the Caroline Cross was very strange. There's a moment in your article that you described and no one else. I don't remember anyone else describing this, especially the way you did, which was they first go, can
Speaker 6
you point to Sam Bankman freed? And she's like, yes. And then she starts looking for him and can't find him. And they're like, you can stand up if you can't see him. And so she stands up and she still can't see him.
Speaker 3
I know you didn't say this in the article. But in my mind, I'm just like, I'm thinking like a juror or maybe just a maybe just a normal human being and going like, why can't you find him? And I get
Speaker 6
in your article, you mentioned like he was in a weird spot in the courtroom and stuff, but like, and he had a new haircut. But still you're
Speaker 3
like, how familiar are familiar? Are you with this guy? If you can't spot him, like he was your boss for over a year, like, why can't you find this guy in the court? And you're just like,
Speaker 6
get, find him, you know, like
Speaker 3
what, what is going on?
Speaker 3
like in those moments, I'm just wondering if yeah,
Speaker 6
if you have any other moments like that to like where you're just like on pins and needles or frustrated or like you
Speaker 2
can just sense it in the courtroom. Well, I was kind of like looking forward to that moment because I was asking,
Speaker 1
I was like, wait, do they really have to like, you know, you see that there's things you stay on TV.
Speaker 2
And that was one of them
Speaker 1
like, wow, you really do stand in point. And yeah, she couldn't find him. And then right after that, which I actually think settled the tension in the room, they were like, what's he wearing? Like they have to say what he's wearing. And you could tell she didn't know like how like that's the other thing. So many of these people testifying are such literal people. And it's been very funny to like hear their answers to things. But she's a suit and you can see the jurors chuckling and you're like, OK, here we go. And now we begin
Speaker 4
on that note, which
Speaker 1
is probably actually the right note. I mean, a lot of the very
Speaker 2
like major moments in the court have been judge related. He's very he's been very vocal, you know, and I'd say
Speaker 1
on both sides, he's definitely kind of, you
Speaker 2
know, he nips at the prosecution from time to time. But he really he
Speaker 1
really wrecks the defense and to a point where sometimes you can see the jurors feel like they're almost in on the joke. Like, oh, this defense, am I right? Like these guys again. And he's kind of cultivated this mood in the
Speaker 2
courtroom that's sort of like these chuckleheads need
Speaker 1
to get their act together a little bit. And and I feel like that's true to say, like I don't want to accuse him of being like one sided because I don't think he is. I think he's just reacting to different
Speaker 2
calibers of preparation for the case. And you know, different calibers of like what they have to prepare the case with.
Speaker 3
Sometimes I think to myself, like the defense only has so much. Well, they have a million pages of discovery or whatever. But your point's taken and it's interesting to me because I don't been it's too young for this. And I'll I'll assume you're too young for this too. But as a child, I'm going to date myself here. But as as a as a child, I do recall my mom was obsessed with the OJ trial.
Speaker 3
constantly, I would hear it like and it was played live. I don't even understand exactly like it. It wasn't I guess it was a state case, right? So it wasn't a federal case. So they were playing it live and it was this huge media event.
Speaker 3
actually distinctly remember everyone talking about judge his name was Judge Edo and him being this like yeah, Lance Edo exactly.
Speaker 7
And he was like a
Speaker 3
huge personality in this trial. And for like all the wrong reasons, like everyone hated that
Speaker 6
spectacle because he knew that it was being broadcast across the world and stuff.
Speaker 3
And I think what's really refreshing to me about Judge Kaplan is that it's like, this isn't being broadcast. This is it might be a big trial and the media is there or whatever. But like this guy is not saying the stuff because he wants the whole public to see it and he can get a TV show out of it or something. Like you know that this is him being like, what are you guys doing or what? Like he's he's like an old cranky man that's that doesn't like what these lawyers are doing with their repetition and their
Speaker 7
The one I don't know if I mentioned this in the Danny episode. I think I did, but he said something about like
Speaker 3
some people won't be alive in 10 minutes. And I'm just
Speaker 1
like, yeah, the other day, like he was getting mad about, you know, they brought this guy from Texas who's like worked at Google basically to
Speaker 2
establish that this is the metadata. And this is the chosen Carolina listen access to document and make me free access document. And that was it. That was like the whole reason he was there. And the judge was like, why wasn't this just like a fact that was agreed upon as like, why did we have to testify to this? And at one point he said, and this was he sends a jury out of the room when he was doing this kind of admonishment. But he said at one point, this is a crime.
Speaker 1
And then he was like, not as big as the crime in question, but like a crime nevertheless. He's been a very big factor in the case. And I mean, I think early on the,
Speaker 2
I think like in the very, very first stage is the case was assigned to a different judge who accused herself because her husband worked for a firm
Speaker 1
and had worked with FTX or I mean, I forget the exact connection. But just to think about how different of a case it might have been or not to make another sports analogy. But
Speaker 2
in the same way where when I first covered a basketball game and team, I remember being very like, wow, the agents kind of run all this shit. Like in a way that I guess I knew, but I didn't really know
Speaker 1
it's all about the agents. And like when you meet all this, the beat writers, all they care about is talking
Speaker 2
to the agents and what the agent said.
Speaker 1
And I feel like it's kind of like that with the judge. Like, of course, I know that a judge runs the courtroom, but like to really see it in action to
Speaker 1
they are the liaison to the jury
Speaker 2
and they can shut things down so fast or they can allow things. And that's been really interesting in this case. And you know, and also he's going to be the guy that sentences, I
Speaker 3
think, Caroline and Gary and the shot.