Aug. 23, 2016 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
22:47
3389 DNC Fraud: Bernie Sanders Donors File Lawsuit | Jared Beck and Stefan Molyneux
Documents recently emerged showing that the Democratic National Committee opposed Bernie Sanders and actively worked against his campaign. Jared Beck joins Stefan Molyneux to discuss the class action lawsuit which bis being lead against the Democratic National Committee and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz for outright supporting Hillary Clinton’s campaign instead of remaining neutral.Jared Beck practices at Beck & Lee Trial Lawyers and also founded the progressive grassroots Super PAC JamPAC. JamPAC: http://www.jampac.usFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DNCfraudlawsuitLawfirm: http://www.beckandlee.comFreedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
Pleased to be joined today by Harvard graduate and attorney Jared Beck.
So, as a husband and wife attorney team, Jared and Elizabeth Beck practiced at their law firm Beck& Lee Trial Lawyers and also founded the Progressive Grassroots Super PAC Jam PAC. It's a great name.
They are, in fact, as we speak, leading a class action lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee and Debbie Wasserman Schultz for Thank you very much,
Thank you very much.
Well, I think that among the folks who were in the Bernie Sanders camp, there had always been a lot of frustration as the primaries were being held because there were Reports of voter suppression and funny things going on at the polls and so forth.
But in terms of the legal case, lawyers to file lawsuits, we need documents.
We need evidence.
You can't file a lawsuit based on a hunch or a suspicion.
You have to do it on the basis of...
A plausible theory that's supported by evidence.
Any good lawyer knows that.
And so when Guccifer 2.0 started putting out documents that it said had been obtained from the DNC's own servers, and when the DNC didn't dispute that these documents were indeed authentic DNC documents,
that is what provided us as attorneys With a colourable legal basis to file a federal lawsuit against the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty, deceptive conduct, and other claims based on false representations, unconscionable conduct committed in the course of the democratic nominating process.
So there are six major complaints as far as I understand it.
I wonder if you could help step people through what the complaints are and the reasoning behind them.
Right.
So the DNC is a corporation and just like any other corporation, whether that's Apple, IBM, Chevron, you name it, the civil law It holds a company responsible, civilly liable, when it commits torts, recognized torts under the law.
And so what we've pled in this complaint are six separate claims that set forth the elements of torts committed by the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz based on fraudulent conduct.
Based on misrepresentations, based on the fact that the DNC was not following its own charter, which requires it to be impartial and neutral with respect to the candidates for the nomination.
And this obligation of neutrality was repeated publicly over and over again by Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other officials of the party.
And so people contributed a lot of money to Bernie Sanders, a historic amount of money for somebody with no major super PACs backing him.
People contributed an enormous amount of money based on their belief, their faith in the American system of democracy, that this was going to be a fair and free nominating process and that people's votes were going to be counted that this was going to be a fair and free nominating And that the DNC was going to be taking a neutral and impartial position with respect to all the candidates.
In other words, not picking favorites.
So, you know, in a sports league like the NFL, I mean, the NFL can't favor, you know, the New York Giants throughout the season.
And then, you know, I mean, we expect that there's a fair competition.
And so it's no different here.
And we believe we've got very, very strong, credible evidence that those representations were false.
And so we've pled six different claims on the basis of that theory.
And I think it's very clear cut.
Right.
So I guess as far as I understand it, you know, you go to eBay, you order an iPad, you just get an empty box.
When they say they're going to send you an iPad, that's not a great interaction.
And If I understand it correctly, the argument would be something along the lines of, well, if people who were donating to Bernie Sanders had known that the DNC had their fingers on the scale, they might not have because they would have said, okay, well, what's the point?
I mean, if it's not an even competition, then my money isn't going to make that much of a difference.
I'd rather keep it in my wallet.
Right.
Who wants to contribute to a rigged process?
Why would you ever do that?
I mean, we have thousands and thousands of people that have contacted us about this lawsuit.
And we've got people who have volunteered and signed up to be class representatives, some of whom gave thousands of dollars to Bernie Sanders.
I mean, we're talking lawyers, doctors, other professionals with a lot of money who put a lot of their own hard-earned money because they wanted to support Bernie Sanders in the campaign.
We also have people that gave $27 or even less.
And a lot of these people, we have homeless people.
We have people who are unemployed.
I mean, they were literally scraping up whatever they could to put it on, to put it towards Bernie Sanders' efforts.
Because they truly believed in the process.
And these are people who couldn't even afford to do it.
So absolutely, that's the theory.
It's a theory that you see over and over again in our legal system against corporations that engage in false advertising, which happens all the time.
And so there's no reason why that theory shouldn't apply to a political party or a national committee of a political party and its chairman or chairperson.
Well, and of course, one of the things is harder to quantify, of course, but I think of the people trudging up and down the streets, pounding in lawn signs, handing out brochures, engaging with people.
It's not just the money.
That's, of course, more quantifiable, but the time, the effort, the energy and something, of course, I don't know, it's legally difficult to quantify, but enthusiasm for the democratic process.
I mean, if people have been burned this badly by a rigged system, what is their level of enthusiasm next time?
And what does that cost them in terms of their feeling that they're part of a democratic process that's fair?
Right.
And that's all very true.
I agree with everything you've said, and I'd even take it a step further.
I mean, you know, our legal system, you know, quantifies legal harm.
And so the sheer amount of money that was put into Bernie Sanders campaign by people from all across the country, that's a huge part of this case because that's the most quantifiable aspect of the damage.
But as you pointed out, there's a part, an aspect that can't easily be quantified.
So if this conduct doesn't stop, what are our elections going to look like going forward?
I mean, this is from my perspective, this is such a huge blow to our democracy, Such a huge blow to the confidence in our institutions that unless you have fundamental changes to the way that the Democratic Party conducts its affairs, then you really don't have much of a democracy in this country.
That's my opinion.
And so not only have we asked for all the monetary relief to be in court, but we've also asked for injunctive relief.
From our position, it may take injunctive relief of some type from the court to address these non-quantifiable harms, but that's what injunctive relief is for.
And just how people sort of understand what that term means in the moment?
Yes, so a court sitting in equity, a federal court, not only has the power to award damages, but it also has the power to issue injunctive relief, which is You know, it's not, it goes beyond the payment of money.
So a court can really fashion a remedy, you know, with a great deal of flexibility depending on the circumstances.
And so that's, you know, really gives our justice system a great deal of authority and power in situations where there's a serious fraud going on and something needs to be done and Right, so they can just compel particular changes in behavior or processes in the moment, right?
Exactly.
Right, right.
Yeah, it is, because there's so many countries around the world that we would not characterize as really rigorously democratic, which claim to have elections.
I'm thinking of the old Stalinist thing, you know, 99% of people vote for Stalin and the other 1% are in a gulag somewhere.
So there is often this sort of appearance of choice while there's sort of banana republic machinations occurring behind the scenes.
And nobody's saying America's that far gone yet, but it seems like you want to try and deal with this potential issue earlier rather than later.
Right.
And I think that one of the things that really sets this country apart from other countries around the world is the enormous power that our two political parties have Over the process itself.
And so just think about this for a moment.
We have this system of government in place, which is a democratic system, and we have elections and all of what you need to have in a democracy, but then all of the major decisions about how those elections are conducted are actually in the hands of the parties themselves.
And so it really gives them an enormous amount of authority in our country and I believe a great responsibility.
And so when they're failing in that responsibility, something needs to be done.
I mean, we're pursuing the legal avenue because we have a lot of faith in our judicial system and in the great ability of courts to fashion remedies.
And this, of course, is one of the fascinating aspects of this very exciting election season in America that we look at sort of Trump and Bernie Sanders, which I think are two shadows cast by people's frustrations with the existing system and what some people view as sort of a hydra, like the same body politic with two pseudo heads that are going on.
And it seems like this frustration that has, I mean, you could say polarized, but has given people interest in alternative candidates.
I mean, the rise of Bernie Sanders was unprecedented to sort of my knowledge of American electoral history.
And it seems like there's this process going on at the moment, which is people are frustrated with the status quo and are looking for alternatives.
But the status quo is working, as it generally does, to maintain the status quo.
And it sort of feels like this – what may have occurred with the DNC is part of that process of just keeping the outliers at bay and keeping the core system going.
Yeah.
I mean this is – those are very interesting observations, beyond the scope of our lawsuit because I would just say as an observer of politics that it may very well be that the United States has outgrown the two-party system.
Issues today in today's world are just too complex to only provide people with a choice between two basic options.
I I mean, if you go to Europe, most of the parliamentary democracies that you see, they have numerous political parties that have to compete, and they form coalitions.
And so that's a very...
Democratic, widespread way of doing things that we don't do here in the United States, but maybe we should.
And so maybe the outcome of all this, you know, of course, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, they seem to be gaining unprecedented attention through this election because of the frustrations that we're all seeing.
And so maybe this is the birth of a new type of system for the United States that incorporates More than two parties, because personally, I think it's ludicrous that you would entrust the entirety of a democracy to just two parties.
It seems anti-democratic inherently to me.
Well, of course, just have conversations with people about politics.
You don't come across just two opinions.
I mean, there's a much wider range than is represented by the bichromatic non-rainbow of the American political choice, which is kind of frustrating for people who feel, okay, I've got to wedge myself.
It's like those Japanese game shows.
You've got to wedge yourself into various shapes to get through things.
It's like, how much do I have to compromise to get the little bit that I want?
And that, of course, is a larger question.
But I think there's a lot of frustration around that as well, because the two party system is kind of in the process of being dismantled in some ways with with Trump and with, of course, the support for Bernie Sanders that was around.
I think people are straining at the bit to try and get something different, something new.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm optimistic that maybe we will get to a new place, but in the short term, it seems like there's going to be some tumultuous times politically here because we have a general election coming up that I think is producing a lot of frightening passions and In the population that suggests a lot of anger
and discontent.
So just two quick questions, I guess a call to action.
I want to make sure that people know where to get the information to join in what you're doing.
Just an amateur, non, of course, legal question.
Fruit of the poison tree, given that the documents were obtained without the permission, of course, of the DNC, how do they remain relevant or admissible in a lawsuit?
Well, you know, Authenticity, I mean, this is, of course, something, you know, the authenticity and reliability of evidence is something that is determined in the course of the litigation process through what is called discovery.
And so what happens in discovery is that Both sides obtain documents from each other and from third-party sources using subpoenas and depositions are conducted on the basis of those documents.
And so the whole point of discovery is to gather the evidence and test the evidence so that ultimately when it's presented in court, there are arguments and counterarguments going to authenticity and so forth.
This is sort of an interesting situation for us as lawyers because the case has only just been filed, and yet we already have a massive amount of information out there.
Originally, of course, there were documents put up by Gucifer 2.0, and then of course we have a massive amount of documents released by WikiLeaks, and who knows what the future holds, of course, in terms of documents.
So, you know, I'm not sure even if or how that issue is going to come up in this litigation at this point, because, you know, while we've certainly used those documents as the basis for our pleading, we are not really anywhere close to any of the evidentiary phases of this.
It may not come up at all.
Or the defendants may have arguments.
I don't know.
But it's hard for me to address that now.
Right.
Now, one of the issues that you've pointed out is negligence.
The DNC did not protect donor information from hackers.
And the question of anonymity or privacy in political support is a pretty intense one.
These days.
And what are the issues that you have in that area?
Well, the issues are basically the same issues that come up all the time in class actions that are filed these days whenever a personal data is breached by a hacker at a large corporation such as Target or There's a recent case.
There was a big case about that.
I think there was one involving Sony not too long ago.
Basically, a hacker gets in and steals a whole bunch of private data.
Then, of course, the claim is that the company failed to protect everyone's data.
In this day and age, it's a huge issue.
We entrust so much of our personal information and data to large corporations that there is a duty of care that they owe us not to just leave it lying around.
Of course, with the DNC, not only did they lose their own emails to various actors, But they lost people's data because when you make donations to a political party,
you give them a lot of information with your donation and they keep a lot of information on you because they want to keep coming back to you to get more money because of that relationship.
To the extent that they didn't safeguard the data of their own donors, it's sort of a You know, it's a little bit of a separate theory than the fraudulent conduct claims in the complaint.
But at the same time, it's also a very, very serious issue.
And it goes to just, you know, frankly, just how careful our leaders are, our political, our politicians are with our personal information.
Yeah, I guess if you lend your car to someone and it gets stolen, but they left it running with the keys in, there's a little bit of a different situation.
Yeah.
So thanks so much for your time today.
I want to remind people you can go to jampac.us.
Your law firm, of course, is Beck and Lee, I guess like Glenn and Stan.
Beckandlee.com.
What are the standards by which, if people want to join the class action lawsuit, Jared, what are the standards by which they would need to be included?
Well, that's a really good question because we get so many emails and calls to our office every day now, people wanting to participate.
So in a class action, the way it works is that a certain number of people that are called class representatives or named plaintiffs Basically, stand up and say, I'm going to be the representative plaintiff for this class of people.
And then in the course of the case, the court makes a determination that the case is indeed certifiable as a class action, at which point a notice goes out to all the class members.
So we're not at that stage yet, and we've already got numerous individuals who have agreed to And are serving as class representatives.
So the case is definitely off the ground.
You know, people really don't need to contact us at this point if they, you know, want to participate because if this case is indeed certified as a class action, there will be an official notice that gets disseminated to potential class members and it will have Instructions that are approved by the court, but we're not close to that stage yet.
If people just want to keep abreast of what's going on and the developments, then the website you mentioned is a good place to go because we post all of the documents that get filed to that site so people have access.
And we also have a Facebook page that people can follow if they're on Facebook so they can get notice of the documents and news coverage of the case as it progresses.
So that's what I tell people to do if they're interested in keeping close to the case for now.
Right, so...
Stay abreast of the situation, but let Jared concentrate at the moment.
Let him get to the process where it needs to be.
Well, thanks a lot for your time.
I am always enthusiastic and interested when people are doing the fundamental work of democracy, which is holding the powers that be accountable for their choices and their actions.
So I certainly appreciate what you're doing.
You're welcome back any time when there's a new update to keep people abreast.
