Ep. 97: SBF Trial Briefing, October 30. "That's Not How I Remember It." Sam Gets Cross-Examined.

[00:00] . [00:00] Hi. Hi. How's it going on the front lines? Week five of the SBF trial. Here we are. We are here. I finally have some language for what our look at the SBF, our reporting is of the SBF trial. Atmospheric. [00:16] yes atmospheric reporting not even reporting i don't know telling an atmospheric telling an atmospheric reading of reading i heard a reporter be like someone was like who are you um who are you with two reporters were talking and he was like oh you know i'm just doing an atmospheric piece and i was like me too same babe so what was the atmosphere of the room today cross examination [00:46] story of today. [00:47] So the government gets to ask SBF questions. [00:53] about his testimony and his experience. My own personal vibe leaving is there's like a little bit of like depressive [01:02] because you're witnessing someone and you're thinking, wow, it's possible to make that bad of a decision and many decisions over and over and over again. It's just like to see that makes you think, [01:16] Wow. Anybody could make that bad of a decision. I, I could make this bad of a decision, which is not true because I never would, but. [01:25] It's happening before my eyes. It's possible. It's possible to have made a series of incredibly bad decisions. Okay. So the vibe high level is he's no good. Not in a good place. It's not good for him. He's not coming off well with the cross-examination. He seems agitated. He reminded me of like a petulant child. If you've ever babysat a child who their parents don't discipline them, and then you're babysitting them, and they're the worst to be around because they don't listen to

[01:55] and they're annoying and they never let you correct them. That is SPF on the stand. Wow. A damning report. The one thing that I saw on Twitter that came out of today was the court illustration. Have you seen it? Yeah. Why do they keep making him look more and more handsome? The big talk in the overflow room is that it seems that he has a bald spot that's emerged right in the front lobe region. Okay. That's not what's coming across in this photo. [02:25] an inaccurate illustration of the man. I also am like, did they put it through that Yasify app? [02:32] Because it literally looks like that. SPF Yasified. No, the talk of the town is whether he just had a bad haircut or if he's balding right in the front. I mean... I don't know that he's balding, though. It looks like he just went... [02:42] like it's a weird, it just seems like it was maybe like a, a prison haircut, you know? Do you know the, um, the Demi Lovato meme where she's, [02:51] Like a really unflattering photo was taken of her. [02:53] Do you know this meme? I'm not familiar. I'm unfamiliar. Okay. Well, there's a meme. [02:58] that's kind of like this where it's like is it bad lighting and a bad angle or is it a bad haircut or is it just like a bad kind of face and hair situation hold on let me send you a put lovato [03:10] You've definitely seen that. Oh my God. This picture. Yes. This is so bad.

[03:18] she's so beautiful, which is, you know, honestly, such a good comparison of what they look like on the camera. Anybody testifying on the courtroom camera, they don't have a ring light. Let's just say that. So essentially SPF is refusing to give anything to her. She's having to fight the, [03:39] for everything. And what that means is she'll ask him a question and he'll say, I don't recall or not to my knowledge, or I wouldn't put it that way, or that's not how I remember it, or that's not how I testified or any combination of those sorts of things. And then she'll ask him a few more clarifying questions about how he doesn't remember, or if he thinks he didn't say that, or if he just doesn't think that that's an honest testimony. And then he'll do the same thing and [04:09] We're going to pull up evidence 3725 to be presented. And then it's a voluminous amount of evidence speaking to whatever question she just asked to prove that he did know or he did say or it was written. And then he's in a corner and then he'll sort of crumble and then say, oh, well, that's I guess that is what it says there. [04:33] Or I guess that's what that document said. Or I guess that's what that reporter said. So it ends up being an incredibly tedious back and forth and tedious testimony because she's having to do so much work to get to the point. Which you could argue, okay, he's doing a good job because it's drawing it out and it's taking a long time. She's having to really build her case. But how it reads to me and how it reads to, I think, the jury is that he's being dishonest and that he's a liar and that he's not being cooperative.

[05:03] way because he'll constantly correct him and say, answer the question, yes or no, and sort of course correct so that we're not here all day doing this. [05:11] that's a general vibe the other big note is that [05:14] All of. [05:16] the interviews and tweets and TV appearances and conversations with journalists and DMs with journalists that every single person in the world told SPF, do not do this. Why is he doing this? Is being brought into court as evidence to his knowledge of what was going on. It's [05:37] It's like a literal cautionary tale. [05:39] Of, you know, when people are like, well, I mean, is it really going to be that bad? Yeah, it's that bad. And it's just like you're looking at these dumbass tweets or you're looking at these pieces of journalism and you're like, he didn't have to do any of that. [05:52] Any of it. So that's all being used as evidence to his knowledge of this or catching him in this lie or making sure that there's a track record of X, Y, or Z. So – [06:03] That's sort of the high level takeaway of today. How that kind of comes to life, there's a few good examples of that. So she touched on two different specific interviews. She touched on a lot more, but a Zeke Fox interview, I think the title of the article is like 11 hours with SBF after the collapse of FTX or something like that. And she used that as evidence to talk about Alameda research had a different set of rules than other market makers on the platform.

[06:33] And so other market makers on the platform did receive loans from FTX, but they were collateralized loans and they had to stay on the exchange. There's a ton of rules around how they could utilize the loan that they were receiving from FTX. And Alameda totally obviously didn't have to play by any of those rules. YOLO terms. Exactly. And they pulled up a document that showed that Alameda Research's line of credit with FTX was $65 billion. [07:03] to a market maker. So quite a big disparity between them and the next biggest one. She was trying to get at the fact that he knew that Alameda had different rules set. And [07:13] for them compared to other market makers. And he just was dodging it and wouldn't. And he said, I disagree. That's not how I see it. No, blah, blah, blah. And then she used that article and statements in that article and direct quotes from that article and things he said on the record in that article that proved that he knew that. So that's one example of how she did that. And then at one point he said, I disagree with nearly every article written about me during this [07:43] Another example of this is Josh Oliver, who's a Financial Times reporter. He had done an interview with him, and she used that article and what he had said on record to prove that he knew that in order for everything, [07:58] Alameda research to cover the loans that were being recalled back in May, that they would have to borrow customer funds from FTX in order to pay back those loans, which he, again, was dodging the whole time and saying that he didn't know that. And there are...

[08:12] direct quotes and he told this reporter that basically he knew that back in may and not in september so that's a way that she was sort of utilizing articles to prove that he knew certain things at certain times when he's pretending that he didn't did they mention the tiffany fong rolling stone they did not okay did you see it she got a big write-up and i did see that there was one line from it where she was like yeah i'm just like i'm just like [08:35] a normal girl and I found myself in the middle of this like huge serious thing and it was yeah a hilarious quote then another thing that I think she did really well was drew this narrative and had a good strategy to talk about how he was making a ton of venture investments or Alameda research was making a ton of venture investments and that he guided those investments and then they went through this whole line of questioning about whether or not he felt like they should have made those investments or not he's been saying we should have hedged more we should have [09:05] line to hedge more. We should have been hedging against these investments, illiquid investments and venture investments. She basically gets to this point where she walks [09:13] through these different pieces of evidence showing the different venture investments that they made over time so dave inc investments skybridge capital investment k5 holding investment robin hood shares so she's going through all these investments and then she gets to the robin hood shares and so he's saying yes yes yes he's agreeing that these were investments that he guided or that he was participant in and she then walks through okay great you made this venture investment into

[09:43] came from customer funds, basically. And then there's this affidavit after the bankruptcy that shows he's trying to claw out the Robinhood shares, which is $650 million at this point. [09:54] for himself and he was trying to claim oh we were just trying to clear up the bankruptcy proceedings a web of lies and then one final thing on this robin hood thing that's a great example of how she's building the case really convincingly and in a way that's so damning to him and then she just puts the nail in the coffin with being like so embarrassing to him and she says is it true that after the ftx collapse you tried to have the broker give you the shares without thinking about it and she says it like that without thinking about it and you're like [10:24] she's got something. She's got something that has him saying exactly that without thinking about it. And he was like, um, I don't, I'm not sure. [10:34] And she was like, "You're not sure? You don't recall?" And he was like, "Um, I, I, [10:39] Can't remember. I don't think I said that. She's like, so it's your testimony that you don't think you said that? And he was like, yes, that's my testimony. She's like, okay, great. Can we bring up exhibit? And you're like, oh yeah, here it is. Here are the receipts. And it's like a to-do list. And on the to-do list, it says, should I try crawling the broker for hood to see if he'll just give me the shares without thinking about it? He's so stupid. Oh man. Well, it was a lot of that. They talked a lot about the spreadsheets and the balance sheets. We don't need to get into that. [11:09] sort of just showing that he lies and that he can't be honest about anything. He also talked about an investment in the media company, the block, and that he bought a $16 million condo for the CEO of the block. And he was squirrely about that as one would be. And that's what's going on. So what's up next is we have a few more hours of cross-examination in the morning. And then the defense, I think, gets an opportunity to clarify some things, which I'm sure they will

[11:39] have something called a rebuttal, which essentially means the [11:42] government gets to bring new [11:44] witnesses to the stand. So they have two witnesses they're going to bring an FBI agent and an employee from Apollo. So that's probably going to be the rest of the day tomorrow. So I think closing arguments, I think on Wednesday. [11:57] That's where we're at. Wow. Thank you so much. One other atmospheric update. I'm always, always wanting an atmospheric update. The vibe. I was behind Michael Lewis in the cafeteria today. Did you hex him? No. Someone was talking to him quite aggressively about... [12:16] everything i had heard that he was in an overflow room today because he got some heat last week for being in the friends and family area [12:24] People didn't like that. Yeah. Major ick. Totally. Icky. Totally. So are people, where do you mean gossip? Are you just like overhearing conversations or are you? Yeah. [12:33] You're always over here in conversation. But you're not like talking to anyone. [12:36] I chat every once in a while, but I don't know. It's like a weird energy. It's like, [12:41] Got a very distinct vibe. Also, some people are like working. They're like writing things down. They're rushing to somewhere or you have like a 10 minute window to like rush down and get something to eat. When you're waiting in line, you'll chat or when they sidebar and it's quiet in the overflow room, how it all works. So there's overflow rooms and there's really good seats in the overflow room where you have your own TV and you're in a plush chair and it's really nice. And then there's really bad ones where you're in the pews and you're really far from a screen and there's a hierarchy to the chairs.

[13:11] get there today and I'm in a horrible seat all the way in the back in a pew no screen and it's really full the overflow room and so I was like oh man and then lots more people start coming in and then once you know that that overflow room is overflowing you have to open up a new overflow room but they don't like to do that and so I'm like starting to get the sense that [13:29] new overflow room is coming and you got to move quick because you got to be at the front of the line when they open those doors to get into your good seat. Yeah. And so I'm like starting to put my stuff in my bag, but also they don't let you if you have a seat. Totally. Of course. It's honestly sounds a little unethical. So I'm putting my stuff away. I'm starting to like slide out of my seat. And one guy like nods to another guy, like, okay, new overflow room needs to come. [13:59] start moving and I was like already up so they couldn't be like stay in your seats and so I'm like at the door and then we all get out of the room and I asked one of the security guards I was like what what overflow room we're going to and he was like 24b [14:13] And he just says it to me. And I was like, excellent. So we get out. Everybody's waiting for the elevator. I don't wait for the elevator. I sprint up the stairs to 24 B to be first in line. Nice. So I'm like huffing and puffing, but trying to be cool about it. So I'm like, I come up to unlock the door and I got a good seat. But I was definitely like, they were all like, what the, what the, [14:34] insider trading just downstairs what happened and i was like oh just made it up here just in time so anyway just a little courtroom drama i love it i love it i could not love it more so we'll see you maybe tomorrow we'll see non-committal non-committal planet by ear