Tales of Abundance
Tales of Abundance artwork

All episodes

From Baseball Diamonds to Courtrooms: Former U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton on Investigations, and Cartels

Episode 43 · 30 September 2025 · 1 hr 8 min

Open on Spotify

Show notes

Johnny Sutton: From Texas Baseball to Former U.S. Attorney

Johnny Sutton wanted to play pro baseball, not practice law. Instead he won a national championship at Texas, became a prosecutor in Harris County, and went on to serve as U.S. Attorney. He sits down with Dr. John Oberg and Randy Lorensen.

The episode opens with John and Randy on AI in 2025: why adoption is moving faster than the internet did, how to make yourself indispensable, and why the best way to learn is to start with a free tool.

Then Johnny joins. He talks about playing at Texas alongside Roger Clemens, losing his SMU scholarship, and the summer jobs that pointed him toward the law. He tried his first case on his first day at the Harris County DA's office. Later, as U.S. Attorney, he oversaw a district with 660 miles of border, and he explains the cat-and-mouse game of drug smuggling, working with Mexico's attorney general, and the risks informants take.

Johnny also explains why a prosecutor's job is to do justice, not just win, the cases that changed his mind, and how he decides which news sources to trust.

A Former U.S. Attorney on Prosecuting Cartels, Keeping an Open Mind and Trusting the News

What you'll discover:

  • How a Texas baseball national championship led to law school
  • His first trial, on his first day at the Harris County DA's office
  • Why a prosecutor's duty is to do justice, and the cases that changed his mind
  • Prosecuting cartels and smuggling along a 660-mile stretch of border
  • Informants, flipping drivers, and the danger of being manipulated
  • How to find trusted news sources, plus John and Randy on AI and your job

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Welcome: John and Randy, and a preview of Johnny Sutton
  • [00:59] Current events: AI in 2025, and why adoption is faster than the internet
  • [04:19] "Is AI going to take my job?"
  • [05:27] How to make yourself indispensable, and Mark Cuban on side hustles
  • [06:08] Using AI where you're a domain expert vs. where you're not
  • [07:00] Image tools: from a penguin on a desk to memes and marketing
  • [10:47] Using AI to learn a skill or start a business
  • [14:03] 20 hours to get good vs. 10,000 hours to mastery
  • [14:54] Learn what it does and doesn't do: just start with a free version
  • [16:35] Sponsor break: Premium Cabinets
  • [17:29] Johnny Sutton joins
  • [18:32] He wanted to be a pro baseball player, not a lawyer
  • [19:23] Texas baseball, Roger Clemens and the pro scouts' law school applications
  • [20:16] "One of my least talented teams": the national championship
  • [21:03] Summer jobs: an international law firm and the top baseball agents
  • [21:59] The Harris County DA's office, and the start of a prosecutor's career
  • [22:16] What made that championship team special
  • [23:55] SMU, losing his scholarship, and peaking at the right time
  • [25:34] Why the DA's office instead of a big firm
  • [26:25] Speaking Spanish and negotiating cases as a law student
  • [29:03] His first trial, on his first day
  • [30:54] Information overload, and how to investigate
  • [32:51] Keeping an open mind: a prosecutor's duty is to do justice
  • [33:43] Listening to defense attorneys
  • [34:36] Cases that changed his mind, and the missing cocaine bong
  • [37:59] Being thorough, DNA, and getting accurate statements
  • [39:52] Why changing your mind is so rare in 2025
  • [42:46] Every prosecutor's worst nightmare
  • [42:58] LA Law, Law & Order, and what TV gets right
  • [44:15] Friction between police and prosecutors
  • [45:20] The work ethic of the Harris County office
  • [46:09] U.S. Attorney: 660 miles of border, drugs and immigration
  • [46:58] Is it dangerous to prosecute the cartels?
  • [48:43] Short break
  • [49:04] Back from the break: El Paso and the cartel war in Juárez
  • [51:42] The cat-and-mouse game of drug importation, and human smuggling
  • [53:09] Working with Mexico's attorney general
  • [55:01] Confidential informants and the risks they take
  • [56:43] Flipping drivers and working up the chain
  • [57:40] Why defendants cooperate, and the danger of being manipulated
  • [59:23] How Johnny takes in the news: trusted sources
  • [1:02:06] Reading both sides and trusting your instincts
  • [1:04:04] Finding trusted sources in a click-driven media
  • [1:05:40] Civics, disagreement, and Matt Taibbi
  • [1:07:31] Keep learning, and wrap-up

🌿 SPONSORED BY AG1 (Athletic Greens)

Fuel your health and performance from the inside out.

Try AG1: https://shop.drinkag1.com/tales

About Johnny Sutton

Johnny Sutton is a former U.S. Attorney and a partner at the law firm Ashcroft Sutton Reyes. He played on a national championship baseball team at the University of Texas and began his legal career as a prosecutor at the Harris County DA's office.

Find Johnny:

Find us online:

Hit Subscribe so you never miss an episode of Tales of Abundance. 🔔

Related episodes

Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:08] listeners. Glad to have you here. And today with me as always, Randy Lorensen and I'm Dr. John Oberg. Randy, how are you today? — Hi. I thought we were going to have I thought we were going to have our uh our third third one, the Italian Anthony, but he's uh too busy touring Sicily, which everybody will hear about soon. So, uh I thought he'd be back for this one. But — I'm actually excited about that. Yeah, he's still traveling. He just told me Sicily is the most beautiful place he's ever been. So, can't wait to get into that. Today, our guest is Johnny Sutton, former US attorney, uh now working as a partner with John Ashcraftoft at uh at Sutton Ashcraftoft and Reyes or Ashcraftoft Sutton and Reyes. And we're going to get into some cool stories, not just about the law, but actually some uh things about, you know, how how you form opinions and investigate and then some super cool stories about uh UT baseball uh with names you might know like Roger Clemens. Before we do that, we've got this uh thing we're trying out. Me and Randy, we're talking about some current events. And today in the current events, you can't really talk about current events without talking about AI. Isn't that true, Randy? — I I think in the 2025 that is true. It's the world we're in.

[01:13] — You know, one of the things you and my wife agree on is that I should be doing very little to name things in marketing. And I've been joking with her for for years. I've been saying you can't spell uh blockchain without AI. And that was always our kind of like inside joke about stupid dad jokes that I made. But it, you know, where it used to be 3D printing and then blockchain, AI has really uh delivered on the promises uh in a lot of ways already that to kind of in innovate and disrupt well, not just business, but really life as we know it, similar to the way the internet did. — Yeah. I I think it's going to I think it's going to do that more quickly than the internet. I think it's already doing it way more quickly than the internet. And we're still in the early adoption phase of where we're at. Most people are either not using it or I think there's a lot of people using it but using it at a pretty low level. — But but we're already seeing massive impact. I know because you know one of my sons is in college right now. He's a junior and I was talking to my wife about internships and a lot of large companies just don't have the same number of internships they have. There aren't the same number of jobs. And one of the things I hear consistently is it's going to take people you human in the loop systems, but that means humans have to be domain experts. And one of the concerns that I have is how do you train someone to be a domain expert if the entry- level jobs aren't available?

[02:34] — Well, don't you think the economy is going to become more entrepreneurial? And we've, you know, we did an EP an episode a while back on starting a business and our advice was don't do it, right? Like unless you have to. like you, I Anthony kind of all agreed it's not for everybody, but I think and and they may not be entrepreneurs as much as solo practitioners, right? Somebody that maybe they don't make as much money working for the one company, but maybe they make they work onetenth as hard for 10 different people, make onetenth as much to make the same amount doing something using AI. I I'm not really sure what it looks like. I think that's one of the futures that's possible, — And to me, that's a little bit like a history. You know, I joke about like the Little House on the Prairie past where you have, you know, craftsmen who are craftsmen doing specific things and having lots of different customers. And I think maybe we're going to get into this kind of AI craftsmanship mode. And I think you're going to have some big companies that have lots of prompt engineers and prompt engineer managers, and that's still going to be a thing. I think you're going to have large platforms, and I think you're going to have lots of independent people. And maybe that's not that different than today, but I do think it's a different skill set. And and I think that the amount of information and product and output, I think those things are going to change pretty dramatically over time.

[03:56] — Well, and I think I mean to put a finer point on the problem, right? I think there's kids graduating from college right now that are having a hard time getting a job because of AI, right? companies are using AI to replace junior programmers or any number marketing people, any number of different positions that they're replacing because of it. And I think that's a real problem. But I look at it even within my people are worried. I mean, when I talk about AI, like the the common thing, the thought process is, "Oh crap, I better get my resume ready. It's going to take my job." Which I think is I think is completely misplaced. And I know it is in our case, but it's a real fear people have. — I I think it depends, right? I think if you know, somebody asked me if people are going to be replaced by AI, and I think I I heard this and I repeated it. I didn't make this up. Uh it won't be that people are replaced by AI, it's that people will be replaced by people using AI.

[04:58] — Yeah, I think that's right. Right. I mean, I think — kind of like computers, like if you don't know how to how to type and use a computer, it's just harder to get a job these days. Not impossible, just harder. — Well, if you wanted to do deliveries of any product, right, everybody gets Amazon packages at their at their home. If you're going to do them in a horse and buggy, — you're probably not going to compete very well with people doing it in a car. — That's right. — That's right. — So, same same thing. I mean, it's just there'll be new opportunities. — And new thing new things that'll come around. But so, how does somebody make themselves indispensable? Or you had a I think there's two different topics. You actually let's start. You had a Mark Cuban quote about a side hustle thing. Do you want to go over that? — Yeah. I mean, he I I I don't remember the I read the article a couple days ago, but the he was like, you know, if I wanted to make a hundred grand as a side hustle, here's how I would do it today. And it was basically he would be a high school or college kid teaching other small businesses how to use AI in their business by knowing how to um automate and make easier, you know, parts of their business that are easy to use AI in. And I think um you know I again my son in college one of the things I've been talking to him about is like how do you use AI appropriately so when you come out of college you know how to leverage this technology but there's some danger here right because like if I use AI in a place that I'm not a domain expert it's easy for me to get off the rails. when I use AI in a place where I am a domain expert, it's easier to not get off the rails unless you're doing something like um maybe maybe more creative that doesn't require domain expertise. Like one of the things we talked about before today's session was Gemini's creator and some of the visuals that are coming out of that. Tell us about your experience. I mean it's cool stuff that's happening.

[06:45] — Oh, it's fantastic. So, anybody that hasn't used whether you know it started with MidJourney and Deli and Gemini and Grock, they all have image creators, right? And one of the things that frustrated me I've played with a lot for marketing materials just screwing around for kind of fun and seeing how it works is I would create an image and it would you know what I think the first image I ever tried creating was a penguin like on a desk drinking with a like mountains and an ocean in the background and I was just screwing around and it created something and I was like okay no change this right make or put the mountains in the background. Well, it then changed the front. It changed everything, right? And it would start over each time. Well, now if you want to do something, you if I do that, I say, "Okay, keep it the way it is, but this table, take it out or make it oval instead of round or any change, you can now direct it to keep the basic picture. and here's specifically what I want to change, which for people that haven't used it, it was fantastic before, but this is a big big upgrade because it's very seldom perfect the first time, right? And it takes a couple iterations.

[08:03] — Well, and it sounds like you've also improved your prompting. — Yeah, I have. But it the big thing no matter how much you improve your prompting sometimes it doesn't get you just miss the mark or it misunderstands or if your prompt is too detailed it's too much and it doesn't get it. So this is a way that you can refine the prompt after versus before. Yeah. That I also think makes it more efficient. So I think again this is a few weeks ago but I think this is a pretty cool update and just one sign of what's coming certainly. — Yeah. And so we didn't talk about this before we we kind of came on the air today, but like if you had to pick the top ways you could use this image creator, you've already mentioned one. You can use it for like marketing. You could use it for fun. What else would you use the image creator for? I've used it to create memes. Just screwing around. Like I've been on Twitter and I've posted things and I've wanted a certain meme and I've just created the meme, right? Like I I didn't know how to create a meme before, but I've done that. I've done it for, you know, I mean, marketing is the big thing I use it for, right? Like a lot of social media ads and, you know, things like that. Uh, you know, if people watch this podcast on YouTube, the shorts, I have AI that creates um, you know, the B-roll behind it. That's not a very sophisticated AI we're using there, but it still creates, you know, creates that B-roll automatically. I'm not really picking it. I just kind of hit a couple buttons and it happens. So, I mean there's I What do you use it for? I mean, do you use the image creator?

[09:42] — You know, I'm I'm wait I want to be able to use it to do like 30 second videos and I think the limit right now is about 8 seconds. So, it's not quite to a place where I can uh use it regularly for things that I want to do for like um training people, you know, training people internally or giving information to customers, whatever the case may be. Um, you know what's cool though is I just I just asked the same question of Gemini that I asked you like what could it be used for? And it's like, oh well, you can create animations on still images, you can experiment with creative concepts, you can do professional v. Like it gave me like 25 things you could use it for. Like I love that you can kind of take an AI and just learn from it. And you know, I just it hit me like younger generations and I even do this too. Like if I need to figure out how to fix something, I go to like YouTube and try to find out like what's the video. Now, you can just go straight into Gemini or AI and say, "Hey, like how do I figure out how to do this thing?" And if you don't get a good enough answer using the search bar, you can just go to Gemini or GPT, whatever the case may be, and just go straight into search.

[10:47] — I I think absolutely right. I mean, that is one of the great things is if you don't know what to do, like if somebody wants to learn a skill to become indispensable, right? If if let's say there's a kid getting out of school or maybe it's somebody in a company that feels like they're going to lose their job, you could go to whichever AI you're using and say, "Here's who I am. I'm a 45year-old male that lives in Lancing, Michigan, and I am afraid I'm going to lose my job doing so and so. I want to create skills in AI so that I can get the next job and grow from here and make myself Create a lesson plan to teach me this over the next 30 days or 60 days. And it will create a pretty darn good lesson plan, right? And then — Yep. you can just go then you can say okay let's execute teach me the first — Yeah and I think I think it's good to have like and start talking to other people along the path right and see what they're learning because just like you and I do this all the time like we talk about AI and you'll teach me something then I'll go use what you've taught me and it's like hey that's awesome and then I'll come back to you and say hey when I did that did you know X Y and Z and usually like yeah I already knew that but sometimes you're like yeah that's that's great didn't know that.

[12:01] So, I think finding other people who are on the journey with you that you can kind of learn from each other is super helpful. Uh, and then I just I play with it sometimes. You know, I just go in and I try to prompt on certain things to see where I can learn where it's going to be strong and where it's not going to be strong. And I try to do it in areas where I know something, right? — So, which is pretty cool. And then, you know, if if you want to actually go I loved how Cuban's like just turned it into a side hustle. like he assumes everyone knows how to go, you know, create like a lawnmowing business. But like if you don't understand the lawnmowing business, like you have to know how to price it, how to, — you know, collect the money all and if you don't know how to do all those things, guess what you can do right now? — You can ask AI. Would that be the — Yeah. Crazy, huh? I So I guess maybe that entrepreneurship thing if you if you are still wondering like how to find a job. I think learning how a business works by having a side hustle or at least knowing those things will make you a better employee. Even if you decide you don't want to be an entrepreneur, understanding how a business makes money top to bottom and how to think about the business more proactively and and what it means to be, you know, whether it's an investor, an owner, a manager, what I think that's helpful for everybody. So that side hustle idea not not a horrible idea. So — yeah, and I I just I think this is a this is a big problem in society, right?

[13:18] whether it's kids, whether it's middle managers or whatever it is, right, that could lose their job to AI, like it it's it's scary and especially if somebody has a mortgage and kids defeat or whatever else. But it's also scary if you've been going to school for the last, you know, from 5 years old to 22 and all, you know, supposedly to have a job and all of a sudden it's not there. But the good news is I don't think it's that hard to learn. If somebody just spends the time, you can learn skills that make you really indispensable within companies and give you a lot of options moving forward. — So, I would embrace the thing that you're scared of. Really, — I think that's true. And I think, you know, one of the things that gets talked about often is like 10,000 hours to mastery, right? Like we've heard, you know, famous authors talk about this and, you know, this the thing on the flip side of that coin that doesn't get talked about is like 20 hours to Right. So, I I agree that if you want to be world class at something, it takes 10,000 hours. Like, I am totally like that's like I I have definitely drunk that Kool-Aid. I agree with that. But they're talking about like how to become a gold medalist athlete, right? Like how to become an NHL, you know, superstar, — right? To be great with AI, it may take you more than 20 hours, but like 20 hours of focused effort and you can be at least minimally competent to start making your skill set appropriate, usable, and frankly probably make your job easier.

[14:47] — Yeah, I I I think that's right. I mean, 20 hours you you can do a lot in AI in 20 hours. — And you can learn what it does. And by the way, learn what it doesn't do. I mean, when I first started do using it, um, it was writing my book was really where I did a lot of it. And I had these prompts and I would just change them and break it. I wasn't really actually interested in writing the book at the time. I was trying to learn AI and figure out what happened. So, part of it was just seeing what happens when I change these words or I change this prompt. And so, I I would just encourage people dive in and start you can start with a free version. By the way, people also go, I don't know which one to do and which plan. just pick chat, GPT, Grock, Gemini, whatever. Start with a free version and just go. — Yeah. And and I think the other thing just to give people a caution about is when the models change, like when there's a new update, you should just expect that you're going to have to learn how to prompt a little better because when a new model comes out, it's going to interact differently with the way the questions you ask. So, a lot of people I've talked to who are pretty good prompt engineers have been frustrated when they had an early model change until they recognize, oh, I just need to kind of change the way that I interact with this new model and it can be more powerful, but I have to actually up my [clears throat] skills when a new model comes out or if I change from one company to the next, it's going to interact differently. Like, you can't take things that work really well with ChatGpt, go to Gemini or Grock or Llama.

[16:10] Like, it takes it takes a little bit of figuring out which ones you're going to interact with. And so just stick with it. Like this is it's a great business skill. By the way, I think it's going to help automate things at home too. Like I think it's going to be helpful in lots of different places. So if you haven't started, you know, with prompting, you know, give it a give it a start. Like just give it a shot and uh go after it. So anyway, anything else on this topic? — I think that's it. Let's get to Johnny. — All right, man. Well, after we're going to take a little break here. We're going to come back. We're have former US attorney Johnny Sutton talking about a lot of different things in life. we've experienced and I think it'll be fun to to get to know his his journey as we talk to Johnny hopefully more than just this one session. See you back after the — Hey, it's Randy from Tales of Abundance. Is starting a business part of your journey? Do you have ambition but no clear path? Maybe you feel trapped in your current career? Do you want a real business that can produce $250,000 or more income for you and your family? We have an opportunity for a profitable business that can be part of your path to abundance. I want to personally invite you to see the proven system we've built. It's designed to give you that freedom and control you've been searching for. Visit premiumc to learn more. That's premiumc Abundance. I'm Dr. John Oberg. With me as always, Randy Lawren. Randy, good day to you.

[17:34] — Good day to you. So, — I'm excited today. Johnny Sutton's with us and uh boy, this conversation could go about a hundred or more directions. — Yeah. I mean, let's uh let's dive in. I I've you've I haven't met Johnny. Johnny's a friend of John's, but I have heard stories and have an idea what we're going to talk about. So, I think it's going to be exciting. Let's get to — Awesome. Johnny, welcome to the show. Really excited to have you here today. — Well, thank y'all for having me on. This is fun. — It's funny. You know, Johnny and I go back years. I think we met probably a friend in common from church or something and started having lunch together on a pretty regular basis. And Johnny, one of the things I love about Johnny, humble, unassuming. I had no idea how many cool stories Johnny knew until we started having lunch together with some regularity. I mean, I got to ask, how does one go from law school to becoming a US attorney? It's a long journey. Uh, you got to you got to be a little bit lucky and you got to you got to get good at trying cases. what I'd recommend for for me. Um, of course, I didn't want to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a professional baseball player. And that was my goal [laughter] since I was in seventh or maybe before the sixth grade. And I went to a school in eighth grade where they the principal of the school would say we'd have a yearly meeting and they'd say, "Well, what do you want to be when you grow up?

[18:52] You don't really need to know because you're only in eighth grade, but if you have an idea if you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, engineer, just let me know." And I'd always say, "Well, I'm going to be a professional baseball player." and they said, "Well, no, like no, like a real job. What what would you want to be as a career?" And I'd say, "I'm not kidding." So, that was my focus was on um and other sports through high school. And I went to a good high school that was very challenging academically. So, I was pushed hard in that high school. But — the bottom line is I, you know, — played baseball for the University of Texas and um we were good in those years. And but as I was a senior, the the pro scouts were uh handing me law school applications, which is a very bad sign [laughter] when you want to be a professional baseball player. So — you play with a couple guys, too. Johnny, who who's on your team that — Uh Roger Clemens and Calvin Shiraldi were our two main pitchers. And uh I think we had six big leaguers on our team, you know, that went that eventually went to the big leagues. But um you know Shaldi and and Clemens were the two big uh pitchers and um you know Mike Brumley was our shortstop uh you know uh just some really really good good players um on that team.

[20:10] Although we won the national championship that my senior year and coach Gustoson was our coach kind of a legendary coach and he this is the way I remember it. He said, "I'm so proud of this team because this is winning this national championship because this is really one of my least talented teams and to come this far and win the national championship. I just I'm really this I made to be proud the most proud of these guys." And we weren't quite sure how to take that, but I I think he meant it in a positive way. [laughter] — That's funny. That's And from there it was apply to law school. [laughter] — Yeah. Apply to law school. And my mom kept bringing me back to law school. And then of course when I uh when I do some internships in the in the summer, I would, you know, I speak I spoke fluent Spanish. So I said, "Well, I like international. I'll do something international." I worked for an international law firm for a few weeks. Uh, and it was fine, but it was, you know, just we were talking about boring, you [snorts] know, dealing with rusty oil rigs, who should be paying or a boat with a tanker had been held out from the Galveastston for three days, who pays?

[21:20] And it just wasn't that interesting to me. And then I worked for the Hendricks brothers for the second part of the summer, who were the top baseball agents in the country at that time. And that was interesting because I because I spoke Spanish, I got a lot of uh opportunities to negotiate contracts and to work with our players who didn't speak English. Um, but it was just basically hard ball contract negotiation. And of course, I was thinking, shoot, I'd sign for for shoelaces and we're holding this guy out for a million dollars, which nowadays is nothing, but in those days that was big money. And um and then at the end of the summer, I worked for two weeks for free as an intern for the Harris County DA's office in Houston. And I I had the most fun I'd ever had in my life. It was amazing. We could talk about that for a long time. But from there, I decided I wanted to be a a prosecutor and a trial lawyer. And that sort of started my journey that ultimately ended in being a US attorney. — So hold on. Can we go back to the national championship? I just I'm curious like the coach saying this wasn't our most talented team, but there's obviously something very special there. Do you have a recollection or a idea what it was about that team that made them so great?

[22:33] — Well, it was a I mean, like a lot of Texas teams, you just find a way to win. When you get to Texas as in the baseball, especially in those days, um we were very uh confident. We practiced six hours a day, usually seven days a week. they didn't have the limitations on practice and we played, — you know, at least three days a week we played 14 innings of inner squad game with full umpires. So we we played against each other very competitively. So you know we were number one in the nation most of those years and our scrub what we called the scrub team, you know, the second stringers that were playing against the first stringers was probably a top 10 team as well. So we had really good players. I think what he meant by that is he had people like me that were not big but we were very fast and we got on base then we stole we stole a base we you know we would find a way to get to third on a bunt and then a sacrifice fly would get us in and we'd get two you know one or two three runs and then Clemens and Shaldy and other and some other really good pitchers Killingsworth and Cable and many others would then shut them down. So I think what he meant is we had good pitching and a bunch of rabbits that could score runs.

[23:45] Do you think there was more camaraderie, tighter team than there were those other teams or just — Well, a lot of it is timing and my story is kind of part of that. We can't probably talk about that today, but um I actually went to SMU on a baseball scholarship my freshman year and then we were title ned out of existence at the end of my freshman year. So that was a real setback for me, you know, like starting as a freshman and Craig James and Eric Dickerson and I were all freshman that year and I was like, "This is going to be the greatest four years of my life." And then reading in the Dallas Morning News SMU to drop baseball team. I mean, it was it was rough. And of course, I wanted to go to San Justenna Junior College, which in those days was like a baseball factory. You know, they probably played a hundred games in a year. And um so you were basically professional by the time you came out. But my parents were not too excited about putting me through 12 years of private school and then going to San Justinda Junior College, but they didn't really quite understand what that was about. But but we, you know, we have people that had a will to win and we knew we were going to we knew we were going to win and you know, we peaked at the right time. I played a part in that because I was kind of a a little bit of a Cinderella story coming in late in the season to get a chance to play and then just, [snorts] you know, coming through in the clutch and um just and it doesn't it doesn't hurt to have, you know, Clemens was the number two on that team.

[25:15] I mean, we had good pitching. — It doesn't [laughter] hurt. — That's funny. Yeah, that's awesome. — I think you were asking a different question. I just wanted to circle back to that. I wanted — Oh, that was super interesting though. I love that. I I was really curious like you you've got that that summer of internships where you go through international law and then you go through like I would have surely guessed you know entertainment and sports law would have been a passion but you know to have it end up in litigation particularly on the DA side which is um you know certainly great public service but not the place when you're coming out of an expensive law school that most lawyers hope to land. Well, that's right. And it wasn't quite as cool as it is now because now you've got all the TV shows that make the prosecutors look cool. And this was before Law and Order and all that. I mean, occasionally, what was that? LA Law. I think occasionally we'd have a prosecutor, but it was really, it was really kind of an unknown place. Certainly at UT law school where I came from, no one was wanting to go to the DA's office that I knew about. They were all headed to big firms and and, you know, foreign service or doing, you know, big- time stuff. But when I saw what was happening there, it was just it was just mindblowing. And of course, the other thing is, you know, in the big firms, you may sit for years. You may never try a case. You may hold the briefcase and just be in a law library researching for years. Whereas literally as an intern, and again, because I spoke Spanish, that immediately vaulted me into the action because many of the witnesses and defendants did not speak English. So, it gave me opportunities to do things. And um you know I was I mean I was literally negotiating cases at a as a secondyear law student and I remember my my chief at the time who turned out to be a court of criminal appeal justice. She's probably one of the greatest appellet lawyers ever to come through Texas. Um was asking my opinion about what should happen in a case because I'd interviewed the victim and the defendant who was in jail, you know, and uh along with his attorney and uh I knew what they were saying. And she said, "Well, tell me what they said."

[27:20] And I did. And she said, "Well, what do you think should happen?" That's I What do you mean I'm a I'm a lawsuit. I have no idea what should happen. What are you talking about? And uh she said, "Well, you've interviewed him. just tell me what you think. And I said, well, you know, he was in for assaulting his wife and uh she wants the case dismissed and she's saying that if he doesn't get out of jail pretty soon, he's going to lose his job and he's got a bad drinking problem. And he says he's really sorry and he's going to stop drinking and he'll, you know, never do anything bad again. Maybe we could get him some kind of alcohol treatment and, you know, get him on probation where that's ensured that happens. And and she says, "That's a great idea. let's do that. And and of course, you know, she was a great teacher who was that's what they were going to do anyway. But um it made me feel like, oh my goodness, this is my first day even to be in a courtroom and I've already worked out my first plea and I had power that released this guy from jail that day. And uh so it was just, you know, most lawyers go for years before they have an event like that. And I had an event like that literally, you know, my first or second day as an intern while I was in law school. So, it just really put the hook in me and was very meaningful, very uh exciting, and I think it became cool.

[28:38] Now, it's it's cool. A lot of people go to the DA's office. It's really the only place in the world now where you can get trials. Maybe the military you can get some trials, but not too many places you can get trials. So did you when you were your first job was the DA's office then when you got and then how long until you tried your first case you know first chair like you were the guy in charge. — Yeah that's another great tradition of DA's office. I I got hired and they said you're going to be assigned to whatever it was county court 10 and they handed me a big stack of files. They said here are your trials that are coming up. Oh and and by the way uh your first trial starts at 1:30 today. you're picking a you're picking jury at 1:30 and it was like 11:00 a.m. at that time. I said, "What? What are you talking about? I have no idea how to try a case. I can't try a case." They said, "Well, you're going to try one at 1:30, so you better learn in the next, you know, whatever it is, 2 and a half hours." Um, so I literally tried my first case, my first day in first day in court, which is, you know, they just throw you in the deep end. Now, again, you know, Rusty Harden never lost a case. I lost my first case because, you know, and of course they weren't giving me a a beautiful case. It was two very um musclebound, large police officers that were, you know, searching like this little 5'6 guy and uh they had him bent over the car and they were searching him and he he tries to escape. So he elbows one of the officers in the chest and of course he had a bulletproof vest on so he wasn't really harmed much. And then the guy tries to run. and he makes it about 10 ft before they tackle him. And and he was charged with resisting arrest. So, you know, no one was hurt, but the officers were not, you know, they weren't happy that he hit him and tried to run, but um the citizens decided that guy was going had suffered enough and u found him not guilty.

[30:34] — Huh. Interesting stuff. I love it. So, okay, I know we want to get through there's a whole lot of stories with the US attorney's office and one of the things you've got to learn in a career to do that is how to investigate things. And Randy and I were talking about this episode today about, you know, how people form opinions and how all of the information today's information age comes at you from every direction. We've got, you know, there's obviously all of the news and online that, you know, Google's done a really great job of democratizing information in the sense that they, you know, helped the internet make knowledge more available, but that's meant that um it's, you know, we're we're susceptible to what's coming at us. You've done a great job in your career of learning how to investigate people, organizations, groups. talk to us about how you became, you know, a really great investigator from a DA's office through the US attorney's office. What does it mean to be a great investigator? Well, I think the the key is to be able to track down facts and track track down evidence and be able to, you know, flip every rock to see what the facts are. And of course, people say, "Well, you know, there is no truth. There's just, you know, my truth or your truth."

[31:44] truth. And I was like, well, that better be wrong cuz I put three guys on death row. There better be some truth because the last thing we want is somebody on death row that we're not sure did the crime. And I guess what I'd say to you is a big part of being open-minded. You know, most I mean, I [snorts] work with some amazing detectives at the Houston Police Department, especially homicide. You know, those are your your your very best detectives. And back in those days, the murder rate was extremely high. And you know, lots of murders in Houston. It's much much reduced now. But um but those guys were really good at like warn and noticing things and marking it down and taking pictures and and having good chain of evidence. But they were also great at talking to people and they would keep open minds about, you know, let's let's just see. Just cuz they walk in and they see a dead body and there's a woman covered in blood and she's holding the knife. Um, okay. Yeah, she's a suspect, but you know, she may be the one that found him, is hugging him and crying and trying to save him. So, you you just have to you have to follow evidence where it leads. And that also means you got to be one to change your mind when you find something that you know redirects what you thought was happening. And that's really important to do. And of course, prosecutors are duty bound to do justice, which means, you know, doing justice may be convicting somebody. Doing justice may be saying, "Hey, letting him free. Hey, he didn't do it or we're not sure."

[33:14] Whereas, you know, if you're a criminal defense attorney and you're representing a defendant and in the middle of the trial, he says, "Yeah, I you know, I I did kill that guy." You know, you don't say, "Time out. My client just admitted to he's that he killed a guy." You you you keep going. You defend. you defend your client. Now, you might not put him on the stand because now it's going to be hard for him to you can't sponsor evidence that's false, but it's just it's it's really just looking and listening and and tracking down evidence and being organized. A thing I would do a lot when I was a prosecutor is I would always carefully listen, especially in the very beginning, to what defense attorneys were saying. We had these reset forms back in those days. everything was paper and they'd bring this reset form and you'd have to sign it or they couldn't get their reset. And I'd say, "Okay, I'll sign it, but tell me what your guy says happened." And they'd say, "Well, my guy says he was at a pool tournament in Louisiana when all this went down." So, I would write on my copy [snorts] says he's in a pool tournament in Louisiana. So, that's something we would have to check out.

[34:17] And and I'm not sure everybody would would check out those stories because sometimes they'd be true and sometimes they wouldn't. But it would help you to figure out what is the truth because I would listen to the other side because you know they're not some people say, "Oh, you can't trust what they're saying." Well, you you know to trust and Do do you is there one case early in your career like that really stood out to you that kind of gave you some big professional lessons about investigation? Changing your mind see like new things that really had you take a different position where you were really committed to going one way but oh my gosh, holy cow, I ended up going the other way entirely. — Um yeah, I mean there's been cases I mean I'm trying to think that we dismissed down the road that we thought were wrong. I mean for some reason a misdemeanor case popped in my head. that it was a it was a it was just a it was a crackpipe case where the guy had a a like a bong crack pipe that he was literally, you know, smoking with a, you know, he had his flame to the pipe when a police car literally pulled up behind him and he looked over and was startled and went took off running and the cops chased him and um you know they jumped over several through several yards and basically he ran under a house and they found him under the house and they they um they kept looking for the bong and they couldn't find it, you know, and um so they were searching everywhere for the bong cuz that had the cocaine in it which was the crime and we'd had to we had to find that cocaine or we didn't have case. So [clears throat] we were looking everywhere, they were looking everywhere for this for this bong. They thought well maybe he dropped it or he thrown it or whatever. Um and they patted him down for weapons, but then they handcuffed him and um put him in the patrol car, but they handcuffed him in in front and um not behind his back, which you know, sometimes if the guy wasn't uh fighting, they'd let him do that. Anyway, after a while, they could not find it. So then they went back in the patrol car, searched him again, couldn't find it. They then they pulled the seat on those patrol cars. You know, a lot of times people are putting evidence under the seat of the patrol car. So he looked under the seat and the officer said, "Oh," he saw it under the seat and when they when he picked it up, it was so hot to the touch that he couldn't even touch it. It was it was white hot to the touch. And um so they said, "Well, this is the bong." And um you know, we tried that case and it was the defense was they couldn't find it.

[36:53] They they've they must have planted this thing in the police car or you know this is not his and and we don't believe it was hot. And uh during the trial the defendant the defense attorney had called for all the defendants tri clothes to be brought to show that they'd fought him under this he was all muddy and they that they had fought him under this house and dragged him out and you know showed that he's he got roughed up a little bit and the defense attorney introduced all she's short and closed. So, I went ahead and just said, "Introduce the entire box of clothes." And didn't really look super closely at it, but we marked it and put it in. And as I was looking later, as we were getting close to argument, I looked at his underwear and he had this burned hole in the front of his underwear. Um, and I was like, "Holy crap." He had he had put that thing down his pants and it burned a little hole in his underwear. and um you know and and that was a key piece of evidence that had we not had that we might not have been able to prove that case. But you know I the key to the key to doing that is just being thorough and there's all kinds of scientific evidence that came later. I mean DNA wasn't discovered till the early 90s at least in courtrooms and that was a huge uh breakthrough there. But really, it's just being careful. And of course, we can talk later about it. I'm talking long here. Um, getting statements from witnesses and defendants is absolutely vital and being able to make sure those are accurate. And I can tell you somehow, you know, th those detectives were just masters at getting statements and just, you know, they would with no judgment just say, you know, what did you do? Just just tell us what you what just tell us your version. and they'd have them literally write it out on a yellow pad with a pen and um you know you know and a lot of times these guys would be admitting to you know rapes and murders and they would just say just yeah just write it out you know just write it out and then they go back to them and you know read it to them and make sure they got everything right and corrected if anything was wrong and uh it was just amazing how often people would confess to really really bad crimes and sometimes the detectives would come back and say, "Well, your buddy over, this is your nice statement, but your buddy over there is saying you did the entire crime and he was just watching." And then a lot of times they said, "Well, that's not true. He's the one that actually did it. I just held her down why, you know, why he did the bad thing." And uh we said, "Well, let's let's okay, you just need to give us the accurate statement." So, they'd write a second, sometimes a third statement. And it was just amazing how calm and cool they were because — you know, here this guy is confessing to murder and um the you know the detectives are no judgment. Just just tell us what happened.

[39:52] — Johnny, can we circle back to you? You made it sound so easy when you were saying when you were talking about just you got to be open to changing your mind that probably is easy for you. But I also look around in in the world in 2025 and I don't that's not what I see a lot of in 2025. And it doesn't matter if it's red team versus blue team or it's something about science or it you know the the saying comes to mind something like science changes one funeral at a time. Right. Is new ideas don't get on until the old ones move. — Right. Right. — And I and I got to believe there's prosecutors the same way. I mean, they're just they're human beings just like everybody else. But what do you think are those keys? Like can can you talk more about that because what what would you tell those people that won't listen to the other side whether it is science or red versus blue or whatever the topic is? — Yeah. Well, no, that's definitely right. And you know, prosecutors are people just like everybody else. And there's, you know, there's some real true believers that are super aggressive and they've made up their mind and they don't care. Um, and sometimes, you know, there is a lot of, you know, fibbing going on on the other side sometimes.

[41:07] So, you you can't be always just like, oh, you know, he said he didn't do it and, oh, okay, well, that's that's good enough. That doesn't work. Um, I mean, I I think what I'd say is it's just this is how you get better, you know, because one, you got to know the other side of the case very well, and you need to know where your weaknesses are, and you got to be able to address those things. Um, I think a lot of things that we're seeing today in the world is, you know, there you're dealing with sort of facts, you know, is like, did this was this person able to see what they said they saw? You know, if it was 10:00 at night, what was the lighting like out there? You know, did they have glasses? Did, you know, did they wear glasses? Were their glasses on? So, these are questions of fact. So much of what we hear now are just sort of questions of opinion. People are have their opinions. And of course, it's now a lot of people are having a hard time agreeing on facts. the internet has not exactly made us uh always more oh well we get the facts because you know conspiracy theories sell and people love clicks and I see it all the time where it's um you know there'll be some some crime happens and and I'll get you know called and they'll ask me well what you know what can you say it's like very little the investigation hadn't even happened yet we need to know what the investigation shows and what what the ballistics are the bullets and what's the what is what's the cause of death we the medical examiner to even tell us how the person died and a lot of times you don't know that and uh and I think it just comes with experience and it comes with um you know education maybe a little bit and just doing it over and over and of course getting burned. I mean that's the last thing you want to do is convict somebody who didn't do it. You know if all of a sudden later you find out you got the wrong guy in prison that's every prosecutor's worst nightmare.

[42:58] come up. I I the first one I've got to ask for the listeners who care about stuff like this, which is, okay, you mentioned LA Law, you mentioned Law and Order. Are are those procedural shows just a bunch of crap, or do they show it how it is? I mean, an hour. — Well, you can't get it done an hour. And, you know, sometimes the evidence is a little bit off. But Law and Order is actually very good. You can tell that they had some some prosecutors that were that were working on that show. I don't even really And I think was that was that what it was called LA Law? This is before your time, John. But that was — I actually remember seeing LA Law with my parents. They used to watch it. Yeah. — Yeah. It was kind of a soap opera with lawyers. But uh but I think you know there was some some criminal in there. Um but some of these shows are actually pretty good. Um, and I I think Law and Order is is very good, especially the discussions uh between the prosecutors and the cops and and that's another thing Law and Order does a great job is the interaction between detectives and the police officers because the detectives are out there interviewing and they're, you know, and they're reporting back, hey, this is what this guy says. This is what we see. We found this bloody shirt in the alley, you know, let's get it tested. And you know, the prosecutors are, you know, wargaming and they're they're writing warrants and they're they're [snorts] just helping And of course, the the the police officers sometimes are like, "Yeah, we got the right guy. We're here." But the prosecutor, you got to step in front of a jury and prove it. And many times the officer said, "This is good. We're done." I was like, "We are not done.

[44:28] This is not this is we need we need more evidence than this." And there was always a little bit of friction. the cops would say, "Quit being a wussy. Just just arrest him and let's go." And I was like, "No, we're going to have the right amount of information." Um, and it was also, I think, just, you know, we had 24-hour intake in in Harris County, which meant you had two prosecutors that were working 24/7 on, you know, taking charges and talking to the police. When they would come in and need a warrant or they wanted to file charges, they would have to clear it with a prosecutor. Some DA's offices don't do that. They'll just let the cop file the charges. We would never do that. We would, you know, and a lot of times we were, you know, having some chatting matches saying, "Get back out there and find me this. I need X, this, this, and this before you go forward." And that I think again that's why that office was so strong back in those days. Um there was just a a work, you know, a workhorse attitude and we're going to do the right thing and um and plus you you know the the senior leadership would hold up a pen and say this this ballpoint pen, you see this pen? This belongs to the county. This is not your pen. Don't take this pen home and think you can write on your personal stuff with this pen. That's a potential crime. And that's that was sort of the attitude that was built in your head, which is, hey, [snorts] this is serious business. We're throwing a lot of rocks and we got to make sure that our house is perfectly clean. And you're you're reminded of that all the time.

[46:09] — But there when you got that was as a prosecutor, when you move into the, you know, US attorney's office, you're a prosecutor still. Radically different job or same job, different stakes. — It's very similar other than you have a lot less cases. Although in my district since we had 660 mi of border, we had a lot of drugs and immigration. Um but mainly basically you're doing a different kind of case. You're doing a lot of drugs, a lot of immigration. Uh you're doing white collar fraud. You're doing bank robberies. Um and you're working with the FBI and federal agents. They have a lot more resources, a lot more time. Uh you're doing less of the, you know, the murders and the robberies and the rapes. Those just generally are not federal crimes. U but of course occasionally we know we would go up against the cartel all the time. You know there was plenty of — Was it ever dangerous? Like is it ever is it ever physically dangerous for an attorney whether is a prosecutor or a US — I don't think it is. I mean, you occasionally you'll get a crazy person, but you know, the worst thing that could happen to the cartel is that they uh harm or kill a federal agent or or a police off or a prosecutor even worse because you know it they are no value to the case. You know, if a prosecutor gets killed, they just replace him and then the whole weight of the federal government comes down on your head because you've done this atrocious crime. Now, one place where we did I did have some beer from time to time is we prosecuted very many um prison gang pro uh prosecutions. Hundreds and hundreds of prison gang members that were, you know, ex a lot of times they were out.

[47:51] Sometimes they were in prison, sometimes they were out, but they were drug dealers and, you know, entered into conspiracies to transport drugs and kill people. And I had a couple of prosecutors that specialized in that. And those were really, really violent gangs. And occasionally we get some death threats there. And I would always be very upset and want to what I call drop a piano on someone's head. It's like if you threaten to kill a prosecutor, we are going to come and do everything we can to prove that up and, you know, make your life miserable. But most of those prosecutors were very cool. They like, don't worry about it. Everything's fine. And the same problem applies to those guys. You know, it just there's just no advantage to killing a prosecutor. Killing a witness, okay, maybe that might, you know, hurt your case, but killing a prosecutor just brings more prosecutors onto the case. — Well, you mentioned the cartel. I think after the break, let's bring you back and I want to hear more about what it's like to uh prosecute a drug cartel or whatever else you did that was uh made it interesting. So, let's take a quick break and uh we'll come right back and we'll hear about some how you took prosecution back into the international law you started with in your internship.

[49:04] — Okay, we're back from the break. I've got Johnny Sut and Ray Lawson back here. Johnny, we left the break talking about uh the the cartel and your work as a US attorney with the cartel. Like that sounds the stuff like movies are made out of. — Yeah, it is a little bit a little bit like that. And um those are you know big dangerous organizations. Now most of their activity of the actual cartel itself is on the other side of the border. So you know my experience at least in the days when I was US attorney um they did not want to cross the border because if they got caught over here you know they could be arrested and spend you know the next 40 years in prison. and and if they were going to do a killing, they always wanted to do that on the Mexican side of the border. Um — and that and that and there was a real strange dynamic, especially in El Paso in those days in like 20067, you [snorts] know, there was a pretty big war going on in Wararez and I think there was maybe 3 to 4,000 murders happening just in Warez in those years. I mean there's you — and just just so people get an idea war is is roughly how big?

[50:21] — It's about three million people maybe two and a half million people in — half the size of Houstonish right? — Yep. Yep. — And so how many murders in Houston in a year? — Well when I was in high school there were 740 murders. So that's the thing that people don't understand. Back in the safe 70s um you know Houston was like the murder capital of the United States. And you know, we were just out riding our bikes and throwing water balloons and not even it didn't even affect us, you know, because we didn't have news stations report. I mean, actually, they would report the first three U items were always a murder, but it didn't really affect you. Today, probably today it's much less. Half that, half that today. — So, 350 to 750 if you're really bad. And in a city half that size had five times as many murders. times the murder rate or something. — Oh yeah. And then on the El Paso side, you know, back in those days, I mean, there'd be, you know, 18 to 25 murders. So, you know, it's one of the safe it was one of the safest cities in the United States. And we're on the other side of the border was one of the most dangerous cities in the world. And again, it was more dangerous if you were in a cartel that was battling another cartel. I mean, they were generally killing each other. But, you know, when there's a gunfight, you're going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, for sure. Um, — but that was, you know, our most of our experience with the cartel was, you know, doing a cat-and- mouse game, stopping the the uh importation of drugs, mainly marijuana, you know, blacktar heroin, and other things in those days. Near the end, it became more uh smuggling of people. And this is one of the weird things about that the cartel kind of got out of the drug business business and into the smuggling people business. And it doesn't make sense, but when you're moving, let's say a,000 pounds of marijuana across the border, that's like having a million dollars in gold in the back of your truck. So if if another cartel decides they want to, you know, rob you of that truck and take your truck and take your I mean, you just lost a million dollars.

[52:30] And when that happens, somebody's going to pay. You know, they're going to try to get that that marijuana back. But when you have, let's say, 30 — u illegal immigrants in your car, in your truck, they have paid their money up front. They don't they don't have any value to anybody. And you know, they may pay a little more on the other side, just extortion, just, you know, to get when you're getting picked up. But but they started making huge money in that. And I think, you know, I think that's all shut down now, but that was a interesting part of the business. Um, but it's um, — what was the biggest for you when you got into it with the cartel? What was the thing when you got into it? You just like slapped your forehead like I I never saw this coming. Was there anything like that that really — Well, I think one time I was I became very close to the Mexican attorney generals. you know, we work very closely with them to try to, you know, battle these things and and and be in communication. And I remember one time talking to the Mexican attorney general.

[53:34] I said, uh, and he was a general. He was an army general before he became the attorney general. And I said, "General, what is what is y'all's budget at the PGR, which is the name of the DA, the US attorneys, I mean the Department of Justice in Mexico." And he said what the budget was. And I nearly dropped out of my chair because I mean his budget for his entire country was the equivalent of like the district southern district of Texas and the western district of Texas budget and there's 94 districts and the budget of New York and LA is you know I think what what they're just they had such little money and they were going up against ruthless killers that had unlimited budgets and you know in a lot of ways I think they were completely And of course there's a lot of corruption in Mexico and a lot of lot of u state police are you know in on the deal but um but it's just it's just they fight against very difficult circumstances. We have such a better situation here and we don't have there's plenty of corruption in the United States and I prosecuted many police officers and public officials but it's still just a fraction of the rest of the world where corruption is just a way of life. And so how do you how do you investigate the cartel when it's, you know, across our borders?

[54:52] — It's extremely difficult and and and even controversial. And this is I remember talking to the general counsel of the CIA about this same problem, which is in in order for us to get cases on these guys, we have to have confidential informants on the Mexican side that are, you know, deep inside the organization and are willing to, you know, do recordings and do evidence and things like that. And of course, they're, you know, they're unbelievably high risk. And a lot of times cartels will test people's loyalty to make sure there's not a a cop or somebody that's, you know, they're like, "Okay, well, you got to kill this guy today." And all of a sudden, you know, they put a gun in your hand and say, "You got to execute this guy." And, you know, if that happens to one of your c your your confidential informants, your case just got really messed up. And u and of course then there's going to be somebody judging, you know, how could you put that guy in that situation? That's why I talked to the CIA. uh general counsel. I was like, in order for us to collect intelligence in places like Thrron, I mean, we're going to need to have people [snorts] deep undercover, deep in positions where if they're captured, it's going to be really bad. And especially if it's a woman and you know, are we do we have the stomach for that?

[56:11] You know, cuz when it goes wrong, when it goes right and we prevent a bunch of people from dying, it's fantastic. But when it goes wrong, it's like, what were you thinking putting this 22-y old woman in this dangerous situation when she got, you know, abused and tortured and murdered and the politicians are going to start pointing fingers. So, it's a very difficult — situation to investigate and um — you know, it's it's it's not easy. And a lot of times we're doing it on the American side where we're we're basically busting a load of marijuana, flipping the driver, escorting him to the next section where the takes it to a warehouse, arresting everybody in there, taking their phones immediately, and then flipping them and then driving to the next location. We might try to drive that load all the way across the country, busting everybody along the way until somebody gets clued in to that, you know, we've got them. But that's those are kind of the techniques you would use to to get up the chain because a lot of times the mule is the lowest person. He's like a you know he's a driver.

[57:15] That's it. — What percentage like in that scenario you pull over the driver. — Is it I mean it's not 0% it's not 100% I'm guessing. Is it 90? Is it I mean what percentage flip? you know, I'd say it's less than 50% a lot of times because, you know, you're putting yourself at risk and um but but a lot of times, you know, a lot of times they will. I'm always surprised that that they will cooperate cuz, you know, it's like, okay, would you rather do 15 years in prison or or one or two? And, you know, to a 25year-old that's like, I I'd rather do two. And uh so you know, but I I can't tell you what the percentages are, but I you know, there's a lot of cooperation in the federal government because the the what happens is the the hammer that's over your head is so high that [snorts] if you don't plead guilty and you go to trial, you're going to get hammered and if you do plead guilty, you're going to get a much better deal, which is — You ever worry that that such a big hammer? You ever worry people admit to things they didn't really do?

[58:20] — Absolutely. And that's the big challenge is that you know you you have to promise a judge that you're pleading guilty because you are guilty and for no other reason. And you know I think a lot of times it's it's a tough situation where the you know people are are saying things that's another reason why the prosecutors have to be so careful especially in some conspiracy thing where someone's in you know looking at a lot of time they'll you know just tell me what I need to say so I can you know bring this down. Don't tell me what you need to say. Tell us what happened and that you got to be very careful because you can get manipulated by these by these criminals and just saying, "Oh, yeah. I he confessed that he did it to me in in a jail cell." You know, we're very reluctant to use evidence like that because it's there's a motive to lie. — Yeah. Well, I guess one one last kind of threat of questions, Randy, before we go today. You know, today there's so much information coming at us uh you know, political hotbed everywhere, right? right? Like there from the right, from the left, from the center, there's marketing. Like with all of the things that are coming out of the media, the marketing, the you know, right, left and center, Johnny, what do you do to take information in so you can decide what your position on a sensitive topic might — Yeah. Well, I do a lot of things. One thing I do that I have a huge advantage because I was in government for so long.

[59:42] I know so many prosecutors and especially being a US attorney. You meet all the US attorneys from all over the country and a lot of times you'll meet two or three versions because you know some only stay two or three years. I stayed almost all eight years of the Bush administration. So I probably know you know 250 maybe 300 US attorneys all from in in several from every state in the union. So I can just one of the things I do is I pick up the phone and call my connected friend in that state and say, "Hey, this just happened. What's the inside scoop?" And a lot of times they'll know because they're so close to the situation. They may be talking directly to the detectives or they've got, you know, they've got uh information. And several times I've done that and gotten horrifying results where I got details that even the White House did not have, you know, because I'm calling my friend that knows what's happening on the ground and you know the White House is out saying something that's that's way off base. Um but a normal person can't do that. I mean what I would say is — but to the uninitiated Johnny it's like how do we let that happen? Like how is it you can make one call and figure that out but the White House can't figure that and you're not talking I mean that's not just today's White House.

[1:00:50] that's just the White House broadly across time. Like how can we let that — Well, I think what happens sometimes and it's very rare that that happens. I think sometimes it happens when somebody who's really trusted at high levels say you got to trust me. This is this is rock solid. This is the guy or this is what happened. And you know, they're just wrong or they they think it's rock solid. But in the real world where the, you know, where prosecutors are, you know, u the real world, this person's not rock solid. In fact, this person has big problems and they're going to come out soon. And um so, but what I what I do is I look to a lot of different sources. You can't always just make a phone call. I mean, that's that's rare that you can really do that, but sometimes you can. Um I go to a lot of different sources. I mean, I look at some of the normal sources that you see, but I also there's people that are u that I really trust that I'll look, you know, I look on Twitter, what what are on their podcast, what are they saying about something? And then, you know, and I'll look on both sides, you know, liberal and conservative. I want to hear just like when in the courtroom when you want to hear what that defense attorney is saying, you know, I I'm on the conservative side, but I think I'm open-minded. I want to know what what is happening, what they're saying on the left. I want to know what somebody is saying. And um and just and and unfortunately, you've got to also have a an instinct about what's true and what's not. I mean, there'll be many times where I'll hear something and I'll go, that's just not true. I don't think that happened because my — it just seems hopeless and impossible.

[1:02:29] Like for for a guy like, you know, it's like there's all this information out there. It's limitless. It's end like you can't possibly get to the end of the internet, you know, and and the and for for I think a lot of people, the deeper you get, the more polarizing the information gets, right? Both ways. And so it's like and if you don't if you're not an investigator by training and I don't have time to do this for hours a day like how do I like what do I like — you got you got you got to talk you got to be able to follow or read or watch their YouTube channels of trusted investigators that are really paying attention at at a granular level and of course on both sides and and there's certain people that have expertise and they have contacts where they can, you know, make a few phone calls and they've got information that you don't have. And there's certain, you know, so you you just have to sort of pick who you trust. And I think that's one of the problems we're having right now because mainstream media has is so untrustworthy at the moment and so discredited by, you know, their bias and by their, you know, business models all messed up. So you just can't trust them u by and large.

[1:03:44] And so you have to find people you can trust. But of course I'm looking at people that I trust and you'll see them start to get corrupted on the internet. You know, you can see them turning more to the conspiracy or more to the crazy thing that is going to get clicks and I'm like are they really are they really believing this or is this some new business model? So it's very difficult. I think the way it it's done is just finding those trusted sources. reading on both sides and and you don't have to do all the reading. There's certain people that will do it and say, "I'm, you know, I'm going to read for eight hours today and call everybody I know and then I'm going to be on the on my podcast, you know, for 30 minutes and you're going to I'm going to catch you up." And um, you know, like I really like Andy McCarthy, you know, I mean, he's he's a great he is a former federal prosecutor, Southern District in New York, and he is, you know, was there for over 20 years and tried a bunch of big cases and understands New York and kind of the good and the bad in that place. and um and you know his judgment is good and he's reading — Yeah. Who's who's someone that you like to listen to that you don't always agree Um Glenn Greenwald's one. I'm trying to think of the guy was listening. Um you know um Ezra Klene. Um you know — the facts.

[1:05:06] — Yeah. I mean the fact the fact that you have names off the top of your head says you're at least paying attention. I think that's you know I wish that I wish that uh you know without talking about right left or center I just wish people weren't in an echo chamber. I think that's one of the dangers. I wish we I wish we were all willing to talk to people and and just you know it's like have like you know I can't remember who said it but they said something to the effect that you know having the ability to hold two opposing arguments in your head at the same time is a sign of intelligence I think is the paraphrase and I think it's really something we need to we need to you know elevate in our you know civics courses and in our you know our uh yeah I think civics is the right place to do that but I think we've really got to be able to hold on to the fact that I may not agree with you, but that doesn't mean that you're not valuable as a person, — So that's — Yeah. Matt Matt Taibbe is another name that comes to mind. Do you know Matt — I don't. But yeah, — he's he was a you know, a lefty, a Bernie supporter. U you know, wrote for 12 years for the Rolling Stone, but he's a, you know, he's an honest reporter and, you know, he was, you know, he when he saw Russian collusion, he he spent a lot of time in Russia. He had lived in Russia. you know, he smelled a rat right from the start. I mean, the people that understood it could smell a rat right from the start. And of course, then when um Elon Musk bought Twitter, he he uh assigned Taibbe and uh Shelonburgger and some of these lefty journalists to come in and figure out what had been going on with Twitter and all the censoring that have been going on from the government.

[1:06:38] And uh and it's and that's one of those stories that's like completely unknown. U I mean, some people on the right will have some small clue about it. The left won't even know what it is. If you say Twitter files, they won't even know what you're talking about. And that was just an absolute scandal. I mean, just a just a scandal. and but but Taibbe of course is a lefty, but now he's accused of being a right-wing, you know, person and and a fake journalist even though he's won many awards and written he wrote a book highly critical of Trump, you know, — and it just so but those are the kind of people that you want who are going to be honest about what they see and but you got to understand their bias too. They have a slight bias to the left. — Yeah. I I think that's the you know for me like strong convictions loosely held is you know I want to I I hope I hope that I I uh model for my friends and family that I want to learn but I I then want to you know learn again like I want to keep learning and so as new information develops I think you know for me that's the basis for good science and so I think that's good civics too but well we're at the end of our time Johnny thanks for spending so much time we're definitely going to have you back I I We there's so many topics I want to delve into, so many more experiences you've had that we want to hear the stories about. So, we'll definitely have you back in the near future. Thanks for being here today.

[1:08:03] — That would be great. Thank y'all. — All right, listeners, you know what to — Randy, do you want to tell the listeners what to do? We tell them every time. — They they know. Download, subscribe, tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your enemies. You know, feedback feedback is a gift. So, uh, follow us on — Listen to the episode. Now's the time. — What's that? — I said listen to another episode. Now is the time. — There you go. Click the next one. — Thanks everyone. Listen and subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Click follow for more content like this or go to talesofabundance.com to join our community and get free