For All The Reasons NY Is Great It Is Also A Target

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday Morning with US today. It’s a US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jake Clayton. The Southern District of New York traditionally is the biggest and busiest UH US Attorney’s office in the country. Uh, Jake Clayton.

0:14 UH is, Well, Jay, you’re in the middle of keeping New York City UH safe. I mean the President Trump has assigned you with with the with the task of coordinating federal authorities, a federal or federal people, UH, to keep New York City safe. And right now, well, you know there’s terrorist threats. Give us an update on what

0:42 the heck is going on.

0:44 Speaker 2 Well, you’re you’re show right, and John, thank you, thank you for all you do for New Yorkers. But new York is for all the reasons that New York is great, new York is a target. And I think that New York workers are smart and they should recognize that and they can actually help us. John, John, we we are

1:10 under threat. And I’m not I’m not saying that to alarm people. I’m saying that so that they’re in kind of are up, so that they’re paying attention. And if you don’t mind I’ll just talk about some of the national security cases that we’ve brought and brought in this district since the beginning of the year. Is that all right?

1:29 Speaker 1 Absolutely? Please do that. All New Yorkers, Uh should know what the heck is going on? And uh because you know we’re in the middle of a war and the in and I guess a lot of Americans are coming back from the Middle East during this period of time.

1:48 Speaker 2 Yes, And it’s a and John, it’s a it’s a multi front risk profile. We have. For example, we have the case of the Venezuela and leader ship illicit leadership Maduro that we started the year off. They were they’re not go trafficking, you know, killing people with drugs using violence.

2:10 But there but there’s more, John. We we have just in this year arrested three potential assassins. One was going to kill someone in the New York City area. There’s outside the New York City area, but using the means of finance and other things in New York. Another one targeting actually some New York citizens. We have let’s just

2:38 let’s not forget we we have charges in the Eastern District, my sister district than an aid of our governor was a spy for the Chinese. We have Russian intelligence agents that we have arrested. And another thing that New Yorkers should realizes is there are foreign adversaries and so discontent in many ways, not just violence, but they can so

3:08 discontent online. They can can so discontent by financing protesters. And if you think that just a minute, New Yorkers are smart. If you think that they’re willing to carry out assassinations on our soil, they’re certainly willing to invest in online influence and paying protesters. And I think New Yorkers should recognize that.

3:35 Speaker 1 Well. I think Jake Clayton, I think that there’s foreign money being infiltrated trying to pay you off some people to do the wrong things in America.

3:47 Speaker 2 And I applaud, I applaud President Trump or what he is doing, because for thirty years, for my entire professional lifetime, as I’ve been paying attention to these things, the Iranians have used vast oil resources to fund this type of discontent, to fund this type of terrorism. We hear about it outside the United States, but just this week we revealed

4:17 that they have been using cyberspace and cyber attacks against the United States and brought charges there. So, you know, we had all recognize that there is a there is a multifaceted cold Ish war going on in addition to this this hot conflict that we have right now, and we should not fall victim to it. We should not

4:45 fall victim to this online influence, to these paid protesters and to the people who would use our freedoms, our freedoms of speech and the like the divide us. So I’m just asking New Yorkers to be smart, be aware.

5:00 Ask yourself, is this foreign influence? Is this Is this really two Americans having an honest debate, or is someone trying to tilt the playing field?

5:11 Speaker 1 Well especially you know what I said the other day on on on television and on radio is that with all the billions of dollars that are missing, there are some people foreigners that got that got involved in taking that money or throwing some money at us to change the conversation. So American people have to realize that that

5:37 changing the conversation on the major networks, that that we’re not doing the right thing. And the reason they’re changing the conversation is because they want to take the other conversation off the front page of the hundreds of billions of dollars that are missing.

5:56 Speaker 2 Exactly right, exactly right. And John, just think about it this way. And someone is willing to coordinate and assassinate on our soil, isn’t it isn’t it likely that they would try to buy influence, that they would try to use our open and free debate to their advantage. And look, it’s cheap. How much does it How much does a

6:20 fighter jet cost? You know, let’s just say, let’s just say it costs thirty forty fifty one hundred million dollars. You can you can sew discontent for one hundred thousand dollars.

6:33 Speaker 1 They can buy they can buy all the picketing in the world for ten thirty thousand. It’s nickels and dimes compared to the big picture.

6:44 Speaker 2 And we should recognize that, and we should be and we should be acting accordingly. And I and the reason I love coming on your program is because because your listeners are smart and they’re going to ask themselves. Is that is that information that’s being sent in me? Is that is that really representative of a bunch of Americans

7:02 having a great, open debate, or is this foreign influence designed to influence us and divide us.

7:11 Speaker 1 And I’m so disappointed in some of our allies in Europe on some of the things they’re saying in doing, and they don’t support us unless President Trump himself puts the pressure on it. In I mean, all we’ve done since World War One and World War Two is protect Europe.

7:31 They can’t take care of themselves, don’t they realize it?

7:36 Speaker 2 John? You know, I applaud the women and men of law enforcement. You know, I think the world of the New York Police Department, what they do to protect us from international bad actors is unbelievable. The counter terrorism folks at the FBI, the DEA, Homeland Security, our approach to protecting America from these malign actors from terrorists is hugely

8:06 inuring the benefit of the Europeans.

8:13 Speaker 1 Yes, one hundred percent correct, uh. And the whole thing with Greenland was it’s just protection for North America and protection for Canada, and protection for the UK and protection for the for Europe. And it’s how did my physics professor say say it? In high school? It was intuitively obvious, but you know, away from the fancy words and what

8:41 else in New York are we concerned.

8:42 Speaker 2 About well, we continue we continued to be concerned about criminals who use guns. And believe me, we’ve talked a lot about national security and threats from from outside. Some of that manifested in the gang we have in New York.

9:02 But it doesn’t matter where it comes from. That is that is our number one focus in the domestic focus in this office is to get criminals who use guns detained, convicted, and off the streets.

9:18 Speaker 1 Agree, But the criminals always have guns. They find them someplace, and I’m glad you’re taking them off the streets because some of the district attorneys in New York, uh or, I mean, I’m disappointed in some of them. Is that that people? It was just it’s a revolving door arrest where where they’re arrested and they end up going home

9:43 for dinner.

9:45 Speaker 2 It is a revolving door arrest. And and it’s even worse we have we have made it in the state system, which is why the federal system we need to we need to step up. In addition to being released pending trial, even if they’re violent, the discovery rules, what the information that’s the defendant is obligated to receive that We’re obligated

10:10 to provide the defendant in a state court system includes information that I believe facilitates witness intimidation. They are they are able to go, They’re out, they have colleagues, they have co conspirators, and they’re they’re allowed to go. Well, Hydanthy, They’re allowed they there is nothing stopping them from using the information they receive as part of the legal process

10:36 to intimidate witnesses. And that is a change that happened and it is manifesting itself in real harm to our date criminal justice system.

10:48 Speaker 1 Jake Clayton, I just want to make sure that all our listeners heard what you just said and what it means. That means under the new state law is that the criminals are supposed to get the phone numbers and addresses of the people that they victimized. And that makes the victims even more nervous and gets scared and they don’t

11:12 want to and they don’t want to prosecute. Is that correct.

11:18 Speaker 2 I’ll speak more generally because exactly what information they get depends, but we have made it, we have made it much more risky to come to court and provide testimony, to come and participate in the criminal justice system. We have made witness intimidation easier.

11:39 Speaker 1 Well, Jake Clayton, thank you so much for coming on this Sunday morning, and thank you for keeping all New Yorkers informed. And I guess you are talking to the people of the Southern well the Eastern District in the Northern District that covers all in New York. And thank you so much for everything you do to keep John