The NYPD Has Made Strides in Modernizing Their Force

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. Well with us today is Jake Clayton, the US Attorney in charge of the Southern District of New York, traditionally the most powerful US Attorney’s office in the country and the largest US Attorney’s officer in the country. Well, Jay, it was good to see you Tuesday morning at the State of the NYPD breakfast and hosted by the Commissioner

0:28 Jesse to Tish, and she gave some speech. I mean, I was It was a forty minute speech and I was taken back how good and how smart she was.

0:41 Speaker 2 John, I couldn’t agree more. I couldn’t agree. It’s great to see you there. It was great to see so many people there to support the NYPD and Commissioner Tesh And I will tell you the speech was so substantive. Yeah, what have what have they done in the last year to really get crime violent crime in New York way down,

1:02 way down? And you know, not just resting on their laurels, but talking about what they’re going to do going forward, including the discussion of modernizing some of the processes. You know, and Commissioner Tisch goes goes way back in the police department.

1:19 She’s been responsible for many of what I would say, the advances in US technology while respecting people’s rights. I mean, she she just I was so oppressed, John, and I think we’re just we’re so lucky to have the NYPD, and we’re lucky to have great leadership at the NYPD.

1:42 Speaker 1 Yes, and I was impressed. I knew she was good, and former Commissioner Ray Kelly used to talk about her and he helped train her at the time. But she exceeded my expectations. Now, tell us, Jay, you’re the US Attorney in charge of the Southern District of New York and traditionally the most powerful one in the country. Tell

2:11 us what other things are happening to help make New York a better place to live?

2:18 Speaker 2 Well, one of the one of them, And you know there’s always there’s always some bad news when you’re in the job like mine. One of them is cleaning up corruption in New York. And I will tell you that this week we arrested uh former New York City Police leader on corruption and I just want to say, there’s

2:40 there’s no place for corruption in our police department. And Commissioner Tish and the leadership of the police department is one committed to that from what I can tell, and so I appreciate that. We’re also, you know, we’ve cleaned up some corruption in the New York City Housing Authority.

3:00 We’re looking at other institutions in New York. And I’m not talking about petty stuff, John, I’m talking about making sure that anybody who is in leadership or near leadership in these institutions is and is a bad actor is brought to justice. Because nine percent of our public servants in New York are good people who really care and

3:27 they want us to clean that up. So that’s something that you know, we’ve been focusing on. We had some action this week, and I just I appreciate the support of New Yorkers, and I appreciate the support of these New York institutions in making sure that if we have any bad apples, we’re taking care of that. I’ll tell

3:46 you another thing that, yeah, go ahead, right good And another thing that we did this week, and I’m so so proud of my prosecutors. We had a gang trial this week. Gang trial with homicides and you know, just kind of behavior that we can’t tolerate, and there are efforts to intimidate people, and my prosecutors, you know, career people.

4:09 They didn’t waiver an inch. You know, they delivered the goods for the people of New York and secured a guilty verdict. And people should know we are not going to be intimidating. The gangs are not going to intimidate us.

4:26 The people of New York do not want us to be intimidated. In fact, they want us to face intimidation with even greater strength.

4:35 Speaker 1 Now, when you talk about intimidation, there was a you know, we scratch our head sometimes things that happened down and it’s not your territory now Passo, where there were threats of drones coming in, etc. When they had to shut down that airport. I mean, did things that that happened in the northeast.

4:56 Speaker 2 John, one of one of the things that we need to up our game on is being ready for drone threats. I’ve actually spoken in some detail with the Commissioner about this. We have many big events coming to New York this year.

5:15 We have America two fifty, we have the World Cup. The world is going to be watching New York and we need to be ready for threats like that. It’s the reality of today, and you know, it’s a new technology.

5:30 We need to respond and to be ready to combat any kind of nefarious drone activity.

5:38 Speaker 1 Understood, and she did did, Commissioner I did speak about that to learn how to protect ourselves better against drones, which brings up one last subject. The fact is that President Trump on these windmills on the Atlantic coast because whether it’s wool Island or whether it’s Staten Island, it’s it enters your territory too. That these windmills could could

6:08 besides being having their own problems, they can, they can. How did they say it reduce the ability of radar to pick up drones coming through that system? Well, John, I’m going to put on your desk yet that has not.

6:27 Speaker 2 Been on my desk as a prosecutor. I’m going to put my old SEC Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure hat on. And you know these things were financed with a blind eye toward their total cost. That’s that’s just me knowing about investments and knowing about the we were sold a bill of goods on some ESG investments and the windmills offshore.

6:56 To me, and I’m speaking now as a citizen informed by my time in the market it’s Uh, this is one of the craziest things in terms of ignoring all of the potential costs and buying a bill of goods on you know what are turning out to be illusory benefits.

7:13 We should all we should all take a lesson from from this windmill experiment.

7:19 Speaker 1 Well, I’ve learned lessons like that when we used to buy copying machines and then they would finance them through a leasing company, and when the copying machines didn’t work, the the the copying machine company would say, well, we sold that paper to a bank. We have nothing to do with it anymore.

7:40 Speaker 2 Yeah, and your your and your copy machine became a coffee table because it wasn’t good for anything else.

7:46 Speaker 1 Absolutely, it’s part of the I hate to say the words, it’s part of the con game. Uh. And I understand that one of the possibly one of the countries in Europe were involved, where they own a large portion of the company doing the deal. And when you talk about those windmost because I know it’s important to President Trump,

8:09 is the fact that that even though they guarantee you ten years worth of life, the windmills, the blades for off after five or six years. Some of them and in and I’ve been told that it could cost the New York consumer, the American consumer, two more for electricity than it’s costing.

8:35 Speaker 2 Now, yeah, John, Now I’m going to put my prosecutorial hat back on and talk about white collar crime and how we look for it. One of the one of the places you look most is when somebody gets paid up front and the customer has to deal with it over the next ten years. And I’m always wary of

8:57 the guy that walks away with all the dollars on your one and then the customer has left with all the maintenance for ten years.

9:05 Speaker 1 Well, I will figure in on what I know, and I’m sure they Secretary Bergham can figure in on that. And it’s a major problem for New York City and New Jersey. But the New Jersey is a different prosecuror area.

9:21 But the course of electricity could go up anywhere from two to three.

9:27 Speaker 2 That’s not what we want, not what we want.

9:31 Speaker 1 Drake Clayton, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, thank you so much for the job you do, and thank you for protecting all New Yorkers and all Americans. And let’s catch up again real soon Thank you John,