HS 292 - Fatal Conceit with Robert Tanenbaum

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Welcome to the Holistic Survival show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary to survive and prosper? The Holistic Survival show is your family's insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently, to understand threats and how to create the ultimate action plan. Sudden change or worst case scenario, you'll be ready. Welcome to Holistic Survival, your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman.

It's my pleasure to welcome Robert Tannenbaum to the show. He is the former Mayor Beverly Hills, the former deputy chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations to investigate the John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinations. He's the author of 29 books, 26 fiction and three nonfiction, and his most recent work is Fatal Conceit. Robert, welcome. How are you today?

I'm fine, thank you very much.

Well, it's good to have you and I didn't want to gloss over, but I didn't have it in your formal introduction, your experience in New York as a DA and all of. So, you know, feel free to mention a little bit of that background if you like, before we dive into some specifics.

Sure, sure. I mean, that really is the basis for all this. It was a foundation. And when I left law school, I grew up in New York and went to college and law school at Berkeley. And then when I returned home, I worked as an assistant district attorney in New York county, which is Manhattan, for the legendary DA Frank Hogan, who was DA for 32 years and always supported by the four parties in Manhattan, the Democrat, Republican, liberal and conservative parties. He ran an apolitical meritocracy, if you can believe that, in the government, but that's the way it was.

Amaz.

And then I served ultimately as a bureau chief of the criminal courts where we had 250 new cases come in every day of the week, 150 from 9 in the morning to 5 at night and from 7pm until 1 in the morning we had another hundred cases and that was done. And arraignments were done seven days a week. So the courts were open on Saturday and Sunday. And then I ran the homicide bureau and I was in charge of the training of the legal staff I prosecuted during that period of time over 200 cases to verdict successfully and learn the ABCs of our justice system and the kinds of considerations and in essence, what we strive for in dealing with these kinds of cases. And which cases should be marked no lesser plea because of the heinous nature of the crime. It was a tremendous experience. And from there, as you mentioned, I went to. I was asked to go to Washington only because my boss had died. I never would have left. I thought he'd lived forever. That was. I'm probably the only person who ever thought that. But that was the way it was. And they asked me to go to Washington to the House Select Committee that was investigating the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King. And I was chief assistant, in essence, to Richard Sprague, who was the chief of staff and chief counsel, who was a brilliant lawyer from Philadelphia, and he's still practicing to this day. He's a tremendous lawyer and dear friend. I didn't. I met him in Washington, as a matter of fact. And then we came out west, and here we are right now in Southern California. And I'm enjoying the opportunity of talking about the justice system and what we should expect from the justice system and not dumb it down and say, well, that's the way things are. No, that's not the way it is. What we wanted do is hit a model. We want to strive for excellence and try to institutionalize virtue. And that's what makes the justice system reformable. To bring it up, not down.

Yeah, yeah. So what are some of the things that are wrong with the system? I mean, everybody has their complaints depending on which side of the area they find themselves here.

The big danger is that we politicize too many things and we're politicizing the justice system, and that should never happen. It must be apolitical. It must be meritorious. You want to have a case by case, analytical analysis, qualitative analysis of cases so that you can decide what to do with the case. And it doesn't matter who the defendant is. What you care about is what is the factual record. And the two considerations really are in the justice system is you want to exonerate the unjustly accused, regardless of whether it's popular or not. That's just totally not relevant to your consideration. And you want to make sure that you prosecute those people where you have factual guilt and it's corroborated by legally admissible evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt. That's what the consideration should be of any prosecuting office.

There are multiple aspects to the political side of it, I would think. Number one, you know, of course, there's what everybody sees. There's the media. Whenever it's a cause celeb type of case, the media gets involved and you can't find a juror anywhere because everybody's heard about the story. The media is so far reaching. But I think the other side of it is, you know, DAs and prosecutors that are running for reelection that want to make a name for themselves, you have that aspect too. Those are two elements of the politit.

Nevermind.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Politization. Yeah.

But what you have sometimes are people who are going to use this system to advance their own career.

Right?

Now we understand that. We understand that because that's the nature of elective office. But at the same time, one has to understand that when you run the justice system, people expect a sense of balance, of fairness. And notwithstanding the roar of the crowd or the mobile, one has to sift through the facts to find out what happened. And you don't go forward ever on a case unless you have corroboration and it's trustworthy. Is the evidence trustworthy? And the best prosecutors are those who are apolitical and then they can, if they want to run for higher office, God bless them. But while they're serving, they have to set that standard of being fair, intelligent, proportional, understanding what kinds of cases should be marked, no less a plea. And if there is a death penalty, which ones you ask for. The kinds of cases are extremely heinous where you ask for the death penalty. So those are the kinds of considerations. And we also need people who are DAs, who have tried cases and not just entitlement people because their parents may have been an ambassador to United nations or to Cyprus, for example, or anywhere else, or with, you know, well known political types. This is not an entitlement job. It's a job for people who have experience, who have been tested in the courts, can be recommended by all kinds of judges and if you're a prosecutor, also recommended by the defense bar for fairness and competence and honesty. It's all about integrity. It's all about enhancing the dignity of the office.

Yeah, I mean, it seems like, you know, in cases, you know, where it's a serious case and there's say, a public defender, I mean, that public defender doesn't really seem to be the recognizable element in the case. The DA seems to be very recognizable, but, you know, I mean, the public defender is trying to, you know, make a name for themselves too. Right. Or are they, oh, Absolutely.

No, no, look, absolutely. One has to understand, being in the system, that the system is skewed towards the prosecution. There's no question about that. Why do I say that? Because the way the system should be run, the investigation precedes the arrest. So when you have an investigation that is honestly run, you gather evidence that is prejudicial against the accused. Those are the facts of the case. And then you're bringing in the defense attorney after the defendant is charged. We're playing chess, and I moved all the pieces at the prosecutor, and you sit down after all the pieces have been moved, and you're in jeopardy right now of checkmate. So that's how the system should work. It requires preparation, it requires dedication to service. So public defenders do an important job. And that is to say, when you're a prosecutor, you want the defense to be as well prepared as humanly possible. This is not a game. It's a search for truth under the rules of evidence. And that's what this is all about. So those people who inflict harm on others must be brought to justice. And that doesn't mean you throw the book at everybody, but you have to prioritize which kinds of cases deserve the strictest kinds of enforcement, that is to say, punishment after a conviction. And that's what the system is. You can't. Can't do it based upon public opinion or on plebiscites or anything else. Is there factual guilt that we haven't corroborated by legally admissible evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt? And that's why I do my novels, because I want to talk about various kinds of cases and what the standards are that we should demand from people who are in the government.

Right, right. Everybody, I'm sure, has at one time or another thought about, God, what if this happened to me? What if I was falsely accused of something? And my God, you just lose complete control of your life. You know, you hear about these guys. I just read a story, I think it was yesterday or the day before, about some prisoner who was in prison for like 20 some odd years and finally got released. Because, you know, a lot of these have happened on DNA things. They've overturned verdicts. So I'm kind of curious about a couple of things. Number one, when someone chooses a career path, you know, out of law school, and they're thinking, well, do I go to work for the public defender's office, or do I go to work for the D.A. you know, I'm wondering who has the better people? You know, assuming Someone can't afford their own lawyer, Right. Is the public defender really going to be able to stand up to a da, or is a DA just going to shred them?

Well, look, it comes down to leadership in both offices. If you have a very, very talented, trial tested head of a public defender's office, or legal aid, as they're called in New York City, for example, you're going to attract young people who want to see justice done. They want to protect the unjustly accused, and they want to try and defend with all vigor their client. On the other side of it, if you have a political person, da, a hack, you're not going to attract the kinds of people who are prepared to do justice. And that's going to pervert the system. So there's a balance there. The D.A. i worked for, the only reason I went to that office was because he was a legendary figure. He was known for his apolitical nature, that he ran a marriage system. And that's what I wanted to be a part of, where you learn, you're tutored, you are given transcripts of the past great trial lawyers in very, very important cases before you ever get near serious cases. So if you can do that on the defense side, that's one of the goals that we should strive for. We don't want to see an imbalance where the public defenders are schleps wandering around the courts overburdened with heavy caseload, and the DA's are marching triumphantly notwithstanding whether or not some unjustly accused person may be convicted. Now, I did last year, interestingly, I did a book we may have chatted about, called Echoes of My Sou. Echoes of My Soul is a nonfiction book, and it was about the most important case that ever came out in New York. It was cited by Chief Justice Earl Warren in the Miranda opinion where it was a brutal double rape murder in a fashionable upper recite, early morning doorman, the whole routine. And the burglar got in and he wound up raping and murdering two young women who were in their early 20s. Eight months later, a young man was justly accused, winds up getting indicted. And then my mentor in the DA's office exonerates him, realizes he's innocent. And then with the da, working with my mentor who was an assistant da, they find the real killer. So they exonerate the unjustly accused and they went after the. That's what we expect from prosecutors.

That's how it should be done. Of course, of course. But you know, prosecutors take the easy way out, too. And I'm wondering, do prosecutors, Robert, what kind of liability, if any, do they have when a case is overturned? And you find out, gosh, this guy spent 20 years of his life in prison and, you know, the DA did it, the prosecutor did it just to win reelection or to make a name for themselves or something. You know, looking back on the case, when the case is reopened, I mean, do they suffer criminal liability? Has that even?

Well, they don't, but that's a very important area. You just touched upon something very, very, very vital and significant. If you have a case in the ordinary course that gets reversed because of a finding by the trial judge that there was not the need for a warrant, for example, and that there was probable cause to make the search without a warrant, but then it gets overturned by an appellate court. You're not going to in any way censure the prosecutor. That is to say, this was all disclosed, and differing judges may have different opinions about factual backup and the necessity to establish various constitutional guarantees. You have that in Fourth Amendment search cases. You have it in Fifth Amendment questioning cases, which was all about Miranda. And that is to say we wanted to protect people from being compelled to give evidence against themselves. That's the Fifth Amendment. But where you have cases where you just referred to, where the prosecutor knowingly, knowingly withholds exculpatory evidence that would help exonerate the accused, then there should be sanctions. And it has to be, you know, a situation where it matters so that the prosecutors understand that they have to abide by constitutional principles and Supreme Court caseload. And that law requires prosecutors to give over.

And if there's a question whether it's exculpatory or not, the prosecutors should give it to a judge, put it on the record, and have the judge make the decision.

Right, Right, of course. Please tell the listeners, what do you mean by exculpatory, exculpatory evidence?

Well, exculpatory evidence is not evidence that tends to exonerate the accused. And that kind of evidence is critical to make sure that the accused, if the prosecutor comes into possession of it, receives it. I talk about this in Echoes of My Soul, but I also talk about it in Fatal Conceit, which is the novel that's out right now.

Do you think that something can be done to reform the way the system? I mean. Well, of course you do. I mean, what I was going to ask you just about the DA's office only, but what can we do to fix the system?

The most important thing is it lies in the Hands of the people. Basically, right now, we have to know who we're electing as DAs, just like we should know who we're electing as judges. And I would not favor the downtown metropolitan areas, for example, of our cities. To have a panel select a da. That to me would not be a good thing. It's too much of an old boys club kind of concept. Or it could be a good old women's club, who knows? But the point is the people should elect a da, but they should also understand who the DA is. Is this a DA who's tried cases? Is this a DA who has an honorable record? And all the kinds of considerations you take into account when you make your decisions every day. Use your common sense and that's what's required, particularly if you're a juror and if you're electing people to public office. This is not brain surgery. We just got to take the. And make sure we know what we're doing before we go into that voting booth and pull the ballot for someone.

Definitely. Very interesting. I want to switch gears for a moment, if we can, and ask you, I mean, I just got to ask you about JFK and mlk. I mean, you know that especially the JFK story has just been talked about forever. What is your opinion?

The problem is that Congress asked me to come down there and I told them point blank not to hire me. And they said, why? I said, because in a search for the truth, there's no compromise. And the business of the Congress is compromise. You can't just have one point of view and that's going to be it. If you don't like it, see you next year kind of thing. We need to have both sides be problem solvers. And in that they compromise in order to achieve some kinds of justice of kind of legislation that will help. For example, the VA hospital situation with our veterans. We need problem solvers there. It's not brain surgery. We need every one of our veterans to have a voucher, not to request it, not to ask, get permission to do it, and so on and so forth. But these are problem solving issues. Search for truth is not a compromise issue. They assured me that wouldn't be the case, but it did become the case. And I was giving you an example. On or about October 1, 1963, there was a fake Lee, Harvey Lee, Henry Oswald, he called himself and that person went into the Russian Embassy in Mexico City on or about October 1st and called the Cuban Embassy, said he wanted to go to Havana. In Moscow, he asked for a Russian INTERPRETER he identified himself as Lee Henry Oswald, and the CIA then photographed him coming out of the building and sent it to all Executive Intelligence intelligence agencies worldwide. The only problem was that was not the historical Lee Harvey Oswald, but it was about approximately seven weeks before the assassination. So the question is, who was he? Why would the CIA, then why would the Executive Intelligence Agency, I should say, tell the wiring commission that investigated the assassination, why would they tell the Warring Commission that that was Lee Harvey Oswald when the photographic equipment showed it was somebody else in the description on the telex? All of which you can get is all you get on the Internet now. And the description was that of the person who was depicted in the telex. And then adding to the problem was, we tape record, wiretap, if you will, all these telephones in Russian embassies, just as they do to us. So when Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested on November 22, 1963, the date of assassination, he was questioned by FBI agents, approximately seven agents who questioned him for 17 hours. And they listened to the tape that was made on October 1 inside that Russian embassy in Mexico City by this person who identified himself as Lee Henry Oswald. And they said categorically, according to J. Edgar Hoover, who memorialized it in a memo dated November 23, that the agents who questioned Oswald listened to the tape and said that the voice on the tape is not the voice of Lee Harvey Oswald. So who was this person? The Congress, my committee then refused to probe further. And that's when I realized I had to leave. So Richard Sprague and I then tended our resignations.

Wow. Wow. So sounds like it doesn't imply that it was Oswald, or at least it wasn't Oswald acting alone.

What we knew was that there was someone who was not Oswald, who had the wrong middle name. There was a file that the Executive Intelligence Agency had, and they also had Lee Henry Oswald. But the question is, was that a coincidence or was it something that was done intentionally? We needed to find that out. And that's what I mean about not compromising in search for truth. And if you compromise on something of that significance, because if it was a coincidence, then so be it. Let's have a factual roadmap that explains it, but not to do it, in my judgment. And that was just one example. I can give you examples time after time. But that was the most egregious and collectively amongst the very serious violations of truth finding. And that was beyond the point that I could no longer stay there. And Richard Splag and I, as I said, left. And then the Person who they hired to replace me. The first thing he was interested in doing was writing a report about his investigation, which was non existent, of course.

Yeah. He didn't even do an investigation yet.

Yeah, it was ridiculous. That's what goes on. Unfortunately, we have politicization take place on a fact finding mission. And that's the kinds of things. You know, let me go back again and tell you about why I think people should read Fatal Conceit. Because it deals with this very issue of people in the government who have unbridled ambition, weak character, and are willing to do anything basically to keep that power. And it even transcends just misrepresenting facts to the public. It may also involve murder. And that's what Fatal Conceit is all about.

Yeah. Unbelievable. Just a quick question. Benghazi, your latest book is about the suspicious death of a CIA chief. Right. Who was sent.

Yeah, A general who was the head of the CIA.

Right. Okay. All right, so tell us about that, about the Benghazi. How does it relate to Benghazi?

What this story is, it's set in Chechnya and Grozny, the capital, and there's a terrorist attack and the administration, during the course of a national election, doesn't want to let the American public know that there's still terrorists out there that are causing serious trouble and engaging in outrages against the local people as well as America. And the general, who is the CIA head, wants to tell the truth to the Congressional committee. And the night before he's going to testify, he winds up dead. The federal government says it's a suicide, happens in Manhattan. And our District Attorney, Roger Butch Karp, who is now this is his 26th book that he appears in, is the District Attorney of New York county. And he probes the case to find out exactly what happened. And then he is confronted and stonewalled and interfered with substantially by the federal government, certain agencies within the government, and then he winds up indicting some people. And lo and behold, the ending is a very, very tempestuous, confrontational, garish confrontation in a courtroom between our District Attorney, Roger Butch Karp and the federal government people. So that's really what the story's about.

Yeah. Yeah. You do such an awesome job explaining these things and just laying them out in a very interesting way. It's really interesting to talk to you about this. Give out your website if you would, Robert. Tell people where they can find the books. And then I got another question for you before you go.

Sure. It's robertktanenboundbooks.com. it's that simple. Robert ktanenboundbooks.com and you'll see all the reviews and everything else that has come down with respect to Fatal Conceit.

Yeah, a bunch of good stuff there. So my last topic I want to cover with you just real quickly is, I mean, you've got more than 14 million copies of your books in print. That is a tremendous accomplishment, especially in an era where we've got so many books being published. And, you know, nowadays an author, if they get 5,000 copies out there sold, it's a pretty big accomplishment. So, you know, what is your process for creating so much content, you know, writing so well and doing. So how many years did it have you done these books?

Over 29 books, 35 years.

Okay, so a little less Badger the.

Assassin, my first nonfiction book about the assassination of two New York City police officers was a case that I investigated and prosecuted that came out in 1979, Dutton hardcover signet paper a year later. So I've been doing this now for over 35 years, and I've been fortunate. I've been blessed because I had this extraordinary experience in the DA's office as a prosecutor.

Oh, yeah, a lot of material there.

And I was trained by the. I was the luckiest person who ever served in the DA's office because I had my two mentors, Mel Glass and the criminal courts, who I write about, of course, and echoes of my soul. And John Keenan, who was my bureau chief and homicide bureau and the finest trial lawyer in New York City, by the way, who is now a federal district court judge in the Southern District in Manhattan, was my other mentor. So I had the two best people in the DA's office mentoring me and guiding my career in that regard. First, when you come out of law school, what do you know about being the da? I mean, what do you know about anything?

Basically, of course. Yeah, it's not real law stuff.

And I was very fortunate to be trained by these two incredible individuals who were not only brilliant trial lawyers, they understood the quality and nature of how the justice system ought to work. And as I said, the two main things that were always drilled into me were exonerate the unjustly accused and go after the real ruthless kinds of characters once they've committed these crimes, and be relentless and search for truth because you're representing the people. You don't want any bouquets thrown at you, but you don't want to ever lose a case because you didn't work hard enough and you didn't prepare properly. And that's what the job is all about.

So that's about the career and the job. And that's great that you feel that way. I wish more people did feel that way. But what advice can you give to writers?

The reason I give you that long predicate to the answer is I'm really writing about everything I live through in large measure. So it makes it a lot easier than to just sit down. Like, for example, Agatha Christie, who wrote these brilliant mysteries, crime in the crime genre, or Thomas Wolfe, who did Bonfires of the Vanities about the Bronx DA and justice in the Bronx and so on in New York. These were two people who never were in the justice system. So I, you know, I duffed my cat to them. They're brilliant. But for me, it was much more. I was wanted to write. It's in my life career. So I know when I talk about, look, I've been responsible for thousands of cases, thousands of cases. Rather, I've tried over 200, as I said, successfully, to verdict. So in all those cases, when I was a bureau chief, for example, as I mentioned, we had 250 new cases a day. You know, in the homicide bureau, we used to have at least a homicide a day. You had tremendous caseload. Each assistant DA in the Homicide Bureau, for example, had between 35 and 50 murder cases that they had to handle. So it wasn't time to make anything up. You had a tremendous inventory and, you know, you wanted to be as faithful to search for truth as humanly possible. And that's what I write about. And all you have to do is read, for example, Fatal Conceit to understand where some of the daily events lead inexorably into a novel. And that is that people in the government, even in our private lives, we should have an obligation to treat people fairly. I mean, it's the old Deuteronomy, you know, treat thy neighbor as thyself with the same respect. But when you're in the government, you want to tell the truth. You make a mistake, admit it, correct it, don't sweep it under the rug and make it worse. And you have a compliant press that's ideologically aligned to a candidate or to an administration. Those are the kinds of things that corrupt our government. And we could spin off different stories to explain it. And that's what Fatal Conceit's about. The fatal conceit of individuals who think they can do anything they want to maintain power, including commit murder, and be immune from punishment, responsibility or accountability. And those people are dangerous to our lives.

They're totally dangerous. And, you know, if you don't think you're affected by this listener, it could be you next. Okay. This could happen to anybody. So good points. Well, the website again is robertktanenbaumbooks.com and Robert, thank you so much for joining us. Fascinating discussion with you and keep writing these great books.

Thank you so much. I appreciate the time.

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