Comey Prosecution Troubles, New Findings In Epstein Documents, Nvidia & A.I. Bubble

Speaker 1 The Trump administration's case against former FBI Director James Comey may be unraveling.

Speaker 2 The Justice Department admitted the full grand jury never reviewed the indictment. So is it valid?

Speaker 1 I'm a Martinez, that is Leila Faddle, and this is up first from NPR News.

Speaker 1 The long-awaited Epstein files are not all out yet, and thousands of emails already released are raising questions about who stayed close to Jeffrey Epstein even after he became a registered sex offender.

Speaker 1 So, what could the Justice Department reveal next?

Speaker 2 And tech giant Nvidia reported another jaw-dropping quarter. The company is now worth $5 trillion.

Speaker 3 There are elements of irrationality through a moment like this.

Speaker 2 Leaders in Silicon Valley say the frenzy feels unsteady. What does an AI bubble mean for the rest of the economy? Stay with us.
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Speaker 1 Former FBI director James Comey was back in federal court yesterday.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Comey faces false statements and obstruction charges tied to congressional testimony he gave in 2020.

Speaker 2 But the Trump Justice Department's case against him is running into core legal challenges that could leave it on shaky grounds.

Speaker 1 NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas joins us. Ryan, you were there for this hearing yesterday where there was a bit of legal drama happening.

Speaker 6 There sure was. There was quite a bit of it.
And really, the big news to come out of the hearing revolves around the indictment in this case. The new acting U.S.

Speaker 6 Attorney Lindsey Halligan presented this case to a grand jury. She did so at the end of September.
And Halligan initially sought three counts against Comey, but the grand jury rejected one of those.

Speaker 6 So in the end, Comey was indicted on two counts, the ones that were mentioned at the top, false statements and obstruction.

Speaker 6 But there have been questions about what exactly happened in the grand jury process.

Speaker 6 And in a remarkable exchange in court yesterday, prosecutors told the judge that the full grand jury never reviewed the final indictment against Comey. Halligan herself was questioned by the judge.

Speaker 6 She acknowledged that only the four-person and one other grand juror saw it. The government described this as little more than a paperwork error.
Comey's attorney disagreed.

Speaker 6 He said this means there is no indictment and said that this is grounds to have this case dismissed.

Speaker 1 So a full grand jury not seeing a final indictment. That sounds like a serious issue.

Speaker 6 Well, look, I spoke with a couple of former federal prosecutors yesterday who said this is really a self-inflicted wound by the government.

Speaker 6 They said that this is prosecutor 101-level stuff, and it just shouldn't happen. The judge certainly sounded concerned.
This raises questions about the validity of the indictment itself.

Speaker 6 Last night, the government filed another brief at the judge's request on this very issue. And prosecutors argued, again, that everything here was above board.
It's all proper.

Speaker 6 The judge didn't say yesterday what he intends to do, but this clearly is not a positive development for the government.

Speaker 6 And it's not even the first time this week that there have been concerns raised about this investigation and the grand jury process itself.

Speaker 6 Just a couple of days ago, a magistrate judge took the unusual step of ordering the government to turn over all grand jury materials to Comey's defense team.

Speaker 6 That judge said there's a pattern of what he called profound investigative missteps in this case, and that those raised the prospect of prosecutorial misconduct that may have tainted the whole grand jury process.

Speaker 6 Now, the government is pushing back on the magistrate judge's findings and says that they shouldn't have to turn over these grand jury materials.

Speaker 1 Now, I'm sure there are some next steps left.

Speaker 6 That's right.

Speaker 6 Remarkably, that there are all of these various legal challenges, but the amazing thing is that yesterday's hearing was actually centered on a different legal challenge that Comey is making.

Speaker 6 And that's that this case against him is one of vindictive prosecution, that Trump here is using the Justice Department to go after a high-profile critic.

Speaker 6 Comey's attorney, Michael Drieben, pointed to a social media post by President Trump just days before Comey was indicted, demanding that the Justice Department prosecute him.

Speaker 6 Driban told the judge judge that the record here is, quote-unquote, crystal clear. The Justice Department, for its part, says, no, Halligan is not a puppet.
Prosecutors say she acted independently.

Speaker 6 It is worth remembering, though, that Halligan is a former White House aide with no prosecutorial experience who was appointed days before she secured this indictment.

Speaker 6 Now, the judge didn't rule from the bench yesterday, so we are waiting for a ruling on the vindictive prosecution question and on a separate motion challenging the legality of Halligan's appointment.

Speaker 6 So, look, there are a number of serious legal challenges that the government is going to have to overcome before this case gets to trial.

Speaker 1 NPR's Ryan Lucas. Thanks, Ryan.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 Now that President Trump has signed the bill that directs the Department of Justice to release files relating to Jeffrey Epstein, there's renewed focus on the documents that already have been released and what they say about the president.

Speaker 1 In thousands of pages that are now public, other powerful people were revealed to keep close ties to Epstein even after he became a registered sex offender.

Speaker 2 NPR Stephen Fowler has been sifting through everything that's already out there and is with me now. Good morning.
Good morning.

Speaker 2 So what do these files tell us about the people who associated with Jeffrey Epstein before he died?

Speaker 7 The long and the short of it here, Layla, is that there are a ton of rich and powerful people that sought counsel from Epstein. Academics, lawyers, politicians, you name it.

Speaker 7 Reading through these emails for much of these conversations, you'd never know he was already accused of sex-related crimes with underage girls.

Speaker 7 There's an apparent letter of recommendation for Epstein from linguist Noam Chomsky that calls him a, quote, highly valued friend.

Speaker 7 That recalled how Epstein connected him with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who also emailed with Epstein frequently.

Speaker 7 There's advice Epstein gave to Steve Bannon, Trump's former strategist, about ways to build a far-right political movement in Europe. Former Harvard President and one-time U.S.

Speaker 7 Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is stepping away from his public responsibilities after being documented in these files asking Epstein for romantic advice. The list goes on and on.

Speaker 2 Now, President Trump still calls the demands to release the Epstein files a, quote, hoax.

Speaker 2 So if it's a hoax, why is he using it to attack Democrats?

Speaker 7 It is worth remembering that Trump is mentioned quite frequently in these documents.

Speaker 7 Epstein appeared obsessed with Trump and his presidency and trying to tell powerful people that he was this sort of Trump whisperer because of their one-time friendship.

Speaker 7 But plenty of high-profile Democrats have been in varying degrees of Epstein's orbit, and Trump is directing the Justice Department to investigate links between Democrats like former President Bill Clinton, Summers, and mega Donorite Hoffman.

Speaker 7 Other Republicans are going on the offensive too, highlighting revelations that Epstein was texting Democratic member of Congress Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands during a 2019 committee hearing with Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen.

Speaker 7 Text messages show that Epstein teed up Plaskett to ask Cohen things about the Trump organization, and you can see on the video of the hearing that those questions come a few minutes later.

Speaker 7 But some of Epstein's accusers are imploring the president not to make things partisan and focus on the other powerful people they say haven't faced scrutiny, regardless of political affiliation.

Speaker 2 Now, after the near-unanimous approval in Congress of a measure that would direct the Justice Department to release files related to Epstein, what else could we learn that's different from these estate files?

Speaker 7 Within 30 days of Trump signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Attorney General is supposed to make, quote, all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials available in a searchable and downloadable format that relates to things like Epstein, his accomplice, Ghillaine Maxwell, travel records, individuals named or referenced in connection with Epstein's criminal activities, information about plea deals and decisions not to charge Epstein, and his death by suicide.

Speaker 7 Over the summer, the FBI put out a memo that said those files include a significant amount of material, including more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence.

Speaker 7 Some of that includes photos and videos of Epstein's victims, including minors that will not be made public.

Speaker 7 The bill from Congress also says anything jeopardizing a federal investigation can be withheld too. And Trump did just announce a new federal investigation.

Speaker 7 So, Layla, it's not clear what files will be released and when.

Speaker 2 That's NPR Stephen Fowler. Thank you, Stephen.

Speaker 7 Thank you.

Speaker 2 Tech company NVIDIA keeps producing eye-popping earnings results.

Speaker 1 Yeah, listen to these numbers. The company announced late yesterday that it made $32 billion in the last three months.
In recent weeks, it hit a $5 trillion valuation.

Speaker 1 NVIDIA is a company fueling much of Wall Street's optimism about AI.

Speaker 2 NPR's finance correspondent Maria Aspen is here to talk about investors' exuberance and caution about the AI boom. Good morning, Maria.

Speaker 8 Good morning.

Speaker 2 NVIDIA has been valued at $5 trillion.

Speaker 2 That's a lot. How and why is it generating so much enthusiasm?

Speaker 8 It is in fact the most valuable company in the world and it's also one of the most closely watched.

Speaker 8 As an example, Bloomberg, the financial news site, yesterday actually live blogged the entire NVIDIA conference call with investors like it was the Oscars or the Super Bowl.

Speaker 8 And NVIDIA is this closely watched because it sells the computer chips that are powering the AI boom. And as it told investors again yesterday, it is making gobs of money from that.

Speaker 8 Yesterday's earnings report showed that revenue and profit beat analyst expectations, and the market is thrilled. NVIDIA shares are up about 5% right now, and stock futures overall are up.

Speaker 8 NVIDIA CEO Jensen Hong told investors in a call yesterday that he's confident in NVIDIA's future.

Speaker 9 There's been a lot of talk about an AI bubble. From our vantage point, we see something very different.

Speaker 8 So he's basically saying that the world is only at the beginning of the transition to generative AI and that there is so much more to come.

Speaker 2 NVIDIA's CEO dismissed the notion there that there's an AI bubble, but there seems to be very real fear among investors. Is that right?

Speaker 8 Yeah, that has been a recurring fear, and we did see it come up again in recent days. The benchmark S ⁇ P 500 index in particular is coming off its worst losing streak since August.

Speaker 8 And that's because tech and AI in particular is such a huge part of the stock market. By one estimate, AI-related stocks make up nearly half of the value of the S ⁇ P 500.

Speaker 8 But while Wall Street is pinning all of its hopes on the AI boom, it's a long-term bet. And the companies that are investing in AI are just not seeing huge tangible results yet.

Speaker 8 So this latest NVIDIA earnings report came out at a time when we're seeing mounting warnings that tech stocks are too hot and the market is due for a correction.

Speaker 8 We're hearing that from top investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, and even from Silicon Valley leaders that are involved in the AI boom, like Sundar Pichai.

Speaker 8 He's the CEO of Google parent company Alphabet, which we should note is a financial supporter of NPR.

Speaker 8 And this week, in an interview with the BBC, Pichai was surprisingly candid about whether this is a bubble.

Speaker 3 I think it's both rational, and there are elements of irrationality through a moment like this.

Speaker 8 Elements of irrationality is a pretty big acknowledgement coming from Google. And Pichai also acknowledged that sometimes the tech industry overshoots in investment cycles.

Speaker 2 All right, Maria, so what does this mean for all us non-tech titans out here?

Speaker 8 Well, it's important to remember that the stock market is not the economy, but it is often seen as an indicator of how the economy is doing.

Speaker 8 And the problem is that a lot of the AI boom that's making the market hit record highs is is letting investors gloss over questions about what is going on in the economy.

Speaker 8 Tariffs are cutting into company profits, consumer prices are going up, and the job market has been weakening. So while AI has been a big bright spot, it's unclear how long it can last.

Speaker 2 That was NPR's Maria Aspen. Thank you, Maria.

Speaker 8 Thank you.

Speaker 2 And that's Up First for Thursday, November 20th. I'm Layla Falden.

Speaker 1 I'm Amy Martinez. If you enjoy starting your day with Up First and our radio show Morning Edition, and I know that you do, so please consider donating to your local NPR station.

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Speaker 2 Today's episode of Up First was edited by Anna Yukoninov, Megan Pratz, Julio Redpath, Mohamed El Bardisi, and Alice Wolfly. It was produced by Ziad Buch, Neo Dumas, and Christopher Thomas.

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