I want you all to take a moment to watch the video that is linked here below. I’ve watched this scene quite literally hundreds of times and even today, after all those times, it still gives me chills. Years after watching this scene I did a dissertation on this particular scene because it is one of the most intense interpersonal exchanges captured on film. The intensity of the emotion and the enormity of its impact have always served as a very powerful inspiration for me.
Scenes like this don’t really happen in the courtroom, but I think every lawyer spends his whole life preparing and working and building for that one moment when something like this plays out. I think we are heading to a nationwide example of this scene, a moment when Wall Street and the banking industry will be cornered on the stand and the entire country tear them apart in righteous indignation just like this snotty bastard Lt. Kaffe takes down this infallible imperial force, Cl. Jessup.
It happened once before in this country in 1933, when a young and unknown attorney Ferdinand Pecora cross-examined the titans of Wall Street after the crash of the Great Depression. I will detail more of that later when I finish the book, “The Hellhound of Wall Street”. For now, watch this scene over and over. The American people are Tom Cruise. The banks, Wall Street, the Imperial judges, our out of control government are Jack Nicholson. As you head out for battle every day, as you defend yourself pro-se or if you’re an attorney who is fighting this fight, put in your mind that you want the end result to be a glorious moment like the one in this scene where they are finally cornered and can no longer run from the truth.
Counselor, you are like that young lawyer who in spite of the tongue lashing kept to his line of questioning. He got the answer. This is what the Florida Bar, the Supreme Court of Florida, Circuit Chief Judges, and their cults do not want. They do not want a Matt Weidner or a Mark Stoppa to question their secret dealings and orders. Sir, I can see where in defending the Constitution and the rights of defendants you stand in great risk of being made their whipping boy. Just question the character and honor of the court system and you must be sacrificed. If there is any presiding judge left in this state, any good and honorable commissions of review on attorney behavior, they should give you a medal for making them think. And another one for calling them to fix the fraud they have permitted all in the name of filing fees and a quick robo-docket judiciary. Matt, where is the media to stand behind you and Mr. Stoppa and the other freedom fighters for justice?
I am proud of the many good attorneys out there who stand together with us and, but more importantly, we appreciate the support of people like you.
Matt — thank u once again. U r truly a modern day hero. WE the people would be screwed and homeless and on welfare by now if not for u! May God bless u and keep u from harm and u shall allways be in my prayers. Bless u and yours matt and thanks for being able to handle the truth!! Debi 561-389-9339
I think, instead, America will finally awake when a moment occurs like the one during the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings when McCarthy accused attorney Joseph Welch of having a ” subversive” in his office, and the attorney responded, ” Until this moment, senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness… Have you left no sense of decency?” …and the nation awoke.
But when will that moment arise when a Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon are asked that question? …the nation awaits.
The truth is in short supply, and always has been. Every story ever reported in a newspaper or on TV that I had direct knowledge of was reported wrong. But I still for some reason give weight to what they report.
“The truth will stand when the worlds afire.”