I spent four days with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Here's what happened, CapCon Q&A with FEMA
Read about the bizarre week I had in Albany with RFK, Jr.
Good afternoon — it’s Friday and National Book Lovers Day.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 2024
TODAY’S CAPCON:
I spent four days this week with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in Albany. Here’s what happened in what was truly a bizarre series of events.
A CapCon Q&A with FEMA’s Jeremy Greenberg on Debby in New York.
We’ll be back to your regular CapCon newsletter programming Monday.
🌧️ Tonight’s Weather: Albany: Rain expected, high 60s. New York City: Rain, low 70s. (National Weather Service)
⚖️ I spent four days with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Here’s what happened.
🏃 The independent presidential candidate was in Albany this week for a trial that could determine his spot on the ballot in New York. I was there every day.
If you had told me five years ago that I would cover not one, but two trials involving Robert F. KENNEDY, Jr. by the 2024 election, I wouldn’t have believed it.
But that’s where I found myself this week: in an Albany courtroom with the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy himself.
Kennedy was in Albany this week for a four-day trial over whether his campaign broke election law when it claimed an address in Westchester County was the candidate’s home.
Kennedy’s campaign filed about 146,000 signatures with the state Board of Elections this year to secure his spot on the ballot.
But they used that address when collecting those signatures and filing them with the agency.
The trial was bizarre and filled with twists and turns that I don’t think anyone — including Kennedy himself — saw coming.
It was a very different vibe than the other trial I covered involving Kennedy when he led a lawsuit against New York’s measles vaccine requirement for school students in 2019.
This trial was, ironically, held in the same courthouse.
📖 Let me set the scene for you.
I couldn’t get over the courtroom where the trial went down. It was genuinely beautiful.
Like every other courtroom, you had the judge at the front, tables for the attorneys on either side, and a row of benches for observers.
But the walls of the room were lined with shelves and small alcoves filled with books — and there were two stories! The top had a balcony.
It almost felt like a secret place that’s never used. The room had warm, soft lighting instead of the harsh fluorescents found in criminal court.
Kennedy showed up about an hour into the trial on its first day, adding a new gravity to the room as people who were once close friends testified against him.
For someone who might get kicked off the ballot in New York, he didn’t show any visible signs of stress or concern from where I was sitting in the front row.
On the first day of the trial, it was only the two legal teams, three reporters and some of Kennedy’s staff in the courtroom.
By the last day, about two dozen Kennedy supporters — clad in shirts and hats — had made it to court to cheer on their candidate, who stopped for photos before court Thursday.
🧑⚖️ There was a lot of personality in the trial.
You couldn’t have cast a better set of characters for this trial. Genuinely.
There was Kennedy, obviously. If you’ve never met him, he’s what you would expect: tall, well-dressed and generally put together.
But everyone else was straight out of a mix between My Cousin Vinny and Law & Order.
There was William F. Savino — Kennedy’s eccentric attorney who loved chatting with reporters and attorneys from the other side.
There was Keith Corbett and John Quinn — the two very serious, very confident attorneys from big law firms leading the case against Kennedy.
There was state Supreme Court Justice Christina Ryba — who smiled when she spoke for the first two days of the four-day trial.
And some of the witnesses who testified made the trial feel like a game of Clue.
There was David Michaelis — who Kennedy had claimed was his landlord for a time but vehemently denied as such in court.
There was his wife, Nancy Steiner — who called Kennedy’s political views “reprehensible” at one point on the stand with Kennedy just feet away.
There was Barbara Moss — the friend in Westchester County whose address Kennedy used in election filings. When asked if she was his landlord she said: “I think I am.”
And there was Paul Rossi — Kennedy’s Election Law attorney who is not licensed to practice in New York and was combative with Corbett on the stand.
🗣️ It started out strange and continued to feel strange until the end.
Before the trial even began, Savino had approached reporters to make a half-joke, half-request.
“You’ve got to do me a favor,” Savino said and explained that there was another attorney in New York with the same name. “I’m the one with the ‘F.’ That’s ‘F’ for funny.”
And he sure tried to be. During tense moments — especially when the judge wasn’t happy with him — he would often crack a joke.
It was a tough crowd.
Kennedy kept leaving the courtroom on the first day of the trial while witnesses testified. Ryba wasn’t having it.
“Counsel, Mr. Kennedy has left the courtroom. Is something happening right now?” Ryba said to Savino.
“I don’t know. He left without telling me he was leaving,” Savino said. “It’s hard to control a presidential candidate.”
No one laughed and the room fell silent for a few minutes until Kennedy returned. It was awkward.
The case was also complicated because Kennedy was given protection from the Secret Service after the assassination attempt against former President Donald TRUMP.
That led to a lot of moments in which I had to navigate the maze the building had turned into because certain spaces were blocked off at different times.
😯 Kennedy’s friends are no longer his friends.
You might have read this story I wrote last month about how Kennedy had claimed he lived at his friend’s address because his other friends kicked him out of their place last year.
Kennedy had written: “My friend and landlord David Michaelis requested that I move out of my residence at Two Twin Lakes Road, as he remains a supporter of President Biden.”
That address doesn’t exist. It was later revealed to be on Twin Lakes Drive.
Michaelis did not beat around the bush when he took the stand Monday.
“This is a fiction of something that is not even going on,” he said.
Kennedy had claimed that Michaelis’ house was his official residence until last spring but Michaelis testified that he hadn’t even seen him since 2019.
Steiner went a bit further, referencing the story I wrote about Kennedy’s affidavit.
“I’m not happy with finding my husband represented as his landlord in the press and apparently in findings Bobby has made because that’s not accurate,” Steiner said.
Savino tried to show that those emotions could muddle her testimony and she didn’t shy away from letting him know how she felt.
“I found Mr. Kennedy’s consideration of working for Donald Trump reprehensible and his continued correspondence and connection to him reprehensible,” Steiner said.
By the time Moss got to the stand Tuesday, few kind things had been said about Kennedy in court.
She testified that she agreed to rent a room to Kennedy last spring at $500 per month and that he receives mail there several times a week. It’s an informal arrangement, she said.
“As long as Bobby needs the room, it will continue,” Moss said. “That was our understanding.”
But that was undercut when Quinn revealed that Kennedy hadn’t paid for the first year of rent until one day after an article published in the New York Post questioned his residency there.
And again, when Kennedy himself said he’d only ever slept there once.
🔑 Kennedy was then accused of perjury and voter fraud.
Part of Kennedy’s defense was that, because he’s registered to vote at Moss’ address, that makes him a resident of New York for voting purposes under the law.
But when he took the stand, Corbett connected a few dots that Kennedy didn’t expect.
He established — through documents — that Kennedy had been registered to vote at his sister’s address in Westchester County after he moved to California.
Then he established that Kennedy had voted in New York in the 2016 election.
And then he presented documents to Kennedy that showed his sister had sold the home in 2015, meaning Kennedy had voted using an address no longer owned by his family.
“Mr Kennedy you were registered to vote and actually voted in a primary election and a general election in 2016 from a house you never owned. How do you explain that?” Corbett asked.
“I moved 13 different times in that town. I did not change my registration every time,” Kennedy said. “I don’t think that’s illegal.”
“Are you familiar with the term voter fraud?” Corbett shot back.
“I’m familiar with the term. I don’t believe what I did was voter fraud but I could be wrong,” Kennedy replied.
Corbett also accused Kennedy of perjury after it was revealed that he didn’t change his driver’s registration to Moss’ home until one day after he swore in an affidavit he already had.
“We’re talking about a 24-hour difference,” Kennedy said.
“No, we’re talking about an attorney who swore something under penalty of perjury about a residence that’s not true,” Corbett said.
🛡️ Kennedy’s defense changed throughout the trial.
During the first two days of the trial, Savino’s strategy had focused on showing connections between Kennedy and the room he claims to rent.
He showed how Kennedy received frequent mail at the Moss address and kept certain registrations and licenses in New York because that’s where he lived.
That continued on the third day but began to shift: instead of trying to prove he regularly resided at Moss’ house, Savino began to stress instead that it’s where he intended to return.
Kennedy had testified that he didn’t want to move to California in 2014 to be with his wife, actor Cheryl Hines.
They have an agreement to move to Westchester County when she’s retired from acting.
“I never intended it to be permanent,” Kennedy said. “I always intended to return to New York.”
That’s the legal standard Savino hopes Ryba will side with in her decision: that state Election Law allows Kennedy to use the address as his residence as long as he intends to move back there.
Corbett and Quinn could not prove otherwise, Savino said in his closing arguments.
“Mr. Kennedy’s connections with New York have remained significant and consistent,” Savino said. “There’s nothing in this record that says he’s not going to move back.”
That was also at the advice of Rossi, who took the stand right before Savino’s closing on the last day of the trial.
Rossi testified that he’d told Kennedy to use that address because he was likely to get sued in other states and New York was the only residence that would work for him.
“It had to be the address where he was registered to vote because certain states require you to swear that the address you attest to is where you’re registered to vote,” he said.
🤷 Either way, it’s not the end of the case.
Both sides have said they intend to appeal the decision if they lose. Ryba could hand down a ruling as early as Friday afternoon.
She’ll decide if the Westchester County address counts as his residence for voting purposes under the law in New York.
It’s unclear what that will mean for the signatures he collected and his spot on the ballot.
And Savino and Corbett said they expect to be before an appellate court next week.
Kennedy left court quickly Thursday after the trial ended, but stopped to criticize Democrats for targeting his campaign.
The lawsuit is funded by Clear Choice PAC, a Democrat-supported group that’s trying to get Kennedy off the ballot.
“I don’t recognize this Democratic Party,” Kennedy said. “I grew up in a Democratic Party that was fighting as hard as it could to make sure that every American has the right to vote for the candidate they wanted to vote for.”
His supporters cheered him on from across the street as he exited the courthouse and drove off in a line of black SUVs.
I stopped to ask one of them, Donna Lucente, why they felt it was important to come see the trial.
“To me, it’s basically election interference,” Lucente said. “It’s throwing everything they can in every state that they can do this.”
“More and more people who are politically moderate feel disconnected from what is perceived to be the extreme left and the extreme right,” she said. “Bobby Kennedy has tapped into a groundswell of discontent.”
This section features interviews with top newsmakers in New York and people we think you’ll be interested to hear from.
🗨️ The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) does exactly what it sounds like. The agency responds to widespread emergencies throughout the country — like severe storms or widespread wildfires — to help mitigate the impact of those events and assist with recovery.
Jeremy Greenberg is the director of the operations division for the response directorate at FEMA. They’re helping states with once-Hurricane Debby and its remnants, which are expected to be at their worst in New York later Friday into Saturday.
We chatted about the storm, what happens after and what folks should do if they find themselves in a dangerous situation.
CC: Is the storm still going to be significant for New York after traveling up the coast?
FEMA: We are expecting a significant amount of rain, and there'll be localized flash flooding forecast for New York and the upstate areas. So definitely a serious storm that we're working and would encourage everybody to take that storm seriously as well.
CC: New York has an emergency management agency that does similar work. How does FEMA work with them in a situation like this?
FEMA: It's a multi prong approach that FEMA takes with all of our states. We have permanently embedded FEMA staff that work with New York state emergency management on a daily basis, working through plans for these types of incidents and other incidents.
And then when a forecast like this does materialize, those teams will work at the state's request to either deploy or provide technical assistance as the state moves resources in and around.
In this case, you know, moving things from downstate and maybe the city all the way up upstate, towards where the higher impact areas are, and then as the storm passes, certainly go out and do the joint damage assessments and make a determination on what additional resources might be needed as you transition to that recovery phase.
CC: When there’s significant storm damage, the governor in New York will often request a federal emergency declaration to expedite recovery funding and open up more resources. In a situation like this, how does that work?
FEMA: The governor can make that request directly for an emergency declaration, to request resources that might be needed to bolster what's already in the state, organically, or what might be requested for mutual aid, surrounding states coming in and providing that support. As the storm moves on, certainly afterwards, a request could be made too based on damage.
But I think the critical thing right now is really pushing the message to all of the citizens that are there to make sure they have the individual capability for evacuation, that they know where their shelters might be, that they have ‘go kits.’ Most importantly, they have the ability to evacuate if they're told to, and have a plan to help their neighbors, pets and other people that might not have the ability to move as quickly.
CC: When will the storm be at its worst in New York, particularly upstate where it’s expected to be worse?
FEMA: Probably Friday into Saturday will be when it hits upstate New York, but I would certainly encourage everyone to pay attention to the local forecasts. Every forecast is just a model, right? And then understanding that the storm may move a little faster, you might see some of those rain bands hit earlier, and then a large amount of rain that starts to fall in a short period of time. And that's the biggest concern regarding flash flooding and any other of the water hazards that we're most concerned about.
CC: What am I missing here? Is there anything I’m not asking that you think people should know?
FEMA: I'd like to re-emphasize individual preparedness, if we can. And that means everything from making sure you have an individual ‘go kit’ with food, water, medical supplies and anything else you might need for a person, that you have a plan on where you can evacuate from if you need to.
And then also, I would like to promote a capability to find a shelter. People can just text the number 43362 and if you put the word ‘shelter’ and the zip code in which you're in, it'll return a ping with a local shelter nearby. Some people may not be familiar with the best locations to go if they do have to evacuate, so using that capability will make sure everybody is in a safe place.
📚 National Book Lovers Day: This one explains itself. If you hate books, today is not for you. It would also be a really strange position to hate all books. Maybe today is about figuring out which books you’ll end up liking.
My favorite book is “The Boys of My Youth” by Jo Anne Beard. It’s not for everybody but I’d recommend it for anyone who likes a colorful read.
Don’t forget to consider your local bookstore before ordering something online or at a big retailer. They’re great.
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