New Evidence and Documents in the Cornell Case | Trump's Title IX Changes + Cutting Loans for "Unprofitable" Majors?

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Jordan Berman (0:29)

Welcome back to UNBIASED Politics. It's Thursday, October 1st, and we have a lot of ground to cover today. So we're, of course, talking about the developments on the Cornell front. We're talking about the administration's changes to Title IX, and then we'll finish with Quick Hitters, Rumor Has It, and critical thinking. As a heads up, I will not be talking about the stabbing on the fly Dubai flight yesterday, because as I've said in the past, I don't get involved in international matters unless the United States is significantly involved in it. And as you'll see, we have plenty of other things to talk about today. So the first story is of course Cornell. And I do just want to say this story will take up the majority of the episode. I want to say it's going to take up 45 minutes of the episode, possibly more. So just know that going in. In Monday's episode, we covered the lawsuit against Cornell. We covered the little bit that we do know about Cornell's investigation, why a civil lawsuit can be brought despite criminal charges never being filed, what we know about why criminal charges were never filed, Cornell's potential responsibility here, and some of the responses from the parties involved. Since then, though, we've learned a lot, right? We've heard from the DA about why criminal charges were never brought, a bit more specifically. We've heard from the DA about what evidence was given to his office during the course of the investigation. We've reviewed pieces of Jane Doe's initial interview with police. We've received text messages. We've gotten Snapchat messages, a few more. And there's been reports from various outlets who have actually reviewed the investigative report as well as other documents from Cornell. So there is a lot more to cover here. But how I want to do this is I want to go in chronological order. I think that is the best way to go about this just because there are so many developments. We will start with the DA's nine-page statement. I'm going to try to paraphrase the statement as much as possible, but there are portions that I'm going to read verbatim because the context is really important. So the statement starts by saying that over the last two weeks, since this lawsuit was filed, he has received numerous calls and emails about the case. And he writes, quote, some people have understandably sought answers. Others have simply insulted and sometimes threatened my office and my staff. In each case, the comments and questions have been based solely on the allegations in the civil lawsuit and its characterization by news and social media sources. End quote. He then writes, quote, while I generally refrain from commenting publicly on criminal investigations, the community outrage stemming from the incomplete news and social media coverage requires that I provide an answer to why the investigation resulted in a lack of criminal charges. Before I discuss the specific facts and reasons that went into this decision, I must provide the answer in the most basic and understandable form.

Jane Doe's sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped. On the contrary, Jane Doe's statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual. My office obviously did not and could not have based our November 2024 decision on the allegations in a civil lawsuit that wouldn't be filed until nearly two years later. Furthermore, I have never been contacted by Jane Doe's attorneys, not to inform me the original statement was inaccurate and not to ask me to reconsider our decision. Rather, I reached out to Jane Doe's attorneys after the lawsuit was filed to understand the discrepancy between the original statement and the lawsuit's allegations and the proper path forward in light of the lawsuit's allegations. The DA then goes on to explain that the primary responsibility of his office is to prosecute state criminal offenses, meaning, police are typically the ones who interview witnesses and collect evidence and investigate what happened, and then prosecutors review that evidence and decide whether criminal charges are supported. Prosecutors will also present the case to a grand jury when necessary, and prosecutors will litigate those cases in court. And that's a pretty fair description of how the process normally works. Now here's what I will add. Prosecutors absolutely can be involved in investigations. They can advise police, they can help get warrants, they can instruct the police to take additional investigative steps, and in some cases, they can work really closely with law enforcement while a case is being built. But the DA here is also correct in saying that prosecutors don't typically conduct a completely separate and parallel investigation while the police are investigating. The DA goes on to write that in November 2024, the Cornell police inform the DA's office of their investigation in this case and ask the DA's office to review a statement provided by Jane Doe to determine whether her allegations constituted a crime under state law. And he writes that this is common practice when investigations involves significant or legally technical matters, such as allegations involving sexual conduct and questions about the legal definition of lack of consent, because keep in mind, police are not lawyers, right? District attorneys are. So in this case, the job of the DA was to review Jane Doe's six page voluntary sworn statement and determine whether any of the allegations set forth in that statement constitute a crime under state law. The DA notes that at this stage of the review, the allegations are assumed to be true. However, if the allegations don't set forth the elements of a crime under New York law, even if they're assumed to be true, the DA cannot advise police to pursue criminal charges. And in this case, the DA says that multiple prosecutors and criminal investigators reviewed Jane Doe's statement and determined that the alleged facts as written in the statement don't constitute a crime. The DA notes that the decision wasn't because the case would have been hard to prove in court, but rather because the facts set forth in the statement objectively prevented the filing of criminal charges. And we'll talk more specifically about what exactly that means in just a few minutes. Now the DA did include what he called a quote unquote relevant facts from Jane Doe's sworn statement. He did not provide the statement in its entirety. He said he decided against it. However, he does quote directly from that sworn statement where possible. So just keep in mind, as I read this to you that, you know, this isn't her exact statement, though there are quotes from the statement. And I will let you know where those quotes are as we go through it. Where words appear in quotes, when I'm saying repeatedly, you know, quote, end quote, those are the words exactly as they appear in her sworn statement, unless, of course, names or pronouns are redacted or changed just for clarity purposes.