Could Trump be impeached after Cohen plea? Not so fast, warns constitutional lawyer

Guests: Daniel Dale, Joshua Matz

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Thanks Sarah. In his interview today, the president said he found out about those payments that Michael Cohen made later on, but he's on tape discussing how to make one of the payment's with Michael Cohen, so before the payment was made. So how do you explain that?

VOICE 2: What I can tell you about this is that the president did nothing wrong. There are no charges against him.

VOICE 3: Given that five convicted felons are now linked to the president or his campaign and given that the president promised to hire the best people. Did he fail to live up to that promise?

VOICE 2: The president has employed thousands of people in his lifetime.

VOICE 4: Did President Trump commit a crime?

VOICE 2: As the president has said and we've stated many times, he did nothing wrong. There are no charges.

VOICE 5: Came here today and say the president has never lied to the American people because so many people now look back at that tape of him on Air Force One saying he knew nothing about these payments. When in fact we now know, he knew everything about these payments. So has he lied?

VOICE 2: Look again I think that's an ridiculous accusation.

VOICE 6: I understand that you don't want to answer the same question a million times and you've said the president did nothing illegal, but I didn't hear a response to the question, did he lie to the American people when he talked about this on Air Force One?

VOICE 2: No. And the president has addressed this a number of times.

VOICE 7: Sarah thank you, I have a couple of questions...

IR: The answers from White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, may have been less than substantial but it was the first press briefing since two former members of U.S. President Donald Trump's inner circle became convicted felons this week. On Tuesday, his former campaign manager Paul Manafort was found guilty on eight counts related to tax evasion and money laundering; and his former personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws saying he and Trump arranged the payment of hush money to pornstar Stormy Daniels and a former Playboy model. Where the Trump administration goes from here remains to be seen. Ms. Huckabee Sanders may not have had many answers but my first guest today has considerable insight into this administration and the potential political fallout from all of this. Daniel Dale is the Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star and he's with us from Washington D.C.. Hello.

DANIEL DALE: Hello good morning.

IR: Morning. It has been a busy time for you. What have you been hearing from Republicans?

DANIEL DALE: Well very little. As usual they don't want to talk about this. They're saying they need more information. They're saying that the convictions are unfortunate but don't implicate the president directly no matter what Cohen says. They're saying, like Trump is, that these convictions are not about collusion with Russia which is you know supposedly the focus of the Russia probe. So they are either not talking or they are mostly finding ways to defend the president.

IR: And what about the Democrats? Is anyone calling for an impeachment?

DANIEL DALE: I haven't seen that among Democratic elected officials. There might be a smattering but Democrats are being careful not to talk about impeachment as the midterms come into focus. Interestingly if the Republicans were talking more about impeachment they're trying to motivate Trump voters by warning them that if Democrats take control of the House of Representatives that they will pursue impeachment.

IR: You know Trump has weighed in on this himself. How has he responded? Can you fill us in?

DANIEL DALE: Sure. He said a number of things: he has denied that he was directing the illegal campaign finance payments that Michael Cohen alleges that he directed, he has argued that Cohen's crimes are not actually crimes which is a curious argument, he has argued basically he misdescribed campaign finance law to try to make himself and Cohen look better and he has as usual complained that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is on a witch hunt. So he's defending himself in a number of different ways seemingly trying to find what sticks.

IR: We heard yesterday's White House briefing off the top and there was a lot of message track. How worried do you think is the White House about the fallout from all of this right now?

DANIEL DALE: It's hard to tell. I've read you know New York Times stories that everyone else has read suggesting that they are concerned -- that Trump insists himself that he is not concerned, and Sarah Sanders insists that he's not concerned. But I can't imagine that behind the scenes they are not at all worried that you know the president's former lawyer and one of his right-hand men Michael Cohen is now saying he's willing to not only cooperate with prosecutors but provide information about much more than campaign finance -- provide information for example about Trump's knowledge of Russian hacking of Democratic e-mails. You know any reasonable person I think would be worried.

IR: So how dangerous is Michael Cohen to the president? Given that as you said he's suggesting that he has more to say.

DANIEL DALE: Yes I think he's likely quite dangerous. We can't know for sure because we don't know exactly what Michael Cohen knows. But Michael Cohen was at Trump's side for a decade; and not only at his side but serving as sort of the doer of his dirty work, he called himself the fix-it guy who solves the president's most sensitive problems. And so given that role, and given his willingness to cooperate, there's probably a significant amount that he can provide prosecutors in New York and the special counsellor's prosecutors in Washington.

IR: What do we know about that prosecution, the Robert Mueller investigation, what's next?

DANIEL DALE: We're not exactly sure because that investigation is so leakproof. They're so private. We know that there is a second trial of Manafort in September. We know that former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn continues to cooperate with Mueller. And we know that he is looking into a wide variety of things related to Trump and people in his orbit, that's including not only collusion with Russia but potential obstruction of justice by Trump and trying to shut down the investigation, or protect Michael Flynn, the finances of people like Jared Kushner -- the president's aid and son-in-law. So there's really a wide variety of directions that this could go, maybe all at once.

IR: And circling back to Paul Manafort for a second, we've heard Trump tweet about his character, praising his character as someone who did break. And you know the idea of a pardon has been floating around but The White House and Trump are dodging the question, the direct question of whether or not he will pardon Manafort. How likely do you think it is that he would pardon Paul Manafort?

DANIEL DALE: You know I don't want to guess, but I think it's very possible certainly. Trump in his rhetoric has seemed to be, and maybe unintentionally, but he seems to be laying the groundwork for a pardon. He has argued that Manafort is a man of good character. He has argued that Manafort has been mistreated by you know wayward, out of control, special counsel. And we know that he has used pardons before to pardon people -- to pardon Republicans, people popular in Republican circles from the inflammatory author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza -- to the racist [inaudible] Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona. And so this really would not be out of character for Trump and his use of the pardon power.

IR: As for the political fallout from all this, what could this mean for the midterm elections which are coming up in November and beyond them?

DANIEL DALE: Well it can't be good for Trump you know at the very least from a you know an optics -- from a political perspective you know this is more talk about criminals surrounding the president and you know the president using bad judgment and surrounding himself with people who are making very bad decisions. That's the best case scenario. You know the worst case scenario is that more revelations continue to emerge and you know there's fewer than three months to go before the midterms and any day that is spent talking about criminality and the president is a day that he's not talking about the economy, he's not talking about his preferred subjects like you know the dangers of illegal immigration. So at very least you know he's very much off message as voters start to make their minds.

IR: Well thank you very much for your time.

DANIEL DALE: Thank you.

IR: Daniel Dale is the Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star. He was in Washington D.C..

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: 76 days away from the midterms, hard to believe. If the Democrats take back power do you believe they will try to impeach you?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well you know, I guess it says something like high crimes and all. I don't know how you can impeach somebody who has done a great job. I'll tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor.

IR: That was President Trump speaking with Fox News Ainsley Earhardt in an interview that aired this morning, giving his reasons why an impeachment process against him would be a bad idea. For more on what the scandals swirling around the Trump White House could lead to, I'm joined by Joshua Matz. He is a constitutional lawyer and the co-author with Laurence Tribe of a timely new book called, To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment. And we've reached Joshua Matz in New York City. Hello.

JOSHUA MATZ: Good morning.

IR: Morning. What did you think when you heard Michael Cohen say he violated campaign finance laws at the direction of Donald Trump?

JOSHUA MATZ: I thought that it would lead to an immediate concern that the president may have knowingly participated in criminal activity and that it would lead a lot of folks to wonder whether that could be a potential article of impeachment against him. Although I have to admit at the same time I doubted and continue to doubt that that revelation will move a sufficient number of voters in the American public to support impeachment, to sort of make that a political reality at the moment.

IR: But if what Michael Cohen said did happen between him and the president, would that rise to the level of an impeachable offense?

JOSHUA MATZ: My suspicion is that standing alone it probably wouldn't; a single one off campaign violation of that kind would be extremely serious and should merit very substantial congressional investigation and action, I think the real question would be whether if the president did commit that crime it was part of a broader and more menacing pattern of illegal conduct were leading to the election because it really does take something extreme to qualify as an impeachable offense.

IR: You know we heard President Trump say in that clip earlier, he talked about high crimes and misdemeanors or he referenced them, what does that actually mean when it comes to forcing a president out of office?

JOSHUA MATZ: So what the Constitution says is that a president can be impeached and removed from office if he is guilty or found guilty of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. It doesn't define that last phrase and it has generally been understood as referring to extraordinary abuses or corruptions of power or betrayals of the nation that imperil American democracy and the broader political system. If the president has committed an impeachable offense, the judgment is ultimately left to Congress -- to the house in deciding whether to bring articles of impeachment and then to the Senate in deciding whether to convict or acquit on those articles. And only if both of those things happen, that the House impeaches and the Senate convicts, is the president then removed from office. So here we're talking about whether the constitutional standard that would allow the House to act against the president is potentially satisfied.

IR: And we've heard a lot in the news about the fact that a sitting president cannot be indicted or at least that is the policy. Can you kind of shed some light into that and what is the logic behind that policy?

JOSHUA MATZ: So there is a dispute over that although I think it's fair to say that the widely prevailing view and the view held by the Department of Justice is that the president can't be indicted basically because of the structure of the constitutional system. Nothing in the Constitution specifically says that it couldn't happen but there's a suggestion that by authorizing impeachment as a remedy for presidential wrongdoing and by putting the president at the head of the branch of government, that would otherwise be in charge of prosecuting, the Constitution doesn't contemplate a world in which a sitting president faces criminal liability from an unelectable -- sorry, an unelected politically unaccountable federal prosecutor who is nominally one of his own subordinates. And rather that in that circumstance it really is left to the political process. And then if a president has committed crimes, they can be indicted but only after having been removed from office or after their time in office ends. And while there are folks who think that that is not the case, that it would be appropriate to bring criminal charges against a sitting president, I would be very surprised if Robert Mueller were such a person or if this Department of Justice were going to try to leave that chasm.

IR: You know the last president to be impeached was Bill Clinton in 1999, but he was not convicted in the Senate. So how did that experience change the way Americans think about impeachment?

JOSHUA MATZ: I think it changed it for the worse. The Clinton impeachment was widely understood as an effort by the Republicans in the House of Representatives to rebuke President Clinton for what they saw as his outrageous sexual conduct and his perjury or his alleged perjury and obstruction of justice in the Kenneth Starr investigation which had been investigating it. It was understood essentially from day one that there were not sufficient votes in the Senate to remove President Clinton from office. And it was also understood that Republicans didn't care and that they were determined to go through this process as a form of partisan vengeance against the president. An entire generation saw that happen and I think came to view impeachment as more of a partisan weapon than it really was meant to be; in ways that can actually make impeachment harder to use when you really need it because the idea is that impeachment is about saving the foundations of our democratic society not just about advantaging one political party over the other.

IR: In May 2017 shortly after the firing of FBI Director James Comey your co-author, Harvard constitutional law professor, Laurence Tribe appeared on MSNBC and had this to say.

SOUNDCLIP

Letting him exercise power, when he has now demonstrated that when push comes to shove he will try to push right through all our checks and balances, is just not a safe thing for this country to do and that's what impeachment was designed for.

IR: Joshua Matz you talked about the fact that impeachment has been perceived by Americans -- by the American public as a tool of political vengeance but given what your co-author just said, was impeachment designed for a president like Donald Trump?

JOSHUA MATZ: I think there is a very good case that impeachment is appropriate when the president engages in the kinds of wrongdoing that President Trump has engaged in. But I think it's also important to qualify that even if it's true, and again there is a good argument that it is, that this president has committed high crimes and misdemeanors -- right now only 40 percent of the American public supports his removal from office according to the latest polls. And that number has been constant for almost the last year at this point. When the [inaudible] designed the impeachment process, they didn't just put a standard in the Constitution of what kind of misconduct would justify activating this power. They also gave control over these decisions to the House of Representatives and to the Senate which is to say to the political process. And I think unfortunately perhaps you know to some, we are at a moment where there just doesn't appear to be the political will to activate the impeachment power, and in that scenario, fixating on it to the exclusion of other possible remedies, most immediately including the midterm elections and what Congress might do thereafter, I actually think it's probably the wrong way to look at this.

IR: But what if during the midterms the Democrats win the House of Representatives and that political will is there and they you know want to begin the impeachment process. Do you think the House should vote to impeach the president if the Democrats don't control the Senate?

JOSHUA MATZ: I think that's an exceptionally difficult question and my general intuition is to say they shouldn't. If the Democrats take the House of Representatives, which is not a foregone conclusion, obviously the first thing they need to do is investigate. Before the House can file articles of impeachment against the president it needs a comprehensive and well developed factual record to substantiate any and all of the accusations that it's going to levy in its articles of impeachment. But if you're in a scenario where you know to a near certainty that the Senate is going to acquit the president, because you need 67 votes in the Senate and it's really unimaginable that Democrats would come close to having that number and it seems unlikely that Republican senators would abandon the president unless the political dynamics change, in that scenario you know what you might be teeing up is something that looks like an acquittal and in that respect a vindication of the president shortly before the 2020 presidential election, and not only would that be unwise as a matter of you know constitutional law because you'd be potentially putting the Senate in the position to vindicate the misdeeds that you have impeached for. But it would also be unwise politically. And so I think the Democrats will have a very complicated political calculus to make about what will best position them to take back political control and right the wrongs that this president has committed.

IR: The political process in the U.S. is a system of checks and balances. Is it functioning properly though in 2018 when one party to your point controls the House, the Senate, and the executive branch?

JOSHUA MATZ: No. I don't think anybody in their right mind could possibly think that checks and balances are functioning properly in the United States right now. Historically it has been true that during periods in which a single party controls two or a right now really three branches of government, that checks and balances haven't been all they were cracked up to be because the interest of the party can overcome the interest of the system and of the separate institutions. But I think right now we're seeing a version of that that's a lot worse than really anything we've seen in U.S. history and it reflects the I think the failure of the Republican Party to stand up for both the institutional prerogatives of their branches of government and also for premises of the democratic system that they supposedly care so much about. And I do think one of the big questions in American politics for the next, for the foreseeable future, will be whether the Republican Party discontinues to drive itself over a cliff or can pull itself back to the principles that it claims [inaudible].

IR: Shifting topics for a second onto the pardon power of the presidency. Trump has shown he's willing to use it and even though he's dodging direct questions about whether or not he will pardon Paul Manafort, what do you think it would mean if he did start pardoning people like Manafort who are potential witnesses against him in the special counsel investigation in Russia's interference in the 2016 election? What is the risk of pardoning people like Manafort?

JOSHUA MATZ: So when it comes to the pardon power it is absolute the president can pardon any one he wants. There is a political risk, which is that it will just further encourage perceptions of lawlessness and of wrongdoing in The White House. And then there's also a potential impeachment related risk which takes two forms. One, is that people who he has pardoned will not face the risk of federal criminal liability for their conduct and it might therefore be easier to compel them to testify before a grand jury or otherwise force them to give evidence because there is less of a concern of self incrimination. There's also a more substantial concern which is if the president uses his pardon power in a manner that seems calculated to suborn perjury and obstruct justice, I do think it would be appropriate to characterize that use of the pardon power as a high crime and misdemeanor. And in fact in the Nixon case when the House of Representatives, a committee approved in article of impeachment against Nixon for obstruction, part of the conduct that they included within that article of impeachment was his public effort to lead witnesses to give false testimony. And a pattern of pardons that is designed to signal to Trump's allies that they can lie with impunity would fall squarely within that precedent.

IR: Okay we'll have to leave it there, we're out of time. Thank you so much.

JOSHUA MATZ: Thank you.

IR: Joshua Matz is co-author of, To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment. We reached him in New York City. The CBC News is next. Then, our documentary Expecting The Unexpected, because no one could have predicted the bundle of joy and frustration that came with surrogate mom Jessica Allen's twin birth. I'm Ioanna Roumeliotis and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

How a surrogate twin pregnancy turned into a custody battle over unrelated babies

IR: Hello. I'm Ioanna Roumeliotis and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current. Still to come...

SOUNDCLIP

Tonight on The Beaverton, Donald J. Trump has been elected president, is this America's 9/11?

IR: You may know The Beaverton from its TV show, a satirical take on the news of the day, in the vein of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. But the Canadian based comedians turn to their own country's history for a recent book. We'll hear more about The Beaverton's take on our glorious and or free country in half an hour. But first, much more than expected. For women who have had uncomplicated pregnancies of their own, the prospect of being a surrogate can seem fairly straightforward. And that's exactly what Jessica Allen thought when she signed on with an agency to carry a child. She was 29 years old and a mother of two and her partner was on board with this idea. Jessica Allen lives in California where surrogacy isn't just legal it's commercial, meaning a surrogate can earn money for doing it. And as far as the pregnancy went she was right, everything went smoothly and uneventfully. She gave birth to two healthy boys but in ways she never could have anticipated, Jessica's surrogacy story was about to get very complicated. In December, as part of our season long project Adaptation, freelance contributor Alison Motluk brought us her documentary Expecting The Unexpected.

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JESSICA ALLEN: It was basically a way to give back you know and to just be a great way to bless someone with a child and in return get my family blessed financially.

ALISON MOTLUK: In 2016, Jessica Allen agreed to help a couple from China have a baby.

JESSICA ALLEN: We only had two kids. My oldest was 5 then and our newest was only six months.

ALISON MOTLUK: She would be what's known as a gestational surrogate meaning she would be carrying a baby made from someone else's sperm and egg. They would be the intended parents. All the arrangements were made through a surrogacy agency.

JESSICA ALLEN: I only agreed to get one embryo transferred. When I was about six seven weeks pregnant they saw another embryo in. They told me that I was pregnant with twins that the first embryo that they transferred, the only embryo that they transfer split into twins. I was completely shocked.

ALISON MOTLUK: It can happen. A single embryo can split into two. Jessica had been warned of this possibility. Now the doctors told her she was carrying twins, identical twins, two babies with the same DNA.

JESSICA ALLEN: After every doctor's appointment. I would text her or let her know the babies are great. I'm doing well. I would send her a picture of every ultrasound that I get. I even made videos of the babies moving. I recorded them moving for her so I sent her everything I possibly could and just try to someway somehow allow her to feel comfortable and connected even being so far away.

ALISON MOTLUK: At the same time she and her family made sure not to get too attached. Here's her husband, Wardell Jasper.

WARDELL JASPER: I tried to distance myself. I didn't why to get some type of emotional connection because I know the kids in the belly was not mine. I did not rub her belly. You know I didn't feel when the baby was kicking. You know the national things I kind of just didn't want to. I was like "those are not my babies. I know they're not so I just didn't want to do it."

ALISON MOTLUK: Towards the end of the pregnancy the babies were both in breech position. So Jessica was told she'd have to have a c section at 38 weeks.

JESSICA ALLEN: They put something in front of you to block you cannot see what's going on down there. I had he intended mom come in with me and she was a nervous wreck [laughs]. I felt so bad for her poor heart she was a nervous wreck you know and I was the one laying on the table, and I just grabbed her hand and I just told her it's going to be okay. And when they were getting ready to pull the babies out, they you know hollered at her "Get your camera ready." She stood up, snapped a picture. And they put the babies in a little rolling bed and rolled them off right past me and she went with them and they went to their room.

ALISON MOTLUK: A few hours later when Jessica was recovering in her room. The intended mother stopped by with the caseworker from the surrogacy agency. They wanted to see how she was doing.

JESSICA ALLEN: Right away. You know I said "did you get some pictures of the babies did you get some good pictures?" and "can I see the picture?" and she hand me the phone. And I saw a picture of them they had beanies on with their head turned to the side. So it was just a side shot. And I said "Wow they look different" then my caseworker said that she also carried a set of identical twins that came out not looking identical but as they got older they started looking the same. I just thought of it as "well you learn something new every day" because I didn't even know. Identical twins can come out not looking identical so I didn't think anything of it at that time.

ALISON MOTLUK: Jessica wanted to see the babies for real.

JESSICA ALLEN: And then the last day I knew it was going to be her last visit and I said "So are you going to bring the babies by with you before you leave so I can say goodbye" and then that's when she stated "probably not" in this when it gets hard. She just gave me a hug and I said "okay take care." As I'm crying you know she saw I was crying in the end. That was it. Last time I saw her. I didn't see them at all.

[Music]

JESSICA ALLEN: Until this day I have no idea why she did not bring them to me. That really Broke My Heart.

[Music]

JESSICA ALLEN: When I came home, the only thing I could think of was to recover from my surgery get well and just get back to my life. You know get back to my kids, get back to my husband and just move forward with just life in general.

WARDELL JASPER: Our part was done. They got their babies. You know we got to bless them, they bless us and we're done.

ALISON MOTLUK: But they weren't done.

JESSICA ALLEN: About a month later she texts me and she started sending me pictures she sent me a picture of the babies by themselves and she sent me one of them together. I just thought she was being nice just saying "Hey. Here they are you know they're doing fine."

ALISON MOTLUK: This is the text exchange from Jessica's phone. The intended mother did not get back to us so another person is reading her side of the conversation.

JESSICA ALLEN: She sent a message stating that have I thought about "why they look different?"

VOICE: Why they are different. I have been waiting for you to be well. Now I think you are well enough to think about something. They're not the same, right?

ALISON MOTLUK: True. Jessica had noticed differences in the photos. The baby's complexions, their nose shapes, their eyes but she had taken the original explanation at face value. Sometimes identical twins just look different at birth.

JESSICA ALLEN: She stated that she's having doubts that one of the babies don't belong to her. I said I don't think that's possible. And as she stated she is waiting for a DNA, for her embassies that she go back home.

ALISON MOTLUK: The Chinese embassy wanted proof that the babies were genetically related to the intended parents before they would issue the infant's passports.

JESSICA ALLEN: About a week or so later I get a text message and it's just a picture of the results stating that one baby is not genetically related to the dad. And I immediately started freaking out like "what do you mean?" I call my caseworker I'm like "How is the baby not bears not genetically related to the father? What does that mean?" You know and of course she has no answers like how is this possible. Like the IVF center messed up? Did they transferred two instead of one you know did they mix up the embryos? Like I had no idea what's going on.

WARDELL JASPER: And my wife is like "Babe. They're saying babies look different and they want to do DNA testing" and all this time I'm like "okay go ahead. Why not. Do whatever they need you to do". You know like what are you trying to say. "There is any possibility this be our.." "No. No Jesse come on. No these are not our babies." I just literally threw it off. No it's not our baby. We know that for sure. So they just going to find maybe with some mix up at IVF or something. I did not even give thought to it.

ALISON MOTLUK: But Jessica did. She took the DNA test and while she waited for the results she kept looking at the photos. There was no denying it. The two babies were not identical but did the smaller one look like her or her husband? The intended parents are Asian. Jessica is white. Wardell is black. Finally, a week later, Jessica got a text message from the agency caseworker asking to talk.

JESSICA ALLEN: I just knew it. She had the results and my husband and I found you know a quiet area in her house and did a video call with her. And she goes "well and the results came back and Jessica definitely is the mother of Max". His name was Max, that she gave him. Our hearts dropped, you know.

WARDELL JASPER: Wait a minute. I have.. I have.. I have another son. I have another son. So those pictures, that I was seeing, is our son? It was like everything in the world stopped.

JESSICA ALLEN: How can this even be possible? How can one of these babies belong to me?

ALISON MOTLUK: Jessica and Wardell never got a full explanation. Was she already pregnant when she had the transfer? Did she conceive naturally after she was already confirmed pregnant with the other couple's embryo? It's called 'superfetation' a rare but not unheard of event where a second pregnancy takes place after a first one is already established. However it happened. The two babies, one made from the intended couple's egg and sperm and one from Jessica and Wardell's ended up just dating side by side in her uterus.

JESSICA ALLEN: The next day I text her and I said when can we meet up to discuss the next steps for him to come home.

ALISON MOTLUK: She was texting the agency caseworker at some point after the intended parents learned that the baby wasn't their own. They had handed him over to the agency. At this point, Jessica didn't know exactly where her son was.

JESSICA ALLEN: The agency wanted to meet up with us and sign an agreement before they handed over my son. They also said that the intended parents wanted money back about 20 to 22 thousand dollars.

ALISON MOTLUK: Jessica had been paid twenty seven thousand dollars U.S. for the surrogacy but she got five thousand extra for carrying twins, and another 3500 for undergoing a C-Section. She also got a small top up on the clothing allowance. Now the agency informed her that she had to pay all these

extras back to the intended parents, along with what was now considered a month of round the clock childcare for her son.

JESSICA ALLEN: One thing on the list is the return twin compensation $5000, you know returning clothes allowance for the twins $200.

WARDELL JASPER: This is agreement basically stating that "hey you're going to pay back the intended parents this amount. You're not going to be able to talk about this. You're also not going to sue us. You can't come after us. You can't come after the company and you're admitting fault."

JESSICA ALLEN: [Reading] $840, formula $400.

WARDELL JASPER: They wanted us to sign that.

JESSICA ALLEN: [Reading] Clothing, diapers, car seat, stroller, wipes etc. of for one month $550.

WARDELL JASPER: No.

JESSICA ALLEN: [Reading] DNA tests $450. Child care for Max for one month $5000.

JESSICA ALLEN: Then the caseworker states that she was reimbursed for the money she paid out of her own pocket for taking take care of him.

JESSICA ALLEN: [Reading] $24, diapers and wipes $110. A photo of the baby for the DNA test 62 cents. The newborn care $1800.

WARDELL JASPER: No. Not happening. I want my son now.

JESSICA ALLEN: [Reading] Circumcision $384. Who told you to go get him circumcised. So she racked up a total of $7308 and 63 cents.

WARDELL JASPER: So what do we do? We knew that we needed to find help. When I say help; a lawyer.

JESSICA ALLEN: At this time it was just a roller coaster where calling all these attorneys trying to find help nobody knows what to do. The civil attorney saying this is a family law case. The Family Law saying this is a civil case. You know they're both saying this is a surrogate Attorney case. So we're basically getting thrown all over the place and nobody can give us any answers or anything about what to do because we never heard of this before.

ALISON MOTLUK: So this is not the first case that's raised difficult issues in California. Lisa Ikemoto is a professor of law at UC Davis. She has a special interest in law that relates to assisted reproductive technology. She says there's just one scant law in California governing surrogacy.

LISA IKEMOTO: So the legislation itself was passed in 2012 and it does just two things. It authorizes surrogacy, it makes it permissible and it also authorizes the courts to issue pre-birth orders in gestational surrogacy arrangements and that's about it. It leaves many other issues unaddressed.

ALISON MOTLUK: A pre-birth order is almost like an adoption that's set in motion before a child is born. The pre-birth order. In Jessica's case was signed several weeks before the babies were born. The order meant that the instant the babies came into the world, the Chinese couple where their legal parents. The problem is pre-birth orders in California only pertain to babies who are created through assisted reproduction and are not related to the surrogate.

LISA IKEMOTO: I think it's confusing. I think the statute does not apply to one of the twins, in this case. The twin is genetically related to the surrogate. It only applies to surrogacy when the embryos that have been transferred to the woman's womb are not genetically related to the woman who carries the pregnancy to the surrogate. But the pre-birth order becomes a judgement about parentage upon birth. And so that means that legally names the intended parents of the children who were born and that basically establishes legal parentage.

ALISON MOTLUK: In other words, the pre-birth order shouldn't have been applied to the second baby but it was and so on paper at least, the intended parents were the legal parents of the naturally conceived genetic child of Jessica and Wardell.

LISA IKEMOTO: You might be able to challenge it but there's no clear path to doing that. And I think that's why when this couple tried to find a lawyer. The lawyers all said "we don't know what to do."

ALISON MOTLUK: The surrogacy agency declined to be interviewed for this story citing confidentiality concerns. A statement sent through the company's lawyer did say that Jessica's version of events distorts the truth. The letter also says the company adheres to all professional, ethical and legal guidelines. In an e-mail to Jessica earlier this year the company's lawyer accused her of failing to take the drugs that were prescribed and having sexual intercourse when she wasn't supposed to. Jessica denies that the drugs were ever prescribed and she says that she and her husband abided by the contract only having sex after the surrogate pregnancy was confirmed. The day after Jessica found out that the baby was hers she was texting back and forth with the agency caseworker who's represented by someone else's voice here.

JESSICA ALLEN: She was checking with me to see what I wanted to do. At this point I am in church and I said "I am truly lost with this situation and heartbroken. I don't have the funds to give back nor pay for a birth certificate. Everything is about money and because of that we are being forced to give up a child that belongs to us." She said "I understand this is very difficult, I hate ..

VOICE: I hate to think this is about money. My only objective is to get Max in a stable home sooner than later.

JESSICA ALLEN: If you have your concern you would gave him to me the second he went and picked him up from the intended parents, not take him in your own care.

VOICE: Now that we're getting to the point of major decisions I want to be very clear that there are financial burdens that need to be paid to make things right for Max. Clearly I should not be out of pocket for care and expenses for Max.

JESSICA ALLEN: How is paying all this money back to other people make things right for my son? Making things right for my son would have been bringing him home to me the second we found out he belonged to me.

[Music]

VOICE: To let you know that if you don't keep Max I will need to come to meet with you and Wardell to get a statement from each of you signed and notarized, indicating that you are giving up your rights to Max. This is needed while all the other legal paperwork is processed. There would be no expense to you for this. It'll all be paid by me and reimbursed with the other expenses. There's no easy decisions or solutions to this very difficult situation.

[Music]

JESSICA ALLEN: But who are you to come get a notarized statement saying that I give up my rights. It's ridiculous. Uh.

[Music]

VOICE: For the sake of Max it would be best if a decision can be made today.

WARDELL JASPER: No decision. I'm sorry. Didn't you just say the DNA test came back positive that he's our son? Give us our son. Of course we want him back.

ALISON MOTLUK: But it wasn't that simple. The problem was the money, the money to pay back the intended parents. The money to pay back the caseworker who was taking care of the baby and the money to pay lawyers to have the legal documents changed. They simply didn't have it.

WARDELL JASPER: Then they wanted to present to us an option. What's the option? "Oh well the option is if you put your son up for adoption..." Wait a minute what? You want me to put my son up for adoption? "Well if you put your son up for adoption then do you know that the actual parents that take him home - by the way we do have someone in place to take him - will actually pay these bills. And sure. If you want to get rid of these bills give up your side." You got to be kidding me. So then the battle just got more intense because now they're holding our son hostage.

JESSICA ALLEN: After a million phone calls and a lot of turndowns, my husband found our attorney through Craigslist.

WARDELL JASPER: I would be lying to you if I told you it was easy for us to get this money for this lawyer. We just got the house. We sold TVs, instruments, clothing, shoes like just to give to her to get our son back.

ALISON MOTLUK: Jessica and Wardle's lawyer sent one e-mail.

LAWYER: [To company] Respectfully after speaking with my client they do not believe that they owe anything. They would like to have their son returned immediately and to deal with the civil indications immediately thereafter. The power of attorney and the…

LAWYER: [To Alison] At that point in time you know certainly as as a matter of decency it was wrong that the agency was holding the child, but as a matter of law it's not perfectly clear. Who should have been taken care of the child.

LAWYER: [To company] Looking at pictures of the babies it is obvious that Max was not their baby. Max needs to be immediately returned to his mother. And this should not be hindered by a paper settlement agreement, $10,000 in payments and efforts to limit liability on your company's end.

LAWYER: [To Alison] Linking the reimbursement money to the establishment of parentage is muddling the issues. Just as a matter of principle the legal status of the child and making sure that the parentage of the child are clarified should have been addressed first.

LAWYER: [To company] Please advise no later than the end of today. My clients want their child back immediately.

ALISON MOTLUK: The e-mails seemed to work. They heard back from the agency that same day.

JESSICA ALLEN: We got a phone call that we could get him in the morning, Sunday morning. We were instructed to meet up with the caseworker at a Starbucks parking lot. When I got there she was not there and waiting and waiting. She late and I see her finally pull out and she put the car seat down, unbuckles him. And before she can hand him to me I just grabbed him and said "give me my baby." I just grabbed him and was just kissing him just wanting to see his face. You know want him to look at me. [Sobbing] You know this is the first time I've seen my own child that I gave birth to and he's already 2 months old.

WARDELL JASPER: I remember getting the text, Jessy said "We got them", rushed home. When I opened the door I mean I started sweating. Is he going to know me? Is he going to connect with me? And I see his face and it is bright and it is warm. He looks at me and I look at him and I just hold him so gently and I started kissing him on his hands, and just like "daddy's here.

JESSICA ALLEN: At this time we're finally home. I have my son.

[Chatter and laughter]

ALISON MOTLUK: They named their baby Malakai.

[Noises of Wardell playing with baby Malakai]

JESSICA ALLEN: Malakai is just like his brothers. Just like his daddy, silly.

WARDELL JASPER: Da da

MALAKAI: Daaa.

JESSICA ALLEN: He brightens up our world just by the smile when he's walking with his arms out reaching out to us. You know I call them my trio. You know my three princes. [Malakai moans] You know we did not expect to have a child so soon.

WARDELL JASPER: [To his son] All of a sudden you want to play now. We wills sing A B C [sings A B C].

WARDELL JASPER: [To Alison] Not saying we don't love our son and we're grateful, he is beautiful, he is loving you know he has everything that we would want in a son and more. But it's like this was not our plan. [Sings to his son].

ALISON MOTLUK: Almost one year later Jessica and Wardell are still not recognized as the legal parents. The pre-birth order still stands. They have no birth certificate, no Social Security card. They do finally have a new lawyer and are trying to set things straight.

JESSICA ALLEN: He came home from the hospital with me and on my chest and my arms and in daddy's arms, not a bunch of strangers, not a bunch of changes being handed around like an item.

ALISON MOTLUK: As far as we know this is the only case of its kind in the world but there's no way to be sure. Babies are not routinely DNA tested upon birth. As far as Jessica is concerned they should be.

JESSICA ALLEN: This is a type of pain that you're never going to get over. Because they stole something from me that I can never get back.

[Music]

IR: Expecting The Unexpected was produced by Alison Motluk with Liz Hoath. It was first broadcast last December. This summer Jessica Allen and Wardell Jasper launched legal action against, Omega Family Global, the agency that handled the surrogacy. Coming up, history comes alive when it's full of manufactured funny facts. Anna Maria Tremonti's interview with the authors of The Beaverton's History of Canada, in our next half hour. I'm Ioanna Roumeliotis and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

The Beaverton's scandalous untrue stories of Canadian history

IR: I'm Ioanna Roumeliotis and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music]

VOICE 1: The invention of the ketchup chip. A part of our heritage since 1974.

VOICE 2: That's a wrap on the 87th heritage minutes.

VOICE 1: Making Heritage Minutes about our mundane history. A part of our heritage since 1991.

VOICE 1: Showing the Heritage Minutes in history class, part of our heritage since work to rule.

IR: That meta-moment of Canadian humor comes to us courtesy of The Beaverton; they call themselves North America's trusted source of news. But as you may have gathered The Beaverton is a satirical outlet in the vein of The Onion or The Daily Show but heavy on the Canadiana. And The Beaverton has recently had a big year. Canada's 150th year of Confederation just happened to coincide with a golden age of fake news and The Beaverton which lives online as well as on TV marked the occasion with a book. It's called the Beaverton Presents Glorious And/or Free: The True History of Canada. And while the history it tells may not be entirely factually correct as in all satire, there are many truths told. In December, Anna Maria Tremonti welcomed its authors, Luke Field and Alex Huntley into The Current's Toronto studio.

LUKE FIELD: Thank you for having us.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Hi Thanks for having us.

AMT: Alex what makes Canadian history so good for satire?

ALEX HUNTLEY: Oh I think there's a lot of Canadians who are either smug about their Canadian history or don't know it. And I think it was really ripe for the picking. Because when you really think you can go through the course of Canadian history from pre contact to colonisation, right up to present day, it's absurd from the little stories that we cling onto. Like the 'blue nose' as well as the more grander legends from the Great War. For example the 100 anniversary of Vimy Ridge with the seer. So we felt it was really apt to go after Canadian history.

AMT: Luke field I noticed that the Beaverton actually began publishing before the invention of the printing press. Just how old is the Beaverton?

LUKE FIELD: I mean at this point we can't really say. It might outdate all human contact. We certainly had a lot of fun writing about stories that Canadians would know about more modern history, but we thought it was very important to talk about everything before first contact as well as all through the colonisation period as Alex just said. So as a result we had to write some articles that may have been physically impossible to write at the time but they existed. We found them, somehow.

AMT: The truth will out.

LUKE FIELD: Yes exactly.

AMT: So what was the most interesting thing you found in your archives from Canada's prehistoric times?

LUKE FIELD: Ooh I think there is a lot of great discoveries but I think Alex discovered one in particular that I love the vast which is - and I might not get the exact wording, right ALex, forgive but which was Inuit surprise party ruined as they could see them coming 3000 miles away.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Or five. I don't think they had eyes like that but maybe, what was it? Five kilometers away? Yeah. It's... the entire party was ruined. There's no surprises out there.

LUKE FIELD: Yeah well when you're on a flat barren surface it's hard to hide and yell 'surprise' at someone.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yeah well I also like the pictographs vandal the gang, who just really vandalised that nice cave they had with all these images and so forth. It was really really just... [sighs]

AMT: Graffiti.

LUKE FIELD: Yes.

AMT: [Laughter]

LUKE FIELD: And we had a lot of fun with Canadian history, textbooks as a whole have this tendency and anyone who's studying Canadian history knows that. Every chapter on indigenous Canadians before contact has a random picture of an arrowhead. So we started our entire book with a picture of an arrowhead, devoid of any context, for no reason whatsoever. But it's just the rule. You just have to start again in history book that way.

AMT: Arrowheads rule yeah [laughed]. ALEX We knew all about the United States Declaration of Independence but you have a copy of Canada's Declaration of Dependence.

ALEX HUNTLEY: That's correct. Well we found this in our archives and we felt that on July 5th, just sometime after hearing about the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Canadians felt the need to remind Britain that they were on their side and will be forever dependent on handouts and as well as the fact that they're being very polite and not revolting over taxes. And they believed 'taxation without representation' which is a good old Canadian tradition.

AMT: Here here. Eh. Luke, one of the most surprising stories in your archives concerned the British explorer Sir John Franklin and his crew. What new information did you learn - be serious guys - by going back and reading the Franklin expedition?

LUKE FIELD: I mean there is a lot that I do encourage people to do their own research. We don't want to say our book covers everything but one thing we did discover is that as they set out on their voyage discover is that they said it with a particular type of crew member in mind, and that was they evaluated crew members based on how competent but also how delicious looking they were. Because it was very important for when they were stranded that each crew member they were forced to devour was more tasty than the last.

ALEX HUNTLEY: I had to grease them up.

LUKE FIELD: [Laughs] It was deep fried situation.

ALEX HUNTLEY: But I mean that wasn't the intention but just in case that happened.

LUKE FIELD: It was important.

AMT: And the ship itself was found very recently because essentially people finally started listening to the Inuit, who had been telling them for ever where it was.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yeah I think somebody picked up the 'oh look people who actually live there have been saying this for years, but let's scan the entire Arctic and look everywhere else except for that location.' And sure enough by oral history which is something that we talk about in the first chapter of our book is kind of ignored. Even to this day, a lot of historians don't appreciate the oral traditions of the first people.

AMT: That's the serious side, what you're saying, yes for sure. This year of course was the 15th anniversary of Confederation and the Beaverton archives has a shocking story about Sir John A. McDonald and his role as father of Confederation. What should Canadians know about that?

ALEX HUNTLEY: Well the DNA tests confirm that he's the actual father of Confederation. That is one of the shocking things. There was real competition between George Etienne Cartier and George Brown to a whole bunch of other men but.

LUKE FIELD: There's a real 19th century Maury Povich situation.

ALEX HUNTLEY: It really really was.

LUKE FIELD: When Cartier found out he wasn't the father he did a very nice dance.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yes. And sure enough sir John A. when he found out took a long long drink on his flasks of gin.

AMT: More than once.

ALEX HUNTLEY: More than once. Yes.

LUKE FIELD: I mean that might have just been an everyday moment for him. But yes it was because of that. Yes.

AMT: So the Beaverton actually had some major scoops in its day including getting its hand on the first draft of In Flanders Fields. And we can see why John McCrae rewrote it. Alex can you recite that first draft of In Flanders Fields for us?

LUKE FIELD: Sure.

ALEX HUNTLEY: I wrote this with.

LUKE FIELD: Discovered this.

ALEX HUNTLEY: We discovered this yes, right. Sorry I discovered this with the help of a contributor, Adrian Albrecht, but we were very shocked, the first draft, here it is. "In Flanders fields where I shot Fritz. On the line I bloomed the bits. That bastard Hun: and in the sky. The blood still quickly spurting fly. Scarce seen amid the brains and bits. He is now dead. I got him where his head rose up. Lit by a flower Boche bloody Boche blasted sky high in Flanders Fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe. To you, their severed hands we throw. Build a pyre. Turn flesh to ash. Fill every lung with noxious gas. We shall not sleep. In Flanders Fields."

LUKE FIELD: That quote is moving that version. It is Quinton Tarantino version.

AMT: Why did the Beaverton decide to publish this first draft?

LUKE FIELD: I mean it's just important that people know what many Canadians at the time were were saying about the enemy in our World War 1 - First World War I should say - propaganda/media including as it turns out our most famous poet John McCrae.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Well according to the actual words it was just a coral, taking up a coral against the foe. I mean it really wasn't that bad, was it?

LUKE FIELD: All right we don't stand by that stand. [Cross talking]

ALEX HUNTLEY: No but obviously it was a violent conflict and I think this is the more accurate version of what happened in the Great War.

AMT: There you talk more about the war you got your hands on Winnie the Pooh enlistment records. What did you learn about this great Canadian hero, the bear that most Canadians didn't know?

LUKE FIELD: I mean there's so much I mean you know the fact that the whose last name was Turkienicz and it was a revelation to many of us.

AMT: [Laughs] Say that again the last name.

LUKE FIELD: Turkienicz. That is Winnie the Pooh Winnie. It is Winnie the Pooh Turkienicz. The-Pooh is a one word middle name. And we discovered many other things including about his rank. What was his rank again? He was a sergeant, I believe?

ALEX HUNTLEY: I believe so. Yes

LUKE FIELD: Sergeant as well as that he signed. His signature was just a paw print. So that's an important development .

ALEX HUNTLEY: He also won a Military Cross and was wounded twice. He stormed at German machine gun pit and killed the crew with his bare hands.

AMT: Winnie enlisted, he was asked that the little form he filled out was 'What is your trade in calling.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Being a bear.

AMT: Being a bear.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Very good at that. But Winnie The Pooh served with the Fort Gary Horse in Winnipeg and fought very bravely and I think we as Canadians should be very proud that a bear served for Canada.

AMT: Then comes the Second World War. What does the Beaverton find out about Prime Minister King's decision to enter the war?

LUKE FIELD: Oh well Prime Minister King's decision to enter the war. I mean it was a real dramatic moment when war was declared. Britain had declared war. France had declared war, Poland had declared war. And in Canada it was 'War? Maybe, we're not sure. We're going to sit on that one for a little bit. We're going to think about it for about nine days or so to show that we are an independent country and also so Prime Minister Mackenzie King can have a nice bowl of soup.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yes and I think King was very much a tactician when he declared. Because, you know, wars are more back then were more like parties. You did not want to show up too early to seem that you are desperate, but not too late. So you know 10 days.

LUKE FIELD: When the Germans serve coffee you know it's time to leave.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yes exactly.

AMT: And then as the war ends and Canadians are kissing each other with Joy, what's the consequence of that?

LUKE FIELD: I mean not to put a damper on a postwar celebration. It's a joyous moments and obviously it's so wonderful that these soldiers were able to come home safely. We did discover that that moment of Canadians celebrating the day did leave the nation waking up with several cold sores. All across the country there was a bit of an outbreak. And you know we all know the baby boom but it turns out the herpes boom was born that day as well.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Facial herpes.

AMT: That was the Lead. [Cross talking] [Laughter]

AMT: Detail detail how can you prove that. That was the lead though. People woke up with blisters.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yes. Don't kiss strangers is my advice.

AMT: Now let's shoot ahead in 1959, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker shocked the nation by cancelling the Avro Arrow Jack. What did you learn about the real reason for killing that project?

ALEX HUNTLEY: Well Diefenbaker cancelled the projects because it didn't have one of the most advanced technologies in cup holders. The pilot couldn't actually put his coffee anywhere. And this infuriated Diefenbaker really the sole reason why the Arrow project was cancelled. He had a beloved coffee mug Dief the Chief. And he had nowhere to put it. And that baffled him and thought the entire project was useless.

AMT: That has been kept secret for years. It's good that you brought that up.

LUKE FIELD: We are in deep need of Diefenbunker.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Or we also did a little search in Lake Ontario to pull up the fuselage. And surprisingly the fuselage fuselage does reveal a cup holder. So that must have been the new version of the Arrow but it was cancelled anyway.

AMT: You know and you don't solely look at politics. There's the headline 'heavy Canadian accent ruins Mary Pickford debut in talkies'. What's that about, eh?

LUKE FIELD: Well I mean Mary Pickford, for those who may not remember the golden age of cinema, was the star of silent television. But being a good Canadian girl she talked with a bit of a Canadian accent there bud. And when the talkies came about all of a sudden those big dramatic moments that we look for in our films are lessened a little bit by her constantly asking if anyone had a dart.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Mhm. Sorry.

AMT: Ernest Hemingway wrote something for the editors of The Beaverton. I think it says Toronto Daily Star refused to print it.

LUKE FIELD: Yes they were, as everyone knows Ernest Hemingway worked for the Ben Trotter Daily Star now Toronto Star. But he did not get along well with his bosses, or anyone in his life, and he didn't particularly enjoy his experience working in Canada. I think that's fair to say.

ALEX HUNTLEY: I would say so definitely.

LUKE FIELD: So he wrote a - I guess you would call it an editorial or maybe even a little mini Hemingway short story just for us that's never been published before. So it's not in any of the Hemingway collections you can buy, other than this particular book in which he expressed a certain desire or a certain feeling about living in Canada which is somewhat unsayable on air but expresses the need that he is not satisfied with his life and would rather it be anywhere else but here.

AMT: Well it's entitled 'I Hate My Life'. He's talking about the cold in the winter in Melville, Saskatchewan, in very short sentences, very Hemingway-esque and ends with 'By God I need a drink.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Which again might have been an everyday thing for him. But in this case was because of Melville.

AMT: So that was before he fled to the Florida Keys I guess.

LUKE FIELD: Yes, or Paris.

AMT: Now thanks to the musical 'Come from Away' more people than ever know the story of how people of Gander took an American passengers who had to land in New Finland in the hours after the 9/11 attacks. But what part of that story is being forgotten by people?

LUKE FIELD: It's that part of the musical we checked.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yes. Well they're forgetting that many of those 66 hundred passengers were actually adopted into the community and they couldn't leave. So they have already been cast in several community plays. They've been married with families and gander and they just can't leave because gosh darn it these people are just too friendly.

LUKE FIELD: Yes it's sort of a island prison situation at this point. The friendliest prison guards you've ever met but they are prison guards.

AMT: Kind of like that Steven Leacock short story where the guy goes to leave and then he sits back down and he never goes. Okay. Okay.

LUKE FIELD: With a slightly more ominous twist.

AMT: Now let's talk about our current prime minister. Much of the world has fallen in love with Justin Trudeau. I know the Beaverton has a crack investigative squad. Is there anything the Prime Minister should be worrying about for the next election?

ALEX HUNTLEY: Well he will need to fulfill his promise to photo bomb every Canadian by 2019. And we believe that he's halfway there.

LUKE FIELD: Yes.

ALEX HUNTLEY: I mean that's why Canadians elected this man is to be, or to take a photo that have him...

LUKE FIELD: ...In the background of all our moments.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yes right in the background. Even if we don't ask him to photo bomb our photos, that's one of his obligations.

LUKE FIELD: If you went to your prom and Justin Trudeau did not run behind you while you were taking a photo, did it really happen?

ALEX HUNTLEY: I don't know. But his photographer was by some coincidence also there. I don't know how he was there.

LUKE FIELD: Pure chance.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yes, must have been.

AMT: Well maybe there's more than one photographer.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Woo!

AMT: How you investigated that?

LUKE FIELD: It's possible that we're all just introduced photographer. I am starting to suspect that I mean we have to get our investigative reporters on it. They are currently a little busy investigating trying to figure out what Andrew Scheer looks like because no one can figure that out. He's just a blank void that no one really remembers what he looks like. But with Justin Trudeau I do think we need to look into the very significant possibility that we are all owed back payment for being his personal photographer.

ALEX HUNTLEY: And maybe - just thinking out loud here - we could actually have an instagram filter just with Justin Trudeau photo bombing your image. Is that out there?

LUKE FIELD: Is that out there?

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yes. Maybe I can patent this.

LUKE FIELD: I mean it's that plus he has a Dogface?

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yes that too.

LUKE FIELD: Sure. I think [unintelligible] making a million dollars.

AMT: I see. Okay now, this is how the gears turn. I got it okay. I want to ask you serious question to do that kind of fake news you have to have a pretty good grasp of Canadian history because history buffs.

LUKE FIELD: I think so.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yes.

LUKE FIELD: We met studying history at Queen's University. I think we were competed for the biggest nerd in our class, in every class we had together. And so it was a lifelong passion [unintelligible] Canadian history. And it's just kind of something that even as we've worked on to be written and talking about current events we've always had this in the back of our mind that Canadian history itself is so is so ripe for discussion and for fake news as you say.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Now we would argue over date sometimes. I remember when we were arguing over when was the act of union. And of course you said 1849 and 1841.

LUKE FIELD: No I said it was 1840 and I was right.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Well anyway the point being the point being...

AMT: [Laughs] Rabbit holes. The point being you go down rabbit holes.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Exactly. That's not what the book is about. Just to clarify. But no we we've like I grew up in the Niagara region. You know all around Canadian history.

AMT: Has that always been part of Canada?

ALEX HUNTLEY: Well I mean it's part of Quebec. Well don't get me started as you go down along rabbit hole. But I've always loved it and always wanted to write a book like this that deconstructs so many historical narratives that we're used to, and challenge a lot of the assumptions that we have because we use history for jingoism and saying 'I'm so proud to be Canadian this is what happened in...' Well not exactly. Like Vimy Ridge for example it has just been - I would say I'll call it like poppy washing which is we kind of just think 'oh yeah it was a bad war but we won'. That point of kind of jingoism saying I'm so proud of this moment. But at the end of the day would world war one solve another world war. That that was the consequence of it.

AMT: It's interesting because when we do look at those anniversaries we realise so many young men, so many people who actually had not reached the age of majority. They were children still when they fought in that war. And it was such a deadly war. So in this era of so-called fake news does your own brand of fake news become more important?

LUKE FIELD: I do not think it is more important. I think it becomes more relevant maybe and maybe even more funny, hopefully, funny I should say. Because I think in a world where the news itself is absurd then satirists have to be at the top of their game in order to out absurd the absurd. And I would certainly say anyone who would look back on this past year would probably find a lot of the things that happened quite absurd. So to satirize that it's a little different than just satirising everyday kind of event. So it requires a certain amount of skill and craft to writers and I think that forces us to elevate our game and hopefully that's what we've done on our show and also in this book.

AMT: Is there a growing role for satire because of all of this, because of the times we're in?

LUKE FIELD: I think so.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yes.

LUKE FIELD: You know a satirist can get away with saying things that - and comedians can you know say things that you can't just say in a regular political debate.

AMT: Or you thought you couldn't say right until Breitbart came along?

LUKE FIELD: Fair enough which is absurdism and comedy of it's own way. But you know it's kind of the shortest distance between where you are and the argument you want to make and convincing people is tell them a joke. Because nothing gets people to agree with you more than if they're laughing with you. So I think satire can be an incredibly effective tool to communicate a message. It can be incredibly effective tool just for the purposes of telling a joke and to really take a step back, as this book hopefully does and look at where we are and where we came from.

AMT: And of course it has these threads of truth in how we question ourselves and how we see ourselves and that kind of thing. And then you actually publish stories from Canada's future. And I have to say I noticed right away that you've got a quote here. 'This will be the last federal election conducted under the First Past the Post voting system from a Prime Minister Trudeau only it's Prime Minister Hadrian Trudeau. The year is 2062.

LUKE FIELD: And I believe him. I think he's going to be the one who does it. I think we're finally going to get rid of this first past the post system in approximately our grandchildren's lifetime.

AMT: You also got another headline that I really liked another bumper harvest for Nunavut 'wheat mangoes, 2062 as well'.

LUKE FIELD: Yes they're going to be the most - I mean they are - We know now that they are going to be the most delicious in the world, Nunavut mangoes.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Arctic also just going to put another trademark or patent out here. Arctic mangoes.

LUKE FIELD: The key is the melting iceberg water that they use.

AMT: Ice mangos no more ice. Thawed mangos.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Yes thawed, yes you're right.

AMT: What's the most important story you have for Canada's future from Canada's future? What's your favourite?

LUKE FIELD: Oh that's a good question.

ALEX HUNTLEY: My favorite would be what's happening in journalism of all journalists are being phased out by an advertorial bot it and just it just spurts out any sponsored news that we need to know about. Especially given the numerous challenges that journalists in this country face and what we've seen with the closing of several newspapers including where I live now in Kingston where they shut down a newspaper. It's just going to be replaced by just a robot that produces information that we just want to hear and ultimately so people can buy stuff. And that's it that's all journalism is going to be.

AMT: You know you could click on YouTube now or you think you're looking for like the actual video of something and you get this little bot voice that tells you with that strange kind of pronunciation - because it's been programmed to speak it out and you know, as someone who makes a living behind a microphone, it's very very frightening.

ALEX HUNTLEY: But surely there will be satirists I'm sure, people who produce fake news in that time. I'm absolutely sure.

LUKE FIELD: Until they invent the satire bot. I love the bumper harvest for Nunavut mangoes but I will add one other one of my fake definitely true stars from Canada's future, which is 'Alberta government worried first Transcontinental water pipeline to U.S. may rupture contaminate oil sands'.

AMT: [Laughs] That was one of my favourites too. We're going to leave it there. I wish you well as you dig up more fake news.

LUKE FIELD: Thank you so much. We will do our best.

ALEX HUNTLEY: Thank you.

IR: Luke Field and Alex Huntley are the authors of The Beaverton Presents Glorious And/or Free: The True History of Canada. They joined Anna Maria Tremonti in Toronto in December. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for q. Today, CNN host Jake Tapper is on the show to talk about his new book a political thriller novel. Finally, we started the show today by looking at the extraordinary events in Washington D.C. right now. People are talking about impeachment for the first time since the 1990s when that was President Bill Clinton's fate. We're going to end the show today with part of a podcast called Slow Burn. They're just releasing a new season of the show that revisits the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal of the 1990s. From episode one here's part of the story of when prosecutor Michael Emmick and FBI agents first approached Monica Lewinsky in a shopping mall. I'm Ioanna Roumeliotis. Thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Lewinsky's mother Marcia Lewis lived in New York. As it happened, she was something of an aspiring gossip columnist. For months, Lewis had been hearing about her daughter's relationship with the president. It worried her. When she picked up the phone and heard Lewinsky say through tears that she was in trouble with the FBI, Lewis said she would be on the next train to Washington. The train ride would take at least three and a half hours. In the meantime all the occupants of Room 10-12 could do, was wait. Soon the tension in the room gave way to boredom and restlessness. Someone turned on the TV.

VOICE 2: They were watching some Ethel Merman movie because every channel had cop shows. And Emmick didn't want her to see these cop shows because they all involve snitches. He was thinking that that's going you know queer their efforts at cooperation.

VOICE 1: As evening fell Lewinsky told the prosecutors she was feeling claustrophobic and that she wanted to stretch her legs. Emmick and one of the FBI agents agreed to accompany her back to the Pentagon City Mall where they could wander around a bit and get some semblance of fresh air. The first stop on the excursion was Crate and Barrel where Lewinsky looked at household goods and tried to lighten the mood by cracking jokes.

VOICE 2: It was a very strange juxtaposition of this sort of bristling law enforcement operation going on you know upstairs and then this sort of carefree browsing at Crate and Barrel because they were waiting for her mother.

VOICE 1: After Crate and Barrel Lewinsky much needed to use the bathroom and she headed towards the ladies room at Macy's while Emmick and the FBI agent waited for her. When Lewinsky was confident she was out of their sight lines she went to a payphone and dialed the number for Clinton's secretary Betty Currie. Currie was one of the two people Starr's prosecutors wanted Lewinsky to set up but Lewinsky thought of Currie as an ally. If she could get her on the phone Currie could then get a message to Clinton and warn him about Starr so he wouldn't risk perjuring himself at his deposition the next day. As Lewinsky put it later, Betty was the only one that I knew could call for two seconds and say something cryptically that I knew would get to the president but as fate would have it Betty Currie didn't answer the phone that day. Looking back on that moment it's hard not to wonder how everything might have turned out if she had. Currie had told Clinton that Ken Starr knew about the affair, would he have told the truth in his deposition the next day and avoided the accusation of perjury? But Currie did not pick up. So Lewinsky deflated. Met back up with Emmick and the FBI agent. By this point it was almost seven o'clock and since there was still more time to kill and everyone was getting hungry the trio got dinner at a restaurant at the mall called Mozzarella's American Grill.

The Current Transcript for August 23, 2018

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Could Trump be impeached after Cohen plea? Not so fast, warns constitutional lawyer

How a surrogate twin pregnancy turned into a custody battle over unrelated babies

The Beaverton's scandalous untrue stories of Canadian history

Thursday August 23, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

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