Okay, this is a podcast that is a little beholden to the news cycle. This is about Trump

and the Russian investigation. This is just a brief by my podcast standards. One hour

tour of how a lawyer and former US attorney trained in the relevant areas views the Trump

presidency and the Mueller investigation. My guest today is Preet Barara. Preet is, as I said,

a former US attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. He prosecuted

cases involving terrorism, narcotics, arms trafficking, financial and healthcare fraud,

cybercrime, public corruption, gang violence, organized crime, civil rights violations. He's

been featured by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. And

in 2017, he joined the faculty of NYU Law School. And he has his own podcast, which is

excellent, titled Stay Tuned with Preet. So fair warning. If you're sick of conversations

about Trump and the Russian investigation, this is not the podcast for you, but otherwise

it might well be. So now I give you Preet Barara. I am here with Preet Barara. Preet, thanks

for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me on. Let's just summarize your background

because you really have the perfect background for the conversation we're about to have. Please

give us your potted bio and just briefly touch on the kinds of areas you have focused

on in the law. Wow. Okay. So we can take up the hour with this. I was born in 1960. No.

So I was born in India, came the United States. My father is a proud Indian immigrant pediatrician

and hope for his sons to become doctors. We disappointed him deeply. Neither my brother

nor I became doctors. And I'm going to law school after law school. I worked in private

practice. Although my goal and destination always was really the US Attorney's Office. From

the time I took a trial practice class, trial advocacy class at Columbia. But it took

me a while to get into shape to go to the US Attorney's Office. I applied, got in after

...