We Need to Secretly Record More Billionaires

It's a proven crime-fighting tool

Donald Trump got indicted yesterday for mishandling classified information. One of the charges that lawyers will have to prove in court is that Trump knew the information was confidential but he was sharing it anyway.

This should be an easy charge to prove, because, uh, here is a tape recording that prosecutors obtained:

This is like if the OJ Simpson prosecutors got a tape of OJ saying, “Hello, my darling ex-wife, are you ready to be stabbed to death by me, former football star OJ Simpson?"

You might be thinking: “Wow, Donald Trump is very stupid for talking about his crimes on tape.” And that’s true.

But here’s what I’m thinking: We should be secretly recording way, way more rich guys.

Once you make the Forbes Billionaire List, the FBI should have access to all your phone calls. Does this violate civil liberties? Yes. Would it uncover a bunch of billionaires chatting about their crime-ing ways? Also yes.

Secretly recording rich guys is a great way to fight crime. Remember Robert Durst, of HBO’s The Jinx, who ended up admitting he “killed them all” when he forgot he was on tape? Or hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, who prosecutors nailed on insider trading after secretly recording his phone calls? Or New York Mets owner Steven A. Cohen, whose hedge fund was revealed to be an enormous criminal enterprise once law enforcement started listening to his stock traders on the telephone?

The greatest enemy of the billionaire is not the IRS. It is the tape recorder.

Here are some billionaires I bet talk about their crimes while they are eating dinner: Elon Musk; the Koch Brothers; Jerry Jones; that founder of Home Depot who is always on Fox News complaining that no one wants to work anymore; Betsy Devos; any right-wing billionaire who has bought a local newspaper in the last 10 years; Jared Kushner; Peter Thiel.

I showed this photo to Mark Zuckerberg and he started making the sign of the cross like it was a vampire.

There are surely other, lesser-known billionaires walking around their mansions muttering about their disdain for the little laws they have to follow.

Remember Harlan Crow, the Hitler-obsessed billionaire who loves taking his buddies on private vacations? If there was a microphone hidden on his yacht I can pretty much guarantee Clarence Thomas would not be on the Supreme Court anymore.

This is Harlan Crow’s “Garden of Evil.” Hide a microphone in this Vladimir Lenin bust and I guarantee you’ll have an indictment within a year.

If you are insufferable, you might be thinking: Hey Jason, if you secretly recorded any normal person, you would probably hear them breaking the law.

That’s true: But normal people aren’t remaking American politics and culture with their immense wealth. I do not care if my neighbor shoplifted a Twix bar from Duane Reade. I do care if a guy spending $600 million on the 2024 election is skirting laws that he feels don’t apply to him.

We hear a lot that in America no one is above the law. This probably isn’t true, but nothing brings it closer to truth like a good tape recording of some rich idiot blithely bragging about his crimes.

A billionaire under suspicion of wrongdoing can command a small army of lawyers, spin doctors, sympathetic judges, and crisis PR firms, and they can rely on obfuscation and spin from friendly media outlets and newspapers and vloggers and op-ed sections.

But they can’t do much about a jury hearing an unaltered recording where they say “Hey, you know that crime I’m accused of? I totally did it, and I loved it.”

Here’s hoping this is the dawn of a new era of secretly recording not just Trump, but all billionaires. America is ready to hear about the crimes you’re doing.