Will the DOJ’s Latest Charges Against James Comey Stick?; Anthropic Heads to Wall Street

0:00Honestly, it felt like a combination of New Year's, Halloween, and Christmas morning when you are unwrapping your favorite present and you can't wait and you're just like itching to get it open. Hi, everybody, and welcome to Here's the Scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Basugan. So today on the show, we're talking about this new romantic-y book out, right, with this series called A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. The new book is called A Court of Splintered Harmony. There are parties everywhere celebrating this book, reading, listening to this new book. So we're going to get into all of those details on that.

0:35Then we are talking about the Anthropic IPO, which could be valued at over$2 trillion. But what is in this offering? And could this AI bubble actually burst?

0:51Up first, though, for the third time in just over a year, The Justice Department has filed charges against former FBI Director James Comey. This time, the DOJ is alleging that Comey mishandled classified information back in 2016 when he directed FBI staff to talk to a New York Times reporter about accuracy concerns in a story published by Reuters. The DOJ says he ended up illegally transferring classified information. In a video on Substack, Comey said that he's still innocent. Well, they're back again. And it would almost be funny if it weren't such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice, one that we cannot become numb to.

1:29And Comey's legal team is arguing that the case should be dismissed because the statute of limitations has actually run out. So how strong is this case against Comey? And then how does it fit into the other DOJ attempts to prosecute perceived political enemies of President Trump? For this, I want to bring in NBC News senior legal correspondent, Laura Jarrett. Hi. Hi, Ed. Nice to have you. Thanks for having me. All right. So the specific charges in this case against Comey are actually related to this handling of national defense information. Walk me through what the DOJ is actually alleging James Comey actually did.

2:03Okay. So for people who are not familiar with how reporters interact with these agencies, particularly in Washington, oftentimes a reporter will get a call from someone at one of these agencies and says, hey, you know, your buddy at another media outlet got this wrong. I'm going to give you the inside scoop on what's really going on. So you'll get a briefing by two officials. You'll be able to report her. It'll be exclusive. That's great. Happens all the time. It happens all the time where these agencies think it is in their interest to, quote, unquote, correct misreporting or add a little gloss or nuance.

2:38The issue here, at least according to prosecutors, is that the information that was conveyed to Charlie Savage at The New York Times contained classified national defense information. That would be a big problem if true. We have not seen the evidence. A grand jury has not seen any evidence. You know who's seen the evidence? two teams of prosecutors under the first Trump administration. And so Comey's legal team is saying, wait a minute. Under the first Trump administration. Under the first Trump administration, this was looked into. Those of your listeners who will remember John Durham and the Durham report who was investigating the investigators, he looked at this.

3:14He declined to prosecute. And so Comey's attorneys are saying, wait a minute. Put aside the substance. Put aside the fact that he maintains that this didn't happen and he's committed no crime. But like two other teams under a Republican Trump administration looked at this and declined to prosecute. Why are they doing this now? Why are they sort of bringing this all up again? We don't know. We're going to have to try to do some more reporting on that. But it's clear they—this administration wants to find a way to get James Comey, right? That's clear. As you mentioned, this is the third crack at it.

3:48Yeah. The first one didn't work, right? They found that Lindsey Halligan wasn't a proper U.S. attorney. So the false statements charged, gone. Then there's the question of the shells. As you've talked to James Comey about, right? The shell case. He says it wasn't a threat. Prosecutors say it's a threat against Trump. We don't know yet. That case is still pending technically. So now this is the third crack at him. Except the difference here is there is no indictment. There is no indictment. They did not go to a grand jury and actually have to present evidence to them and have probable cause of a crime.

4:18All we have is a sworn statement from an attorney within the Justice Department saying on information and belief, here's what we think happened. So let's talk about the details of, like, what's happening here and also the defense, right? Because Comey's defense team is not even broaching the did he or did he not do it. They don't even have to get there yet. They're saying you've passed your time. Yes. You sat on this. You sat on this because the article in question— You've surpassed the statute of limitations. The article in question is from 10 years ago. Right. Okay? And so typically there's like a five-year statute of limitations for felonies.

4:55But you can extend that in certain circumstances where you get an indictment and you go through all the hoops. But they didn't get the indictment. Comey's team is saying because you did not even secure an indictment within the 10-year, like, time period, therefore this entire thing is time barred. So a judge is now going to have to decide. Before we even get to the substance, is this actually time barred? Because if it is, the whole thing goes away. And then they will have a third case that is besieged by problems. So what is the strength of that argument from your kind of estimation, considering now the judge, it seems, that's overseeing this case is going to hear oral arguments this coming Friday on Comey's motion to dismiss the charges against him?

5:37Comey's team has a really strong point on the statute of limitations. I think they have a really strong argument that what prosecutors did here by filing a quote-unquote information, which is just like a way for prosecutors to get like their story out there and basically try to get it in before the 10 years was up. But information, a criminal information as which they filed is not an indictment. It's not an indictment. And I think the Comey's team may actually win that. So you're alluding to my next question here, which is like, and you mentioned this earlier, they did not go to a grand jury. This is not an indictment.

6:08what does that mean about the strength of this case? Then why bring this forward if they know that it's so flimsy having not gone to a grand jury? Because they have a client that has made no secret of his feelings about James Comey. The president of the United States. And the president of the United States has made it clear that he thinks James Comey should be prosecuted. And we have now seen it three different times, and we may not have seen the last, right? That's why Comey puts out that statement, like, here they come again, because he knows that he has a target on his back about this. He's not the only one, by the way, that has been kind of targeted by this administration.

6:44Earlier this month, you got federal agents searching Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar's home, right, as part of a criminal probe. Virginia State Senator L. Louise Lucas charged this month, I believe, right, as part of an alleged public corruption case. What do you make of these types of charges, the timing of these, right, the timing of the search on Ilhan Omar's home, the release of this, really let's call it a story when it comes to James Comey because it's not an indictment. Right. A week before the midterm elections. Is there something to this? It's almost ironic given that Comey was the one who was accused of like the quote unquote October surprise with Hillary Clinton before the election.

7:23That's exactly what I thought of as this was released. But I think what's really is they were trying to get in within the statute of limitations with their quote unquote information and whether or not they made it or not. But I think it was literally they were trying to get it in within those 10 years of when the article was written. But sometimes I think when we think about like DOJ making a big splash with investigative moves before the election, like the general rule is that you're not supposed to take any sort of overt steps, particularly with people who are candidates. Right. I don't think James Comey counts in that regard.

7:57Do I think they think that it's helpful for them? Maybe. But I don't think that—I don't even think that you could make the argument that this violates their own internal rules to the extent that they even follow them anymore. Yeah, I just wonder if it's kind of like a PR move. And what I mean by that is, is like, you know, the president of the United States had run, obviously, on draining the swamp in his first go-round, right, back in 2016. And some would argue now he hasn't necessarily lived up to some of the things that he has promised. And maybe this is an effort, yes, first to make sure that they get in under the statute of limitations, keeping that in mind.

8:27But also maybe it's also B to show his voters like, look what I'm doing, right? I'm prosecuting the people that we feel as if need to be prosecuted who came for me. And I'm like fulfilling those promises. Am I bringing that out of nowhere? Well, the thing about it, though, is the only reason we know about any of this is because Comey's team is the one who wanted to make it public. This had been all under seal in court in Washington. And the judge had kept it under seal. And Comey's team pushed to have it unsealed because they said in their papers, sunlight is the best disinfectant. And they think this looks so politically, overtly political.

9:01So I think they were the ones who were like, oh, no, no, no. We want all this out in the open. You're going to come for him again. Let's get it out there. And come for him in this way. Yeah, because they know that it looks bad that they didn't go to a grand jury because they have a history of going to grand juries and grand juries, including in the case of James Coney saying no dice. Yeah. Laura Jarrett. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We're going to take a very quick break. And when we are back, Anthropic is about to hit Wall Street in what could be one of the biggest stock debuts in history.

9:29But it is the AI bubble getting ready to burst. And also, while you wait, scroll through our page. Pick your favorite recent episode of Here's a Scoop. Maybe it's this one. And then send that episode to a friend. We would love your support.

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10:46And we are back with Here's the Scoop from NBC News. So AI giant Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is about to go public in what could be one of Wall Street's largest stock debuts ever. The company could be valued at more than$2 trillion. But that wasn't the only thing that we learned in the IPO filing. Anthropic had to lay out all the company's revenue and major losses to potential investors and the risks, which they say include the potential dangers that their business, AI, poses to humanity. So what is Anthropics offering in the AI race? And what is the appetite like on Wall Street? For this, I'm bringing in NBC News business and economy reporter, Allie Canal.

11:29Hi, Allie. Hey, guys. So we learned a lot about kind of Anthropics finances here, right? Including that Anthropics has not turned an annual profit. In fact, we've just seen losses, really, with Anthropics so far. Walk us through kind of what we know and what information we're actually waiting on. Yeah, I think the biggest thing from this filing is it is so expensive to build out many of these AI initiatives. At the same time, though, Anthropic is experiencing some pretty impressive revenue growth. So you mentioned those losses. In the first six months of this year, Anthropic reported an$80.7 billion net loss.

12:05Now, that doesn't mean Anthropic is spending that much cash. A lot of this had to do with some wonky accounting mechanisms tied to its valuation. However, like you said, it's still not producing any money. It's not generating a profit. And this is despite the fact that revenue surged 1 ,300 % year over year. The company generated$41 million in revenue in 2023. Flash forward to the first six months of this year,$16 billion. So the demand is there for all of these AI tools. I think the big question, though, is how much investors are willing to pay for a company that's still unprofitable. You have to be a big believer in the AI story.

12:41Is it normal to be valued this high and to show those types of losses, like to have this much uncertainty with a public offering? I mean, we saw it very recently with SpaceX, right, in June. I mean, Anthropic is really the first pure play AI giant that we're seeing come to public markets. So this is a really big test for Wall Street at a time when recently we've seen a lot of jitters across the AI trade. People are concerned about how expensive it is to fund all of these different AI initiatives, how interconnected everything is. So this is going to be a big test, I think, for Wall Street. What do we know about the stock offering, if anything?

13:22We still don't know what it will be priced at. So over the next couple of weeks, Anthropic is going to go on what Wall Street calls an IPO roadshow. And they're really going to test what the appetite is. And then that will determine the price. They are targeting that$2 trillion valuation. There are some rumblings out there that that valuation should be closer to$1.5 trillion. It will debut on the NASDAQ around mid-November. That's the expectation. And it will trade under the ticker symbol ANT. We also heard amidst this offering that Anthropic said that AI could, quote unquote, pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity.

14:03Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's not really normal to hear this. Okay, so here's what I'm hearing. Like, buy into us, right? Invest in us. We are going to be worth over$2 trillion. We're not making, like, as much money now as we likely will in the future, but we can't necessarily show you that roadmap. And, oh, by the way, we might also kill you. Look, when we get these IPO filings, all of these companies, they have to list out every possible risk for investors. That is typical. It's not typical to talk about, you know, the existential threat to humanity and Anthropic and the filing. They mentioned different things.

14:38They said that these advanced AI systems could behave in a way that's harmful, could behave in ways that are not directed by humans. They also talked about the public backlash to data centers, the electricity and water usage, how because the PR is so bad around AI, that could actually prevent Anthropic from expanding and building out its business. That could eventually hit profits. So if you're an investor, you need to be aware of all of these potential risks. It's not impossible to see some of these things. But if you are investing in this company, you believe in the potential, and you think that this technology is going to be transformational, that these sales that we're seeing, that that could eventually translate to profits.

15:21But, yeah, I mean, you do have to be aware of some of these risks. So is there any kind of insurance plan for these risks that these investors might be taking as they're taking a look at this? It doesn't seem like it. I mean, this is completely new territory, especially for public markets. Many of these major AI players, they have remained mostly private. OpenAI, that's the parent company of ChatGPT, they actually delayed their IPO until next year because the environment, like I said earlier, it's a little jittery right now. That doesn't mean AI is not a powerful driver when it comes to the stock market at large.

15:54I mean, if you look at your retirement accounts, the S &P 500, it's very heavily tilted to tech, to many of these AI names. But I think there's been sort of a period of let's like take a step back and see how sustainable all this spending is. Anthropic is going to be kind of the first major test. So what has been the reaction so far to Anthropic's offering? because you had SpaceX. By the way, that was a record, what,$2.1 trillion back in June. That was their offering. And you mentioned as well OpenAI kind of pausing their plans to go public. Yeah, I think the reaction is one of excitement, but at the same time, maybe cautious optimism, I would say.

16:33And I would categorize that across the entire AI trade at the current moment. I am curious what this company will price its IPO at and whether or not demand will be higher or potentially lower. If you take a look at SpaceX shares, for example, they debuted in June. Today, a few months later, they're pretty much around the same price as they were in June. So if you were an early investor in SpaceX, you haven't lost any money, but you haven't really made any money either. It's sort of just been in this waffling period. And it does usually take quite a bit of time for these big companies to find their footing within the stock market.

17:06I'm curious if Anthropic will see that same type of movement or if the reaction could be higher or lower. I'm wondering also if this tech ecosystem is sustainable. And what I mean by that is all of these companies are kind of interconnected, it seems, right? Anthropics paying billions of dollars to companies like Google, like SpaceX, like Microsoft for different services, mostly to keep building out kind of its infrastructure, right? But Microsoft, for example, just offered buyouts to over a quarter of their global workforce, 60 ,000 people, but at the same time pouring money into AI, right? So like, is this kind of model sustainable?

17:40You got workforce being cut from Microsoft. Anthropic is coming out with this huge IPO, not necessarily making his money yet, but saying they promise they will. Like, it just seems like it's a potential bubble. Yes, and this is something that Wall Street has called circular financing. You think of companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon. They are all investors in Anthropic, but they are also competitors to Anthropic. They are customers of Anthropic. They provide a lot of the cloud infrastructure that Anthropic needs to operate. How sustainable is all that? You think about links on a chain, right?

18:10If one link breaks, everything else could potentially fall apart. And that's why investors are so focused on where the money is coming from. You talked about those voluntary buyouts that Microsoft is offering to 60 ,000 employees. Not all of those employees will leave the company. Microsoft does not expect that. But I think it shows how organizationally AI is changing the game for many of these tech companies. We haven't seen mass layoffs tied to AI yet, but it's creating a lot of this uncertainty within the marketplace. And, of course, if we do see that down the line, that could have a huge ripple effect when we look at the labor market at large.

18:46Allie Cannell, thank you. Of course. Thanks. All right. We're going to take a very quick break. And when we are back, the latest book in the Romantic Series, A Court of Thorns and Roses, just hit shelves. We're going to get into it.

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20:39And we are back with Here's the Scoop from NBC News. Four, three, two, one. So you remember back in the 2000s, you had all these book series coming out, right? You had Harry Potter, you got the Hunger Games, you got the Twilight books. And every time there was this new book release, Fans would dress up. They would camp outside of bookstores. They would count down for this midnight release. Well, those days are back. Except this time it's for a romantic series called A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. The sixth book is out today, A Court of Splintered Harmony. And thousands of people turned out at hundreds of bookstores across this country last night for this release.

21:18Are you excited to be some of the first to get your hands on the book? Oh, my God. I was saying to someone earlier, it feels like Christmas Eve, but, like, better. NBC News national reporter Alicia Lozano went to one of those parties in Los Angeles, one of the folks to turn out, and she is here to tell us all about it. Hi, Alicia. Hello. You must be tired because I'm sure it was a very late night at all these parties. What was it like? Like, take me there. What did you see? What didn't I see? First of all, I have to say it was just the most joyous occasion. People wore out in their costumes. There was so much cosplaying.

21:55People dressed up like the different characters. Everyone had just huge grins on their faces. Lots of groups of friends together. People were, you know, chatting about what they think the book was going to be about. Some conspiracy theories. Honestly, it felt like a combination of New Year's, Halloween, and Christmas morning when you are unwrapping your favorite present and you can't wait. And you're just like itching to get it open. It was so much fun. And there were drinks that were themed to ACOTAR. There was trivia. There was a comedy show. Wow. There was a fire dance performance thing. I mean, they really, really went all out.

22:37Is there kind of any overlap between the folks, the people that I talked about at the top, you know, like the people that came out for Harry Potter and Twilight? Is there, like, overlap now that a lot of those people are now Romantic readers because they're older? Multiple people told me they came from the Twilight tradition. And I did talk to some older people, you know, elder millennials, who said that they started on fantasy with Anne Rice and Interview with a Vampire. And what struck me is that all of these books were doing very similar things in terms of merging, you know, fantasy with romance.

23:13But, of course, we didn't have the term romanticcy at the time. There wasn't TikTok to kind of spread the message about these books. So they didn't have this sort of trend and buzz behind them in the same way that we're seeing right now. But it is a very long tradition. And as one woman said to me, it's just a bunch of bookworms. You know, it's interesting because I've had a couple friends talk to me about this. And I have to be completely honest. I haven't gotten into this, but I actually really want to. I want to take a listen. Why do you think that so many people are drawn to this? And also, why so many women in particular?

23:51I have a lot of thoughts on this. ACOTAR in particular, and I guess the Fourth Wing series by Rebecca Yaros, those became really popular during COVID. You know, this was a time when people were at home a lot. They weren't socializing quite as much. people were maybe a little bit more on social media and trying to fill in this void of socializing. So they started reading a lot of books. And these books in particular are so incredibly deep and elaborate. The world building is really impressive. You can really sink your teeth into them. And with Sarah J. Maas, her books are nearly a thousand pages long.

24:33And she has now 17 of those, although the most recent one is actually significantly shorter than most of her work. One thing I heard a lot last night was that she, Sarah J. Maas, has this gift for writing characters that have so much in common with people every day, you know? And there's a book where she talks a lot about her own trauma with a difficult pregnancy. And she doesn't talk about herself. She talks about it through a character. And a lot of people resonated with that, whether it was through a difficult pregnancy that they experienced or even just trauma that they experienced. They talk about real things in this kind of romance and fantasy.

25:12Absolutely. Yeah. It's not just the fairies and the sex and, you know, all that stuff. Although that's good too. That is definitely part of it. But yeah, there's a lot of highly personal stuff that people really connect to. So while you're reporting on the release of this book and you went to this party last night, it's also because you're a fan of these books and you've read ones before. You've now gotten your hands on this new one? So I held out, I have to say. It was funny. I talked to a bookseller yesterday who said she obviously, the bookstore had the books, you know, for a day or two early.

25:48And I asked, have you already read it? And she said, no, I'm waiting till midnight and I want to take it home and just have no one talking to me. I want to be unbothered, doors locked. And I thought, you know what? I feel similarly. So I'm getting my copy today, and I'm going to wait for the weekend because I want to read it all at once. But I have read 16 of her previous books. So I am so excited to see how all of this comes together. I'm bought in. I'm going to do it. Yeah, you should. Absolutely. And be careful because once you start, you might not stop. You don't stop. Alicia Lozano, thank you.

26:22Thank you so much. That is going to do it for us. Here's The Scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Basugian. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also subscribe to our daily newsletter, The Inside Scoop. It's a deeper dive on the main stories of the day that comes out every weeknight straight to your inbox. You can sign up for The Inside Scoop as part of our paid subscription at NBCNews.com. We'll see you tomorrow.

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