Josh Dubin's Dinner with Trump That Led to a Presidential Pardon

And here's a good testament to how if you see past the bullshit of what divides us and labeling people this and that, you can always, because we had a lot, Jason Flommeny, who's a board member at the Innocence Project, we were overwhelmed by the outreach just from being on your show and talking to people, how can I help? One thing you can do to help is always keep an open mind with regardless of who you're dealing with, that's an easy way to help. Watch this. I represent the chairman of Marvel Entertainment, his name is Ike Perlmutter, billionaire many times over. He happens to be closest friends with Donald Trump way before he was president. I could have used that as a way to separate myself from him, to dismiss him, and I represented him, I still do, in this wild case where his DNA was stolen and he was accused of something he didn't do. And Ike Perlmutter at one point said, you're not paying enough attention to my case. And it was because I was working on an exoneration case in Florida, Clemente's case actually. And he started following the case in the press. And this isn't a guy that was like some criminal justice reform advocate. He said, it struck him that if I didn't have you and Roy Black, who's a famous criminal defense lawyer that was handling this civil case, if I didn't have you and the resources to fight this, I would have been accused of a crime I didn't commit. And it struck him that he had the resources to make a difference. So he started making gifts in my honor to the Innocence Project, substantial gifts. And I could have, everybody around me said, you're friends with this guy? You've become friends with him? And he got enlightened to the point where in December, I'm in Florida, a week before the Capitol riot. He called me and said, Josh, look, I want to help get somebody executive clemency if I can. And I want you to figure out one person that you think is the most deserving candidate for it. And let's try to get it before the president. I was in Florida. He was in Florida. He said, you're going to meet with the president. And look, a lot of people would have said to me, you're fucking crazy. How could you meet with him? I said, I don't care about any of that. I'm trying to save a life. So there's a retired judge, federal judge named John Gleason who started this project called the Holloway Project, where he started to realize exactly what you were talking about. And he was talking about a lot of non-violent drug offenses where there were just disproportionate sentences. He had a list of people where, you know, to come up with one was difficult. But I asked him, Barry Scheck, who's the one of the founders of the Innocence Project and various others, who do you think is, if you had to give me a list of 10. So I got lists and Judge Gleason's client was this guy named Jawad Musa who was in Baltimore, the worst possible circumstances. He gets arrested on this reverse dry sting, they call it, where he's asked to cobble together $20,000 and make a heroin purchase in New York. And no drugs ever existed. It was all a scheme. It was a setup by an informant. He cobbles together five of the $20,000, goes to New York, gets arrested on the spot and sentenced to life in prison. Jesus. So I read about him. He's in jail for over 30 years. Oh, Jesus. He has 52 degrees certificates. By all accounts, Judge Gleason said, look, he pointed out areas in the law that I had never considered. So I could not get this guy off my mind. So I finally put him forward as the person. So I thought that I would submit paperwork and it would go away. So one week before the Capitol riots, Ike called me and said, you're going to come to dinner tonight with your wife and you're going to present the case to various people in the White House at Mar-a-Lago. Now there are some Democrats left leaning or otherwise, you're going to go to Mar-a-Lago and I would always say, hell yes, I'm going there. I'm going to try to save someone's life. I met with Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and just explained to them the case. And I got to tell you, she said, look, I really admire your work at the Innocence Project. I think this is really noble. We think that this is a great candidate for executive clemency. And it was like throughout the dinner, it was on to the next person, on to the next person. So at one point, there's a table like we're sitting at a table and literally the distance you and I are from each other, there's two empty seats. And it dawns on me that we're going to be having dinner with the president and his wife. So at some point he walks out and everybody stands at Mar-a-Lago and claps when he comes out. Like Kim Jong Un? What's worse than that? Have you ever seen the Kim Jong Un? Oh yeah. I saw the videos of it. You see the recent one? No. The recent one is mind blowing. He walks in it, but we'll get to that in a minute. So I said to Ike, do I have to stand and clap? And he goes, if you want your pardon, you do. So I stood and clapped. So dinner is progressing and we're not talking. And we're not talking about this. So finally Ike says to me, look, he wants to talk to you about this case now. And he asked me a bunch of very pointed questions. So all of a sudden then I find myself at a table. My wife, myself, the president, first lady, Ike Perlmutter and his wife. And he says, look, I hear great things about you from Ike. Tell me about the case. Tremendous, tremendous things. I mean, it was so fucking loony. I remember him saying, I want ice cream, ice cream, two scoops. I want two scoops. Two scoops he kept saying. I don't know why that stuck with me. But he said, he told me this story. He said, do you think he's innocent? I said, no, I don't think he's innocent. I'm executive clemency. We're asking you to pardon him. It was a nonviolent drug offense. I explained the whole case to him and he said, I had Jim Brown come to me, the famous running back and the guy was a murderer. I couldn't do that. I only want nonviolent drug offenses. And he said, where is he going to work when he gets out? And I said, I've offered him a job. He has this paralegal certificate that he got in jail. And he said, you'll employ him. I'll employ him. A week later, so I meet with him. He tells me, call White House counsel. And then a week later, the fucking Capitol riot happens. So everybody involved in this potential presidential pardon cycle, this is a wrap. This isn't happening. The last day of his presidency, the last day, I was at Ike's apartment with my wife and kids. And the phone rang and he goes, it's the White House. He said, don't go anywhere because we were walking out and he walked out and he said, the part of him was just signed. And I don't know this man. I never met him. My immediate release of him, I started to weep openly. There's just no feeling that you can ever put into words when you help restore another human being in that way. Now Jawaad Musa, and I met for the first time over FaceTime. Four days later, I flew his brother to meet him. He was in Colorado, some awful facility in Colorado. I flew his brother out there. He got out like that. The pardon happens and then you're out. He was flown back to Baltimore. We met in the airport on FaceTime and we immediately felt like bonded like brothers. He now works for me. And his insights in the four or five months that he's been out, his insights on cases, a man that's spent 30 some odd years working on him, became like a jail lawyer. You realize that there are people, human beings that have been forgotten, that have so much potential if someone just cares. So now he's ... It's not without problems. He's working on getting his official out of jail paralegal certificate, but you realize that if you just create connections and allow ... I don't want to sound like some silly infomercial, but I easily could have found reasons why not to try to enlighten someone whose politics were different than mine and Ike Perlmutter was the least likely person, but he's now ... I've found that if you tap into it and turn his mind on to the human suffering, he now wants to start a criminal justice reform center that we're working on together. That's amazing. So I just feel like sometimes in a world where our politics are so divided, it was one of the more bizarre meals I've ever had. Tube scoops. Tube scoops. But it was worth it, man. Wow. Catch new episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience for free only on Spotify. 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