‘Poker Game?’: Legal World Reacts to Tom Goldstein’s Jury Trial Testimony

“He is simply litigating the case as if it were a poker game,” Cole Schotz member Michael Weinstein said of his former law school classmate Tom Goldstein, the criminal defendant and SCOTUSblog founder who testified willingly in his own defense at his Maryland federal jury trial.

How a federal jury views SCOTUSblog founder Tom Goldstein’s live testimony may determine whether he is convicted or acquitted of white-collar crimes, according to legal observers.

“His decision to testify aligns with his all-in approach,” Michael Weinstein, a Cole Schotz member, said Thursday of his former American University Washington College of Law classmate Goldstein. “He believes he is his own best advocate.”

Goldstein, an appellate attorney who has argued more than 40 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, denied engaging in criminal tax fraud when he testified Wednesday at his white-collar criminal trial in Maryland federal court.

Federal prosecutors allege Goldstein evaded taxes, filed fraudulent tax returns, willfully failed to pay taxes, defrauded mortgage lenders and accumulated large gambling debts between the years 2016 and 2022.

“If he comes across as evasive or smart-alecky, a jury is going to be put off by that, and it’s going to fit the government narrative,” Weinstein said of Goldstein, who was expected to undergo cross-examination on Thursday. “He has, no doubt, a very inflated view of his skills, of his ability, of his advocacy. Some of it warranted, some of it maybe not so much.”

Goldstein, 55, launched a home-based family firm in 1999 with his wife Amy Howe and later founded the now-defunct Goldstein & Russell firm in 2011. Goldstein previously practiced at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Boies Schiller Flexner and Jones Day.

The U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland allege Goldstein failed to report his gambling losses when he and Howe submitted joint applications to a mortgage lender in 2021 to buy a home in Washington, D.C.

Goldstein under direct examination Wednesday said he omitted gambling losses from his mortgage applications because he did not want his wife to learn about his large poker debts.

“He is simply litigating the case as if it were a poker game,” Weinstein said Thursday in a telephone interview with Law.com and the National Law Journal, referring to Goldstein. “He’s all in. He wanted the biggest prize, which is acquittal. No one should be surprised by his approach. … He is a risk taker.”

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