Former Prosecutor Breaks Down Nvidia’s Legal Exposure

0:00 I wanna get more on the legal questions that do remain for NVIDIA and its now former CEO. Christina Clark is a partner at Milliner and Chevalier and a former federal prosecutor in the counterintelligence and export control section of the DOD's national security division. She also served as an attorney in the CIA's counterintelligence mission center. And and, Christina, welcome to the program. I mean, I think it's really important to stick to basics here. So the question in any investigation, which is about Jensen Huang and an affair that he had with an alleged Chinese spies, what will they be investigating? What will they look at?

0:36 So there's a range of conduct that they could look at here, and I wanna start by separating the counterintelligence side of the investigation from the criminal side of investigation, I think they're... They are undoubtedly happening in parallel here. On the counterintelligence side, they're gonna be looking at the who, what, where, when, why, and how. Who was she communicating with? Do we know when her relationship with the Chinese government started? Was it after her relationship with Jensen Huang, for example? They're gonna be looking at any communications on the classified side between Jensen and Alice because I think we can assume that any of those communications and any information that Jensen may have passed along to her would have ultimately been passed along to the Chinese government. It's also naive, I think, to think that, they wouldn't have tried a physical access, operation into his devices. So even if that wasn't their primary objective, the idea that she may have been in a room with his computer, with his phone, I think is really important. And I think it's something that the board needs to consider to your point a minute ago, that anything that was on his computer or his phone, if I were the company, I would assume that information had been compromised.

2:03 There is a difference. Let me just jump in here. There is a difference, is there not, between the the action and investigation that agencies might take and the political appetite for them to do so. Right? So in this program, before you joined us, we spent a lot of time talking about gentleman's role in speaking with governments around the world, particularly his relationship with president Trump. Does that get factored in, in in circumstances such as these? In terms of bringing charges, you mean?

2:34 Yes. The appetite to do so. I I absolutely think it does. I think in this administration, in particular, we've seen that the appetite can change based on, economic interests, based on political interests. There are certainly incredibly significant geopolitical interests here, that will come into play, but that's not gonna stop DOJ, from conducting an investigation. I think it will ultimately, it may ultimately depend on public outcry. It may come down to what comes out in the investigation, before congress or otherwise. But there are just a range of criminal charges here, particularly against, it seems like, Mega Speed and Alice Huang that could be at play here. But, potentially... And we don't know at this stage what, what role Jensen Huang may have inadvertently or advertently played in Mega Speed's export control violation. You know? Let's say that he took action to avoid having NVIDIA look more closely at the company. I think then you get into potential aiding and abetting territory. Conspiracy, the threshold is slightly higher, but it... To the... We don't know what communications he had with her. We don't know what communications are reflected on, in the classified collection that they have and what DOJ may get from search warrants. And to the extent that it shows some culpability for him and and what he may have been doing to prevent further inquiry into Mega Speed or to facilitate some of these transactions. I don't think you can rule out that there could be criminal culpability for him and and in effect the company because of his role with the company.

4:36 NVIDIA's board is conducting an internal investigation that we know. Right? That is public. That is out there, and they have outside counsel in Wachtell Lipton and June h Kim, who's the former acting US attorney for the Southern District Of New York. He's leading that independent investigation. I just found what you said interesting about what, you know, Jensen may inadvertently or advertently done. We don't know. But will those agencies that look take into account the findings and the action of the board of their own internal investigation when it comes to national security trade secrets, etcetera?

5:11 You know, I think they will certainly present to the Department of Justice and, if it's appropriate. And DOJ typically takes those factors into consideration. But in my experience, you know, you can get so much more from criminal process, from search warrants, and from subpoenas, and from documents, you know, from her... From information from her phone if if they're gonna be able to get a search warrant on that, that the company is not necessarily going to have insight to. So I will say that while the company's internal investigation findings may help position the company for some kind of cooperation credit to the extent they have exposure, DOJ is gonna conduct its own investigation and is ultimately going to make a decision on how to proceed based on a number of factors, just one of which is what the company is doing.