Your Guide to 3 Midterms Scenarios | In Defense of El Chapo ... and Weinstein

Jeffrey Lichtman helped mob boss John Gotti Jr. avoid convictions. Can he do the same for the accused Mexican drug lord?

Decades before he became the lawyer for accused gang leaders John Gotti Jr. and El Chapo, Jeffrey Lichtman was standing over a dissected pig, wondering what the hell he was doing. In that moment of clarity, the stink of formaldehyde in the air, the Jewish kid from New Jersey realized he would much rather be a lawyer than the doctor his father wanted him to be. So he walked out of class and called his dad, who said he was making a mistake and that he wasn’t “shifty enough,” Lichtman, now 53, recalls before quipping: “He was a meatpacker, so I’m not sure how qualified he was to know what a good criminal defense lawyer would be.”

Always the contrarian — he says movie mogul and #MeToo flashpoint Harvey Weinstein is clearly not guilty of sexual assault — Lichtman is still fueled by his critics, despite being listed as a New York “Super Lawyer” and receiving the highest ratings possible in his profession. Instead of his pops, his perceived doubters are now judges, lawyers and government officials who call his clients garbage. “It ends up building some residual anger,” he says.

Those clients have included rappers Fat Joe and the Game, an abortion doctor whose patient died and a cop facing corruption charges. Most famously, Lichtman helped Gotti Jr. walk free after a 2005 trial on kidnapping and racketeering charges ended with a deadlocked jury. And now Lichtman finds himself again trying to defend the seemingly indefensible as part of the legal team behind Joaquín Guzmán — aka “El Chapo.”

The policy picture looks quite different depending on how Tuesday’s election goes.

There’s one thing we know for sure: The U.S. will have a new speaker of the House because Paul Ryan is riding off into the sunset. As for the rest of the makeup and agenda of the 116th Congress, well, we’ll learn a lot more after Tuesday’s midterm elections. But who can wait?

Let’s peer into OZY’s crystal ball instead and see the political agenda under three scenarios: Republicans holding on to power, Democrats taking the House but not the Senate and Democrats enjoying a big blue wave to take control of Capitol Hill. We’ll examine top priorities, as well as a wildcard policy for each.

It looks like an outdoor calisthenics class, or maybe a recess in which every child is reprimanded and told to keep their head down. But a closer look reveals …

These young Chinese students from Haikou Experimental Middle School in Haikou, Hainan Province, are indeed engaged in an exercise. But it’s not of the athletic variety. They are actually practicing how to evacuate and find shelter — part of a drill to improve their ability to respond quickly in the event of an attack.

Each autumn, China holds a defense education day — commemorating the Sept. 18 “incident” in which Japan invaded China back in 1931 — to remind folks to always be prepared for military attacks.