Legal AF by MeidasTouch - BREAKING: TRUMP GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

FELON DONALD TRUMP is now a matter of history. Michael Popok reports on the breaking news that a 12-person NY criminal jury found UNANIMOUSLY and CONVICTED TRUMP OF ALL 34 FELONY COUNTS of business record fraud in furtherance of a second crime, and lays out how the jury reached its verdict in record time. Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/legalaf Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Popak with illegal AF breaking update. Donald Trump has been convicted of all 34 felony counts in New York in the New York criminal election interference case. We've got a jury after just nine hours of deliberation, a relatively short amount of time, who decided they didn't even want to go beyond the 430 cutoff time today in New York. They had reached a verdict at about 4 o'clock this afternoon and it was a unanimous verdict. There were a lot of speculation about holdouts here and there of the 12 jurors, seven men, five women, maybe juror number blank was not particularly keen on the prosecution's case. Forget all of that. They reached without strife, without any type of issues that were reported about the deliberation process, they reached

unanimity quickly on the fundamental issues in this case that Donald Trump is a felon and is a criminal and his criminal conduct has now been brought to justice by this New York historic jury again. And for a beleaguered Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, yet another giant feather in his cap. He was the first prosecutor to prosecute Donald Trump, bring the indictment, when everybody said including on Legal AF and other places, we'll never see Donald Trump be indicted. He was indicted by Alvin Bragg the first time. We'll never see him in a courtroom before the election, in a courtroom before the election.

We'll never see a jury verdict against him, a jury verdict against him. And Alvin Bragg, this is the second time. He's now 14, no, sorry, he's 24 and O in juries, two separate 12 person juries, and his total counts against Donald Trump are 51 felony counts one way or the other. Two years ago, he won a case, which I think was the template for this particular case

and how that office was going to present the case to this jury when two years ago they tried successfully a 17 count tax evasion, tax fraud, and a business record fraud case then against Donald Trump's major entities using many of the same witnesses here. Not particularly Michael Cohen, but Alan Weisselberg and Jeff McConney and the money people all testified in that case and were present, at least in terms of evidence in this case. That jury convicted Donald Trump then. If that was the dress rehearsal, the payoff was today, directly against Donald Trump on the 34 new felony counts.

And I'm gonna talk about how the jury got there. And I wanna disabuse our audience so that when they debate these issues with their friends and families and people in the streets, they understand all of the double talk and misspeak and fraudulent statements being made by Donald Trump about the jury instructions that were given by Judge Roshan

and why they were perfectly appropriate under New York law and will ultimately be upheld on appeal. Particularly, Donald Trump told his audience, his followers and on right-wing media that the instruction to the jury meant that the jury did not have to reach a unanimous decision about his crimes, that they could do some sort of menu. Four could find this crime and four could find another crime and four could find the third crime. He called it the 444 and it's unconstitutional. That is BS. BS AF,

as I like to say on our show. The judge's instructions were appropriate. The jury had to find unanimous decision 12-0 that there were violations of the business record fraud statute 175.10, penal law in New York. 12-0, no holdouts. We had a verdict, meaning there was no hung jury, of course. And then the jury, as to the second or predicate crime needed to find that one of three potential purposes for the business record fraud was in furtherance of this other crime.

The crime could be general. It didn't have to be specific. It wasn't charged. It's an uncharged crime. And the evidence supported the instruction to the jury that they could find either a violation of the Federal Election Commission laws, federal election crime, state election crime, or tax fraud. In paying Michael Cohen the $420,000 to repay him for the $130,000 Stormy Daniels payment was a campaign violation because a company can't make

that kind of donation to a campaign. They did it to as a hush money to influence the outcome of the election and an improper amount of campaign donation. And so that amount of money could also be tax fraud because it was listed as a business expense, as a legal expense, or as Donald Trump liked to say in the waning days of the trial, it's a business expense, a legal expense. We listed as a legal expense, except it wasn't a legal expense. And that is the crime that he keeps admitting every time he takes to his press conferences. So, unanimous jury found

business record fraud in furtherance of another crime and then decided that there was a second crime among the three choices that the prosecution gave them. That's the answer to the 444 attack by Donald Trump. Now, how do we get the 34 counts? And as I always said on Legal AF on our podcast, I always thought this was binary. I didn't think there's going to be a split verdict like, hey, he's guilty on one, six,

eight, 12, and 14, but he's not guilty on the rest. No way. I thought this was binary. He was either going to be found guilty on the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt by this jury on all 34 counts, which is what happened, or he would be exonerated and he'd be found innocent, but nothing in between. Why? Because of the nature of the counts. The 34 counts were made up of 11 basically equal measure. 11 counts related to the checks paid to Michael Cohen to repay him fraudulently for the Stormy

Daniels payoff, the 11 book entries related to it, and the 12 journal entries. It had to do with accounting records and checks paid and invoices made by Michael Cohen. You add it all up, each one of those fraudulent things was a criminal act and therefore a count in the indictment. That's how we got to 34. The jury either buys that the Trump Tower conspiracy, which is how the prosecution told them in the first minutes of opening statement, you know, back six weeks ago, or they don't buy it. And based on the information that they asked for, and this jury was very hard working, but asked for very little in terms of information and question answering. They never really asked the question. They just wanted

very discreet and surgical parts of the record read back to them. We want to hear David Pecker's testimony about the Trump Tower conversation with Donald Trump. That's the Trump Tower conspiracy that the prosecution told them was the theory of the case. We want to hear from Michael Cohen, two-thirds of the conspiracy, the other third being Donald Trump who never testified. So they wanted two-thirds of the conspiracy to give them more information. They wanted that read back to them. There was some audio that was given to them. And then they wanted to know about the jury instructions, particularly about inferences. What are the inferences they can draw from the facts? And the judge told them in giving them the instruction on inferences that you can draw inferences they can draw from the facts? And the judge told them in giving them the instruction

on inferences that you can draw inferences. Let me give you an example of what the actual instruction was that the jury wanted to hear. Here's what they said. In evaluating the evidence, this is the actual jury instruction that the jury was reread today by Judge Mershon.

You may consider any fact that is proven and any inference that may be drawn from such fact. They wanted to know what that meant. To draw an inference means to infer, find, conclude that a fact exists or does not exist based upon proof of some other of some other fact or facts. For example, this is in the instruction. Suppose you go to bed one night when it is not raining and when you wake up in the morning you look out your window you didn't you do not see rain but you see that the street and sidewalk are wet and that people are wearing raincoats and carrying umbrellas. Under these circumstances it is reasonable to infer and to conclude that it rained during the night. Jury wanted

to know that. Why? Because they got a lot of facts and they're being asked to make inferences and circumst to make inferences and circumstantial inferences, which is totally appropriate in a criminal case or a civil case. Evidence takes many forms that the jury's asked away. Testimonial evidence like Michael Cohen and David Pecker and Stormy Daniels,

documentary evidence like all of these checks and phone records and legal invoices, circumstantial evidence where you connect the dots and inferences where you induce or also connect the dots. All appropriate, legitimate evidence admitted into evidence for this jury as a trier of fact to weigh on the scales against the burden of the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, not any doubt,

a reasonable doubt that the person committed the crime. And as I said, we have 34 felony counts. Now let's draw a line under that. This is how we got here. Conviction. Donald Trump. Gonna be let out today. Not gonna be put into Rikers Island. It's not that kind of crime and he is a first-time offender. It's hard to believe he's a first-time offender, but he is. But we will rejoin, we will reconvene this group of people, not the jurors. The jurors who are all anonymous unless they out themselves have now been dismissed. And we move on to a sentencing process, which is both sides putting together their

recommendations to the judge, citing appropriate New York law and other factors and other testimony and affidavits to support their position that Donald Trump, for instance, for the prosecution, should go to jail for a period of time followed by probation. And that jail term should start X, Y, and Z. The defense arguing, oh that there's a that the jury verdict was inappropriate and should be ignored by the judge. Motion for directed verdict or motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict all denied and therefore, judge, we think we have appellate grounds and all

this other stuff. We want probation. And then the judge is going to get together even when there is an appeal and even if there's an emergency appeal the judge is going to get together, even when there is an appeal, and even if there's an emergency appeal, there's going to be a sentencing. And this judge will ultimately, the same Judge Marchand, who's been mercifully attacked, vitriol and violent rhetoric by this Donald Trump against himself, his family, and his staff, as I've always said, has Donald Trump's justice, if you will, in his bare hands, right, as the judge wearing the black robe. And no matter what happens outside that courtroom, this is the judge that's going to decide the liberty of Donald Trump and the shape and contours of that liberty. Historic day today

on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. I mean, when Ben and I founded this Legal AF podcast, we did it four years ago. We didn't know there were going to be criminal indictments. We suspected that Donald Trump was running a kleptocracy. We suspected that he was doing criminal conduct, but until prosecutors and investigators did their job, we just had a show. We just had a podcast. But we built it for a reason and we built it to in order to have an audience with us to talk about the developments in real time at the intersection of law and politics. And here we just had our first one, the first conviction of a former president in our entire history of the Republic. And that's just the way it is. And we will accept that verdict and we'll accept the results of any appeal in the future because that's what we do here. We don't blow smoke or sunshine on

this network and certainly not on Legal AF. So I'm going to continue to follow all of the developments as all of the other contributors on this network will. The jury, some jurors are going to want to talk to the media. We're going to hear from them about deliberation process. Somebody is going to write a book, I am sure about it. There's going to be an appeal. There's going to be an emergency application to take an appeal. There's going to be sentencing process and procedures.

Donald Trump now as a, I'm sorry, this is the way it is, convicted felon Donald J. Trump, put that on a bumper sticker at the intersection of law and politics. That is happening and we'll follow it, what it means for the election what that what it means for the election cycle and what it means for those voters who may have been on the fence but have hopefully now been knocked off the fence in their decision making even if it's one or two percent

because they just can't bring themselves to pull the lever for a convicted felon as their candidate. We will find out we'll follow it right here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. So until my next hot take, until my next Legal AF, this is Michael Popak reporting. Hear ye, hear ye. Legal AF Law Breakdown is now in session. Go beyond the headlines and get a deep dive into the important legal concepts you need to know and we discuss every day on Legal AF. Exclusive content you won't find anywhere else, all for the price of a couple of cups of coffee. Join us at patreon.com slash Legal AF. That's patreon.com slash Legal AF.