Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Federal Judge STICKS THE KNIFE Through Trump’s DERANGED LIES, NOT HAVING IT

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

DC federal judge Judge Chutkan in the DC election interference criminal case, just ruled that Trump did not tell the truth about purported “missing Jan 6 committee documents” and denied his attempt to subpoena them. Michael Popok of Legal AF explains Judge Chutkan’s latest setback for Trump, in which she denied him the ability to get his hands on the Jan6 Committees 100s of videos of witness testimony. Go Right Now for 50% off your no-risk two week trial at https://TryNom.com/LEGALAF Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! 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 Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Popok legal a F judge, shut gun DC election interference case answered Donald Trump's question. Are there missing documents and information that the Jan six committee turned over to the executive branch when they went out of business? That Donald Trump should get as part of his defense. And she answered that in the negative denying a motion that he had made before the holidays to obtain what he referred to cavalierly without any support whatsoever, missing documents. Note to Donald Trump's lawyers calling it missing documents over and over again, with capital letters doesn't make them missing documents.

What am I talking about? Donald Trump wanted to get his hands on things that he could use, not to defend himself in the courtroom where it matters, but in the street and in public opinion on the Republican side. And on the Magaside, he wanted to get his dirty little grubby hands on the video recording of the testimony of the various witnesses that testified willingly or not to the Jan 6 committee, you know, like the Cassidy Hutchinson video, or the his former White House chief of staff, or his former White House counsel, or the former attorney general,

or his former acting attorney general, all those videos because he wants to make mischief with them. He wants to slice him and dice him and release him to the masses. Not to try his case, and the judge pointed it out in her order, which I'm going to read from in a minute, in which she said, you got the transcripts,

the written transcripts of any of the, of all of the video testimony. And there was hundreds and hundreds of testimony done. And he's had that for months by way of the Department of Justice Special Counsel, providing him with this what we call Brady material or discovery to help him with his defense. And the judge went on to say,

if you really needed the video, what you needed to do for me is go through the transcripts and show me why the written word, the written page, the transcript is not enough of their literal testimony because you want to say, well, when they made that statement, that Donald Trump wanted to go to off the ellipse and march his way to the Capitol, the person was winking or nodding or laughing,

if there was some sort of physical emotion that was being expressed, that's not reflected in the transcript, don't we need to see the video? But the judge went on to say, you didn't do any of that. You didn't match for me why the transcript is insufficient. You didn't tell me where in there you think in the video there is relevant evidence. So all you have is a fishing expedition and courts hate fishing expeditions, right? Space a poor is a vacuum or whatever it is, you know, then judges a poor, a fishing expedition

and certainly being used by the Trump lawyers by subpoena part practice under what we call the 17 C subpoena process to conduct a fishingishing expedition, hoping rummaging around in the attic, hoping they'll find something. And the judge called them out on that and said, basically, A, there are no missing documents. What you claim to be missing documents, you have. So the fact that you're calling the missing documents doesn't make it relevant, doesn't make it something that you need and doesn't render this specific enough for me to grant your request.

The end result is we can stop hearing about the Jan 6th committee materials, all of which are either on the website. There's like two terabytes of information. Anybody in the public can go grab and or was produced by the Department of Justice in searchable form to the Trump lawyers to prepare their defense. So stop talking Trump about missing Jan six materials. This federal judge is determined based on the record based on your own submissions, your

own briefs and affidavits that there isn't any missing information. So he'll continue to talk about it. Let me read, but there isn't any. Let me just say it's a very short one thing we've learned and loved about Judge Chutkin is that she writes very efficiently, very succinctly with a lot of word economy. She gets right to the point and so will lie. She she she outlines it with the background and denying the motion for the missing Gen 6 materials as saying that the the subpoena sought from seven different non-party individuals material. The one, some of this is ironic, the archivist of the national archives.

That's the same entity that Donald Trump and Mar-a-Lago refused to turn over hundreds of boxes to as he was required to do under the Presidential Records Act. But let's go search there now because now I'm in trouble and I'm a defendant in a criminal case. The clerk of the House of Representatives, the current committee on House Administration, which is the successor to the Jan 6th Committee, the special counsel to the president, Richard Saber, Jonathan Meyer, the general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, representative Barry Loudermilk, representative Benny Thompson. Let's just ask for all their documents.

And then he defines missing materials and she takes issue by calling them the purportedly missing materials as the select committee missing materials, which is broadly defined. And then records about the select committee, the loss or destruction of the select committee documents and records relating to any accommodation or agreement with the executive branch, including the Department of Justice regarding the select committee missing materials. This goes to Donald Trump's conspiracy theory that Joe Biden's Department of Justice is conspiring with whoever's keeping the Jan 6th committee materials to keep them from Donald Trump.

And this federal judge says, you haven't even pruned major burden that there's anything missing. Let alone that I'm gonna issue a subpoena related to it. Your pets a member of the family, my lily certainly is. Don't feed them like they're in the doghouse, give them no-noem. No-noem delivers fresh dog food with every portion personalized to your dog's needs, so you can bring out their best. No-noem is made with

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a f for 50% off trynome.com slash legal a f. She goes on to remind the Trump people on page three of her order that to avoid a general fishing expedition, which is a port by federal courts, a 17 C subpoena as the one that was requested must clear three hurdles, relevancy, admissibility, and specificity. Relevancy, it's got to go to the heart of the subject matter of the criminal prosecutions against the person. Two, admissibility. If you're asking for material, the material you're asking for ultimately has to be admissible

as evidence in a court of law and specificity. I got to know what the heck you're talking about. And so her discussion, she first takes on the judge judge the missing materials definition and quickly dispatches that and rules that there's no evidence that there's anything that was in the Jan 6th committee materials select that didn't end up going over to Donald Trump. And she's sides with the Department of Justice who represented her as officers of the court that everything that's relevant that's in the Jan 6th committee materials has been provided to the defense

by way of Brady material. She then takes issue with the video requests as I outline the video statements. For instance, first she says on page five, with regard to the subpoena for written interview transcripts. So they're basically claiming we didn't get the written interview transcripts. She credits the judge credits the government, the Department of Justice and says on the top of page five, the government represents that it obtained these materials from the select

committee, the White House and the Secret Service, and it produced them to the defendant in its first discovery production. More than two months ago, itemized in a source log, defendant does not dispute that report. In other words, even in their own reply paper, Trump did not dispute that he got an itemized catalog of all of the things he's saying are missing now. So then it leaves only the video recordings. And the judge says, the burden is on you to show me how any of the video recordings contain any impeachment evidence.

And she says on the top of page six, for example, Trump could have used the written transcripts of the interviews, which example. Trump could have used the written transcripts of the interviews, which he had already possesses to identify particular portions of video recordings where a quote, a witness's demeanor tone and expression would likely provide impeaching evidence,

which is what he noted in his own reply paper, or which he quotes from, or he could have proffered some other reason to believe that the video recordings would do so. The motion does not even make that attempt. So she's taking them to task because on one hand, on one side of their mouth, they're saying, well, maybe the video will show a witness is demeanor, tone, and expression. And maybe it won't, the judge says. And you haven't shown me to avoid the fishing expedition problem. You haven't shown me where a clip may show that.

Accordingly, as she said at the top of page six, defendant has not carried his burden in justifying the issuance of the subpoenas with respect to any of the missing materials. She then says in the footnote of the bottom page 6, the government argues that the video recordings are categorically irrelevant at this time because the written transcript render them superfluous and that seeking them before the exchange of witness list would be a best premature. But because the defendant has failed to satisfy his initial burden, the court need not reach these two arguments.

And then she just basically concludes that there are no missing materials. She's not going to provide it with anything else. He's got everything he needs from the Jan 6th Committee, the Department of Justice has done their job. Move on and sign in data, Tonya S. Chuck in United States District Judge. Now look, we're going to be seeing a series of orders that are going to be flying out of this court in the month, in the remainder of the month of November into December. They're going to come fast and furious.

We're going to catch them, examine them, do an explainer for you on hot takes like this one and on legal AF, the leading podcast of the intersection of law, politics in just this one place, the might podcast of the intersection of law, politics in just this one place, the might as touch YouTube channel and then on audio podcasts wherever you get your audio podcasts from tune in on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. for legal AF on Wednesdays. I do it with Karen Friedman, Agnifalo former prosecutor and on Saturdays with fellow trial away or civil rights advocate, Ben, my Salisicellis, APM Eastern time there. And then you can catch us on the YouTube library.

We have a podcast library that has our entire body of work. My playlists are there. You can get my 500 YouTube videos about the intersection of law, politics and justice just like this one. If you like this kind of work, give me a thumbs up and leave a comment. It helps the ratings and keep us on the air. Help the Midas Touch Network get the two million free subscribers. The bigger they get and they're getting close, the more your voice is heard. So until my next hot take, until my next legal AF, this is Michael Popock reporting.

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