Legal AF by MeidasTouch - GOP Plan UNRAVELS MORE as Witness FROM HELL Re-Arrested

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

Alexander Smirnov who lied to the FBI & falsely accused President Biden of taking a bribe, had been RE-ARRESTED in Nevada by order of a California District Court judge’s order because as a Russian asset hell bent on helping Trump win, he’s a flight risk before trial. Michael Popok dissects his lawyer’s emergency filing and explains why it is DEAD ON ARRIVAL. Get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to https://shopbeam.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF at checkout! 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

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Call 1866 5313126-Hunter or visit connexontario.ca. Please play responsibly. This is Michael Popak, Legal AF. It's getting hot for Alexander Smyrnoff, the now disgraced former FBI informant who was cooperating with the FBI against Hunter Biden and Joe Biden when it turned out he was telling lies

that Joe Biden, Hunter Biden were accepting bribes from Burisma, which led the special counsel for Hunter Biden to turn around and have to prosecute Alexander Smirnoff. Why we're talking about him today? Isn't it a fact, Mr. Popak? That's me. That he was already picked up in Nevada and he's already been arraigned in front of a magistrate judge who released him before trial. That's true, but we have new reporting that he got picked up again on another arrest warrant while he was meeting with his own lawyers in Nevada

because Otis Wright, who's the Article III, the federal district judge, district court judge in California, didn't agree with what the magistrate judge in Nevada did, and therefore issued his own overriding order to pick Mr. Smyrnoff up no matter where he was, in this case, apparently, with his lawyers. The lawyers for Smyrnoff don't like it. They said, well, we were already in front of a magistrate

because Smyrnoff stepped off a plane, entered Nevada while there was an arrest warrant and an indictment already coming out of the Central District of California. Why the Central District of California? That's because that's where David Weiss, the special counsel going after Hunter Biden operates. And at least he has a supervising district court judge. His name is Otis Wright. The magistrate judge, Elbrecht from Nevada, looked at all of the evidence that was front of him, including that Smirnoff admitted to being a Russian asset of its foreign intelligence service that was trying to interfere with the election

and get Joe Biden to lose against Donald Trump. He lied, he admitted that, he admitted that he was in close contact and was effectively an asset for the Russian government and therefore for Putin in their efforts to interfere with the election in 2024. But that wasn't enough for the magistrate judge in Nevada. In addition to that, they also

put in evidence that he lied on his forms into pre-trial services about the amount of money that he had in his bank accounts. He said he had $6,000. He had $6 million between the girlfriend and himself. That's a big miss when you're trying to be truthful in order to argue that you should be out on bond pending your trial. And when the government put in front of this magistrate judge, it fell on deaf ears that he has that the guy, Alexander Samirnoff has the means, the method and the motive to try to flee the jurisdiction. And even the United States travels on a foreign passport. States travels on a foreign passport and he has very little ties to the United States despite some evidence that he owns a property or two in Nevada. He has some good lawyers in Nevada. They're friendly with the magistrate judge. They made a presentation and the magistrate judge says, I think an ankle bracelet's enough. But the federal government, knowing this guy admitted to being a

Russian asset, that he's been indicted for lying to the FBI and the Department of Justice for years, right, which has been a focus of their entire Hunter Biden prosecution. He said that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden each took a five million dollar bribe when Joe Biden was vice president on behalf of Barisma, the oil company that Hunter Biden was on the board of. That was a lie. That was made up. the oil company that Hunter Biden was on the board of, that was a lie, that was made up.

Yes, it's the foundation, the crown jewel of the MAGA impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden. It's based on a house of cards, right? On a tissue of lies. And now the government's not having it. As Karen Freeman Ignifolo on our legal AF said, my co-anchor, former prosecutor, that is the third rail, that is the cardinal's sin to burn a prosecutor and the FBI by lying to them. And that is your indictment. You shouldn't be

let out pre-trial. And Otis Wright, who is the district court judge overseeing the indictment and the administration of justice over Alexander Samirinov, is not sitting still for a magistrate judge in Nevada, deciding he can be out on bail and on bond conditions. Because in that gap, that interstitial gap, that's enough time for somebody to flee. And under the charges, Otis Wright obviously

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Find out why Forbes and New York Times are all talking about Beam and why it's trusted by the world's top athletes and business professionals. If you want to try Beam's best-selling dream powder, get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to shopbeam.com slash legal AF and use legal AF as a code at checkout. That's shopbeam.com slash legal AF and use legal AF, the code when you check out for up to 40% off. And what normally happens in this scenario when a defendant is picked up in one state but he's charges are pending in another is that there's usually an extradition proceeding

between federal courts. And then the person is extradited in our federal system, federal court to federal court. There's very little ability. I mean, there's some due process obligations, but there's very little ability to fight off an extradition within our federal system. So he's gonna lose on that.

So there's a big argument that the lawyers for Smirnoff are making now that there's been a violation of the criminal rules of procedure, the federal criminal rules of procedure about magistrate judges, arraignment, and the like. And they're right that the statute says that arraignments happen at first in front of a magistrate. But that doesn't mean the district court judge doesn't have the power to bigfoot and veto the rulings of the magistrate judge under our system. At the end of the day, the Article III judge who's the district court judge under our Constitution is the one responsible

for the administration of justice. The magistrate judge, which is not an Article III position, reports to a district court judge. In this case, under Rock, Paper, Scissor, judge, a district court judge right beats magistrate judge in Nevada when it relates to a custody and the custodial detention of a defendant that's in front of that district court judge. And that's what we're watching. There's a filing that's been made by the law firm Chesnoff and Schoenfeld in Nevada trying to argue that there's been a procedural miss here. The problem is they're not arguing that there's a due process violation. And they're not arguing that some of this can't be resolved

with what's called a writ of habeas corpus, where they try to demand the body and the release. And of course, they're all up in arms because the guy was arrested on the district court judge's arrest warrant while he was meeting with his lawyers. And that's okay. There's no, it's not a safe harbor or a safe haven just because you walk through the doors of your lawyer. If I have a criminal defendant who comes to my office, he can get arrested and

nabbed on my doorstep or if I let him in, you know, inside. Just because you're meeting with counsel isn't a magic wand that stops the criminal justice process. It just doesn't. So I've read through the motion that they just filed where they're trying to defend a magistrate judge, Albrecht's, that's in Nevada, his rulings, and arguing that his, their client's not a flight risk and that instead he's got a sacrosanct

Sixth Amendment rights that are being violated. If he's got a sacrosanct sixth amendment rights that are being violated if he's put into the federal detention system while he's awaiting trial. But based on the allegations that I read in the indictment itself, this guy should be in pre-trial detention. When you admit to being an asset of a foreign enemy of the United States and that you're trying to interfere with the election and that your very indicted conduct is about interfering with the election by trying to tank Joe Biden, right?

And tar him and act like he and tell the world that he took a bribe. You forfeited any of your rights to be considered honorable, and that there's pretrial conditions that would allow you to remain out on bail. The Russians could just swoop up and send the sky on a plane in the middle of the night, and he ends up outside the country

and away from our ability and the long arm of the law. That's what's gonna happen here. And that's what the fear is by the district court judge. So I'm sorry that they're worried about Nevada sovereignty. We're talking about a federal to federal transfer for extradition purposes and the detention of a criminal who's ultimately under the supervision, not of the magistrate judge who arraigned him,

but ultimately of the district court judge. And there's fight going on here about the release order. They say the Department of Justice has to, if they disagree with Judge Albrecht, the magistrate judge's release order, they have to go through a whole different, you know, process through the magistrate judge, but they've missed the boat.

Because you can always on an emergency application, which is what the Department of Justice did. You can always go to the federal, the actual district court judge, the Article III judge, right, who has the superpower to take custody of a criminal defendant in a way that a magistrate judge could only dream. We are gonna continue to follow a fast moving story

of Alexander Smirnoff, the now indicted fraudster who lied about Joe Biden about taking a bribe at the heart of the impeachment proceeding, at the heart of the Hunter Biden criminal prosecution, and what happens with him going forward. I assure you, he's going to remain in federal detention if the federal district judge Otis Wright has anything to say about it in the central district of California. And I believe his decision will be final. They want to take an appeal.

They want to file a writ of habeas corpus. They want to try to argue that they need to get him out. And in Sixth Amendment rights are being violated. Let him take it up on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California. But in the meantime, I believe that right decision has been made, and I'm sorry he had to get picked up at his lawyer's office, but that provides no defense to the execution of the arrest order by Judge Otis Wright. So until my next hot take, just like this one, but on a different topic, until my next legal AF at the intersection

of law, politics, and justice, which we do on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. right here on the Midas Touch Network, this is Michael Popak reporting. Love this video? Make sure you stay up to date on the latest breaking news and all things Midas by signing up to the Midas Touch newsletter at MidasTouch.com slash newsletter.