Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Habba JUMPS BACK in Trump Case with DUMBEST FILING

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Trump and Alina Habba are up to their old tricks and just filed a motion to disqualify (recuse) NY state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoren the judge who hit him with a $465 million fraud judgment, by falsely claiming he had an “ex parte communication” about the case before he issued his decision and order finding fraud. Michael Popok a practicing NY lawyer breaks down the motion and explains why it is doomed to failure. Trust & Will: Get 10% off plus free shipping of your estate plan documents by visiting https://trustandwill.com/LEGALAF 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

The Michael Popak legal AF Trump tricks never stop. And now we have Trump trying to disqualify and recuse Judge Arthur Angoran, the judge in New York State Supreme Court, who issued the $465 million fraud judgment against Donald Trump and all people around him, based on weeks and weeks of evidence and documents, because they claim that back in May, almost six weeks ago, as reported, somebody went up to the judge in the corner of the courthouse having nothing to do with the case,

who's not a party to the case, who's not an attorney for a party in the case, and decided to venture his opinion about how Judge Angoran should render his decision. Now that conversation would have taken place at the earliest in February and revelations about this, what appears to be a setup by some lawyer who's appeared in front of Judge Angoron and decided to give us two cents. That came out in press reporting in May, and now we're sitting

here at the end of June with a new motion claiming that that is a violation of the judicial ethics on communication when it is not. I'm going to break it all down for you now from my perspective as a practicing New York lawyer and somebody that's appeared in these courtrooms. And we'll talk about what would happen and what will happen. The first hearing in this case, if there's going to be a hearing at all, is going to be in front of Judge Angora, not to the appellate court, not to somebody else. These issues on disqualification and recusal get decided at the first blush by the actual judge and what they have filed through Cliff Roberts, who works with Alina Habba.

This is another Alina Habba special. They've argued that because there was an apparent conversation between this lawyer not affiliated with the case, not involved with the case at all, a guy by the name of Adam Leitman Bailey, who appears regularly as a real estate lawyer, who apparently tried to lobby the judge not to enter the judgment against Donald Trump, to not go hard on him, to not apply the executive law 63-12 against him, and to, because it would be terrible for the people who stayed in New York, terrible for business and all that.

This is a guy who's gone on kind of rag sheets in New York, like the Daily News in the past, and has made commentary about what he thinks the appellate division court ruling is, or is not about its application to the case. He's not qualified to make those expert opinions and why he went up, it looks like to set up the judge and have a conversation about a pending case before the ruling was entered. I have no idea, but I'll

tell you what it's not. It is not an improper ex parte communication that would require the judge to either disclose it to the other side, to Trump's side, or to the New York attorney general's side, or disclose it at all. And certainly it did not go, and it did not get baked into the 50 or 60 page decision by Judge Angoran, if anything it was ignored. So a passing comment over an egg salad sandwich,

you see where I'm going with this, to the judge while he's rendering a decision does not render that decision improper or the judge biased or with an appearance of impropriety. Let's break it all down right here on this particular hot take. It was reported back in May, I think we might have even done a hot take on it, that Bailey, this lawyer, went up to the judge in the courtroom and started to give unsolicited his opinion about the case and the trial before the judgment had been rendered. There's no indication that any of that influenced the judge,

nor is it an ex parte communication. Let me tell you what that is under the judicial canons. Ex parte communications are limited, and ex parte communication is particularly one in which the judge has a conversation with a party or their counsel without the other party or counsel being present. Listen to those words, a party in the case, so the Trump side or the attorney general side or the lawyers for that party in which the judge is kippetsing or having conversation with the judge about the case. That cannot happen. And there should not even really be conversation about anything, the weather, sports, or anything else because it looks bad, but certainly not about those things.

And if it happens, then there needs to be immediate disclosure by the judge to the other side with a disclosure of the conversation. And the judge has to make the decision that it did not influence his ultimate decision making. Well, first of all, Bailey's comments were against the ultimate decision. It was almost lobbying the judge not to throw the book at Donald Trump. So we got that problem. Secondly, it's not fundamentally an ex parte communication because Bailey's not a party to the case, nor is he a lawyer for a party in the case.

He's just a drive-by stranger to the case that decided he'd kibitz with the judge unsolicited and provide his opinion. So that can't possibly, if that were the disqualifying factor, no judge in New York or any place else would be able to survive a motion to recuse or disqualify. And so they gloss over that in the brief

on pages eight and nine, when they say in accordance with these principles, the code states that a judge shall not initiate, permit, or consider ex parte communications, or consider other communications made to the judge outside the presence of the parties, or consider the communication made to the judge outside the presence of the parties concerning a pending

or impending proceeding. He can't hear it and he can't use it. But they then just skip over that canon of conduct for judges, which is on page eight of their brief, and they just conclude with no case law and no support that this non-party stranger to the case constitutes an ex parte communication. They just skip over that and on page nine, they say at the top, the law is clear that any communication outside of the

presence of the parties or their lawyers must be strictly scrutinized. No, that's not the law. The law is not any communication. It's any communication with a party and or the party's counsel without the other party or the party's council present. They've completely turned it upside down and on its head, the law related to this kind of contact. Those that know me, they know I'm a family man and I got a child on the way this summer. The things we build our future around are the things worth protecting.

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an ex parte communication is not time for a jurist to pretend that the contact is a genie in a bottle. Instead of exploring that inference, it is for the judge to be reserved, guarded, circumspect, and to shun conduct that would be misinterpreted. A judge may appear uncaring and sensitive or inhumane, but it is better that he be viewed this way than be approached than being corrupted. But he can't be corrupted in an ex parte communication

when the communication's not ex parte, because it's not involving a party. How many times do I have to say in this outtake? Stranger to the case, stranger to the litigation, not involved, drive by commentary, does not disqualify a judge. If it did, I'd go up to every judge. If it was permitted, I'd go up to every judge I didn't like or I wanted to get rid of or send somebody his way to do this. It is ridiculous. It is just another attempt because they were sort of successful in gumming up the works in Georgia with going after Fonny Willis and trying to disqualify her. Well, let's do it here.

Plus, it's part of their narrative for their campaign that this is a witch hunt and it's lawless and the judge is biased and corrupt and all that. He had a conversation. You know how many conversations judges have in their normal life, fundraisers, speeches, conventions, back of the courthouse apparently, they have no evidence whatsoever that this was a, nor could they ever have, that this is an improper ex parte communication. It is just something that just isn't covered by the code. And the judge obviously didn't rely on anything Bailey said because it's not included in his order. They say, well, there's an exception.

The exception is he can get advice from a neutral expert as long as he advises the client, the parties, the real parties that he's doing it. And this guy can't be neutral because he says he's against Trump. Well, that's right. That exception doesn't apply. You never get to that exception

because it's not an ex parte communication. This is the wrong headedness and hard headedness of all of the Trump filings against Judge Angoran and certainly this one. Now this one also points to the fact that in the press there's reports that there is a judicial ethics body that is investigating Judge Angoran on this particular issue. Okay, that's fine. There's also a statement from the court personnel that this was not an ex parte communication

and it's nothing to worry about. The question is gonna be, what is gonna come in next after this particular motion was filed? Now, really, this is just for Donald Trump to have as a talking point for his debate in about a week. That's all this is, masquerading as a legitimate motion. They're asking the judge to recuse himself and if he doesn't do it, they want an evidentiary hearing. Of course, waste more time and money trying to make a public show of something that has no merit. Now, this one is signed by,

who else? Look at Alina Haba and Cliff Robert. They all use that Sharpie pen that their boss does, their client Donald Trump. This one's signed by, and what did I tell you in the past in hot takes? If Alina Haba signs a motion, it probably has no merit. Now she got Cliff Robert to join in here and she's got Chris Keiss listed here at the bottom as well. If I were the judge, I would pull the ticket for Chris Keiss and not allow him to appear in the court any longer and revoke his admission pro-Hakviche as a foreign attorney. I would just pull it because he's not complying with the code of ethics for him. Now that this has been submitted, what happens next? The judge will wait to hear from the other side, I expect, which is the New York attorney general, to comment on the

ridiculousness and the lack of merit of this motion. And I would seek sanctions if I were them. The judge then has two briefs. He may give Donald Trump yet another brief, the final reply brief, but he doesn't have to. Based on those two briefs, the judge doesn't not have to have a evidentiary hearing. They want to try to argue that he's got some sort of bias or an appearance of impropriety and should be removed. That's the first step. Second step, if they're able to get rid of Judge Anguaron, they'll try to vacate his underlying judgment and have an argument to the appellate court.

That's what we're watching at this two-step process. But this first step is gonna fail because they're wrong under the code of canons or the canon that applies to judicial conduct and communications. So I think it's gonna run this way. This brief came in, this motion came in, the judge will order that the other side, the New York attorney general, supply their brief in

X amount of time. I don't think he holds an evidentiary hearing. Maybe to read his order out loud in which he denies the motion to recuse. And if they don't like it, then they got to go to the appellate division first department where Trump's side has been losing time and time again. He's lost almost a dozen times in this case alone about the appellate division. Donald Trump likes to crow that he won something at the appellate division because they applied a strict statute of limitations

to take away some of the transactions from the case. But the judge applied that order properly in his trial order on fraud and still came up with $465 million of total fraud. So the Appellate Division First Department is not going to take out Judge Angoron. They respect Judge Angoron in this case, and he hasn't done anything wrong.

And so then he'll have to try to take it up to the Court of Appeals, along with the rest of his appeal. And I think Judge Angoron, of course, survives that as well. We'll continue to follow all the filings in this case now that we have this breaking news out of the way, only on the Midas Touch Network and here on Legal AF. It's the podcast. Now you know why we call it Legal AF. It's every Wednesday and Saturday, 8 p.m. Eastern time, right here on this Midas Touch YouTube channel and then on audio podcast platforms of your choice. You can follow

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