Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Jack Smith closes in on TRUMP FAMILY as Fulton County readies INDICTMENTS

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

The Midweek Edition of the top-rated news podcast, LegalAF x MeidasTouch, is back for another hard-hitting look at this week’s most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this episode, co-anchors national trial lawyer Michael Popok and former prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo analyze and discuss: Special Prosecutor Jack Smith subpoenaing Ivanka and Jared to testify before the grand jury on the Jan6 coup; the recent disclosures by the Fulton County special purpose grand jury foreperson about what’s in the full report; and Speaker McCarthy cuts a devil’s bargain to release all the jan5 security footage to Tucker Carlson and what that means for national security, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! FUM: Head to TryFum.com and use code "LEGALAF" to save 10% off when you get the journey pack today! SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal AF. Well, there's no news this week, so we're going to cancel the show. Or it's everything, everywhere, all at once. And that's what we're going to cover today. We're going to start with the Jan 6 insurrection issues or front and center with a grand jury that is led by special counsel Jack Smith and come on down Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner because you're next to testify about all things related to your father and father-in-law whether he was involved with summoning the mob to overthrow the

government what he did during those three hours of dereliction of duty in the dining room all the conversations you had with him about the fact that he lost the election, and should peacefully transfer power, etc. etc. This is heating up for Jack Smith. I know he keeps saying that, but you got two competing grand juries going on in Washington, D.C. One of them is about Mar-a-Lago. We had all the lawyers come in last week, Evan Corcoran, probably a criminal target, Christina Bob and Alina Habba. But now we're in the other Grand Jury with Mike Pence, now Ivanka and Jared. And we're at the tail end. This is the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.

And then we're gonna talk about Fonney Welles, the heartburn that I'm sure she's, that we were soar that she is suffering right now related to the four person of the special purpose grand jury deciding that she wanted her 15 minutes of fame and doing exactly the thing that Judge McBernie didn't want to do, which is to disclose anything about the report and the recommendations of her grand jury until he authorized it, not her.

And he only authorized this authorized five and a half pages to be disclosed, which wasn't much, but it's what he calculated that he wanted disclosed. Unfortunately, that's not what the four-person wanted, and we're going to talk about it from a prosecutor's perspective with my co-anchor. And then finally, we're going to talk about Speaker McCarthy deciding that full transparency about the Jan 6 attack and the insurrection means turning over 41,000 hours of unmitigated, unvarnished, CCTV camera footage directly from all of the cameras located at the Capitol to Tucker Carlson. This and he made that decision after the

Dominion lawsuit exposed all of the internal emails showing that Tucker Carlson, Panity and Laura Ingram are a fraud. They don't believe a word of the big lie or the election fraud that they claim happened or that Joe Biden isn't president or that it was a false flag event or any of that. That doesn't matter. He decides, McCarthy decides, let's turn it over to Fox News for their investigation. And we'll talk about that also from a prosecutor's standpoint. I'm Michael Popak and I'm joined every Wednesday with my co-anchor former prosecutor Karen Frieden, Agnipolo, hi Karen. Hello, Professor Popok, we're going to glasses.

I love the glasses this week. Oh, they've been called everything. This is the Lego scuba edition of my glasses. And you're, I think, in New York. I'm, right, you're in New York? Yes, I'm in New York. I'm on the road. I'm in, I'm reporting from Georgia. I was hoping that there'd be something better to talk about

with Faudi-Willis and imminent indictments than the four person, but that didn't happen and I'm here doing something else, so I figured, let's do the show tonight. So let's do the show tonight. Let's jump right in. We got, you wanted to do breaking news from Atlanta, Georgia, where you could stand in front of the courtroom

or the courthouse and announce that indictments have been brought. I mean, you and I talked offline, and along with the other might as touch personnel and personalities like Ben. And I thought before the four-person Emily Cors, write that name down, Emily Cores, before she decided, I don't know it, who's urging her own to go on and see

an end in network television to talk about the inner workings of the grand jury and start hinting around about the indictments of multiple people for multiple crimes in response to Donald Trump, effectively taking the bait that Donald Trump put out there that we talked about, then my spouse predicted what happened.

When he reading five pages out of thousands or thousands of pages in the not released special purpose grand jury report, said exonerated, exonerated, and then, and there we go. And then we've got all that. So look, we're gonna get to it next. I don't want a tease, but I'm gonna tease. We're gonna talk first about my other favorite topic,

which is whatever happened to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. I thought they left, they're retiring types. They left New York, went to Florida, bought a multi-billion dollar house on Indian Creek, and tried to get as far away from everything related to her dad as possible, including saying, I'm not working on the campaign. Basically, I'm not supporting the campaign, to which Donald Trump, of course, attacked his own daughter, not the first time, and said, uh, I didn't want to working on my campaign.

That's why she's not working on my campaign. But they hoped I thought I think that if they buried themselves deep below the earth in Miami, that they would escape being brought back in as potential criminal defendants or at least witnesses in a grand jury led by Jack Smith wrong. So let's talk about it, Karen. First of all, let me just spend one minute frame in it and then I'm going to turn it over to you.

You've got a vodka Trump who obviously, well, let me do it this way. People might be wondering, well, they were in the White House. Maybe there's a privilege issue that they'll try to assert, like Pence tried to assert his speech and debate and executive privilege to avoid testimony. What about them? Popok, what about them? Well, I'll tell you that they did testify. We're not imagining that they testified and we saw video clips of both Jared Kushner and

Ivanka in the Jan 6th Committee hearings. That's because Trump did not assert the executive privilege or stop them from testifying in any way under oath. And so they did. So there's an open question whether there's even an executive privilege to continue to assert because it looks like you've waved it. You've allowed two of your people in the White House to go and testify under oath about what happened. I'm not sure he's going to be able to now assert the executive privilege. And why do these two matter? I mean, we're talking about reaching into the inner inner sanctum closest to Donald Trump. You're not getting any closer than a vodka and Jared, okay, then these two. Now, Ivanka, remember, she was not only a fly

in the wall, but an active participant in numerous conversations that are already come out through the Jan 6th Committee testimony. She was there when daddy called Mike Pence to pressure him and may have used the P word, like don't be a P word. And she's also on tape because we saw it numerous times because the Jan 6th Committee took special delight in roasting Donald Trump by way of his daughter in which she, after hearing that Bill Barr said effectively, no, I think he said it actually, that all of the election fraud schemes and ideas about dead voters voting and multiple voter voters

and software that flip votes from Trump to Biden, all of that having been run down to ground, that that election fraud thing was to paraphrase Bill Barr bullshit. And then you followed up with Ivana Ivanka saying, I trust Bill Barr, and so I agreed with him, and I tried to move my dad into accepting his defeat and doing a peaceful transfer of power,

which goes to criminal mind, criminal intent, men's rea, as we like to call it, in the business for the Donald Trump prosecution. So she's got a lot to talk about. Then you got Jared, who, one of his roles apparently was trying to manage the White House council position in the form of Pat Sipalone, and Pat has already testified, and has been forced to testify over attorney client privilege

assertions by Donald Trump about also telling Donald Trump in no uncertain terms that he had lost the election that all of his gambits had failed. None of the lawsuits had prevailed and none of his working theories about fraud were correct. And threatened to quit, as you recall, Karen, in our audience, Pat Sipalone threatened to quit if Donald Trump put in Jeffrey Rosen. I'm sorry, if you put in Jeff Clark, as Jeff Clark, as the attorney general,

to do his bidding to write nasty letters on Department of Justice Stationary to places like Georgia, for instance. And for some reason, Jared's role in that inner circle with Trump was to like manage Pat Cipollone, who he basically called a crybaby, and that he didn't really believe much of what he was saying and just thought that was Pat being pat that kind of thing. So Jared's got a lot of things to talk about, but from your perspective as a former prosecutor, what do you think the,

where do you think we are in that prosecution, that they are now up to Pence, Ivanka, and Jared? Let's start with that one. Where do you think they are in all of that? I think they're getting very, very close to trump i mean this is this is the tip of the i you know that before it was you start at the bottom and they go with the insurrectionists and they've been moving working their way up the chain but you get to

donald trump's daughter and son-in-law that's and and the vice president that that's as close as you can get to to trump i think And it just shows where Jack Smith is. You know, when Jack Smith came, as was appointed a special prosecutor, people were worried that things would slow down. And I think this shows that nothing is slowing down. In fact, he's really turning up the heat and he's ready to get to the next level and it's getting serious. I mean, interestingly, as I'm sure you know, and everybody knows, before the Trumps all moved down

to Florida, they were New Yorkers. And so they are all known in various New York circles. And I remember when Donald Trump was elected president, many people were thinking that, well, hopefully, the fact that Jared and Ivanka are going to be working in the White House, that they were the most reasonable of Don Jr. and Eric and that whole group of people. And so they thought, hopefully, the husband and wife team will talk some sense into him and keep things calm.

And maybe he won't go off the rails and be as crazy. And I'm sure that's part of what Jack Smith's hoping that Don Jr. and Eric are, I'm sure, targets as is dad. And they also are very much, they've been shown to, especially Don Jr., they will lie on behalf of their father. But it will soon see if Jared and Ivanka will take that extra step and actually lie on behalf of Donald Trump. I mean, so far, Ivanka, she's not obviously going to want to testify against her father, but so far, what's been released, she seems to be candid, at least, about her opinions,

like when she said she agreed with Bill Barr saying there was no election interference, et cetera. And so put on, if she's required to testify in the grand jury by Spina and she has to be sworn in under oath, it'll be interesting. She could take the fifth, put on some issues required to testify in the grand jury by spina and she at this be sworn in under oath it'll be interesting she could take the fifth right if she's a target and not speak and not have to say anything or she could be given immunity and uh... forced to testify or she might choose to testify who knows because she did

speak to the jane six committee and we'll see, you know, there's, there's, you mentioned the executive privilege that Trump could assert and just for, for people who might wonder whether this is the case, there is no child parent privilege. So the way there is a marital privilege or husband, wife privilege, there's, there's nothing like that with a parent-child relationship. So that can't be an issue. And we'll see what Jack Smith asks her and Jared about. We do know that she was in the Oval Office on January 6th with her father while he called Pence and pressured him

to block or delay the certification. And we also know that she accompanied her father to the rally at the ellipse where people were chanting hang my pants so she could be asked about what did he say to her, what did he know, and what was she saying to him? And we know that Jared went to the White House after he returned from, I don't know where he was, the Middle East or something that day.

And he went to the White House where after the people had been writing for many hours. And it's been widely spoken about that he and Ivanka were both involved in trying to get Trump to tell the rioters to go home and commit to a peaceful transfer of power. So I think that's powerful evidence before a grand jury. And it's powerful evidence before a grand jury and it's powerful evidence against Donald Trump. I mean, it just goes to show that's where they are and that's where they're up to. Yeah, I think that's a great rundown of the jeopardy that Ivanka and Jared are facing.

I mean, they have two choices. They either lie under oath and possibly be convicted for doing so, or they tell the truth. And they've sort of signaled in their own weird way, even though they've been part of the Trump criminal family for a long, long time, and have grifted their way to billions, that they would like to not be criminally prosecuted. And they've, as opposed, as you said to Eric and Tom Jr., they have done the most to get as far away

and behind a firewall of the exploding and imploding Donald Trump as possible. You know, they had a pretty swanky life in New York, you know, running around the Upper East Side and socializing and all of that. And yeah, sure, Miami is great life in New York, you know, running around the Upper East Side and socializing and all of that. And yeah, sure, Miami's great. And they have some mega mansion in Indian Creek where all the other billionaires live. But they give up a life and a lifestyle.

And then Trump was none too pleased when you, you know, I love to be on the room with Ivanka said, I'm not helping you in the next campaign. You're doing it without me because, you know, I suppose it's on junior and Eric, who are firmly and completely committed. And even in the New York, even in the New York Attorney General case, she was able to separate herself a bit from the others in terms of some financial oversight. again, demonstrating that she's trying to get some daylight if she can between her and her dad. Her dad will throw her under the bus in heartbeat.

He's already done it in tweets that will one day be, he'll be confronted with if he's ever indicted. But he has not liked, and I don't think it's an act that she's acted like the black sheep going against dad. I think that this is her testimony, and I don't think it was a calculated decision to do so. So, we're going to have to see, but I do think it signals strongly, as I said at the top, that we're at the beginning of the end here.

This is, go ahead, Karen. No, I was just going, yeah, you're 100 percent right. This is one more thing I wanted to add to what you're saying. This is, go ahead, Karen. No, I was just, yeah, you're 100% right. This is one more thing I wanted to add to what you're saying, which is that oftentimes prosecutors are gonna have to make a deal with the devil to get to the top person, right? It's an age old thing that has been done because you can't always get to the top person. We all know that that Trump didn't write anything down. He didn't send emails. He would tear things up and flush

them down the toilet, right? He doesn't leave the breadcrumb paper trail that that many criminals often do that prosecutors rely on. And he's got his inner circle is like brainwashed against him, you know, for him, I should say. And it's going to be very hard to get somebody to testify against him. And so somebody at Jack Smith is going to have to start making deals with the devil with some people. And so I could imagine a scenario where he potentially immunizes Ivanka and or Jared because he wouldn't do that with Eric or Don Jr. because of I think they're probably targets too and

they're not trustworthy and they're liars. So that's what I think is possibly happening and just stay tuned because he is going to have to make a deal with the devil with with some With somebody to get to Trump And and what I meant by that just to be clear because I'm looking at the chats here about what that phrase means You don't do evaanka and Jared and Pence when you're like Starting your investigation. You do it in the waning days of your starting your investigation, you do it in the waning days of your prosecution or your presentation to your grand jury from which you will ultimately get you're running out of people. I mean, you know how much closer can we get here than you know the relatives blood relatives of the of the target of the investigation.

So we will see it's news because it's news today because it's the latest group of people that have been brought in and because the only way we can report what's going on at the grand jury level is by, there's really one of two ways because unlike the one of our next segments where a jury for person aside, she's going to be celebrity of the week and start talking about improperly, probably illegally about what happened with this, with inside of a grand jury. We're not supposed to know that. We're only the only two ways that we can tell what's going on in a federal grand jury is when there's motion practice, again, secret and sealed, but motion

practice that's listed on the public docket over at the chief judges chambers and courtroom currently, currently being handled by, now the chief's about to leave, I've actually almost forgotten her name. Now that it's being handled by, who's the chief judge now for the DC court? Oh, no, it'll come to me before this segment's over. But we either look at her, talk it and see what's being filed there. Then from there, try to get some reporting related to it. We report on the witnesses that are being brought in there,

and which grand jury of the many that we think they're being brought in front of. From there, we synthesize it and using our experience. It's barrel howl for those that are. Thank you. Thank you, Salty Mai. My trusted producer soon to be replaced by Jeb Bozberg, but currently the chief judge overseeing all the grand jury. So that's what we do.

And that's why I think people come here. So for the people that are kind of trolling their way through the chat tonight, like, the beginning of what? Who cares, those, this news, it is. And you're gonna have to trust practicing lawyers to do this for a living, that this is big news, and this is how we report it based on developments

in front of the grand jury. So let's, Carol, let's you have anything else. I'm gonna move on. Gonna move on to our next segment. Now, let's move on. Yeah. Yeah, I move on. Gonna move on to my next segment. No, let's move on. Yeah, yeah, I like the next one. This one's gonna like boil your blood as a former prosecutor.

Let me bring it. This one I call, I call Oive, this one. Oive. That's a legal Yiddish term. And I'm gonna ask you about, after we show the clip, of what we're talking about. I'm gonna ask you about what you think Fonney Willis is thinking right now,

what judge Mick Bernie is thinking right now and what the possible next steps are, but let's frame this for a minute. We've got a special purpose grand jury in Georgia where I'm at right now in Fulton County. That was in panel for seven months under by a vote of other justice, justice is our judges on the Fulton County bench,

and supervised by at the time Chief Judge McBernie now, regular, regular old judge, McBernie. And they were very methodical about keeping things confidential and secret in giving the grand jury that special grand jury, that only recommends on indictments, but does not indict itself, the space it needed to operate,

just like any other grand jury. And I'm sure every grand juror, including the four person who was selected usually by a vote of that grant of those people that are in there, were told and instructed about the sanctity of the grand jury process and the need to keep it secret

and that they should not until the grand jury is discharged and the final decisions are made not by them but by the regular grand jury because of their unique role in a report related to indictments, that they're not to go on network television and start talking about it. That's what that's there.

We know now and I shouldn't know, but I do know, we know that the jury four person, Emily Kors, K-O-H-R-S, has gone on network television. We're gonna show a clip now. And Salty, let's run the clip of her in her interview and then we'll come back to Karen to be talking about it. Is it, would you say, when it comes to, there are, and there are indictments recommended, of course.

Is it more than 12 people? Is it more than 20 people? I think if you look at the page numbers of the report, there's about six pages in the middle that got cut out. Allow for spacing. It's not a short list. Not a short list. More, I mean, when it comes to seven is former president Trump.

Did you recommend charges against Donald Trump? I really don't want to share something that the judge made a conscious decision, not to share. I will tell you that it was a process where we heard his name a lot. We definitely heard a lot about former President Trump and we definitely discussed him a lot in the room. And I will say that when this list comes out,

you wouldn't, there are no major plot twists waiting for you. You know, it's interesting. That just raises more questions of a quote. I know. I'm sorry. No, no, please do not apologize. I'm very appreciative of every time.

When you say there's no plot twists and people won't be shocked, people are going to hear that and they're going to think that means that Donald Trump is definitely on that list. All right. So we've got Emily Cors, that on our own initiative and not authorized by the District Attorney, Fawni Willis, nor by Judge McBernie, who spent a considerable amount of time and briefing, and our argument, and public hearing, deciding exactly what he would allow to be let into the public domain and what he wouldn't. And he only allowed five and a half pages out of what I expect to be thousands of pages, including the 70 or more witness testimony transcripts and documents and exhibits that will ultimately be released to the public at the appropriate time.

So, McBernie did that. Fannie Willis supported McBernie's decision, said her decision on prosecutions, on multiple defendants was imminent. And we'll talk about that, about the imminent party, where we're getting frustrated about why hasn't it happened already. But you have that.

And then you have Donald Trump, who decides, hmm, let me see if I can rig this in my favor. I'll tweet out some bait and see if anybody takes it. And here's the bait that we put up before. Thank you to the special grand jury and the great state of Georgia for your patriotism and courage, total exoneration. USA is very proud of you, right? That's the bait. And so he was waiting for somebody in 40. Willis's office or somewhere to step forward and say you weren't exonerated.

We know it's in the report and here it is. And Lo and behold, Emily Cores, who is, I think she's in her late mid to late 20s, decides apparently on her own initiative with whatever support group she has around her, to go on network television. I guess she got a they all got lots of phone calls. I we're going to have to find out or 40 willess more likely is going to have to find out how

CNN and others got to her because that her name was not public. So either she picked up the phone or somehow her name got leaked and the press went after her and kept and kept hitting hitting her to see if she would talk and look what happened, you know, on the CNN clip that we just showed. The parts we didn't show, she also said in response to the question by the by the reporter about the bait of Trump saying he says he's been exonerated. What do you think, which is a total perfect place for her to say nothing and not talk about the report? Instead, she said, fascinating. I don't think he's read the right document, which of course only drew the reporter in more

To talk about the fact that she thinks there's no surprises. There's no plot twists We're not going to be surprised when we get that roster of indicted Recommended and dited people of multiple defendants on a range of charges. Okay, that's what happened. Now, let's talk about what happens next. Karen Friedman, Ike Nippel, three questions. One, is the indictment in jeopardy because of this, this action, self-serving, selfish actions of the four person?

Two, has she committed a crime of that faulty willess and the judge will go after. And will this ultimately support, I guess it's the one and three of the same, a quash of any indictment that comes out of this process under, you know, you have your New York experience, but we'll try to see if we can frame it under George a law the best we can as well. What do you think, Karen? No, maybe, and no. So, let's just frame the issue a little bit more

in what you're talking about. So, there's grand juries, and then there are regular juries, or they call them pedigeries, and a regular jury is when you sit for a trial and it's usually 12 people who are vordeered and questioned and they're chosen and they only see things that are public during the trial and you often will then have jurors come out and speak to the press about the trial and it's stuff that they've seen that was public, so it's perfectly fine. Well, the grand jury process is very different.

It's usually 23 people, and this one had 23 plus, I think, a couple of alternatives. And they aren't questioned or a wardeer, if you will. They aren't selected in any way other than just at random. They ask very general questions like can you serve, can you hear things, can you see, you know, whatever, whatever the requirements are, but it's a different selection process. And they are privy to the opposite, right? It's not public, because every trial, every criminal trial is public. But the grand jury is by its very nature secret because nobody's been charged.

And so it's a way to get people to come in and gather evidence. And this is a special grand jury. So even more so because they don't charge anybody. And they didn't charge anybody here because that's not what they were created for. So it was all about secret information of just regular people who are residents of Fulton County, Georgia, who were called because their name came up and then they sat and they sat for I think seven months here and they heard a lot, 75 witnesses and they had lots of other testimony that was brought before them in the form of videos,

emails, phone calls, recordings, all of the above. And I don't remember a time ever that I know of, that a grand jury, four person or a grand juror spoke out and maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong, I just don't know about it. But this is highly unusual because of the grand jury secrecy. Now, in Georgia, it's slightly different than New York. The Georgia Law requires grand jurors to take an oath saying that they shall keep the deliberations of the grand jury's secret in less called upon to give evidence thereof in a court of law in the state of Georgia. Now, the key word there is deliberations, keep the deliberations of the grand jury secret.

And that has to do with the thought process of the grand jury. But how they define the word deliberations will, I think, determine whether she herself isn't in any trouble and whether she violated any secrecy. And I have to say, I think she actually crossed a line. And I'll tell you, so she gave multiple interviews, by the way, CNN, which is the one I think you just played, there was also one to NBC, or MSNBC, where she gave even more information.

There was also some print, she gave interviews to some print media, so she gave even more information. There was also some print. She gave interviews to some print media, so she's made multiple statements. And there's a few that she made that I think, if they don't cross the line, I think they get close to the line. And the ones that I think, you know, like for example, when she said that the starting point for the jurors was in our in our deliberations, frankly, but the starting point for us was the the perfect phone call to find the 11,780 votes. And so by talking about their process and where they started, that one could argue is the jury's

deliberations. So that's an issue, I think, that is an example of an issue that she has that potentially could be a problem for her. But there were other things that she said, first of all, to be clear, it's a horrible idea that she's speaking to the public. It's a prosecutor's nightmare. For the rest of us, it she provided a window into the process.

And she's clearly trying to not violate grand jury secrecy. And of course, we loved hearing things that the witnesses who were or were not happy to be there, that, you know, who was cracking jokes and how forthcoming people were, that sort of thing, people want to know, and I think she's really trying to not violate her oath and reveal deliberations, but in addition to Trump baiting her, I think the reporters understandably are trying to goad her into more information, but in addition to Trump fading her, I think the reporters understandably are trying to goad her into more information. But the reason, all of the reasons I think it's a really bad idea is in addition to her

own personal liability that she the trouble she could get into because of it is, I think this is going to delay the indictment and the reason is if I were font fonty willis I would try to insulate the indicting grand jury now from the investigating grand jury. So whereas before we said you know what why doesn't fonty willis just take the report and read it to the to the indicting grand jury they can have they have hearsay that's allowed there and just read read the findings and ask them to indict. I if I you know I have no idea if she's doing this or not but one can imagine that Fannie might be trying to now separate the two because

there's going to be issues about this grand jury now, about the special grand jury. So for example, she was talking about, you know, the four person was talking about how cool it was that she got to swear someone in while holding a popsicle. And you know, and that's problematic because where she got that popsicle from was like a party that they had with the grandgers and the DA's office. And that's gonna show, that's gonna basically make, you know, lead to claims of too much fraternization. And I just think that that sort of,

that sort of information just is fodder for Trump and others whoever is going to ultimately be indicted. And it's clear that someone's gonna be indicted. That's gonna be a problem, I think, for Fannie Willis that she's going to have to figure out a way to get around that. Well, to your point, it's not just Trump that of course is the target we don't think

of the special purpose grand jury. There are multiple defendants. There's 16 fake electors. There's possibly Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and Donald Trump. But already, Trump is, of course, tweeting out his storm about corrupt kangaroo proceedings, politically motivated hack jobs in direct response to Emily Kors's impertinent, I would think, attempts to go on national television and talk about

what she did or didn't do as a member of the grand jury, and we just put them up there on the screen. And let me just address something that's in our in our chats today. There is no way, I really, let me rephrase, I would be shocked if there was evidence that judge McBernie, who was so judicious about what he wanted revealed in response to the media's application for the full report to be disclosed and what he did not want revealed at that moment, which was just, you know, like a week or so ago, gave permission to jurors to take to the television and airwaves to talk about the proceedings.

I mean, I see people saying, well, that may have happened. She might have had permission. I mean, I'd be shocked. Karen, you want to comment on that before we kind of start moving on? There's no way that she's to talk. So there's one other thing she said that I didn't love.

She was saying that if the DA decides against bringing charges, she will be sad if nothing happens, something has to happen. And she didn't say because it was so egregious or they violated the law. She said, just too much time went into this and too much information went into this to not do something.

There was just too much that went on for it to be nothing. She goes, as long as something happens, even if it's just perjury charges, all that would be acceptable. And again, that's something that, if I were Fannie Willis, I would want to get away from because obviously,

if there's not enough evidence to support charges, that's the only time, no matter how much work went into it, that you bring charges. So Fannie Willis is shaking her head and she's saying, please stop talking. And I think she's gonna put her head and she's saying, please stop talking. And I think she's gonna put her head down and continue doing her work. But I think potentially it could slow things down.

So because so that she can separate and insulate her grand jury, that's going to bring charges from this other one. Yeah, that's a good observation. And the time gap that you observed is a prosecutor standpoint that may have to now be inserted between what's now happened and the revelations now in the public and the convening of the regular grand jury, really, really, really fascinating stuff. We're going to talk in the next segment, and the last segment today about McCarthy's decision to turn over 41,000

hours of video camera, close circuit video camera from the capital through the capital police by the way to Fox News and Fox and Tucker Carlson in particular. But before we do, we're going to have a word from one of our sponsors, FUME. And now let's take a quick break to talk about our next partner, Fume. Be smart, don't start, kick the habit. Put it out before it puts you out. All phrases we've heard a hundred times,

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your positive habits. That's trifum.com and use code legalaf to save an additional 10% off your order today. And now back to the video. See, I didn't know Jordy grind to this teeth, but there it is. It's disclosed. And, you know, I'm so glad he's doing those.

He's so good at it. He's so authentic and genuine in the product, and in his belief in the product. And I think that makes all the difference. Speaking of people who don't believe in anything and aren't authentic, let's talk about speaker McCarthy and Fox and particularly Tucker Carlson. So McCarthy would he get in on the many things

that he did in order to secure the speakership after 15 votes? One of them was he promised to kind of get to the bottom of the security breach. Yeah, I wonder how that happened at the Capitol on Jan 6th. And part of that was to have committees, I assume, under Jim Jordan or under one of the other lackeys and flunkies and also insurrectionists, like Jim Jordan, would take on in committee work and look at the surveillance tapes, confidentially, privately, you know, the way the department of justice has been treating all of those close circuit cameras in all of their prosecutions,

the way that the chief judge of the DC circuit, barrel Howell has been treating all of that footage, even in response to media attempts to obtain it in a freedom of information act FOIA requests or otherwise a petition to the judge. And she's been very careful in letting out only a very limited amount of that. And the way the Jan 6th Committee treated the the close circuit TV cameras as very highly confidential material that only people with the need to know needed to review in order for them to do their hearing work. But not from McCarthy.

From McCarthy, 41,000 hours of multiple cameras showing, and let's just get this out there, showing camera angles, camera types. In other words, the capacity of the camera, what it can do, is it a 270 degree camera, is it a fixed camera, does it have a telescopic lens, can it zoom in or out, the location of those cameras, and the positioning around the capital, where it by extension or by interpolation, where there are not cameras at the capital. And just release that to Tucker Carlson for him to, I don't know, do like a WikiLeaks

and post it on one of his websites, or use it for one of his phony documentaries that he doesn't even believe in. Like the one in 2021 that said Jan 6 was a false flag event led by Democrats and Antifa completely refuted by every investigative body, including the Jan 6 committee and the Department of Justice in its prosecutions. But that didn't stop him from putting out a movie called Patriots Purge, like it's some sort of horror movie and that's the guy you turn over 41,000

unedited video footage too and and it's a national from my perspective and I want to get yours Karen it gives the enemy and the next plot planner an exact roadmap of where the Achilles heel of the security plan and system at the Capitol is, where they can be more successful next time, right? Where is the weak underbelly? Where are there no cameras? Where are there blind spots? Where are there dead spots? And now, if the Capitol police and the Capitol architect and the sergeant at arms

and everybody else that's responsible for security at the Capitol and for the security and safety of elected officials and their staff and visitors, isn't now because of this, but I consider to be a breach of national security proportions. Isn't rethinking their plan and isn't redoing their plan and moving those cameras around and installing new cameras and plugging every hall, then they're derelict in their duty? Because all this is going to do is have the people that want to hurt America and that includes other Americans and want to attack the Capitol, but be successful this time

Or as Marjorie Taylor green used to brag if I was leading it it would have been successful whatever that means with everybody armed then then I don't know what this is but This is not transparency to turn it over to Fox News. You want to put it on a date, even a database where, where is your head man? Where is your leadership to protect America? You would never do this if the attack ran the other way, right? If it was democratic people, Democrats attacking the Capitol and the Democrats were in power. We would never do this. And to just thumb your nose at the chief judge of the DC Circuit Court, the Department of Justice, the Jans X Committee, and everybody else that has been appropriately both reviewing

the material, giving it over to the Jans X defendants as needed, but also protecting the national security of this country is just, I mean, it would be an impeachable offense, in my view, if the right party was in power. Karen, what's your thoughts? Karen, so look, this is the push pull issue with transparency and people wanting to have sunlight and daylight, you know, shining on everything. And you know, the fact of the matter is whether or not this is a true security risk, I think you have to take the police and the DOJ's word for it. They said it is. So I have no reason to doubt that. But I also will point out that any, you know,

the capital has a lot of members of the public roaming through it and working there and interns and, you know, staffers and et cetera. I mean, it's pretty open and public as it is. And if they have to move a few cameras around or change a few things, I have full faith that from a security perspective, the Capitol Police and the Secret Service have not only changed things. I mean, I'm sure since January 6th and the insurrection, they have transformed all of their security procedures.

So whatever they're releasing in these video cameras, I would say I was dated and old news because of that. What bothers me about this is what you said, that they're basically releasing this footage only to Tucker Carlson so that he can go through it and put together the greatest hits that support his agenda, which has nothing to do with the truth or what actually happened.

And frankly, this is potentially going to be a problem for the thousands of, or the people who are being prosecuted by the Department of Justice who appear on these tapes. You know, I know that these videos were made available to defendants who are being prosecuted on their lawyers, but who can watch 41,000 hours of tape to find every little thing that's on there? And I can imagine a scenario where what's going to happen is Tucker Carlson's going to weave together some false narrative, whatever his agenda is going to be based on what he sees. And these defendants are going to say, hey, that was, you know, what they call Brady material or a sculptural material.

And I didn't know about it. So, you know, my, it's, don't hold it against me. I'm innocent. And I would just worry that they're going to potentially hurt some of the convictions that the Department of Justice has already gotten. I also wonder whether other news organizations are now going to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act, you know, FOIA or FOIL. they call it, where you make a request for this information. In the past, people, there are exceptions to that, and one of them could be,

it would jeopardize national security, which they had a good argument for before, but now that Tucker Carlson has it, I think that's waived. And so I think there's there's going to be FOIA requests from other media outlets who are going to be able to get access to this and hopefully fight back the misinformation that that Tucker Carlson has promised he's going to, he's going to release what next week or whatever it is. But it's kind of disgraceful to me that they only gave it to him. And it made me wonder why the Democrats didn't release it more broadly before they handed the reins over because it was widely talked about that the Republicans were threatening to do this and to preempt it.

I wish the Democrats had done something preemptively to give it to everybody. So that is not just Tucker Carlson who's going to use it to promote more lies, but it is what it is. And hopefully the Capitol Police and the Secret Service will just move the cameras around and put different security in place. And I'm sure they have many more exit routes given the insurrection and other security procedures based on what happened on January 6th,

so that it can never happen again. So hopefully that wouldn't be terrible. I don't think the Gen 6 committee was gonna do it, even though they knew that when they left, all hell was gonna break loose after they dissolved. Because Benny Thompson was very public about about and has been very public now pardon me about the footage being

Such a national security risk to put out there not because of what it showed they're not worried about what it showed I think all the video that was Brady material has, of course, turned over by the Department of Justice having reviewed it. And Barrel Howell, the Chief Judge, has been supervising all of those issues. It's because they really did believe that this was on a need-to-know basis only, and it did demonstrate not only what happened, but indirectly and implicitly problems in the security plan. And you have a lot more confidence in the new Sargent Arms, the architect who just cut fired the the the Capitol Police people, Sargent Arms and all of that and they're having redone the whole

security plan, you know, knowing that these footage would be released. I'm not sure that's happened yet and I'm not. No, I think they re-did the security plan after January 6th. That's what I i think i think after the insurrection they read did the entire security plan it didn't i think you know whatever right i think yeah i would hope that happened it should have happened but so many things have happened to the foyer request issue

i think the doors open the capital police chief of police was asked well why did you just turn it over only to Fox at the request of McCarthy? And their response was, we're not political. Okay, well, if you're not political, then might as touch network should be able to do a FOIA request. Exactly.

Right. As what I'm waiting to see is the Department of Justice's position and all of this, or some push back. I mean, is the Department of Justice's position and all of this or some pushback. I mean, is the Department of Justice going to run in back to barrel howl and try to put an end to any of this? Are they going to intervene? Is, are they going to, I mean, we have to see what the DOJ is or isn't going to do and

to kind of take our lead from there. If they're just going to say, all right, let it all out. Then yes, there is absolutely nothing that would stop CNN, MSNBC, or might as touch network from obtaining this footage and then, and then release analyzing it and releasing it. And I'm sure it'll be for the Gen 6 insurrectionists. It'll be being beaten with both ends of the stick because a lot of the footage we didn't see is going to be not favorable to them at all as opposed to the other things that we're talking about. So, you know, that's where we are with that. I'm, you know, and we'll keep you posted on weather. I just touch that work. Does anything along those lines. I don't want to I don't want to act like I'm the four person and start being

coy and hint about things but you know you know our agenda and you know our mandate so there you have it. So look another great episode I think it's fun I love doing it with you Karen and I know you I, I love the stars. I'm wearing red, white, and blue. You're wearing stars. You know, we're ready. We're ready, but we've come to the end of another midweek edition of legal AF with Karen Friedman, Nifalo and Michael Popuck.

And for those that want to support what we're doing, there's multiple ways to do it. One of them is you're here. Thank you for watching us on YouTube. We drop this as an audio on regular podcast platforms, Google, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. And that'll be up early in our morning, um, Eastern time. And then you can of course listen to it throughout the week to both watch it on YouTube, listen to it. Um, there, leave,

uh, ratings, five star ratings would be really helpful to us of the algorithms and keep us as a top rated legal and political podcast globally, which is what we've accomplished with your help. You can buy merchandise. We've got a store, might as, and we've got the might as merchandise store, might as touch gear store.mightestouch.com. You got great legal AF stuff, including one that's not there, my favorite, the coffee mug, and we have that there as well. And you can follow us on social media. I'm at MSPOPOC on all social media, mainly Twitter,

and Karen, what's your social media handle? KFA legal at KFA legal. There you go. And we've got another amazing podcast and part of the might as touch network coming up right after us and I think you guys are going to love it it's called uh... majority fifty four with ravi ravi goopta and jason candor they ran campaigns they had a flip things from red to blue and they do a great job at breaking down all the political news during the week

and they're gonna come in right after us on this network. We're like a real network now. We've got programming, we've got shows that follow other shows, we do lead-ins. And this was actually live. Like this was live. And this was live. Right, I know some of the trolls to be distinguished

from people who have awesome opinions that we don't agree with, but we enjoy having them on there. The trolls were surprised because a couple of times while you were talking, I jumped on and took them to task. Or I said, that couldn't possibly be true. They were like, oh snap, Popeox in the chat. This is live live.

And there we go. But I look forward to next. I like to get a shout out really quick. Of course. Yeah, of course. I love your hot take that you did on the Dominion Voting Machines case against Fox News and the whole phone call into the Lou Dobbs show. It was something that I didn't know a lot about.

And I listened to it. I thought it was excellent. And I saw that you have almost a half million viewers on that episode and it's really good. So I just want to give a shout out to that for people who are interested in that. It's worth listening to. Not that all your hot takes aren't worth listening to. They are, but that one in particular, I think, is excellent.

I, and for those that don't know what we're talking about, about once a day, Ish, I do a 10 to 15 minute breakdown of something ripped right from the headlines that day. Just me talking to the microphone and you giving the analysis, I call it a hot take, Ben does something similar throughout the day. But the time the day is over between Ben and me and the other commentators on the latest touch network like Harry, Harry Lippman and even Texas Paul, Dipses Toe, it's the legal waters sometimes and Gabby,

Gabe Sanchez and all of that, you know we've covered it. We from 7 a.m. in the morning until midnight when the last post happens we've covered it all and then you know we use a lot of that that teaching and that analysis updated for the midweek edition that you and I do together and then the Saturday edition that Ben, my Salis and I do. So thanks for the shout out on the hot takes. I enjoyed doing them. The other one you're talking about, I actually do a rundown from 730 in the morning all

away until literally Trump said night night and went into the White House bedroom in the private quarters on Jan 6, including the attempt to call in to Lou Dobbs' show at five o'clock for Lord knows what that was stopped by Fox News executives and that was something that was not known by the Jan 6 committee. It came out in new reporting and I give the breakdown right up until the end from 730 in the morning, the Jim Jordan text message and email with Mark Meadows about let's have Mike Pence overthrow democracy and not certify the election.

That's over coffee at 7.30 in the morning all the way to 6.22 at night when Donald Trump goes offline night, night into his bedroom and you'll see how little he did Trump as a dereliction of duty during the critical moments that led up to and during the mob assaults on our democracy. Thanks again for joining. This is Michael Popock and Karen Friedman at Diffalo, signing off.