Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Jack Smith DRIVING Trump to COMPLETE MADNESS

Episode Date: February 26, 2023

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF is back for another hard-hitting look at the most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this week’s edition, they discuss: Jack Smith’s prosecutors filing a motion to compel Pence to testify before the grand jury over his objections, and subpoenaing Ivanka and Jared to do the same; the former Republican Arizona Attorney General burying a September investigative report by his own office while he ran for Senate finding no voter fraud; the Fulton County judge allowing the special grand jurors to reveal to the media the contents of their report and recommendation concerning Trump and others; and a DC federal judge orders Trump and the current FBI director to give depositions in the case for wrongful termination brought by 2 fired FBI top employees who worked on the Mueller Russia investigation and also were democrats who criticized Trump, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! HENSON SHAVING: Visit https://HensonShaving.com/LEGALAF to pick the razor for you and use code ‘LEGALAF’ for 2 years worth of free blades! ZBIOTICS: Head to https://zbiotics.com/LegalAF and use the code 'LEGALAF' at checkout! 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

Special counsel, Jack Smith, Zappinad Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, as his criminal investigation into Donald Trump's 2020 criminal election interference heats up and the criminal investigation is heating up indeed. Jack Smith is not hesitating and just filed a motion to compel the testimony of former Vice President Mike Pence following Donald Trump's baseless assertion of executive privilege and Pence's assertion of speech and debate clause immunity. Then let's turn to Arizona where it was revealed this week by the new Democratic Attorney General Chris Mays that her predecessor Republican Attorney General Mark Braunovich that he concealed a report that his office prepared

after 10,000 hours of investigatory work showing that there was absolutely no evidence of election fraud in Arizona. This while, Bronovitch was out there on the Steve Bannon show and others spreading conspiracy theories about the 2020 election for Donald Trump. Look, I think Bronovitch needs to be disbarred. We'll talk about it on this episode. Meanwhile, a federal judge in Washington, DC ordered Donald Trump to sit for a deposition in the Peter Strock wrongful

termination lawsuit in federal court in Washington, DC. And this is a wrongful termination that was lawsuit that was filed against the FBI. Let's talk about those implications. And what is going on in Fulton County earlier this week, the four person of the special grand jury Emily Cors gave in unexpected and let's just call it questionable media tour. Although later in the week, the presiding judge Robert McBerney said there was no problem with it. Let's discuss the implications of this and just generally what's going on in Fulton County where things looked very organized, things looked very much on the tracks where they were supposed to be headed. And there does look to be some disorganization there and you compare that to the frankly organization of special

council Jack Smith's work. So let's talk about that all but Michael Popak how are you doing today? I'm doing I'm doing great. I'm doing I'm on the road again as people on Wednesday I was in Atlanta not because of the special purpose granture going on network television because I was there and now I'm in Miami although you can't tell from the curtain behind me. Listen, I love all of our segments today, like children, like I don't have any favorites, but what the actual F is going on in Fulton County will get there. We will get there in.

Indeed, for all of our audio listeners, only Popock is rocking those original controversial glasses that really split the legal AF community. But he's been doing some variations. We're back to those original large black glasses. And we'll talk about that too, maybe later in the show. But let's get right into the legal news, special counsel Jack Smith, subpoena of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Of course, both testified before the January 6th committee. Look, Ivanka Trump was there during the insurrection. She was there in the White House. When Donald Trump was making phone calls

to former Vice President Pence and threatening him and saying, don't count the votes, don't count the electoral votes, throw it to the state legislatures and Pence refuse to do that begrudgingly, refuse to do that because I think Pence, if he could try to figure out a way to break the law, would have tried to do that and we see what a spineless coward he is right now. And Ivanka was also at the ellipse, we see her in the video there while the Trump family was literally dancing as our democracy was being threatened and as a free and fair election was trying to be contested through a violent coup. And Jared

Kushner flew back from the Middle East where he was cutting personal deals for himself, likely including the $2 billion he received from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund after Donald Trump left office even though Kushner doesn't manage money. He's now a money manager and got a $2 billion check from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. Look they both testified before the January 6th committee. So one of the questions is, is there going to be new information that special council, Jack Smith is focused on here? And I think the answer is yes. And I'll give you my take. And then I want to hear yours, Popeok. I think that special council, Jack Smith, is far more interested as well in the financial crimes that Donald Trump committed in addition to the actual violent insurrection

in addition to the fake electors scheme in addition to the threats that Donald Trump had made to state and local election officials. And so we know, for example, that one of the focuses of special counsel Jack Smith's investigation is on potential money laundering and campaign finance violations. And Donald Trump potentially creating, and he looks like he did create these LLCs that he had individuals in his inner circle control where money would be routed to that LLC. So that Donald Trump's committees, whether it's his political action groups or other campaign committees, would just report, we now know the number to be close to $800 million that

was just being sent to this LLC's, but you wouldn't know who the end recipients were. So I think special counsel Jack Smith is going to be focused far more on the financial crimes here. And also, let's not forget, there's not only a criminal grand jury about election interference. There is a criminal grand jury as well about Donald Trump's theft of government records, thousands of government records, including sensitive compartmental information. And while at first blush, they may seem to be unrelated. I think they're inextricably intertwined because one of the reasons Donald Trump wanted to and needed

to stay in power such that he needed a violent coup was he was doing the bidding of foreign powers. And when he left, I think it was his intent to continue to do the bidding of foreign powers and our enemies. And we know Special Counsel Jack Smith has been asking lots of witnesses about Donald Trump's relationships with foreign governments and foreign leaders. And could he have been using these documents? I think he was very transactionally

in order to exchange favors and get money from these various foreign entities. And as we know, for example, the Saudis having golf tournaments at Trump golf courses while Donald Trump spreads conspiracies about September 11th, the Alainus Induspecable, can you be there? And really, these foreign interests, our foreign enemies, are Donald Trump's only way of making money these days.

And so, of course, Donald Trump, who we've know is a complete and utter treasonous trader, would do that. But I want to get your take, Pope, Ock about special counsel, Jack Smith, Zipina here. What do you think the implications are? Do you think they'll be some bombshells? Or you think it's just going to be a rehash of what the January 6th committee did? Yeah. Well, let's start with it this way. The fact that Ivanka, Mike Pence and Jared

are being dragged kicking and screaming into grand juries, we don't know exactly which ones yet, and you've identified at least three of them. For me, means that we're at the beginning of the end of the prosecutions, not the end of the beginning. You don't bring in these apex people at the very top and the very, you can't get any more inner circle than blood relations and inlaw relations for Donald Trump. There's nobody closer to him, probably even than his own wife, than Ivanka. And the fact that she's been dragged is going to be dragged in. We're going to see if there's going to be an attempted assertion of executive privilege.

Although I would argue that it's been waived because Donald Trump for whatever reason, strategically or he's a moron, did not assert executive privilege when they testified about many of these same topics in front of the Gen 6 committee. So I'm not sure he's going to be able to now like a shield and a sword, you know, I think if you have executive privilege, you need to consistently enforce it and apply it. And if you don't, you don't. And I think he's sort of not able to assert that privilege. And of course, if he tries to assert the privilege, the current holder of the privilege, the current occupant of the Oval Office, Joe Biden will wave it.

And so that will fall by the wayside, which of the many grand juries, the Jan six, the election interference, the money laundering slash campaign fundraising grift, the, and the related issues that you identified, Ben, about the connections between Donald Trump and foreign powers, the Mar-a-Lago, as you said, transactional, use of documents. I don't know yet, but we do know from the Jan 6th committee and from our other statements, including the video that the Jan 6th committee took special relish in running over and over again to stick it to Donald Trump, was, you know, Ivanka was not only a fly in the wall, but an active participant in some main events in this and all of these prosecutions. She's in the room, in the dining room for almost

the three hours during the dereliction of duty. She's there when, when he calls, her father calls Mike Pence and uses the P word and encourages him to overthrow the will of the people and not certify the election. She's there for pardon me for all of that. She sided with Bill Barr who called all fraud allegations that Donald Trump was hanging his hat on bullshit. I'm not paraphrasing that's his words. She agreed with him. To the extent that either this is a grand theater piece arranged by the Trump family, led by Donald Trump, or Donald Trump is consistently attacked Ivanka, leading to her testimony, because when she sided with Bill Barr, he immediately went on Twitter or whatever social media platform he was on at that

moment and said, basically, she's an idiot. She hasn't been in the inner circle for a long, long time. She doesn't know what she's talking about. And she was just being kind or friendly to an old man, and Bill Barr lost it. So he's gone out of his way to attack her. And Jarrett, when she said, I'm not helping. Because I think they hoped by leaving their life,

their cushy life, their royalty life in New York, and relocating to relative anonymity in Miami on an Indian creek, you know, the billionaire row that she lives on with her husband building a house there. And leaving all of her friends and her synagogue behind and her social relationships and charitable relationships and trying to start again in Miami with, you know, the billions of dollars of grift her family has accumulated. I'm sure they hope by also not helping the current campaign, they would sort of lower the temperature on them,

lower the target on them, but that's not gonna happen. Like, oh, I hope they don't remember us we're down here in Florida. And she's been very public in trying to separate herself in a way we've interpreted this in the past. In the New York Attorney General suit, for instance, on the $250 million civil fraud case, she found a way to have Latisha James agree,

not to have her as subject to financial monitoring as the rest of the family. Eric, Don Jr., Donald, you know, Weiseliselberg the rest because, you know, she convinced the attorney general that she's really out of the business, you know, sort of like Michael Corleone when he moved to, uh, moved out west to California, you know, to get legitimate after he left the Corleone family business in New York. You know, uh, Ivanka has tried to convince people that she's gone legit now in Miami and doesn't have those ties. He attacked her even then. When she said, I'm not going to help this campaign when that reporting came out, you know, Donald Trump got on on his Twitter, whatever feed and said, she wasn't asked. In other words, she didn't quit. You know, I fired her. Yeah. So there's a there is a tension going

on here, whether, whether true or made up by the by the parties, we don't know that yet. But she's in harm's way right now because she's not going to be able to, that executive privilege is going to follow away quickly. She is going to sit in a chair and have to answer questions before prosecutors working for Jack Smith in one of three or four grand juries. We don't know exactly which yet. We know the M O here. We know the blueprint.

There's going to be a skirmish over the executive privilege assertion that's going to go currently to barrel how all the chief judge of the court and DC circuit. We're going to talk about her a little bit later as well in the segment that we're going to do about about Pence and others. And then it's she's going to rule either because Biden has dropped the executive privilege or because there is no executive privilege, it's been waived in the past by Donald Trump. And then she's going to, you know, either have to take it to the DC court of appeals and then a fast track to the Supreme Court, but it's not like she's the

vice president, you know, the fact that she once executive privilege is stripped away from her, which is going gonna be quickly, she's gonna have to testify about these things. And you could be right, but I'm not pushing back much on your financial crimes analysis. Certainly if somebody were to know about that, the person who at the relevant time periods was front and center in helping to run those business.

This issue is very public about it, about, you know, I'm in control, I'm in charge now, I'm in the, I have the controls. And then Jarrett's got his own unique problems as well. Pardon me, you know, he tried to separate very quickly, was in Saudi Arabia, raising money on Jan 6, because he saw, apparently he saw his father-in-law spiraling down the drain and out of control with all these crazy theories and wanted to get away from the bomb blast as quickly as possible.

So he's been trying even earlier than Ivanka to get as far away from a destructive Donald Trump or to paraphrase Fox News and Tucker Carlson that's come out in the Fox files. Donald Trump is a destroyer and we can't let him destroy us. And Ivanka and Jared saw that early on, but now we're going to have to pay the price and testify before all these things. So we'll do that. Are we going to do a Pence next? We're going to do Pence. We're going to do Pence next, but you got Kushner, one of the arsonists out in Saudi Arabia basically looking for new tools to kind of come back here and to further cause damage to our great democracy.

What a fascist trader that piece of crap is. But I digress, let's talk about another though, I think coward right here and this is Mike Pence. And look, do you give Mike Pence some credit for the fact that he didn't support the overthrow of our democracy? Well, that's a pretty freaking low bar right there to give someone a pat on the back. Kudos, Pence, you followed the Constitution and you didn't commit multiple felonies, including seditious conspiracy and treason.

Certainly not a hero, and I would argue, frankly, a completely spineless coward who enabled Donald Trump throughout, and frankly wanted to figure out a way how he could support Donald Trump's coup but based purely on self-preservation, ultimately didn't. We learn more about his conversations with Dan Quail,

for example, where over and over Pence asked if there was anything he could do, you have, you, and then Quail would be like, you have no flexibility on this, none zero, forget it, just shut up, but put it away then Quail would be like you have no flexibility on this non zero. Forget it. Just shut up. But put it away. Quail told them, Pents pressed again. Quote, you don't know the position. I mean, you don't know the position. I mean, Dan Quail. You know, and you forget, remember Quail like that was those were the days where someone's

reputation and political office would be damaged. If you didn't spell potato correctly, you know, now you have Republicans out there just calling for national divorce and secession and that's platformed I mean quails reputation literally shut down on the basis of not smelling potato correctly, but let's go into Pence we know that pens was served with a subpoena to testify before the criminal grand jury and to produce documents within the past two weeks. We broke that news here on the Midas Touch Network. And then the week after that, Pence stated, well, you know what, I really need to be treated like I'm a senator because you see my ceremonial

roles under Article 1 of the Constitution as the president of the Senate, I preside over certain things like the counting of the electoral votes on January 6th. So even though I'm an executive branch official, let's just call me Senator. Okay. And you know, there's that thing called the speech and debate clause which protects or provides immunity for members of the House of Representatives and senators for statements that they make on the House floor, which has been interpreted by the United States Supreme Court case, Gravel to basically encompass all legitimate legislative activities. So basically because of my ceremonial role as president of the Senate, I view that as a legitimate legislative role. And therefore, everything that's related

to the January 6th insurrection, I should not have to testify about not because of executive privilege or anything like that, because my role as a president as the president of the Senate. So that was his argument. Fast forward a little bit to this past week. Donald Trump then also researched the executive privilege, which to me actually may undercut the speech and debate clause claim that he was president of the Senate. If you're trying to assert both, I would think that perhaps in a snarky footnote, the Department of Justice could put that out in the motion to compel. Well, on the one hand, you have Trump claiming executive privilege,

which by the way, the Biden administration doesn't recognize and which you judge, barrel howl, the presiding judge who's going to make this decision have consistently ruled against Donald Trump's assertion of executive privilege when he's tried to make it with people like Pat Zipaloni, the former top white house lawyer, Patrick Filman, who is Zipaloni's top deputy, Mark Short, Pence's former chief of staff, and Greg Jacobs, Pence's former general counsel. I think you could do a snarky footnote there, Pope Bach, but special counsel, Jack Smith, isn't playing around here because he immediately filed a motion to compel and it is what it sounds like.

Compel pens to stop being a spineless coward who is not helping our democracy and have him testify. And so how do you do that? You file a motion with the presiding judge, Judge Barrow Howell, who presides over the criminal grand juries, all of the criminal grand juries in Washington DC. Her term is said to expire on March 17th, but she's held this this role for some years. So any criminal grand jury, and because these are criminal grand juries that exist, the ones investigating Trump's criminal conduct, she's the decisionmaker there. All of her previous rulings have mostly

all been in the favor of the Department of Justice. And here, Jack Smith is saying, look, compel Pence to sit before the grand jury. Ultimately, Pence can appeal to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. And he could appeal ultimately to the United States Supreme Court, but Pence, you know, first, the first layer of decisions going to go with Judge Barrel Howell there. And before I pass it to you, Pope, I mean, I think here is the arguments that I think I make in this order. One, no executive privilege, Judge Barrel Howell, look at what you've ruled previously with Cipolloni and Philbin and Short and Jacobs. Former presidents don't get to assert it. Sorry, Biden hasn't asserted it. And there's a compelling need in any way.

Let's dispose very easily of the executive privilege. You move over to the speech and debate clause immunity. First off, Pence is an entitled to it. He was a vice president. He's not a senator. The speech and debate clause clearly just refers to members of Congress senators and members of the House of Representatives. He is neither in any event, even if you claim that he has some level of speech and debate clause claim, it should only be in the moment when he is acting in that ceremonial role. And here we are looking for all of this other information, leading up to the insurrection, the day of the insurrection, when he was not doing a ceremonial role, what he heard

and what he observed. And then my third argument is also is that we know that the speech and debate clause also does not apply to things that are not legitimate legislative activity. And you observing people overthrowing democracy is not legitimate legislative activity. And there we can think about when Lindsey Graham, Senator from South Carolina, tried to assert speech and debate clause immunity. And then later topic we're going to talk about, which is Fawni Willis' criminal investigation before the special grand jury in Fulton County, where Graham asserted speech and debate clause immunity. And the district court denied circuit,

and ultimately the Supreme Court basically said, look, there may be areas that are legitimate legislative activity, but when you gave, when you made these comments to the Secretary of State and to others, you were not engaged in legitimate legislative activity. You were extorting that could be viewed as that was certainly not legitimate legislative activity and statements to the press are not legitimate legislative activity. So Popeye, what do you think? All right, let me see what I could advance here as we covered a lot of ground on that one. First of all, let's start with the lawyer that represented Pence when he had to make all

decisions about besides getting advice from Dan Quayle. Greg Jacobs brought in Jay Michael Ludwig, a conservative, well-respected, now retired federal judge, often referred to as the father of the Supreme Court modern because many of the people that served there came through as clerks of Ludwig. And he has close relationships with people on the Supreme Court. He just published a guest essay in the New York Times just the other day. It's under the title, a conservative case for avoiding a repeat of January 6th. But within it, he is taking his former client, Mike Pence, the task who he told in no uncertain terms, just as, just as Quail said, but this was with the impromotor of being a federal judge,

former federal judge, while respected. You don't have any powers here, Mike. You can't, you can't do what Trump is asking you to do. Your ceremonial, you watch envelopes being opened, you bang a gaville and you declare a winner and that's it. And this other fake electric stuff and all the other things you're being asked to do, you cannot do. And it's public from the Jan 6th Committee testimony through Greg Jacobs and others that Pence relied on that advice in not helping to overthrow America. Now that same judge slash lawyer is taking Pence to task in public. He even says one of the reasons he wrote the guest essay is to put pressure on Pence to realize that he this Hail Mary Defense of speech and debate or executive privilege that he is putting up and this isn't what in Ludwig's word

Hail Mary pass is going to be shredded really really quickly and since you're running for office or you want to run for office Is the president of the United States if you think you're going to time this thing out and push it so far off into the future that you won't have to be dragged into the grand jury until well after like the primaries, that's not going to work because this is on a fast track. First stop on the train is as you said, Ben, if it happens in March, which it will is barrel howl. barrel howl, who the Department of Justice is batting like 950 in front of. These are beyond Hall of Fame numbers in winning every time. So Barrel Howell, prediction, she's going to rule against Mike Pence.

Trump is going to assert the executive privilege as he has. She's going to analyze it. And the Department of Justice is in an interesting position. And they're being very nuanced in the executive privilege issue, but we'll focus on that for a moment. In some cases, and we're going to talk about it when we get the stock and page and the former FBI people that were also in a relationship who are suing to get their jobs back because they were fired by the FBI under Trump because they were anti-Trump in private.

They are the Department of Justice is actually in a a way, on the side of Donald Trump, but on the side of executive privilege, and they're Amy Burman Jackson. We're going to talk about her later. She wants to hear what Joe Biden, Curren Holder, of the executive privilege has to say about that. So it's not that the Department of Justice is always tripping away executive privilege. Sometimes, as we've said, politics and law make strange bedfellow. Sometimes it's sort of there on that side of the Trump side

because they have broader historical considerations to make when they're doing their litigating in the courtroom. But here it's clear, Mike Smith, I made a new person. Jack Smith's going after Pence. It's to happen in the next couple of weeks. It's going to get in front of Barrel Howell. It'll probably be one of her last things that she does before a new judge, Jeb Bozburg takes over also a democratic appointee. So we shouldn't have too much fear about that he's going to throw over the apple cart

that's been established so delicately by Barrel Howell in precedent over the last year and a half or two years. So that's looking pretty good. If he doesn't like the result there, he can take it up to the DC Court of Appeals. We'll have to see the panel. Usually it's skews Democrat, could get could get one Trump or a Bush person on there or so hopefully. And then it goes to a Supreme Court, which although has been not where we want it to

be. That's an understatement in terms of its rulings on most major issues. When it comes to presidential papers, politics, executive privilege, testimony, Jan 6th, it looks like we got the votes to force Pence to testify, but we're going to have to watch this closely. But I agree with you, this whole speech and debate thing, maybe it covers, you know, because you can have overlapping privileges and then kind of seems and gaps where there is no privilege over a timeline of events.

So in other words, there may be a little bit of privilege that's properly asserted over the day he stood on Jan 6th or things around him on the floor of the Senate, presiding over the ceremonial ministerial fashion only The opening of the envelopes and the ballots and the counting by state Maybe if there was like a conversation he had if he like put his hand over the microphone if he talked to some legislators there about Process if he was getting some consultation about his role at the time. Maybe it's covered.

Maybe. But other things like let's talk about you getting a phone call from Donald Trump, where he called you a pussy, unless you, because you weren't, you weren't, or you didn't have the balls, because you weren't willing to, to pull the, the trigger on his fake, fake, his fake electric scam. What's that covered by? You're saying that as part of your role as the president of the Senate is to be called the P word by the president. Right. So that's out. And so maybe that's executive privilege, that interaction between

the two of them, not. And if there was an attorney in the room, maybe attorney client privilege, but they're going to have to just as she's always done, just as we have a lot of confidence at her abilities to do, barrel howl will pick through just as the Northern District of Georgia, dud, which is now 11th Circuit precedent affirmed by the US Supreme Court for under the case of Lindsey Graham, as you mentioned, about when it's appropriate and when it's not appropriate. He is going to have to testify. It's going to be about many of the vents of the, I mean, the part about why didn't you get into the things that came up in Gen 6?

Why didn't you get into the car and get whisked away from the Capitol with a secret service trying to duck your head into a moving, you know, into a big car. And it was just me doing my legitimate role as the president of the Senate. All presidents of the Senate. That doesn't, right. So that doesn't where these are the examples that you and I are providing to show when there are some events that are important, that are covered, not covered, maybe covered, maybe waved, and overarching the criminal investigation of obstruction of justice.

The criminal case against Donald Trump will likely overcome many of the assertions of these privileges. They're not absolute. They're always balanced against the need of the justice system to get to the bottom of things. We've seen it time and time again by federal judges with Eastman, with the crime fraud exception ripping away attorney client privilege, with executive privilege being dropped by Biden when asked. We're going, you know, this is the message, I believe, that the conservative J. Michael Lutick was trying to send through the New York Times, uh, guest essay, just a day or so ago to his former client. You're going to lose this and you're going to look terrible in history along the way. And if you

think you'll be able to delay it long enough, this Hail Mary passed long enough in order. So it doesn't impact your presidential ambition. You are wrong. Step up. Be the Patrick. As Ludic was the first one to come out and say, he early on, he should be given a lot of credit, my client, for doing the right thing. Yeah, that's not what he's saying now in the essay. And I think that Ludic really has two audiences that he was trying to reach there. The first audience was an audience of one in Pence. The other audience was an audience of the few, which are the judges who are going to be hearing Pence's assertion of speech and debate clause immunity. And many of these judges worked for Ludic and he wants them to know as well what Pence is saying is complete and

utter BS right here. And with all of this news of the criminal investigation heating up by Jack Smith, Donald Trump is just completely losing his mind. This is what he posted earlier in the day on his social media platform. He goes, the DOJ didn't need a search warrant for my home, but they did need it for Biden, who has not been forthcoming, had no rights to declassify, had no security, all in caps, in many different locations, even Chinatown. He won't give the $1,850 of documents stored in Delaware. Why not? I have

done everything correctly under the Presidential Records Act. He didn't. As president, I had the absolute right to declassify not Biden, unfair and unequal treatment under the law, fourth amendment, violation and more. You know, you don't get more treasonous and traitorous and just have more disinformation in a single post than that. And he injects this disinformation into the cult followers who listen to him each and every day and it's paraded on Fox and all these other right-wing treasonous networks out there. When he goes, the DOJ didn't need a search warrant for my home. You mean after essentially two years of you lying and having lawyers submit fake declarations,

false fraudulent declarations, saying everything was returned when it was not. And moving the boxes around. He goes, but they did need it for Biden who has not been forthcoming. You mean the person who said that you can voluntarily search all of my properties that you don't need a search warrant? Whereas Trump said, I'm not going to let you search. And Biden said, search all of my properties. And by the way, Penn said the same thing.

Search all of my properties. And then he goes even Chinatown, he has to throw in some bizarre racist conspiracy theory and puts Chinatown in. What is that one, Ben? What is the, I don't get the Chinatown reference. What is that? I don't get it. Right.

He's made some conspiracy theory about records before in the George HW Bush administration that it was held in a location in a building that was later rented out by the National Archives that once had a Chinese restaurant in it. So I don't know if that's what in his mind and the building also once had a bowling alley. So the one thing he was saying is they kept it in a Chinese restaurant and bowling alley. But no, it's like a petulant third grader with racist parents who then goes into school

and just start saying things and you're like, where did you get that, Jimmy? But this is a former president. It's sick. I mean, it's disgusting what he's saying. And then when he goes, I did everything right under the president's record. I said, no, you literally did everything wrong.

And he took the advice of Tom Fitton, who's not even a lawyer. And you believe there's no crimes when a magistrate judge found that there was probable cause of espionage act violations, obstruction of justice, concealment, and mutilation. And then when you go, I had the absolute right to declassify. First off, you didn't declassify.

There's a process of declassification. I've argued that if you did declassify these telepathically, as you said, it makes it worse because you didn't go through a process. And now you've placed our troops and our national security and foreign assets at risk. Many who may have been killed by you telepathically declassifying thing and not telling the national security advisor, Robert O'Brien at the time. But setting that aside, the crimes you have nothing to do with classification.

They have to deal with you stealing things that don't belong to you because you're not the freaking president, Popeyes, you're yet. Yeah, but yeah, I got one comment on that from a slightly different angle, but kind of right consistent with what you're talking about. Let's talk about it from a practitioner standpoint, you and me. I will tell you from experience what happens when you continue to poke the prosecutors and taunt them, which is what this is the equivalent of. This constant taunting of the prosecutors in tweets and social media only pisses them

off, makes them focus more on their job and makes them want to bring you down harder and faster. Jack Smith has eyes. His people know about the same social media tweets that you and I just talked about. And all it does when he taunts them and pokes the bear. And I've had situations where I've had, I lost this a little bit of control of a client who decided to like not through social media, but otherwise take on the prosecutor and all it did was so poison the discussions with the prosecutor that we almost couldn't

get them to engage at any kind of discussions that were beneficial to the client at all because of what they've done. And that's what's happening here. It's not that they're immune to all of these things. It's that they read them and say, you know what? Now I'm going to really, I mean, they were already connecting the dots. They were already putting the links of the chain together for the improper, illegal moving of documents from place to place under video surveillance after promises and representations were

met to the Department of Justice that there would be no movement of the boxes from the, long as we're talking about Chinese restaurants and bowling alleys from the pool hall, from the pool room of his Mar-a-Lago in which everyone had access who were ever guessed at Mar-a-Lago from the, from the ballroom and from the pool area, including that Chinese national woman who wandered around at the very same time the documents were supposedly secured in an unlocked room. And Lord knows what could have happened. That's why he got the execution of a search warrant in an unprecedented, because his behavior

is unprecedented. The return to back, as you said, along the two-year timeline, at any time along the way and hadn't misled with Christina Bob's bullshit certificate. And then we were even finding today the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the female aid who has yet to be identified with the laptop, with the documents that were, that were loaded up because somebody that was his chief of staff, post-elect, post-leaving office, told her to do it. This is still going on.

They're still finding boxes of documents because of his sloppy, careless, treasonous approach to our national security secrets. The presidency was a joke for Donald Trump while he was in office, and it's a bigger joke now that he's left. And until he's taken to task and until the law is applied equally to him, which it is in terms of the ongoing grand juries. I know we all look, we all want the indictment. Nobody in America or around the world wants a show today to you and me to be devoted to talking about an indictment

of Donald Trump somewhere in America more than you and me. And we still have reasonable confidence that somewhere it's going to happen. We'll talk about Faudi Willis in a little bit. I'm somewhere. It'll happen. Well, I'm sure that you and I are tied with about 90 million other Americans who can vote now about that same desire. So I'll say it's a 90 million person tie. We've got a lot to discuss here on the Midas Touch Network, including how the former Republican Attorney General of Arizona

tried to cover up and did cover up until a new attorney general came in. A report prepared by the office showing no election fraud in Arizona in order to help the treasonous trader. Donald Trump, I want to talk about how a federal judge has ordered Donald Trump to sit for a deposition in the Peter Strock wrongful termination lawsuit. I also want to talk about what in the world is going on in Fulton County with the four person speaking out with the presiding judge saying it's okay with Fony Willis saying charges are imminent, but imminent to me usually means like now like about to happen.

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I'm Ben Mycelis and Michael Popak, a lot to discuss. We've got three important topics that we want to make sure we hit. The first one is how the former attorney general Republican Mark Bronovich covered up a report that their office prepared. That shows that there was no election fraud in Arizona and covered it up for Donald Trump. Then I want to talk about how a federal judge in Washington, DC ordered Trump to sit for deposition in the Peter Strock wrongful termination lawsuit. Then we got to talk about what in the world is going on in Fulton County with the four

person speaking out to the media, the presiding judge saying it's okay. Popok and I will break it down. But Popok, I've been doing a lot of talking on this episode and I see that in the chat, people are saying, let Popok speak a little more. So let me throw this one to you, Popok, which is Chris Mays, the new attorney general, Democrat comes into office in January. She's aware that her predecessor, a Republican, talked about doing this investigation, talked about preparing this report about whether or not there was election fraud.

We all know that this guy, Bronovitch, this Republican attorney general had gone on the ban and show, had done other right wing networks and had said very negative things about the Arizona election process. And Chris Mays, the new attorney general wanted to get to the bottom of it was Bronovitch lying to the public. Did he prepare a report that he hid? Michael Popak, what happened here? Yes. Yes. He did. And this should come as no surprise. You and I have reported something. One might be like rubbing their eyes and and and poking at their ears because they might be like,

didn't we already learn this already? You learn something similar. We talked a couple of weeks ago about a Trump paid for and sponsored report that looked at Arizona and other battleground states for which Trump paid $600,000 to Berkeley research group. And they found that there was zero fraud on many of the same grounds, such as dead voters, voting, no people voting out of Prince precinct, maybe a couple of times not enough to change hundreds of thousands or millions of votes in favor of Joe Biden, you know, software corrupted to flip votes to Biden from Trump. No. And we are, we talked about that at length. And the reason that was important at that time, because that was a direct link to Donald

Trump and his criminal mind or men's rea, because there was a presentation of the fact that none of what you've, when none of your working theories, Mr. President, are born out in our detailed research that you've paid for. And Mark Meadows was in the room for that discussion with Donald Trump. Here, we have what we always thought, which was cyber ninjas was full of, you know, poopy cyber ninjas who during the, what you and I used to jokingly refer to a year and a half ago as the fraudet in Arizona hired by the Republicans of the Arizona legislature to do some sort of, you know, fraud investigation related to the election using not the attorney general of the states special investigation section and an election integrity unit, which is what a state would use, but hiring these bozos out of Florida who had never done a

election investigation in their life before no competitive bidding. They were just like, oh, we like your name cyber ninjas. You're in and cyber ninjas comes in and and and throws up all of these things that were that we reported along the way that, huh? things that we reported along the way that, huh? Like bamboo on Korean ballots that were brought in, a hundred thousand of them, with Biden's name printed on them in favor of voting for Biden and dead people voting and all this other stuff that we've talked about. It turns out even cyber ninjas found out that there was irregularities,

but they actually figured out that there were more votes for Biden, not less when they finally did their math. That's cyberdigious. This is now the attorney general Republican who does on his own. He, he, um, commissions, and we got the report up there now. He commissions the special investigation section of the criminal division of the, of the office of attorney general, what a great sounding name and a chief special agent who prepares this report, which is issued in September of 2022, which we never hear about. This 11-page report in which they basically methodically went through every lead, every

report, including Cyber Ninjas, and they concluded that there was absolutely no evidence. In fact, everything that cyber ninjas, and I'm paraphrasing, although salty, may be able to find the quote, everything that that cyber ninjas said was inaccurate and false, including, so they went through the dead voter issue. First, they found that cyber ninjas relied on a public database that is historically notoriously inaccurate and that nobody in the public world or in the investigative world uses. And that was their basis. They found that they're out of out of the hundreds of thousands or millions and to remind

people, this is the same state as Carrie Lake. This is the same state that Ben has talked about on hot takes and we've talked about on on legal AF that there was voter fraud. Okay. This is the attorney general of the state Republican and his department independently, credibly writing. And this is what Ben out of the hundreds of thousands of dead people voting. Do you know how many total they found in this report? How many? Zero. Of the people double voting, again, Kerry Lakes talking point, hundreds of thousands, millions of people, double voting, guess how many they have found?

One. One. And this is a state where Biden won over the days. Long over the days. You coming up on the screen. This is a state where Biden won by over 10,000 votes. One, okay. Again, back to what you and I have said in the past,

it's not that there's no election fraud. You want to call some of these things fraud, state by state nationally. They're always is. It's just never enough to overcome. And just one more thing, all the double voting is usually always by the Republican to triple and trade. Whenever you find out who they are, they're always there always

back. But there was one. And I don't know. I mean, I sometimes I didn't pay attention in grammar school math, but one is less than 10,000. They also said that and cyber ninjas wasn't the only one. There were other these other BS groups that popped up fair election integrity. They all made up names. These, you know, garage BS groups that popped up fair election integrity. They all made up names. These, you know, garage band groups that pop up. They went through every one of them and found nothing. They said there were 450 or more open investigations that led to, I believe, let me get the number right. 22 prosecutions for anything related to election integrity. 22.

prosecutions for anything related to election integrity. 22. Okay, Trump had to come up with 10,000 in order to win the presidency. 22 does not do it. And so what is this Republican to? This is where elections have consequences. He buried the report because it wasn't helpful to their narrative. It wasn't helpful to their lies to the American people. It wasn't helpful to the fundraising because he was running for Senate, brought of it ran unsuccessfully for Senate and Arizona. And so he didn't want this

millstone around his neck hung around him. So he buried it, but he should have thought ahead that if he lost, he, because he, it was an open seat for the Attorney General because he ran for Senate in the open seat, Democrat one, Democrats won a lot of things in Arizona, including the governorship. And so the first thing the guy did, the woman did that became the attorney general was like, oh, look at this nice report. Let me publicly disclose it. Sunshine disinfectant doctrine by Ben Mysalis. Let me bring it out to the world.

And here it is. So combined with Berkeley research group reporting directly to Donald Trump for which he paid $600,000 telling him there's no Arizona fraud. Arizona, concluding there's no Arizona fraud. And if anything, the Biden got more votes after the audit than before the audit. Can we now once and for all Twitter versus, not our people, not our followers, later rest, the argument that there was voter fraud anywhere in Arizona. Yet while you, when I are talking about this, the big lie, which is the big lie, the Joe Biden only one through fraud,

is going strong in places like Michigan, where the GOP has been completely taken over by election deniers. So this is still a, this is the problem that Ludwig talks about in his guest essay that we are letting the reput, we the Republicans are allowing their entire narrative and their entire tug of war of who they are as a party to be pulled completely over to QAnon election deniers, which means they are doomed to failure in terms of future electoral success at a national level. Do you hear me, uh, DeSantis or anybody else that falls into that plot? Popak should mark Bronovitch lose his legal license for what he did here. I'll tell you, I believe that he should a number of very prominent lawyers

in Arizona have filed letters with the State Bar to disbarm as a lawyer. He's acting at capacity as a lawyer as an attorney general. You have certain duties of candor. You still have duties of zealous representation. You have to be truthful and honest. You can't like commit fraud And he had obligations and I think it was a fiduciary to the public in that position and it wasn't just that he concealed the report it was that he then went on shows like ban and and said Well, we all know what happened in 2020. And then he made other statements basically

calling out the election process as being completely dysfunctional. Meanwhile, he had this report. One final point I'll make before getting your thought and whether he should be disbarred is that, look, Branovic knew this sooner also. I mean, he knew it right away. And I think he dragged out the preparation of this report

until the last possible moment anyway, September of 2022, when this report could have been prepared. If he knew, put it this way, if the results were the fraudulent narrative they wanted to push, they would have had a report out immediately. And when the report didn't go their way because the truth was not their way, they dragged it out and then tried to bury it.

And then they desperately hoped that a Democrat would never become the attorney general there. And then by the way, they fought and continue to fight to this day, these Maga Republican election deniers to try to claim that Chris Mays was an elected appropriately and that there was election fraud. And Chris May, there was a conspiracy. And that's how Chris Mays was elected, even though the courts rejected that. Should he be disbarred, Pope Buck? The land of John McCain, what has happened in Arizona? Oh, how the Republican Party has fallen in Arizona. And by the way, back to your constant refrain on the Midas brothers pod, elections have consequences. And this is why you and I and on your podcast, we talked about why it's so important to get people like, you know, the former astronaut, what's his name that became the center

of Arizona, that guy elected because, you know, they, they hoped as you just pointed out that this stuff would get buried. And we would never learn history would never learn on the department thing. Yeah, I mean, look, states like Georgia, which we'll talk about soon, and Arizona do have statutes where it's a crime to make a false swearing where you go on a show like that and say, well, we all know that there was, you know, you know, those Korean ballots with bamboo on them, which by the way, they actually looked at in this special investigative unit that issued the report. And they said there was like one person who reported that, and then she, she said, never mind.

It was based on, there was no evidence of this. But they, but that narrative of 100,000 ballots being brought in from Korea with bamboo on them that was promoted by cyber ninjas. You know, it just, it, it consumed so much oxygen for so much time that you and I had a like, like a whack-ole had a hit it, hit it down and rather than talk about other things. But I think that's a false swearing. I think that is a violation of either doesn't commission the report and then buries it, you know, it doesn't have to bury anything. And so there's no crime where if he commissions the report, but for the

reasons that you've outlined to feather his own nest, to promote his own political ambitions, to go on, to go on because he wants to win the Senate and bury bad facts that aren't in his favor. That sounds like it's violated at least two to four different rules of professional responsibility as a lawyer as the chief legal officer of the state. And I'm sure if it hasn't happened already, somebody's going to file a bar complaint against that guy and we're up and running. And I would hope that in Arizona, they take something like that seriously. I was shocked just to bring it kind

of around the only lawyer so far that's in Trump's inner circle that it's been able to avoid disbarment is Sydney Powell in Texas because she pulled a MAGA Trumper Republican judge who just ruled in her favor and found that the Texas, the Texas bar didn't meet its burden, even though we were like, how could that possibly be? Every other state, New York, Washington, and different places have found that all those lawyers promoting the big lie and filing those documents committed multiple violations of professional responsibility misconduct and Texas, of course, found that she's okay. She's okay as a bar member there. So look, I don't know the, we'll have to research the Arizona court system enough to know what

would happen off of a bar complaint because it's ultimately going to go to a judge. Senator Mark Kelly, former Air Force Mark Kelly, was a incredible senator out there. This is why this show matters, though, as well, and why the law matters is because the legal system, fortunately, and the court system held, even though Maga Republicans took over a political party, if you had Maga Republicans leading the House of Representatives, I think you would have had a different result in the 2020 election and would have had a real constitutional crisis because they would not have allowed the certification process to take place. But fortunately, the courts held, despite the fact that the Maggiary Republicans tried

to destroy it. And they continued to want to destroy these institutions. There have been a number of lawyers who have filed bar complaints against Mark Braunovich. And as we have these conversations and I'll just digress just for a one minute, you know, I'm reminded by the term banality of evil by the philosopher Hannah Arendt, which she famously coined in the 1960s. And she wrote this article in the New Yorker in 1961 about Adolf Eichmann, who is a Nazi operative who is responsible for organizing the transportation of millions of Jews and others to concentration camps.

And what Arant had said about Eichmann using this term, the banality of evil, was that Eichmann was ordinary, bland, bureaucrat, who in her words was neither perverted nor sadistic but terrifyingly normal. He acted without any other motive other than to diligently advance his career and the Nazi bureaucracy and that was ultimately her case study in 1963. Ikeman and Jerusalem are a report on the the banality of evil, but there is a level of this mega extremism of sadism, of sadistic. It's not terrifyingly normal. They want to make it terrifyingly normal. Their behavior, and it is incumbent on the pro-democracy community to ensure that the banality of this is it does not become the reality of it that we do not get so jaded by the conduct to allow that to become the banality of evil.

We need to call it out for the fascism that it is. I want to turn right now though to a decision by a federal judge in Washington, DC, a judge who we've talked about here before, judge Amy Burman Jackson in a minute order at the end of last week. She ordered Donald Trump to sit for a deposition in the Peter Strock wrongful termination lawsuit that he filed against Bill Barr, the Department of Justice, the FBI, and some others. She also ordered Christopher Ray, the FBI director, who was also then the FBI director as well,

to sit for a deposition. She's limited the scope of the deposition and the timing of the deposition to two hours, which is not unusual when you're dealing with what's called apex individuals. In her minute order, she talked about the apex doctrine, which generally holds that an apex individual who's at the highest level, like the CEO or the president or someone who heads a massive division within the government or company. And if they're the apex, what you have to make a showing of, if you're seeking their deposition, is that you have exhausted all other options before going to the apex individual,

or that the apex individual holds very unique information and only they can provide. And that's why you have to depose them. And here Peter Strock is absolutely able to show that in the sense that the FBI had previously just recommended a 60 day suspension for Peter Strock. He was there top counterintelligence investigator at the FBI. By the way, someone who was investigating Hillary Clinton for her laptop. And so he was always assigned to whatever counterintelligence task the FBI was investigating

and the most politically charged and inflamed. He would often be involved in by the nature of being the top official there. And then he was Mueller's top FBI investigator in the Mueller probe. It was learned that he was Mueller's top FBI investigator in the Mueller probe. It was learned that he was having an affair with Lisa Page, who's an FBI lawyer. And then the Republican subpoenaed his text messages going back to 2015 and 2016, which showed one that he was having an affair, which Donald Trump and everybody made sure to

kind of mock that and make that a prominent aspect of their attack on the FBI in general and his messages showed that he was not a fan of Donald Trump back then at the time that they were also aware that Donald Trump had links with Russia and if you are truly law and order and you see Donald Trump cozyying with the Russians, you would not like Donald Trump and Peter Straks' gun on has the numerous television appearances, including here on the Midas Touch Network on the weekend show where he's discussed that. No, I mean, I believe that Donald Trump is either an asset or is controlled by Russia because all of his actions are very consistent with that. But Trump basically overrode the 60-day suspension made sure Strock was suspended immediately. That's why ultimately Trump as an apex employee gets to be deposed here with one proviso.

This is what I'll just toss it to you, Pope Pope, so I won't cannibalize the topic, but there was provisoes and limitations that Judge Amy Berman Jackson gave in a different in addition to time, where she kind of tossed, tossed the issue to the Biden administration here. So talk to us about that. Yeah. This is what we anticipated earlier in the podcast today about the DOJ's nuance, assertion of executive privilege or having the president Joe Biden assert executive privilege.

This was actually a motion by the Department of Justice to us not have Donald Trump and Christopher Ray, the current FBI director, testify at all. And they argued in that so that that Sue brought the motion asserting executive privilege over these very issues. And Amy Burma Jackson held a hearing, which we know a little bit about, but again, a secret closed sealed hearing over these issues to protect the privilege until she's made her final decision about whether Peter Strock and Lisa Page are going to be able to ask questions of Donald Trump and Christopher Ray about what happened to their career as it was dashed at the FBI

after both their affair and the emails, personal emails between them and text messages came to light through the Republicans and then disclosed through Trump and them to the to the press. I mean, listen, you know, they're allowed to both be in the FBI and be a member of a political party. Let's just get that on the table. They are allowed to have opinions. You know, if he wants to, if Strock wants to write his girlfriend or his relationship and say, F Donald Trump, even though he's assigned to a matter through the Mueller investigation as one of the head counterintelligence people at the FBI and that involves the investigation of Donald Trump,

that's like, okay, I agree with Strock's position that he continues to have a first amendment right despite him being in an investigative position with the FBI. Lisa Page is making a slightly different argument, although similar that there was a privacy act, a federal privacy act that was violated because her personal emails and tax were ultimately disclosed to the public that never should have seen the light of day. But you know, just as Trump retaliated against your podcast, co-worker

Michael Cohen and forced him to stay through the, through the Bureau of Prisons in prison longer than he should have. And Michael successfully litigated that issue. I think, I think ultimately a struck in page are going to be able to testify and successfully prove that their careers were dashed in properly and illegally by Donald Trump throwing his weight around to attack them because he didn't like the result. Look, this is not the first FBI agent that we've heard about. There's one that's currently sitting in Federal Detention Center and has been indicted related to the Russia investigation.

This is probably, this is at least the second one. And the reality is, let's just call it what it is. FBI agents are allowed to have political opinions. It shouldn't infect their job. Just as, you know, I have my own political opinions, political legal opinions. People hear about them six or eight times a week yours to but when I represent a client that doesn't impact my what I'm doing for a living and as an investigator I wouldn't think it does either and I think it's very interesting as you noted that Peter's been on on different platforms, including your own, the Midas touch network, to say that he does believe, as others do, that Donald Trump is an asset.

And if he's not an asset of the Russians, he certainly operates like he's one and acts like he's one. So I think he's going to be successful at his career. But Amy Burman Jackson has given the Department of Justice until the end of March to come back with the Biden, whether Joe Biden president, POTUS is going to wave executive privilege or not. And she said, for now, the only thing I'm ruling on is whether under the apex, uh, deponent person doctrine, there is an exceptional need for this information that can only come for people sitting at the apex at the top, Christopher Ray and Donald Trump.

And I find for that limited purpose, for the questions that they want to ask, which only Amy Burman Jackson and the lawyers and the parties know at this moment, I'm going to give you two hours with Christopher Ray and Donald Trump on this particular issue. I have not reached yet a conclusion about what you can do about the executive privilege issues and other issues that I have to do about the executive privilege issues and other issues that I have to hear from the Department of Justice and ultimately Joe Biden come back to me by the third week in March and we'll have another hearing. So there is going to, as you said, and as we say here in our little lower third, there's going to be a deposition of Donald Trump,

the total scope and parameters of it, not yet decided by Amy Burman, Jackson. So two things I want to point out first, you mentioned the other FBI agent, just give some context there. Charles McGonagall, who was a special agent in charge of the FBI's counterintelligence division in New York from 2016 to 2018, who was incused in an indictment recently of working with a former Soviet diplomat, turn Russian interpreter, on behalf of a Russian oligarch very close to Vladimir Putin, to aid and abet Putin's agenda, including essentially covering up for Putin's relationship with Donald Trump. And so when we talk about McGonagall, these are the types of people that Peter Strach was

trying to investigate. Peter Strach is the good guy because in America, we don't support our enemies, the bad guys, Russia, who are trying to destroy us. One of the things that Donald Trump tries to do, and the Maga's tried to do, and the Maga Republicans, by creating all of this disinformation, is to try to merge. Look, there's just a lot of bad FBI people out there. You got Strock, you got McGonagall. Look at the FBI deep state. No, there's a very deep distinction here. There are FBI agents who are trying to find the bad guys like Strock. And then you have the FBI,

you have some people who may be actually agents foreign agents who I've infiltrated who are the bad guys like a McGonagall and a McGonagall was trying to cover up for Trump, which Trump goes, look at this FBI. No, McGonagall was your guy. McGonagall was covering up for all of the stuff that you were doing. And then when Trump goes, oh, there was no there there with Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, he says the words multiple times over and over and over again, you know, because that's part of the way, you know, you spread your big lie, let's not forget the head of Donald Trump's campaign was convicted,

that person Donald Trump put at the top of the NSA was convicted. I mean, two of the most highest-level people were convicted based on a matter of matter, a fortune flin. Yeah. Based on their relationships with Russia and a host of others, and ultimately Muller didn't have the guts to indict a sitting president. It is a very different dynamic that Trump is no longer the president. I want to make one prediction though, and I do not think our legal a

Effors will like, but I always tell the truth here on legal a f and that is I think the Biden DOJ is going to assert Executive privilege here. Let me explain to you why I've been weighing and I was 50-50 on it when I first saw the Minute Order, but as I've been doing more research on it, I'm fairly confident now that the executive privilege is going to be reluctantly asserted. Let's remember the Department of Justice, they don't give I, not only do they not give a shit about Trump, they're criminally investigating Donald Trump. But with these unprecedented natures of having a former president who is a criminal. The Department of Justice still has to follow prior legal precedent, which people like the Maga Republicans want to completely tear and shred and manipulate. So you have this difficult situation where the Supreme Court held in

1982 in the case Nixon versus Fitzgerald, which was a wrongful term in nation, Nixon versus Fitzgerald, which was a wrongful termination case brought by Fitzgerald against Nixon because Fitzgerald spoke out in public hearings against Nixon and Nixon fired Fitzgerald for his role in the government based upon his public statements. Fitzgerald sued Nixon and the the Supreme Court said presidents have absolute immunity absolute immunity even from unlawful acts. Provide like wrongful termination provided it is during their presidency and it is still within the scope of their constitutional duties.

And so the distinction here whereas the Department of Justice has not as the current Department of Justice has not asserted executive privilege relating January 6th issues, because they've taken the position that's outside the scope of constitutional duties, overthrowing the government, not constitutional, not subject to an executive privilege, and in any event, Trump was engaged in campaign activity, political activity, outside of constitutional duties of the executive branch. But when Nixon v Fitzgerald said, be costs executives, like the commander in chief and the president as his role, essentially as the chief executive of all departments has hiring and firing power, even if a president wrongfully fires somebody, can sue Nixon. So unfortunately, and again, I'm just telling you what the legal precedent is, and knowing probably based on Nixon v Fitzgerald asserted here the same way he asserted it with e.g.

Carole in the sense of substituting the United States in as a defendant when Bill Barr subbed in. In that case, the United States in place of Donald Trump to the extent it was a press conference that was given by a president, even when the president defamed somebody in a press conference, the position was at least taken by the current Department of Justice. That is a type of act that a president engages in, executing their constitutional responsibilities, even if it's defamatory.

Now, I don't like that outcome. I just want... I have a different view. I have a different view. I've got a different view. I have a different view. I have a different question. I don't want my view to be. We do it

based on our experience and our understanding. I have a slightly different view than you do, not because I don't agree with the precedent. The precedent is the precedent to be applied. I think Amy Brim and Jackson, I agree with you on one thing. The Biden administration is definitely going to be, I believe, continuing to assert the executive privilege through the guidance of the Department of Justice. I don't think the Department of Justice would have moved to, um, exert the executive privilege if they had already cleared it through the White House. So I think it's, we're going to go through the motions here a little bit and on the 24th of March, we're going to have the assertion. But I think as Amy Berman Jackson, and we've seen now her body of law that she's developed

over the last two years that we've watched. I think she's methodically going to pick and determine whether Trump has put himself out from under the executive privilege and the absolute immunity through certain who has conduct and behavior that of course, Strocks and pages lawyers are going to be arguing and therefore doesn't enjoy that privilege. It's going to be a tightrope. She's going to have to walk. But I think at the end of the day, he's going to get what he needs. I'm talking about Strock and Page by extension that they need to prove their case ultimately, whether they get Donald Trump under oath on all of these issues or they do not. The interesting one for me is Christopher Ray, the current sitting FBI director, not Mueller. I guess he was Christopher

Ray, the FBI director, when when Strock was there. Yeah, he was. He was right. Because Ray hung over for the next right. Ray is raised a holdover. That's right. So that's exactly why he's being deposed. Right. Right. Right. Right. So look, I think at the end of the day, you and I will, I think the confidence I have is that I think Strocks got a very good case as this page, whether we, whether Amy Burmajax in Finds Away to thread the needle and even with the assertive executive privilege find a way around it, which I think she may be able to do on certain of these questions. Look, we'll find out, but that's why we do this show so we can have this dialogue.

But by the way, you and I probably are actually saying the same thing. Yeah. Because I think that the Department of Justice will assert it, however, because in response to this minute order, however, you're right, that Donald Trump goes out to this day, not in a position right now of being a president,

and in connection with his campaigning and he like goes out and he mimics orgasms between struck and Lisa page and mox and like that. I'm not joking. There's like he one of the sticks that Donald Trump does here. Well, let me we'll play that clip right now. Hold on, let me show it to you. I love you Peter. I love you too Lisa. Lisa, I love you. Lisa, Lisa. Oh God, I love you Lisa. And if she doesn't win Lisa, we've got it insurance policy, Lisa. We'll get that son of a bitch out. I mean, how disgusting can you be right there mimicking an or it's the behavior and conduct is so sickening and disgusting.

But I digress we will keep our legal efforts updated there. And then let's just talk about right now what is going on in Fulton County. And I'll have you break this down, Popeye. But here's the one thing that I do want to say, one of the things that I think Legal AFers will know who I've been watching this for a long time. I've been very, I've been, where Fony Willis has done great work, I've pointed it out.

But I had also pointed out on prior legal AFs, even her communications with the press and the types of statements that she had made in the past and her attending campaign events for people, which the judge, which resulted in a judge fighting at least with one of the individuals who was she was seeking to Sipina, one of the fake electors posed a conflict for her office. I was saying like, that's not what I'm used to seeing.

I'm used to seeing kind of complete silence, you know, the motions do the talking and I had expressed some reservations there Here by the way my overall opinion here is that what this special Grand Jura the four persons the four persons like the leader of the grand jury They're selected by the other members of the grand jury She basically helps organize their deliberations and she signs the final verdict sheet or in this case the final organize their deliberations and she signs the final verdict sheet or in this case the final recommendations. It's not going to make a difference in the outcome. Zero. I'm very confident of that. Will it give Trump's lawyers an ability to make another argument now of, oh, this poison,

the jury pool. Look, sure, but he's going to make a bunch of stupid meritless arguments regardless. Doesn't help to give somebody another extra stupid pointless argument, but it's not really going to matter. I mean, really Trump who posts tweets, harassing people and defaming people, he goes on a social media platform every single day. He's going to argue that when this special grand jury for a person mentioned things and didn't mention anyone's name of who's indicted, that poison the jury pool versus him posting all of these things and didn't mention anyone's name of who's indicted, that poised in the jury pool versus him posting all of these things and attacking Fonio Willis and saying these kind of racist,

hateful, despicable things about all the witnesses and all probably, no, it's not ultimately gonna make a difference. But overall here, the part that just is perplexing to me is the whole organization and coordination of special grand jury, which makes recommendations. Then it goes before a grand jury, which actually does the criminal indictments. With this four person, this special grand jury, 26 people, three people were alternates.

So it really 23 people plus the three who makes the criminal recommendation, they prepare their report, they want to release their report. The Georgia statute says their report shall be released, not may, but the judge says, look, just don't say the names of the people, we're not gonna release any sections

that give the names to protect the due process, right? If you're funny willous though, you have to be like, there's only a certain amount of time before a special grand juror is going to be baited, or that someone from your office is going to be baited. And as we talked about on the last legal AF, that's what the media would do on its own, because they want to tell the story, oh, look, the special grandeur spoke out. Oh, is it detrimental?

Let the special grandeur, it's just content for the media. And they're going to try to probe that area. We said that Donald Trump was going to bait them with some of his posts. And to some extent, they did bait her. And this Emily Korz spoke out. And it was strange, the appearance. She's not media-trained.

I thought her initial statements to the print media was fine and actually pretty careful. I thought the TV appearances were the only way I could kind of describe it as like it was just a little bit, you know, it was a little bit strange, you know, I, you know, to go in that setting without media training and be a part of this, you know, this, this, this, this big, this biggest situation ever,

I wish that she had close advisors or counsel who could have helped guide her through it to the extent she did have people. They certainly didn't do their job well. But ultimately, to me, it's not going to have an impact on the outcome, but I don't love the optics of it. But also like Fannie Willis should have known that that's going to happen. When she said in January, like in early January, our charging decisions are imminent.

The judge was like, this is a report like the January 6th committee report. Which this should be public is what the judge said. And then Fony Willis said, keep it private. Charging decisions are imminent. Imminent is a defined word like about to happen. That's what imminent means. And here we are February 25th

and the charging decisions haven't been made. And so of course, someone's going to speak out eventually. But ultimately, my view is not going to impact anything. I still think Foni Willis has done a very good job. This just kind of feels a little bit disorganized. And it's not the types of mistakes that Jack Smith has made or or will make. Popuck. It's not the types of mistakes that Jack Smith has made or or will make. Popeye. I blame McBernie for this.

I blame Judge McBernie for this. Fawney Willis was caught blindsided by the grand juror and I'm shocked at McBernie because it seems to be what later reporting came out. I'm going to walk back a little bit of reporting that Karen Friedman, Ignifalo and I did Wednesday when the story broke, because at that moment we couldn't tell exactly if the four person was abiding by instructions of Mick Bernie, the judge or not.

And I think we leaned a little too hard, frankly, in our segment on Wednesday about her having violated her oath when it looks like based on McBernie's own interviews. And we've got some video. Hopefully we'll be able to show that he's given and comments made to CNN, associated press, the Atlanta Journal Constitution that indicated he's sort of okay with all statements made by any grandeur, and there were 20 plus of them, not just this four person who draw the short straw to run the administrative aspects of the jury process. And what he

said is, he said, it's not for me, it's not for me to judge whether she violated my rules, which is a very bizarre thing for a judge to say, he spent so much time, we've seen McBerney in three or four hearings, where he even chastised Fawni Willis for holding a fundraiser for the opponent of one of the people that she was investigating as part of the fake electric scandal. He had no problem chastising her there. He held a three hour hearing, you and I watched it. I reported on it just recently, based on the media attempting to get the entire grand jury report, including its roster of recommendations of who should be indicted

and who shouldn't and what crimes they committed and which ones they didn't. He was methodical about making the lawyers for everyone, including Fadi Willis, put on the record their analysis as to whether this was a public report or not a public report. He wanted to protect at the end the due process rights of people that were unnamed. And so he he cited ultimately with Fadi Willis and let out only five pages of the report and no particular comments in it about witnesses or people that were looked at or the final recommendations. Yet, he now takes the position that he is fine because he told them the only thing that Georgia

law stops or prevents you from doing as a member of the of the grand jury, the special purpose grand jury, is you cannot disclose your deliberations and term of art, which the judge went on because he's now said this into the media went on to tell them, this is how you know when it's deliberations. If you're talking amongst yourself as jurors and the district attorney's people are not in the room with you or I'm not in the room with you, and there's no witnesses present, that's your deliberations. Don't talk about that. But he went on to say in the same breath, I'm okay with jurors talking about the final report in its recommendations as long as you don't talk about deliberations.

So how did this lay person, the jury is a hard place to be. I've served on a jury. I've had a jury trial lawyer. I've worked with juries. I understand jury science. It's a weird place to be. You know, one morning you wake up and you hope you don't have to serve on a jury. And the next moment, you are, you are on a jury being charged with complicated legal, maybe constitutional, maybe presidential,

Supreme court constitutional issues for which you are not properly trained. But I still love our jury system because they ultimately get to the truth because of the way they evaluate facts. So she's not prepared for her, her, her role, but associated press figured out her name from subpoenas that were issued because they're doing their sleuthing as the media and they contacted her and mindful of what Judge McBernie told her she thought saying things about you won't be surprised public by the defendants that are listed in our recommendations. It's not, there's no plot twist. There are multiple defendants with various charges.

Her test, her telling people in the media that Donald Trump and the phone call that he made to look for, you know, the 12,000 or so votes, she said that was front and center, obviously, including in deliberations, that they, she gave the reason why they didn't subpoena Donald Trump. That is sort of, for me, moving into the world

of what they deliberated about, or at least it is a mixed question of things that were both discussed outside of deliberations and those that were discussed within deliberations. And I'm troubled by, and actually, I'm going to say it shocked by McBernie, who was run a very tight ship in a very tight courtroom, is now, yeah, and they could even talk about the report's final conclusions.

Then why, if that's the case, judge McBernie, why didn't you release to the public through the lawsuit, the report, if you were okay with individuals, 20 of them or more going and talking to the media about what they found out. So just the deliberation, but the final product, you're okay with them talking about. Why isn't the district attorney in the judge responsible for getting out, if that's the case, the actual report and not letting it be through the prism of interpretations of people who frankly are not that prepared to do that in the national spotlight. Weird. Fawni Willis has been um, definitely silent from her office. The reporting so far has been she was shocked by it. She was surprised by it.

She didn't know what was going to happen. But right now she's got to make a decision. And this is where our co-worker, Karen Freeman-ignifalo comes into the mix. Karen's position, which I tend to agree with, is that she now needs a bigger gap between the regular grand jury and the special grand jury process because of what's just occurred, whether it is right down the line and and and coloring within the lines of judgment Bernie and his instructions to the grand jury or not that there now maybe has to be a bigger gap in time and maybe it limits her ability to use the special grand jury report and just walk it into

the regular grand jury seeking their indictment. I want to talk about one other thing before we leave the segment and the podcast. I want to talk about the lawyer that is representing Donald Trump. I think I'm going to do a hot take on this one too. Drew Findling, Ben, you know Drew. Um, I, yeah, he represents a lot of, uh, entertainers and, uh, anders and people out there. I think I've spoken to him a few times before.

All right, so I mean, I think I did. If you're looking for a criminal defense lawyer to the stars in Atlanta, Georgia, you know, Drew's on the list. Very interestingly, though, Drew, because he's represented lots of sort of rappers, you know, Gucci, Maine, and Cardi B, and Offset, Shack, sports

heroes, and that kind of thing. He actually markets himself under the hashtag, Billion Dollar Lawyer, thinks very highly of himself. He got a gift here with Judge McBurnie, with McBurnie not properly coaching or counseling the grand jurors about it. And if he was going to say, he was going to let him just talk out loud and just issue the report. The report is the best evidence of what they did, not what people's interpretations are. But Drew Findling is interesting because when Donald Trump in 18, 2018 went after to attack LeBron James and basically attacked his intelligence, talk about racial racist, attacked his intelligence because LeBron was speaking out about social

and civil, civil issues and Black Lives Matter issues and other things like that. When Drew Finling saw that those tweets he tweeted about his future client. He tweeted as follows, the racist, fraudulent, the racist owner of the fraudulent Trump University criticizing LeBron James, the founder of a school for children, a free school for children, is, is potus being pathetic again. So, you know, it's interesting. It's another example. We talk about Joe Takapina, who is a tacked Donald Trump in the past as well, yet is now

taking the money and representing him in a court of law. But if you want to know what Drew Fiddling really feels about his own client, go back to that tweet that's still up there actually has not been removed from Twitter. Well, well, maybe we'll put a link to it about what he really feels. But look, Finland, of course, got right on there with his co-counsel and said, this is a circus. The things that she's revealed, a clown show, there we go. This is a circus. This is a clown show because a clown show. There we go. This is a circus. This is a clown show because the in one of her many, now, if you add them up, it's like half a dozen media appearances and interviews. She said things like, Oh, I thought it was really cool that I was eating a popsicle that was given to me by the

DA because we were celebrating a birthday when I swore in one of the witnesses. He, he, here's my, here's my thoughts about meeting Giuliani. Here's my thoughts about it. It would have been really cool if I had done it with Donald Trump. And I mean, what is going on? We went from, you know, this very orderly process that we complemented Fannie Willis about to things that are like unforced errors at amateur hour, even if it, if I agree with you, it will ultimately mean nothing in terms of them being able to successfully dismiss or quash the prosecution because of what happened in the special purpose grand jury.

Don't think that's happening, but giving them airtime and mileage to talk about these things and lose the narrative. I was also surprised. I don't know if you caught this one. Another sort of unforced error for Fawne. She retweeted during the Lindsey Graham's fight over his testimony, somebody had created a political cartoon where she was displayed, which portrayed as a fisher person, a fisher woman, reeling in a giant fish that looked like Lindsey Graham, and she retweeted it. You know, it's, you know,

these are the things that, for instance, uh, Latisha James, even though she does press conferences and ran on a campaign about going after Donald Trump, she doesn't make these unforced errors. And we may not like the limited, the limited information that we get from Jack Smith, because it's really airtight. It's like her medically sealed. And we, and in the gaps, people are both allowing their anxiety to run away with them and their imagination to run away with them and also continuously comment on the clock and the pace and the velocity of things. But I would much rather have an airtight professional run operation than to give the drew Finlandlings of the world

the ability to call something a clown show, right? What do you think then? Agree. So Drew Finlandling remember, because he represents a lot of entertainers and people like in a high profile people in the Atlanta area, he represents a lot,

he's on the opposite end of a funny willess on a lot of issues and some of her recent Rico cases. So his ability to call her out because of his representation of other people that he does as well, that's one of the reasons that I think drew him no pun intended to this case. Where I'll disagree with you on, though, on McBernie's. McBernie's going above and beyond actually what the law says. Georgia law is very clear that when the special

grand jury is completed and the special grand jury makes a recommendation to release the report as they did, it shall be released. The word is shall. And we, the people, we, the public are entitled to answers. It's the reason why it's in the name of the people versus whoever. And we demand and we have transparency, especially when a statute says, shall. Now the underlying deliberations during grand juries are secret the same way. Jack Smith, those grand juries, the special, the criminal grand juries in DC, those are secret grand juries.

Everything that's happening is under seal. There may be leaks or you see people going in and out of courthouses and you could deduce what's taking place. But the actual grand jury secret when the grand jury is complete, indictments are made and criminal discovery takes place, then everything's made public anyway. And because Georgia has this weird special grand jury process, it's not like in all these states, they have special grand juries that meet to make recommendations that then could go before a grand jury.

Mind you, this whole special grand jury wasn't even needed in the first place. You could have just went to a grand jury and got the indictment there, but the approach from Fawni Willis was, let's start with a special grand jury and got the indictment there, but the approach from Fawney Willis was, let's start with a special grand jury. You know the statute says at the end of the process, it shall be released to the public. If a recommendation's made, I don't see how you can say you're surprised

by it being released when the statute actually says shall. And Judge McBerney was doing a solid because McBerney thought it should be released when the statute actually says shall. And Judge McBernie was doing a solid because McBernie thought it should be released to the public, but he said, look, because Fonday Willis, you showed up in court and said, charging decisions are imminent. First thing McBernie did was dragged out the process like three or four weeks,

so that imminent, okay, imminent. All right. And then finally said, okay, I'll just release portions intro conclusion and section eight of the report. But like report back to me, let me know what's up here. And I think McBernie, like it or not, was actually following the law regarding the special grand jury process. Now, if Mick Bernie advised people during the special grand jury, hey, you could go out and talk or the grand jury during the Utah, but here's the thing. The clown show, as Drew calls it, the lawyer, now Trump and these other people are saying, I wouldn't go that far, but there's definitely it looks like a layer of disorganization,

but it is a species of the fact that this special grand jury recommendation is unique and unusual and how that parallel tracks with the grand jury, you need to coordinate that in a way that to your point regarding special counsel, Jack Smith, you saying, her medically sealed. These paths need to be thought of in a very coordinated manner to reduce the risks here. But I don't want to, I want to give the analysis and the thoughtful analysis that we provide here at Legal AF on these topics where we, where we surgically look at it from all of these different angles. But I ultimately do want to

lead with the conclusion, it will not impact Fony Willis's ultimate charging decisions nor will it actually impact the ultimate outcome. What takes place in Jordan? It absolutely won't at all. But the question and before I throw it back to you is, and we'll talk about this on the next legal AF. And I hope by the next legal AF, there's more news on what's going on in Georgia though, it was like, all right, like, like, like, like, let's, let's get the show on the road and let's get that indictment. The special grand jury completed its work almost two months ago now. By the time we do our show in March, let's go.

Yeah. So let me, let me wrap it up with this and to be clear, my, my iron with McBernie is that he allowed 23 people to come effectively because it's not just the four person has the right to speak. It's all of them have the right to speak. And, and rather, if he was going to do that, then he should have just ruled. I, I, I differ with you a little bit on the analysis for a special purpose, purpose grand jury in the word shall. I think the judge got it sort of right.

But if he was going to go through the whole exercise of having the media brief it and Fawni Willis is a colleague brief it and arguing court. And if he was just at the end of the day, going to be like, maybe Fawni Willis is a colleague brief it and arguing court. And if he was just at the end of the day, going to be like, maybe Fawni Willis should have thought ahead, as you said, and said, you know, I want to ask you something else. Once this is over, are you going to interpret the deliberation oath requirement for grand jurors to mean that all of them can hit the media? Obviously, she was blindside and hadn't thought through that. And and McBernie, if he had thought about it,

if he would have said in that courtroom, let me talk about something that's related. I may not release the room. This is where I have trouble with him and maybe with Fawni for having not raised it. In that courtroom, on that hearing that we reported on, there should have been a discussion, then, of if I'm not going to release the report now, you understand Madam District Attorney that when the, now that the report is over and under the Georgia law related to the report now, you understand Madam District Attorney that when the, now that the report is over and under the Georgia law related to the oath of, of each grand juror to keep deliberations secret, the report itself is not deliberations nor is things like witness observations. I'm going to let 23 people the day after their discharge be able to talk about these things.

Okay. The fact that that wasn't discussed in that courtroom was a mistake. I don't know if it's McBernie for having not raised it or it's the DA for having not anticipated, but it was a mistake. A mistake that now, all the grand jurors, including the four person, this course, I don't say took advantage of, but she was not gagged. It related to that, that sort of my issue, but I agree with you. Don't think it ultimately has an effect.

It may have an effect on, I would have hoped that the imminent meant immediately, but I kind of get a sense of why it's not because once the report came out and this, this kind of early hearing happened within just a couple of weeks of it ending, she wasn't ready yet to actually, it's one thing to present a case, the special purpose grand jury. It's another thing to then figure out how you're going to take that report and or the witness transcripts and or live testimony into a regular grand jury and get the indictments based on the recommendations, recommendations, some of which she may not agree with. She may not think the case is as strong as the grand jury did on some of the people listed on the roster. And she's, and she wants to present

her case. So it's been taking her longer, even though she felt she had to use that word, imminent, imminent for her and imminent for us are two different things. She's still picking through obviously how she's going to present her case to a regular grand jury. Now she's got a new curveball that's thrown at her, which is it does this impact what I need to do, how I need to do it. If I'm able to use the special purpose grand jury to take away the argument by fiddlings of the world that it somehow corrupted or do I just double down on it because even McBerney has said everything was done appropriately by the special purpose grand jury in the DA. Do I just take that under my arm and with my witnesses make the presentation. That's taking longer, but you're right.

It's allowed these things to happen, but I think it started with the hearing we reported on three weeks ago. The judge should have said, you get even though I'm giving you the report, not being disclosed, you get that the jurors can talk about the report, right? That should have said, you get even though I'm giving you the report, not being disclosed, you get that the jurors can talk about the report, right? That should have been a discussion and it wasn't. And that's my problem. Well, we will definitely follow up more here on legal a f. I hope you can kind of see the, the types of communications that, uh, that Pope, I can I have behind the scenes here on on the show and the way we think about these issues from each and every angle as we present them to you.

Things are going to start heating up. They're already heating up. So there's a lot a lot a lot of breaking news that we will bring you with our hot takes. And of course, on the Wednesday edition of Legal AF and the weekend edition with myself and Michael Popak. Do me a favor if you can. Make sure you subscribe to the Midestouch YouTube channel. We are on our way to 1 million subscribers, thanks to your incredible support. And March, we're calling it the March 21 million subscribers. Also, make sure to check out our audio

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