Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Jack Smith gets KEY WITNESS and Trump GETS more DESPERATE

Episode Date: February 5, 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 Grand Jury hauling in right-wing extremist and “Judicial Watch” founder Tom Fitton to testify against Donald Trump; the Manhattan DA putting the screws to Trump’s convicted felon ex-Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg to testify against Trump in the Stormy Daniels’ hush money criminal case or face years in prison for insurance fraud; a Manhattan Judge ordering that the NY Attorney General’s $250 million civil fraud case is full steam ahead for an October 2, 2023 trial; Trump replacing his attorney Alina Habba with Insurrectionist defense counsel Joe Tacopina to defend the E. Jean Carrol civil fraud case against him set for April; and Santos facing Federal criminal prosecution for charity and election fraud and the over/under on his possible “expulsion” from the House, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! FUM: Head to https://TryFum.com and use code "LEGALAF" to save 10% off when you get the journey pack today! MIRACLE MADE: Head to https://TryMiracle.com/LegalAF and use the code "LEGALAF" to claim your free 3 piece towel set and save over 40% off! ZBIOTICS: Head to https://Zbiotics.com/LegalAF and use the code "LEGALAF" at checkout for 15% off! 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Special counsel, Jack Smith compelled Donald Trump's co-conspirator Tom Fitton to testify before the federal criminal grand jury in Washington this week investigating Donald Trump's crimes. Fitton, who is a wannabe lawyer who runs a group called Judicial Watch, consulted with Donald Trump on the plan to declare victory, even before the election took place, knowing that Donald Trump was going to lose. And Fittin also consulted with Donald Trump

about stealing the thousands of government records, including the top secret, secret sensitive compartmental records. You know when Donald Trump says, Sox case, Sox case, and has no clue what he's talking about. That's all coming from Fitton, so we'll break down the important implications of Fitton's testimony before the criminal grand jury in Washington, DC, and an emergency hearing was held in Manhattan State Court before Judge Arthur and Goran in New York in the New York Attorney General's fraud lawsuit against Donald Trump and his adult children where New York Attorney General, Latisha James is seeking at least $250 million in damages and also an injunction that would basically shut down

the Trump organization from doing business in the state of New York. The emergency hearing focused on the fact that Donald Trump and his adult children filed these frivolous documents and is specifically called a verified answer. It was a frivolous verified answer to the complaint that they filed, which was an obvious delay tactic But judge Arthur and Goran said if you think you are delaying this trial Not going to happen and Donald Trump's lawyers sheep is least said well, we're sorry. We're sorry We're gonna go back and we're going to fix these documents And you know who was not present at that emergency hearing? Who, Ben, Alina Haba is the answer.

Alina Haba was not at the hearing. So I used to be in the guys and dollars play in middle school. And it was, you know, who's coming to town? Sky Master's in Sky Master's in town. That was my one line as Angie the Oxe I was in the broad when I was in my Middle school play but I digress here So who was not present at the hearing it was Alina Habba who seems to have been sideline or removed from the Trump Legal team as she tries to

Kling on to the fame that she don't she so desperatelyves. And in the E. Jean Carol Federal lawsuit, Carol's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, filed a letter brief with the court stating that Haba had told her that she was withdrawing from the case, but then Haba filed the documents saying, no, no, no, I didn't say that. Look, I don't believe anything Haba says at all, but regardless, Trump has brought in a new lawyer

into the E. Jean Carroll civil rape case and defamation case as that heads to trial in April. The new lawyer is Joe Takapina, who has taken many adverse positions against Trump before, both in sentencing, Virginia, or sixth insurrectionist Pope Box, then a hot hit on that, as well as taking positions against Trump in this specific case Regarding whether or not Donald Trump would have had immunity for his conduct while he was in office

You're gonna love Pope box breakdown there and Pope I can like how I call it a hot breakdown a hot hit That's like you know, I'm that's registered trademark a hot breakdown, a hot hit, that's like, you know, that's registered trademark. And the Manhattan District Intern, he has emphaneled a criminal grand jury to present evidence about Donald Trump's criminal tax fraud and specifically zeroing in on the hush money payments to stormy Daniels after Donald Trump had sex with our leading to the 2016 election to try to cover it up and have Donald Trump misclassified those payments as legal fees. Indicaments are likely to be coming soon in Manhattan against Donald Trump. We will break that down.

And speaking of indictments that will be dropping soon, we are on indictment watch here on legal AF and at the Midas Touch Network for George Santos as well, the Maga Republican George Santos, if that's even his name, who's now saying that he was a producer of Spider-Man. I mean, he's just some of the strangest stuff, but also the most criminal stuff. The FBI has opened up even more investigations and the most recent investigations focus on Santos setting up GoFundMe accounts so he could steal money from disabled homeless veterans who Santos falsely represented. He was raising money to help save the lives of their pets. You don't get much lower than that, but you don't get much more information than you get here on legal AF. I've been my sales joy by Michael Popeye. Popeye, how are you?

I'm doing great. You know, when you brought up the Tom Fitton thing, we'll get to in a bit. It reminds me, you know, it's good to have working attorneys and trial lawyers commenting about legal matters. You know, it's sort of like the, we're the judicial watch watch. He's made a career out of following the law but really not understanding it. But people I think come to the show because they know that you and I break it down

and we have our own opinions that are formed from years of practice and experience in the very courtrooms that we're talking about every day. You know, Popoq, you think about 1984 or well where, you know, freedom is slavery, you know, and you go there for a magnetic extremist. It's like law, who better encapsulate than their version of law than someone who's not a lawyer, who's wrong about everything, and who calls the group judicial watch with no legal experience and just spews the exact opposite of what our Constitution stands for, what the exact opposite of what our laws are supposed to do.

But Fitton, who wears these very tight shirts and makes these very strange appearances. Never, Popeye, I can deal with the glasses, okay? If you start doing the tight shirts like that, man, I'm doing it, I'm doing an intervention. But his polo shirts don't fit him. I'm just gonna use that. He was, you know, this is interesting, where you get to him in a bit. Researchers established he was the number three

per layer of misinformation on Twitter. The number three source of misinformation. One guy alone on Twitter for the 2020 election. Fascinating. And this is who Trump follows is one of his informal advisors. And so clearly there would not be attorney client privilege because he's not an attorney. This is who Donald Trump looked to consulted with, but the better words probably not consulted. It's probably conspired with to engage in all the election related crimes that special counsel,

Jack Smith is investigating him. What was really interesting about fitting going to the grand jury in addition to the grand jury in addition to the fact that he like did it in a way where he like put a hood over his head almost and like tried to hide and like he was clearly uncomfortable when he was caught by the camera. He didn't put a hood over his head, but he was wearing a trench coat and he tried to clearly he was uncomfortable with the cameras where he always goes in front of his own camera and spreads this information every day. But we've heard his name in the connection with Donald Trump talking about his connections to this group Judicial Watch, which is the exact opposite of what the name suggests, which

is the dystopian nature of Maga. But we didn't really hear the name so much in terms of the January 6th committee didn't really, I mean, they mentioned, of course, his emails to Donald Trump leading to the election from July and then in October where Fitton basically gave the script to Trump about what to say after Donald Trump lost to declare victory regardless. So we got that glimpse with the email, but Fitton always struck me as a bigger character than he was even presented in that January 6th committee.

So the fact here that you have special counsel, Jack Smith focused on it is interesting to me. So what are the implications here, Popeye? Well, I mean, as you laid out at the start of this, there's really two areas and two probably separate grand juries. I'm trying to figure out and noodle around which grand jury he appeared in front of. I always love he's a self-proclaimed expert on his Twitter handle. He puts that in quotes, expert of who knows what. And he also conveniently left out in his Twitter feed, although it's prolific in the amount of

vomit that he spews in Twitter that's generally wrong. He left out the whole section about him being called into the grand jury and giving testimony other than a vague reference to it in a photo that said, I'm back, what did I miss? You know, I'm back from testifying into criminal prosecution of the president, former president of the United States, what he should have said. And as you said, no attorney client privilege. This is what happens when you consult with wannabe lawyers who aren't really licensed to practice law. There's no privilege for that.

There's no Twitter, YouTube privilege at issue. There's two areas that they likely are focused on. I think it's two separate grand juries. I'll just figure out which one he was in front of for this one. One is he helped draft the press release, or the press announcement, media release that Trump never gave, in which he was going to declare himself the winner of the election based on all votes received

by the election day deadline. A made up concept, there's no such thing as the election day deadline because absentee ballots are allowed to come in after, always have been, even the ones that have been cast by Donald Trump, who's a notorious absentee ballots are allowed to come in after, always have been, even the ones that have been cast by Donald Trump, who's a notorious absentee ballot voter himself, and mail in ballots, and veteran, you know, or overseas armed forces ballots, and all those things, all those things come in after by a post-mark date that's established

in each state's rules related to voting. So this, this thing that's established in each state's rules related to voting. So this thing, that's not a thing. I won, if you only count the votes that came in on election day or voted in person, or that's not a thing. But it shows, we're back to the men's ray of the criminal mind, the criminal intent of Donald Trump in conspiring, as you said earlier, so rightly, with a guy like Tom Fitton, to issue this press release. So that's one. Like, what is that all about?

What did the president really believe? And what were your discussions with the president? This little grand jury, perfect father for the grand jury, to Tom Fitton. How did that come about? Who set that meeting? What was that based on? What did Donald Trump say to you?

What did you say to Donald Trump? All of that. The second thing is, as you said earlier, is the Mar-a-Lago documents because the case that you refer to, which we jokingly refer to, although it is literally true, as the Clinton Soxtrower case is where to remind people, or those who are first-time listeners, is where Clinton kept audio tapes. He probably had one of those little people that don't use them really anymore, but those little micro cassette dictation, tape recorders, and he was recording just,

free flow, free style, thoughts in his head for a future memoir. Those tapes were turned over to an author, Taylor Branch, who eventually wrote a book, Judicial watch, this non-thing thing that Tom Finton runs sued the National Archives and other entities to try to get their hands on these tapes, argue that they were presidential records. And Amy Berman Jackson, who we spoke a lot about, a district court judge in DC that we like

a lot because of her rulings. It could be on the Supreme Court one day. She said nonsense. These are not presidential records that should end up in the public domain. These were his private musings that ended up being in a book. But this whole thing, it's very well reported. I think Fittness, the first one to tell you in his own Twitter feed, that he thinks that that was a successful case.

It wasn't. He lost. He lost the case, Pope, the judge basically said it was a borderline frivolous case. Right. Filed the case in 2011 or 2012 based on Clinton making these personal recordings for his memoirs. 96. Yeah.

20 years before. And the judge looked at the filing like, this is a stupid filing. You can't compel the national archives. First of all, who the hell are you, Fittin? Like, who are you? Like, you can't compel the archives to compel the president when we're talking about his personal records to do anything. Go away.

And the magas like the socks case precedent. It allows Donald Trump to steal nuclear secrets. Well, the leaves office. Well, this is, so this is, right. So his argument to the president was based on losing precedent that he established, but him also not being a lawyer, so not knowing how to really comprehend the loss that he had tells, tells Trump apparently, hey, when you left office, you magically declassified everything, it instantly became personal and not presidential record

as soon as you brought it to Mar-a-Lago because you brought it to Mar-a-Lago. And Trump goes with this and files it in an 11th circuit, also losing brief in front of the 11th circuit court of appeals, but this is the argument. So my gut is it's more on the, let's talk about the criminal mind of Donald Trump and what he knew and didn't know about his loss

and the big lie, which you help promulgate, and maybe a little bit less about Mar-a-Lago, but either way, Tom Fenton deserves to be dragged in to a criminal grand jury or one or two to testify about Donald Trump. I mean, look, if this is, if this is how you're going to apply your trade, this apparently is how he makes a living. This is how you're going to apply your trade and you're going to try through your advice

giving and you're being the, the, the guru for Donald Trump to overthrow democracy, then you're going to end up having, you may not be the target yet of a criminal investigation, but you're certainly going to be a witness. No Fifth Amendment privilege. I don't think we didn't hear that there was an assertion. We didn't hear that there was a hearing in front of barrel howl, the chief judge of the courts that oversee the grand jury in District of Columbia, over the assertion of Fifth Amendment. So I don't think there was one. I think he testified. Maybe he took it here or there, but there wasn't a prior fight over the Fifth Amendment and Tom Fitton, not

the one that I'm aware of. So I think they had this guy without privilege completely prone and got whatever they got. Do you think it was over? Do you think they were more focused in this Grand Jury on the criminal intent of Donald Trump and the election announcement than on the Mar-a-Lago? What do you think, Ben? Well, it's hard to, I don't really know, is the truth, because both are equally relevant. You've got two criminal grand juries that are taking place in Washington, D.C. and at least two, probably more.

But, you know, we know there's the one investigating Trump's theft of the government records, as well as election interference. Clearly, Fitton would be a significant witness for premeditation and showing that regardless of what the outcome was, this was the plan to clear victory and engage in an insurrection, whatever it takes to overthrow the government to stay in power. And on the other hand, when Donald Trump basically says, there is no crime for me stealing these records. The Presidential Records Act isn't a criminal statute. And it's like, well, you're getting dumb advice from Fitton because there are criminal

statutes. It's not a complicated thing. And you see Alina Habah, who we'll talk about a little bit later, kind of parroting that. She's like, there's no criminal statutes. What's the DOJ talking about? And it's because these lawyers are all idiots. There's really, it's very clear what the criminal statutes were because they're actually

listed in the search warrant. It's obstruction. It is the concealment and mutilation and it is violation of the espionage act. You can't steal government records when you're no longer in the government, even if you're the president. You can't steal a former president. You can't steal them, hide them, conceal them, obstruct them. You are just but an average citizen at that point. And Fitin was basically telling him, no, you could keep it, you could steal it.

So it's possible. It's possible because we've told our listeners, and we've explained to our viewers how the grand jury process works, that the grand jurors are picked the same way as regular jurors are picked, but their commitment is for a far longer period of time. And they only meet a few times a month. And so coordinating when a witness shows up, I wouldn't be surprised if they went, hey, you know, two hours in one and then took them to two hours in the other to try to coordinate it. That wouldn't shock me. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think you're right. I think as we've said, the focus and the way that Jack

Smith and Merrick Garland thread the needle of the difference between Joe Biden and Trump and Pence and the rest of them on classified documents, barely not Clinton and Obama, because they seem to be completely clean, is not focused on the espionage act, but focused on obstruction, obstruction, obstruction, which is exactly the thing that Merrick Garland said eight or 10 times during the press conference when he announced Jack Smith, knowing in the back of his mind about the beginnings of the Biden issue, because that had already been reported to him before he took the podium for Jack Smith. This is obstruction focus. It's not that you accidentally have them, which is what it appears to be, of course,

with our current president. It's that you obstructed the return of them and in every way, shape of form culminating in the execution of a search warrant. No, absolutely. So we'll keep you updated more, but I expect every week now and we do these legal apps, like that special grand jury's gonna really, really be not because if there are indictments, which you and I both think there are going to be here,

I mean, you're looking, I think, around May, the latest. Maybe June. Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's an April, May, June, April, yeah, somewhere in there. So we will keep you posted there think it's an April, May, June, April. Yeah, somewhere in there. So we will keep you posted there. Let's talk about this emergency hearing held before Judge Arthur and Goran in New York State Court in Attorney General Latissa James's fraud lawsuit against Donald Trump, where she's seeking at least $250 million in damages

against Trump and his adult children, just to remind everyone. This case really focuses on Donald Trump's fraudulent evaluations of his properties and his statements of financial conditions where he would basically say for purposes of gaining all of these benefits, both in terms of tax treatment and insurance benefits. By the way, put a little asterisk there when we're talking about insurance benefits because as we talk about Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan Grand Jury, in a little bit there, it's possible that Alan Weiselberg may be charged with insurance fraud that is related to the insurance fraud in the civil case that's being brought by New York Attorney General about how the statements of financial conditions were framed to gain

certain benefits and to defraud entities to gain advantages for purposes of getting different types of insurance. So we'll break that down though in a bit with the Manhattan Grand jury. But trial set for October 2nd of 2023 in this civil fraud lawsuit. Basically, if Latisha James wins and there's no settlement or anything like that, the Trump organization for all purposes

is probably gonna be shut down. It's one of the things being sought in the injunctive relief, at least it'll be shut down from doing business in New York and it has a lot of holdings in New York. Also, the damage is seeking a floor of $250 million will be really, really real money. Not the $1.6 million when the Trump organization was convicted of the felony previously in New York and the Alvin Bragg prosecution or even when Trump and Alina Habor sanctioned a million dollars by a federal judge in the Southern District of Florida.

Trump can write those checks, but a billion dollars, $750 million, that's not really a check that Donald Trump could write. But this emergency hearing started when New York Attorney General, Tisha James, wrote a letter to Arthur and Gora on the judge saying, we've now finally received the verified answer from Trump and his adult children. A verified answer is the document that responds to the complaint.

The complaint is the lawsuit that was filed back in September, late September. So if you're wondering why it's taking until January or February for a verified answer to finally be filed, don't you think that should happen in October or November? Well one of the tactics trumped it to try to delay that is to file a BS motion to dismiss, which the judge previously we covered this on legal AF called Trump and his lawyers out on and said, these are all frivolous grounds for trying to seek a dismissal. I'm very close to sanctioning you. And then here, you can wait until filing your verified answer after the motion to dismiss his rule done. So it's kind of a delay tactic that was used by Trump. Although for purposes

of delay, the key thing is, is the trial date going to be moved or not. And again, the trial dates, October of 2023. And so now what you see, whether it's New York Attorney General Edition James or Roberta Kaplan, who's E. Jean Carroll's lawyers, or anyone else who's on the opposite side of a Trump litigation, with all of these rulings that now exist, that Trump is a vexatious litigant, that Trump files baseless lawsuits that he engages in harassing tactics, you see the lawyers run into court right away, The moment Trump tries to do something. Because if you wait a week or you wait two weeks,

Trump then basically uses your, whether you want to call it collegiality or reasonableness or lack of diligence, you know, by not running it immediately to say, well, if you had a problem with it, you should have ran in right away. Then when you run in right away, Trump and his lawyers go, oh, they're making,

they're making much about nothing here. We got this, don't worry. But the lawyers who are against Trump are like, we rather go in right away and deal with the judge, then wait and have Trump's lawyers basically say, we were not diligent. And so here, they brought this to the court's attention in a letter and then Judge Arthur Engron

the very next day issued an order saying, everybody's coming to my court right now, I want the AG's lawyers, I want Trump's lawyers, everybody's show up and Goron in the hearing was like, look, in my 30, 40 years of practice, I've never seen the documents that you filed being so groundless and meritless and long and weird objections and boilerplate like you need to fix this.

And then ultimately there was a resolution. So what happened here, Popeyes? How is this resolved and most importantly is the trial date going to remain? Trial date's remaining because the judge announced that by hell or high water parted my French, this is the judge's quote, we are starting at 10 a.m. on the 2nd of October 2023. That's it. Case is going to trial. And the fact that the answer got filed sort of late off of the motion to dismiss practice,

him having tonight, as we said earlier, the motion to dismiss and calling it borderline frivolous. This sounds familiar to people that watch our show talking about Trump motions and lawsuits. Um, and the fifth of January, they then had to get around to filing their answer. Now I want to make one clarification because by shorthand we keep saying it's the cases against the civil fraud case under the Tisha James, the New York Attorney General's very robust powers under executive law 63-12 in New York. We refer to it as New York practitioners.

It's the 63-12 powers. It sounds ordinary, but it's really extraordinary. She's like a superhero with unlimited powers when it comes to going after fraud, continuing fraud, and against organizations and individuals that run those organizations. In a way that even prosecutors are jealous of the powers the New York Attorney General has under the statute, financial monitors being appointed, as we've already talked about. There are actually, it's not just Trump and the kids, there's 16 defendants all related to Donald Trump, including Alan Weisselberg. So, Alan Weisselberg is also in the crosshairs of a

large civil judgment against him. So, as Jeff McCannie, who is the former controller of the Trump organization, who has testified testified who is being brought into the grand jury that we'll talk about next, special grand jury by Alvin Bragg. Because just to remind everybody, there is a continuous working relationship between the New York Attorney General's office and Alvin Bragg's, DA's office with lawyers cross deputized to work on the cases, civil side, criminal side, and they cooperate and collaborate together. So we've got 16 defendants, including the Trump, the Trump kids, those entities, and those couple of executives that we just talked about.

And all 16 file, they three over 300 page, verified answer, and the portion that had to be verified by Donald Trump is Donald Trump with this big black sharpie writing Donald Trump, which means as a verified bleeding, it is sworn under penalty of perjury as if he's giving a testimony in court under oath, same thing. And so the attack started as a, this is really too long.

The answer is has to be amended. Let me explain something. In a trial court, pleadings are not evidence. If they're verified, meaning that they're sworn testimony, they have an aspect of being evidential of having evidentiary foundation. And can be used because somebody's sworn to it. But generally pleadings are not evidence.

And the court instructs the jury that while they could look at the pleading and all of that, it's the evidence that's developed in the court of law, that is the work that the jury is to try or effect should be focused on, except in these rare circumstances where there are verified pleadings, which are the equivalent of sworn testimony. The problem that the New York Attorney General's office had and argued to Judge Engoron and why they wanted to cut it off at the past right now, given there were only, you know, February March, we were six months away from the trial, is that they did not like the fact that on a number of occasions, things that were demonstrably true

and that the Trump organization or Donald Trump himself or his children themselves in other proceedings, other court proceedings and other sworn statements or in deposition testimony had taken the exact opposite position. So for example, the big fight was over, what is the Trump organization.

And everybody can see that it's not a legal entity that you can necessarily sue. It's more of a doing business as what we call a DBA, a fictitious name that covers hundreds and hundreds of Trump related organizations. And they call it, they brand it, the Trump organization. That's fine. She's not seeking a judgment against the Trump organization per se. It's all these subsidiaries and affiliates that are named in the pleading, including Donald Trump and all of that. So this whole, this whole fight, academic fight about what is there a Trump organization? Is there not, you know, and Lena Habba appearing

in court for the Trump organization? You know, there was this whole silly fight over. Is there not, you know, and Lena Haba appearing in court for the Trump organization? You know, there was this whole silly fight over, is there a Trump org or isn't there? And Judge Angeram Fahli said, look, we're not going to delay this trial for this nonsense about the pleading. Yes, it's the most one of the most ridiculous pleading I've ever seen filed, but like clean it up. If you got a problem, the lawyers should work offline. The lawyers for the New York Attorney General, you should send what's called a deficiency letter to the other side saying how you think

all these things are deficient and give them another opportunity to file an amended verified answer that resolves the issues that you have. But I'm not stopping the trial. I'm not stopping the trial because you guys are fighting where Trump is fighting on the pleading side. Now here you had, it wasn't really Alina Habba,

no surprise, taking the lead. We'll talk later about her slow, her quiet quitting. He wasn't even there. He was in even there. Right, I think the kids call it quiet quitting. She's quietly quitting all of these cases because she's completely radioactive, having been sanctioned a million dollars down in Florida. And she loses every place she

ever goes. I mean, she's like the reverse of Midas Touch every time everything she touches turns to the opposite of gold. So, mirror this. Meered this. Right. So, she's out and Chris Kice, who was the former attorney general in Florida, not a New York practitioner, but has a decent reputation, hasn't yet been completely solied by his affiliation with his client, Donald Trump. He's there kind of arguing with the lawyers like, well, we want to be careful and there's no such thing as a Trump org. So that's why we denied it 600 times and that's why the pleading's so long. And the judge was like, enough, go work

out the pleading situation. That's not going to stop this case from going to trial. And that's not even really- Oh, back. Can I pose? Sure, please. It was once because it was so brilliant in your analysis. But I just unpacked the one thing that

what Christopher Kaish Trump's lawyer was saying as one of the arguments. And I've seen this before, and you've seen this before. And whenever corporate defendants try to make this argument, they never win on it, but they constantly think it's a thing that they're going to do where they go, look, this corporation doesn't even exist. And it's like, what are you talking about? You're not in this case with Trump, but I've had this situation in my career. I'm like, you're literally trading on the stock exchange. You know, like, there's your auntie. Well, actually, that's just the parent company. And there's a number of other LLCs. And I'm like, all right, good luck

making the argument to the judge that you don't exist. And that was one of the arguments that Kai was trying to make. The Trump work isn't even a thing. And what was so funny, though, is that Eric Trump's lawyer basically argued the exact opposite because one of their denials was whether or not one of these LLCs existed and they go, no, no, no, the LLCs is just part of the Trump work. And so they were actually saying exactly contradictory things, but that was like their argument, like their their Perry Mason moment is, we don't even exist. This isn't even real. Sorry about that.

Well, my other, no, no problem. And my other favorite moment for Chris Kais is when he actually had was able to get this next sentence out with a straight, straight face. He told the judge that judge, we're just careful lawyers. When has Donald Trump's lawyers ever been accused of being careful in anything, including in their lawyering or in their filings? You know, they're just trying to separate themselves from all the past, but of course, Judge Engoron and Goron knows all about Middle Brooks is case in Florida, the million dollar fine and all the places where he's been sanctioned or dismissed along the way.

The issues that were real, not the Trump organization ones, that the New York Attorney General was concerned about was things like Donald Trump denying in this pleading that he was actually the de facto president of his companies. We'll just leave it at that. When in prior sworn testimony, he testified that he was. So they don't like that. They don't like that. He wonanka, not to let her off the hook. We're going to talk about her in the Alan Weisselberg Manhattan DA issue next. Ivanka, there's something you can do in an answer. You can either admit it, you can deny it, you can admit as much of it as you can admit, you can deny the rest, or you can do what lawyers

refer to as DKI, deny knowledge or information sufficient to be able to form a belief as to whether I can admit or deny it. It's a fancy way of saying, I don't have enough information to admit or deny it, so I'm going to put deny knowledge or information. And she denied knowledge or information in a couple of places that pissed the New York Attorney General off. She denied knowledge or information about whether she ever met with bankers. So, so he won't unless Ivanka Trump is not the Ivanka Trump that we know

from television, she seems to be a functioning human being. She would you would think if she's running an organization or co-running an organization for her father, which she did. She was not just a titular figurehead. She was apparently running large swaths of the Trump organization Empire. She can't remember ever meeting with any bankers. That seems to be completely incredible. She also denied information or knowledge about emails that had her name on it, which is also ridiculous. So they want the games playing to stop.

They want the pleading straightened out. They want the, because they're fighting hard, not because, because it's the unusual circumstance where this pleading can be evidence because it's under oath. So they want the under oath stuff to be true or it's perjury if it's a lie. And since they're not taking, I don't think any more depositions in the case. I mean, the other solution for this, if Angkoran gets around to it and doesn't like the results from this process that he set up, which is go do a deficiency letter

and work it out. If you got to come back to me, he may allow depositions to happen again on these small issues. She's not, in other words, she's not gonna get away with right before trial, denying something that's eminently false. Or, you know, the New York Attorney General says, you know what, she wants to try that.

They will impeach her on the stand when she takes the stand inevitably in October of 2023. So they're going to have to strategically play their hand here as to whether they really want to fight to get her to give some sort of answer or they want to use it to impeach her, her brother, her father, when they're on on the stand and they will all be on the stand. Now, whether they're going to take the Fifth Amendment again with an adverse inference instruction to the jury saying every time you hear Fifth Amendment, you can assume that they don't want to answer the question because it's not great for them. And you can make the adverse inference because that's going to happen here.

You know, Trump takes the stand. He can't phone it in. Trump takes the stand, he can't phone it in. Trump takes the stand in October. Now if he wants to take the Fifth Amendment in a civil proceeding, he does so at his own peril in front of the jury who gets instructed that every time he takes the Fifth, it is a negative answer to that question.

Did you steal the money? Fifth Amendment, you can assume he stole the money. And that's how they're going to try this case of that $250 million. What I call, the scorchment money, you're right. That is, that is the floor. It can go up much higher than that in front of this jury who may be ready to finally write a check and bankrupt the whatever you call it, the Trump organization or whatever. Donald Trump himself. Well, here's the thing too. So in addition to all the Trumps who are going to plead the fifth, like, who's going to be a witness for them? And we saw this when New York attorney general, the Tisha James filed for a preliminary

injunction to a point, an independent monitor to review. If there's any material transactions or of trumps moving money around What judge Arthur and Goran pointed out was not only is the fifth amendment the adverse inference against the trumps when they when they invoke the fifth But they didn't even put forward a centilla of evidence the exact words that and Goran used like no evidence from an expert witness saying words that engor on use, like no evidence from an expert witness saying, here's why the valuation was 15x, the appraised value, no declaration from anyone within the Trump organization under oath saying, here's the reason why we think even if you have appraisal x from the state, here is why we're valuing it at y on our taxes,

or here's why we're putting it in our statement of financial conditions as such. And the reason is because they engage in crimes. So anybody who writes the declaration is going to be criminally prosecuted for lying, And if they tell the truth, they're gonna be confessing. So there is no favorable witness, or at least none that come to mind. Anybody who will testify in their favor, and so it's going to be this civil trial, a very, very, very problematic trial for Trump.

Well, can I mention something on that before you move on? Yeah. I think what they're gonna try to do is if I understand their trial strategy, the defense trial strategies, they're gonna try to bring in all of the banks and the insurance companies who are at the heart of the fraud, she's bringing it, let's say James,

New York Attorney General under 63-12, is bringing the case on behalf of victims, if you will, who were victimized by the insurance fraud, appraisal fraud, real estate fraud, where they inflated the value of real estate in order to get insurance at a certain rate and to get loans on assets that were hyperinflated through Donald Trump's imagination and based on nothing else and then deflated the price of the same pieces of property in order to save on taxes. Put aside the tax issue.

They've always argued there's no victims here. The banks are sophisticated parties that are not suing, haven't sued, don't have not claimed that they were defrauded, insurance companies apparently the same. So they're going to try to bring in, I've seen this done in criminal cases brought by the SEC when I back in my prior life when I was in House Council for a company that had a former employee who got nailed in an SEC criminal investigation where he won in Connecticut by bringing in people, sophisticated trade and counter parties, if you will, who said that basically they were

not defrauded or they would have done the trade anyway. So they're going to bring in, I assume, a bunch of former bankers and former whatever's who are going to say, yeah, we didn't like it, but we would have done the deal with them anyway. We weren't defrauded and we don't feel that we overpaid or overloaned or over whatever because of Donald Trump's actions. I assume that's gonna be on the witness list, right, Ben?

I assume so, but then New York Attorney General Attisha James is gonna remind the jury that the victims here, and she said this in her press release is the state of New York. By Trump engaging in all of these phony and financial dealings and inflating the value of his properties, he was able to take advantage of other New Yorkers. He was able to skew through fraudulent means, the markets, to give himself all of these advantages, which ultimately resulted in advantages in him paying less taxes and defrauding insurance companies and him

defrauding also the state of New York, you know through through means of like declaring deductions for easements based on inflated valuations that should never have taken place in the first place. So yes, in a sophisticated party to party transaction was one of the parties, partially responsible in their lack of appropriate diligence. Potentially, you could try to make that argument, but ultimately, who are the victims here? The victims are the people in the state of New York. The victims are when an entity is going around engaging in crimes, they are harming the entire state and the people of the state who are abiding by the laws. And if you don't enforce your laws, what's the point of having the laws in the first place? You know, and so

I think that's what's going to come out over and over again. And again, with Donald Trump invoking the Fifth Amendment, it's going to be a very, very, very rough one for Trump. There, we got a lot to talk about. We got to talk about Alina Habba. Again, we've touched on it slightly. Is she out? Donald Trump has brought in another lawyer, Joe Takapina in the E. Jean Carroll case. We got to also talk about the Manhattan District Attorney in paneling a criminal grand jury presenting evidence there. Mostly all legal observers I've talked to believe a criminal indictment is going to be coming out of the Manhattan District Attorney's office against

Donald Trump. And of course, we got to talk about everybody's fan favorite in the Midas Touch YouTube chat room, George Santos. Also, everybody's seen Killing County yet. You've seen the poster behind me. Killing County is the new show on Hulu that I executive produced with Colin Kaepernick, Robem Briano, Monica Delerosa from ABC, an incredible team at Hulu and ABC News. It's doing great on Hulu right now. If you haven't watched it,

make sure you watch Killing County. It focuses on the crime, corruption, and police shootings that take place in Bakersfield and in Kern County, which just so happens to be Kevin McCarthy's district. It's arrowing, it's tragic, it's inspiring seeing all of these families coming together and exposing the corruption and it's told through a true crime lens. It's called killing county Again, Bakersville, they have the highest police shooting deaths in the country. You've got the highest homicide and murder rate in the country You got the highest crime in the country and all of that is in Kevin McCarthy's District You got the highest crime in the country and all of that is in Kevin McCarthy's District

Let me know what you think about the show and spread the message about killing county And before we talk about some of these other topics. I'm gonna toss it to one of our other co-anchors Jordi Mycelas who is a fan favorite to give you this quick message from some of our sponsors Jordi take it away and now let's take a quick break to talk about our next partner, Zbiotics. You ever skip a workout because of drinks the night before? Well, me too. If you're committed to your healthy routine this year,

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And now back to the video. Jordi does really good ad reads, Popeye. Don't you think, I mean, Jordi's a, Jordi does a lot of great things. Those ad reads, I wanna buy him. I wanna buy everything Jordi's selling. Yeah, I've listened, I've always tried you and I've talked about trying to find ways

for Jordi to get more involved with legal AF. He's a non-lawyer, but I've listened, I've always tried you and I've talked about trying to find ways for Jordi to get more involved with legal AF. He's a non-lawyer, but I've suggested throughout the years, I know he's a lawyer, a fishy anado, he likes being around lawyers, he likes the law, trying to find ways for him. And he's a great, he's great at this part. He's one of my fan favorites. I like Jordi a lot. No, he's everyone's fan favorite. He's probably the favorite host of Legal AF right now

based on those average. So we talked about Alina Hababa before the sponsor break and we explained that she was not at the emergency hearing when asked why she wasn't there. One of the lawyers was like, oh, she just couldn't make it in time. Really? She could have made it in time.

She would obviously be there. And in her past appearances, you know, she's a horrible lawyer in every aspect. And in many ways, she's the worst lawyer Donald Trump's actually ever had. And I'm including the one that Giuliani farted on. What's her name? Jenna Ellis. Like, Jenna Ellis is not as smart as Habba, but she doesn't really pretend to be. Like she sat there and took that Giuliani fart right to the face and was just like, I'm good with this, like I'm okay with it.

Like Alina Habba pretends that she's smart and she gives the slight appearance that you know, she knows what she's talked, but she doesn't. She knows less than Jenna Ellison. You think she's worse? You think she's worse for Trump than John Eastman, or Rudy, or Sydney Powell? A worse lawyer. I'm not worse for Trump.

a worse lawyer. I'm not worse for Trump. But she's just, she's really bad. Like Eastman, you're right. They're all really bad. I, I, I, they're, you know, Giuliani. You can't choose one. You can't have, it's like a potato chip. You can't just eat one. I can't choose one. But, you know, get Trump criminally indicted. You're all right. Lose Trump a million dollars.

You got some real problems here. You know, so and that's where Elena Hobb is at. You know, and Elena Hobb is approached though too. Like when she would show up to court with Angkoran and Goran in a case that was very, you know, in a case that clearly Donald Trump Scott. He engaged in all this horrible conduct and Goron doesn't like the conduct that he's seen Trump engage in. And she would just like yell at the judge.

And so Christopher Kice, Trump's lawyer who showed up had basically a whole different approach with the judge, kind of like all shucks, right? Like, I'm sorry, you know, we'll work this out. Let's all get together. I got you, whereas Alina Habbo would yell at and goreon because she would think it's Fox or OAN or one of those shows. And then goreon would be like, you know,

I'm gonna sanction you, you know, I'm gonna hold Trump in contempt and a goreon did, you know, while Habbo is representing him in the special proceeding. But then you also look at the E. Jean Carroll case and Roberta Kaplan filed a document. Roberta Kaplan is E. Jean Carroll's lawyer and the document that she filed a letter brief to the judge on the heels of E. Jean Carroll's deposition just wrote, look, we got this notice, we got this call from Habba who said she's

withdrawing from the case and that they're bringing in Takapina, a new lawyer, and that they wanted a brief delay on the deposition. Look, Judge, we have trial set in April. We're okay with Habba with drawing. We just want to make sure that this isn't going to delay the trial there. And then Habba then wrote a letter back basically saying, I'm not actually out. Takapena is going to be the lead trial lawyer.

I'm still clinging on. I'm still around. I'm still in the orbit. And the sole reason that we need to talk about scheduling though Habba wrote, but the sole reason isn't because of the change of lawyers, but they clearly want to move that trial. And you saw it in Habba's response letter when she used the term, the sole reason why we want to talk about scheduling. And so, Hobba lies about everything.

Obviously, Hobba called Kaplan and said, I'm withdrawing, and then she begged Donald Trump to stay on in some capacity. And they're just playing games. And so, Roberta Kaplan did the right thing, sent a letter to the court. So, really two things to talk about. I don't think we need to be labor at the point is Habba in or out

She's an agent of chaos Whatever, you know, doesn't this really matter. She she's not a trial lawyer She won't be able to try the case. Takapena is gonna try the case regardless But I guess to me, Popoq, what's more interesting has been your hot takes on Takapena this new Trump lawyer who's taken multiple adverse positions, one in insurrectionist sentencing, and the other in this very specific case. And it's odd because you know, lawyers can have different clients, but like direct adverse positions, it's positions, it's, it, it, it comes very close to the line of an unwaivable conflict. It comes very close.

What do you think? Yeah. So, yeah, I agree with you. I think it's, this is what happens when lawyers who are practicing lawyers or also TV commentators and talking heads about the very same matters that they one day may want to be engaged as counsel. I think you either have to retire and become a legal commentator or do what we do, which is be a legal commentator, but never take a case for somebody that we've critiqued on the show because it's going to come back to bite you and the client in the butt, including maybe in court,

if Robbie Kaplan has her way and plays the old tapes or quotes from Joe Takapina legal commentator about the very case that he is now the lead trial counsel for. So not to the belabor the point and everybody's waiting with beta breath who haven't hasn't seen my take. Joe Takapina bulldog lawyer to the stars his represented every rapper around his represented a rod represented the guy that was accused of killing the poor Co-ed down in the Bahamas a number of years ago He takes controversial cases. He was a prosecutor. I think in the Bronx

He's got a good trial representation, but this is yet another example of Donald Trump picking the wrong lawyer for the wrong case. In the case of Alina Habba, she's not qualified really to handle any sophisticated litigation for him at all. She's just a puppet mouthpiece for whatever Donald Trump's musings are at any given moment and she just signs her name to it and files it like a lawyer exercising no independent judgment because she doesn't have any. We know that because she's been on cable news Attacking the very judge just in real time that she's appearing in front of for Donald Trump always a dangerous gambit to play

Joe deck, so she's wrong for almost all the cases the only thing right about her Was I don't know if he thought that a New York jury would want a female lead trial lawyer cross examining E. Jean Carroll, the 78 year old woman, now 78 year old woman who claims she was sexually assaulted, raped in a Manhattan department store dressing room that maybe they want a female voice. But I mean, Hobb is not that kind of person that would engender any kind of empathy or sympathy from a jury or authenticity from the jury. The jury, as you know, Ben, but to share it with our listeners and followers, one thing is certain, regardless of its state or federal, doesn't matter the decade that I'm talking

about. Juries historically will smell a fraud with a lawyer or a witness a mile away. They will smell in authenticity and they they create opinions about lawyers and if they don't trust the lawyer, which I don't know how they could trust Alina Haba I mean she'd have to start jury selection if she was the lead trial lawyer doing Breaking a cardinal sin, which is she'd have to break the fourth wall and say to the jury, do you know me? Have you seen me on television? Have you seen me make comments about this judge?

I mean, that's a terrible way to start your your jury selection process. That's her. Joe Takapina is no better because he's the wrong guy for the job as well. First of all, I'm not sure having a bulldog male trial lawyer going after E. Jean Carroll on the stand in front of a New York jury is the right look. If you know what I mean. Secondly, he's got his own problem because in in 2020, he went on or he gave a quote to CNBC in which in this case that he's now the lead trial lawyer as of Tuesday, he said

that that the article one of the or the first article one of the US Constitution setting this, the powers of the presidency does not include doing an ad hominem attack against somebody that's accusing you of sexual assault. You're not, there's no such thing as the mud slinger in chief, you know, taking a really hard tack against Donald Trump. Now look, I know, I know that Robbie Kaplan, lawyer, extraordinaire, rock star lawyer, is trying to figure out whether she can bring that into her courtroom in front of the jury. And I know it's going to be a fight over it, right? There's going to be that motion in limine, the motion to limit practice that you and I talk about a lot.

He's gonna try to keep it out because it's gonna be prejudicial. He's gonna blow the mind of the jury. It's gonna be not, and she's gonna argue well. I think what's good for the goose is what's good for the gander. He's representing him now. And these are statements that he's made about my client and about his client before, and we think it's relevant.

There's gonna be that fight. I'm not sure how Lewis Kaplan comes out on that, that he's made about my client and about his client before. And we think it's relevant. There's going to be that fight. I'm not sure how Lewis Kaplan comes out on that, but I think Robbie tries. And what's Takapena going to say to the jury? Well, at one time, I didn't trust him and I criticized him, but now I've seen the light and I think he's a truth teller in my client, Donald Trump.

That's going to be a very hard place for Joe to take. Now, I don't know why Donald Trump picked him. Now, he's using him in a number of cases. He's using him in this potential defamation case against Mark Palmerance, the former special prosecutor in the Manhattan DA's office about the memoir that's coming out this month called The People versus Donald Trump.

We've already seen him appear there. But as you said earlier, he's criticized Trump as recently as two weeks ago, representing another Jan 6th insurrectionist client, the one Julian Cater, who is going to be sued by Brian Siknik's family because he led to the death of Brian Siknik in spraying bear spray into that poor Capitol police officer officers face and disabling him. And he and Brian Siknik died a day later. And that was and then in the sentencing for Julian Cater, Joe Takapina, maybe forgetting

that he was about to be hired by Donald Trump. In this matter, we're talking about Eugene Carroll said that let my guy off the hook and lower his sentencing because he was just following the big lie perpetrated by people at the highest level. That's Donald Trump. I mean, I joke to my hot take. Joe talks out of so many sides of his mouth that he must keep a list of which cases. This is the case where I'm I trash Donald Trump to support one other client or am I representing Donald Trump for this one.

I mean, he's got to really keep it straight, which is weird because I've never in my 32-year career ever taken an opposite side of an existing client in another case, because I knew it was going to get rammed up my backside. At some point, I lose all credibility with the court and maybe with the jury. So Lena Habba, wrong trial lawyer for the job, obviously. So radioactive, she can't even get into a courtroom any longer for Donald Trump. And I think just a little bit of a twist.

You said she may have begged Donald Trump to stay in the case. What I think happened is she committed a Freudian slip, what they call a Freudian slip in Washington. She accidentally told the truth. She told Robbie Kaplan, who we trust implicitly and has been on legal AF podcast before talking about E. Jean Carroll and other things. She told her, I, I'm leaving the case, Joe Takapina is coming in as of Tuesday. We've got the second or third or fifth day of the, the deposition of E. Jean Carol, I presume on

the new civil rape claims. And I'm not taking that depot. He's taken it. We need a day or two extension. And you know, Robbie took notes and said, okay, great. But didn't and wanted to cut them off at the pass right now so that there wouldn't be any argument that if she agreed to an extension of time to let Joe Takapina get up to speed, remembering that Alina Haba took the first round of depositions against E. Jean Carroll, which we've reported on and have been released in transcripts that are now available. Then we've shown on the Midas Touch Network and at legal AF. But Joe's now going to do, I guess, the next round of depositions with E. Jean Carroll.

Robbie didn't want to have it thrown back in her face that she allowed an extension and therefore we're going to extend this hard April trial date for the combined defamation and civil rape case that's now going to apparently be tried by Joe Takapino. So she wrote a letter. We do a lot of letter writing to judges in the in the Southern District of New York informing her informing the judge. Sorry that yeah, there's a's a new guy coming in. We might be cooperative on a day or two on this, but we are adamant about a red line in the sand about the trial date.

She freaked out, I think, Hobbock, oh crap, the thing I told her sort of in private is now writ large in a filing on the public docket. And then they had a double back and say, no, no, no, no, she's going to stay in. They need, let's just talk trial strategy for the last moment. They need some female lawyer at council table for Donald Trump in a civil rape case. I looked at Joe Takapena's website. He doesn't seem to have that.

Maybe he has a young associate, but he doesn associate, and it can't be window dressing. The jury smells of fraud. If the jury thinks that the lawyer sitting there is only sitting there for window dressing purposes, they feel like they've been had and they get mad. So you gotta have somebody who can do a substantive role in the case. I don't know if they found that. The room around the street is they've been dialing around trying to find a female sophisticated trial lawyer who will jump into this case with Joe and haven't yet been successful.

So I think they keep Alina for now. But the day that trial happens, if they don't have a colleague that's female with them, they have another big problem in that case. PoPock, you gave a very graphic imagery before that I'm not going to let you get away with with things being shoved up, you know where I just wanted to flag that one. Number two, we've got Alina Habah who lies about everything and Roberta Kaplan who tells the truth about everything. So who do you believe in that conversation?

Isn't really even a close call. But I'm with you. That trial, that trial soon, that trial is April. Before we know it, there's going to be jury selection there. Trump's going to try to delay it. Just you watch. You could already see it and have his letter responding to the judge. The sole reason, the sole reason why we don't, why we need to have a meeting about scheduling is because of or not the sole reason is because of a change of lawyers. But anyway, I want to talk about this Manhattan district attorneys ramping up. I mean, look, and Hatton district attorneys ramping up. I mean, look, we've said it here, I've said, look, I agree with everybody,

everyone's frustrations against Alvin Bragg and frustrations may be putting it lightly. I share, I'm with you. But all I was delivering, and we had Alvin Bragg on, Karen Friedman Agnifalo, KFA, who's the number two, previous number two in the entire Manhattan District attorney's office, she interviewed Alvin Bragg.

By the way, I was reading those comments. I saw the criticisms of him. The only thing that I was saying is look, I think the criticisms are valid because, when you have people like Mark Pomerance and Carrie Dunn out there saying, we were ready to indict. And then this got this got taken away from us. And you got Pomerance putting out a new book that's basically reflect them of that as well.

And we all know that Trump needs to be held accountable. The only point that I was making is, look, everything that Bragg seems to be held accountable, the only point that I was making is look, everything that Bragg seems to be doing is suggestive that he's going to criminally indict Donald Trump. Bragg's the only district attorney in the entire country who's gotten a criminal conviction of a Trump entity to date. There's a lot of other DAs in the country who have jurisdiction over Trump.

It's not like Trump only exists in New York. He's the only one who's got a successful criminal conviction. So I think that's something. It's not Bragg's fault that the penalty is only 1.6 million. That's the New York state law. He got the max penalty. There are other things that's Bragg's fault, that that's the New York state law. He got the max penalty. There are other things that's Bragg's fault, that that's the crime he was trying,

the Trump orbit for, which is that weak sauce claim, and then people's other criticism of Bragg also was, look, Weiselberg got this sweetheart deal, but even there, what in my point was, but it wasn't like Weiselberg has immunity from all other criminal charges. He could still be convicted on other stuff and go to jail again. It's not like he's relieved of insurance fraud. He played guilty to certain tax fraud, very narrowly defined tax fraud, and that's it.

But Brad can go in criminally prosecute them on other things. And brags doing that right now, not criminally prosecuting them, but is utilizing the fact that I'm going to prosecute you again now for insurance fraud. The same type of insurance fraud that we see in New York attorney general, Tisha James civil lawsuit that she's suing civilly. There's criminal implications of that you being the CFO. So I'm going to criminally prosecute you again. Yes, you're in rikers right now. How do you like rikers? And now that Weissselberg's in rikers, which is like one of the worst places to possibly be in ever and in the country. And some of the worst places to be maybe even in the world. You got Bragg basically saying, look, how does this feel?

You want to cooperate now? And then also in paneling a grand jury in New York that almost certainly is going to criminally indict Donald Trump and soon. And so I just think and I always say this is why the wheels of justice move slowly. Is it what I've said? I said, look, if Bragg becomes the first to criminally indict and you know, Bragg becomes the first criminal and goes after Weisselberg again,

it kind of addresses I think a lot of those, some of the concerns, at least Popeye, what do you think? Yeah, but I think it is, and I'm not here to defend Alvin Bragg. I think that's exhausting to try to do that. But I think his strategy is now clear. As you said, the only prosecutor in America to get 17 wins against a Trump entity for criminal conviction. And he didn't need Alvin Bragg to implicate and to incriminate Donald Trump in the first trial.

Because that first trial wasn't against Donald Trump. It was against Donald Trump's entities, payroll and ink. He wasn't a name defendant in that case. So he didn't need Alan Weisselberg, the former CFO to flip for him on that. He needed to tie the organization together to the criminal fraud of tax evasion, which he did obviously, because the jury came back very quickly with a 17-count conviction. So step one, what is now apparent to me in Alvin Bragg's process was to squeeze one quarter of the lemon of Alan Weissselberg to get his conviction of the Trump organization then send Alan Weissselberg away

12 miles just 12 miles is between the Manhattan DA's office and Rikers Island where the prison where the jail sits, which means you can go visit him a lot. It's not in some faraway place. It's just 12 miles down the road in Upper Manhattan, make a right into the east river off of Queens and there's Rikers Island. So keeping him close. Now he goes back for the second squeeze of the lemon to go against Donald Trump in the

case of Stormy Daniels. And he uses now for the full squeeze. As you said, softening him up, it's like a boxer, you know, working the solar plexus, working the abdomen with body blows for six or eight rounds and then goes for the head and the knockout in the final rounds. And that looks like what Alvin Bragg's now doing. 78 year old, 79 year old,old, Al Weisslberg. How do you like the three squares a day in Rikers Island

in general population or otherwise? How do you like that? You like that? That's where you're gonna sit. Now let's talk about insurance fraud. Now let me put you on the horns of another dilemma. Two dilemmas, Mr. Weisslberg. One, we're gonna go after you for insurance fraud

because you defrauded Zurich insurance company and telling them that the insurance on property value that they gave to the company was based on independent appraisals. So when they said, well, how do you know the, uh, this $500 million or $1.5 billion for that piece of property of the Trump work owns? We'll ensure it. You have it backed by an independent appraisal, right?

And Al Weiselberg said, yes, which was a lie because there are no independent appraisals. There are no independent appraisals. It's all conjured out of the mind of Donald Trump, who one day just said, oh, I think Trump tower is worth $2 billion. I think my apartment in Trump tower is 30,000 square feet when it's really 15,000 square feet. So they lied to Zurich, is based on that Zurich, insured these buildings and set premiums on an amount that was fraudulent.

The other horn of a dilemma is to protect Ivanka. Now, I don't know directly the relationship between Alan Weisslberg and Ivanka, but Ivanka is in the crosshairs of the insurance fraud itself, because she signed applications related to the insurance where they repped and warranted that these independent appraisals were done. So if he wants to protect Ivanka, maybe the daughter and not spend the rest of his natural born life and die in a federal, in a state prison, then he'll have to cooperate because this isn't five months. This is five to 10 years, and he's already a felon convicted. So the sentencing guidelines in New York go up even higher, what would be his second conviction in less

than a year. So Alvin Bragg has him by the, you know what? And as squeezing now at the moment he needs to, which is to have him testify about Stormy Daniels to remind everybody what is the link between Weiselberg and Stormy Daniels Weiselberg long time CFO chief financial officer, Michael Cohen, friend and fellow podcaster has already testified and is cooperating with the Manhattan DA's office with its new special grand jury that no money moved, no money flowed in the Trump organization without Alan Weiselberg knowing about it and without Donald Trump approving

it. He testified that Donald Trump told him to go pay off Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign, sort of a catch and kill program, go catch that story and kill it so that it doesn't back up on me in my in my campaign about the affair that I had with her and pay her $130,000 at a your own funds, Mr. Cohen, Michael Cohen, my lawyer, and will reimburse you. That's what happened. Michael Cohen stroked a check for $130,000 out of the account of Michael Cohen, which went ultimately to Stormy Daniels through her lawyer.

And then Michael Cohen got reimbursed by the Trump organization with a ledger entry in their books, fraudulent, that said said legal retainer or legal services rendered. That wasn't a payment to Michael Cohen for legal services rendered which Michael testified under oath. That was a reimbursement for the Stormy Daniels payment. That they have in documentary evidence with Alan Weiselberg approving it because he approved all the books and records and the controller, Mr. McConney, is going to also be of of course, in the Crosshairs on that. So you're looking at basically life or death in prison, a death sentence, Mr. Weiselberg, if you don't testify and we're going to go after Ivanka Trump as well.

Won't you cooperate now? That's the two-step process. That's the two-step fruit squeeze that I think Alvin Bragg is doing. And to paraphrase our illustrious colleague, Karen Friedman, Agnifalo, in an interview that she gave to New York Times in mid-January, Alvin Bragg, year one, we could all take potshots on it. Alvin Bragg, the start of year two of his administration of his tenure, he's starting to get his sea legs. And nothing gets

your sea legs faster than a 17 count felony conviction win against an entity owned by Donald Trump. Couldn't agree more with you there. And so with David Pecker going, I mean, all these names to man, I just can't, I got to reflect on him. I think it's Picard, but I don't care. I like David Pecker. Yeah, you got you got Pecker in the Stormy Daniels Donald Trump or DL. You can't you can't make this stuff up. We're going to see more witnesses testifying before this criminal grand jury. I am sure one of the offerings we have here at the Midas Touch Network as well as Michael Cohen

and I will have a podcast called political beat down where I mean look it's not every day you have the witness in the criminal case against a former president as a co-host on a podcast. We got that here in the Midas Touch Network and Cohen's become a very good friend of mine and just a great all-around guy. So check that out, political beat down wherever you get your podcasts. If you like legal AF, you'll probably like political beat down the new podcast on the minus touch network. What you'll also like, I think,

is the political beat down, if you will, on the criminal beat down, if you will, of George Santos, where a fraud will get there just deserves here. And, you know, Santos is just a horrific human being at every level. I mean, lying about every aspect and just the sick, sick lies about mother dying in 9-11 and his mom survived 9-11. None of it even close to being true, because mom was even in the country

at the time that his dad survived 9-11, that he had employees who survived the Pulse Night Club shooting, all lies that he had. His grandparents were Holocaust survivors, just a total lie, that he was Jewish, a total lie, that he worked in these jobs and that job went to this school and oddly specific, Baruch volleyball, the new weird one is, was, was, was the Pope, the Spider-Man? And that, that the failed, this is perfect. There was a tremendous, tremendously well-known notorious failed Broadway show called Spider-Man After Dark. I was in New York at the time.

It was like one of the highest capital raise for a Broadway show because everybody thought it was going to be successful. $80 million to put on Spider-Man After Dark, which by the way, as an aside, was plagued with the ghosts of theater past. Spider-Man fell and hurt themselves during practice and rehearsals. And this thing was like, you know, doomed to fail. Overall, people used to, this is sad. People in New York used to go get tickets to watch it

to see what mishap would happen on stage because the set was so complicated and the aerial flying around. This is the Broadway show that George Santos has now claimed that he was a producer of, meaning he raised money. And of course, the real executive producer and producer of the show denied any connection at all. I think he just takes your bio, Ben, and just comes up with versions of it and then lies

about it. That's why, you know, I love what I do at Midas Touch too much, but I've been so tempted because that's my home district, the third congressional district. I've been so tempted. I was like, look, he literally lies about the things that I actually do. I said, so if I go to that third, I'd be a good foil. If I went just not now. If I went to the third congressional district and I ran for Congress, but I think that I honestly, I mean this sincerely, I

think the work we do at the Midas Touch Network, the work that you and I do at Legal AF, I think is a truly a larger and more significant platform than what I could actually accomplish if I ran for that third congressional seat. And so I don't think I'm going to, I don't think I'm going to do that, but I toy with it every now and then I was like, I would love to, I would love to just, did you know, did you know, and I learned this because of George Santos, so we're going to talk about now whether he should stay or he should go and who's going to prosecute him first. Did you know you don't actually have to live in the district at the time that you're running? You have to eventually be there, but you know,

it's local government is different. A lot of local government, you got to like live in the district. You don't, you could do it from California. That's what I think there's different states have different, you know, but it's a work in progress. It's a work in progress in my mind. Four more years. Four more years. So we've talked about the Santos being investigated for campaign finance. No, Santos. No, you said the Santos.

The Santos, I'm sure, will be investigated for campaign finance for one day. So they're all this, you know, they're all the the santo santo santis. But yes, we've talked about santo's being investigated for campaign finance fraud. And what we talked about in the last episode where the Department of Justice told the FEC don't file anything yet. We've got this. And one of the main issues they're looking at is Santos claiming that he loaned his campaign $700,000, but it seems to just be an end to run around the campaign finance limitations of $5,800 per election cycle for 5,600, 2,800 in the primaries and then 2,800 in the general elections and basically pooling this money and then claiming he

loaned it to himself. But in fact, it came from outside sources. It seems so obvious. There's also, you know, he's tried to do end run-arounds disclosures by making all of his payments $199 in costs. So he wouldn't have to provide receipts for things, which just, again, you can't do that. There's so many campaign finance violations. He's going to be prosecuted for that. It's just a matter of when, not if. Then the new one that the

FBI and the Eastern District of New York federal prosecutors opened up. The story we've talked about on the Midas Touch Network before, but now there's a criminal investigation. Santos had a fake charity. It's not a real chattel charity called like Pets of the World United or some ridiculous name like that was not a 501c3 was not registered. He lied and claimed it was registered. That alone is a crime. But what he would use this for was to prey on disabled military veterans. This is who the this is who a Republican is in 2023 right now because they elevated and they

promoted him to committees granted he removed himself from committees but the Republicans support this stuff. They were aware of this stuff when they put him on committees and so he created a sham charity that preyed on military veterans in the most insidious and despicable of ways too. I mean, praying on military veterans at all is disgusting, but the way he would do is he would say that if their pets got sick, he would provide life-saving services for their pets. And so with this one individual, for example, Astaf who has the text messages, disabled homeless veteran whose pit bull mix

Sapphire was the name of the pit bull mix. It was developing a tumor and was going to be euthanized if there was not a surgery. And Santos said, let me help you. Let's do a go fund me, put up the go fund me and it's the most sympathetic facts. Disabled homeless veteran veteran dog has a tumor. So you raise thousands and thousands of dollars. And then when the disabled homeless vet went to actually get the surgery, Santos is like, I don't, you know, first Santos would send him to places. And the places would be like, we don't know what you're talking

about. Like we don't, we, we, who's pets's pets united We if you want to pay us we'll do the surgery, but we're not just gonna do the surgery for free And so Santos would give him the end run or you know the run around and then finally the military veteran said I realize what you're doing to me you're you're defrauding me and then Santos sent him like these horrible text messages like You are selfish how dare why are you being so needy pets, pets of the world united or whatever, this stupid charity fake charity is called, you know, we care about these issues. Our reputation is on the line. Anyway, there's wire for on malphrod a ton of fraud there that the FBI is investigating and Santos will be prosecuted undoubtedly for that as well.

There's no indictment yet, but like, how low can you go? How low can you go? Praying on disabled military vets by lying to them about getting life-saving care for their dogs. By the way, Sapphire died and ended up getting euthanized because they didn't get the surgery. Um, I just like horrific, horrific, just like a horrific human being at every level and the Maga Republicans are like, Santa, does is great.

We love this guy. He's our guy. Santa's, it's so strange. Let's talk about how to remove him because I'm not buying that he made the decision on his own not to step down from the committees. I'm pretty sure somebody MacArthur's office sat him down in a private dungeon somewhere and told him you're embarrassing the speaker. You need to

kind of step down because the speaker's position is that we're going to do a full ethics investigation and see where those facts lie. So that's not a great sign that all of that original line. So that's not a great sign that all of that original wagon circling that you and I talked about a couple of weeks ago were gates and barge retailer green were treating him as like they're a little buddy they're a little brother they're a little plus one for every vote is now sort of you're off your committees. I don't think that was his own thought process. This is not by way of defense. It's just my comment. I don't feel sorry for him, but he's got a mental disorder. I don't know what it is, but there's no way that a rational human being that's not somehow pathological or psychotic or whatever would create this many

lies that are so easily refuted and so easily corroborated that they are lies in one lifetime in one two-year period of time without having some sort of mental disorder. I don't know what it is. I'm not qualified to give that. That advice on this podcast, but something is seriously wrong with George Santos. How do you remove somebody? We've talked about who's going to catch up faster, the the house and have so many facts in front of them that they can't deny it any longer or the criminal prosecutors. Brazil restarting their criminal prosecution five to 10 year sentence for the identity theft

and check bad check writing that it did in Brazil. Younger. Westchester district attorney, because it happened in her district, Latisha James, She doesn't like when candidates lie and grift to people to raise funds and get elected as a result. Eastern district, as you said, Department of Justice telling the FEC Federal Election Commission, we got this step aside. We're looking at it from a criminal perspective. But we go to the

Constitution for a moment. We like you and I like going to the Constitution, referring to it, taking our little pocket, a little pocket versions of it. Article one, section five says that each house may determine its own rules. We just did all the whole rules package thing when McCarthy was finally out on the 15th round, being the speaker. And to continue the phrase in Article one, Section five, punish its members for disorderly behavior, not defined, and remove them on a two-thirds vote. It's called actually expel, but it's effectively removing them on a two-thirds vote.

Let's do the math. Two-thirds vote in the House is 291 votes to expel. Well, we know all the Republicans, oh, sorry, all the Democrats will vote for that. So that's two 20 and a quarter. And then you've got, you got to figure out how to get 70 non-maga Republicans. And I think they still exist to support a resolution to remove under Article one, Section five. It is a completely self policing entity, the House and the Senate Congress. We can't do anything about it. No taxpayer can file a lawsuit.

No judicial watch can file a lawsuit. Nobody can move. There's no impeachment proceeding. It is this one thing, this one circuit breaker that the founding fathers put in. It's been used. I've seen the numbers sort of all over the place in my research. I'll take it from the Senate historian. There's been 19 examples since the founding of our country where an expulsion has happened. Almost every one of them was during the Civil War when Civil War people,

kind of like what we talked about, about not having the ability to run for office or being, forget the phrase at the moment, but not being qualified, disqualified to run for office because of previously supporting insurrection against the country. But there have been some examples, including sort of recent examples of people being removed by that kind of vote. James Trafaconte, the late now, but disgraced member from Ohio, who got convicted of false tax returns, illegal contributions, obstruction and racketeering.

Okay, but you could, let me just explain this. Even with all those convictions, except I think if you're in jail maybe, you still got to be expelled from the house or you're still a sitting member. It doesn't say if you're on, there's no auto eject button in the constitution that says if you're convicted of a crime, even if you're sitting in the penitentiary, that you're no longer a house member. So the house in the Senate have to get around to exercising and invoking their rights and this procedure under Article 1, Section 5. My prediction is that there's just going to be so much overwhelming evidence as there has been and so many prosecutions that either George Santos is going to resign

because they're going to twist his arm to resign, which is usually what happens. Usually what happens when there is a move of foot to do an article one section five removal or expulsion. Usually that member gets the hint and the writing on the wall and to save some face, they resign when they don't they go through the process. I think he gets ultimately removed or resigned. Well, stop the prosecutions. Shouldn't stop the prosecutions. But I think that is how the, I think the end of George Santos or whatever his name is in the House of Representatives ends with a a whimper, not a bang with him resigning or the vote to expel. They'll certainly get all the Democrats.

They just got to pick up seven to your so Republicans. Republicans deserve absolutely no credit for anything they've done with Santos. They are in bed with Santos. They are the party of George Santos. And we need to make sure that voters know that each and every day If Santos was in the Democratic Party He would have won he wouldn't have even made it into a democratic to be our nominee And the moment we got wind of any of this he'd be out in a in a second in a second

It is utterly despicable to have, but this is who he is. I mean, it's just another, is it really, I said, DeSantis, but is it really much more different, than all of these frauds? I mean, you got DeSantis talking about, I'm giving tax breaks for stoves

and gas stoves, These people are radians. It's just it's just it's just idiocracy. It's stupidity. There are so many real important issues that we need to focus on as a country. We need to be focused on jobs. We need to be focused on healthcare. We need to be focused on educations.

We need to make sure that we are building our infrastructure. We need to bring in, we need to bring manufacturing jobs here to the country. We need to be protecting a woman's right to control her body, we need to be taking care of our veterans, we need to be focused on real issues and this stupid idiotic bureaucracy and George Santos and all this dumb crap I see from Republicans every day and they're just constant violations of law, they're thumping their nose in the Constitution, calling for the Constitution to be terminated. Donald Trump reposting statements, calling for a violent civil war, and then all these other Republicans saying he's the leader of the party. It enough is enough, and

I'm glad that we're calling it out here in the Midest Such, Newark, and specifically calling it out here on legal AFPOP, great spend in this time. Chatting with you on this weekend, want to thank all of our listeners and viewers for watching. Check out Killing County. If you haven't watched it on Hulu, let me know what you think. And please do me a favor after you watch it. Please post about it on social media.

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