Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Jack Smith HAUNTS Deranged Trump as Evidence MOUNTS & Indictments LOOM

Episode Date: June 4, 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 Legal AF is back for another hard-hitting look at the most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this week’s edition, the anchors discuss: 1) revelations in the Jack Smith’s Mar a Lago impending indictment of Trump of a an audio recording of Trump that destroys his “declassification” defense, the various crimes the prosecutors are considering, and their focus on new video surveillance evidence; 2) updates in the Manhattan District Attorney Stormy Daniels hush money cover up criminal case against Trump, including efforts by Trump to judge-shop and move the case to Federal Court; 3) how close Fulton County District Attorney Fanni Willis is to indicting Trump and others for a sprawling, multi-state criminal conspiracy related to election interference and threats; (4) who George Santos is protecting when he is seeking to keep the identity of the people who bailed him out secret; and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! SHORTFORM: Learn more than ever from important non-fiction books at https:/shortform.com/legalaf and receive 5-days of unlimited access and an additional 25% discount on the annual subscription. MANUKORA: Head to https://manukora.com/legalaf or use code LEGALAF to automatically get a free pack of honey sticks with your order — a $15 value! HIGHLAND TITLES: Use the discount code LEGALAF to get 20% off at https://HighlandTitles.com 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 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Special Counsel, Jack Smith, Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, Fulton County District Attorney, Fawney Willis, big updates in each of these matters led by these prosecutors first. It's Special Counsel, Jack Smith's Criminal Investigation, and Donald Trump's theft of thousands of government records and obstruction of justice. We learned about an audio recording. Low-irty there are recordings of Donald Trump. These recordings are now in Jack Smith's possession and in these recordings, Donald Trump purportedly

brags about having a classified document about military plans in Iran. Where is this document that Trump was referencing? Trump failed to turn over that document in response to a subpoena we are learning. We are also learning that special counsel, Jack Smith, is heavily focused on Donald Trump's potential tampering with surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago this as Donald Trump's lawyers are accusing each other of being snitches. Second, updates in the Manhattan District Attorney criminal case against Donald Trump for falsifying business records. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has filed an opposition in federal court to Donald Trump's attempt

to remove the case from state court to New York federal court. It is a motion for remand and Trump does not want to be in front of that state court judge Juan Morshan. That's for sure because in addition to filing the removal motion which happened around last month this week he filed a new motion one to recuse or to try to disqualify Judge Juan Moshan we will talk about that third we go south to Fulton County Georgia where we learn Fulton County District Attorney Fawni Willis is focusing on Donald Trump's criminal conduct, not just in Georgia, but also in other states. Why?

I've got one word for you. Rico, Rico, Rico, Suave. Rico charges against Donald Trump. We believe are being pursued by district attorney, Fawni Willis. And as part of demonstrating that conspiracy that Donald Trump was engaged in, she's focused on his conspiracy in other states to commit crimes. Finally, we can't have a legal AF without updating you on what's going on with

MagiRepublican, George Santos, who was criminally indicted by the Department of Justice out of the Eastern District of New York Division. The Federal Magistrate Judge in the Eastern District Federal Court gave George Santos until Monday after his lawyer begged for an extension to respond to the request by the media to release the names of individuals who posted $500,000 in bail for him, whose names for reasons that still aren't very clear to me are currently being kept a secret release those names and release Michael Popak, Michael Popak from legal. I'm Ben Myselis, a pleasure to be here with all the legal aeifers and with you, Michael Popak, how are you? I'm doing great, Ben. You know, there's a, that rundown, you just gave, there's a reason that Trump's closest advisors have told him to be prepared mentally, emotionally, physically, if he can, and financially,

if he can, for indictments coming out of Jack Smith, Fawney Willis, and maybe Alvin Bragg again over this summer. They've told him that he's got to be prepared for it because it is happening. And people that think, well, they're just blowing smoke and sunshine over there on the Midas Touch Network. Remember, we said the Alvin Bragg thing would come down. We were just off by about two weeks, but we got the month right. And we're going to get the month

right and the summer right for indictments against Donald Trump. Whether it matters to the MAGA electorate, that's probably doesn't matter. They're okay with him being multiply convicted, multiply indicted, multiply impeached, and a judge to be a sex abuser. That doesn't seem to move the needle for them. But for the rest of America and independence and women, I think it makes a major difference in the general election. And that's why we're here covering those factual legal political developments so people can make their right decision in the polls.

Let's talk high level timeline right now before getting into the updates on special counsel, Jack Smith. Remember Donald Trump leaves the White House January of 2021, and he steals all of these records. By the time the National Archives realizes that he stole all of these records, it is around May of 2021. They send a letter to Donald Trump saying,

hey, did you just like steal thousands of records, including classified records and sensitive compartmental information, they send that letter around May 9th of 2021. And then around May 11th of 2021, or shortly thereafter, there's that video of Donald Trump leaving Florida in a private jet with staff members who are carrying boxes and they are bringing it to bedminster. That's going to become important with some of the updates. We're going to be talking about later in this episode. Then throughout that remainder of 2021, the National Archives is saying, you need to return

these records. Donald Trump is saying, I don't have these records. Then you go to 2022. Finally, January of 2022, Donald Trump is like, okay don't have these records. Then you go to 2022. Finally, January of 2022, Donald Trump is like, okay, I'd found some things, but this is all that I have. I'm going to return it. I got 15 boxes. Donald Trump returns 15 boxes.

Lots of newspaper clippings, but when the National Archives opens this in January of 2022, and like open up the newspaper clippings, they go, what? There's classified material in here. There's sensitive compartmental information in here. There's information in here that needs to be viewed in skiffs. It's so highly sensitive. Sensitive compartmental information facilities. So then what is the national archived do they have no choice but to refer this over to the department

of justice. They then conduct an investigation as well. And they start asking Donald Trump and his lawyers like Evan Corcoran, what's going on. And then Donald Trump and Trump's lawyers say, we've returned everything. Everything's in the 15 boxes. We don't have anything else. So what finally has to happen, the Department of Justice has to issue a subpoena in May of 2022. They send this subpoena to Donald Trump and they say, please return any other documents that you have classified records, sensitive compartmented information, top secret information. You then have Donald Trump's lawyer Evan Corcoran, who becomes the lawyer, who leads the search. And his job is to try to search around in Mar-a-Lago. And he seems to have tried to take that job seriously,

but we are learning that Donald Trump may have been playing Evan Corcoran with some of his own aid, someone by the name of Walt Nauta, who will discuss more in this episode, who while Evan Corcoran was trying to conduct the search for classified material, kind of right out of one of these comedic sketches, although it's not funny because of the dangerous ramifications, you'd have like, Corcoran go downstairs in the storage room to count, and then you'd have Walt Nowt to take the boxes and then move them back to Trump's office

and kind of keep hiding it while these searches were taking place. Eventually, Evan Corcoran invites over the Department of Justice top counterintelligence official, somebody named by the name of Jay Platt to show up at Mar-a-Lago on June 3rd of 2022. The day before, now we learn through some of these surveillance footage, the special counsel, Jack Smith had Walt Nauta and a maintenance official by the name of Carlos Dioliveria

were moving boxes around in Mar-a-Lago and kind of shifting where the boxes were located that had classified material in them before the DOJ shows up on June 3rd as part of the response to the subpoena that they issued back in May. Evan Corcoran is there with Christina Bob. They sign an attestation saying that these are all of the records.

They put them in a red-weld folder, about 38 documents. They say, this is it. We have nothing else. Shortly thereafter, the DOJ did something very very smart. They issued another subpoena for Donald Trump's surveillance footage. That starts freaking everybody out at Mar-a-Lago, including that maintenance worker, Carlos Diola Varia, who then reaches out to somebody by the name of Yusil Tavares, the IT worker at Mar-a-Lago, who deals with this surveillance footage, who's now gone before the grand jury asking, hey, how does this surveillance footage work?

Like, what can they capture on those footage? And are we really going to give this footage over to the Department of Justice? Then the Department of Justice learns that Donald Trump has not turned over all of the records. They file for a search warrant on August 5th of 2022 that a magistrate judge signs on August 5th, on August 8th. They execute the search warrant. They find thousands of government records, including over a hundred additional classified records and many, many, many classified folders that are actually empty as well. Next up, Donald Trump files that motion

with Judge Eileen Cannon that delays the process that we talked at nauseam about here. And then you fast forward a little bit, the DOJ wins that battle. Special Counsel Jack Smith gets appointed in November of 2022. So about six months ago or so, special counsel Jack Smith's been investigating

everything since then, believes also there's been obstructive conduct since the search on August 8th of 2022. I want to give you that framework because a lot of these things that have been uncovered, like a lot of the things we've been talking about all have happened in under a year, right? And Spins Special Counsel, Jack Smith's been appointed.

We're talking about a six month period where a lot of these discoveries have been made. So with that timeframe in mind, because it's important that we go back and situate everybody on what's going on here. There's a lot that's happened. Popeye, give us some of the updates that we're now learning this week. Yeah, that's a great framework.

It's funny. You and I talk a lot before we get on to the show, but we didn't talk about one particular thing that I had come across and read. I'll probably end up doing a hot tick on it. It's, there's a draft prosecution memo that's been prepared by former prosecutors who are now in private practice, Norm Ice and Daniel Perry and others, and they really lay out in 150 pages exactly what the ultimate prosecution memo, what they would think Jack Smith's would look like back to Merrick Garland, laying out both the chronology that you just put down here for our listeners

and followers, almost to a T, and then matching it with about four major crimes that they think would be charged by Jack Smith related to Mar-a-Lago. This is a Mar-a-Lago draft or model prosecution memo, and all of those things that, before I get to the new updates, all of those things that you just laid out then for those prosecutors and of course they want to they want that to get out to the public and to get over to Jack Smith would violate at least four different major criminal statutes one of them being first of all we talked about this before on legal AF We talked about this before on legal AF

Mishandling of government documents SB Natch act 18 USC 793 little e National defense information or NDI Being the key driver of that statute not the fact that it's classified or top secret member for everybody There were third on Ben's description. There were 13,000 pages of documents on Ben's description. There were 13,000 pages of documents, ultimately, that the Donald Trump did not turn over of that. We always focus on this 100 top-secret classify, but there were another 12,900 that many of which went R N D I national defense information. And that's what matters for the statute, not the other thing. Then the second crime that they think has been implicated is concealing government records willfully 18 USC 2071. Third is obstruction, which is if you go back to Merrick Garland's press conference when he announced Jack Smith's

appointment, he must have said obstruction about six times Then, so obstruction is 18 USC 1519 in the criminal code. Criminal contempt, which we haven't talked too much about on the show, but it's sort of what it sounds like. There is an order from a federal judge. It was a search warrant. That is an order. There have been other turnover orders subsequent to that by the chief judge of the DC Circuit Court overseeing all things grand jury once

barrel howl now a Jeb Bozberg not doing what you've been told to do under a federal order by a judge is criminal contempt under 18 USC 402 and then the catch all that every government prosecutor uses in every case I've ever been involved with as a defense lawyer, is false statement to a federal official authority, which is 18 USC-1000 and 1. So when Trump or Corcoran make statements to Jay Bratt about, no, there's not 13,000 other or 100 and 100 top secret classified documents next store in the desk drawer of Donald Trump. It's just these 34 in envelope. That is potentially a lie and a 1,001 criminal violation, which I'm sure they've told Evan Quarkron.

Those are the crimes. The new information is we've got the convergence of focus on video testimony, video evidence, sorry, video evidence, and then the movement of boxes in and out of the storage room and the fact that Donald Trump intentionally misled his lawyer Evan Corcoran and Christina Bob by extension by telling them directly that all of the documents from the White House that were implicated by the National Archive and the from the White House that were implicated by the National Archive and the ultimate subpoena and then search warrant were behind one door of one room called a storage room at Mar-a-Lago. A, that turns out not to be true because right next door in the office or wherever the office is located at Mar-a-Lago, in a desk drawer, in another place as were these top secret and

classified in other documents. So he misled his lawyer to then mislead the government, J. Brat, in the meeting on June 2nd and others because it's not that he wanted to give his lawyer a plausible deniability. He lied to Evan Corcoran. Evan Corcoran has now basically said that. I did not know there were documents in any other place. Now Evan Corcoran's got his own problem because you've got to do due diligence and you've got to confirm things before you sign or have Christina Bob sign and say under penalty of purgery.

This is after a diligent search, all of the documents that exist, that wasn't true. It's hard to blame your client. Oh, my diligent search was in one room that Walt now pointed me to and wanted to sit on me while I did the review. And I just took my client at his word. I'm not sure that's good enough. One of the reasons I don't think Evan Corcoran is in the case anymore and had to depart

and has gone into the grand jury stripped of attorney client privilege. So you have the movement on the video cameras because you know, any master criminal like Donald Trump always forgets about his own video surveillance equipment sitting out in front of that same set of doors and on it because they subpoenaed that information the government from the Trump organization. They saw two things.

Well, one thing they saw, one thing they didn't see. The one thing they saw was movement of boxes on date stamps that showed up before the meeting with Jay Br Jay Brat on June 2nd and after Donald Trump was having Walt now to move boxes in and out of that room, even before Evan Corcoran could do a search. Go put a few more boxes in there, take a few more out. And then, okay, Evan, go in, they're all in there now. And then after he's booked, they took him back out again. That's what they saw in the video.

What they didn't see on the video was missing video. There was missing video that they're trying to get to the bottom of with the security company that runs these things, along with Matt Kalamari and Matt Kalamari Jr., who were responsible for security ultimately the Trump organization, and those two have gone in, of course, in testified. So then you got the bet minister, the maintenance worker who's already been identified by name by the New York Times. He's already gone in with his lawyer a couple of times.

It's a never great sign for Donald Trump when your maintenance worker has a criminal defense lawyer. And he's cooperating. He's fully cooperating with the government in every way, shape and form and just totally opening the books. He's got photographs. He's fully cooperating with the government in every way, shape, and form, and just totally opening the books. He's got photographs of the room. He talked about loading the SUV that walked out a drove from Florida to New Jersey, filled with boxes.

And then, I've said on this podcast, and in my own hot tics, there's going to be a search warrant that's going to be issued or a subpoena first for Bedminster. People here and with what we do have been amazed that as of right now, the government has been taking Donald Trump and his lawyers at their word about the search at Bedminster, especially with Tim Parletori going on CNN saying, I couldn't properly search Betminster. And it's the reason I'm departing because Trump's lawyer, Boris Epstein, has gotten in my way and interfered with my search. I don't know how that didn't immediately lead Jackson with team to go get a subpoena slash search point based on that testimony alone.

But I think we're going to see those developments in coming up soon. Ben, did I leave anything out between the video and the new recording that was part of the July meeting, July 2021 meeting, but before at Bedminster, but before going there, here's the thing I want everyone to remember about Bedminster, though, Jack Smith basically cut a deal with the lawyer, Tom Tim Parlettory, Jim Trusty, and some of the others, that those lawyers, who by the way, Parletory and Trusty have, of all of the lawyers on Trump's teams, have pretty good reputations before representing Donald Trump in the legal community. So I Tim Parliamentary just left and resigned about two three weeks ago for the reasons that you just stated when he said his

searches of Bedminster were being obstructed those searches were not just hey, I'm gonna do this search because Donald Trump wants me to quite the opposite. Special counsel Jack Smith had him do the searches. Same thing. At test station under penalty of perjury where if the lawyers at test stations were false if they obstructed justice, it would just be a new count. It would be a new charge where they could potentially face 20 years in prison if they lie. So, when I like to think about the toolkit of a prosecutor, one way to give an example is that they have the hammer, which is executing a search warrant, FBI agents show up, knock down the door, and conduct a very invasive search, like with a search warrant,

like what took place on August 8th of 2022 at Mar-a-Lago. But there are other tools in the toolkit. Sometimes you basically use a surgical scalpel because at the end of the day, the goal is to investigate the crime. The search warrant just won tool to investigate the crime. And perhaps if you conducted two search warrants, one at Bedminster, one at Mar-a-Lago,

you would be losing all additional sources of information that could potentially shut down because then both facilities would be locked down. I think Special Counsel Jack Smith has more people on the inside than we're currently aware of, that he knows what's going on at bedminster and in the other properties, that it would be Donald Trump's reflexive criminality after the August 8th search warrant at Mar-a-Lago to then try to hide documents and move documents

into a place like bedminster or Trump tower. And I think Special Counsel Jack Smith has got that. And remember, the National Security apparatus in the United States did a security assessment. These documents are all traceable, so we know what documents are missing at this point. And if they are missing, I think Special Counsel Jack Smith at this point pretty much knows where they are. But the other big update, you know, and I think it's helpful that I set out that framework in the beginning. And you could tell us a little bit about it, Michael Popebeck, is that in July of 2021, there was this meeting that was held between Donald Trump, some of Donald Trump's aides, and two people who were ghost writing a book for Mark Meadows, setting the stage, I'll toss it back to you.

Yeah, that's great. So, what we didn't know is that Trump would often meet with people like Mark Meadows, the ghost writer for Mark Meadows memoirs. Back when Mark Meadows thought he would be a popular novelist or author instead of being a potential criminal defendant, you know, when people didn't know he was burning documents in the White House fire place, they had a meeting and they, and at that meeting was an aid who recorded what happened at these meetings.

I guess for posterity and for notes and so they could help write the Mark Meadows book. And this is on the heels of Donald Trump always was incensed that then Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, General Milley, had gone out and to try to make the rest of the world feel more comfortable about this madman in the bunker like Hitler in the final waning days of the administration, having his finger on the nuclear button. He called his counterpart, for instance, in China to tell him, don't worry, we're not going to let this guy start World War III.

Basically, and he said other things publicly about what you would normally not do. And I originally read them. I'm like, wow, the commander in chief is being challenged publicly by under a civilian command structure by his chairman of the joint chiefs. And in any other world, you'd be like, that could be, that, you know, that could be treason on the part of that guy. But we all, of the, of the general, but in this case, because the rest of the world and thinking Americans were really worried about what Donald Trump would do, we wouldn't

put a past of starting a war in order to stay in office or, or get reelected or any of those other things. So he hated that, Donald Trump. And he hated the press and the media attention that Millie was getting. And so apparently, in and around this time, in about March of 2021, he said Millie, who he had called an effing idiot at Mar-a-Lago during a rant of his, said to the small group of people, including the aid in Mark Meadows, I'm not the war monger. Millie's the war monger. And I have a document, it's classified, really can't show it to you, but I have a document where he had war plans to go after Iran.

See, he's the madman, not me. Well, there's a number of problems with that. First of all, if that document really exists, and let's put a pin in that for a moment, let's assume Donald, here's a number of problems for Donald Trump's defense of the Mar-a-Lago case. One, he knew his documents so well. These half-hazardly packed boxes that just happened to show up from the White House that he actually had an inventory in his head that he knew about that document. So he could go, in order, he's telling us,

hey, go get me a Coke. And while you get it, get that milly document that I have that says he was gonna go for a war plan with Iran. Really, you know your documents that well? There's like an inventory. I thought there were thousands of them and you didn't know what was in those boxes. So that's the first problem. Second problem is that this demonstrates that he knew the things were classified and that they hadn't been magically telepathically declassified on on January 19th, what he left office or in the last

waning days. So you got that problem. Three, he sort of indicates that he knows he can't show people these things because he's a lot of classified. I didn't get a chance that they're not declassified. Okay, that's a problem. And it completely blows apart all the defenses that trustee and at the time, part of the Torey were so delicately crafting that got blown apart at the CNN town hall. Again, the gift that keeps on giving appears to be that CNN town hall now, because they've all known about this recording

for quite some time. It's early as March, they've known about this recording, the lawyers for Donald Trump, and they were on pins and needles apparently when he went in front of in May at the CNN event, and he used a very interesting phrase that I'm sure all of the investigators and prosecutors for Donald, for, at Jack Smith for Donald Trump

were circling, which was he said that he has, when they asked him, has he shown documents to people? He said, not really, not really, not know, not really, but I could have. And they all cringed, apparently, so reporting is reporting because they know about the March recording and they've been waiting for Jack Smith to strategically leak it to the media which he's now done as part of the prosecution team that it exists. But then there's a bigger problem.

Besides the fact, it blows away the whole, he overpacked, he didn't pack his own boxes or he overpacked the boxes and didn't know what was in them. And he didn't know there was classified or he declassified everything. All that tape does is destroy almost every one of those defenses that he could possibly have. He doesn't have any other defenses.

A reliance on attorneys doesn't work because he's never relied on his attorneys. They told him that he didn't declassify. Here's how you declassify. There's memos about classification that he was given before he left the White House that he ignored. He tried to lie to his lawyers.

Every lawyer he's ever had about Mar-a-Lago, he has lied to. From the very beginning, when they initially started, quote unquote, negotiating with the national archive about the return of documents in exchange transactionally. If you give me the Russia interference documents from 2016, I'll give you everything that I'm required to return. No, that's not any lie to his lawyer at that time. One that we haven't even talked about yet and told that person to tell the National Archive

that all the documents have been returned when there were 13,000 sitting over in Mar-a-Lago. Every, remember, every lawyer he's ever had about Mar-a-Lago and beyond, he has lied to, period. And that is the evidence that would go into the prosecution memo of Jack Smith. The other problem is, does the document even exist? He's either a liar and a fabulous,

who makes stuff up and set it to a group of people, which is, you know, you can believe that. Or he has the document, but they can't locate it. How do we know this? Because now there's reporting that in March, March was a big month. We, we didn't know it at the time because a lot of this didn't come out. And so Ben, you and I couldn't report on it. But March was in, it was an incredible month for Jack Smith

between the grand juries and everything else. One thing that we didn't know about is that a new subpoena got issued by Jack Smith through the, uh, Jeb Bozberg, the, the,berg, the chief judge of the DC Circuit, asking specifically based on new reporting and the tape that has been out with the government since March, they had a subpoena that said, give us everything that you have in your possession about an invasion plan or map related to Iran and Millie. What do you got? Which would capture this document if it exists. And the lawyers for Donald Trump,

including at the time Tim Parletori said, we got a couple of things about Iran, but we don't seem to have that particular document. So either it is lost, it is stolen and secreted, which goes to the government's point. You can't trust Donald Trump. Look what he's done. He can't, we can't even find it. It was in one of those empty envelopes, classified folders, can't find it.

Or he made it up, he just, he just, sorry, I just beat me out on that one. He just made it up, right, to get back at Millie to a small group of people that he never thought would see the light of day. They're both bad. They both show criminal intent, but, but one of them is just, so I'll be asking about you. Think that document exists. Yeah.

Three points, and I'll close the loop here. Number one, I think the document does exist because I don't think special counsel Jack Smith would subpoena for the very specific document if it didn't exist. Remember, the DOJ is working closely with the national security advisors to know what documents are missing. So, and then also we've learned from the recent reporting that special counsel Jack Smith has also been

cooperating with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, or I should rephrase it the other way, that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, is cooperating against Donald Trump with special counsel, Jack Smith. And I think we know a little more about the document too, that provides a little layer of specificity, and it was actually created before Mark Milley became the chairman of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff as well, which is why it's not actually even a Mark Milley related documents. That's one point I want to make. The next point I want to make is the incident also shows how transactional Trump is with the documents. You could imagine that that one was recorded by his aide, Margot Martin, someone who worked for him at the White House and worked with him after the White House. She was the one was recorded by his aide, Margot Martin, someone who worked for him at the White House and worked with him after the White House.

She was the one who recorded it. So there's probably tons of meetings that aren't recording. You could pretty much imagine almost that every meeting him saying and bragging about the classified records. Yes, that's the malignant narcissist he has and that's why he wants to have these records in the first place. Finally, my theory is, special counsel Jack Smith was not the one who selectively leaked

this story to CNN. I think it was Tim Parlatory who selectively leaked it to CNN. Tim Parlatory who resigned from Donald Trump's legal team, who would know this, who knew about the obstruction that was taking place at Bedminster. Tim Parlatore had what was been referred to as a murder suicide pack with Donald Trump's other lawyer, Jim Trusty, that they would both leave together. Trusty is still in there. I think this was a move by Parlatore to kind of let the other lawyers know that you better get out of this thing because you're about to get in trouble and to let the world know that parlatory was right for getting out when he

did. Need to me has the motive to do that. I don't want to cut off your points. Did you have another point? I want to talk about parlatory for a minute. Talk about parlatory, but first, make a quick break. Oh, this is one of our favorite new partners. Short form.

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annual subscription. Join short form through the link shortform.com slash legal AF. That's a free trial and an additional 25% discount on the annual subscription of short form at shortform.com slash legal AF. Welcome back to Legal AF. We are live pop-ok before we took that commercial break. Yeah. You were getting worked up. You were cursing. You were, we had a bleep you there for a moment. And so we just had a, we had to settle down a little bit. So tell me, you know what's not short form you and me. We're not short form. We're a long form legal a furs and here we go the I I agree with you that I think there's leaks going on at the Trump attorney departing attorney level, but I also think there's a reason we've been so that's one One stream of leaks that's coming out, but the other stream of leaks are strategically by by Jack Smith

People were in the beginning we would get a lot of flack like, or we'd see it in the tweets and social media. I don't think he's doing a darn thing. We're not hearing anything about these grand juries. What's going on? I want to hear more about what's going on in secret grand juries, and we were like, be patient. First of all, he's not a leaker,

but the reason we're hearing about it now is not because Jack Smith's lost control of his investigators and his lawyers and their, this is strategic. This is what prosecutors do when they want to put pressure both on the, on witnesses that have yet to be cooperative like Walt Nauta, the personal valet who knows a lot, but has told Jack Smith I'm not cooperating anymore, unless I get an immunity deal and they haven't yet given them the immunity deal. If they're going to do that, I think they're going to, they're going to do it ultimately. And it puts pressure on people like Donald Trump to let them know that they're coming

for them, which of course they've always known and squeezing other witnesses that we haven't even talked about yet. Walt Natta is a big problem, has a big problem. And Jack Smith wants to crack that nut to get everything out of him about Mar-a-Lago. I think they're going to make one more run at him or they're just going to tell the lawyer, we're going to indict your guy. We're going to indict your guy because we don't think he's been honest and truthful based on the video evidence. We think he knew about his complicity with Donald Trump and moving these boxes. He knew why he was moving them. He knew he wasn't just a moving man,

moving boggy. He knew he was doing it for a reason. He, because he offered to go, not offered. He was instructed to try to get into the room with Evan Corcoran, when Evan Corcoran was searching through the documents, and Evan Corcoran was like, I barely have national security clearance. I'm not going to let you go look at the boxes. But that was Donald Trump wanted to put his guy in the room to make sure that Evan Corcoran didn't go astray and misleading. So there's culpability for Walt now to, and if he doesn't get on to the train, he's going to get run over it. Or as I like to say, this is a line of nails. And Jack Smith is the hammer.

I couldn't agree more with you there. Did you have a point on Tim, a parlor, you also wanted to make or was it? No, no, that was it. No, it was your point that, yes, I believe, didn't Parliamentary is leaking, but I think there's also strategic leaking about the prosecutor. I like it. Let's talk about another prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, some updates to report in the Manhattan District Attorney criminal case against Donald Trump. You'll recall back at the end of March, Donald Trump was indicted on 34 separate felony counts for the falsification of business records relating to his hush money

payments to an adult film star that he was assigned to the case, judged by the name of Judge Juan Mershon. Donald Trump does not want this judge presiding over this case. Judge Juan Mershon presided over the other Trump organization criminal case where Trump organization was convicted on 17 felony counts for its tax fraud and related crimes earlier or several months back. It seems like a long time ago, but that was only a few months ago when that happened. So Donald Trump sent a few things. First, he's filed what's called a removal

to try to get the case removed to federal court, saying that the conduct at issue involves his conduct while he was in office, his defense is involved, defenses that he would be asserting that are federal in nature because he was in office at the time. So he says a federal court should be presiding over it. The case eventually got transferred to a

federal judge named Judge Hellerstein, who actually has some experience with Donald Trump. It's not exactly a favorable judge for Donald Trump. In fact, I'd probably, if I was representing Trump, which just induces vomit to even think about, I'd probably want to be in front of Judge Juan Mershon instead of Judge Hellerstein and federal court. So that move kind of backfired in any event. And I think recognizing that it backfired and that Donald Trump also thinks that he wants to now be in state court, but

now he just doesn't want to be in front of Judge Juan Mershon. He filed a motion to recuse or to disqualify Judge Juan Mershon saying that there are conflicts of interest there. But this is part of a pattern and practice of Donald Trump, as well as mega Republicans in general, essentially trying to weaponize the fact that judges who are pro-democracy take their ethical responsibilities very, very, very seriously. And so they try to exploit that because unlike a mega Republican judge, like a Clarence Thomas, for example, who just goes out and parties with and takes millions of dollars in gifts from people who go before him and whose wife, basically it has a whole career based on business

relating to the Supreme Court. Pro-democracy judges who care about the law, even the Supreme Court, you know, pro-democracy judges who care about the law, even the smallest things, sometimes they'll recuse themselves for. And so this is all part of a plan of judge shopping and attacking the judiciary. I want you to talk more about it, but I wanted to make that broader point. I don't think Judge Juan Mershant will recuse himself here, but nonetheless, it is framed through Judge Juan Mershan will recuse himself here, but nonetheless, it is framed through Judge Juan Mershan is a good person whose pro-democracy who cares about law and order. So exploit that by putting their reputation into this.

Let me pick up with the recusal disqualification that I'll just touch briefly on the removal because we've done that before. We've seen a number of judges in the last few days actually talk about their appearance of impropriety or bias and then make a decision whether to stay in the case or go. Got three examples right here, right? We're not going to spend too much time on it, but we got the judge down in Florida, North Florida, federal case, who's decided that because a distant relative had 30 shares of Disney stock, he was, federal case, who's decided that because a distant relative had 30 shares of Disney stock, he was going to remove, he was going to disqualify himself, recuse himself, and step out of the case of Ron DeSantis versus Disney or vice versa, Disney versus

Ron DeSantis. Most people shook their heads because he wrote a scathing order on the way out, a very noisy departure. Like, why'd you when some relative have 30 shares that doesn't sound like that's enough even under the federal standard. Then you had Judge Hellerstein, which we'll talk about in the removal, he figured out that back in 1990s when he was, because he's in his late 70s, when he was a lawyer and a partner at a now defunct law firm in New York, but that was very well considered called Struckstruck in Levant, that he actually worked himself, not just the firm, on a matter involving the entity

that owns Trump Tower. So he represented Donald Trump by extension, by it was called, I think it's called Trump Fifth Avenue, holding company. You know, lots of people, lots of lawyers in Manhattan have done work at one time or another. I know at least three of them for Donald Trump and his business affairs and business dealings. When he was a semi-legitimate business person, subject to the fraud and civil fraud that's being brought against him by the New York Attorney General's office. And here you have,

so he said, I do not, he didn't leave it to the parties. He said, I don't see this at all as impacting my ability to be impartial or biased or to be impartial and not biased. And I'm not getting out. Anybody want to say anything about it? Well, who would say anything about it? Donald Trump's not going to say anything about it. He represented Donald Trump.

And the other side, man, at D.A., I'm sure it doesn't care. So you have that. Now here with Juan Mershon, we've done the reporting in the past. And I'm not making these numbers up just to minimize it. He gave a $30 donation to either act blue or Joe Biden directly at some point. Put aside his family issues because nobody in the disqualification, recusal analysis, what your loved one does for a living or in their spare time doesn't matter. As long as you don't have that bias or partisanship about you as a judge,

doesn't really matter what your wife or daughter do in this case. matter what your wife or daughter do in this case. So the so in order for a Trump to win in his efforts to to judge shop assuming he doesn't get the case out of federal court. He's got to stay in the federal in the state court. He wants to get rid of Juan Moshon. Why? We've talked about it in the past. Why? Because Juan Moshon presided over the 17 count jury conviction of the major Trump entities for tax fraud. Donald Trump's on the record is saying he didn't like the way that Juan Mershon handled Alan Weisselberg and the testimony against the Trump organization forcing basically Weisselberg to make a decision in a day's time after he'd been given a

considerable amount of time about whether to testify or not. And then telling him, you can go to Rikers Island, I don't really care. But you're going to either testify and cooperate or you're not. And I don't care which, but we start the trial on Monday. Well, Trump did like the way Mershan handled Weiselberg. And then, of course, Mershan in the one major role he had during the trial was he, at the end, he fined the Trump organization entities $1.6 million. So they want to get a rid of Mershahn. The standard in New York, because it's different in every place, and I practice in New

York. The standard in New York is similar. It's whether the judge and the judge himself or herself makes that initial call under a very liberal abuse of discretion standard, meaning it's very rarely, if ever, overturned at the higher levels of court, they have to make the decision that they can no longer be fair and impartial because of some significant conflict. And the other side has the burden of demonstrating that there is a substantial evidence of a significant conflict. They're never going to be able to do this here. The $30 donation and the courts are clear.

The court decisions are clear. Bad rulings that you got against you in a prior case or in this case is not bias. You have to have more. And if's the burden is on them on Trump's lawyers, necklace and Todd Blanche, to prove that there is a substantial evidence to support a significant conflict for this judge. What they want to do is try to embarrass the judge to step aside on his own, because there is case law in New York at the Court of Appeals level, which is the highest court in New York, that if you, the judge shouldn't let it get that far, if the judge believes that there is an appearance of impropriety, he should step aside and let the chief administrative judge reassign the case. But I don't think the judge here is going to do that.

He, and this is also in a lot of states, but not in New York, unfortunately. I would have argued that they've waited too long to raise the issue, because in Florida, where I also practice, you don't bring that, that motion within 10 days of you having knowledge of the issues that you think are grounds for the disqualification. You've waived. We're two months out from a rainment. They've known about that donation for a long, long time and anything else they're going to put together. Now, we don't have all of the ability to talk about the motion because it was filed under seal. It'll be

unsealed soon. We'll get copies of it. But for right now, we're doing a little bit of shadow boxing based on a press release that the Trump organization put out or the Trump lawyers put out about it. The end of the day, I do not believe that Judge Juan Roshan is going to let another judge handle this case. He's not going to find that there's an appearance of impropriety. It says a terrible precedent every time a criminal defendant, garden variety, doesn't like his judge, looks up as political background or record and just says, oh, you got to get out.

He's all right. I'm getting out. He's not going to do this criminal. And this is state. This isn't Florida federal about Disney. This is about due process and due process rights. So I think that loses. On the removal side, just to break out a little legal AF law school, the party that wants to drag it into federal

court from state court, literally make a federal case out of it, files this notice of removal. They have to have grounds. The grounds here, the only, there's only one ground that they could possibly do by arguing that Donald Trump is a federal officer at the time of the crime, at the time of the crime, or the crimes that are charged, or the actions that support the crimes. And as a federal officer performing a federal officer function, he's being sued in state court. That's called federal officer removal jurisdiction.

And that's the only hook they have. And so Alvin Bragg did a great job in his motion for remand, which is what you do when you want to, you want to keep it in state court. He said, he's, he's not a federal officer. First of all, the statutes and the law around the statutes says that presidents don't qualify as federal officer. That's interesting. And even if he was a federal officer, when the crimes that were alleging, both federal election and state, garden variety, run-of-the-mill, business record fraud, state of New York, that happened while he was a candidate, not when he was president.

The fact that some of the book entries and some of the payments made back to Michael Cohen was when the guy won the office and was sitting there. Doesn't mean it was a federal officer's performing a federal function when he was covering up the stormy Daniels affair. So not a federal officer, even if he was a federal officer, he wasn't functioning as one. This was a private business matter. And my favorite part of them of the papers of the motion for remand is when they used the Donald Trump's own words against them.

And they found his tweets when he was still tweeting when Donald Trump said that the agreement between him and Stormy Daniels, the NDA, non-disclosure agreement. And all of that relationship was a, I'm not, this is sounds like a pun, was a private affair, a private agreement between two parties. Right. You weren't president. It wasn't a presidential act to enter into this cover-up agreement with Stormy Daniels to pay her money.

Your own words and hanging him on his own petard, which we've said, prosecutors are gonna use the words of Donald Trump at every press conference, tweet, social truth, rally, campaign, whatever interview against him in their filings, and it is persuasive. And I think this case with Hallerstein at the end of June is going to stay with Judge Mershon and Mershon is going to stay with the case.

I just think how disgraceful this is. Remove the legal trappings just for a moment. The Donald Trump's argument was that paying an adult film star, hush money payments, was a presidential act. And this is someone who large media networks normalize. This is someone who is the leader of the modern day Republican party. That is not me being hyperbolic in saying, oh, that's what he says. He literally said it. That's his motion that paying an adult film star

is a act of him in his official capacity as and the falsification of business records, part of his official capacity of being a president of the United States. It is so utterly disgraceful. But then we turn south to Fulton County, Georgia. There we expect indictments to take place late July to early to mid August. And don't take our word for it. Just take Fulton County District of Derni. Fony Willis is word for it. She's previously sent a letter to the Fulton County Sheriff's Department letting them know that they should be prepared for high profile indictments in that July 31 to August, a few weeks into August time period. Fulton County District Attorney Fony Willis has similarly sent correspondence to those

working within her office, the Fulton County District Attorney's office, and the courthouse into all of the judges, letting them know to prepare their dockets to try to hold remote hearings during that time period as well, so that they could be prepared for high profile indictments that will be taking place in that time period. And now we learn about the expansive scope of this investigation focused on these other acts criminal acts by Donald Trump and his top aides in other states because part of showing this overall criminal conspiracy that also took place in Georgia had tentacles in all of these states when you bring a Rico and racketeering charge, you show this common plan and scheme. And ultimately, you're able to charge Donald Trump with the acts of those, even at the lower rungs of the common plan

and scheme. And his Rico racketeering charges, that's a major powerful tool in mob investigations, mob mafia criminal prosecutions. Because usually the mob boss isn't the person who actually does the hit, right? Usually, the mob boss puts out the statement, and then that gets trickled down to lieutenants, it gets trickled down to the individuals who actually do the hit. And how do you charge the mob boss with murder? Well, one of the ways is through the Rico racketeering criminal enterprise type of charge.

And that's what Fulton County District Attorney Fawney Willis is here. And if you look at that same structure, you start to think about Donald Trump at the top. You start thinking about people below that, like Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who wanted to seize voting machines and when they couldn't do that, they then had criminal conspiracies to find kind of, I guess you call them

Magadonians now. I guess that's what Donald Trump calls the cult to find your Magadonian Republicans who are who have clout in certain red areas. And so for example, in Georgia, you had someone by the name of Kathy Latham, who was the chair of the coffee county GOP, who allowed people in the Trump campaign to breach voting data to steal voters data in the coffee county elections office.

So there was basically a robbery. There was a break in that took place. And that didn't just happen in coffee county that also took place in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Colorado. And there was also Donald Trump had his people engaged in other criminal conduct in places like Arizona and New Mexico and, that also took place in Georgia and in other states. So you kind of put that all together as part of pleading, Yoriko and racketeering. I want to talk about that.

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Just head to HighlandTitles.com and use code legal AF to get 20% off at checkout. And now back to the video. We are back live on legal AF, Rico, Rico, Rico, Suave in Georgia. Tell us more, Popeye, about what's going on. And if I call you honey, it's because I'm referring to one of our sponsors, but I also like you. On the Rico, which we talk a lot about, the wonder, what has Fony well has been doing since several months ago when she said indictments were imminent? Let's get off her back for a minute. The process of taking the Special Purpose Grand Jury report, which went on for a seven-month

process of a Special Purpose Grand Jury, to develop facts and evidence and to get from them some recommendations about indictments. It's not the same thing as going in loaded for bear, loaded for Trump in front of a real grand jury, an endating grand jury, in which you present not just that evidence, she's not limited to what was done and develop factually in front of that jury with all those 70 witnesses and documents. She's continued to expand her probe, and it's very far reaching at this point, partly with new evidence that she's developed. And then she will go in at the end of July or the beginning of August, presenting really two different work streams of evidence and witnesses and testimony and documents to

the grand jury, the inditing grand jury. One of it will be what came out of the special purpose grand jury. She has that under her arm. The other will be witnesses that she brings in new and then an expansion of her case. She's got kind of the individual crimes, I think, down pretty solidly, but connecting them all to a Rico racketeering influence and corrupt organization act under Georgia law, not federal, under Georgia law is taking a minute. Why? Because she gets the benefit of Georgia law having one of the most expansive Rico

statutes on its books anywhere in the country. Every state has a Rico, a version of the federal Rico statute on their books to handle enterprise crime, organizational crime, a crime involving two or more acts, two or more people in a coordinated strategy to accomplish a criminal objective. Every state's got that. But every state and its legislature, it depends on how broad and expansive it is. And Georgia's got one of the broadest. For instance, under Georgia law, let's just look at the underlying claims.

Pardon me. Let's just look at the underlying claims pardon me Miss handling of government documents is I'm sorry that was I was doing my federal my federal lineup Let me get let me get my body willous lineup see what happens on live TV The statutes that she's looking at her's criminal solicitation to commit election fraud state crime Georgia False statements to state and local officials state crime Georgia, state crime, Georgia, false statements to state and local officials, state crime, Georgia, conspiracy, state crime, racketeering, we'll talk about and threats to election administrators. Now how does she tie all these people together?

Mark Meadows, Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, Powell, Giuliani, and others fake electors, the Republican party of Georgia. How does she put all that together? She does it through a Rico indictment. And Rico indictment there is just requiring two criminal acts. In Georgia says it could be federal or state criminal acts, so it's very expansive. A pattern, right, to achieve a common purpose. And so she's got all of that.

And now there's new reporting that she's not just looking at what happened on the dirt in Georgia. She's looking at what happened in five other states to tie it back as a master scheme to interfere with the election and the election particularly in Georgia because she's right It wasn't just Georgia that they wanted Okay, that wasn't the only Place that they were focused they were looking at Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Georgia that was the strategy in each one of those things

You know, it's one of these, like an Avenger movie. They had to get all five or six of these jewels in order for something bad to happen and destroy the world. And Georgia was one part of it. So if that's one part of it, the fact that these other bad acts happened around the country all under the auspices of the same group of racketeers, she can then expand her investigation into

those areas. And we know now, based on what you and I have done in reporting on legal AF just two months ago, less than two months ago, she is focused now as is Jack Smith, this is where there's competing prosecutors fighting over the same evidence, so to speak, on those two outside vendors, consultants that Donald Trump hired, not one, but two, Sympatico software and Berkeley research that he hired to try to get to the bottom of all of his working theories about dead people voting, sorry, vote flipping by software from Trump to Biden, other fraud at the polling places.

Well, he paid above $1 million to both of these entities, and they both reported back, Sympathico reported back to the Trump campaign, and Berkeley reported back to Mark Meadows and Donald Trump himself in the White House that there was no fraud. We couldn't find any fraud. The none of your theories work. The people you said go talk to, that they either didn't know what they were talking about or had no evidence to support it. The technology thing we looked at it.

And that's on top of cyber ninjas in Arizona who also got paid by the Republicans there and said there was no fraud. So she wants to see that and how it also impacted Georgia. So she's focused on that. How do we know that she's focused on Rico? Because that's like her middle name. She has used Rico more than any other prosecutor in her position in Vulton County combined.

She also has on her bench a leading Rico expert as one of her prosecutors. We've talked about him before. She's got Joe, sorry, John Floyd, who is an Rico expert. She hired him before what happened for the election issue, but she, he's an in house consultant, all things Rico. And she's used it successfully and other criminal schemes in very creative ways and she's going to use it here. Now, what's the advantage of the prosecutor? It sounds great. We keep talking about Rico. What's the advantage? It's easier for her to prove her case. It's easier for her to piece together, far flung, what seems to be maybe not connected things,

all in one criminal conspiracy. It also gives her the ability, unlike some other indictments, to write an entire description of the conspiracy, which she's going to do, at the top of her indictment, in prose, in narrative, about the players, the acts, the state court, the state violations, the federal violations, the out court, the state violations, the federal violations, the out of state violations, and connect the dots

and bring them all home to Georgia in one big fat conspiracy. It allows her to synthesize all of the evidence and all of the multiple targets and participants in the conspiracy. And some of them can be unindicted. So so people know, she doesn't have to, other than Trump, which we know she's gonna indict. I'm not going out too far of a limb here.

Even Trump's people think that's gonna happen. But the others like, is she gonna indict Lindsey Graham? It doesn't matter. He can be what's called an unindicted, co-conspirator for a rico scheme. He can even be unnamed. He could even give him a number. We'll figure it out in about 10 seconds who it is. Unincorporate, unundited co-conspirator number one, sitting in Washington in his office in the Senate, making phone calls. I wonder who

that is. But that's okay. We care about the description of the scheme, of course. We care about the indicted people, but she can have unindicted co-conspirators and she will. So that's why Georgia prosecutors like that having that in their toolbox. Because as I've said in the past, Trump is also between two major bodies of law that are not favorable to him. One in New York and one in Georgia. In New York, the attorney general has probably the most powerful set of civil fraud powers at her discretion of any other attorney general in the state in the 50 states.

He's up against that in the civil fraud case. And in Georgia, he's not only got a prosecutor who's amazingly competent and focused on him, rightly so. But at her disposal, probably the most powerful set of racketeering laws of any local prosecutor in the state. And in any state. I think when people see the indictment at a Fulton County, Georgia, people are going to say, wow, because my expectation of that indictment is that Fony Willis is going to

throw the full book at Donald Trump and his other co-conspirators. And then she's going to pile on some other books after that. She's not messing around and that one, you know, stay tuned and again, the timeline of these things, you know, and I see sometimes the comments, you know, on YouTube and in other areas. It's like, you know, you all have been saying that indictments are coming. Let's make them happen already. But if you go back to the episodes,

the legal aeifers who have been with us from day one, know that we've actually, I think set out a fairly accurate timeline with respect to all of these prosecutions. I think we nailed it when it came to the Manhattan District Attorney. I think we nailed it when it came to the Manhattan District Attorney. I think we are nailing it when it comes to special counsel,

Jack Smith. And we've been saying almost for the past nine months, when no one else was saying it, that we thought that by this summer, as when we would see the first indications that there would be a charging decision, that there would be an indictment and special counsel, Jack Smith, and we've been talking about, you know, that June, July, August timeframe.

And so, you know, look, whether it gets moved back a month or two months from a target date, that's just the fluidity of the law, right? And so when it comes to Fulton County District Attorney, Fawni Willis, the explanation for why it's probably moved back, I would say about 60 days from our target date, is a good thing for justice. I always like when clients would come into my office

and Pope Akiyama have a similar experience, and they want you to set out the case. Step by step by step, though, as though these dates are set in stone. And it is important to always remind the client that I won't want to keep certain dates set in stone if it is in your interest. If we say we're gonna file on this date,

but then we get a lot more information and we speak to new witnesses. Why would you want to file prematurely early? Let's get the better insight and information. So to your point, there's been a lot of developments in the Fulton County District Attorney's case that has pushed this back about 60 days that has been gathering more evidence that has been speaking to more of these fake electors who are now flipping that is It is compiling a broader scope of this all of those things bowed well for

justice and the time frame is to me second to Justice being served and finally speaking about justice being served. And finally, speaking about justice being served, can't be illegal without giving you a final update on what's been going on with George Santos. George Santos, of course, was indicted by the Department of Justice last month out of the Eastern District of New York. Few updates to report here. You know, one of the things we learned when he was criminally indicted for all of these false statements that he's been making on his congressional that he's been representing to Congress and getting money from unemployment insurance that he shouldn't have received, wire fraud.

He got bailed out, $500,000. He didn't pay for it. Out of his own pocket, there was a group of individuals who paid the $500,000 to bail him out otherwise. He'd still be in custody. But those identities are secret. They remain secret. The deal was done under seal. I don't think the

deal should be under seal. This is information that we the people deserve to have. He's a member of the House of Representatives, which he disgraces each and every day. He works for us. He works for us. And the kind of surety's, the surety bond that's posted to post the bail for him. That's not like some secret super secret information. And so fortunately, a number of media entities filed a motion to disclose the identity under the First Amendment, New York Times, ABC, Washington Post, and several others filed a motion. The magistrate judge in the case, magistrate judge, and why shields set an order for George Santos and his lawyers to respond about why this should still be kept secret. The deadline was June 2nd.

On June 2nd, George Santos's lawyer sent this bizarre letter brief to the court and basically said that it's taking them a lot of time to find cases that will help them distinguish these very, there's so much gravity in this matter that they have to spend more time in the weekend to search for case law that could help them keep this information secret. I mean, the judge was like, I give you, I give you one more business day. Okay. Okay. Like I'll give you until Monday.

So the judge granted an extension of time for George Santos's lawyer, I guess, to spend the weekend trying to search for cases that support their position. I'll give them the hint here. There aren't any. This should not be kept secret. This is precisely the type of information that should be public, really. In a case involving a fraudulent, lying member of Congress, should we keep the identities of the sherders a secret? Absolutely not.

But we will see what the briefing is that's filed by George Santos, but I expect to get the identity of those individuals, which will be fascinating indeed, Popeye. Yeah. I don't much to add. I mean, just to be clear for those, we don't skip any steps. The prosecutors know the names. They were provided to them because the prosecutors have to vet collateral and money that's being put up to make sure it's not a continuation of a crime.

I've been involved with a number of cases where the government has come back and said, where's that money coming from? What's the source of that money? And have challenged where the bond and bail is coming from, if it's coming from a potential criminal source or a back channel. Like, oh, it's an LLC off the Cayman Islands. Like, no, we're not allowing that. Tell us more. This is about the public disclosure. And we just had a recent, very high profile version of exactly the way I think it's going to play out and write to where Ben, you also predicted, which is we're going to learn the names. Sam Bankman freed in the FTX matter and the collapse of FTX did

not want the world to know that three professors at Stanford that worked with his parents who were also Stanford professors, and that were at one time mentors to San Bankman Freed had put up their houses and half a million dollars with a collateral. And he, I don't know if that was the condition of them giving it, that they would try to keep it secret, but they didn't want to be there. They're still on faculty at Stanford. And there was the same motion practice that we're doing here and reply briefs and everything. And at the end, in response to the media's inquiry, the judge says, yeah, I'm disclosing

that. So it's going to come out. Now, if the reason he doesn't want it out, this is a guy where that based on new reporting, he's lied about who his treasure was. He never really had a treasure because the press reached out to the treasure and she said, huh, I'm not the treasure of what. When you're being charged for financial crime impersonating other people, identity fraud

and things like that, you don't get the benefit of a cover. I guess his argument is what, Ben? It's a political witch hunt. And my donors have the right to support me, but they shouldn't be outed. Your donors are outed all the time. This is this problem with an understanding federal election law. Your donors are always outed. I make a donation of $1,000 to a candidate. Judge Morshan makes a donation for $30 at Joe Biden. It's reported and you can get access to it. Why should we not? So, I don't even know. What is the best straight

face document that he makes? I think the best straight face argument was to temporarily keep it sealed by saying that there's a privacy concern for these individuals. And as part of negotiating his surrender, he basically says, look, I'm gonna show up at this date, voluntarily, these people wanna be kept private. It's all happening fairly quickly. So I think the Department of Justice ultimately is like, they don't care one way or the other.

I got a prediction of who it is. I got a prediction of who it is. I want to hear you, I want to hear a prediction, but I think what the argument will be, which is a losing argument, is going to be kind of play the victim and saying, because he's exposed to threats and all of these things for his conduct

by bringing other people in, they'd be exposed to threats and harassment, you know, but that's just clearly not the case. And the bottom line is that if they are going to step into a nerina, a public arena, a courthouse that no one forced them to step into this arena. They on their own said, we are standing shoulder to shoulder with a traitor and a complete fraud. Take your prediction of who it is. All right, this is just spitball in here. But the people that were very close to him,

including the ones that were, he made a lot of money off of a yacht brokerage where he sold a yacht for a Miami Republican fundraiser and reasonably well-known person. I'm not going to name them here, but if you Google things, you'll figure it out. And that person's wife was a big supporter of his campaign. They also sold that boat through him to another supporter in Long Island, and he got paid a large finder's feet commission to that devolder entity of his, which is what gave him enough money to ultimately loan his campaign money.

I have no reason to believe they're no longer supporting him. Pardon me in standing behind him, but I would not be shocked when they finally rip off the curtain to see that Miami family, being one of the families that helped support him for the bail in the bond. We will see and we will keep you posted here on legal a f another incredible episode. I have so much fun spending this time with you, Michael Pope, with all of the legal a furs out there. And I see the legal

furs go. I never thought of myself as an a fur before. Yeah, you're a legal a fur. That's the community where we're all in it together. So whether you're a mightest mighty, a legal a fur, a political beat down brigade or a lights on luminary, I think we'll come up with names for all of the rest. It's one community pro democracy. We focus on the rest. It's one community pro-democracy. We focus on the facts. We try to do this with intelligence, compassion, inject humanity back into this, but to really

spend our time working through these issues and talking about them and having a serious debate and discussion, which I don't think really exists in many other places, and it is so critical that we bring that back together as a major part of what the media does. And none of this is possible without you who are watching this, you who are listening to this, you are the key to this pro democracy community please share and spread the word about this show and all of the other might as touch network shows hit subscribe on the YouTube channel we're on our way to 1.5 million subscribers which

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