Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Jack Smith knows how WEAK Trump is as he is SANCTIONED $1 Million

Episode Date: January 22, 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: Trump and his lawyer’s almost $1 million sanction imposed by a Florida Federal judge for bad faith conduct and obstruction of justice arising out of Trump’s dismissed case against Hillary Clinton and other Democrats; another Florida Federal judge finding that DeSantis violated a suspended state attorney’s constitutional rights in suspending him because he was a Democrat and allegedly “woke,” Trump’s disastrous newly-released deposition testimony in the civil rape and defamation trial of E. Jean Carrol set for trial this April; the Supreme Court completion of its inconclusive investigation of who leaked the Dobbs decision; and Peter Navarro going to trial for contempt of congress with little or no defenses after a Federal judge’s ruling this week, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Go to https://TRYMIRACLE.COM/LEGALAF and use Code "LEGALAF" to claim your free 3 piece towel set and save over 40% off! USE code “LEGALAF” to receive 20% off your order at https://www.HighlandTitles.com Shop Meidas 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump and his lawyer, Alina Habba, are sanctioned almost $1 million by a federal judge in Florida for filing a frivolous lawsuit back in March of 2022 against Hillary Clinton and about a dozen other individuals. We've been covering the sanctions motions and the dismissal by the federal judge in that matter. But this sanctions order is scathing. You will not want to miss our breakdown. Stay tuned. And as we break down the law, Popeye Trump is breaking down in real time. He is swirling. He's just breaking down. He is swirling the drain. He is dripping desperation. He is weak following the sanctions order by the federal judge in Florida. Donald Trump immediately dismissed another frivolous

lawsuit that he filed and that we've been covering here on legal AF. That's the frivolous lawsuit that he filed and that we've been covering here on legal AF. That's the frivolous lawsuit. He filed against New York attorney general Leticia James in Florida, which just so happened to also be assigned to the same federal judge, judge Donald Middlebrook's who just sanctioned him $1 million. The lesson is clear folks, Trump is a coward. You stand up to him like Judge Middlebrook's did and he backs down like the coward that he is. And meanwhile, a federal judge in New York

unsealed more pages of the deposition transcripts from Donald Trump's deposition in the E. Jean Carroll civil rape and defamation lawsuit, which is set for trial this April. And in new stunning deposition transcript pages that were just released, Donald Trump reprehensibly says on some of the pages that he cannot have raped E. Jean Carroll because she is not his types, disgusting, but then an additional deposition transcript pages when he's shown a picture of E. Jean Carroll from 30 years ago. He thought that what he was looking at, who he was looking at, is his ex-wife Marla

Maples. There was this Perry Mason moment courtesy of E. Jean Carroll's lawyers, Roberta Kaplanum. We turned back to Florida in this episode of Legal AF, where a federal judge found that Ron DeSantis violated the constitutional rights of the Hillsborough County prosecutor, when DeSantis suspended him for being too woke because the prosecutor signed a petition saying he didn't believe that women should be arrested for having abortions. And the federal judge in making this scathing ruling against DeSantis though said that he was limited based on the United States Constitution about the remedies he could provide in essence, he

couldn't grant any remedy. So Popok, knowing your expertise as a Florida lawyer, the question that everybody's asking is what happens next for DeSantis and what happens next for this prosecutor? Well, what happens next for the United States Supreme Court? We'll focus on that in this episode of Legal AF as well, because the United States Supreme Court concluded its investigation into who leaked the DOBS ruling. Of course, the DOBS ruling despicably overturned Roe v Wade. And the leak occurred on May 2, 2022 to Politico.

And the Supreme Court concluded, they could not find the leaker. The Supreme Court investigation, however, did not really focus on the justices themselves. They were enforced to sign any sworn affidavits. Well, I think Popeye, I can give you a Lido hint who may have leaked it. We'll talk about that here.

Alito. We legal a podcast and Peter Navarro, the mega extremist Trump Stooge who is set to go to trial for a contempt of Congress charge for not showing up in response to the January 6 committees duly issued. Sipine, as he lost his motion to dismiss in humiliating fashion in federal court, and now he will head for trial for contempt of Congress, where I suspect that he's going to be similarly convicted very quickly, just like Steve Vanon.

They don't say it's the most consequential legal news of the week for no reason. Popo we got a lot of consequential news. How are you doing? Great looking glasses. Michael, popo. You know, I saved my glasses comment until the very end. Let's say tensionally of the last podcast. So I could just close out with it. But you know, the reality is if we're being objective here, I think mixed feelings about the glasses. I think overall it's grown on people. But if I'm just being blunt with you, I think in the last show in the chat, I would say it was mixed if I'm being fair. Well, the good news is I've been reading all the other hot tags and I'm running nine

to one in favor of the glasses. So the people have come around to this concept, but that's not why people tune into legal AF about my I wear your fleece jacket. And boy, do we have a great thing to talk about today. Two judges who took on DeSantis and one with Judge Hinkle and Donald Trump with Judge Middlebrook's what I mean, he's the jurist of the week for me. It might be the jurist of 2023 for me is Don Middlebrook's and we're gonna talk about that. But Hinkle did a great thing too because when we get into that DeSantis trial where everything went against him

except at the very end on jurisdiction, a lot of judges would have started with jurisdiction, punted the case and said, I don't have any jurisdiction and I'm not even gonna bother with a bench trial. But Hinkle didn't want to do that. Hinkle wanted to get all those facts out, just as Middlebrook's wanted to get all the facts out in a 50 or 60 page opinion so that the world and history could see it.

And that's another thing that judges do that we don't give them enough credit for, which is to take on tyrants and take on vexatious litigants and bad faith litigants like Donald Trump and spell it out, paged by page methodically. And their opinion, I guess, is if I got to read all the crap that they file and their briefs, they're going to have to sit and read my federal judge order about what I think about all the crap that they filed. Just as people have come around to supporting your glasses, my copacup people, I think are coming around to realizing that the wheels of justice are turning in the right direction. And we've been talking about other federal rulings

and other outcomes that have reflected that. But I think nothing reflects it quite so much as this recent ruling by Judge Donald Middlebrook in the Southern District of Florida for all those out there who are new to legal AF one. What are you doing? But number two, pop-up practices in Florida. So he has some local expertise well about the federal bench and the judiciary there. But this was a lawsuit that was filed by Donald Trump and his lawyer who filed it on his behalf.

Alina Habah, who I've said is probably the worst lawyer in the entire country because she thinks she's good, which adds an extra layer of problematic nature to it, as she digs the whole deeper and deeper. But this was, I suppose, a, it was framed as a Rico lawsuit, a racketeering style conspiracy, but it was basically the rampings and ravings of a lunatic of 189 pages of Donald Trump, just complaining how people like Hillary Clinton and Komi and others hurt his reputation by linking him to Russia and that that was somehow an actionable claim that should go before our court systems and the federal court systems.

Not only was there no claim actually being asserted and his judge Middlebrook said when he dismissed this federal lawsuit back in September, every single allegation was basically false. I mean, from the basic facts that they would say this person lived in New York, but like the person lived in Virginia. This person chaired the DNC, like the person never even worked at the DNC. So like all of the claims were frivolous and basically all of the allegations were false. There was a previous sanction order by someone by the name of Charles Dolan who got about $66,000 in sanctions a few months back, which we said, just you wait, that $66,000

sanctioned motion is just the tip of the iceberg because Hillary Clinton and about 18 others who got the case dismissed filed this sanctions motion, seeking a little more than $1 million. And you and I said, based on Judge Middlebrook's analysis of the previous sanctions order where he said everything is frivolous. We said, I expect it's going to be close to the million dollars. You know, the judge may shave off a few thousand dollars here or there. If he thinks the billing was unreasonable and pop up, I think you and I almost nailed it almost to the dollar. I mean,

it was slightly less than $1 million. But for all intents and purposes, it's a million dollar sanctions order when you add up this one and the Dolan sanctions order. And it's an incredibly scathing order where the judge not only attacks Trump's frivolous filing here, but attacks all of the other frivolous lawsuits that Donald Trump had filed,

including the one that also happened to be assigned to the same judge, Middlebrook's, in the Letitia James lawsuit. But Popo, can you break down this order because rarely do you see an order so scathing and lots of the legal aephers have said, how do you stop these vexatious furs have said, how do you stop these vexatious litigants?

Like how do you stop the conduct? Well, the fact that Donald Trump was the one who filed the lawsuit seeking money against others. And he had to pay $1 million to the people he sued is one way you stop vexatious litigants. Popok break it down for us. Yeah, I will. Thank you. As people know, I practice really

in two places, New York, where I'm sitting now in Miami, where I spent 20 years on, I've been before Judge Middlebrook's and tried cases in front of him. And when he got originally a sign, he go back to the prior videos of ours.

We, you and I, and with my guidance, the audience, were very encouraged by the fact that Don Middlebrook's have been assigned the case, all these cases. And so everything that flowed from having a really good jurist who's no nonsense, who's not MAGA, who's been on the bench for over 20 years, I think I tried my first case in front of them

25 years ago when he first got on as being, he did what you and I did. He was a commercial litigator, a very well-known firm in West Palm Beach and then got elevated and sits in West Palm Beach at the Southern District as being he was he did what you and I did. He was a commercial litigator, a very well known firm in my in West Palm Beach and then got elevated and sits in West Palm Beach at the Southern District of Florida. And everything that we predicted has come true from the dismissal of the case against Latisha James and the New York Attorney General that got

assigned to Don Middlebrook's, which got dismissed the same morning as his order came out. What I love about Don Middlebrook's which got dismissed the same morning as his order came out. What I love about Don Middlebrooks, Judge Middlebrooks's decision in 46 pages, is that he doesn't hold back. He went in with a blueprint. He, I'm sure, he told his clerks, and Don Middlebrooks is known for writing. He was a very good writer when he was in private practice. So I wouldn't be surprised if he did the first or second draft of this order. And he had a couple of goals that he wanted to accomplish in the order.

One, he wanted to lay out how as a vixacious litigant filing meritless cases all around the country, a lot with Alina Hava, he wanted all that in black and white for both this order For the exercise of inherent authority which is the which is the authority this overarching authority of a federal judge or even a state judge to Issues sanctions based on their inherent authority to make sure that the wheels of justice are greased properly and move in the right direction And that people aren't obstructing justice. That's where the inherent authority comes from, and it also comes from a finding of bad faith. That's what triggers, that's what Middlebrook said, triggers my inherent authority, because he looked at the other places that he has authority to sanction people.

Rule 11, we talked about that a lot on legal AF, which really is backward looking, as Judge Middlebrook says, it's for stuff you did in the past that you refused to withdraw after somebody brought it to your attention that it's without merit. And he said, there's, you know, the defensive trade secrets act and other things. There's ways for me to order sanctions, but the best way and most robust way for me is a federal judge to punish punish Donald Trump and his lawyer, Alina Habba is exercising my inherent authority. And that then just opened the door to him saying, let's talk about all the places in America where Donald Trump usually with Alina Habba at his side that he has brought meritless bad faith litigation to obstruct

justice. And he then listed them, including the cases you said been that was in front of him. He said, well, there's the Trump versus the New York attorney general case that's in front of me that I've said is meritless. And then Trump got the hint and dismiss that that morning. There's the case he filed in the Northern District of New York against Latisha James, which he also failed there. There's Trump versus Twitter. There's Trump versus CNN. There's Trump versus the Pulitzer Prize Board filed in Okachobi, this little town in sugar in sugar cane country in the middle of the state, right by Lake Okachobi, which the judge commented in his order has no connection whatsoever

to the Pulitzer Prize Board or to Donald Trump. In other words, he just threw a dart to get his far away. He didn't say this, but at the implication was Donald Trump won't get as far away from Don Middlebrook's as a judge as possible. So he went up to Okeechobee and filed in state court, but he didn't get out of the iron of the judge because the judge went and tracked down all these cases and listed them. He also said, um, basically, I also watched television. And the way the judge middle Brooks communicated that is because he cited all the times that Alina Habba went on Tucker Carlson or Hannity or Newsmax or any of them and commented negatively and attacked middle Brooks, this judge, any judge.

Um, and he had a very great quote that we've talked about in the past where he said that Alina Habba went on. I think it was Tucker Carlson and said that Donald Trump, after we got assigned this, this left wing Clinton appointed judge middle Brooks and he wouldn't recuse himself. It was a losing battle and, and Donald Trump told me to get out of the case. But the way the Middlebrook's highlighted that in the order is, you knew this case didn't have any merit, and all you had was attacking me on network television, on a worldwide television. So if they thought that he doesn't watch television,

and he wasn't going to mention that in his order, He did. If he thought he wasn't going to mention all the other vexatious, litigant places and obstruction of justice, Donald Trump has done. And what, and he was very careful, Judge Middlebrooks, he said, I'm not sanctioning you, per se, for the Pulitzer Board suit, the Twitter suit, the CNN suit, or all these other suits, but I have inherent authority and I can look beyond what's happened in this courtroom to see how you operate in the real world outside of Southern District of Florida. And what he came away with is the the menu or the cookbook for Donald Trump, which he listed towards the end of his order. Middlebrook said there's basically six steps to Donald Trump. One, use provocative rhetoric in your filing. Two, use a political narrative that you get from your rallies. Three, attack opponents in the news media. Four,

disregard legal precedent, ignore case law when you file and case law that's against you. law when you file and case law that's against you. Five fundraising fundraising fundraising use all of these techniques to raise money. And he cited and quoted to links to Donald Trump using the case with middle Brooks and the case in the Pulitzer Prize Board and all these other places to raise huge sums of money and six attack the judge. And this is the the's manual for Donald Trump in lawsuits. And I love the fact

that for ever more, and this will be cited not just in the, in Florida, but in every case around the country, because middle Brooks is very well respected in the federal judiciary. It is now in 48 or 47 pages, the playbook, the, the emperor has no clothes. This is what he does. And then finally, Ben, I love the fact that he made the $1 million or close to it. He shaved off about 15% of the amount that the attorneys were, were asking for based on a little bit on hourly rate that they were charging, but not much. He thought the hourly rate was fine.

A little bit on the way some things were billed, and we'll get into the Madoosha on billing records. But overall, he awarded them everything that they were looking for, and made it what we call in the business, joint and several liability, meaning both Alina Habba and Donald Trump are responsible to get that million dollars paid. And if it, so I guess the good news

for Alina Habba, if there's any, any good news is she can't allow her client to pay the million dollars so she doesn't have to pay it. He didn't say Alina Habba law firm has to pay 500,000 and Donald Trump has to pay 500,000. He probably, he probably figures Alina doesn't have it anyway. So it's jointly and severly liable. So I assume Donald Trump's going to pay the million. That's going to let them out from under this. If they don't pay the million and they're going to pay the million, but if they don't pay the million dollars, then they're in contempt and criminal contempt of court and then people can start going to jail. What's going to be interesting there though is Alina Habb is going to have to have that

conversation with Donald Trump, where she hasn't had it already, as to who is going to pay, you know, and one of the things that the court did in making that joint and several liability, making them both responsible, kind of both throwing shade and also kind of pitting them against each other a little bit, footnote 38 on page 46. The court writes, sanctions must never be hollow gestures. Their bite must be real. But for the bite to be real, it must be an amount of person can pay. I believe the monetary sanctions imposed here are well within plaintiff and plaintiff's lawyer's ability to pay. And therefore, I have not thought it necessary to conduct an intrusive inquiry into their finances. However, should plaintiff or plaintiff's

lawyer and law firm believe that the amount would seriously jeopardize their financial status, that individual or firm should file within 10 days of this order, under seal, a verified statement of net worth, which includes assets and liabilities. In the event of such worth, which includes assets and liabilities. In the event of such filing, the obligation of an individual or law firm will be told until further order of the court. And so saying, well, you say you're rich. So you should be fine.

But if you're not as rich as you say you are, you could come and you could submit an affidavit to me. We'll never see that affidavit. That will never be filed. You know, one of the other powerful parts of this order, I thought was on page six where the court goes, here we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed,

which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose. Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries. He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process,

and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer. He knew full well with the impact of his actions. He knew full well the impact of his actions. As such, I find that sanction should be opposed upon Mr. Trump and his lead counsel. Language like that is going to be cited by people who Donald Trump sue across the country right now as ways to get sanctions in their case and to stop his vexatious litigation.

So not only here did Judge Middlebrook make an incredibly important order for this case, but for any future person who's sued by Trump or the Trump organization, they're going to cite this as precedent or just as its persuasive value to basically say, look, this is what federal judges are saying. And those bricks are being built, you know, for example, in the Latisha James case, one of the things that Middlebrook cited before issuing this sanctions order when he denied a frivolous and junktive relief request by Donald Trump in his ridiculous lawsuit that he filed against New York attorney general, the Tisha James in connection with the fact that

she brought a fraud lawsuit in New York state court against him seeking at least $250 million. The court said, look, the Trump organizations of felon. They were just convicted on 17 felony counts. I am not going to hurt the people of the state of New York by granting any injunctive relief to a felon organization. So brick by brick, those things are being built. And as I mentioned, the New York Attorney General, Titian James, her fraud lawsuit against Donald Trump.

So Donald Trump filed in Florida, in Palm Beach County. He filed a lawsuit against Latisha James after she sued him under the New York Attorney General's statute, ostensibly to try to stop her from getting discovery in her case that she's entitled to have, which is before a New York state judge judge Arthur and Grun. And there, you know, the, the, there's basically no jurisdiction at all for Donald Trump to bring this case against the New York Attorney General. There's no jurisdiction. There's no claims that he's being asserted. It just so happened to get assigned to the same judge,

Judge Middlebrookson, New York Attorney General Latisha James filed a motion to dismiss that case. And in the denial of the preliminary injunctive order, Judge Middlebrook's pointed out in a footnote, unlike the last page of his order, this criminal case was a criminal case. The criminal case was a criminal case. The criminal case was a criminal case. The criminal case was a criminal case. The criminal case was a criminal case. The criminal case was a criminal case. works issued this order sanctioning him a million dollars and citing the New York attorney general, the Tisha James case, in this recent sanctions order.

What Trump do? He backs down. I want to get you take on that, Popoac, because that is a pattern that we see of Donald Trump. You know, you remember leading up to the insurrection when Donald Trump wanted to appoint Jeff Clark as the head of the attorney general. What happened? All the United States attorneys kind of came together

and they said, we're all going to resign if you do that. And what Trump do? He backed down. When you stand up to him and all of the ranting and the raving and his screaming and his tweeting or his social media posting, all of that is like, you know, you think about it on the, you know, going back to the school yard and I hate to give analogies with Petrol and Third Grade bullies because I think it's offensive to Petrol and Third Grade bullies.

But that's kind of who Donald Trump is. And the Mago Republican Party has allowed themselves to be co-opted by the threats and by the fear. And it's like, just stand up to him and just say, no, you crazy idiot, you traitor. Like, get the hell out of here. Like, you just got to stand up to people like that. And I think Democrats and people who have left the Republican party, I don't view it as a partisan issue because I just think that the Magna Republican party is not really the Republican party anymore. I mean, who knows what? Well, it's just fascistic and weird. But, you know, you know, there's a pro-democracy movement of Democrats and Republicans, former Republicans and independents and people not affiliated with political parties who just go, no, no, you're wrong. And I'm calling you out for it. Yet

the Magga Republican party just seems to just take it and take it and take it. And you give him an inch, he goes for your throat. So you can't give this. You can't give this fascist want to be an inch. Popa. So let me do it this way. Then we're going to talk about it. We get to the E. Jean Carroll segment on this. And I practice law in New York around the same times that Donald Trump was running around as Playboy, developer Trump doing all sorts of bad things, including what he did to E. Jean Carroll. And so many of these things, when I was reading the deposition transcript, we'll get to next about what happened. A lot of it resonated with me because

I knew her husband, E. Jean Carroll. He was a newscaster that I watched when I was a little boy on ABC News in New York. And I knew Elaine's the restaurant where they went a lot. These are all kind of famous, totemic places in New York. And I knew Trump tower and New Bergdorf Goodman's. But there's the big difference. When Donald Trump ran what effectively was a family office, Here's the big difference. When Donald Trump ran what effectively was a family office, where everybody was either somebody he inherited from his father like Weiselberg or Matt Kalamari or had the last name Trump because they were his children

and lawyers around him at the time like Michael Cohen. There was no pushback. He said, I'm gonna do this crazy thing and they said, okay, fine boss. And then don't forget to sign my paycheck at the end of the week. That's what he was used to for years and years of being a developer. When he took that to the White House, even though he brought in some crazy people into roles to support him, he couldn't bring the whole family office with him, but he tried the same techniques. I'm going to do crazy fascist insurrectionist things. He, this time though,

he had people who were not beholden to him for their professional careers, nor their paycheck per se, and we've talked about like Pat Sipalone and others that were in the White House, that at the moment of courage did the right thing by standing up to this tyrant. He's not, he wasn't used to that because for 30 or 40 years in New York, he surrounded himself with people that he paid to say yes to him for whatever they wanted to do. And now he, what we see a version of that is when he's a private litigate, is he only of course hires people that are think of fans and bootlickers for him. Alina Haaba, which I don't know if you caught it.

And I caught it. I don't think we did a trending take on this. Did you catch Ben that in October, she was named special advisor to the new MAGA pack of his? And there was a quote from one of his, one of Trump's people that said, oh yeah, we trust Alina Habba, anything political, anything litigation, she's, she's our person.

So he surrounds himself with really kind of weak-minded people that are not going to stand up to him who had no real professional credential as lawyers for anything substantial before he grabbed them. And the reason he grabbed them, even though these people don't want to admit it because, you know, it's a devil's bargain because, you know, she was, she would never be on Tucker Carlson or Hannity if it wasn't for the fact that her client was Donald Trump. No one ever heard of her before a year and a half or two years ago. Same thing with the lawyer that he chose to file in Okachovik against the bullets report. Same thing against the lawyers that joined with

Alina Habba, Ticket-in that was his roommate when he went to military academy. That was his big claim to fame and wrote a book about his time with Donald Trump. This or, you know, John Eastman, Cleedham Mitchell, Giuliani, you name it. These are bootlickers extraordinaire that he surrounds himself with who will not say no to Donald Trump. That didn't work for him in the White House. It almost did, but people had to stand up to the bully, as you said. And then his most, I can't even say it is most crazy ideas were implemented because a

lot of ideas were implemented that were pretty crazy. But that's the difference. He was used to having people that that cow touted to him and and bet their need to him always because he paid their salary. So let's get into the release of these new portions of the deposition. We covered on the last legal AF, a number of the portions that were released

in connection with another filing. And so here, basically because the judge had already decided that these types of deposition transcripts should be released. Judge Lewis Kaplan, federal judge in the Southern District of New York, again, Trump kind of backed down and basically said, well, you know, there's really no objection that we have to this because you've already ruled against us. So more portions of the deposition transcript were released. And as I mentioned in the intro of the show, there was this moment that lots

of people are focusing on. And I want to focus on it here because I think it shows really kind of the two major prongs that E. Jean Carroll's lawyers are going to focus on in the trial. In addition to the compelling testimony of E. Jean Carroll about what took place. As I mentioned on the last legal AF, one of the things that I thought E. Jean Carroll's lawyer did a great job on is asking Donald Trump to say, so you've called E. Jean Carroll's allegations against you a hoax.

Is that correct? And Donald Trump said, yes, it's a hoax. And then E. Jean Carroll's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said, you've also said a number of other things, our hoax, can you tell us that? And Trump took the bait and he goes, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. He literally says it like that.

I'm not making that up. He repeats the words and says it just like that. And then he goes on to say mail mail in ballots are a hoax. The 2020 election is a hoax. Climate change is a hoax. So she established kind of prong one. And if Donald Trump doesn't, if something is inconvenient for him or is harmful to him, he just calls it a hoax.

Here are things that are not hoaxes that he says are hoaxes. And this is another example where he's calling E. Jean Carmel's allegations of hoax just like he's calling climate change a hoax. So clearly it is true And that's one thing that I think E. Jean Carmel's lawyers are gonna focus on here The kind of pronged to is Donald Trump on his own has said these very despicable things that the number one reason why he did not rape E. Jean Carroll. It's just so reprehensible and disgusting for even for me to even say, but this is Donald

Trump's words. Quote, I'll say it with great respect. Number one, she's not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened. Okay, right? He's not saying number one, it never happened. He's saying number one is she's not my type. So, E. Jean Carroll's lawyer during the opening statements going to say his number one reason, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, why he's saying that he couldn't have raped her is that he's saying E. Jean Carroll is not his type.

But let's turn to page 81 and 82 of the deposition and opening statements. You can show the deposition transcripts, whether E. Jean Carroll lawyers decide to show the deposition in the open and the video and the video and the video, you know, or hold it until across the exam of Donald Trump. But you go to page 81 and 82 and here's the question for me, Gene Carol's lawyer. You have in front of you a black and white photograph that we marked as exhibit 23 and I'm going to ask you, is this the photo that you were just referring to? Answer by Trump. I think so. Yes, question. And do you recall when you first saw this photo answer? At some point during the process I saw it,

I guess that's her husband, John Johnson, who was an anchor for NBC. Nice guy I thought. I mean, I don't know him, but I thought he was pretty good at what he did. I don't even know the woman. I don't know who. Oh, it's Marla question.

You're saying Marla is in this photo. And to be clear, Donald Trump is looking at a black and white photo with E. Jean Carroll in there with John Johnson. It's not. Wait, wait, wait, and with his, then wife, Ivana is already in the photo. Yeah. Ivana is that is right. He has one wife already in the photo. He's looking at E. Jean Carroll and with John Johnson. And so you have to give a lot of credit here to Carol's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, because she knew she studied his mind so much that her question is right away. Oh, you're saying Marla is in the photo referring to Marla Mapples and Donald Trump answers, that's Marla pointing to E. Jean Carroll. He goes, that's Marla. Yeah. That's my wife.

And then Donald Trump points at her because we know that because the question is, which women are you pointing to? And then Alina Haba jumps in and tries to coach Donald Trump and goes, no, that's Carol. And then Trump goes, oh, I see. And then E. Jean Carroll's lawyer goes, the person you just pointed to was E. Jean Carroll. And then Haba's trying to coach Trump, likely pointing at Evon and saying, that's your wife.

And then Roberta Kaplan goes, and the person the woman on your right was, and then Donald Trump goes, I don't know. This was the picture. I assume that's John Johnson and then Hobbes coaching him, that's Carol. That's Carol. And then Trump goes, that's Carol. Like he's surprised. And the moment where Trump realizes, oh crap is where he goes, oh, I see, because he's looking at E. Jean Carol, who he swears looks just like Marlem Aples. And he hadn't put together

that that, but she does, by the way. And he hadn't put together that that- What she does, by the way. And then it all becomes kind of clear to him, oh crap, that's Eugene Carroll. And the photos taken 30 years ago, like he couldn't figure that piece out and then it has that moment. Popeye, you have those two prongs.

This case is gonna be a devastating case for Donald Trump and good. So let's remind everybody April, two trials simultaneously in one consolidated case in front of one jury, defamation and civil rape brought by E. Jean Carroll, full steam ahead. This kind of side issue about whether he has immunity because he made one of the defamatory comments while he was still president is not delaying either this this judge Lewis Kaplan this trial or E. Jean Carroll's lawyer Robbie Kaplan no relation. Now I love that we're getting drips and traps of these excerpts. In fact, even the latest little 40-pager that came out a little blast is not it's in sequence,

but there's pages missing and you'd have to go back and like put them together So I was getting to one part where I could tell what Robbie was doing in the way that she walked through the All of the photos she was trying to establish and this is sort of geeky But I liked it because a we've had Robbie Kaplan on our show We interviewed her about right after the dobs decision, which we're going to talk about as we get to the end, it would happen to be the day the Dobbs decision was leaked. We had Robbie Kaplan on the show to talk, we thought about E. Jean Carroll turnout.

We talked a lot about the Dobbs decision being leaked. But I loved, you know, because you and I do this for a living, I loved watching the methodical way that he, she walked him in to that corner, right? It's like the old joke about the way you boil a frog. You don't throw him into a hot boiling water. You turn the water on slowly and she was the heat on slowly and she was turning the heat on slowly. First she went.

There was series of photographs before she even got to the one that we're going to throw up on the screen when we do when we do the show while we're doing the show of the one you just walked over, which is the deadly devastating one, about his credibility. This all goes to credibility. It's not a defense that he didn't think she was attractive. The reason we keep harping on this is that as you said in her opening, Robbie Kaplan's going to talk about how not credible, incredible and uncredible Donald Trump is that everything is a hopes, even things that normal thinking, insentient human beings believe are true, like global warming, like mail in ballots, like that this is a word, a sloppy use of the word that he uses when he doesn't want to be pressed on

something, and it can't all be true. It makes him not credible because they need to destroy his credibility before he takes the stand in his own defense and the case. And before E. Jean Carroll takes the stand because she's going to be witness number one, you know, she's the roadmap witness for her own case. It's, you know, when the opening, when Jerry selection is done, opening statements are concluded and judge Kaplan looks at Robbie Kaplan's table and says, call your first witness. First witness is going to be we call Eugene Carroll. I mean, I can't imagine anything else. You don't call an adverse witness. She's not going to call

Donald Trump. I mean, that would be really cocky. He really balls. He will have to watch that. But it's going to be Eugene Carroll. So in her opening, she needs to destroy and shrink down Donald Trump and his veracity and his credibility. So she walked him through all these photographs. Is this you at E lanes? Is this a restaurant that was very famous for famous people and the, uh, and the writer class in New York at the time? Is this you in front of this building?

Is this you as the grand marshal of the veterans' day parade? Yes, yes, yes. Any reason to believe these photographs are inaccurate when they say they were taken on a certain date, any reason to believe they weren't taken on that date. No, that's me. That's me. That's me. That's me. He has no idea where this is going. By the way, at that point, I'm pretty sure he has no idea because I don't think Alina Hopper properly prepared him for the deposition, which also came out during the deposition. The lack of prep preparedness for him is how do you prepare him? He doesn't

want to be prepared. You and I prepare witnesses all the time. I tell them, you know, you gotta give me three full days before we do a seven hour deposition because I gotta get you prepared. I'm sure he gave her like an hour. So he had no idea. He just thought that that Kaplan, the lawyer,

Roberta Kaplan was stroking his ego. Like this is you. This is another famous picture of you on the Daily Post. And here's you at the Fri's club doing a Steven Segal roast. I mean, they really got really bizarre. And he's like, yes, that's me. That's me. That's me. Okay. Then she skips and does something else.

Then she brings out the photo. Now, I give her the credit that you gave her to. I think she knew this was going to happen because not that it matters against it goes to credibility, not to a defense, but E. Jean Carroll, when she was in her 40s and E. G. Carroll, when she's 80, which is what she's 79 now, just like Donald Trump doesn't look the way he looks. So she looked, she is a very beautiful woman. She is now when she was then and that photo brought back memories for me,

because I used to watch her husband. I didn't realize that was her husband until this whole photo thing came out, because John Johnson was very famous in eyewitness news. He's also African-American, just to throw that in. And so the photo is John Johnson famous laughing, laughing next to E. Jean-Carol also kind of laughing. laughing. And that's directly on. And then you have side view of Ivana, the then wife, and the back of Donald Trump. So he's already got one wife in the photo. He's got the one he's married to at the time, Ivana. So I guess there was a situation somewhere in his mind where Ivana met Marla, his second wife, and he thought this was a photo where his current wife, and he met his future wife in Marla Mables, but that was, because there

was a wife already in the photo, but that was E. Jean Carroll. And then I give her a lot of credit because I would have actually pushed back harder, because I've had this happen to me. When Alina Habba jumped in to try to save her client, which she's not supposed to do. She's not supposed to testify. She's not supposed to interfere. She's not supposed to corrupt the testimony. She jumped in and said, which you're not totally inappropriate. And she could have been sanctioned for it.

She said out loud to her client under oath being deposed. That's Carol. Like not even like whispering. That's Carol. And he said, what? That's Carol. Let me say, let me see that photo. Oh, now we figured out he'd been had. But I give, I give Robby Kaplan credit because I would have jumped up and down and said, that is completely inappropriate. Don't interfere. Don't say anything. You're not here to testify or coach your witness.

I've done that. You've done that. She didn't do that. She let it go because she had them already. So she didn't care. The fact that it got corrected at the end, she had already made her point that she's going to use in the opening and in the closing and throughout that he can't be trusted that he's not credible.

They don't say anything in order to win the case. And that's all she's got to do in front of a New York jury or any jury. So I thought it was, I thought that aspect of it was fascinating. It also shows you he's, you know, he attacks Joe Biden constantly for being 80 and being adult-brained. That was a moment of being adult-brained by Donald Trump, one of many, where he couldn't figure out who was in a photo and mistook E. Jean Carroll for Marlon Mapples and in his own fantasy world, he's like, yeah, this is where my ex-wife and my current wife met at an event.

He's so, you know, effing out of his mind. And like, Roberta Kaplan is, she played it perfectly because she wants to show the video how Alina Habba coached the witness. So she wants to play that entire thing through it. She's not going to object to it. And then she's going to tell the jury and the closing look, you saw the lawyer in the deposition coach him to let him know. I think he, I think Eugene Carroll's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, also like as a lawyer,

you prepare if Donald Trump recognized that as E. Jean, the photo of E. Jean, Calvin recognized her as E. Jean Carol. She would have said, is that the photo that you saw recently and to try to let Donald Trump know that that was a photo from 30 years ago? Did you know that's what she looked like 30 years ago? Have you seen other photographs of her from that time? I think she had those questions ready to go, but she didn't have to even go there. I agree with you.

I totally agree with you. Because he gave her more than what she even did. Right. Right. We've got a lot more to discuss here on Legal AF. Popaka, I want you to go over this scathing desantis order by a federal judge going back to Florida. So I want to talk about that.

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Popo, you seem like a Lord. It would be a nice gift. If you got a gift and you became a lord It would come on it would at least be kind of like a it would be it would be a fun little gift But anyway sir popo speaking of fun little gifts. Here's a fun big gift popo And I want you to break it down for us because you've got the Florida bonafides and this is a federal judge judge Florida bonafides and this is a federal judge, Judge Hinkle, who had a very scathing order about a Hillsboro prosecutor who, who Ron DeSantis suspended him because DeSantis was looking for someone who he could label woke to do the kind of performative thing that they do

and say, I'm suspending him to woke woke. And they found this prosecutor in Hillsborough, who was elected by the people of Hillsborough County. And all the prosecutors said was, look, he signed a petition, by the way, it was like personal capacity. He never said that he would never prosecute certain cases. And there was never a case that even came before him where you could even make a finding that there was a dereliction of duty

because the very situation never even came before him. And prosecutors have what's called prosecutorial discretion as Judge Hinkel pointed out. But he signed a petition saying, look, I don't think we should be criminalizing abortion. I don't feel comfortable arresting women who go and have abortions. I don't feel comfortable with that. A woman should have control over her body and prosecutors should not be the ones locking

women up for that. And for that, DeSantis says, too woke and suspensum under certain provisions of the Florida Constitution, which are invalid. He doesn't have the right to do it, but he invokes these provisions. And so this case goes before a federal judge because the prosecutor files the lawsuit saying that he violates that DeSantis violated his constitutional rights.

And Popeyes, tell us what happened. Yeah. And I did a nice hot take on this. that's actually running right now, but let me break it down. This is the difference when you have a Democratic appointed federal judge in judge, senior status judge, Henkel in the northern district of Florida up by Tallahassee, where this Hills borough county, which is near Tampa, so these are on opposite sides of the state almost Tampa on the west coast south and northern district of Florida up to the very that he sued Adam Warren, the removed or suspended prosecutor, state attorney for Hillsboro County,

is because I think it's because that's where the governor resides up towards that part in Tallahassee, Florida. He didn't go to state court. He went to federal court and he alleged in his suit that he was suspended from office improperly by the governor of the state because he expressed his first amendment rights free speech about signing on to some memos of some progressive prosecutorial entities that operate in the country

that he's a progressive prosecutor. He was elected as a Democrat on a platform of being a progressive Democrat. And there's nothing as you said in his track record or anything that the the governor could point to at all that suggested that he was not doing his job, that he was not doing his job that he was, that he was incompetent, or that he had done things that warrant his being suspended under the very narrow grounds that allow for suspension, quite the opposite. He had a very good track record. He supervised over 130 prosecutors

as the state attorney for that county. He was elected by the people of that county, but there was just a set a little bit of the stage. Our listeners and followers and viewers may remember that over a year ago or so, when there was a wave, actually it was during the, we're gonna two years now,

when there was a wave of elected prosecutors who got into office like Alvin Bragg in New York, like this guy, Adam Warren, and like others around the country. A lot of them were seen as and identified, self-identified, as progressive prosecutors. Okay, that's fine. And they have their own views. Alvin Bragg got a little bit of hot water when he did a first day memo two years ago saying what crime he would or would not prosecute using his prosecutorial discretion. Warren wasn't that quite as bold, but he did let it be known after the Dobbs decision, which we're going to talk about next, got leaked. And, and of course, the

Santas got right behind taking away and ripping away a woman's right to choose that while he didn't have an abortion case in front of him to to to to decide whether it was going to be prosecutor or not, that he would use his prosecutorial discretion and decide on a case-by-case basis whether he was going to do that. As he said, police make the arrests, prosecutors make the decision based on prosecutorial discretion as to whether they are going to prosecute a certain crime. Did he take money in his campaign from George Soros? Probably. George Soros decided who is a very infamous well-known Democratic fundraiser who supports all Democratic positions

and all along the spectrum of Democratic positions. He decided that he wanted to focus on getting progressive prosecutors into positions to change the justice system. You and I know a couple of them. I'm Karen knows a couple of them. I mean, Lucy Lying is very public and she's been on our show and she ran for that position in Manhattan. And she's a progressive prosecutor and believes in the reform of criminal justice as many of these people do. So DeSantis decided that he was going to do a witch hunt led by one of his chief advisors. This is all in the decision by the judge to go find woke prosecutors, whatever that means, and get them out of office and suspend them because they're woke because they're exercising their first amendment rights because he doesn't like them because

they're Democrats, which you're not allowed to do. Whereas Judge Hinkel said in his order, a governor is often saddled with prosecutors. He doesn't like from a different party Doesn't mean you have the right to suspend them or remove them and they can't remove them There's almost no provision in a Florida statute or constitutional law that gives the governor the right to remove But he's got like this narrow ability to suspend now what I said at the top of our show. I want to make I want to bring it home now If this was a MAGA Republican judge, we never would have had a trial. This was a full bench trial that went on for days where the San, this is not the San, but those around the San, this had a testify, Adam Warren testified, cross examine evidence came out judge had a full record to make his

decision. Instead, a MAGA right wing Republican judge would have looked at it and said, you know, under the 11th amendment, which you and I never talk about, the 11th amendment of the Constitution, which has been interpreted by the US Supreme Court, despite what it says, literally, and we'll put it up on the board. Literally, it says that a citizen of one state can't sue another state in federal court. And I'll talk about the history of that in a minute.

It got morphed and moved and altered by Supreme Court precedent to mean not what it exactly says. But to mean something a little bit different. The precedent now says that any state can't be sued in federal court, almost except where Congress has allowed it. And that's only in very, very narrow circumstances, not relevant here. Why? Why is that part of our judicial history?

Because when the founding fathers and the framers of our Constitution put in the section about the judges, the judicial branch, what we call Article 3 of the Constitution. The states were very up, were very worried and up in arms about whether the federal government, this new federal government, was going to use their federal court system to punish states and to drag states over to the federal side and make them answer for whatever bad things that they had done, but in federal court, they didn't want that. And so after Article 3 was already part of the Constitution, in one of the next set of amendments, not the first 10 amendments, which we call the Bill of Rights, but number 11. And there was a kind of a correction that was done very, very quickly, which Judge Hinkle

talked about, in which they said, no, okay, we'll make this clear, because we never, the framers never intended, according to legislative history, to allow states to be sued in the federal court for their own conduct. And so we'll make it clear in the 11th amendment that that's not gonna happen. And the states can lower their temperature and don't worry about it. We'll take care of it at the 11th amendment. Now the 11th amendment was kind of sloppily drafted so the legislative history says,

and it had to be fixed by Supreme Court precedent in the 1800s, early 1800s, which brought us now to what is the body of law under the 11th amendment that a state can't be sued in federal government in the federal courthouse by anybody of any state of their own or of another state, which okay, so let's bring it let's bring it home. Why is Judge Hinkle hearing this case? If under the 11th amendment, he has no jurisdiction. A Maga Republican judge would have said, I don't have jurisdiction and I'm not doing the trial, but Hinkle wanted the trial because he had already seen enough evidence in pretrial practice

to suggest that the Santis had done something underhanded and unscrupulous and that the facts were going to bear that out. So he says, you know what? I'm going to, I want a full record in front of me before I make the decision about the 11th Amendment application. Let's get the facts. And then he wrote, you know, like a 30 or 40-page opinion, where he said, does Santis violate at the Florida Constitution, violated the federal Constitution, violated the First Amendment rights of Adam Warren, created a hit squad, a witch hunt,

used one of his people to go after woke prosecutors, whatever that meant, just because he didn't like them. There was nothing that supported his suspending atom war and or anybody else because they weren't incompetent and they and the grounds to suspend them were not present. And so everyone's like, yay, that's great. We love that part of the opinion. And then in the last paragraph of after 48 pages of going through the entire process that I just laid out, he said, but I got a problem.

I have an 11th amendment problem. I can't give Mr. Warren what he wants, which is to be reinstated as the Hillsborough County State Attorney because I'm powerless to do that as a federal judge because he's in the wrong courthouse and he's suing a state. He's suing the Sanctus and a state. And I can't do it. He could have led with that and cut off the whole thing. But he wanted like middle Brooks, he wanted an entire the whole McGill of all the bad acts of the Sanctus in their in a federal court order to be cited by other people in the future. Now Warren, it's got two choices. He either

refiles the case, at least part of the case in state court, either in Hillsboro County or up in Tallahassee and Leon County, or you can do that. We just run for office again and takes out the person that DeSantis put in his place and let the voters of Hillsboro who probably are not that pleased in Tampa that DeSantis did this as part of his attempt to raise money because that was the other interesting thing. But I don't know if you caught this. The judge said that I find it interesting that the Santhus is owned office calculated

that the publicity benefit of having out of Warren taken out dragged out of his office by the police, which is what DeSantis did. He didn't even give him the dignity and the courtesy of letting him leave office, not show up the next day, change the locks. They sent the Florida Department of law enforcement, the FDA, in state troopers, in to pull him out to a perp walk, which he then used. DeSantis then used on, and all of a smokes people on a right wing media to talk about going after woke prosecutors and rate and they say the value of that and they calculated

it internally for the Santas was $2.4 million worth of publicity, which is the reason the judge said that the real reason he did it was to run for office one day as president and get this free publicity for going after improperly unconstitutionally prosecutors that he didn't agree with and parties he didn't agree with. And it was a scathing order, Pope, where Judge Hinkle said that DeSantis clearly violated the Constitution. He stated that even the most basic, basic of diligence if one was ever conducted, which it wasn't,

by the governor's office would have showed that Andrew Warren was able to exercise his prosecutorial discretion, engaged in no misconduct at all, never had any blanket policies about not prosecuting certain crimes, that certain crimes never even came before him to be prosecuted, that there was no dereliction of duty. But ultimately, there was no remedy, because as you mentioned, the 11th Amendment, as it's been interpreted, divest the court of

jurisdiction. And so, DeSantis was cheering this on on like this was a win for him. Like DeSantis responded, we won the judge dismissed the case, which just goes to show you how our well-earned and kind of dystopian. It is where it was a scathing order, yet they frame it as a win. It almost reminds you of when Bill Barr got the Mueller report and framed it as a win. Look, the Mueller report has showed that we did nothing wrong, like the exact opposite, but it's those fascist or well-eant tactics that are at play. So what happens next ultimately is it goes before the Senate in Florida and they have to make a decision. Like, it's not like this legal decision goes before the Senate,

but it now informs the decision because ultimately the Senate can make determinations about suspensions like this, but where they are captured by the kind of same mega-republic enforces or the dissentists kind of forces there, you know, they can claim that therefore the rule of law, all they want to, but here they're presented with a judicial order, and they are unlikely to actually enforce the law. And so then you may ask at home, well, if there is no remedy in a

federal judicial setting, in the very unique circumstance like this. And the Florida state Senate's not willing to do anything, then what do we do? And the answer is it's why we have to speak loud about democracy. That may not be the answer that you wanted, but where you have legislatures that are captured by these fascistic forces, and you have these very strange interpretations

of the Constitution, strange putting it gently, that would provide this incongruity where a state prosecutor can't get federal relief against the state governor In this unique situation. There's really there may not be ultimately a Remedy here and then some people say well could he file a wrongful termination lawsuit? Well technically those prosecutors not an employee. So you, you know, and he's still suspended versus terminated. So you would still then kind of get into as someone who's not an employee, as someone who's elected, what can, what are those rights and remedies? And I think you're in new kind of new areas of the law that we'll see and of course we'll follow here,

but it shows you the complexity at at issue and something that I don't really think is all that complex Pope-Pac, but I think we should just touch upon it for for just a few minutes here is this investigation so-called investigation by the United States Supreme Court. They empowered their Marshall's office within the Supreme Court to investigate who may have leaked the DOBS decision, which ultimately overturned Roe v Wade when it was released in late June. The leak occurred in early May to Politico. The leak would only benefit someone who wanted to stop the deliberative process that takes

place in the Supreme Court, as they kind of talk about their opinions before there's a final opinion. So for those out there who kind of want to know the sausage making behind a Supreme Court opinion, there are drafts that get circulated. And until a final opinion is issued, justices are trying to convince other justices to change their mind and maybe change portions of an opinion or, for example, in the Dobs decision, which addressed a specific state law in Mississippi and what their specific length was,

where they were saying that they would ban abortions versus actually overturning Roe v Wade perhaps some of the pro-democracy judges on there are the the three judges who support a woman's right to control decisions over Her body that they could say look don't go as far as you're gonna go to overturn Roe v Wade and so there's negotiations and as you're going to go to overturn Roby Wade. And so there's negotiations and deliberations that take place. But once a decision is kind of leaked, which is fairly unprecedented, it freezes the deliberations

because you really couldn't change the decision after the public knows what it is because it would basically seem like you're just responding to public pressure versus actually the deliberative process at issue. So all of that becomes chilled. So I talk about that because ultimately the motivation for who would leak it would be someone who wanted to stop the deliberation amongst the Supreme Court justices so that the decision could be changed. Someone would want to freeze it so that the decision can't be changed.

That's why you would leak it. So the motivation is someone who wanted the decision to be the decision that was in the draft and to have no changes. So to me, that's why it clearly would make no sense for any of the judges or anyone who affiliated with the judges who wanted the, who wanted Roe v. Wade to remain the law of the land, which it should have been and which it should be, to ever leak that opinion. Everybody would know that. And what we've also learned through this one particular evangelical, former evangelical leader,

who's really exposed the collusion that's taken place between the evangelical leadership and the Supreme Court that this whistleblower exposed and said, hey, I would set up these meetings with justices and these leaders at the homes of these leaders, they would give donations to the group and I would give access to Supreme Court justices and these leaders at the homes of these leaders, you know, they would give donations to the group and I would give access to Supreme Court justices like Justice Alito.

And this whistleblower said back in 2014 or 2015, whatever the Hobby Lobby decision was issued which basically where the Supreme Court said that, you know, private employers don't have to provide healthcare relating to birth control or the types of stuff that women should have to control their own bodies, that that decision was told to the people at this dinner party by Samuel Alito. And there are contemporaneous emails and text messages around the time that seem to reflect

that the people had dinner with Samuel Alito. They got info from Samuel Alito. They said, Hey, he gave us the big news. Let's talk by phone. And then a few weeks later or days later, the Hobby Lobby decision comes out, which corroborates the whistleblower story that Alito had told them what the outcome of the decision was going to be at this dinner.

And so it would seem to be somebody like an Alito. That's why I said at the beginning, I can give you a Lito hint who would likely leak this. But one of the things we've learned about the so-called investigation, though, is that these Supreme Court justices themselves did not have the same scrutiny as all the other employees. They did not have to sign affidavits at testifying under a testing under penalty of perjury that they were not the leakers. And

the same intrusiveness on the types of searches and devices and things like that were not done with the actual justices. And so I don't know if there's much to cover on it, Popok, but they basically said they don't know who the leaker is. They've engaged in all this diligence. They had the former Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, look at it and Chertoff said, looks like the Marshall did a diligent job. I don't know. The whole thing reeks of a cover up to me.

Yeah. That's a having read Chertoff, Michael Cher cherdoff who was a judge, a prosecutor and Homeland Security chief who apparently the chief judge reached out to to to take a look at the Marshalls report and to side whether more had to be done. That is a report and a conclusion that is is of a body that didn't want to get to the bottom of the answer. Because there was plenty of leads that were in there. For instance, Michael Chertoff said in his report of the report, his critique of the report

by the Marshall, that there were enough people who testified under oath because they interviewed 90 people. First of all, they identified that over 80 people had their hands on a draft of dobs, which is an extraordinary number. I never would have thought, even if you add up all the law clerks in the judges, it's not 82 people.

They're 82 people who at one point had a draft of dobs that could have been the leakers. A number of them admitted they treated that draft differently than they had treated other drafts of other decisions that they had put their hands on. That's interesting. That would lead to follow-ups if you really wanted to get to the bottom of it. They also testified when they were investigated that they often told their loved ones and friends about things that they worked on, including the top's decision, which is also weird. They were unable to

figure out from a review of printer logs, whether things got printed out at home or scan logs, whether they got scanned. It could have been the clerk. It could have been the roommate of the clerk. They have no idea. And interestingly, even though Marshall, Judge Roberts draws a line under the whole thing and says, it's really over. It's not because in the same breath, he says that there are other leads that the Marshall's office is still investigating and they have our full support. You are totally right. When you and I have talked about this at length, and we have a different position than the mainstream

media about why the Lee Cap and starting with the why the Lee Cap and it's exactly, I agree with you. It's exactly what you laid out. It was a way to try to cut the legs out from John Roberts, who would have based on what we know about John Roberts and prior decisions, would have worked the hallways of the Supreme Court to try to save as much of Roe v Wade as possible. We kind of know that for it was background in other places where he's done it, including trying to save Obamacare and the like. But the leak of this draft froze in time. Any of those efforts and made it almost impossible to do that, to circulate competing drafts, to change what was in there. And we saw the final order was almost identical to what was drafted. So like you said, the person that wants to freeze it,

and so there's no deliberative process, and cut John Roberts' legs out from under him and his ability to negotiate to the center, that's your target, that's who you should be going after. The mainstream media has said things like, oh, it was an effort, maybe by a right wing clerk to socialize that the big decision was coming to take away Roe vs Wade. No, that makes absolutely no sense. What you said, what I've said makes, makes perfect sense. And so this is just a wallpaper over there.

They never really wanted to get to the bottom of the problem. If this was a corporation, they would have gotten to the bottom of it. And even Chertoff said, look, you got a lot of belt tightening to do at the Supreme Court. You don't know who's printing these things out. You need to change that. You don't have printer logs. You don't have scan logs. You really don't have a chain of custody to understand how these 82 people and sometimes multiple

drafts for each of these 82 people and the chain of custody. You don't know where they're going doc, your document control is terrible, your version control is terrible. You know, he gave them a real critique. Marshall, you know, Robert said and say off the Marshalls report and Chertoff's report, I'm going to make all these changes. I also thought, I don't know what you thought last, last point about this thing. Chertoff citing to the law clerk ethics canons. See, the law clerks have ethical rules they need to follow, but the, the justices of the Supreme Court don't. That's the problem.

So he said, oh, this, this would have violated canon three of the law clerks ethics because they blah, blah. Yeah, the thing You can't cite is anything that would have bound the justices to anything So they didn't want to get to the bottom of it But then you got crazy Donald Trump, which I know you talked about in what are your trending takes Donald Trump going on Social media saying put Polico, which is where which broke the story and got the leak put Polico editor in jail Put the publisher in jail Politico editor in jail, put the publisher in jail, put the reporter in jail. We gotta get to the bottom of it.

By the way, I don't know why he wants to get to the bottom of it because it helped him because it's exactly what he wanted to have happen. He wanted to have a woman's right to choose after 50 years in our US constitutional as a right ripped away from women. Why is he so upset? The reason that that that dobs became dobs is

because it got leaked to Politico. So this this false narrative that Donald Trump loves to have, where he's, I don't know, the protector of the First Amendment. It was the best thing that ever could happen to him because it took away a political issue. Po-Pac, Po-Pac, Po-Pac. He hates the Supreme Court because they gave his taxes to the houseways and needs to meet. It all is, and he hates, and even though he appointed those Supreme Court justices, he blames the job decision on making him look bad because he blames that as one of the reasons that his endorsed candidates did not win. It's all a

malignant narcissistic thing when he hates the Supreme Court because of their recent rulings about him. So that's why he wants to attack the Supreme Court and he can tie in a little fascism there about arresting the political reporters and his hatred of the media. So he kind of gets a tofer when you analyze that. Did I throw a while? I totally agree with you. I love your, I love your condescending pop-up, pop-up, pop-up, you're so naive. But having said that, there was a great line of middle Brooks is just rounding out and drawing a line through all of our segments today on the podcast. Middle Brooks said about the media, the media, the reporters write the first draft of history. They have a tremendous important role that our founding

fathers saw and our framers saw. And so you have Middlebrook on the one hand saying, reporters do God's work and do the first draft of history. And then the tyrant, Donald Trump in the same week saying, put him in jail, arrest the publisher, arrest, which is exactly the opposite of what our founding fathers wanted. From really the very early Supreme Court decisions for the, for the new U.S. Supreme Court, were over the freedom of press and the right of journalists to do their job and to bring sunshine and transparency to and hold leaders accountable as a result. I mean, just Donald Trump fails history one-on-one time at time again. That was definitely, I wouldn't say it was condescending.

It was more coalescing. It was bringing together a lot of concepts here. And then I do want to touch just super briefly just to give everybody an update because I've gotten some messages. What's going on with that Peter Navarro, the mag extreme is to work in the Trump administration. He's been charged with contempt of Congress for not showing up to the January 6th committees. Sapina's that trial is set for January 30th. He's filed, as they often do, these pretty meritless motions.

He filed a motion to dismiss saying selective prosecution, the separation of powers have been violated with his previous role in the executive branch. He claimed that he was following the assertions by Donald Trump of executive privilege and the court kind of made it very clear. First off, Trump didn't even assert executive privilege with you. So he kind of threw you out here to the lines, den, but in any event you deserve it. And as Judge Amit Mehta, the presiding judge who's overseeing the case said, quote, defended Peter Navarro apparently believes the law applies differently to him,

which just about sums it up. And in denying Navarro's motion to dismiss Judge Amit Mehta also granted the Department of Justices motions to exclude him from saying all these ridiculous arguments in court by saying Trump told me to do it and I was following, you know, I was following Trump's advice, which we've talked about here, the public authority, defense, I was just following lawful orders. All that BS is not coming in. Navarro just got destroyed in this motion to dismiss. And I think it's going to be a very simple trial like Bannon's trial, where did you get the

subpoena? Yes. Did you show up? No. All right, we rest our case. That was kind of the, that was kind of the Bannon case. And I expect Navarro to be convicted. And I expect Navarro to will be then talking about Navarro being sentenced. Anything else you want to add there on Navarro, though, Popeyes, I just wanted to give people. No, other than it's we tie them together with banan because banan has an appeal that will impact Navarro. Bannon's appeal, and he's out on appeal, as we all are upset about, and he's not been sentenced because of the appeal, is on the very same case, this lick of holy case,

we've talked about at length from the 1960s, and whether that is the prevailing precedent, whether Supreme Court wants it to be, the prevailing precedent for what happens when somebody thums their nose and flouts an order of the or subpoena of the of Congress and refuses to appear because they claim some sort of connection to a president.

So that's gonna have an impact. But right now, Mata is using the same body of law that Judge Nichols used and his position is, it's the law in the books, it's the good law and we're gonna trial on that good law. I don't think that I think the trial is gonna happen before we get through the ban and appellate process. And so it may, it may, if, if ban and win somehow through the Supreme Court, it'll help, it'll help, uh, uh, Navarro, but it won't help them avoid this trial or, or the almost certain

conviction that he's going as you laid out. So eloquently in a two-day trial, that is going to happen. Well, I think the Navarro outcome is going to happen before the appeal, considering it's nine or 10 days from now. So I think we will see Navarro. Bannon has been sentenced. He hasn't served yet the four months that he has been sentenced to pending his appeal that's been stayed and as you did in another hot take that we

will talk about more as Bannon's other trial, nearers though it's the prosecution against Bannon in New York State for state law violations from the we build the wall scam where Bannon is alleged to have stolen huge amounts of money from people claiming it was going to build the wall. That Trump said that Mexico was going to pay for. Of course, Bannon was charged by the Department of Justice for the unlawful conduct.

And then Donald Trump in his pardoning of all of the criminals who have worked for him, Bannon received one of those pardoned. So a lot to discuss as we proceed with legal AF and certainly as I say coalescing not condescending. One of the things that are all coalescing is for Jack Smith. Because Jack Smith seeing a very weak and desperate Donald Trump here from all sides right now, and that Donald Trump is not a Teflon Don. He is a weak coward, trader Don, who can be easily defeated. And I think to wrap this all up,

special counsel Jack Smith is taking notice of all of this and I will be very thrilled to report when those indictments happen, which I still predict April, May, others predict sooner, but I think that I feel I feel kind of confident that it's an April, May time period. I would be surprised if it didn't happen. Thank you everybody for watching this episode of legal AF. Make sure you subscribe to our Patreon account and we've got big news about Patreon. So listen up just for one moment. If you're watching this live on Saturday, Sunday, 9am, we are doing an exclusive Patreon Zoom chat with all of our patrons. So if you are a member of Patreon, go to patreon.com slash Mightest touch right now before it's too late and become a member on one of the membership packages

So you could see the zoom that I'm gonna be doing with me and my two younger brothers Popeye don't worry I'm not making you work tomorrow. It's gonna be Brett and Jordy and myself as we unveil the future plans of the Midas Touch Network and take questions from all of you exclusively on our Patreon Zoom tomorrow. So go to PATREON.com slash Midas Touch. Become a member now so you can join that exclusive Zoom chat. Also check us out at store.mitustouch.com for the best pro democracy gear and legal AF gear store.mitustouch.com. I want to thank our sponsors for supporting our work. Highlandtitles.com www.highlandtitles.com and use the discount code legal a f to receive 20% off your order and miracle made sheets go get your great sheets go to try miracle dot com slash legal a f and then use the code legal a f for great discounts there thank you all to the legal a efforts, the Midas mighty. None of this

is possible without you. We are so grateful for this incredible pro-democracy community. Again, I wake up every day inspired by by each and every one of you. Let's keep fighting for our democracy. Let's keep learning the law. Let's keep talking about the most consequential legal news of the week of our time. Right here on legal AF. I'm joined by Michael Popak. My name is Ben Mycelis. Until next time, shout out to the Midas Mighty. Bye.