Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Judge Cannon Makes FATAL ERROR that Could Cause her REMOVAL

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

After Friday’s 5 hour hearing with Judge Cannon in the Mar a Lago criminal case against Trump, Special Counsel Jack Smith will be left with no choice but to seek her removal from the case under the 11th Circuit’s “lemon law”. Michael Popok explains that the judge is in the verge of REVERSIBLE ERROR for the 3rd time in the case, as she also assists Trump’s efforts to use her case to block the trial scheduling of the DC and Georgia cases. Get 10% off plus free shipping of your estate plan documents by visiting https://trustandwill.com/LEGALAF Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Michael Popak, Legal AF. Well, the dust has settled on a five-hour hearing in front of Judge Aileen Cannon, attended by Donald Trump, who appointed her. Federal judge is down in the Southern District of Florida. All topics were on the table, but two main ones in particular. One was, what is she gonna do with the scheduling

of her trial, which was scheduled for May? That's out, that's baked, that's toast. When is she gonna schedule it? If she's gonna schedule it before the toast. When is she going to schedule it? If she's going to schedule it before the election, or she going to take the bait that Donald Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanche, gave her, which is, well, he's a very busy man. He's campaigning for the presidency. He has no time to be tried for his criminal conduct while, you know, while he was out of office. If that flies with her, which has not actually prevailed with any of the federal judges like Judge Chutkin that have examined the issue and don't care what Donald Trump's day job is if he's a criminal defendant.

If that flies with her, and she makes another error and pushes this trial until after the election, which yas is in her discretion. It's one more thing that Jack Smith's team will use to get her removed from the case. The trial date is in flux. She's going to issue her order. She fought frequently. The reporting from inside the room, inside the wood paneled courtroom up in Fort Pierce, Florida, is that she was combative. She was stung by criticism by the prosecutors. She was upset that they had challenged her and said that she had committed reversible error about the next thing on the hot take I'm gonna talk about, which is the release of confidential witness names

to the general public at this moment, which is also a ground to get her reversed. She had a lot to talk about here. This was gonna be a motion to reconsider her serious error, clear error, according to Jack Smith, the special counsel, about her willingness to allow the public, the media, and the MAGA world at large

to know the names of confidential and grand jury witnesses, which is outrageous, which violates all of the standards of the 11th Circuit that is her boss above her. So we got two major issues that came out of this that I'm providing the analysis concerning right now. One is it is obvious that Donald Trump is using alien cannon and she's allowing it to happen as a block. She's going to sit on the calendar for most of the summer, which is going to allow him to then combine his involvement as a criminal defendant and his lawyer's involvement in defending his case up in New York, which starts on March 25th and will

run until the end of May. They're using that combined with where we won't be able to prepare for the next trial in time. We need more time between our criminal trials, Judge, for due process. And won't you please sit on most of the summer to block the scheduling of the Georgia election interference case? So that doesn't get scheduled on top of it. And the DC election interference case, should the US Supreme Court make its decision in early part of the summer, allowing that case to be up to be rescheduled for trial. See, we have a principle that they're exploiting

in due process under our constitution and otherwise, that a person has a right to a fair trial and that they shouldn't be tried multiply at the same time or overlapping, which doesn't allow them time to prepare for their case. Now, some people might be thinking, well, that's not our fault that he's a criminal in various jurisdictions in state and federal court,

in four different places. That's a result of his criminal conduct. That is true. But our due process, we've never seen a indicted criminal like Donald Trump that had this many criminal trials going on at one time. I can't think of any, two maybe, state and federal, but a state, a two-state and two federal prosecutions going on in the same year that it's unheard of. And so, you know, judges and lawyers are struggling with, you know, this concept of giving the defense

enough time to gear up for the next trial after the last one ended. And so they want Aileen Cannon to sit on the calendar and block out and use her elbows to block out all other scheduling. That's obvious. But the thing that's gonna get her removed from the case is the thing that I talked about on a prior hot take is her,

and now she's doubling down on it. She's getting downright angry with the prosecutors about the disclosure of the witness names. Now, let me be clear. Donald Trump and his lawyer team, Todd Blanche and the rest, will get the names of the people. They will be able to prepare their case. The question is, why does it have to be put

on the public docket so that the media and MAGA can use it, MAGA especially, to docks attack and use violent rhetoric and swat and try to go after these witnesses. We know what happened with Fawni Willis, with, well, yes, with Fawni Willis, but with Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss, the election workers in Georgia, it's documented. We know about the assassination threats to every prosecutor or attorney general involved in these cases with Donald Trump. Fawni Willis, death threats, Leticia James, New York attorney general, death threats, Alvin Bragg, Manhattan DA, death threats,

judges, death threats, Judge Vershan, Judge Angorron, Judge Chutkin, even Judge Cannon, the judge I'm talking about here, death threats. And so they have to be mindful. She is myopically Judge Cannon based on the hearing, is myopically focused on I take offense to your saying that I'm applying the wrong standard. I take my obligations to make public disclosures in criminal cases very seriously and from

all angles. All angles. She's missed the boat completely on the prevailing 11th circuit precedent, which is her bosses at the appellate court and what she has to do. And she's put a heightened burden on the prosecution that doesn't exist. Right. They, they're not required to meet the standard that the judge is applying. That's what I'm trying to say. And the case law that she cites in her own orders tells her that.

And so that's why the, um, DOJ went through the extraordinary, extraordinary decision to accuse a federal judge of not only committing clear error, which is a red letter radioactive signal to the judge that the bridge is out ahead and you're about to go hurtling over this opening at 100 miles an hour, which could, you know, as reversible error in the case. And they also use the phrase manifest injustice,

that we are ruling is manifestly unjust. Those are code words, those are terms of art to signal to the 11th circuit, her bosses that there's big error being made here. It's not her first big error or potential big error being made. She's so cavalier in how she debates these issues with the Department of Justice. She's so hard on the prosecution and so lenient with the defense. I'll let you fill in the blanks there as to why that's happening. But who's the stop gap for this? Who's the gatekeeper for all this?

Who's the policeman? The 11th Circuit. And they've already reprimanded her twice before, in this very case involving Donald Trump, and how that she improperly intervened in a criminal prosecution before indictment, in a way that no federal judge that knew what she was doing would actually do.

And was reprimanded by not one, but two separate appellate panels of the 11th Circuit, three judge panels, including one that can, that included the chief judge, William Breyer. They are watching, trust me, they are watching even before the cases get up there on appeal and they're framed with briefs and all of that, all that panel of about 11 or 12 people, 11th Circuit

are watching Aileen Cannon. And Jack Smith is reported to have been in the room very alarmed Alien cannons back and forth with some of his lawyers including Jay Bratt one of his chief prosecutors About the witness things like his eyebrows went up and he almost like fell out of his chair Donald Trump seemed just totally bored by the whole event. I mean, at the end, I guess he thought he got a win because the trial didn't get set before the election. She's considering either putting it in August or after the election,

which either one would be a win for Donald Trump because it blocks the other cases and or it's after the election. And, you know, she's pushing hard to release information that Donald Trump and his henchmen can use to stir up mischief, to attack jurors, to pollute the jury's mind, even before it's selected in the case. You probably know by now my family means everything to me.

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That is gonna give Jack Smith the ability to get to the 11th circuit. He is chomping at the bit to get to the 11th Circuit on an issue of substance and tell them that she should be removed from the case, that she's demonstrated a judicial incapability, and that her rulings have painted herself into a corner that apparently she's unwilling to get herself out of,

and she's blaming the prosecutors for putting her there. That's called a stalemate, where you've created your own problems as a judge and the appearance of impropriety is manifest and you need to be removed. That'll be the standard that Jack Smith's going to use here. As we watch her, you know, flailing around like a fish out of water trying to figure out when the trial date should be. That trial date should have been set. And when it was set, should have been adhered to. The problem is she did everything behind the scenes. She liked to talk at the hearing about, well, you don't know what I'm doing

behind the scenes, Mr. Brown, I'm doing a lot behind the scenes. Really? You've done everything, your honor, leading up to this trial date to make it a fata complete that it wasn't gonna happen. You let the motion to dismiss all of them, there's like nine of them, filed by Donald Trump

to be filed so late in the game that there's no way they're gonna be decided and or appealed in time for any trial date. And he hasn't even raised immunity yet. I'm sure immunity is coming since Donald Trump thinks he got a partial victory at the United States Supreme Court, who's interested to determine whether a former president has immunity at all about a quote unquote official acts. I don't know how that applies to a guy who's out of office, who took all the documents

with him and refused in a conspiracy to return them to the government and to the American people. But he'll assert it. Why not? It's a button that he keeps pushing that seems to have an effect. And until it stops having any impact, he'll keep pushing that button. And so because she didn't force them to file their motions to dismiss on the indictment, you know, eight or nine months ago and allowed them to file it as late as February, there's no way a summer trial was happening. She hasn't even decided the motions. The motions even aren't even fully brief with either side. We're not, we're, you know, two or three weeks away from full briefing. Then there's got to be another round of oral argument. And then there's got to be, you know, then

there's a decision that takes time. And then there's gonna be a whoever loses takes the appeal. In the meantime, Jack Smith has a way to get to the appellate court faster. She's gonna screw up, here's my prediction here on legal AF. She's gonna screw up the motion for reconsideration. That's for sure. He's gonna take an appeal on that directly. She may screw up another issue related to one of the classified Information Procedure Act issues in the case.

And if she does that, that's an automatic appeal to the 11th Circuit. And then he's going to argue that it's extraordinary. We're not used to doing it. We've never done it in the history of the Department of Justice, but like twice. But we need to have this judge removed because she's demonstrated an incapacity to handle the case properly. She's created a stalemate, she's painted herself into a corner, and she's made not one but a series of reversible errors in the case dating back from its inception. And the 11th Circuit, as most circuits do, have a lemon law. And if a judge, you know, sort of has to go back to the shop three times for

repair, you can trade in your judge for another judge. At least that's what the case law says. Under these extraordinary circumstances, as I have outlined them. And I think that's got to be the next step, you know, Jack Smith, who is passive, poker faced, and sober. The fact that the reporting is that he was acting out in his own way in the hearing room, in the courtroom, with raised eyebrows and all sorts of body language that indicated that he could not believe that the judge was both roasting his colleagues and on the verge of making reversible error again.

We'll continue to follow everything that goes on at Mar-a-Lago right here on Legal AF. If you like lawyers who know what they're talking about at the intersection of law and politics, you've reached the right place, Legal AF every Wednesday and Saturday at 8 p.m. And then we do hot takes like this one, the leaders of Legal AF to catch you up

in between because there's just so much so many moving parts happening so fast at such a velocity that we are trying to be an explainer for you right here on this network. So until my next hot take, if you like this one, thumbs up and leave a comment. It's not like cable TV. Watching it is not enough for the ratings. You have to interact with these videos. And then that keeps us on the air, keeps the lights on. And until the next hot take of mine, next League of LaF, this is Michael Popok reporting.