Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Judge Cannon’s Past REVEALS CLUES about Next MAJOR DECISION

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

Based on her track record and the 3 Cannon Principles Michael Popok explains, it is likely in the Mar a Lago criminal case that she will find “interesting” the fake argument by Trump’s lawyers that they didn’t properly maintain the integrity of each of the 30+ boxes they seized during the raid, including the ones that were broken and busted and with top secret documents falling out of them stashed in hidden locations by Trump. Michael explains the “spoliation” motion and why it should fail, in any other federal court room. Mack Weldon: Go to http://mackweldon.com/?utm_source=streaming&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcastlaunch&utm_content=LEGALAFutm_term=LEGALAF and get 20% off your first order with promo code LEGALAF Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/legalaf 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. As a podcast listener, you've heard from us before. Today, let's hear what members have told us. One member said, I would recommend my therapist 1,000 times over. She has truly changed my life. Another member said, the day after my first session, my friends and family said I sounded like myself again for the first time in weeks. You deserve to invest in your well-being.

Visit BetterHelp.com to see what it can do for you. That's BetterHELP.com. This episode is brought to you by FX's The Bear on Disney+. In Season 3, Carmy and his crew are aiming for the ultimate restaurant accolade. A Michelin star with Golden Globe and Emmy wins, the show starring Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Debrey and Mattie Matheson is ready to heat up screens once again. All new episodes of FX's The Bear are streaming June 27th only on Disney Plus. The score bad app here with trusted stats and real time sports news.

Yeah, hey, who should I take in the Boston game? Well statistically speaking. Nah? Well, statistically speaking. Nah, no more statistically speaking. I want hot takes. I want knee-jerk reactions. That's not really what I do. Is that because you don't have any knees or? Ugh.

The score bet, trusted sports content, seamless sports betting. Download today. 19 plus, Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to connexontario.ca. I'm Dave and saving with TD Insurance made me feel like I scored my own jingle.

Save on home and auto like only you can at tdinurance.com slash ways to save. TD. Ready for you. This is Michael Popak, Legal AF. Well, Donald Trump and his losing lawyers from his New York criminal trial have gotten around late in the game to file with Judge Cannon in Mar-a-Lago a motion to suppress the evidence from the execution of the search warrant back two years ago in August in a motion for spoliation. Going to learn about spoliation. It sounds like something that's

spoiled, but it isn't. And they've claimed that because, in their view, the FBI and the Department of Justice didn't accurately preserve each and every of the 35 boxes that they seized, and some reason they took some things out and put in placeholders for the classified and top secret documents that Donald Trump had stolen and a special master and also look through the boxes because the boxes weren't in their view, picture perfect from exactly the messy, unorganized, inappropriate way that their client had stored them. them as we know from the photos of boxes of classified documents and classified documents spilling out onto the floor, right? Mr. Pack Rat, Donald Trump, is complaining that the secrets that the Department of Justice and the FBI and doing the search warrant didn't preserve every piece of paper in the exact same order. I'm not kidding. This is the motion. I'm gonna read you pages of it but I'm gonna give you the summary first.

First, let me have you recall, let's go back in time, to what we determined when the search warrant was executed. Photos of all of the places where Donald Trump had stashed and stored and hoarded boxes of documents containing top secret classified and national defense information documents. You know, classified documents that belong to you and me. Except Donald Trump couldn't figure out what to put it all so he told his people to put it in the ballroom of Mar-a-Lago, in a bathroom of Mar-a-Lago, in a dining room of Mar-a-Lago piled up high. And we know from the

indictment which to paraphrase Judge Cannon is a speaking indictment, basically a portable closing argument that lists chapter and verse, all of the facts that support the indictment. We know, we know that when people like Walt Nauta and others were moving the boxes at Donald Trump's request to go to the private residence section of Mar-a-Lago so that Donald Trump could put his dirty hands into the box and look for things and pull out classified documents that sometimes the boxes fell apart and the box tops fell off and things spilled out. We have photos that were taken, not by the FBI,

but by people like Carlos de Olvera, who's a co-conspirator and a Walt Nauta of the spilling out of the boxes. Sure, when the search warrant was executed and they started pulling things out of the desk drawer of the office of 45, the FBI took photos, we've seen those photos, we'll put them up here, of the documents that were found,

the classified top secret folders that were found. I mean, that talk about having your hand caught in the cookie jar, there you go. So Mr. Messy, Mr. Hoarder, who they admit in their own filing, this is by Chris Kise and Todd Blanch, fresh off of a 34 count felony conviction for which he's responsible as the lead lawyer, but he's decided, all right, I'm doing great here. I'm over 34. Let me keep going at Mar-a-Lago.

They argue that, well, there was personal items mixed into these boxes, news clippings and pieces of clothing and a shoe. I don't know. I'm summarizing. Inside the boxes that were mixed up with the Afghanistan war map and nuclear secrets and things like that. And to them, to the defense, talk about delusion, their argument is, see, Donald Trump didn't have anything to do with the moving of the boxes. It was done in a rush. He had to leave the White House in a rush and there was just packers and movers. I don't know, they hired two guys in a van and they came and packed up the boxes

and then we didn't know what was in there. Except those allegations without any support whatsoever. No factual support, no declarations and no affidavits. Stands in stark contrast to the evidence that the Department of Justice Special Counsel has already provided the American people. We already know from other witnesses that have cooperated with the Department of Justice

that Donald Trump himself designated which boxes he wanted pulled up from the various storage locations that I've identified on this hot take. A ballroom, the washroom, the bathroom, the dining room, the office, his office. He wanted each box pulled up three or four at a time. This is all in testimony obtained undercover or otherwise by the Department of Justice that we know about from the indictment. Brought up box by box up to Donald Trump to review.

And he took out whatever he didn't want in there. He then scrubbed the boxes himself before Evan Corcoran, his own lawyer, was to return a week or two later in order to meet with Jay Bratt for the Department of Justice. This is before the execution of the search warrant. What they leave out of their argument

is the reason that the search warrant needed to be issued at all is because the Department of Justice had reliable evidence that Donald Trump was not only destroying or secreting, concealing top secret classified documents to hide them from the Department of Justice and ultimately from a federal judge, but that he was trying to eliminate and delete the video surveillance camera, the CCTV cameras at Morillago so they wouldn't be

any record of it. They already had that. They already had Donald Trump's fingerprints all over the boxes. They already had his arms up to his elbows in each of the 34 boxes. By the time Evan Corcoran got back to Donald Trump and went into the room that was staged by Donald Trump working with Carlos de Olvera and Walt Nauta, the co-conspirators, he had already tried to sanitize them. That's the willfulness, that's the intent,

that's the knowingness that you need in order to have a crime under the Espionage Act or obstruction of justice. Donald Trump ignores all of that. Ignore my boxes. Ignore them spilling out onto the floor. Ignore my involvement with screening and scanning and sanitizing each of the boxes

and trying to stage the room for Evan Corcoran so he would have almost nothing in there. By the way, Donald Trump did a terrible job of staging that room for review by his lawyer. Because when his lawyer got in there, he found another 30 or 35 documents that were classified or top secret. And he told and reported that back to his client,

Donald Trump. And Donald Trump, according to the notes of Evan Corcoran and the recordings of his own lawyer that have been turned over to the government, he said, Donald Trump said, to the notes of Evan Corcoran and the recordings of his own lawyer that have been turned over to the government, he said, Donald Trump said, what'd you find? He goes, well, I found these 34 that were in there in my 20 minute review of these 34 boxes, hard to believe. And Donald Trump said, well, you can't, when you go back to your hotel room at the Brazilian court around the corner from Mar-a-Lago, maybe you can just and literally Evan Corcoran wrote that his client made a plucking sound as

if he should pluck them out and not turn them over to the government and then told some story that was all wrong, incorrect, but the moral of the story was that Hillary Clinton had deleted her own emails. Wrong. And that maybe they should too. That was the Aesop fable that Donald Trump came away with from the whole Hillary Clinton email server saga. So you have the facts that are out there for the public that of course Donald Trump wants to completely ignore. And their argument on defense is they need to know

the exact sequence of everything that's in every box, despite the photographic evidence of every box, the inventory of every box, the fact that every box was scanned electronically for their review and turned over to them, the fact that the boxes were first reviewed by the special master that was appointed improperly by Aileen Cannon to begin with. There were a lot of hands in these boxes, but the chain of custody was preserved. The continuity of it, the inviolate nature of the boxes. Sure, there might've been a page here or there out of a box, but if you pulled box 14

and it had newspapers, classified documents, mementos of Donald Trump, both classified and non-classified mixed, it's still intact in that version. It's not like they just threw it. They make it sound like in the filing, the FBI just played a game of like 52 pickup. They just took all the boxes and threw them up in the air

and then whoa, and then took photos of it. Come on, come on. Even Aileen Cann and the judge here shouldn't buy that. Sometimes I wish we could have things in life both ways, like a great glass of red wine, but without the headache. Well, that's not going to happen in that example, but it is possible to have it both ways with Mack Weldon. I know men tend to think looking sharp means starchy Oxford's and stiff chinos rather than

effortless comfort, but it's possible to have it both ways with Mack Weldon. From their light as air underwear to innovative anti-odor tees and versatile yet comfortable pants, Mack Weldon has a full range of clothes that never go out of style. Mack Weldon makes timeless apparel with modern performance fabrics

for guys who want to look and feel sharp without sacrificing comfort. I love my Mack Weldon Ace sweatpants. They're incredibly comfortable and also very sharp looking. I have a real confidence boost knowing I'm wearing anything sold by Mack Weldon. Some guys just want to look good without calling attention to themselves. Mack Weldon Apparel gives you understated good looks for understated confidence. Mack Weldon clothes are

designed to fit your style and the demands of modern life. They look like regular clothes, but feel like the latest in modern comfort. They're the go-to choice for guys who want to look great without even trying. Get timeless looks with modern comfort from Mack Weldon. Go to mackweldon.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code LegalAF. That's M-A-C-K-W-E-L-D-O-N.com promo code LegalAF. She keeps talking about the speaking indictment. Well, the speaking indictment tells a story with facts about the handling of it.

Their defense is, see, he didn't pack his own boxes, but it doesn't matter whether he did or he didn't. The mens rea, the criminal mind, is established by those that are gonna testify against Donald Trump that he gave the order to move those boxes up to his personal suite for his review so he could stage the room for his lawyer. That's the crime, right?

The only reason for the search warrant and the reason why they weren't cooperating any longer with Donald Trump is that Donald Trump was hiding the boxes. He was hiding the documents. He was trying to eliminate the video of his people doing it, his henchmen doing it. Hence the search warrant. They keep saying it's an unprecedented search warrant of a former president. I'm sorry, the former president is unprecedented in and of himself, right? We've never had a criminal former president.

We've never had a kleptomaniac former president. Well, we do now, and this is what we have to do as a result. Let me read to you from some sections of the brief before I end my hot take. The motion that was filed, would you believe we're up to document 612? There's been 612 briefs and motions and other papers and orders filed in the Trump case in Mar-a-Lago.

And if you go to, besides the fact that they frequently call it an unprecedented violation of the due process of Donald Trump and his exculpatory, meaning things tend to prove his innocence, exculpatory evidence was destroyed by the government. Now we're in dispoliation. That is the destruction of evidence that could have been used by the other side to prove their case or in this case to prove their innocence. Their big argument is there was buried and commingled. I love this. They basically admit that within the boxes, their own client buried and

commingled within his personal effects, top secret and classified documents. Now what they say is that he didn't do it. Somebody else unknown, no support, no factual support. Somebody else actually did the packing. I mean, that's like the Joe Biden argument, which is actually valid for him. He didn't pack up the Biden Center, the Penn Biden Center with his classified documents, but also Joe Biden didn't call for each box to come to his personal residence.

So he and Jill could go through every box to try to pick out the classified ones before his lawyer got there, when he knew the lawyer was meeting with the government. That's the difference, okay? It's not the cookie jars. It's putting your hands in the cookie jars and getting caught.

So that's their big argument. The sanctity, the boxes were violated. They weren't kept inviolate, if you will. And so, and they use as their major case, I love this part, besides admitting that the guy packed his own boxes or had his own boxes packed with his personal effects, newspapers, clothing articles, mixed in with top secret and classified documents, just what you want for a former president. They use a case to support their position, which is a New York case called Soriano, which they fell in love with. They talk about it really at length and at nauseam. And in Soriano, it has to do with heroin. So they're basically comparing their case to the case of a drug dealer who had heroin

packages secreted in food containers within his luggage. And they said, well, the FBI, they destroyed the luggage and they destroyed the food containers, but they didn't destroy the heroin. And so there was a suppression hearing to get rid of the heroin, because there'd be some sort of argument that the defense would make that they needed the luggage in order to prove their case. I mean, I'm sorry, I don't see the applicability of Soriano here,

given the methodical nature that the prosecution used, along with the filter team that they used to ensure that only the top secret classified documents that were in those boxes were seen by people with the proper classified level. And the fact that they put in pages within the box to say classified document was here, top secret document was here,

in order to deliver it to the filter team, that's totally appropriate. I mean, the fact that there were a lot of different hands on these boxes, that's not our fault. That's Donald Trump's fault. I mean, they make it sound like in their motion they wanted the FBI to take each box, all 34 of them, bag them like it's on television. Bag them in a giant plastic wrap and only open them and then with tweezers look at each document, pull out methodically,

placeholder, and I mean it's ridiculous. It is not the law. That is not the law for search warrant execution. And that is not the basis for suppression or for a finding of spoliation even by this judge. And so their whole bad faith argument that the government demonstrated bad faith, they've been lying to the judge with no factual support about the condition of the boxes and the fact that how they were preserved and how they weren't preserved is all a lie. And it's completely refuted, discounted by, refuted by the indictment and the facts that have been developed and disclosed to the American public.

And then they're saying, we need to get to the bottom of the animus. There must be bad faith official animus against Donald Trump. All they're trying to do is take him to trial. They don't care about their discovery obligations. That's completely untrue. Here's the bottom line.

The government did not destroy the boxes. The government reviewed the boxes, photographed the boxes, cataloged the boxes, scanned the content of the boxes, and had a filter team review the top secret classified boxes. And the fact that there was a newspaper in there, see, there's no, to use their heroin example, there's no destruction of anything. Where is there any allegation or any facts or truth that the government destroyed the personal effects of Donald Trump that were in the box? It's missing. Or that they destroyed the newspaper articles or the mementos or the clothing or anything else that was in the box, including gifts that he didn't declare. Where is that

allegation? That would make it on all fours with the heroin case, to the extent that that was even applicable. But I don't see that at all. And so to ask the court at the bottom of this 25 page, you know, piece of legal writing, to have the government's entire case thrown out and have them sanctioned for what's called spoliation of evidence because they didn't like the way each page of the box was preserved is ridiculous. But it just shows you that, you know, they will literally on the defense throw anything against the wall

with this judge hoping it'll stick because she has no experience. She's only been on the bench now, you know, I would say 80% of her trial time since she's been on the bench since 2020 has been about this case. And then a bunch of other cases in this little backwater federal district up in Fort Pierce or division up in Fort Pierce, Florida, you know, she's dealing with like drug cases, she's dealing with immigration, she's dealing with civil cases, you know, not criminal cases, she's not dealing with this and she's not

prepared for this, Judge Cannon. But they figure, well, let's take a shot because if she was five or ten years more advanced and she was more sophisticated and she wasn't a Federalist society, she wasn't bending over backwards to help Donald Trump, these things would die on the vine. Be like Judge Chutkin. She'd deny these without even a briefing schedule. But everything, you know, Judge Cannon finds everything interesting and fascinating. She has a couple of working assumptions, which we are watching play out time and time again. One, prosecution is up to no good. Prosecution is being loose with its obligations and needs to be lectured

and hectored by this judge on a regular basis. That's first principle. The first canon principle is that. The second canon principle is whatever Donald Trump wants, even if it means a delay, so the American people don't know whether he is or is not guilty, talk about exoneration, is gonna be granted. Doesn't matter what it is.

That's canon principle number two. Canon principle number three is, despite the fact that there is a body of law well-developed even up to the United States Supreme Court on certain issues, if she thinks it's interesting, she's gonna hold a hearing over it. She might even invite other people who aren't even parties to file briefs

and argue at the hearing. Things that she finds interesting, she's going to scratch the itch invite other people who aren't even parties to file briefs and argue at the hearing things that she finds interesting. She's going to scratch the itch despite the fact that the public justice system is being undermined. That's canon principle number three. We see these three canon principles play out over and over again. I just did it here on this particular hot take about Donald J. Trump's, I keep calling him president, he's a convicted felon. Convicted felon, Donald J. Trump's, keep calling him president, he's a convicted felon, convicted felon Donald J. Trump's motion to dismiss based on spoliation of evidence in violation of due process. We'll follow up with the brief that will

inevitably come in from the special counsel's office and then we know that already, canon principle number three, Canon's gonna find this very interesting and she's gonna set some sort of hearing sometime in late 2024, 2025, but it doesn't really matter anymore about it. We'll follow it right here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. I love saying those words. There's a reason that we named it that four years ago and now you know why. It's every Wednesday and Saturday a podcast, 8 p.m. Eastern time right here on this YouTube channel and then on every major podcast platform of your choice. We curate the top five or four or five stories at the intersection of law and

politics and the lawyers, I said lawyers, on Legal AF, how novel, talk about things they know what they're talking about in the courtrooms where we know what they're talking about. I practice regularly in Florida. I'm a member of the Florida Bar and of this particular federal district court. I'm a member of the New York Bar. I talk about a lot of things related to New York. I have a national trial practice and I try to bring it to you right here one place only on the Midas Touch Network. If you like what I'm doing, I'm Michael Popa. Give me a thumbs up. Leave a comment. It helps. It's not ego. It's algorithm. Keeps this network on the air. We're building this network with our bare hands with your help. No outside investors at all. Nothing influences

our content or our perspective. Whatever I want to say, I say you hear it right here unfiltered on the Midas Touch Network. So until my next hot take, until my next Legal AF, this is Michael Popak reporting. Heary, heary. Legal AF Law Breakdown is now in session. Go beyond the headlines and get a deep dive into the important legal concepts you need to know and we discuss every day on Legal AF. Exclusive content you won't find anywhere else, all for the price of a couple of cups of coffee. Join us at patreon.com slash Legal AF. That's patreon.com slash Legal AF.