Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Judge Delivers CRUSHING BLOW to Trump Before CRIMINAL TRIAL EVEN STARTS

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

The New York criminal judge has dealt Trump 9 defeats before he even steps into the courtroom to start the Stormy Daniels fraud criminal case next month.  Legal AF anchors Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Michael Popok join forces to discuss how Judge Merchan is severely limiting Trump’s ability to confuse and prejudice the jury to obtain a defense verdict, including preventing unsubstantiated attacks on Michael Cohen. Head to Rhone.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF to save 20% off your entire order! 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

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Ahem. Wednesday. Why, you wonder? Whopper Wednesday, of course. When you can get a great deal on a whopper. Flame grilled and made your way. And you won't want to miss it. So make every Wednesday a whopper Wednesday, only at Burger King, where you rule. New developments in the Manhattan DA case.

Judge Juan Marchand has decided a pair of motions here, motions from the defense and motions from the prosecution. These were the motions in limine, so the pre-trial motions. So just because the case is slightly on hold, it was a 30-day adjournment while they sort out this new discovery that was given by the Southern District of New York, the feds, they're going to have a hearing on that. The trial was postponed, but everybody's still working. This is not like the DC trial where anything's on pause.

Everybody is still furiously at work. And there was these pair of motions in limine or pre-trial motions that were filed both by the defense, Donald Trump, as well as by the people or Alvin Bragg's office, the Manhattan DA's office. And the motions essentially were what are the things that each side wants to either introduce, be able to introduce or preclude the other side from being able to introduce.

And those are the types of things that are usually sorted out ahead of time in what's called motions in limine. And that is a standard part of every case. And the judge, Judge Juan Marchand today, he filed his decision on the motions separately. So he started, he did Trump's motions all in one. It was his decision in order on his and then in the people's he also ruled his decision and order on the people's and Popok I don't know about you but this was a resounding resounding smackdown of Donald Trump. It

was a reiteration of you know that the word denied over and over and over again in his motion and it was a resounding win for the people in both of the motions. A few little things. I think the highlight of what people will say that that was the biggest thing that Trump was able to accomplish was the people, although they can talk about the Access Hollywood tape,

they can characterize it, they can talk about the Access Hollywood tape, they can characterize it. They can't play the tape. He said that the prejudicial value there, that outweighs its probative effect of being able to play the video. What did you make of these decisions, Popak? I don't know. It was an eight and a half to one victory for the people on their motions. They've made nine motions to exclude and gag Donald Trump from floating any crazy theories or defenses in

front of the jury. And they won eight and a half out of the nine and the other half was about the credibility of Michael Cohen. And they won the lion's share of it. They just left. The only thing left was for the judge to declare, hey, you can do what you can do with every witness. You can impeach him if you don't do it with hearsay. I don't really care what the federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York felt about Michael Cohen in a different case on a different matter or even if it's a related matter, you can't use that to cross-examine. How would you even do that? I mean, I'm a practicing trial lawyer the way you are. What would the question be? Are you aware, Mr. Cohen, that the Southern District of New

York prosecutors thought that you were unreliable as a witness? I can't even get that out and have that be an appropriate cross-examination. And it's not going to be. On the Access Hollywood tape, I'll just touch on that for a minute, just to frame it for our audience,

the reason, it's a good one, that the people want to use it and will be able to reference it at length without getting into, without playing it, is because it is a triggering fact and an explanation to the jury as to why Donald Trump wanted to cover up the Stormy Daniels sex act that he had with her. It's not a relationship. She wasn't a mistress. It was like

a 20-minute event. But whatever it was, he needed to cover it up because right before that, in an October surprise leading in that was happening before the election. It had already, the Access Hollywood tape of the Hot Mic moment from three or four years earlier when he was in a trailer with Billy Bush, not knowing he was being recorded, came out and said, I basically can sexually assault and abuse women

and get away with it and grab them in their genitalia because I'm famous and I'm a celebrity. Okay so some people might say well I understand why that's relevant in the E. Jean Carroll case because he was he sexually abused her sexually assaulted her in both cases of hers but why is it Popak and Karen why is it relevant to the Stormy Daniels hush Money cover-up? Aha, because the government, the people, are gonna put on the case that the reason

that they implemented the Catch and Kill program through the nationally, originally originated by the National Enquirer publisher and editor to go out and find the women that Donald Trump had assaulted or had sexual relationships with outside the marriage, pay them off to make sure they didn't tell that story during the election was because of the fallout and the blowback that Donald Trump was suffering and his candidacy was suffering because of the leak of the Access Hollywood tape just a couple of months or

that month. And so that is the reason and the jury needs to hear it. The judge, very, very in a Solomonic way, in a very, in a very judicious way, no pun intended, said, sure, the jury should know all about the Access Hollywood tape. That had happened, why it happened, maybe even the transcript of some parts of it to explain for the people their theory of the case, but that you don't actually have to play

the recording for the jury, I'm keeping that one out. But in every other way, Karen, as you outlined at the top of this hot take, in every other way, your old office was completely successful. Michael Cohen testifying, Stormy Daniels testifying, Donald Trump not being able to float in front of the jury some week. I relied on Michael Cohen, defense of counsel defense, not being able to talk about what was or was not prosecuted by other groups, whether election violations happened or not, who was charged with election violations, all of the stuff, all of the spaghetti that Donald Trump was going to throw at the wall to confuse the jury is out. And now we just have a very streamlined case about the facts of the case,

as how unique, as alleged in the indictment, that's it. And the other thing, I'll turn it right back over to my colleague friend and former Manhattan DA, prosecutor, is that this just shows you, because we were a little bit nervous and you and I'll talk about it on the midweek edition of Legal AF on Wednesday, a little nervous about the 30-day or whatever delay it's going to be in the trial that we want to go to trial. Now I'm actually less worried because

all Murchon is doing every day is chopping wood, getting all the decisions made, ruling on all of these wood, getting all the decisions made, ruling on all of these things, get the case ready for trial. So let's call it April, trial in April. That's fine, we can live with a trial in April. What do you think about the individual decisions and how you think this impacts getting this case

up and running as quickly as possible after this issue about late disclosure of certain documents from the Southern District of New York investigation gets resolved. I think you got to see a pretty good window into Judge Mershon in these decisions. He's very decisive. He has no issue with making decisions, and he's very down the middle.

He's not a people's judge. He's not a defense judge. He's not an aggressive judge when it comes to pushing the boundaries of the middle. He's not a people's judge, he's not a defense judge, he's not an aggressive judge when it comes to pushing the boundaries of the law. He really calls things down the middle, he's very fair. And I think if you weren't going to be going to trial and didn't completely anticipate going to trial in the 30 days, I don't think he would be still working so hard and getting these rulings out the door so that everyone can be prepped to go Look, you know at this hearing that happens barring any unusual surprise I think the trial is going to go shortly after the hearing if not immediately after the hearing

And I say barring any unusual surprise because when we were talking about Howard how is Donald Trump going to try to avoid going to trial and starting the trial, because we all know that his number one goal is to delay, we all gamed out all the various different ways we thought he was going to derail it, and none of us could predict this, right? None of us could predict that the Southern District would have some late disclosure of discovery that could derail it. So I'm done. I'm not predicting anymore saying, oh, this case is definitely going because you just

never know what surprises are out there. But barring any surprise like that, this judge, Judge Mershon, is certainly acting like this trial is going. He's doing these rulings with enough time so that everyone can prepare. For example, one of the motions that he decided was whether or not to be allowed, whether Donald Trump, who said he wanted to offer evidence of an expert on the federal election campaign. And that was basically the people said they did not want this person to testify.

His last name is Smith. He was somebody who was also going to testify in the Sam Bankman Freed case and was prohibited to do that there. This testimony, his name is Bradley Smith, and he was going to do that there. This testimony, his name is Bradley Smith, and he was going to be offered as an expert on campaign finance laws. And the judge said, look, you know, that's my job. I'm the judge. I am the one who says what the law is. This guy,

Mr. Smith, has no relevant information about the facts of the case. And he can't testify information about the facts of the case, and he can't testify about the law, federal election law, that's my purview, but he can testify, very limited, he can testify generally to what is the federal election commission, who works there, you know, anything that needs to be explained about that for the jury. But the judge also was very clear that he's going to be listening very carefully to make sure that nobody actually goes beyond what his specific ruling is. Most clothes are uncomfortable. They're too tight or never actually the size you really are, not to mention the annoyance of trying to put a good outfit together. Everyone wants to dress their best and look good at all times because

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That's 20% off your entire order when you head to rhone.com slash legal AF and use code legal AF. It's time to find your corner office. You have to be really careful with that when a judge rules already and tells you what you're allowed to do. You can't push the limits of that.

And we all know that's something that Donald Trump doesn't really care about. He basically pushes those limits and pushes those envelopes. So the judge reminded people in these decisions that he's gonna be listening very carefully and making sure that nobody even comes close to the line that he has drawn in the sand. And so he's going to keep a very tight leash on this case. There's a couple of instances where he said, he said, look, although I'm denying

certain things and granting certain things, I'm denying almost everything that the Trump asked for and granting almost everything that the people asked for, because the DA's office, they would never ask for something that's in violation of the law. And so that's why he granted almost everything they asked for, because they only asked for things that were within the law and they cited the law that said he should do it. But he did caution everybody, which is, I'm ruling these things, but if the other side opens the door to things that I've precluded,

for example, I will revisit my ruling. But the way to do that is you have to ask to approach. And then the lawyers come up to the bench, and then you ask the judge, hey, judge, I know you ruled previously that this piece of evidence can't come in, but I think the witness just opened the door. Now you can't open, you yourself can't circumvent a ruling.

If you're the party that has- You can't open your own door. Thank you, you cannot open your own door. But he, and again, but he reminded people, be careful. If you think a door is opened, the way to do it is to ask to approach and ask for permission. Don't just go in there guns blazing

and give evidence, give all of a sudden say, oh, the door is opened and ring the bell, as they say in front of the jury when you can't unring the bell. So the judge is keeping tight control here and making sure that everybody knows the rules of the road. I had a situation just like that, where it was obvious to me

that the other side had opened the door, obvious to me that they had opened the door, but until I get sign off from the judge, you can't use self-help as you just described. So when that lawyer opened the door to a subject matter which they had successfully on emotion and limine precluded except for when the door is open. When my partner and I were next to each other in trial and I wrote door open and he wrote oh with exclamation marks. So at

a break we were breaking for lunch and the jury was out of the room and I said, judge, I got some things to bring up housekeeping. And he says, okay. And I said, judge, they opened the door on the issue of X, Y, and Z. And the judge said, absolutely. This is your boat. And he looked at my opponent and said, what are you, what, uh, what were you trying to do there? And he guys said what he was trying

to do. And he says, you open the door when we come back. It's fair game for Mr. This guy had a southern accent if nobody could notice. It's fair game for Mr. Popok to inquire about that. But that's how you do it. And like you said, you don't do it the other way. And I think this is also an exoneration in a way of Michael Cohen. Michael, who's on our network, who's a friend of the pod, as we like to say, and vice versa,

he's taken some unfair criticism. His public record is public. We all know what happened to Michael Cohen. We all know what he was convicted of and things that he pled to and the time he spent in prison and things that happened to him afterwards that were not appropriate and all of that. But at the end of the day, as Judge Angoran once famously said in the case against Donald Trump, just because somebody lied once doesn't mean they're lying all the time. And Michael

has rehabilitated himself to the point where even Alvin Bragg, who's the Manhattan District Attorney, who had a little bit of squeamishness and pause about basing a case fundamentally on Michael Cohen, because this case does hinge a lot on Michael Cohen's testimony, a cooperation testimony, got right with Michael because he met with Michael and his investigators and lawyers in that office met with Michael dozens of times. We know that because Michael will tell you how many times he met with the investigators. And in that, Alvin got right with Michael as a witness, understanding everything that Michael brought, the full Michael, right? The full McGill. He knows it. And he's okay with it because on balance,

his testimony does come out honest and sincere and authentic. He will admit to whatever happened in the past, but he'll look the jury in the eye and tell them the truth about this particular thing. And as you've said in the past and I've copied, you know, and Donald Trump picked Michael Cohen. The prosecution didn't pick Michael Cohen. Donald Trump did. Now, one thing I also wanted to mention that was very interesting in kind of going through everything is the, on the, not selected prosecution, not on the Michael Cohen credibility issue. And they're going to let Michael, you know, Michael Cohen gets cross-examined. It's going to be legit like everybody else gets cross-examined. The advice of counsel thing is really out the window. They're not going to be

able to rely on advice of counsel. The judge caught him, caught Trump lying about the case law. Never a good place to be. Ironically, Judge Lewis Kaplan, the federal judge who presided over both E. Jean Carroll cases that went to jury verdict against Donald Trump, now we know for over $100 million, was the judge, is the judge presiding over Sam Bankman Fried. Sam Bankman Fried, who famously infamously brought

down basically cryptocurrency as we know it, and trading in it at FTX is about to get sentenced for about 60 years in prison if the government has its way at the end of the month. But during the trial, he took the stand and wanted to testify about the fact that he knew lawyers had looked at certain of his documentation and that gave him comfort. Like, getting close to a defense of counsel, advice of counsel defense, but not quite. And the judge held a hearing and we covered it. I mean, I covered it. I'm actually in an article about Sam Bankman Fried in one of the financial journals about

the trial, and the judge said, hold it, let's have a hearing. Are you going to testify? Because you've got to testify that you relied on counsel. Sam Bankman Fried ultimately testified. And there's got to be clear advice questioning, advice giving, and advice reliance, and it has to match in order for you to testify that way, or I'm not letting you testify to the jury. In other words, what we're watching are trial judges that are very concerned about polluting the minds of the jury, blowing the minds of the jury, where prejudice outweighs the probative value of what's going on here,

especially in the hands of Donald Trump and his lawyers, who will stop at nothing to try to over, you know, to try to distract the jury from things that are not legally appropriate. So the judge has to be a gatekeeper here. And he said, I miss cited the case with Lewis Kaplan involving Sam Bankman Fried. That's not how the evidentiary hearing went down. And that wasn't his ruling. His ruling is close to my ruling is you take the stand, you got a counsel, you want to say you have the vice, you waive all your attorney

client privilege, that's one thing. But you're not gonna do this drive-by, vague, I want to say Michael was a lawyer and I sort of relied on him and he led me this way. That is not happening as defense and I think that's that's great for the people because as less moving parts as possible, while still giving the defendant the appropriate due process and fair trial that he's entitled to, the better. This is not a complicated case. It is probably the simplest of cases.

It's sex, lies, and business record fraud. It's not that hard. And jurors will get it in New York like that. And that's what Donald Trump is worried about. And election stealing. Sex lies and... All four. All four.

Yeah. So, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I hope it goes. I think it's going to go. But I agree with you. This is the simplest, most straightforward of all the cases that he's facing for sure Well, we've reached the end of a legal AF hot take you saw the headlines you read the headlines

mainly overwhelmingly victory for the people of the state The people of New York versus Donald Trump in a set of rulings by judge people of New York versus Donald Trump in a set of rulings by Judge Mershon as he prepares for trial. It's almost a total and complete victory for the people and we'll keep this trial on track for what we think would be sometime around April for a trial involving Stormy Daniels, hush money, business record fraud, election interference case that the people are going to try against Donald Trump, which could be the only trial of Donald Trump before the November election. Catch Karen and me on Wednesday at 8 p.m. on YouTube on our

podcast. We like to call Legal AF. It means exactly what you think. We do it on Wednesdays. We do it on Saturdays. I pick up Ben Misalas. We do it on Saturdays as well. And then we do hot takes just like this one at the intersection of law and politics, about the three leaders of Legal AF do it about every day, every hour, right here. And if you like the content that we're bringing you, the best way to help us frankly,

and help us with the algorithmic gods, is to interact with this content. Thumbs up, a comment, we've been known to kind of talk back with you and open a dialogue, but that's ratings in this world and that helps us stay on the air and prepares for our show on Wednesday as well. I can't tell you how many times Karen and I and Ben have caught things in chats, in

comments that sparked an idea and then it became an entire segment or so on the podcast. And so we look to our audience as in an interactive way and maybe like no other podcast on YouTube actually does. So until our midweek edition of Legal AF with Karen and me, and until our next collective hot takes, this is Michael Popok and Karen Friedman-Iknipelow signing off. Love this video?

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