Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Justice on Trial: Rittenhouse Acquittal, Arbery Murder, Bannon Indictment, Alex Jones Default

Episode Date: November 21, 2021

You come for the law and stay for the truth. The top-rated weekly US law and politics news analysis podcast -- LegalAF -- produced by Meidas Touch and anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, is back for another hard-hitting, thought-provoking, but entertaining look in “real time” at this week’s cases. On this episode, Ben and Popok analyze: 1. The Wisconsin Rittenhouse trial verdict, and a critique of the prosecutor’s side of the case, from the indictment through closing argument leading to the verdict of acquittal. 2. The Georgia trial against the killers of Ahmaud Arbery as it moves into closing argument and jury deliberation next week. 3. InfoWars’ Alex Jones’ latest defamation case loss against the Sandy Hook families and survivors. 4. The FBI’s raid of Boebert’s campaign manager’s home as part of the DOJ’s investigation into improper hacking of Mesa, Colorado’s election equipment resulting in confidential information being leaked to Q-anon. 5. The New York Times reporting against Project Veritas and a New York State court’s attempt at “prior restraint” to prevent the paper from exercising its First Amendment right to publish. 6. The Bannon indictment and next steps to watch for. 7. The Trump appeal to the DC Circuit regarding the National Archives documents and the assertion of executive privilege.   8. The DOJ’s indictment in New York of two Iranian hackers for attempting to interfere with and undermine US elections. And so much more! Support the show!  AG1 by Athletic Greens -- Athletic Greens is going to give you an immune supporting FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase if you visit https://athleticgreens.com/legalaf today. Cubii -- Making Wellness Approachable for All Ages, Abilities, and Lifestyles. Click to Learn More! Stay Home & Get Fit While You Sit. Go to https://www.cubii.com/legalaf Adam & Eve -- Go check out https://AdamandEve.com today, select one item and get 50% off including FREE shipping when you enter offer code LEGALAF Aura Frames -- Aura digital photo frames offer the highest resolution display on the market. The auto‑dimming screen wakes each morning and goes to sleep at night. Your photos will always be the ideal brightness. There’s never been a better time to buy. Take advantage of Aura’s best deals of the year, with Black Friday/Cyber Monday pricing now through November 30. Visit auraframes.com now to get gifting. Use code LEGALAF to take $30 off Aura’s best selling digital picture frames Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Midas Touch Legal AF. If it's Saturday, it is Legal AF Live. If it's Sunday, it is Legal AF. Ben Micellus joined by Michael Papokian. I'm an LA Papokian. It's in New York, but we were both in LA together. Michael, it was so great to see you in person. Had so much fun going to the LA Clipper game with you. Big win by the LA Clippers as well, and just overall great seeing you in person. I just figured out that day that we hadn't seen each other live in in person in like two years.

Despite the camaraderie that people compliment understandably on this legal a f show, you and I haven't been in the same room. Well, you weren't in the same room with your brothers for a long time. So I don't feel left out. But it was fun. It was fun. And I became very close friends, really through a virtual kind of Zoom relationship. You know, we had hung out before a number of times, but really during the pandemic, you know, speaking to each other, almost more than I speak to almost anybody that I that's that I know. But it is funny to see in person after all of these, you know, Zoom conversations, all these podcasts, your taller in person, taller, you're better looking in person. So as long as as long as we've got that, then we've got

everything that we need and what the audience needs is a good dose of the law. A lot of developments and look, as I think we delve deeper into these cases, provide deeper analysis into the legal issues and what's going on behind the scenes. You definitely see a growth in the legal AF audience. I mean, week over week over week, people are getting their legal news from legal AF, so they truly know what's going on in the case, whether it's Ahmed Arbery or Kyle Rittenhouse

or what's going on with the January 6th committee, what's going on with Trump's claim of executive privilege, what's going on with the SBA law in Texas. You join us on this journey week over week, so you're fully up to date on what's going on and not just what, but why and what are the variables in a case? And Popok, you may not always be right on every Popokian prediction, but there's lots of variables in law that you can predict everything, but it's the framework of how these decisions are made. That ultimately is what we want to

impart. So let's get right into a Popok. Let's start talking about this Lauren Bobberburt's campaign manager and the campaign manager's colleague who also is the county voting election Registrar over in Mesa and Colorado. They had their homes rated in connection with pursuing QAnon conspiracies regarding all the kind of crazy bullshit that Michael and Dell and Trump were kind of pumping out there. But here you have actual GQ peers who are

making these baseless accusations. It appears based on the allegations tampering with election equipment. A state and federal task force were both involved in these raids. And so what are the implications here in Popeye? What's going on? Well, all roads lead back to Mike Lindell, a pillow guy. We talked over the summer about him having the clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, Tina Peters, basically harboring her. FBI was investigating and knocking on doors and he found a way through his cyber, his cyber conference to where she was a speaker, to hide her for a while in his home or wherever. Take her out of Mesa, Colorado. Why does this matter to representative Lauren Bobert, who is the QAnon supporting representative out of Colorado?

Because her campaign manager, then campaign manager, Sherona Bishop and Tina Peters and Mike Lindell are really, really close. And so what is, you have to go back to what Tina Peters is accused of doing. She's accused of giving QAnon supporters direct access to computer software equipment,

running the election in Mesa County. Literally, the allegation is that there was a video surveillance equipment overlooking the election equipment in Mesa that was turned off, went black for a period of time. And that during that period, a Gerald Ward was given access by Tina Peters, the allegation is in order to access the voting machines and copy data to leak it to QAnon and a forum online that you and I know, you know, know the name that I've never been on, of course, called eight, con eight K un. And this all leads to that.

I pronounce that 8, I don't know, but no, this one is different. This is K un. I think it's a different one that there is an 8, I agree with you. So, but Boberts manager, former manager, also involved in that FBI rated her house in a dawn raid knocking down the doors, Tina Peters as well. The roads will hopefully lead back to Michael and Dell, but this is a development that you and I will be watching as the Department of Justice continues to come out, come down hard and harsh on the big lie advocates. Speaking of QAnon Jake and Gellie, aka the QAnon Shaman or the self-professed QAnon Shaman, he was sentenced to 41 months in the January 6th Capitol riot. Popok was justice served here or was that a slap on the wrist?

Well, let's talk about what he did. And then we'll look at the 41 months, which is the highest sentence that's been given so far. So he's, as you said, the QAnon Shaman, the bare-chested guy with the big hairy hat. He was in the Senate chambers. He left a note from Mike Pence that said justice is coming. But what he didn't do is he did not commit violence himself. He's not accused of punching, striking, attacking Capitol police or others. And he also is not accused or wasn't accused or indicted for any property damage. He was, he was involved with, in what they said, was inciting the riot. He was out there with a bullhorn with, let's get him. And then, you know, of course, he parades around the, the Capitol. But the, the, the Department of Justice asked for 51 months, the defense asked for

the 11 months that this guy has already served pretrial detention. And the judge said, no, you're getting 41 months. I'll give you credit for the 11 months, which means you'll be out in two and a half years. But that's a pretty, that's a pretty stiff sentence. As public as that guy was, he ultimately didn't do as much as the others of the top 200 or so that are that whose prosecutions, indictments and or sentencing are coming up. So that's a bad sign. You mean in terms of the damages actually caused? He was just more of a clown in there, like a circus clown, whereas other people

were involved in violent acts. Right. I think I think if 41 months is the new baseline for somebody like him who didn't commit violence and didn't destroy property, well, will be the people. But with one caveat, as opposed to having one judge in the federal circuit, sentence all of these people, we've got dozens of judges in the federal circuit. Some are Trump supporters. And so we're seeing already the variation where some judges, like this particular judge, Lambertson, who was appointed by Reagan, no less. He's a senior status judge. Antonia Chutkin, who we talked about at length at the last podcast, is are giving very throwing the book at these people. You got other people that were appointed by Trump that are thinking,

isn't really that bad. Let's compare it to Black Lives Matter. And so we had a development as late as yesterday. On Friday, that's that you and I are going to have to follow that's even more Concerning then what happened how many months shaman got dabney friedrick who's a trump appointee judge He decided that the Abstruction of justice charge that the Department of Justice is using for the top 200 of the 700 insurrectionists It's their highest is using for the top 200 of the 700 insurrectionists. It's their highest charge or one of their highest charges, which if proven and sentenced on is 20 years in prison, the problem that Friedrich has with the obstruction of justice charge,

and he's not completely wrong, is that the obstruction of justice is usually within a legal proceeding, usually a litigated legal proceeding, you do something to obstruct justice. You stop a witness from testifying, you destroy documents. Something like that. Here they're saying that because the insurrection has tried to stop the lawful transition of power, the JAN-6 electoral vote,

that's the obstruction of justice. And Friedrich says, well, why isn't that harassment to prevent an official proceeding, which is a three year crime? Why are you using the 20 year obstruction of justice and stretching it outside of the courtroom to use for what happened at the Capitol? So he's put the government lawyers back on their heels on that. If that goes, if he dismisses that count and dismisses it in all the places where he's sentencing and other Trumpers follow suit, then we're going to have to take a Supreme Court appeal about what the obstruction of justice count means. And it hollows out, unfortunately,

the Department of Justice's ability to sentence at the highest level, these insurrectionists. Popak, as you mentioned, a Trumper judge elections have consequences. And so when we talk about the infrastructure bill and all of these things that Biden is doing to deliver, you know, there are some Democrats to go. Then infrastructure bill is not enough. It's a water down bill, despite it being one of the most historic, if not the most historic infrastructure bill in the United States history. But let me tell you, let me tell you that one of the critical things and we talk about

this and all of our podcasts that Biden does and Biden has done is appointing federal judges with diverse backgrounds who are competent, who look at the law from the perspective of serving justice and not serving fidelity to Donald Trump and to a political party. And this judge's interpretation, in my view, of obstruction of justice to so narrowly curtail that understanding and that meaning to basically say, if there's that it has to exist in a courtroom, the chambers of a district court versus the chambers of Congress. In my view, is a little judge, Jiu Jitsu,

but ultimately trying to come out on the side of giving these insurrectionists the least amount of penalties. One thing before I want to ask you about or a frames popo, which is, did you see the lawyer Albert Watkins for the shaman in his interview after this guy's been hilarious. I mean, he's spoken his mind. This guy just kind of curses and just says whatever the hell he's thinking at the time. And he was asked, quote, after spending this much time with Jacob Chenzli,

the shaman, and learning about him, what do you think is the appropriate accountability for former president Donald Trump. And this is what his response was, quote, if you're asking my opinion, my opinion is meaningless. I will say that I would probably, probably be more effective over a beer with the former president, even if he didn't have a beer, because I understand he doesn't drink a beer. But I tell him, you know what? You've got a few effing things to do, including clearing this Fing mess up and taking care of a lot of the jackasses that you F up because of January 6th. And normally I would say the curse word, Popeye, but our last experience from last

week with YouTube somehow the minus touch legal AF podcast was flagged for adult content. I don't know how in the world. So I'm just going to say to R. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So say F word because I want to because I don't want people blocked on YouTube from watching our performance here. At the end of the day, you have to tell the law.

Yeah. You know, we're all you have to say what happens. And look though, one of the things I'll say though here, because we're going to talk about prior restraints of First Amendment rights on this podcast and the implication in a New York Times project, Veritas case. We'll talk about that later in the podcast.

But the difference is, unfortunately, we sign the YouTube Terms of Service. And if they think that, for whatever reason, it's adult content to what, even though it wasn't, we could protest it. We could petition, but ultimately, there's a process that goes through, you know, a private process there, unfortunately. But we'll talk about. Let me go back to elections of consequences, because we're not going to spend any time on the podcast, but it does segue into something else. All of the vaccine mandate cases have now been sent by lottery selection to one circuit

court, the six circuit court of appeals. That six-circ- that six-circ- like the fifth circuit is supremely conservative, and Trump in his four years was able to appoint and Republicans before him the vast majority of the sixth circuit. So for all those that want to whale and Nash on the Democratic or independent side about Biden or about Kamala Harris or about any of this or he's not delivering enough or he's delivering too much, you better get behind the vote and vote for the midterm and for him to be reelected or the Democrat to be reelected, or you're going to see the face of the judiciary changed for

the next 20 years by another Republican, because Biden doesn't have enough time to appoint enough federal judges to make an impact on the federal, on the scar that Trump left unless he gets a second term. So I don't care if you like him on any other thing. I said this about Hillary too. Suck it up and vote for the Democrat if that's your political leanings because if you don't get motivated and energized to do that, then you're not gonna like legal AF for years from now.

Yeah, that would be kind of legal against the existing fascist regime as opposed to analysis friends. Popo, talking about AF, another AF or a frames, tell us about it. That was perfect. I hadn't even thought about the initials. I like horror frames and I just loaded mine with 240 photos from the life of Popok, which was fun. You know what I like about it?

I like that you can send things directly to the frame. It's a digital frame that you don't have to send through social media. You can literally just send it directly to your frame and other friends and people that you like in your life that you give access to can send photos directly to the frame as well. So if the pandemic has taught us anything,

it's that the connection to the people we love most is what really matters, not the kind of connection that comes from a curated social feed, even one that you and I curate on legal AF or a chaotic group text, which I hate. But the everyday moments where life really happens or a smart frames bring those moments to the forefront of daily life, making it easier to share photos. And now video, I like this feature too. I could send video there and even those live versions of photos that the iPhone does, it'll give you a little couple of second snips of the video that rolls through the frame as well. And that makes life and these people feel closer than ever before. It's beautifully designed. I was really impressed by the ergonomics of it, the design of it. It's easy to set up. I did it right out of the box. And it was one of Oprah's favorite things in 2021, three years

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That's a you are a frames.com. What about what about legal a F? Do they get any kind of discount Ben for this purchase? Of course they do listeners use code legal a F to take $30 off of Oras best selling digital picture frames. So go to or a frames.com a you are a frames.com or a frames.com, a you are a frames.com, a you are a fram, and ES dot com, use the code legal a f take that $30 off. It's not only an opus list. If opus list doesn't convince you, you should know it's on popo key ins list.

It's on Ben micellas is list. And this is the perfect popo gadget in the world, because popo is organized. He's sentimental. I know what pop-up got that or a phrase. He's holding it right up. Here's the difference between me and pop-up. It took me three days to load the photos in there.

I know that the moment pop-up got it, he had preloaded all of the photos. It was ready to go. That's how efficient pop-up is. Go to oraphraves.com and make sure to use the code legal a F not so pretty picture for Alex Jones, but I think he got what he deserved. He always gets what he deserves. He deserves the absolute worst. I'll tell you to about a little personal tip that I had with Alex Jones. About two years ago or three years ago, he randomly came after me. I don't even remember what it was about Popo, but he mentioned it was,

it could have been the cappernic case I was working on. I forget what it was, but he went after me and made some comment about how I used to work. Rehillary Clinton had some crazy conspiracy on me. And I have to go dig it up and find what it is that he had actually said about me. And I was considering, you know, at that time, you know, whether or not I should, you know, raise the issue publicly about what Alex Jones was saying back then. But I let it go. It predated.

Might as touch when I was a bit more of a private person in, I guess my personal Ben affairs, although I represented people at high profile cases, but he's now been officially found to be in default. He didn't participate really in these cases. He violated every one of the rules that we talked about of like responding to discovery and showing up in the courtroom and attending, get alone making an argument. So it's not like this is a case where a lawyer for the victims of Alex Jones's defamatory conduct and other torches conduct.

It's not like their lawyer spoke to the jury and did a trial and convinced them. It was Alex Jones just not participating, not showing up, engaging in discovery abuses. And because he didn't participate, he lost by default. And now it's a matter of damages that are going to be awarded against him. And there's a Connecticut case. There are other cases across the country regarding his defamatory conduct, but why isn't he been responding, Pope, so weird. Yeah. Yeah. So info wars, Alex Jones, hopefully that that that show is off the air. He's now lost four, four strikes in your out, four defamation cases brought by the family and survivors of Sandy Hook, where almost 30 people were massacred in a serial killing and an active shooter incident to remind everyone

as disgusting as it is, Alex Jones and his info wars podcast told people for commercial benefit because he's got sponsors, not our sponsors, he's got crazy sponsors, and others, money raises that Sandy Hook was staged, that it was a hoax, that there were fake actors, as people weren't really dead, those children weren't really lost. Of course, the families all brought various lawsuits, both in Texas, where Alex Jones resides, and in Connecticut where Sandy Hook happened, he's now lost his fourth one with the Connecticut case,

where a state court judge warned him a long time ago, a year ago, that if he did not properly participate in good faith and discovery and turn over ultimately the documents and information that he says supports his false flag. Sandy Hook was a hoax opinion, if you will, that she was going to ultimately default him. Well, he did, it's funny. In this case, not funny. It's a bad segue. It's disgusting. But he did do something in the case in Connecticut that was, that was really eye popping. I don't know if you caught this bend. Did you see that he, at one point, he turned over his hard drive of his computer to the other side and it led to a court hearing about child pornography being found on his on his hard drive.

Did you read that? I did. Okay. So what idiot turns over his entire hard drive without checking it? And apparently he, he, he received an email that had child pornography attached to it. He turns it over to the other side. And his defense in court and on his podcast was a calling the lawyer for the plaintiffs, in this case, the parents of Sandy Hook, who happened to be Jewish, some anti-Semitic

trope and calling him, you know, calling him a Jew, whatever. And also claiming that that lawyer sent in the email, the child pornography, which is totally wrong. And they had all court hearing about it. And his defense was he's not into child pornography. He likes women. And then he gave a descriptive term about women. I mean, he's really disgusting. But what he hasn't done in this case is participate properly in good faith in discovery. And as you alluded to, the judges issued a default judgment on liability. He still have, he'll still have his day in court now on damages, a whole trial, just on damages, potentially with a jury,

just on damages. Now he hasn't signaled yet whether he's going to participate in that or he's going to default on damages. I doubt he defaults on damages. He'll try to, I don't know what he's going to argue, but liability is over in four cases. Now we go to a jury trial on damages. And then ultimately, I don't know what his assets are, but they're going to get a judgment. The judgment's going to be something substantial because the jury's going to hate Alex Jones and Connecticut and this part of Texas and maybe punitive damages. And then they're going to they're going to own info wars, whatever assets he has, whatever money he has and the like.

I don't know what he has. I mean, I don't know if he's judgment proof because he doesn't have a pot to piss in. But they're they're they're going to go forward and these lawyers are warriors and you are doing a valiant job on behalf of the legal system to pursue Alex Jones, even if it leads to a parac victory and a paper judgment. Yeah, liability at this point has already been proven. So the only thing that the jury is going to have to decide is how much money do we award the victims of Sandy Hook by having and their families by being

further defamed and being called actors and kind of engaged in these red flag efforts. What's that worth? And, you know, I think that there's an argument to be made that it is substantial, substantial damages. And so the pain and suffering of being told your child was not killed in a massacre with Alex Jones's platforms. And I remember the day where Alex Jones was a crazy outlier during the Obama years, ranting and raving on info wars.

That's kind of the norm now of what this GQP party is. Like, you know, that's mainstreamed. Like this guy is not as sick as it is to say. You know, we talked about Lauren Bobert, we have Marjorie Taylor, Green, Matt Gates. You know, we talk about these people repeatedly on the show because they're often embroiled in lots of liberal, then legal issues and drama and federal investigations

and they're very similar to Alex Jones, you know, and it's just, just worth reflecting on that Alex Jones is probably less radical than some of the people who have a Republican next to their name in Congress, like a Paul Gosar. I'd put it this way. It's not that the fringe, what used to be even five years ago, the fringe conspiracy, QAnon theorist, what was then the Tea Party at that time, it's not that they've moved towards the mainstream Republican position. It's that the mainstream Republican position has moved out to the fringes and now embraces them to the point where we can't distinguish between what we used to call the radical,

radical, crazy fringe of a party and the party itself. It's become one and the same. Absolutely. Tell me, Popoq, before we talk about prior restraints, briefly worth mentioning a federal indictment of Iranians who were involved from Iran, who were involved in efforts to sow fears about the 2020 election, integrity, I believe they were posing as, among other things, proud boys and trying to interfere with the elections and intimidate and target democratic voters with

threats. You know, and the, you know, the, what made this, I think additionally sinister is that the proud boys were doing that anyway, like the proud boys were engaged in that conduct. And so when you actually have a group like that in the United States that's doing that, then what was allowing for was other international groups to kind of come in that want to kind of further interfere with our election to basically disguise themselves and embed themselves within the existing organizations that are doing just that to amplify their effort to amplify the interference. So tell us briefly about this indictment, Popeye. Yeah, listen, this is an example where, you know, the Department of Justice can ignore, you

know, inconvenient storylines just because it doesn't completely fit the narrative that you and I have, which is true, which is that mainstream and fringe Republicans have, through the big lie, have tried to destabilize this country and undermine fair elections. That is all true. But what is also true, and has been for quite some time, is that foreign actors motivated by the security systems of countries like Russia and Iran and China have also tried to destabilize this country and take advantage of the warring political parties or political ideologies between the Democrats and what passes

itself off as Republican these days by finding our fault lines and trying to foment that disconnect, discontent, sometimes through social media and using bots and Facebook and Instagram to royal up people against each other because that destabilizing America is part of their national interest because it makes us weaker as a country and we can see it now and makes our foreign policy towards those countries weaker.

So when you have evidence that Iranian hackers posing as proud boys, I wonder why, as you said, I wonder why they picked proud boys because that was obvious. And they hacked computer networks and they, and in personating the proud boys, they went after Republican elected officials. They went after the Trump organization and others to try to, in the name of the proud boys, push a certain political agenda. They hacked voter information websites in order to get access. And then they had this targeted and coordinated campaign to undermine confidence in the US elections. So the Southern District of New York here, the Federal District for Manhattan, is, the federal district for Manhattan

is where the Department of Justice filed a couple of days ago on what they're referring to as a massive false flag event. And it's just, you know, they can't ignore it. If they ignore it, then it'll just embolden other hackers from other bad state acting countries to try to influence our elections, whether on the Democratic side or the Republican side. You and I might as touch and the followers are for fair and fair elections, not interfered with by foreign governments. And regardless of how they come out. Absolutely. And I think the problem though is is that we have this rare situation now in American history going back to even the earlier example where we talked about Boberts former campaign manager. We talk about what's going on with the cyber ninjas. The interference with free and fair elections is coming from one of the two

major political parties, the GQP, the Republican party, which used to be, I suppose they called themselves a party of Reagan, a party of conservatism, all bullshit, all bullshit. Part of Lincoln. Yeah, really, there's, there's nothing conservative about any of the conduct they engage in that we cover here each and every weekend on might as touch and might as touch legal. A, if this podcast is brought to you by Adam and Eve, let me ask you a question, are you getting enough? I bet you'd love more, right? Well, Adam and Eve.com wants to give you more

with 50% off just about any item plus free shipping on your entire order. So what do you have to do to get your 50% off one item and free shipping on your entire order. So what do you have to do to get your 50% off one item and free shipping? It's not hard. Just enter offer code legal AF at checkout and you'll get 50% off almost any item. Go check out Adam and Eve.com today. Select one item and get 50% off to So don't wait on your Adam and Eve order. Shop now, shop early, hurry, wow, supplies last. Popo, let's talk YouTube. Take that YouTube. Okay.

That was a G rated Adam and Eve and all the days are coming. Adam and Eve. But we talked about YouTube. You know, we've talked before about Twitter and being that it is a Private company that has a terms of service. The first amendment right is actually protective of Twitter's first amendment rights of speech as well You know and Twitter's rights to have a terms of service. That is rational and normal and non a terms of service that is rational and normal and non discriminatory. It doesn't discriminate based on race, gender, ethnicity, a protected class. It protects against violence. It protects

against inappropriate conduct. And that's always been held to be okay. But what you're not going to launch. Wait, wait, wait, you and your brothers aren't going to launch a minus tube now because we had a, we had to stay within the terms of service for our ad campaign. We just decided to stay within the terms of service that our ad campaigns. Exactly. And look, I think if Bretton, I launched a minus tube, it would be different than what a Jordi might as tube would be look like and possibly tailored to different audiences and different type of content.

But yes, the points we'll take in, but let's talk about this unusual ruling out of Westchester County and the ongoing saga between the New York Times and Project Veritas. Project Veritas, project Veritas would be a deposition service called Veritas. But Project Veritas is that group by that O'Keefe. They basically go in there.

They self-select and edit these clips to kind of manipulate the way, they'll go in, they'll find like a CNN, someone who used to be affiliated with CNN who's like the camera guy, who doesn't like give a shit, right? And then they'll ask the guy, hey hey like what do you think about the elections and then they'll try to catch the guy saying something they like distribute the records and they go you see CNN feels this way because like some random third line camera person you know you know I'm sorry. Right.

You know and but project veritas has also engaged in some pretty egregious contact in kind of infiltrating organizations lying about who they are and then Representing things with like snippets like it. I would say project veritas is probably the opposite of a mightest touch But here the New York Times was doing reporting of Project Veritas's unfounded claims or that was alleged by the New York Times in Minnesota and seems to be what was actually taking place.

Project Veritas had sued the New York Times for defamation, so that's not what this case is though. So Project Veritas sued New York Times,, but separately New York Times, guess what? Is the news gathering organization and it's getting tips, it's investigating things about Project Veritas, about its activity in infiltrating organizations. And the New York Times is publishing information that it gets, including Memorandum that is allegedly sent from a project veritas lawyer internally to project veritas people about how you infiltrate these, you know, infiltrate groups and how you get in there in the types of tactics that you use. Project veritas then filed this case against New York Times

in Westchester requesting a judge order that New York Times not publish stories about Project Veritas regarding these memorandum and just other information. Just don't report generally about Project Veritas because what they argue is, look, we're in this other litigation that's taking place over this, what this, what was happening in Minnesota. So here in New York now, you can't do an end run around New York Times, you can't do an end run around the discovery process. Now that we sued you over this other case and get documents that belong to us

and attorney client privilege documents that belong to us because that would be violating basically your rights and ability as a litigant. And New York Times is saying, well, we are our news gathering organization. You can't stop our first amendment right to investigate you and to publish. Popeyes decent description.

You wanna fill in some gaps there. And explain why this ruling those particularly strange because in this Westchester County judge basically found basically a temporary injunction. It was in order to show cause why a more permanent audition and be put on. But this is it was called a prior restraint on free speech. It is preventing the New York Times from publishing. It is a restrained prior to publication. Generally, what would be the remedy is a publisher, whether it's a book publisher or a news publisher. They can publish the work,

and if it's defamatory or violate some other rule, then there could be serious repercussions for it, but you can't tell a media entity, hey, you can't speak. All right. So let me do the procedure, and then I'll do first amendment and prior restraint, which is a really important area of the law about press freedom.

And one, the New York Times has been involved with since the 1970s in a series of cases out of the Supreme Court dealing with the Nixon administration and the Vietnam War, which you and I and others colloquially call the Pentagon Papers case. And there's a whole movie that was made about it, including the Washington Post's role, along with the New York Times,

in publishing the Pentagon Papers, which were leaked papers about what was really happening with death rates of soldiers and the widening battle in Vietnam that was being led by the US. So New York Times knows this area of the law really well. So you've got Project Veritas, who was the subject of a November 11th article with the New York Times, which is still up on their website. You should go look at it and read it.

On November 11th article, the headline read, Project Veritas, are they committing political spying as part of their quote unquote journalism? And they went into a series of facts about things that they've obtained serotoniously, potentially falsely, fraught with fraud. Specifically, you've heard about Project Veritas because they're accused of having stolen Joe Biden's daughter's diary. When I first read that, I was like, people still have diaries, but she has a diary and they got their hands on it and it's legit. The diary is and they were starting to publish information from, you know, this daughter of the president, this adult order appears to be legit. You know, there's, they haven't claimed. Yeah, the Biden family hasn't claimed that it's not legit. In fact, I think she's claimed

that it's her private property. But in any of it, look how low project fairytops has stooped that you have an adult 40 something year old daughter of a 78 year old president and they're snooping around her garbage cans trying to find her diary in order to do what? To go down the Hunter Biden Joe Biden path again. I mean, this just shows how low things have sunk in America. So November 11th, New York Times writes an article and they're going to write a follow-up article. And some of what they're going to rely on is information that was leaked to them, ironically,

because Project Veritas thinks it's a leaking disclosure organization like WikiLeaks. But the Times got a credible source or two that supplied them with information from Project Veritas' own files, including those for a lawyer who may or may not have been operating as a lawyer at the time he was giving that advice. And they were going to run with the story. So Project Veritas runs into

not a courthouse in New York City, not in one of the five burrows like Manhattan. They go out to Westchester, a little sleepy suburbia on the outskirts of Manhattan that people live in, and got a judge there to issue a temporary injunction to, and he's going to do two things at the permanent injunction hearing on the 23rd of November. That judge is going to decide whether a, the New York Times should be restrained, prior restraint, it's the name of the doctrine, which is a exception, which is under the first amendment means that you're not going to allow the publisher to publish exception, which is under the First Amendment means that you're not going to allow

the publisher to publish information, which generally is a violation of the constitutional races. It's almost always a constitutional violation of the First Amendment, and that's why the prior restraint doctrine, prior restraints, a bad thing, not a good thing. And when you're doing that and your and the judges being accused of prior restraint, that's going to be found to be a constitutional violation under the New York Times line of cases from the 1970s. But it gets worse. Ben, I don't know if you caught this, they already took a quick appeal to the the second department, the second appellate division, second department of New York, which is what Westchester reports

to on an emergency application. They got one justice, it's sort of the duty justice of the second department to continue the injunction in place until full briefing on the 23rd. But why the 23rd is so scary. And again, I think he's the judge is compounding the problem here is he's even going to consider forcing the New York Times to take down the November 11th article that's already been published, is already out there that they that may or may not contain some of this information that's that issue in the litigation, which is an extraordinary overreach by a by a state court judge without respect to the federal constitution, which said, if that goes wrong, at least for the New York Times, then, then you're talking about a court

of appeals, New York case, and potentially flipping over to the federal government and the federal system and the US Supreme Court on the issue of the US constitutional rights that are being implicated. This US state, this state court judge and Westchester, the ruling is likely going to be overturned. I can say that with some degree of certain kind. I'm not in prediction. It's a very easy prediction because it's a wrong ruling. Just clearly counter to the law.

The question is when, but I want to point out one other thing, Pope, back here. It's so how ideologically disingenuous the GQP is here, right? Because you would think that project Veritas, the idea of a prior restraint, they're an organization that would want to publish information publicly and to not have private, prior restraints against them, the very precedent they are, they would be setting, if this Westchester rule were to be a rule, would be a precedent that would run directly counter to their organization, and it would be used by groups

to basically say, hey, Project Veritas has unlawfully infiltrated our organization. We want to stop Project Veritas from publishing this for X, Y and Z, but Project Veritas has unlawfully infiltrated our organization. We want to stop Project Veritas from publishing this for X, Y, and Z. But Project Veritas has availed itself to arguments that they are a news organization and that prior strange should not apply to them. I bet you there are a number of cases and I'm sure the New York Times is doing this, where Project Veritas has cited the law against public restraints in letters, in court filings and all of that. But if you know that's how ideologically this engend was, they are because the president

they're setting is completely and utterly against what a news organization would want. You knew that was our trick when I represented Midas in the case that when they were trying to get you to take down some video, another organization was trying to get you to Fox news is trying to get you to take down some videos that you had done because you used some clips from Fox news, the law firm that sent the demand letter. I sent back a letter back to them saying, here's the four cases you've been involved with where you took the exact opposite position. And then that case sort of went by the wayside.

So you're totally right about that. Look, whenever you hear an organization that has a title like Project Veritas, you know you're in trouble. They have nothing to do with the truth or verifying the truth. They would have taken Fox News as their name, but that was already taken. There's no doubt about it. Popo, tell us briefly, what's the latest update in the ongoing Trump saga over the January 6th committees.

Sipina over the National Archives or with the National Archives to get certain records relating to the January 6th insurrection. We know that Judge Chalkin from the district court in Washington, DC issued a ruling. We talked about this last week, allowing the January 6th committee to get these records, her ruling famously said, the president is not a king and he's no longer the president. Any more Trump's not a king. He's no longer the president in our system. I passed president doesn't have the rights to claim executive privilege in these situations and in these circumstances. So Popak, tell us here, there's an update.

Yeah. And it'll segue with when we get to the bad end segment next, which I think is coming up next for you and I, the, it's still with the three judge panel of the DC appellate court. We've got two Obama and one Biden on the panel, the Biden person actually, when she was a judge on the federal circuit, like Tonya Chutkin, actually used very similar language about when she had a deal with an issue of Trump in the past, in which she said that the president is not a king. So he's heading into the strong headwinds of a loss at that level. But the hearing is still, the oral argument, full briefing is still targeted for the 30th

of November. As soon as we all get back from our Thanksgiving with family and friends, we'll have that hearing. Everything is stayed in the meantime. The Trump organization, the Trump people have filed their briefs arguing again, same thing, executive privilege and all of that. And now ban in which we're going to talk about next, he's pointed to the November 30th hearing on the civil side as saying, why don't we slow down my criminal

case? You know, let's push that off till January or February. Let's see what happens with the president and the executive privilege on the national archive. And, you know, the judge for bad and said, no, we don't have to wait for that. I'll see you in two weeks. So everybody, all the people that are getting, you know, like Mark Meadows and the people with the Janssick select committee that are being called before them are all pointing to the National

Archive case with Trump and telling the various bodies like the select committee or the courts that are now intervening as pointing to that and saying, why don't we wait to see the result there and what happens with executive privilege? I guess the flip side of that is if the executive privilege goes down in flames, you know, there goes their last bastion of protection for why they're not cooperating with the Gen 6 committee in any way, shape or form. They have an obvious plan. It's coordinated and the GQP are not good at a lot of things, but they are very good at coordinating messaging and good at coordinating strategy,

even if it's crazy, strategy and anti-democratic strategy. And this is to drag this out. Delay, delay, delay, try to get GQP to take over the House of Representatives, try to get a GQP or in the White House. And where there is criminal activity that happens to be found, you pardon. And otherwise, you endorse and you're okay with criminal activity. The reality is, is that with the GQP in power, if they come into

power, they don't care about the law anymore. They just don't. That's what we've discovered over the past, you know, maybe several decades. It seemed that way, but now it's exactly obvious and transparent that this is who the GQPR, they don't care. So when they come into power, what you're going to get are investigations into Joe Biden's daughter's diary and not investigations into why the United States democracy is vulnerable to infiltration from foreign adversaries. They don't give a shit. They don't care.

I can't even do that. Usually it's usually on their side anyway, but look, the, the, the, what we're watching with the, with the Republicans and the GQP, as you call them, is, and I post that on my, on my Twitter feed this week, it's, and it's, it's the old saying of Ross Perot, which I love, and it's so appropriate to that party, which is war has rules, mud wrestling has rules, politics, especially in the hands of the Republicans has no rules. And so there's no guardrails with the Republican party. And you're right, they want to push why January? Why do they want to push everything

off? Because their hope is, as you said, I don't think it's going to, I don't think procedurally this will work, but they will try to kill the work of the Jan 6th committee. The Jan 6th committee is planning to wrap up before the midterms issue their report done and end of story, whether they get meadows to participate or ban and ever says a word to them, they have enough cooperating witnesses to put out their report. The same way the Senate put out their report already, the Senate select committee on intelligence put out their report through Dick Durbin, that already came out. So, you know, this is all fun and games until the report comes out.

And then, and then it's up to whether there's going to be your criminal referrals off of the report that Merrick Arlen's going to pursue. But that's going to be done before the midterms. But you're right. Time is on their side when you, when bad things are happening, the old adages make them happen slower. And that's what they're doing. Let's talk about Kyle, written house trial and the trial regarding the death of Mid-Arbary before doing that. Let me tell you that this podcast is also brought to you by QB think about how many hours that we spend sitting at our desks or on our couch watching TV or podcasting.

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What I miscalibrated, frankly, was something that you and I talked about last week, which is the fact that the prosecutors had overcharged the case. There was a perfect count for criminal count that would have put Kyle away for a long, long time, had they only charged it, you know, frankly, which is, let me just give you a second degree intentional homicide. Second degree intentional homicide, which was not charged in the case under

Wisconsin's unique state penal system is a class B felony, B like boy, but gives you 60 years in prison, if you're convicted. What's the big advantage to having charged that? Had they done it? The self-defense defense goes by the window because self-defense is not an ultimate defense to a second degree intentional homicide. It only lowers the intentional homicide from first degree to second degree, but you still get a conviction.

Why did the prosecutor not from day one charge him with that? And why did they charge him with all of the other intentional reckless homicides class A felonies, which put them into the drink from day one. Why? Because you have to start with the law. That's what this show is all about. And if you go to Wisconsin statute, 939 48, 939.48, and you read what the self defense elements are, unlike in some states that you and I practice Ben

in Wisconsin, if there is a self-defense that is raised in the defense of a murder charge, the prosecution has the burden of what we call persuasion, production and persuasion, the burden of proof, to prove that the self-defense is invalid. It flips the script and makes the prosecution have to get a 12-0 vote from this jury to find that he was not acting reasonably in self-defense. That alone, the failure to charge the proper count that would have made self defense sort of irrelevant. And they would have got a charge of homicide that

would have put them away. And then having to put on a case of proving against self defense under Wisconsin sort of unique elements, they were dead from really day one now that I really look at the jury charges. I've had the time to look at that and what happened in the courtroom. What happened in the courtroom? I'll tell you the two witnesses that blew the case for the prosecution with the counts that they brought. One of them was Kyle Rittenhouse himself. We can talk to the to the cows come home about whether his blubbering was legit or not, although I

got to tell you, when he was acquitted, he did the exact same thing again spontaneously. The kid is a snowflake, a snowflake with an AR 15, but he is an emotionally unstable kid to begin with. He broke down in that courtroom, just the way he broke down on the stand to the jury. They obviously discounted and did not find it to be not authentic in his testimony. And he gave a very secure command performance of the timeline of what happened to him. And what are they focused on? The elements of the crime. Was it reasonable? Did he have a reasonable fear? And that's up to him. The jury can say it's objectively, but when he gave the description of the chaos in Kenosha

and he gave the description of being sort of channeled and kettlebelled down one street and then having the three people, two of which he killed, one hit him with a skateboard, one hit him with a backpack, and the other one reached for his gun, the one that testified in court. Gross Croits, that combination was the single most important reason why the prosecution lost this case. Gross Croits testified. I know people don't want to hear this. And they say, oh, the video says something else.

It doesn't. Gross Croits. And they say, oh, the video says something else. It doesn't. Gross crights and you can go online and find it in response to a withering cross examination by the defense, which did a very good job in this case for their client said that when he at no time, did written house fire his weapon or attempt to fire is weapon at all until gross price reached into his waistband and pulled his gun out. Period. That is what's resonated with the jury. So take gross croits off the list for the prosecution. The jury was always going to find that that was self-defense appropriately appropriately applied. As to the other two, the question is, can you use deadly force in that particular moment

if you have a reasonable fear that your life is threatened? We may not like the Wisconsin statute, but that's what the jury had and its jury instructions, and that's what they had to file. So between gross proits and written houses testimony, and one last thing on that, the judge, I know everyone's all upset about the judge with his ringtone and his cookies and his Chinese food ordering. But at the end of the day, he made two major decisions, one that was good for the prosecution

and one that was bad for the prosecution. For the good for the prosecution is he barred evidence of that two of the three victims had their own problems. One was a convicted, had some sort of child sexual problem, and the other one had attempted suicide earlier that week. That evidence was kept out from the jury, which bolstered their credibility of what happened to them. And so the jury wouldn't undermine the prosecution. But the prosecution also suffered from a ruling that judge made early on, which he was not going to allow evidence about written house with his photos,

bragging about shooting shoplifters, getting padded on the back by the police, and other things that he said were not going to be able to be used by the prosecution to tear down the credibility of of written house when he testified. So written house basically got almost a free pass to testify on the stand and there wasn't much the prosecution can do. When you have that and the judge sort of conditioning the jury during the two weeks towards the defense side of the case, is it any doubt that they finally came back with it? But again, I'm going to sum it up this way. Wisconsin has a very unique burden of proof that the prosecutor has to abide by, to prove against self-defense. And again, the prosecutor should not have swung

for the fences to try to put the kid away for life. He had a very viable claim for intentional intentional second degree homicide where that self defense wouldn't have mattered at all. In the whole case, would have been over and the kid would have went away for 60 years. The prosecution also, Popak, made a big misstep with respect to the ruling that the judge made that one of the individuals who was killed by written house, that that individual's status of having mental disorders, his mental health past, his past for engaging in potentially kind of violent, acting violent when provoked. That was all kept out. The problem was, is that the prosecutor

and these prosecutors meet with witnesses before the witnesses take the stamp. And this particular witness testified, you started going down a path of that their loved one who is deceased was, you know, had these mental issues. And then the prosecutor asked, well, what medication was he taking? And I'm not sure why the prosecutor would ever ask that versus stopping that line of questioning. And so when the prosecutor went down that path, even though the judge made a pre trial ruling, which is called the motion and limine and an order on emotion and limine to exclude

the evidence, the prosecutor then opened the door that allowed the defense to go in and ask all of these questions to establish that this individual had been on an involuntary psychological hold that this individual had these mental health serious issues that had them lash out in very, in very violent ways. It would be the same thing. Imagine the misstep. This is the scope of the misstep. Imagine if written house is lawyer, just started asking written house when he took the

stand. So what were you doing after you you you you you you you you pled not guilty here where'd you go after and walk down written house down a path that he met with the proud boys and gave the okay sign and then met with the national leader of the proud boys and everything that the prosecutor wanted again in, you know, that would have opened the door to that So you have these pretrial rulings that say you can't go there, but if the side that's asking the judge To say hey that you shouldn't go into these areas if they open the door and the other side can basically ask about that That's what happened. Yeah, you're very you're very right about that They also made two other errors, the prosecution. They had a working theme throughout the entire case,

including from the charging document all the way through the theory of the case for the jury. There were two of them. One of them was the Kyle Rittenhouse was a active shooter. Active shooter. He was not able to claim self-defense because he was out there being an active shooter. The evidence did not. When they self-defense because he was out there, you know, being an active shooter. The evidence did not. When they were done, the jury was done listening and they're from Kanocha.

This was tried in the backyard of where this happened. So they didn't have to think too hard about what happened that night in Kanocha. Those three days in Kanocha when the business district was basically burned to the ground. So you've got a burning connocia in the minds of the connocia residents that are sitting in the jury box. And you've got Kyle testifying and others testifying, including the videographer that was there and others about how chaotic that evening was with protesters being pushed into the armed in some people that were there with their weapons, because they're allowed to be there with their weapons.

And so active shooter went out the window. The second one that went out the window that they tried to pin on written houses that, and they set it in their rebuttal closing. Kyle brought a gun to a fist fight. Sounds great. They use some stupid picture from dirty dancing or some movie with some movie still that was really too lighthearted for the moment. But that's not the law. The law is it the other guy's got a fist and you can't use your gun. That's not the law. That's not the law that was charged to the jury. If you have a reasonable fear that the person across from you, whether armed or not armed

with a skateboard, a backpack or a handgun, is going to do you grieve a spotty injury. You have the right in Wisconsin. I'm sorry to report it to use a deadly force. The question is how much force was necessary to repel the attack that Kyle Rittenhouse claims that he was under. And that's where the the use of force expert for them came into play. And then the jury has to decide whether in facing what Kyle faced at that moment, whether he was able to use deadly force. Now everybody's up in arms about he crossed state lines, his mother dropped him off. If he didn't

have the gun, he, this whole thing wouldn't have happened. That's all true. But none of that matters to the state court claims or the elements of the crime or what has to be proven for self-defense or what the prosecution has to prove to defeat self-defense. And I think that's the issue, Popak, is that none of the things that should matter actually in that courtroom, given the application of Wisconsin law mattered. And that's when people want to talk about the systemic inequities of our legal system that permit something like this to take place.

It happens at every level and it's entrenched in the law because for me and everybody watching this, how in the world could you say that it is self-defense though when you drive somewhere, I don't care if we're even driving through state lines, county lines or whatever, where you put yourself in the position holding an AR-15 and then you inject yourself into a situation where there is violence, there is commotion, and then you have a

gun and you start shooting people and you claim you need to defend yourself by you basically putting yourself at the location. Like when people think of self-defense, they think of, I'm at my house and someone breaks in and I shoot them. I'm at my office and someone attacks me and I defend myself. I'm walking down the street and I'm shopping and someone threatens me and I punch them. The idea of self-defense being that an individual can go with their gun to protests and start shooting people because they feel they need to protect themselves. Sets a very scary precedent, but ultimately too a precedent that is going to be and is

unequally applied. I mean, could you imagine, could you imagine if this was a Latino, someone who's a black or brown, a teen year old who crossed state lines in a protest? They get to get killed before they arrived. They'd be shot killed by the police before they arrived. Shot killed by the police or the death penalty in a trial. That's what we have. But, but okay, let me, let me, let me, ever so gently push back, the law, the law protects morons just as it protects other people. We may not like how Kyle Rittenhouse ended up on that street in

Kenosha. None of us do. But having put himself in that situation, the question is, does the law, does he forfeit an ability to ever claim self-defense if he's gone too far in his juvenile malformed, ill-formed 17 year old brain? If he puts himself into a situation where he, does the law forfeit on every level, the right to self defense. The answer is no. I'll give you a stupid example or another example. I decide I'm going to walk into the hell's angels headquarters and, you know, the motorcycle gang and go up to the biggest guy in there, right, and take him on and tell him off, right? Because I don't know, I got it in my hair. I was

bored that day. So I go knock on their headquarters and I walk in and I find the biggest guy. I start pointing my finger at him. And then the entire Hell's Angels, where that organization beat the living, you know what, Adam, he threw me out on the street. And during that, I fear for my life, And during that, I fear for my life. Stupid as I was to walk through that door and to challenge those people. Do I have the right to protect myself? Yes or no? If I feel I'm going to be killed after I lit the match. I guess that's not that we're analyzing it differently, Popak, because the answer is very easy.

The answer is you have the right, but also your right that you have Popak as a white male who walked in there, that right is going to be protected. If you were a black man, if you were a Latino man, and you walked into that and did the same thing, you would have a different outcome. So your claim is that written house was black or Latino, that he would have a different outcome. And the P, so your claim is that written house was black or Latino, that he would have been not given the self-defense defense, and he would have been convicted of the murders. Is that your point?

I said he would have been given the defense, but the application of the defense from the world, from the court, from everyone there who was rallying behind written house, they would say, that's such an absurd offense. You're telling me that this, this is what they would say. They would say this terrorist,

it would call them a terrorist. They would say this terrorist crossed state lines. This terrorist came in here and shot and killed people from our community death penalty. That's what they would say. Let me prove your point by giving a historical reference, because I think that's one of the things I bring to the show. And people might have forgotten this

because it happened in 1984 and 87. There was a guy named Bernie Gets, a white German immigrant who came to New York who rode the subways in Manhattan. And one day after being threatened by four black youths pulled out a 38 caliber gun from his waistband and fired all the bullets, all six bullets into all four black kids who threatened him and asked them for money on the train. And one was paralyzed. And do you know what happened to his conviction

with all white jury in Manhattan, a liberal town in 1987? He got off on every charge of intentional homicide, everyone with a black victim on the other side by a white jury. And he was convicted of illegal possession of a gun and given a one year term. Now he was sued civilly by every one of those families, including the kid Darryl Kaby, who was made,

was a paraplegic as a result and got $40 million judgment civilly against Bernie Gatz. He went bankrupt and never paid it, of course. But this isn't about, we forget that we just had 40 years ago a case like that in the subway and the guy got off it. He was allowed as a national hero by people in Manhattan. And now everybody's upset because written out, it's going out the front door. People like Trump. I want to also turn to the Amid Arbery, the death of Arboree trial,

the murder of Arboree trial, and what's going on there before turning to that one. I also let everybody know that this podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens and their super fruit product, H, they're super food product, A, G-1. It's a category leading super food product that brings comprehensive, convenient, daily nutrition to everybody, keeping up with the research, knowing what to do and taking a bunch of pills. And capsules is hard on the stomach

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Prosecution is rested. There case. Defense is. Defense is rested also. And so what's going on? of Ahmed Arbery, prosecution has rested their case. Defense has rested also. And so what's going on? Yeah, so listen, this is one of the four trials we said four or five podcasts ago, which are really important across the face of America for various reasons. So Ahmed Arbery, a star athlete in Brunswick, Georgia, which is a port town in Georgia, taking a jog through a subdivision

in neighborhood there when Greg and Travis McMichael, father and son team, decide to track him down and a pickup truck along with a shotgun and eventually corner him, falsely imprison him. At least, that's the indictment, struggle with him. And then Travis McMichael pulls out his shotgun, 12 gauge shotgun, and shoots him twice in the chest and in the ribs killing him. Killing him because he was jogging while black in a Brunswick, Georgia subdivision that may or may not have had petty crime committed within it, including car break ins and garage break ins, that kind of thing.

And then Roddy Brian, who's one of their friends is recording everything on cell phone. The interesting thing about this case is one person pulled the trigger, and that was Travis McMichael. The other two are also being charged with a unique Georgia homicide law different than Wisconsin because they don't do degrees of murder in Georgia. There's two things in Georgia you can be charged with when you take somebody's life and they've charged them with both. One of them is malice murder. The other one is

felony murder and they basically end you up in the same place life imprisonment. Malice murder is a lot easier to prove here. Prosecutor doing the right thing, charging the right acclaims, hopefully leading to the right result. There, under malice murder, you don't need an intention to kill. You just have some, you did something that caused the death of somebody else with what's called in the law, malice of forethought. You weren't out picking daisies and buying candy. You wanted that thing to happen, or you should have known that thing was going to happen, which is a death here of Amid Arbery. The defense has not, from what I, my view of the case, put on a tremendously effective set of defenses.

But let's look at a couple of data points that you and I are going to have to follow when that jury verdict comes out probably this time next week because closing arguments are on Monday. It is a jury of 12 people like Wisconsin. 11 of them are white. One of them is black. Why is that interesting? Because Brunswick, Georgia is comprised on demographics of 27%, almost the third of the town is black. It only one out of 11 on the jury is black. Now, the sixth amendment of the US Constitution says that you're supposed to have a fair and impartial jury. We often refer to it as a jury of one's peers, but that's not what's in the law. And so it does it, it's not a appeal moment or error to argue that, oh, I'm black or the victim is black,

and all the jurors were white. That's what happened here. Of course, we don't have to get to the bottom why the defense was successful in getting almost every black person off of the jury pool and out of the jury box. So you've got 12 people, 11 white people who are going to make this decision. Self-defense is not in play in this case. They're arguing that they did not with malice, a fourth thought, that it was just an end result of them chasing after the guy who they thought was a robber, and that they never intended to kill him.

And therefore, didn't have the mens rea or criminal intent from malice murder. And felony murder, they're half they have to argue they didn't commit a felony, which in this case was false imprisonment, holding him against his will from traveling down the road. Now, the federal government has already indicted these same three individuals in April of this past year for civil rights violations, that case is still pending, in the federal courthouse Southern District of Georgia for interfering with the rights of somebody and attempting attempted kidnapping, to which our listeners and followers are probably naturally saying,

written house, do the same thing in written house. Let's have a federal case in written house. The problem is there are not, despite Twitter verse, there is not a easily charged federal crime that was committed. And even the one that's close about children and guns only gets probation. So there it's everyone says, oh, we cross state lines, it's a federal case. That's not how federal cases work. And even if it is, it's not a, it's probably not an easily charged civil rights case because the nature of the, of what happened with written house. But in Georgia with our, our, I'm on our briefcase, there is a good federal case and it's already been brought by the Department of Justice. So, you know, I think the defense has been trying every which way in a very kind of blowing

the dog whistle of racial politics left and right. First, they didn't like when Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were in the courthouse and other pastors and ministers. I guess it's because it's the only black faces that have been allowed in the courthouse as the jury is not comprised of any. So he's upset that that's a, he actually used the word public lynching then, which is another dog whistle for racism in the South, that these white men are being lynched. Of course, that's always been what's happened to black people within Georgia and other southern states, because he doesn't like the fact that the pastors are holding prayer services outside

the courthouse every day. I don't really care what the defense lawyer thinks. The judge, who's running a good show there, running a good trial there, has said, no, I'm not banning anybody from my court house. And I'm not banning Reverend Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and anybody else. Because he doesn't think it's impacting the jury one way or the other. Closing arguments Monday, jury deliberation next week, I think we'll have a ruling. And, you know, I like to think based on the way the Georgia statute is read and the way the prosecution here is doing a very effective job that even 11 white people will convict these three white defendants. I think the question that lots of people have, Popak, is in the written house trial, will the federal government be involved,

can they do a federal civil rights case soon or after that verdict? The answer is it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. So we can stop talking about it. If it was going to happen, it would have happened already. Even in the case of Chafkin and Michigan, they brought the claim while the jury was still out. It's not happening. So let's move on. Written out, it's walked out. Let's use it against the Republicans. This will be the mightest touch podcast for the brothers. You can use it against the Republicans who have now embraced them Tucker Carlson and Matt Gatz and all these other people who think now he's like the Ileon Gonzalez of the Republican party is going to be embraced and they're going to put him in their office as good.

Use it against them. But let's move on. The written house case is over. Civil rights lawyers like to say is not a moment. It's a movement and keep the arc of history moving in the right direction. Keeping the arc of history moving in the right direction is what we hope to do and play our small part in each and every weekend as we join you on legal a f always a pleasure always in honor to spend Saturdays, Sundays and the week with you lots of people like to listen to these podcasts multiple times lots of people like to listen to these podcasts multiple times, lots of people don't listen to the podcast the day or the day after their release. So wherever you're watching it, whether it's live, whether it's watching it on YouTube later, whether it's listening

it to it, where podcasts are available, we appreciate you and your support. And thank you to everybody who gives Midas Touch Legal AF, a five star review and gives it a written review. Those helped the algorithms. Lots of great reviews came in after our last podcast. So just go sign on to, when you sign on to the podcast device where you get Legal AF, where it lets you review it. Give it a five star review. Give it a written review.

Tell people what you like about it. Also, one of let everybody know that the holiday gear is in for MidasTouch. Go check out MidasTouch.com, click on the merch link and get your MidasTouch holiday merch, which is available. And PoPock, as you and I always like to tell people, Michael PoPock and I are practicing lawyers. We've actually gotten a number of cases where we've worked

with Midas Mighty as a result of these podcasts. There was actually a recent wrongful death lawsuit in a very serious personal injury lawsuit that contacted us through the show amongst a number of others. But if there's someone you know who's been injured, who's been harmed, if you've been injured or harmed, whether that's a car accident, a personal injury case, say contract dispute, a business dispute, civil rights dispute, civil rights issue, just reach out to Popak and I. email is Ben at MidasTouch.com. Ben at MidasTouch.com and Pope is M Pope, MPO P.O.K.

at zplaw.com. We appreciate you, Pope, any final words. I do. This is Thanksgiving coming up. I want to wish all of our flisters and followers a healthy and happy Thanksgiving when we have events like written house and others, it just reminds us how important life is and bringing family and friends close together. So we wish you that that best wishes. Thank you so much. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Happy Indigenous

Persons Day to everyone. Happy spending time together with your family week to everyone. If it's Saturday, it is Legal AF if it's Sunday. It is Legal AF Live. We'll see you here, you know, we'll see you speak to you, hear you, comments, whatever. Next weekend on Legal AF. Shout out to the minus plane. Shout out to the Midas League.