Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Law & Disorder: Rittenhouse, Cuomo, Trump & SB8

Episode Date: October 31, 2021

The top-rated weekly US law and politics news analysis podcast -- LegalAF -- produced by MeidasTouch 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 most compelling developments. On this episode, Ben and Popok take on: 1. The Rittenhouse Wisconsin murder case pretrial rulings leading into Monday’s trial, along with the Charlottesville trial under the KKK Act of 1871, and the Georgia criminal trial for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. 2. The Supreme Court’s oral arguments on Monday regarding Texas’ Abortion Ban (SB8), and Second Amendment/concealed carry laws. 3. Former Governor Cuomo’s arrest warrant for the misdemeanor or “forcible touching” filed in Albany state court this week. 4. The DOJ, led by Attorney General Garland and Venita Gupta, Associate AG, and its historic $88mm settlement with the victims of Dylann Roof’s white supremacy-fueled massacre of 9 members of the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC because of the FBI’s failure to do a proper background check. 5. The DOJ’s refocus on corporate crime and prosecutions based on new policy announced by Deputy AG Lisa Monaco. 6. Trump’s possible violation of SEC laws related to his “Trump Truth Social” SPAC based on recent media reports, and his efforts to keep his IRS filed tax returns, and Jan6 records out of the hands of Congressional investigators. And so much more! Support our sponsors! Fiverr -- Receive 10% off your first order by using our code LEGALAF at Fiverr.com. 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 athleticgreens.com/legalaf today. Adam & Eve -- Go check out AdamandEve.com today, select one item and get 50% off including FREE shipping when you enter offer code LEGALAF Reminder and Programming Note: All 28 past episodes of Legal AF originally featured on the MeidasTouch podcast can now be found here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Midas Touch Legal AF. If it's Saturday, it is Legal AF. If it's Sunday, it is Legal AF Live Ben. My cell is here with Michael Popock, the Pobokian for a very spooky Halloween edition. Actually not really much spooky with it other than the GQP fascistic approach to our legal system, which we try to combat each and every day, Michael Popock, the Popochi and how you doing on this special Halloween edition. I'm doing great, but you gotta like warn me before you put on, for those that are listening

to this on Sunday morning. My co-anchor has put has dawned a mask, a scary spooky mask for Halloween. Did not warn me that he was going to do that and then turned around and faced me. So thanks for that. Anyway, I'm going this year as a middle-aged lawyer and that's why I looked the way I look. What if I did this the entire episode, Popo, do you think we would lose the legal AF followers? If the entire episode I wore the match for the mass come up, you might lose your

co-anchor. I'm going to all wait in the trailer. Well, everybody, welcome to my to touch legal AF. We are recording Halloween weekend, breaking down the legal issues for you. Man, this has been an incredible week. Lots of updates in the law. For me personally, I'm traveled to New York to go to the New York premiere of Colin and Black and White.

The series, limited series on Netflix focused on Colin Kaepernick's high school years. It is created by Colin Kaepernick and Ava DuVernay. It is an incredible show. It's doing great on Netflix. I then flew to see the LA premiere and one of my roles when I'm not doing my DisTouch Pro-Pock and I am Ben doing deals and deal makers.

I worked on the Netflix show behind the scenes. And for the last three years, it's incredible to see it kind of come to life. And I'm Colin and Ava did incredible. Michael Starberry, the writer, the whole writer's room. Everybody attached to the show did such great work. And so excited to share this project with all of you. So go and watch Colin and Black and White on Netflix.

And when I'm not doing these podcasts with Pope Pop or the brothers are working on might as such, that's what I do for a living. So I wanted to say that at the top of the show, let's get into the law. Pope, another tough week in the fall from grace from Andrew Cuomo. He was filed on this week on a misdemeanor charge arising out of his sexual misconduct. This was filed in Albany. Some interesting points here, Popak, other than the headline, there was some confusion over this particular filing. The sheriff in Albany wasn't sure that it was even filed. And then Cuomo basically said it was politically motivated, the sheriff and Cuomo's can pointing fingers at each other. Ultimately, the criminal charge and investigator signed his name to it,

but the timing of it kind of caught everybody by surprise. So walk us through POPAC, the, you know, let's get beyond the headline here. What's going on with Andrew Cuomo's being criminally charged in Albany? We do know the victim, the victim for this particular one has come forward and explain that she is the Jane Doe mentioned. I mean, this particular complaint, but walk us through Pope, like what, what, what this is about? Yeah, Brittany Camiso has identified herself as the person who made the criminal complaint.

New York has a statute on its book, a criminal statute on forcible touching, which is a misdemeanor, which could get you up to a year and jail. And this is sort of a weird one. The Sheriff's Department knew, of course, that they were going to file the charge against him through a judge. So it's sort of strange.

Normally, the Sheriff's Department or the investigative agency for law enforcement works hand in glove with the prosecutor, in this case, the Albany County District Attorney, especially when it's such a high profile charge. I can't you get more high profile than this. It's sexual misconduct criminal complaint against the go. So I'm not buying the Sheriff's Press conference yesterday in which he said, well, I thought because normally it takes a few days for the judge to actually enter the order of arrest. I would have time to both update Brittany Camiso's lawyers, who is the victim here and Cuomo's lawyers and the district attorney oops, I'm sorry, it went a lot faster. The judge instantly issued the order and the arrest warrant, but it's a good prosecution and now we'll work with the district attorney.

Look, that's not normally how this works. And now it really dumb solute of you know what on the district attorney, because he was not involved, his office was not involved in vetting the filing. And if there is a strong case against Cuomo, and I'm not taking a position one way or the other because I don't know all of the facts, then why not go directly to the prosecutor, work hand in glove with that office, develop the case and file whatever case is appropriate. It's just, it's just really strange. I can't think in 30 years of doing this,

and I've done criminal defense work, where I've had the sheriff's department go to court and such a high profile matter and walk out with an arrest warrant. And then everybody's looking at each other like, we didn't know that was going to happen. It's just really weird. It's not necessary. If there is a strong prosecutor's case here, then work with the prosecutor's office to bring it. This is a good lesson for, I think, lawyers and people thinking about legal strategy in general because let's say this was politically motivated by the sheriff in Albany and the sheriff's office.

Let's say that they are GQ peers, they're Republican, they hate Cuomo and they want to basically prove a message right here and embarrass Cuomo right now. Let's just say that's what they want to do. They got the headline that they wanted, but what they next, what they next have to do now is deal with the fallout of not having any organization whatsoever. And a case is more than a headline. A case is more than the initial rollout of, hey, this lawsuit's been filed. Ultimately, who this is gonna benefit, Popeyes Cuomo,

because you have a district attorney who is reluctant to file his caught off guard. You have Cuomo's team of lawyers now who are crying foul and saying it's politically motivated, which it appears to be. And ultimately, you know, these are serious allegations. They deserve to be investigated thoroughly. And they shouldn't be rushed and scrambled like this. Frankly, it is from the victim's perspective. This doesn't help the victim when it's done in this sloppy manner. The sheriff crapped on the process and it wasn't necessary.

Like I said, if there is a strong case here, and I'm not, I'm not disbelieving what the sheriff said about looking at hundreds of text messages and and key card swipes for entry and they've seemed to have identified the I'm not disbelieving what the sheriff said about looking at hundreds of text messages and key card swipes for entry and they seem to have identified the actual day December 7th of last year or this past December 7th. But don't crap on the process. One thing our legal AF followers and listeners and law school students, if you will, respect I believe is the process and do process. And, you know,

bring the case through the prosecutor's office. It's never a good day when the prosecutor is surprised by the sheriff by the filing of an arrest warrant. I mean, that's a bad day for everyone involved from the accused to the victim, to the sheriff, to the prosecutor? Absolutely. Moving on, let's talk about this $88 million settlement that was announced between the Justice Department and Charleston shooting victims. These were victims of Dylan Roof. There were allegations and now a settlement reached that the background checks that were done through the FBI process were basically completely defunct. A settlement has been reached one of the largest settlements in the history of a civil rights settlement.

And I mean, frankly, you think about $88 million that comes to about $67 million per family, who lost a loved one, who will never see this person, you know, ever again. I do want to say, you know, obviously someone like Dylan Roof is judgment proof, you know, Dylan Roof doesn't have millions of dollars, you know, his family likely doesn't have millions of dollars to pay a judgment of this sort or pay any significant judgment. But this was actually a fairly difficult case to be brought against the United States government for failure in background checks. Governments have

lots of immunities. Remember, this is not a lawsuit directly against Dylan. This is saying, you, the United States government, are liable. You were a factor, a substantial factor in causing the death of our family members in 2015 in a massacre by Dylan Roof. And one of the things to frame this in the right context, to Popeyes, I wanna get your take on it

after you break down the settlement a little bit in more detail, I don't think a settlement like this could ever have taken place in the Trump administration. And that's because the Trump administration and their views about the second amendment is that people like Dylan Roof should have access to any weapon they want they Dylan Roof's of the world shouldn't even have to go through any background checks according to the they should be able if they can afford it to buy military tanks and roll those tanks through major cities.

And I'm not exaggerating. That is actually what Marjorie Taylor-Green alludes to or specifically says things like that. That is what the boberts of the world specifically. But the Trump administration, and we'll, when we get to the breakdown, the Trump administration could have settled this case themselves. This case has been hanging around since 2015. So you're right. The Trump administration could have done it and

never was going to do it. And the reason I think this case is important and the settlement that was announced by by Venita Gupta, who is the number three of the Department of Justice under Merrick Garland and our attorney general, Merrick Garland island is that we get caught up a lot about things we'd like Merrick Garland to do better and faster. Bannon, take over from where Mueller was, do all those prosecutions. And I don't disagree with some of that, although the timing of it, I know, takes longer than people would like. But there are consequences to elections that you and I talk about all the time. And one of them is the change of the Department of Justice. We have a better attorney general, who with his number three in the Civil Rights Division

has settled a case that never would have been settled at all with with the prior administration for 88 million and Ben, you know why it's 88 million? You know why that number? I do, Popeye, because I do my research, because I do my research before the podcast, then I do my research and I read 88 is a specific, is a specifically meaningful number in white supremacist lore. It's because H is the eighth letter in the alphabet and Hal Hitler, H-H-8-8 and on Dylan Roof's shoes, it had 88 on white supremacist flags and and and their other merchandise, they used the 88 as a way to signal hell Hitler the same way. They use hell Hitler the same way they've got. I love Brandon to mean fuck Biden.

And they, you know, what they've realized, white supremacists is that if you wear the white KKK garb, people can recognize and identify you, who you are and you stand out. And so they tried to code their language in more mainstream culture to try to attract more people to join them. But that's why 88 HH, Papa. Yeah, and I love the fact that the Department of Justice, working with the victims, landed

on doing that on purpose. That was not a random decision to come up with 88 million. That was on purpose to stick it to the white supremacists at the highest level of the government working with the victims who wanted to do that and turn that terrible number or that secret code or handshakes or symbols or whatever the F they're doing along with sitting senators that are doing it as well, which is really disgusting. And just stick it to them and say, you know what, it's going to be, it's going to be this number and just to put it in perspective, while 88 million dollars sounds like a lot of money given what happened

that day, it's, it's really not. There were nine people that were killed. There are of course all the survivors of that church as well, which was the the mother-amannual AME church, a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. But we just had a recent, it's a little bit outside of our lanes, so we won't go into it. But the CFTC just did a whistleblower settlement where it paid a whistleblower one person $230 million for having blown the whistle on some event that the CFTC is responsible for in their world. So I don't see a problem with $88 million for the FBI having screwed up a background check that allowed Dylan to get a weapon in his hands that ended up slaughtering black churchgoers on a Sunday service.

And Popo, the interesting thing here that I think is important to focus on too was that this was ultimately a policy decision to settle this case. I think it is, even though there were clear failures in the FBI background check here, Dylan Roof had a criminal history before the federal judge in the case

excoriated the federal government for not doing the most simple of the background check literally didn't do what they were supposed to do. It's still a very difficult case given all of the immunities the government has to actually prevail in a lawsuit for the government's failure to do a background check like this. But this was ultimately, you know, I think a policy decision that the Biden administration and the DOJ decided to make

to resolve this case. You know, and I think it was the right decision ultimately because there is systemic failures at the highest levels in prior administrations within the DOJ to enforce the background checks to target with the correct prosecutorial resources, white supremacy and the terrorists like Dylan Roof across the country. And this settlement is not going to make anybody happy in these families. I mean, this is a small amount of justice

when these families deserve much more. But I don't want to lose the thread that you just established. Policy decisions by the Department of Justice that lead to compensation for victims and taking responsibility for bad conduct, in this case by the FBI, for which they would not have they would not have incurred that liability likely in a courthouse. That's why the FBI doesn't usually get sued for failing a background checks because there's enough, as you said, immunities and hurdles to successfully obtaining that money from them. But this was Merrick Garland and and Vanita Gupta looking at all the files that were in there on the day that they took office and saying, we're going to make a policy decision to help these families. And you know, let's segue

into the announcement two days ago by Lisa Monaco, who is the number two in the Department of Justice under Merrick Garland, the deputy attorney general. And she announced that at the ABA meeting, that the DOJ is going to redouble its efforts and focus its efforts on prosecuting corporate crime and individuals within corporations who commit crime. Now, people at home might be thinking, well, what were they doing before? Well, the reality is that under the Trump administration, the SEC became sort of a toothless organization.

And the Department of Justice looked the other way on corporate crime. Why? Well, look at Trump and all the cronies and all the people he put into his administration like Manuchin, like, you know, the Commerce Secretary and all the other people that were all billionaires and multi-millionaires and they didn't want the SEC to go after these people. So he put, you know, patsys in the positions to lead these offices and nothing happened. And how do I know that? Because I do defense work myself and all of my peers in New York, for instance, talked about the fact that for four years, there were just no clients because there were no prosecutions going on. Those days are over. The Biden administration and more importantly, the Garland DOJ is going

to go after bad people and bad companies and make them pay. And that and that trickles down to the average citizen because when corporations go scotch free and they and they don't and they don't pay their fair share and they let cybersecurity mishaps happen and they and they and they don't pay fines and they're they let cybersecurity msps happen. And they, and they, and they don't pay fines and they're allowed to continue an operation without a change in culture. That impacts you and me and our listeners. Absolutely. And people wonder, a Bernie made off. You know, how did they make off with this Ponzi scheme for so many years? Well, you know, you bring in one administration that is, has robust enforcement mechanisms against corporate malfeasance like a Biden administration. After that administration leaves, if you bring in a GQP administration that says, you know what?

We're just going to let corporations do whatever the hell they want. We're going to let them get away with anything and the way they do that is they literally appoint people to run the enforcement agencies that hate the enforcement agencies. Like one of the things that Trump will do is bring in the person who is against consumer protection agencies to run the consumer protection agency. Or the coal miner, or the coal company, the head of the EPA. It's exactly what they do. And of course, those individuals say, how can we not enforce our laws

and allow companies to get away with criminal conduct, literally, so they could steal from you listening so that they could take and steal and make you sicker so that they could have extra private jets. It is sicketing. I want to talk about our sponsor FIVER, FIVER, ERR. There are two R's at the end. It's a great sponsor because we use FIVER at Midas Touch when we need a freelancer. If we're doing a video, Popeye, and we need someone to narrate a video or if we need someone

who can give us some audio or even if we need someone to fill in to give us some special effects or to give us a little musical score, we go on Fiverr, we look at freelancers who are offering their services there. You can see a marketplace of freelancers and we pick, you know, and we found and we have found some great freelancers to work with. That's how we use it at Midas Touch. And that's what Fiverr is at the core. If you need a freelancer to do certain work, in any, it doesn't just have to be media. Whatever your job and profession is, you go to Fiverr and you see these great professionals, these great people who are working in those areas

and you can hire them to work on discrete projects. And we all know how hard it is to make something out of nothing and just the thought of turning a big idea into a reality can be overwhelming. And according to a study conducted by Fiverr, 25% of people were revealed. They had a business idea in the past 18 months, but nearly 60% of those people never pursued it

because they're thinking, where could I find people to work? How could I find someone that you go to Fiverr? That is how you do it. They are experts in data, design, marketing, technology, website building, music, video animation, and so much more are ready to help. Right, Popak?

Well, listen, I'm glad you didn't know about Fiverr when you were deciding who to co-anchor this show if I might have been replaced by some freelancer off of Fiverr. That could still happen. I take one more vacation. That actually, that actually may happen. But it's a simple to use platform. I think this is why you guys at the Midas touch like it so much with great customer service

and qualified freelancers in every field. Every successful something was nothing once. So head to Fiverr, F-I-V-E-R-R.com and turn nothing into something today. And I got great news for our legal AF listeners. You can receive 10% off your first order by using the code legalAF, one word, ledalafatfiverr, F-I-V for Victor, ERR.com. Yeah, go to Fiverr.com, use that code, legal, A-F. Popoq, let's get some updates, updates, updates. And one update was, again, Midas Touch.

Oh, we're gonna have lots of updates where Midas Touch in this episode predicted what was going to happen. But let's start with what we discussed last week with the Trump SPAC and Popeyes, you said it on the last Midas Touch podcast you said. It is so obvious that Trump and the SPAC were likely violating securities law

because the announcement of the SPAC, this digital world acquisition company by Patrick Arlando, who no one's ever really heard of before, other than a previous failed SPAC. This is the sponsor of the SPAC. And usually a sponsor of the SPAC is someone who should be a trusted member of the financial community. Somebody who has a... My old company was a major sponsor of SPACs, but people have heard of the Wall Street company that I worked for.

You want people who ever track record. No one's heard of this Patrick Orlando. And so he announces this SPAC when Pope pockets like September and then the merger between the SPAC, this basically Shell Holden company, this blank check company as it's called, they're merger with the Trump media entity, an entity that doesn't really exist. Usually SPACs actually merge into private companies and bring them public and these private companies have historical

financials, like there exist as companies, so that you can say, okay, this is what they made in 2018, 2019, 2020. And it's just a faster way to go public than an IPO for private companies, but real companies. And you said, there's no way that they probably weren't communicating with each other during this, you know, less than 30 days from the formation of the SPAC to the acquisition of the company. They didn't know each other. They never spoke. It was impossible.

And now the New York Times is reported. And we're all kind of following that lead that it is more likely based on their reporting that that Orlando was in discussions with Trump four to five months before the formation of the special purpose acquisition company, the SPAC, which means it has violated, according to the New York Times, the SEC laws in a material way about SPACs. Why does that surprise anybody? Look, the reason that Trump had to use the SPAC route to line his pockets is because

all of the traditional avenues of capital markets lending were close to him when you're a three-time bankrupt and you have loan defaults all over your your checkered history and failed companies, normal lenders and banks and capital markets don't want to give you money. So we had to think how am I going to get $300 million? I got an idea. I'll come up with this hair brand idea to create my own social media network, which has been, as you just noted,

has no track record, no success. The desk of Donald Trump, which was what he did when he was banned from Twitter for the last six months has been an utter failure in terms of people following him in any way. And then he got this, you know, what appears to be some sort of, um, not appropriate sponsor to raise $300 million for him in line as pockets. Now the stock has dropped in a tremendous way from you, our

last podcast and whose, whose hurt in all of this, the, the investor, the retail investor, the mom and pop. that's who's hurt. And Trump runs to the bank with 300 million. Unless he's violated the SEC back to our earlier segment. And SEC now led by an adult, by a former prosecutor, by somebody who said he's going to go after corporate crime. This was a bad time for Trump. His Trumps, this is not Trump's SEC that's going to investigate him.

It's Biden's SEC that's going to investigate him. And I think if the New York Times reporting is accurate, he's in for a world of hurt. Here's the thing. Everybody wait and watch for the filing of the S4 is the kind of definitive merger filing that sets forth in detail what this arrangement is between the digital world acquisition company and Trump media. In the S4, you have to set out all of the prior communications that took place, all of the efforts that Digital World Acquisitions company took in terms of reaching out to other entities and what groups they reached out to.

The S4 is gonna set forth what Donald Trump's involvement is going to be. And the 8K that they filed is a few paragraph document that just basically says there's this merger taking place. The real document is the S4. So we should stay tuned for the S4. And for those also wondering, it is a securities law violation for the companies

who have had communications before the announcement. Because if they were to have communications before the announcement, that's basically just going through an IPO process. It's not going through a blank check company process. And there would be a number of disclosures that would have to be made prior to the SPAC forming about all of the communications that it had. And essentially at that point, it would just be a public company. So that's not a blank check.

Right. Then by definition, it's not a blank check. Right. Then by definition, it's not a blank check. A black check is when investors give the sponsor money in their investment at $10 a unit in order for the sponsor, because they have trust in the sponsor to go out and make a legitimate acquisition. And then if they don't like the acquisition, nah, I didn't want to be in a, I didn't want to be involved with a chain of tanning salons, then you've, then there's ways to exit the investment. But if all it is is an end run around normal traditional IPO, initial public offering regulations, then you've committed SEC fraud potentially. And that's a civil violation.

It could be a criminal violation. So Trump can't help himself. He knows because he's got some lawyers around him. I don't know who's left, but they had to have tell, they had to have told him that, you know, you're, you're not properly following the SPAC requirements here in your conversations with Patrick Orlando. And he said, I don't care. And he went forward with it anyway, because, you know, to date, he sort of been successful with that approach. Yeah, you know, and what these GQPers think is, look, let's commit every crime right now because at this point, the GQP, we're just the criminal enterprise. We're not a democratic,

well, we're small D, we're not a democracy political party. So, you know, they are the definition of thugs at the end of the day. That's who the GQPR, they are the true definition of thugs. And what they think is, okay, let's just commit every crime in the world. And when the next GQP administration comes in, we're just going to do what Trump did. What is part of everybody? Well, part of everybody and we'll do the criminal conduct again. So all we have to do is drag on investigations through one term and then we'll be rewarded when a GQP administration comes in and gives our partners look, look what Trump did. That's the precedent. We talk about precedence. That's the GQP thugory precedent that they're setting.

And they use all these words. That's one of the things with Colin and Black and White to talk about the importance of words and shaping narratives and how the GQP calls protesters and Black Lives Matter thugs. But if you go and look at the real definition of thugs, a real definition of thugs is exactly what the of thugs is exactly what the GQP is and what the GQP embodies. That's thuggery. They're radical. They're the ones who are the real

problematic people in this country. Popeye, let's give some other updates. Let's talk about Trump's tax returns. There's a showdown that's set for in the DC circuit. What's going on there? Not DC circuit, District Court and DC, what's going on there? Yeah, we've got a couple of things related to Trump. One related to his tax returns and the other ones from the Gen 6 committee and the National Archives that all all happened in the last couple of days, one last night.

So on the Trump lawsuits, he's been fighting as he has since a last year to keep his tax returns out of investigators, prosecutors, and congressional investigators' hands. That's always been considered like the Moby Dick, the White Whale. If the investigators can get their hands on his IRS tax returns, then his whole financial house of cards comes and fraud comes tumbling down. Now to remind our listeners and followers, some prosecutors have been successful in getting their hands on the tax returns. The Manhattan

District Attorney's Office led by Sy Vance was able to convince the US Supreme Court that he was entitled to the for his investigation related to mortgage fraud, financial fraud at the Trump organization to get his hands on the tax returns. Trump fought him, side vans every step of the way, but on a seven to two, and this is when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still alive, but a seven to two of ruling by the Supreme Court led by Judge Roberts, those tax returns were turned over to side vance. There's two committees that are looking at tax returns or what tax returns. One of them is the Gen 6 committee, but it's really the House

ways and means committee that is currently asking for the tax returns to be turned over directly from the internal revenue service, because they all have the copies of them. And the argument is that the Houseways and Means Committee is looking at how the IRS audits sitting presidents, and whether they're giving them any lead in C, especially when the sitting president has the power and authority over the IRS. That's the argument, and they've asked for it.

Trump has fought it, and the first level of attack by Trump is at the federal trial level, this case, the district court sitting in DC. And he's pulled for him a very good judge, Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee. And you may remember him, Ben, because we talked about him two or three podcasts ago. He's the judge who would refuse to give stringent sentences to the Gen 6 insurrectionists and compared them to the Black Lives Matter protesters and was very lenient with them in sentencing. So reading the tea leaves here and the hearing is going to be on the 16th of November, Trevor is probably,

the judge is probably going to rule for Trump that the tax returns can't be handed over, which means we're going to be on some sort of fast track to the Supreme Court. The good news is at the Supreme Court level, the majority still seems to be in place, that if there is a legitimate purpose for the materials that the committee may get them. But there's one, I want to just frame this for future discussion. When a House committee asks for tax returns, it does implicate the separation of powers the way a prosecutor asking for them does not.

So the Supreme Court is going to have to grapple with, does Congress and a congressional committee have the right to get the tax returns? And that's going to be based on a series of cases at the Supreme Court level. I'm not sure how that's going to come out, but the first step is going to be Judge McFadden on the 16th of November, probably ruling Fort Trump and ruling that the IRS can't turn the tax returns over. And then we're off to the Supreme Court. Look, if you want to run for president of the United States, if you want to be a public official, whether that means you are a Congress person, a senator, whether you are a state representative, you are doing public service.

You are working for the people, and especially, especially as the president of the United States, you should be turning over your tax returns period. The public has a legitimate interest to know what is in your tax returns as the president of the United States. If you think you have something to hide in your tax returns as the president of the United States, I've got a simple solution for you.

Don't run for president of the United States. This isn't Congress reaching in to get the tax returns of a private citizen for the sake of harassing a private citizen. This is for the sake of the safety and security of our country to know whether the president of the United States is having his pockets lined by countries like Russia and oligarchs and Saudi Arabia and which financial machinations and fraud a president is engaging in that could so adversely affect the national security

of our country to leave hundreds of a million millions of Americans vulnerable. And I'm not exaggerating to nuclear annihilation because our president is in bed with foreign adversaries. The solution is simple to me. Don't become the president of the United States or run for president. If you're afraid of your tax returns, you have rights to privacy. You have absolute tax privacy. We talk about privileges on the last show we talked about attorney, client privilege, Dr. Patient privilege.

I didn't mention on the last show there is a privilege to Texas. It's private, but not always. If I file a lawsuit and I claim economic damages in a civil lawsuit, and I'm claiming you owe me X dollars in the future and X dollars in the past, guess what? I've waived my taxpayer privilege when I'm claiming future economic damages because the other side that I'm suing has the right to know. Are you just making up these numbers? Or is it true? Yeah. To me, you should wave your tax pay or privilege the moment you run for president of the United States. I'm going to make it even simpler. There's not a licensing board organization that you would apply for.

If you want to become a real estate broker, if you want to get a gaming license, if you want to become a stock broker, if you want to become a lawyer, any any of the professions that don't require you to fully disclose all of your financial dealings and where necessary turnover your tax returns. You can't I'll tell you straight. The Nevada Gaming Commission, and any of the other gaming commissions around the country, and a sports betting is a big thing right now, will not give you a license to be in the gaming business, unless you give them your bank accounts,

deposits with draws, checks, wires, tax returns, and then an investigator looks at all these things. Why? Because they want to know if the person is subject to being corrupted, who's being put in a control position in the gaming business. So we put our employees and future employees in the gaming industry, in law, in accounting, in all of these things through a much more strenuous background check on their finances. Then we ever do any candidate who's running to be the most powerful

person in the universe, which is the president of the United States. Period, scary. And the reality is the only way to change that to make sure it's changed once and for all is a constitutional amendment, which frankly given the way the House and the Senate and the split party will never happen. I mean, unless it comes from the grassroots, but then it's still us to get approved that the amendment at the at the Congress level. So that's the only way to codify it and the Constitution. Short of that, it's always just the whim of whoever happens to be sitting in office at the particular time. And Trump just decided that even though there was a historical precedent for every candidate to disclose his fight, his or her

financial information, he just wasn't going to. And there was no way to bring him to task to because the public didn't disqualify him because they vote because millions voted for him. So any one the first time. So you know, all the things that would have kept him in check or would have punished him for bad behavior fell by the wayside. That's where we talk about norms and customs and a democracy. To hear the norm and custom of turning over tax returns

because it was believed that voters would hold and politicians and people in your own political party would hold you accountable for not following those norms and customs, fall by the wayside because we have a fascist political party in the GQP and they're building a cult and of individuals who don't give a shit about democracy. Popeye, give us the other updates on the, you mentioned the National Archives briefly

and then let's talk about the update in the Trump ill-fated lawsuit against Twitter and social media. Yeah, so there is a running battle as we've talked about in past podcasts between the Trump group, the Biden administration and the National Archives and Records Administration, which is called N-A-R-A, over the disclosure and the production from the National Archives of all documents surrounding the Jan 6th, you know, the steel rally, the bullshit steel rally in the park that led to the insurrection and attack on our nation's capital.

And as we've talked about in the past, there's a process. Biden has waved the executive privilege on a case by case basis over large categories of documents, the national archive, then goes back to the Trump people and says, these are the categories at the Biden Administration is letting be produced to the Gen 6 committee and the Trump organization has the right to object and have a judge make the ultimate decision. So now as of last night, the national archive filed in their papers and identified seven or eight categories of documents, including the call logs,

the phone logs, the visitor logs from around Jan 6th, the notes that Trump took at the time, the notes that Mark Meadows, the chief of staff took at the time, their press secretary notes and speeches that were given around that moment and Trump has tried to block the production of all that. And listen, we can do the math. Why is he blocking it? Because he's not worried about it? No, because he's very worried about how the notes in there can be perceived.

And now there's going to be a battle starting at the federal court level and ultimately going, I'm sure to the Supreme Court over the exertion of executive privilege, who holds the privilege, is it Biden only and therefore he can wave it or under precedent established under Nixon, Nixon versus the general services administration does a former president hold the privilege. And what is he allowed to continue to exert privilege on? I think Trump ultimately has a problem because he had no dividing walls between his campaign people and his executive staff people. So he had press secretaries for his campaign who were intimately involved with Mark Meadows in the White House about the stop the steel rally

and Jan 6th. I think that'll lead hopefully to a finding of waiver of any privilege because you know, you can wear your executive hat, but if you're wearing your campaign hat and you're letting your campaign people talk to your executive staff people. I don't think you can sit back and therefore declare that there was a privilege

over the events that happened on that day. What do you think, Ben? Here's what I think. I think it's ultimately going to be in the hands of federal judges. You talked about the previous federal judge who compared Jan 6 to BLM. We were fortunate that in the post-election period where Trump tried to undermine our democracy, where he tried to engage in a coup, where he spread all this disinfo, we were lucky because our court system, the

rules and the norms and the appointment processes, even the Republican appointed judges, held strong to the United States Constitution. But had that piece broken, had the floodgates opened in federal court system with all of the lawsuits that Trump filed and the bullshit lawsuits that he filed. We could have been in a very, very, very, very different position right now. And if things don't, if things change, if Democrats lose the House, if Democrats lose in 2024, democracy was attacked in the most direct way in the 2020 elections and barely, barely clung on. The next chapter of this can be us looking back about how close we came on the verge of becoming a fascist

authoritarian country or the next chapter can be a fascist and authoritarian country, a rewriting of history, people like young Ken Winning, people like that when you pledge allegiance, pledge allegiance to Jan Sixth Flags. Having Trump's poster all over the country, having the police department and military run by GQ peers, that's what's at stake. So to answer your question, Pope, directly, when we address an issue of, you know, the privilege in Mark Meadows, the National Archives. I think for now, there's not an executive privilege. You're going to get a bad ruling of this ruling, but ultimately, I'm more focused on the macro here, which is we need to hold these individuals accountable. We need the Meadows of the world to be prosecuted. We need the bannons of

the world to be prosecuted. We need Trump to be prosecuted immediately because we're just hanging by a threat on our democracy. Yeah. The good news is that as we've seen and we'll talk about the abortion update and the next segment or two, we do have judges, federal judges, Obama appointees and others like Judge Pittman, like Tanya Chutkin, who's actually the judge. I think that's hearing the national archives dispute a Democratic appointees who are at the forefront of these original decisions. So all hope is not lost.

You know, all of this stuff eventually rolls up to the Supreme Court. And sometimes, you know, sometimes the Supreme Court surprises us. I mean, we had a ruling yesterday, in which the Supreme Court ruled that vaccine mandates are going to be continued to be enforced and even on religious grounds, which was surprising because Coney Barrett was involved in that. So, you know, look, we're going to know just he's as their popact tells more about that ruling. No, I mean, we just had a ruling in which the the Supreme's came down against a lawsuit that was brought on religious grounds saying that they didn't want it, that people didn't want to take the vaccine. And, you know, I was a little bit surprised, but the Supreme

Court, which is dominated by Catholics and has Amy Coney Barrett sitting there, actually sided with vaccine mandates. So, you know, it's hard. You and I just have to keep really focused on our hands on the controls for our followers and listeners, because you know, it's such an ever-changing universe at the Supreme Court level of how they're going to rule. I mean, you and I may take a different tack down the abortion case about how we think this SB 8, Texas case is going to be ruled upon versus what's going to happen in the Mississippi

case in December. But look, I came up with a slogan for legal aft and I'm trying out, which is, you come for the law and you stay for the truth. And that's what we're doing. We're just trying to give through the lens of progressive democratic analysis and just the facts. So that our listeners and followers can go, frankly, get into the streets and do the right thing

and get motivated. I'm worried about Virginia, by the way. I know you had on the Midas touch podcast, Terry McCollough, I'm worried about that election, not only because he may go down, but because the Democrats historically have sat on the sidelines in midterms and are not motivated to go out. Hatred motivates more at midterms than love for democracy. Unfortunately, I am hoping that Midas touch and its followers and listeners motivates more at midterms than love for democracy, unfortunately. I am hoping that might have touched, and it's followers and listeners change that calculus,

but it worries me. Yep, the case that you just mentioned, Popoq was the Supreme Court declining to block a main vaccine mandate. This was a rejection of an emergency appeal from healthcare workers in Maine to block a vaccine mandate that went into effect. On Friday, there were three conservative justices who noted their dissents, and there the state was

not offering any religious exemptions to hospital and nursing home workers who risked losing their jobs if they were not vaccinated. We talked in past podcasts about the New York law, but also Rhode Island has a vaccine mandate for health workers that lack religious exemptions and so there, you know, it was though the rejection of an emergency appeal and you know, it could also be because of a lot of the A lot of the pressure that the Supreme Court has come under from issuing these shadow docket type of rulings that they decline the appeal to basically say, hey, look, we're not ruling on this appeal the same way we did not rule on the SBA to appeal in an emergency

setting. And so there could be that aspect and that could be the cynic in me, but we will see. Want to talk briefly about athletic greens and their product, AG1. Are they back? Are they back as a sponsor today? They are not only back as a sponsor today, but even when they're not sponsoring

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Another update, Popok is the Twitter lawsuit that we talked about. We predicted this one right as well. This was a civil lawsuit that Trump brought against Twitter. Other social media companies, this one was brought in Florida. Some of them are, he brought in different locations and were assigned to different judges. You'll tell us, you know, this specific judge and you predicted what this judge was going to do. you'll tell us this specific judge and you predicted what this judge was going to do. I knew the judge. And what basically Trump was claiming is that the terms of service that everyone signs in Twitter

don't apply to him because as the president of the United States and as a government official, different rules and different laws apply to him, He did cite something in the Twitter terms of service that seemed at least on this argument that was at least a little bit creative by his lawyers that talked about government accounts. But it was really referring to government accounts in different countries and then referring to the default laws of your country. And here the forum selection claw would be the default law in the United States. And there was no other reason why Trump could not abide by the Forum Selection

Clause that was in the Twitter's terms of use, although Trump tried to argue that he didn't have enough resources and didn't have, this is what he argued, didn't have the resources and didn't have enough money really to be able to litigate the case. This is why we need his tax returns. Yeah, he said he didn't have enough resources to litigate the case. This is why we need his tax returns. Yeah, he said he didn't have enough resources to litigate the case if he was forced to move, to if this case was moved to San Francisco. That was too difficult for him to litigate cases there despite the fact that he files lawsuits literally in every state and every jurisdiction.

But Pope, you called it any comments on this ruling by this judge. In this case, saying, no, the form selection clause holds. This case needs to be heard in San Francisco. That's like basic law 101 and why the hell did you even make this argument Donald Trump? Another headline, another loss in a case for Donald Trump. Easy as prediction, you and I made made and since legal AF was started. There's an old joke about good lawyers know the law and great lawyers know the judge. Robert Skola, who I know, was never going to

keep the case in Florida and he was always going to enforce the terms of service and Twitter's requirement that lawsuits against them be brought where they reside, which is in San Francisco. So other than a loss, I've got nothing else to add. I'm not surprised. It's another silly lawsuit filed by another nutty lawyer for Trump. And it's a loss. And now it's going to go to San Francisco. And he's going to lose the case there too.

Remember, there's two cases remaining in Florida, which is the ones he has against Facebook and the ones he gets, I think against Instagram. But the Twitter one is off to San Francisco. I told you, Popak, that my view of it is is that Trump has no exit plan with the lawsuit. The plan is you file the lawsuit, you get the headline. The laws totally against you,

but as someone like Trump, you don't care about the law. Remember the saying Popeyes, when the law is not on your side, argue the facts, if the facts are not on your side, argue the law, if neither on your side. I don't know what you, what you, what you, what you, what you on your side, you know, argue the law if neither on your side. What do you have the facts you argue the facts if they have the law you argue the law if you don't have either argue. Yeah, well, I think for Trump, if you don't have either, it's just argue the conspiracy and argue pity me and argue it's a big, you know, government deep state thing against me so you could steal

and loot the money of your own supporters while you go on this pity tour, which is exactly what Donald Trump is doing. I mean, he praise, he praise on PREY. He praise on his followers to line his pockets with cash like any huckster, any, any dime store huckster wood. He's just a snake oil salesman. And these people fall for it. They sit by the phone and every time there's a new, you know, internet plea or one of his sons or daughters or somebody asked for money, they start stroking checks and clicking boxes and sending him money. So he has encouraged, you know, his bad behavior,

again, is not reprimanded. He's rewarded for his bad behavior because for every crazy lawsuit that you and I spend 10 minutes of airtime talking about, he raised a million dollars or one of his acolytes or followers like bargery, Taylor, Green. Half the crap she does is just to raise money. She knows none of it's going to be successful, but she does a Twitter push for funds and she raises $100,000 a day. One of the funny facts about Marjorie Taylor Green, I saw that through one of her entities

where she raises money. I think it was reported that she put that money into the Trump's back and lost money at the highest point. So it's a deep breath. These people are wild. Popo, give us the updates though. Turning to SBA, you talked about

it earlier in the show. This is the anti childbearing person, Texas bounty hunter law. We there's a oral argument that's set for November 1st before the Supreme Court full oral argument full briefing. At this point, it's been fully briefed. What's going on here, Popeyes? Yeah, we got two huge oral arguments on Monday. It's hard to believe they're landing on the same day. One, we'll talk about extensively, which is the SBA abortion ban. The second one is actually important. You and I will pick up with it.

I'm sure on the next podcast, which is a second amendment case that defines whether states like New York can regulate and basically ban the concealed weapon or concealed carry as a function of the Second Amendment, or not. We'll pick up with that next week, but that's gonna be heard, I think in the morning, and the afternoon is the fast track less than two week appeal on SB 8

and to remind those that listen to us and watch us tonight. It's not on the underlying constitutionality of SB 8 and whether it violates Roe versus Wade and all the other constitutional cases that establish the right of a woman to choose, at least not on its face. It's about the procedural issue of whether a federal court can enjoy, can stop or stay a state court or state clerk from litigate or taking that lawsuit in from the private citizen who's been deputized, if you will, by the state of Texas to enforce its abortion law or anti-abortion law. That is the issue for Monday. And I'm going to put on my Twitter feed, and I'm sure my Dastatial retweet it, the link so that our followers and listeners can listen to the oral arguments on Monday, both in the second amendment case and on the SB 8 case. Now, I want to manage expectations.

There was only one judge of the nine that was willing to stay the enforcement of SB 8 for the two-week period leading into a Monday's hearing. And that was so to my or even Kagan, even Briar was willing to wait two weeks for full briefing. So there's only one out of eight and it was Kagan. I'm sorry, so to my or so to my or is going to be leading the charge behind the scenes on the decision off the oral argument. It's going to be the so to my art camp versus the right, right wing of Alito and Thomas. And then Roberts is going to have to be in the middle and try to cobble together enough votes, I would think, to defeat

SBA at this level. And the interesting issue because there's two cases that are being joined together from Monday's oral, both coming up from Judge Pittman in Austin federal court, Austin Texas federal court, won by the abortion providers, which was the original case that he ruled in favor of, and the other by the Department of Justice versus Texas. I think the Department of Justice case solves the problem that the Supreme Court had a couple of months ago when they were, they were fretting about,

oh, what are we supposed to do? It's so complicated. There's not really a state actor here. And they're doing it through lawsuits filed by private citizens. What are we to do? That's all I think been solved by the fact that Department of Justice representing the US government in the United States of America versus Texas is now has standing to bring this case.

So all the issues that they had three weeks ago or a month ago, about whether the abortion providers were the proper party to bring the case, I think is now been resolved by the Department of Justice and the USA versus Texas form of this lawsuit. And when I'm hoping, and we'll see with oral argument, because it's going to be a hot bench, we're going to have a lot of questions being asked, So do I or I'd be shocked if she's not leading the charge on the questions. Led and Kagan and Briar and then you're going to have Thomas who's going to talk a lot even though historically he hadn't. This this term he has been talking a lot and will on this very fundamental abortion issue. Ben, what do you think? Let's let's let's make a prediction.

on this very fundamental abortion issue. Ben, what do you think, let's make a prediction? Does the procedural issue that's up for grabs on Monday about whether a federal judge through the Department of Justice suit can enjoy state courts and state clerks from taking these lawsuits? Do they vote yes or no on that on Monday? After Mondays or all argument?

Well, I have, I'm going to answer it like a lawyer because for me to get the right data, I need to also see what happens in the oral argument in the Mississippi case, which bans abortions after 15 weeks. I always thought that those two were paired together because the Mississippi case is not the procedural question. The Mississippi case that's gonna be heard in December one is really, are we gonna overturn Roeby Wade? But they're gonna rule on the November, they're gonna rule on Texas first.

So what are they gonna rule? Let me ask you this, how do you know that though? I mean, when the actual ruling comes out, I'm pretty confident. You, you, you, you, yeah, because the proceed, because yeah, but I pretty confident. Yeah, because the proceed, because because, yeah, but I'll make it easy because they would have, they would have deferred the case until December and heard the case and joined them all together on one docket. When the Supreme Court in control of its own docket puts a case on fast track, I'd be shocked

and I'll, you'll call me out on it. If I'm wrong, that they're not going to make the ruling off the wrong argument on the fundamental issue of the procedural case of SBA leaving for a later day the constitutional issue in off December's Mississippi hearing could be wrong. But if I'm right, what's the ruling? The right ruling is, is that procedurally the government can do it, pending the Mississippi ruling of what the rights are. But I think procedurally, they'll say the DOJ can do it. And I think also the people like Clarence Thomas will be thinking also, well, we wouldn't want to

not give the DOJ powers when it's run by, like in the future, potentially someone who's more politically aligned with us. And, and that this could be used by the DOJ to, if, if we come down hard on the DOJ here, we're really going against all of the previous theories that the GQP kind of had about the unitary executive and what the power and authorities of are the DOJ. So I think procedurally they'll let it through, but the big case to look for is really the direct challenge substantively to Roe v Wade, which is the case. I agree with you. A couple of interesting fact toys before we move on about this particular filing, even though the Supreme Court only gave less than two weeks to do the full briefing, there

were 43 cases, sorry, 43 states that filed a brief either for SB 8 or against it. There were 24 state attorney generals that filed an amicus brief, a friend of the court brief against SB 8, and there were 19 state attorney generals that filed a brief in favor of SBA. That's also going to be read at their discretion by the sitting members of the Supreme Court. That's really a scary stat, Popak. I think that needs to, like, that should almost be the headline because forget the 24. I mean, the SBA is the most Frankensteinian horrible law that, you know, that, that there is to have people file civil lawsuits against their

neighbors and get $10,000 bounties for, you know, for it's the purge. And so the fact that you have 19 state attorney generals who say they support SBA to the point where they're going to file a brief with the court in support tells you the same way we had a guest on his name was David Pepper. He wrote a book. It was called how states have become the laboratories of authoritarianism. Texas is the laboratory of this horrible and horrific law, and it's guess what people? This is this law. If it holds is come into all of those 19 states pretty soon. fiction, like Hammaid's tale, Atwood and Manon High Tower, that was on Amazon Prime, I think, talking about alternate, alternate worlds of the United States. We're getting there. I mean, if 19 states want a ban abortion and think a bounty law in order to do it is appropriate,

that means that 19 state houses and governors and their elected officials probably support that. So now we're going to be left with 30 states or so that allow abortion if left to the states and 19 that don't, which is why we need the federal Supreme Court to make a declaration, a reinforcement of on the book's constitutional rights to choose now. Because if you leave it to the devices of each individual state, as you said, it's a laboratory for a horror show about, you know, fascist, the fascist tendencies of these individual states.

The other thing that I thought was fascinating is that since the Supreme Court has weighed in on abortion in the last six months and taken positions that have pissed off most of the electorate, the recent polling shows that only one third, one third of this country wants Roe v Wade overturned. One third, That means two thirds are in favor of a constitutional right to choose. That and the Supreme Court's own reputation is in the trash can and they know it. They always act like they're in the Ivy Tower wearing the black robes and they don't really care about what their poll numbers say. That's bullshit. They do care. Robert's care is about the legitimacy of the court. And if they don't start getting some of these

fundamental constitutional right cases right, then the Supreme Court is just going to be seen as a political patsy of, you know, of, you know, those nine on there. And they're going to, and it's going to completely undermine democracy. Democracy is not just about elected officials. It's about lifetime appointments, the Supreme Court and who's sitting in there, they better start start taking this seriously, or there's going to be a revolt in this country on the Democratic side. Popoq, let's close the episode out by talking about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. I want you to set the record straight and what is going on in this trial.

There's been a lot of, a lot going on on social media that doesn't seem to be fully accurate or fully understanding what the rulings are and what the judge is saying. It's hard to convey the complexity of certain pre-trial rulings and tweets, I get it, but I know it was important you wanted to set the record straight, Pope, I could what's going on in that trial. Yeah, there's three cases going on across America. We're going to talk about the written house case today, but the other two that you and I are closely following and then we'll report on probably next week is, you know, the case involving Charlottesville and the Unite the right rally that happened in 2017 in

which the white supremacists and neo-Nazis and proud boys and oath keepers joined together to march through Charlottesville chanting all sorts of Nazi slogans which led to the death of Heather higher, a paralegal who was run over in a car intentionally by one of the protesters. There's now a civil case going on in Charlottesville under the KKK Act of 1871, which is a 14th Amendment supporting act passed by Ulysses S. Grant, if you can believe it, in the Reconstruction period of America. We're going to watch that trial. That civil lawsuit brought against all those people that were in the neo-Nazi movement and white supremacy movement. Closely, there's a case going on as as you and I have spoken about in Georgia.

This is the arm on Arbery case where he was murdered by three individuals in a pickup truck on video. And there's a case going on in just south of Savannah, Georgia, in Brunswick, Georgia, against the three people who were charged in his murder. And we're going to see, in that case, just started. We're going to follow that one. But the written house case seems to be the one that the Twitter verse seems to be most focused on. Written House was a 17-year-old at the time with a resident of Illinois who traveled to Wisconsin

to Kenosha, Wisconsin in August of 2020. After that town had undergone at least three nights of arson and looting following the shooting and paralyzing of Jacob Blake by a white police officer. So that town was really, you know, a lot of the business district was burned to the ground by protesters who'd taken matters into their own hands. And there was a group of self-defense militia, at least self-proclaimed self-defense militia, that decided to take up arms.

Wisconsin is an open carry state you're allowed to have a rifle or a gun openly carried and people from around the country and in Wisconsin went to Kenosha to protect ostensibly businesses while this 17 year old grabs a rifle and does exactly that. Now he's an odd case because he also takes like a medic bag with him. And he actually, there's video of him helping protesters before the shooting where he shot three people and killed two of them. He was helping other protesters on the ground who had been injured. So at the moment where he fired the weapon, his rifle, there was one of the protesters who was lunging at him. And this is all on video. This is not Popak on, you know, speculation.

This is on the video. That's part of the trial. And when this gentleman lunged at him, Rittenhouse fired his weapon, shot the guy in the head, unfortunately, and killed him. And so you had Anthony Huber and Joe Rosenbaum, who were both shot and killed by written house, the group of protesters then chased written house, and he was firing his weapon along the way. So obviously, it's going to come as no surprise that his defense is self-defense, that even though he was there willingly to protect businesses, that when he was in his view attacked by others, he had the right to use his weapon. That is the defense. The prosecution is this gentleman fired his weapon at protesters who were unarmed and

killed them. The fight that's been going on before this trial even starts. And I want to make that clear because there's been Twitter speculation and comments made that the trial is already ongoing. The trial starts on Monday. But there's been pre-trial motions, what you and I in the business called motions in lemonade, which is motions filed by both sides, prosecutor and defense, to limit the entry of evidence or information into evidence on various grounds. This judge, Judge Schroeder, has had a longstanding policy in his courtroom that no person who has been killed,

who was a deceit and who has been killed by a suspect or a person who's been charged with murder or or crime of homicide is to be referred to as a victim because he's made the decision that and it's and he's not totally alone. There is a minority view of on the bench that if you call them the victim, the victim, the victim, you're basically convicting the person who has the right who is presumed innocent until proven guilty, at least here he has the right to put up his self-defense defense. And that by calling them the victim, it rings the bell in the minds of the jury that he's guilty as charged. So the judge has said, look, during the trial itself, and in your opening statement, I want you to use the word deceit. I don't want you to call them victim.

And a closing, which is at the end of the trial, after the evidence has come in, if there's been enough evidence established and prosecutors and defense lawyers, I'll have another hearing about this. But if there's enough evidence that's established during the course of the trial, that the people that that written house interacted with were arsonist looters had attacked him because he's got a self-defense defense, I'll allow you in closing argument to use the word looters and arsonists, if you've made out your proof during trial.

This is very complicated stuff, but it shows you the difference between an opening statement which has to set out the facts and an argument at closing, which is done based on the lawyer's opinion and advocacy based on evidence that's been presented. So everyone that said, oh, this judge is leading to written house being acquitted by a jury. I don't think we've reached that point yet.

I'm not sure I agree with the victim issue, but there's a lot of evidence that the prosecutors are going to be putting on that defense has the right in you and I are oftentimes defense lawyers. The defense oftentimes has the right to put on a self defense case in front of the jury in Wisconsin. They have to get the prosecution has to get unanimity. There has to be all nine or 12. I think it's 12 have to rule that there rule that the person is guilty of the crime. If there's reasonable doubt based on common sense of the evidence, and one hauled out,

written house is not going to get convicted. That's the way Wisconsin works. And so there's the tension in our criminal justice system between the prosecutors putting on their case, but not doing it with thumbs on the scale and the defense trying to put on a defense in this case, self defense, and then let the jury resolve the issue. So I think all of these, all of this attacks on the judge, I want to see how the trial plays out day by day and you and I can report on developments.

I think written house ultimately gets convicted, but we'll have to see at the end of the day. And look, one of the things that the judge wants to be very protective on the trial court is to not get the jury's verdict ultimately to be overturned because of a ruling that was made in a pre-trial posture, such as the use of a term victim that written House's defense team will later go to the court of appeals and say, we would have won this trial except for the fact that the trial judge allowed the prosecutors to say it's a victim, and we have a right to be presumed innocent, you know, until proven guilty. And you, we were presumed guilty because you called him written house's victim from the outset.

And therefore, the entire trial for the past three weeks should be reversed if written house is found found and I think you will be found guilty. And so it's one of these ways where what the judge is supposed to be, you know, is supposed to basically create the circumstances in which the evidence can be presented in a way that isn't distracting, that isn't highly prejudicial, and where the jury can basically become the trial of the facts and make the decision based on the facts and not based on just emotion. Well, let me make it, yeah, let me make it an even finer point. I think you just laid it out perfectly.

I'm not saying that I believe his self-defense defense. In fact, from what I've seen in the video and otherwise, I don't. However, if they prevail, if the defense prevails and is able to establish reasonable doubt in one jurors' mind, that written house was acting in self-defense, then those people that attacked him, if the jury believes that, are not victims. They're the aggressor and he acted in self-defense. Again, I'm not prejudging the evidence, and I don't think Ritton House walks out the front door of the courthouse. However, we do presume innocence in this country, and I know it gets everybody all fired up in this country. And I know it gets everybody all fired up, you know, about it. But you're right, Ben, you have to balance to allow as there's no perfect trial. There's never been a perfect trial.

But as well presented of a trial as possible, free of error and reversible error as possible, because won't we be upset if the thing that gets the thing reversed on appeal is because the prosecutors were allowed to keep saying victim, victim, victim, when there was so much overwhelming evidence. Eliminate that from the presentation. And let's see if prosecutors doing their job can get 12 Wisconsin citizens to convict. Pope, I agree with you, as always,, want to thank you again for this Halloween edition of Legal AF. If it's Saturday, if it's Saturday, it is legal AF.

If it's Sunday, if Saturday is Legal AF live, if it's Sunday, it is Legal AF. Thank you everybody for making Legal AF one of the top, if not the top legal podcast in the country. It's always a pleasure and a dream come true that I get to spend weekends talking with Popock about legal issues and get to share those issues with you. Special shout out to our sponsors, Fiverr,

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