Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF Full Episode - 10/29/2025

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

Twenty-nine appeals judges have overturned a pro-Trump ruling on the use of the National Guard in Oregon, setting the stage for a new trial against the Trump administration. Meanwhile, the Seventh Circuit issued a head-scratching decision undermining a federal judge’s attempt to rein in out-of-control federal leaders, and the Supreme Court dropped a bizarre late-afternoon ruling. Elsewhere, a federal judge came down hard on Trump’s novice prosecutor Lindsey Halligan, and Trump’s appeal of his criminal conviction already looks exhausted before oral arguments even begin. Legal AF is back with Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo to break it all down. Support Our Sponsors: Indacloud: Get 30% OFF your first order + FREE shipping @IndaCloud with code LEGALAF at https://indacloud.co Delete Me: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to join https://deleteme.com/LEGALAF and use promo code LEGALAF at checkout. Smalls: Head to https://Smalls.com/LEGALAF and use promo code: LEGALAF at checkout for 50% off your first order PLUS free shipping! Jones Road Beauty: Use code LEGALAF at https://jonesroadbeauty.com to get a Free Cool Gloss with your first purchase! #JonesRoadBeauty #ad Subscribe to Legal AF Substack: https://substack.com/@legalaf Check out the Popok Firm: https://thepopokfirm.com Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Don't touch that dial. You're on the midweek edition of Legal A.F, the top-rated law and politics podcast in America. That's all because of you and our fervent audience and support. We do our part expressing our First Amendment rights on this side of the microphone and try to protect your First Amendment right to be heard as well. Got a long list of things we've curated for you today on this full-length podcasts with Karen Friedman McNifalo and Michael Popock. All Things National Guard.

We've got an interesting, really, almost a message from the majority of the 29 judges of the Ninth Circuit, just hours before Judge Imragett in Oregon started her trial about whether to have a permanent block of Donald Trump's use of the military on domestic soil or use of the National Guard in Portland. The Ninth Circuit gave her a little bit of wind at her sale with a ruling yesterday. trial started today with some with some just eye-popping testimony particularly federal officers and this will tie into a Supreme court order from today that was very interesting about the seventh circuit from the seventh circuit case but federal officers working for ice firing their weapons at local law enforcement you're not i mean this is i mean you're not supposed to fire pepper balls and tear gas at low local law enforcement that are trying to handle the situation on the ground and then claim, it's totally out of control.

And that was the first day of testimony with Judge Imurgat, talk about the Ninth Circuit. And we have to talk about the Seventh Circuit, which covers Illinois because the Supreme Court, after about 10 days, finally figured out, we need more briefing because there was an appeal of the Seventh Circuit's decision that Donald Trump could not mobilize the National Guard in Illinois on the streets of Chicago, nor use the statute that allows for it, what we call 12-406, they took an appeal, went up through Amy Coney Barrett, got referred over to the full court, and we've been waiting around. In fact, I start all my hot takes now or any kind of like podcast like the intersection where I talk about the National Guard like any minute now, I might

be jumping on Substack Live and telling you that the order from the Supreme Court has come out and it has a cascade effect through all these other cases. And I was thinking they were writing, writing, writing, working on dissents. No, they still need, somebody needs an answer to a question. And we'll talk about what the question is, why it's so bizarre and how it could impact the cases at the Ninth Circuit. Lindsay Halligan, the novice prosecutor. See, I love having Karen on with me, as the co-hosts today, as always,

because she's a real prosecutor in real life. She was a real prosecutor in real life, not this insta prosecutor, just to add water in Lindsay Halligan. And she's doing things, I'm sure. when Karen takes over, I'm sure there's things that she's never even just, her eyebrows would float off her head, Karen, I mean, about the things that Lindsay Halligan has done, on the record conversations through a signal disappearing app with a reporter about a live case that's gotten her into trouble and several motions and lawsuits brewing over it. And while all that's going

on, there's like a case, there's a criminal case where two defendants named former FBI Director Comian, New York Attorney General present, Letitia James, have filed motions to get rid of Lindsay Allegan because she was illegally appointed. Those motions are being considered by a South Carolina judge, Judge Curry will tell you why in a minute. And Judge Curry issues an order in which in one paragraph, I think it just, let's just put it this way, it changed the weather in the room inside of the Department of Justice. And Lindsay Halligan should not be sleeping well at night after what Judge Curry has ordered to be presented to her chambers by Monday. Interested yet?

I know the story, and suddenly I'm very interested in that story. As other courts, and really every court that has looked at the issue, every court that has looked at the issue, has rejected Donald Trump illegally naming U.S. attorneys or interim U.S. attorneys or second interim U.S. attorneys. We have the middle district of Pennsylvania bouncing Alina Haba up at the Third Circuit, waiting on that decision. That's not going to go well for Alina Haba.

California federal judge, bouncing the U.S. attorney there, bouncing the U.S. attorney in Nevada that Donald Trump appointed. And now all eyes are on Lindsay Halligan. The dam is broken, everybody. We'll talk about what happens next. Then we've been, it's not, it's not,

The headline should not be. Donald Trump late night appeals his 34 count felony conviction in New York. We knew that was coming. They've been talking about that for the last six months. And I read the brief. There's nothing in it. It's all shop-worn, hackneyed arguments that have been argued and rejected before.

We're talking about the law firm that brought the suit. And I want to hear from Karen, who's been on, I'm sure, through her office, the same office, in Manhattan District Attorney's Office when she was there. Been on the other side of appeals, and we'll talk about what she sees in the appeal, including the judge, Judge Wershahn should have recused himself

because his daughter has a job. This is 2025, everybody. Wives and daughters work, just not in Mago World. And we'll talk about the appeal. And let's get it. God, I watch Ben do a lot of his podcast now, whether it's with me or Michael Cohen. It's always the same.

there's a lot to talk about let's jump right in but you and i like to do a little bit of a kibbits a little bit of a wind up and all that how are you let's start with that i'm great i'm great my mother just moved across country and she's now living in new york which is wonderful and so i'm great you yeah so it's all good it's all good are we going to see appearances of grandma ma sometime on the show we're not going to see grandma on the show but she is here and it's wonderful having my mother here so i bet i bet and you know i lost my mom. So anytime you can be that close to your family. Exactly. What a joy. And I love that you know she's grandma, mom. That is what everyone calls her. I just docks your mother. Okay. My own way. All right. So let's get into the Ninth Circuit because it's a can opener that gets us

into a lot of different discussions about Donald Trump's abuse of power, his violation of sovereign rights and states' rights. And this is all about, this is shorthand, and I don't like to use shorthand, because we never know who's joined us. Hopefully new people have also joined the legal AF community here. Donald Trump to embarrass and flex his muscle against blue states. Apparently they're the only ones where crime is going on. Nothing's going on in Alabama. Nothing's going on in Mississippi.

Nothing's going on in Texas. It's just going on in blue states, everybody, if you can believe that. Are blue cities in red states? Or like what? Like Memphis. Blue cities in red states. Highest murder capital. of the world, I think is Memphis right now.

Yeah, exactly. Ignore that. Just go after the political critics of Donald Trump, J.B. Pritzker in Illinois, Gavin Newsom in California. Let's take on Kathy Hochle in New York. Let's threaten to go after Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania. What are these people have in common? Oh, I don't know.

The color of my shirt. They're all blue, maybe. So in order to do the extraordinary thing, because this is an extraordinary thing for a president to commandeer the state militia, the National Guard, and put them on the streets of a city. He has to follow the strictures and the requirements of a statute. 10 U.S.C. 12406, which says you can do it, but there's got to be a foreign invasion. Or forget that.

There's no argument. We haven't been invaded by Venezuela or any other country, not the last time I looked. Now you're left with the other components of it, which is, is there's a rebellion. And Donald Trump's like, yes, there's a rebellion. I saw it on TV, smoke, flashbags, pepperball sprays, 20 people dressed like chickens. There's a rebellion. All right.

They're really not arguing rebellion, even though they keep talking about it. It's rebellion or the third component, the third requirement, which is that there be, and this is where the Supreme Court seems to be focused on their new order today. the president with the use of his regular forces cannot execute the laws that he is constitutionally sworn to a bold and what does that mean meaning with his regular with regular forces um now look his regular forces are obviously ice and customs and border patrol and all these badge wearing gun wearing you know riot gear wearing pepperball shooting, tear gas shooting, troops. There's also local law enforcement because the Pasi Cometatis Act and other provisions by our founders and framers say that you're not allowed

to use for domestic law enforcement purposes, the military. So you get that problem, kind of the Pasi Cometatis friction. And what we're watching on the streets is not a law enforcement or police that are outnumbered or overwhelmed by First Amendment protesters, some of which can get violent at a moment, but they know how to handle that. Listen, you and I were in New York, they're not, I don't want to call it Black Lives Matter because that suggests that the legitimate Black Lives Matter movement was violent. It wasn't.

There were people that got, who used it as a front to loot and do other destruction. And the police were trying to deal with it, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully. But there are techniques, and I'm sure you're familiar with. them in your former days as a prosecutor, about how you handle civil disobedience that runs a muck, that runs into a little violent moment. But that's not where you then, oh, I get to take over your National Guard and put them on the streets of, and violate your sovereignty in the 10th Amendment. So two cases broke out, really three. Oregon, California, and Illinois. Oregon and California happen to be under the same appellate court, the Ninth Circuit, sitting in San Francisco.

And I've had the pleasure, although I lost, I had the pleasure of arguing before the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco in that courthouse. And as we've talked about, you know, this is like a TED Talk meets a law school class on legal AF. Some people are five years into their degree program. It's like a Ph.D. at this point. Most justice at the appellate level is done by three judge panels. And, you know, that's what you get, and you don't get upset. You get a three-judge panel ruling and you're done. 99.9% of all appellate rulings are three judge panels.

They're not on bunk the way the Supreme Court is, meaning all the judges. Except you get to request in circumstances under certain conditions to have the entirety of the panel, of the judges of that circuit, hear your case instead. That throws out and vacates the lower, the original. three-judge panel decision and leaves it in the hands of some other much larger group. Some circuits, it's like the entirety of the thing, and other circuits have their own rules. In the 11th Circuit, 29 judges, a third of them are trumpers. If a majority looks at the decision of the three-judge panel and says, yeah, I'm not sure they got that right.

Because if they got it right, they'd be like, yeah, I may not be exactly the way I would have analyzed it. That's close enough. But when they look, 15 out of 29, apparently, or more, just voted yesterday, the day before the trial that the judge in Oregon is trying, Judge Imbergot, said, yeah, we want to, yeah, we don't like the decision of the two Trumpers and the Clinton appointee, and we want to do it with a larger group. So now there's going to be an 11 judge on Buckpanel, 10 randomly selected, including from the group of the three that just voted. that just issued their decision on October 20th and the chief judge. They get together, new briefing, new oral argument. What happens to the prior decision? They vacated it today with an order, meaning they tossed it,

which reverts back to the judge, Judge Imurgut's temporary restraining order. There's two of them. And we got a trial today. So take it from there, Karen, talk about what you've picked up from the Ninth Circuit's decision on Bonk today to toss the prior decision and what it means for Judge Imbergut. and then we can tie it to the Supreme Court. Weird decision today for additional briefing. I mean, clearly, you know, you said it perfectly

that they want to hear more information. They don't like what the three judges did. And so they want a full briefing for this panel, and they're going to rule on this substantively. I think they realize the gravity of what's going on here, and they know that they're making law for the rest of the country. And so I think they realize the importance of this and what's happening, also in Illinois, right?

We're going to talk about that. What's happening in Illinois, and it's going to the Supreme Court. And you've got the issue, basically, it's clearly going to the Supreme Court who's going to rule on these issues, and they're going to look very carefully at them because not only is the United States military and the National Guard being turned on the civilians

and the citizens of this country, which you're not supposed to do, obviously, it's clearly political and going just to blue states, as you said. So I think they realize the moment they're in, this is not just about this case, it's about this issue, and it's so important. And so I think they're taking it very seriously by doing this en banc ruling, and I think they're going to be very thoughtful about this and brief it in a way that's helpful for both the lower court judges, but also the Supreme Court, where I think they see this inevitably

going, or at least one of these cases inevitably going. So let's turn from there to, we'll tie it back to the Seventh Circuit in a minute. Let's talk about Judge Emigut. She's got to be feeling pretty good starting her trial today because within hours of the start of the trial, because, you know, I've never been a judge, but I've hung around with enough of them that they are human beings. They don't like to be reversed or blocked, especially when they are doing their level best with tremendous rigor to get it right at a trial court level.

And she's known to get it right. She's not somebody that gets reversed. She's a Trump appointee, former U.S. attorney for Portland, former assistant U.S. attorney from L.A. She doesn't like to get it wrong. And she got, you know, she got her hands slapped, her knuckles wrapped by the three-judge panel. And why don't you explain to people

why there's a trial at the same time as an appeal? They're the same issue but separate issues, right? So why don't you explain? Because that might be confusing for some people. Since this is being this very issue is being appealed, in a way, how is there also a trial going on? There's two ways appeals can happen, either at the end of a case

where there's nothing else to do for the trial judge, and that is generally when appeals are taken. That's just, you've exhausted at the trial level all that you can do, and you take it up on appeal. So there's nothing for the trial court to do, but then to sit back and see what happens to their ultimate ruling or the jury's ruling or whatever. Then there's something called an interlocutory appeal,

or an emergency interlocutory appeal, which is during the ongoing proceedings at the trial court level, there's an issue that needs to be taken up at the appellate level. Either the first level appeal, which is the district court, sorry, the circuit court, for where the federal court sits, or all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. There's only two levels of appeal in the United States. You go, your circuit, you know, and they're numbered one through 11,

or you go to the, and or you go to the United States Supreme Court if they'll let you. if that's interlocutory there's still stuff going on below especially if they're taking it up on a temporary restraining order because along the continuum of stays you start with like the lowest form of stay is the administrative stay which lasts for hours or a day or two the judge is like uh i got this in the middle of the night nobody do anything i'm staying in for now see you tomorrow morning okay next level is temporary restraining order next level above that is preliminary injunction. The next level above that at the end of a trial is permanent injunction. And they have similar factors. It's really temporal, like when in the case you're having

this. So right now, because the appellate decision about her temporary restraining order has been stayed awaiting a future briefing and a future ruling by the appellate court, she has no she has no opposite opinion by her bosses it she now continues as she had scheduled last month she scheduled this last month to have a trial and evidentiary hearing three days about the next level of injunction preliminary injunction sometimes you go right to permanent injunction like all right there's no facts in dispute uh let's just end this case but she's doing preliminary injunction while her temporary restraining order the issue continues to be litigated at the appellate level now can the record she develops under this trial be used to

supplement the the um what's going on with her temporary restraining order appeal i mean it's just interesting to have this thing going on at the same time it's it's very confusing because there will be more facts developed in the record you yeah you would think that justice would demand that it's hard to supplement your record because the appellate court is not a trier of fact. They're supposed to get a cold record that's at that moment in snapshot and time in order to make their ruling, even if things happen after. Now, there is a way to open the record and supplement it. It's hard. Appellate lawyers that are good know how to do it. So it's not something you can bank on, but it's something that could happen. But you also could get inconsistent results. She could rule

on Thursday, Monday to Friday or Monday, she could rule preliminary injunction. And then the ruling that comes out of the Ninth Circuit about her temporary restraining orders, though, would effectively vacate her preliminary injunction finding because they find that her thought process was wrong, if they find that her findings were wrong. And even though she's made new findings,

I think you'd have to take another appeal. I don't think the appeal that's going on right now, which is why, frankly, you don't appellate courts, and even the Supreme Court, does not like temporary restraining order appeals because they understand there's another step. Usually they argue there's no jurisdiction. Like, we'll just wait.

What are you doing your trial in three days here now? Do the trial. John Roberts has said that in prior rulings as the Chief Justice. He's like, I know everybody's rushing in here, all breathless about temporary restraining order, but my understanding is you're doing a trial in four days. Just come back in four days. So, you know, as,

we said before, the appellate courts reverse engineer all the time. Oh, we don't want to hear the case. We don't have jurisdiction. Oh, we want to hear the case. Oh, we have jurisdiction. Especially when it comes to Trump, they will reverse engineer to get the result they want. They bend over backwards. Like the two Trumpers that just ruled on October 20th against Judge Ibergut, they could have said, it's a little premature. Why don't we let the judge continue to develop the record to your point, Karen, and come back. No, no. We have to make a ruling in favor of Donald Trump right now. Because, because why? Because the chicken is out of control on the streets of Portland, I don't really, I don't get, I'm not trying to be an ass

about it. And there is, you know, I've used video, there is stuff going on in the streets. And there are, a lot of it is the feds, you know, using flashbags and, and smoke and tear gas. And then Donald Trump looks at it and it goes, oh my God, the city's on fire. Yeah, the city's on fire because your feds are firing military-grade riot projectiles at cops and others on the street. So true. Yeah. So we're going to see what happens with that. what's so she's litigating this in the shadow of her bosses at the ninth circuit but she's got to be feeling pretty good right Karen that like at least half of the 29 said yeah i don't think they got that right we're going to do this all over again yeah yeah exactly i mean of course the supreme court is i mean you feel good

temporarily but you still got to get past the supreme court yeah it's like it's like your party then you get the hangover so the seventh circuit right the seventh circuit like the Ninth Circuit, blocked, at least originally, blocked Donald Trump and said, you know what, you can commandeer them, you can mobilize them, but you can't deploy them. You can't put them on the streets. And that was one judge. And a second judge, Judge Ellis, which I'll let you touch on, made another ruling about stop attacking journalists, First Amendment protesters and the members of the clergy in the streets

with your riot missiles and gear and pepper spray. the fact that she even had to write that order is ridiculous that got appealed the one about the troops on the streets of portland of illinois got appealed to the supreme court like almost two weeks ago so why don't you pick up with that what the supreme court has a new order just came out like as we were as we're on the air and then we can tie it together with judge ellis what she ordered the border patrol guy to do why they didn't like it yeah so it's it's interesting right The Supreme Court literally just came out with this rule, this clarification question from Justice Barrett that basically said the parties are directed to file supplemental letter briefs addressing the following question, whether the term, quote, regular forces refers to the regular forces of the United States military, and if so, how that interpretation affects the operation of 10 United States Code 12406 sub three. the briefs aren't to exceed 15 pages.

I mean, so it's essentially what she's basically saying is that's the question that they're struggling with, and that's what they want to look at, right? It's because, again, as we've talked about in many, many, many episodes, you can't turn the military on United States citizens. And I think she's grappling, I don't know, but it seems like they're grappling with whether the National Guard is the same as the Marines or the Navy or the Army. and whether that counts and that's part of it. I don't know if they're trying to thread the needle here

for Donald Trump to say, yeah, of course, you can't, you know, the Posse Comitatis Act or, you know, all the various, you know, 12-406, everything doesn't allow Trump to call federal service members and units into this, against, you know, against civilians unless there's a rebellion or a danger of a rebellion and all the things that they have to show, they can't just do that.

And I wonder if that's how they're going to be too cute by half and say, oh, well, it's the National Guard. They're not really regular forces. I don't know. What do you make of that question, Popa? I thought it was a dumb question, to be honest with you. I can't believe they're hung up about this. Because if you read the Section 3, which is what they seem to be hung up about, this has to be a finding. That the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.

States, then he can call into federal service members and units of the National Guard. So you think they're referring to, like, ice as regular forces? Because how could it be the military? Because that would violate the Posse Comitatis Act. So you have to, like, thread the needle between the friction of the Possecomitatis Act, which says, no, President, you can't turn the gun turrets of the military against Americans on soil for domestic law enforcement purposes. It has to be, no, my ICE and Border Patrol.

control. And I also think, frankly, regular forces would in effect include, this is my argument, local law enforcement. Yeah, it's an interesting question. Because why remove the cops who are familiar with the streets of Portland? It's not their first riot. It's not their first, you know, parade that got out of control. I mean, Lord knows, you know, how many, I was going to use a very New York insider reference. You know, how many times the Puerto Rican Day parade got out of control in New York or the St. Patrick's Day Parade. They know what they're doing on the streets. I think regular, for me, I would interpret it,

and I think they're going to have to go back to old-timey times and look at what happened when this thing was passed in the early 1800s or so and say, I think it's, I've tried my federal forces. I've used local law enforcement who are helping, although they're shooting at local law enforcement, so that's hard for them to help. And I still can't control it, and I can't use the military. So bring in the national,

guard. That's the way I would interpret it. Well, you can already, you're probably right now that you say that out loud. I mean, it just came out before the podcast. So, you know, but it's, it's interesting because it, you can just see what they're already trying to do. They're going to say, they're going to say, oh, well, of course the regular local law enforcement say that they've got it under control, because those are Democrats who allow for lawless, you know, these lawless riots, et cetera, but you've got ICE who we'll say through Christy Noem, we'll come out and say, no, we need this. We can't get it done without it.

And you can see them saying, well, we defer to the president, right? We defer that he has to take care of that the laws are faithfully executed. He has to be able to enforce the law. And they're saying they can't. And so they're allowed to do this to protect federal property and we'll defer to them on the ground. I mean, it's interesting because so many judges have come out and said that the facts on the ground just don't match what you're saying. And they have no basis. in reality. So it'll just be interesting to see what they do and whether they are going to defer to the president and what he's saying. I'm cynical because I think the Supreme Court is just looking for ways to rule in favor of Donald Trump. Absolutely. I can't believe that's the thing that's hanging

them up, but we'll have to see how it sorts out. They've asked for briefing. It'll go through November before Thanksgiving. In the meantime, well, it makes sense because they can't claim there's an insurrection. They can't claim that there's a rebellion. They can't claim any of those things. So really all they can hang their hat on is, look, they're trying to enforce the laws, right? Ice, they're trying to deport people and he's trying to do it. And he's saying, I can't do it without extra help because there's protesters outside of the ICE facilities in chicken suits. And I like them to stop cutting the legs out from under federal judges who are making the record. Because, you know, like, it was so easy for the three, the two Trumpers in the Ninth Circuit to say,

well, why can't, even though he sent in the troops in September, why can't he look back to June? I'm like, because by time he sent in the troops in September, there was nothing going on but 20 people standing out and loitering out in front of ice. Maybe there was an issue in June, but why do you get to backdate June when you're making the decision in September? They were like, well, temporarily, I'm like, oh, here we go. So I'm tired of appellate judges, you know, I'm sure you've heard this phrase before, maybe you've used it, you know, with black robe disease, you know, at the appellate level, looking down their nose at federal judges who were just doing the job, the hard work of developing the facts on the ground and applying the law to the facts. And then them just going,

you know, last year there was a, there was somebody, a car was set on fire. Okay, what does it have to do with this year? What does it have to do with the date he sent in the troops? I don't understand any of it. I don't either. I don't either. Yeah. So we're going to we're trying to make sense of it all. That's one of our goals here on LegalAF. I'm glad everybody's here with us. We're on the midweek edition. The podcast, five years in the making, has been doing outstanding because of the support of our audience. I think we're the number one law and politics podcast. I'm not just saying that. I mean, in terms of the rankings. And the rankings are important and the subscriber base is important for like Midas and for LegalAF YouTube. It's not just, oh,

I want to get to a million. It's because that. That number, those magic numbers, give us the credibility that we need to exist, to survive, to thrive, to bring on contributors, to bring on interviews. Next month, I'm interviewing 11 attorneys general of the United States in a meeting. You got me into that room as the audience because of what legal AF has become as a brand, as a reliable contributor to the conversation in America and get it. honest commentary. It's not just me, Karen, and Ben, like in a garage, talking over coffee. So it's because people want to come on the show. When I reach out to Anna Bauer, the day that her

article publishes about her interaction with Lindsay Halligan, she comes on the show because of the vibrancy of our community, because of the size of our audience, because of the legitimacy of what we do. Because you have a First Amendment right to hear our honest comment. and we have a First Amendment right to tell it to you. It's just all under attack. And so the way to support that is the way that you're doing it. Listen to us on audio, let people know about the audio versions of the Legal AF podcast. We could use in the hummingbird world of consequences, we could use a few more listens over

on the podcast side, a few more reviews, a few more five stars to help us prop us up in the top rankings for Apple and Spotify and all of that. that's that's for sure youtube live absolutely we have then we chop this episode up into smaller versions bite-sized versions and send them out across the the universe of minus and legal a f so you can you can consume them at your own rate your own pace so that's important and and leaving comments here then then legal a f youtube we're about to crack 900 000 this weekend we're about to crack a million if it kills me they kill salty before the end of the year and that's again that's a badge of honor that we then used to bring on. I'm going to be interviewing Governor Shapiro in the next couple of days.

I just interviewed yesterday, and it's going up sometime, hopefully today, Rob Banta, the Attorney General, about the new lawsuit to save 44 million people who are going to starve to death because Donald Trump cut off $8 billion worth of welfare and SNAP and food stamps funding. In fact, I think it's up competing with us right now. I think it's up on Midas right now. But I'm only able, and those contributors are only able to get those people because you're a subscriber for free. No paywall. No, no, no, we have no corporate parent.

Thank God. We wouldn't be on the air. No corporate parent would let us do what we're doing. So become a subscriber. And then we got LegalAF substack, which is, you know, people are like, how do you pay the bills, Popuk? How do you have all these editors, like these people you mentioned, do all the videos? How do you get people in the middle of the night to jump on and do the interviews with you?

Yeah, we have a team and they get paid. And so for $6.77 a month, you can become a paid member. And now you're a card-carrying member of the legal AF community. And then the last layer is we've got our sponsors, who a lot of them have been with us for like the last five years. Some are new. Some are new tonight. Some have been with us for a while.

And here's a word from our sponsors. Do you hate heavy, kicked on makeup the way it feels and the way it looks? I know I do. That's why I'm so excited about this new sponsor, Jones Road. Jones Road has this amazing new product that is healthy for your skin, it doesn't clog your pores, it's easy to use, and it comes in this nice little pack that's easy to take with you when you travel. So it gives you a natural look.

It doesn't give you that caked-on look, and it doesn't feel bad on your skin. You can use it as a lip tint, as a blush, as a bronzer, a highlighter. I, of course, use all of the above. And it just fits into my lifestyle and gives me the look, that natural. look that I like to have. All of Jones Road formulas are clean and high performing without any of the bad ingredients that you don't want in your makeup. And clean beauty is obviously a no-brainer. And they don't just have their famous miracle bomb. They've built a full line of effortless skin first staples, like they're just enough tinted moisturizer, a lightweight non-comedogenic

formula that smooths an even skin's tone with a soft touch and coverage. It hides reds, It looks natural and feels like nothing on your skin. So it's packed with skin friendly ingredients to keep skin moisturized without clogging your pores. That's one of my favorite parts as well. So it looks great. It feels great. And your pores don't get clogged. What more could you ask for?

This is a modern day makeup that's clean, strategic, and multifunctional for effortless routines. And so for a limited time offer, our listeners are getting a free cool glass on their first purchase when they use code legal A.F at checkout. That's a free, cool gloss. So head to jonesroadbeautcom and use code legal a.f at checkout. And after you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. And please support our show. Thank you, Jones Road.

You know, my cat, Chanel? She recently decided that the new plant on my desk is her personal jungle gym. Every time I walk by, I find her perched on top, knock and leaves over like it's her full-time job. I love spending time with her. That's why I order smalls cat food, fresh protein, rich meals that support cat health and happiness. This podcast is sponsored by Smalls. Listeners know Chanel simply cannot live without Smalls. For a limited time, get 60% off your first order plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com slash legal AF.

Smalls cat food is protein packed recipes made with preservative free ingredients you'll find in your own fridge and it's delivered right to your door. That's why Cats.com names Smalls their best overall cat food. Starting with Smalls is easy. Just share info about your cat's diet, health, and food preferences, then Smalls puts together a personalized sampler for your cat. No more guessing between random brands at the store? Chanel's favorite flavor is chicken and turkey feast, and honestly, she prefers Smalls way more than her previous cat food.

Look, I did a little taste test. No, not that kind. Two bowls side by side, and she went straight for Smalls. Since switching, Chanel has had fewer hair balls, more balanced energy, a healthier weight, softer, fur, and a less stinky litter box. Still not a believer, Forbes ranked Smalls the best overall cat food. And BuzzFeed said, my cats went completely ballistic for this stuff. What are you waiting for?

Give your cat the food she deserves. For a limited time, because you are a legal AF listener, get 60% off your first order plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com slash legal AF. One last time, that's 60% off your first order plus free shipping at smalls.com slash legal AF. All right, welcome back to Legal A-F. Let's go to Lindsay Halligan, Karen, fellow prosecutor. I'm not sure that, you know. And Lindsay, putting them, first of all, as I've said internally,

I should never have ever had to hear what or who a Lindsay Halligan was in my entire life. Like, there are plenty of sort of fender-bender insurance defense lawyers that I'm sure are great, but I don't need to know who they are. I don't need to know who they are at the highest levels of the Department of Justice. Prosecuting cases well above their head, like taking on the former FBI director and U.S. attorney from Manhattan and the New York Attorney General. I mean, this is not like, you know, I want you to talk about how you trained prosecutors and how you were trained as a prosecutor. Like on day one, did they hand you the file and say, go indict. Donald Trump or some equivalent to that or did you work your way up to it and the reason I'm going to turn it over to you so Lindsay Allegan's in trouble we got another signal gate where she used a disappearing messaging app on federal records to commute pardon me to I got him excited to communicate with a reporter Anna Bauer which has led to a new brewing lawsuit about her use of a disappearing app on federal records a motion for

gag order about her going to the press and then we've got this motion to disqualify two of them have been consolidated and sent off to south carolina with judge curry and she issued a new bombshell i mean there's more packed into one paragraph and i have it here from judge curry i was like oh this is going to rock their world catch it prosecutor to prosecutor catch every i love I love Charlie Karen. Catch us up on Lindsay Halligan. I mean, I would say being a prosecutor is most analogous to being a surgeon because you literally have someone's life in your hands. You are given this awesome power that you can take away somebody's liberty and you can put them in jail. Obviously, the judge is the one who does it, but you're advocating for it. You're filing

documents about it. You're presenting evidence about it. It is one of the most awesome powers that any human can have. And so you have to exercise that power gingerly with humility. And you have to learn a lot. It's not like you just jump in and like a computer can do it and you say, oh, Michael Popat did something. Okay, I'm just going to plug this information into the computer and spit it out and then we process him. No. This takes judgment. It takes experience in the same way that you wouldn't just drop someone who just got out of medical school into surgery, or you wouldn't get someone who's a trained podiatrist to now suddenly become a neurosurgeon and do brain surgery. And that's essentially what they did with Lindsay Halligan, never been a prosecutor, never been

trained to be a prosecutor. And frankly, she didn't even go through the normal training you would go through when you became a prosecutor. She was like an insurance lawyer or something. And they appointed her, and the next day, she was in the grand jury presenting one of the most important cases, frankly, former U.S. Attorney, former FBI director, and also

the current Attorney General of the State of New York. And so she is not qualified to be a prosecutor. Let's just put that aside. And frankly, we know that, not because of anything I'm saying, but because so many career prosecutors resigned

in protest because of the fact that she was appointed and that she brought this case. And so she's got a lot of problems there. These career prosecutors have the training, have the experience, have the judgment, have cut their teeth on on much more, not such complicated cases or less serious cases. And, you know, when I was the first of a prosecutor, they train you on, first of all, you go through long training and you learn everything and you learn not just the nuts and bolts, but you also learn about how

important this power, this awe-inspiring power that you have and how you have to use it gingerly because you have to have the appropriate judgment to be given that power to ask to take away someone's liberty. But I did like shoplifting cases. My first trial, one of my first trials was a guy, we called it a token sucking case. This is how long ago it was. In New York City Subways, they used to have these little tokens. Now they have metro cards and they're getting rid of those. Now you just do it with your computer, I mean, with your device, your cell phone.

But they had these little New York City tokens. They were the size of a coin. you put them in and you go through and people would sit there and literally suck the tokens out and steal them and and sell them and and I prosecuted one of those I mean it was you know that's how you that's how you learn how to be a prosecutor you do lower level cases where you learn where the stakes aren't that high they're not that complicated and you learn how to where to stand in court and what to say and how to say it and you learn to to have to have compassion and and to have where you should give people chances

and you learn how to make those judgment calls. So she doesn't have any of that and she's way in over her head. Aside from that, she's unlawfully appointed, right? I think she's going to get tossed just like the California U.S. attorney and just like the Nevada U.S. attorney who have been unlawfully appointed

because Trump is trying to cram them in in a way that he's not permitted to. So I don't know what's going to have. happened to those indictments as a result. But she doesn't have the experience. She doesn't have the judgment. I think it's going to come back to haunt her. You know, she got the indictments, great.

But can she keep the indictments? Can she keep the cases going? Can she get a conviction? Can she get the judge to rule in her favor? Can she sustain appeal? She's got many hurdles, but she got the indictment. That's not so hard to do. And I think she's got big, big problems ahead.

In addition to what you were just talking about, which is one of the things that shows she has, doesn't have the experience, is she's using a signal to send messages to Anna Bauer, who is a reporter that you interviewed and did a great interview of Popok, to discuss prosecutions. You're not allowed to do that. But on top of that, she had it, she has them set to disappearing mode, which, again, you're required to preserve public record, especially as a prosecutor. Start talking about disappearing mode for a prosecutor. I mean, it's just crazy. You have to keep a record of all these things for the very reason that there is going to be an appeal,

for the very reason that you are given this. And I can't emphasize enough how enormous this power is that you are given. Little old me, I'm nobody. I'm just a person, right? Given this authority, this power, I had to swear an oath to the Constitution of the state of New York to be and being appointed an assistant district attorney. And it's drilled into you that you are given this incredible power that you. you have to exercise with incredible judgment,

incredible integrity, ethics, and she just doesn't have any of that. And what are you saying, Karen, that in the three hours that she became a federal prosecutor, having never been one, that was not inculcated. Those values were not instilled in her as Donald Trump swore her in, and then told her to go get the indictment the next day. They forgot that part?

I mean, just the fact that she had to be. be the one to go into the grand jury. She could have been sworn in as U.S. attorney and said, you know what? Okay, I'm the U.S. attorney. I'm going to give you assistant United States attorney Jane Smith. You go in who has the experience. You know how to present a case to the grand jury. You do it. She couldn't get a single prosecutor in that office to do it. No one would do it but her. That's highly unusual to have the United States attorney be the only one in the grand jury to be the one to present the case. Again, I'm not sure if we look, you'll find other cases that U.S. attorneys have presented, but not because no one else would.

That is highly unusual, highly suspect, and I think should send major, major red alarms, alarm bells off because this case has no merit, and it just was done in a way that doesn't pass the smell test. So it's just nuts. Judge Curry, who's a senior status judge in South Carolina who got referred to the case outside of Virginia Eastern District because of potential conflict with the judge is there, over the appointment of the future U.S. attorney if Halligan has bounced. She issued an order and listened to this. She not only doesn't refer to Lindsay Halligan by name nor by title,

but here's what she said. She said, basically, I'm handling the motion to disqualify, which has to do with a statutory interpretation of undisputed facts about how Lindsay Halligan got the job. This she could do on briefing, let alone not really needing new evidence. But here's the, no, the judge says, nope, no, no, no, I'm not going to. to rely on media reports about what happened in the grand jury room. Here's what she wants. The government is directed to submit on Monday at 5 o'clock for her review in her chambers,

all documents relating to the indictment signers participation. She's now been, Halegan's now been reduced to the indictment signer in the grand jury proceedings, along with complete grand jury transcripts, in-camera review is appropriate because there's a grand jury proceeding and I got to keep it secret. So there's been a lot of like speculation. Why does she need that? Is she setting up Lindsay Halligan? I have a theory. It has to do with remedy. It has to do with she doesn't need the grand jury, doesn't need the confirmation that Lindsay Halligan by herself handled the indictment process. Although we don't really know what happened behind closed doors. We saw more than one person go in. I think she was there with Meg Cleary,

who since got fired and others. She doesn't quite know. I think she wants to be, all right, got you, you did the presentation because what the parties are asking for, Comey and Letitia, what they're asking for is to have the indictment bounced along with Halligan. So if she didn't really do it, is there a way, even though she signed the indictment, is there a way to preserve the indictment if she bounces Halligan? But that's my theory. What do you think, what do you make of Judge Curry's out of the blue order from today? I think it's an interesting question because when the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles and Nevada were both deemed by judges to be unlawfully appointed, the cases that were indicted while they were

United States attorney were not dismissed. But I believe when we learn more, it will be because those were presented by Assistant United States Attorneys and that it doesn't really matter in some ways who the U.S. attorney was. I mean, AUSAs or Assistant United States Attorneys, just so everybody knows, most of the time, work there for five years, 10 years, across administrations. It is not a political, typically.

It's never been a political job where it matters what political party you're in. Nobody knows what political party you belong to. It's only the United States attorney. I think there's 90 of them across the United States that are appointed by the president. And so those are partisan. And they have to be confirmed by the Senate. And so, but the AUSAs, it's not a political job. It never has been. It doesn't matter. You prosecute Democrats and Republicans alike. It doesn't really matter who's in office. If you commit a crime, you commit a crime.

So the fact, again, that there were other AUSAs that presented the cases in L.A. and in Nevada, I think, could be one of the reasons why those indictments were not dismissed. Halligan is the one who presented these cases on her own. She not only, and when I say presented the case, means she went into the grand jury. She spoke to the grand jurors. When you present a case to the grand jury, you call a witness. the witness swears to tell the truth they testify and you ask them questions and they have to give you enough answers that you make out probable cause or reasonable cause to believe or probable cause to believe that a crime has occurred and you have to make out all the elements of the crime you don't have to tell them every single thing that's ever happened just enough for they call it a prima facie case that a crime occurred and the elements are met and then you ask them to vote on an indictment and so on on certain charges, and then you present that to them. And she presented three charges.

They rejected one and came back with two others. So with the two of the three that she presented. So that's why I think she wants to know this information, because, again, it's unusual that the AUSA is in the office, the career prosecutors, the ones with experience, aren't the ones who presented the case. She presented the case herself, as she is not just the U.S. attorney, but also the AUSA prosecuting the case. If she wasn't validly appointed, she's not a lot. She has no authority. She has no power.

She can't go into the grand jury and seek an indictment. That means the indictment is dismissed. Now, that has serious ramifications for Jim Comey because the statute of limitations was about to run. And that's, I think, the next day. So if that case gets dismissed, I don't think they can bring that case again. Attorney General Letitia James is a different story because I'm not sure when her statute of limitations runs or runs. ran. But that one, potentially, if the judge does determine the same thing and dismisses it without prejudice, that can then just be re-indicted by somebody else. Now, the question is, will the judge dismiss it with prejudice so that you can't do that without prejudice or not dismiss it at all and say it's like California and Nevada, even though the United States attorney

is invalidly appointed, I'm not going to dismiss the indictment. So we don't know what's going to happen. Look, those two indictments are a piece of crap, and they should be superseded with a superseding indictment anyway. But this goes to the heart of the matter. Is Lindsay Halligan appropriately appointed or not? And then we'll let the chips fall where they may about the various indictments or ability to prosecute them. But you're right, which is said at the top of the segment, which is no self-respecting career prosecutor. How sad is it that she heads an office where no one from the Eastern District of Virginia. No career prosecutor that's left, they fired many of them, will stand side by side with her on any of these cases. She had to reach out to some prosecutor in Missouri for the Lettisha

James case and some prosecutor in North Carolina to go before the Eastern District of Virginia judges. And to answer the question that came up in the chat, Judge Curry is only handling the motion to disqualify. Everything else in the case is Judge Nakmanoff for James Comey. a Biden appointee, and Judge Walker, another Biden appointee for Letitia James. Let's move on, Karen, to the Trump appeal. Before you move on, can we just say, speaking of U.S. attorneys getting fired? Did you hear about the U.S. attorneys getting fired over the sentencing memo for the Jan 6th, the Jan 6th person? Did you hear about that?

Yeah, so why don't you tell the audience about it quickly? We might end up trimming something towards the end. Go ahead. Talking much, but I just find this appalling. Absolutely appalling. There was a January 6th, insurrectionist, riot, or whatever you want to call them, one of the Jan Sixers got clemency or pardoned by Trump and then shows up at Obama's house with a gun and was prosecuted and convicted.

And when the case was about to be sentenced, the career prosecutors, they did a sentencing memo, which you're supposed to do in all these cases, and described the conduct and described that there was this individual who was outside President Obama's home with guns. And what they essentially said was that what ended up happening was they were put on leave because they referred to January 6 as mob riot, which it was, by the way. And they referred to it, they referred to it correctly. And I guess you're not allowed to do that anymore. I guess you're supposed to celebrate the Jan 6 mob rioters and call them patriots or whatever else.

But it's just atrocious what is happening at the Department of Justice now. And that these two career prosecutors who I'm sure are very good because that's what prosecutors have always been with the Department of Justice. It used to be one of the most coveted high prestigious jobs you could have with excellent training and produced great people that they are now put on leave. because they were doing their job by calling what January 6 was a mop riot. The hollowing out of the Department of Justice continues with the Trump administration. 5,000 people fire, people suspended and transferred for doing their job as objective, civil servants, nonpartisan civil servants. The next president, hopefully with a D next to his name or her name,

is going to have a lot of work to do to restore people's confidence in the Department of Justice and the rule of law. then that's just but one example. When we come back from our next quick break, we'll talk about the Trump appeal. And I want to get up from the perspective of Karen Freeman McNifalo who worked for the Manhattan DA's office, not on that particular case,

about appeals in general about this particular appeal and the handicapping as to whether he's going to win this appeal or not. Many ways to support legal AF that we talked about at the top of the show, all important. Become a member of our subscriber base on the Midas Touch network and on Legal AF, the YouTube channel, as we make our march towards one million. Those are the keys on a key chain that allow me and others to open doors to bring on people,

on board people, contributors, newsmakers, interviews, judges, former judges, governors, attorneys general, and the like. That's how you can help. We have no outside investors. We have no paywall become a member of the legal AF community on the YouTube channel. Legal AF substack, same thing, except there's a paid option, which helps. frankly, pay for the independent, honest commentary and journalism that we do on legal A-F every day and every hour.

So think about becoming a paid member. I kept the price low. I think some people in my world and our world are charging $5 a week. We're charging $6 a month. But we'll overwhelm you with content over there as well. And then we've got our sponsors. And here's a word from our sponsors. Delete me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online.

at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. As someone with an active online presence, privacy is really important to me. I've seen firsthand how easy it is for personal information to end up in places you'd never expect. Have you ever been a victim of identity theft? I have. Harassment, doxing. If you haven't, you probably know someone who has. Delete me can help. They do all the hard work of wiping your and your families. personal information from hundreds of data broker websites.

You just sign up, tell Delete Me, what information you want removed, and their experts take it from there. They even send you regular personalized privacy reports showing what info they found, where they found it, and what they removed. And it's not a one-time thing. Delete Me is constantly monitoring and removing the personal information you don't want online. The New York Times Wirecutter has even named Delete Me, their top pick for data removal service.

take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for delete me now at a special discount for our listeners get 20% off your delete me plan when you go to join deleteme dot com slash legal a f and use promo code legal a f at checkout the only way to get 20% off is to go to join delete me dot com slash legal a f and enter code legal af and enter code legal A.F at checkout. One more time, that's join deleteme.com slash legal a.f code. Legal A.F. You ever scroll the headlines and feel like every push alert just raise your blood pressure? Yeah, same. That's where IndyCloud comes in. Indy Cloud is a fully legal online dispensary. No cards, no dispensary runs, no mystery gummies from a friend's cousin. They've already delivered

over 10 million gummies, mountains of flour, and enough pre-rolls to get you through another election season. Every product is tested in DEA certified labs and ship straight to your door discreetly. People I know who use Indecloud often tell me how it helps them unwind after a long day. One friend describes sitting on the couch, finally letting their brain quiet down at night. Just enjoying a moment of calm they hadn't felt in weeks. It's that kind of stress-free vibe that makes Indicloud so easy to recommend. Looking for better sleep, they got a gummy for that. Need to take the edge off without a hangover. Done. Want something stronger? Check out the Beast Mode collection.

Still legal, still tested. That's why more than 50,000 customers already trust IndyCloud to keep their buzz hassle-free. If you're 21 or older, head to Indicloud.co. Use code legal AF for 30% off your first order plus free shipping. That's Indicloud.com, code legal AF, 30% off free shipping and less stress delivered to your door. Support the show by filling out their quick survey when you order and thank Indicloud for making the news cycle just a little easier to handle. And as always, please enjoy responsibly.

Welcome back. We're in the home stretch of the Midas Touch Legal AF podcast. And, you know, we try to keep it fresh and keep it up to date, you know, in real life. Seven Circuit has blocked, as we are recording, as we're doing this live podcast, has blocked the decision by Judge Ellis, which he made in the last 24 hours to force the head of the Customs and Border Patrol who she doesn't believe to come into court every day at 530 and give a live report. I thought that was a little bit extreme. There's other ways to do that, like filing a written report every day or somebody that is subordinate to him.

And the Seventh Circuit said, yeah, no, you're not doing that. So we'll continue to follow. But this is just an example of judges, Karen, right? Struggling to use every tool in their toolbox against an ever-shifting landscape and a tilt playing field by the Supreme Court, which then they're asked to try to rein in what they obviously see as an out-of-control president. Well, you can't blame with them. I mean, the judge, you know, the judge has to come to work every day and drive through Chicago

and sees that there is nothing going on the way, justifying what they're saying. I mean, she's not, you're not supposed to, you're supposed to just look at the record and what's in front of you, but you can't help, you can't help the common sense and see what the facts on the ground are. And so I'm sure she's very frustrated by this fact and wants to have them there to justify this extraordinary thing that's happening. And they're reporting that they are abusing her order. She has a temporary restraining order in place that stops them from using military-grade riot

gear and riot weaponry against civilian population without certain safeguards, including keeping their body cams on. And she's gotten information. They're not turning their body cams on. Oh, the shut down. We don't have the body camps. Okay. She's not buying any of it.

That's the problem. When you've lost credibility, you know this as a prosecutor or me as a lawyer. If you lose your credibility with the court, you have nothing. You have nothing. Nothing is believable. You are unbelievable. You're incredible and uncredible. And that's where the Department of Justice finds itself with Trump administration.

All right, let's turn to the appeal of the 34 felony count conviction presided over by Judge Mershan. We call it the original election interference case where Donald Trump paid through a series of conspirators, money to people like Stormy Daniels to hush her up about affairs or sex that he had outside of his marriage while he's running for office in 2016. And a jury of 12 peers of Donald Trump unanimously found that the prosecutors had carried their weighty burden of beyond a reasonable. doubt and convicted him. Now, the issue there is that there had to be sort of a business record fraud, which they proved in how he cooked the books related to it and how he paid Michael Cohen to pay Stormy Daniels through other connectors. And there needed to be in furtherance of another crime. And that second crime was sort of a little bit up for grabs. Was it a federal election crime,

a state election crime? But whatever the New York law allowed, that's what the judge is the jury about. And they found a second crime, the reason for the first crime, which made it go from a misdemeanor to a felony. Then there were the attacks over Judge Rashon and all of that. I'm sure you've had an opportunity to look at the appellate brief. Talk about the first department appellate, the first department appellate division, court, the appeal, this kind of appeal coming off a trial like this and handicap, what do you think is going to happen next? Yeah, so as you explained earlier, there's different kinds of appeals. This is the kind of appeal that happens after. trial after a conviction.

The sentence was entered, even though the sentence was an unconditional discharge, which essentially, at the time that Trump was sentenced, he had already won the presidency. And the judge realized at that point a state court judge was not going to be permitted to put any restriction or anything on a president of the United States, whether even a community service or anything, he would have absolutely no authority, probation, nothing. And so he was smart to judge.

sentence him to an unconditional discharge, meaning he's just a convicted felon without any sentence. And so at the end of that, that means the case is over. And at the end of that, he has a certain amount of time to appeal the case, which he just did. It took quite a while because the conviction was over a year ago. It was a year and a half ago now. And he submitted this 96-page appeal by Sullivan and Cromwell, which is a big law firm that I know you have a lot, you have, you have excellent. I heard what you said about the fact that they're representing him. So I'll let you talk about them. And I'll just talk about the appeal. But he has that great law firm. And the appeal essentially is he's appealed five separate issues essentially. Some of them, I think, have no merit

whatsoever and are bogus and aren't going to go anywhere and are just kind of the same old, same that he's been arguing all along. There's a couple, though, that I think are substantive and are the issues that have always been the issues in the case and that we've always known we're going to have to be heavily briefed and kind of heavily weighed in the courts. So the five issues are essentially federal election law counts, not state election law, therefore you couldn't have brought this case

to make it a felony, number one. number two, that the judge improperly allowed the jurors to consider official presidential acts, which the Supreme Court said he was immune from. I think that's probably the most substantive issue, frankly. Number three, that the Mershon erred when he told, made an error when he told the jury that it did not have to agree on the unlawful means to which he violated the state election law. Again, that's another, I think, the substantive issue here. here. Another one that they never established that Trump had the intent to defraud, which I think clearly they established that, and that Murchin should have recused himself because he donated

literally $20, not an exaggeration once, to a Democratic cause, and because his daughter also has a job that works for Democratic elected or potential people running for office. So that one, I think, has no merit. But I think that the only one, the only one, that I think are kind of substantive, is this one of, because if you remember, the indictment came down, talked about a bunch of things, and accused him of a bunch of things, and then the Supreme Court came out with Trump v. U.S. in the middle of it all, and basically declared this presidential immunity, this new doctrine. And so the case had to be changed, and the prosecution only presented evidence that they thought did not cross the line into presidential immunity.

Actually, I got that wrong. The case was tried, and then Trump v. U.S. came in, and then they had to brief this issue. And so the judge had to rule on whether or not anything that came in in the trial violated Trump versus United States. And that was an issue that was that was heavily litigated. And essentially what the judge held was that that's not the case, that because this was when he was running for office, and just because he was writing checks while he was president, it doesn't matter. He was doing it for this personal reason that it was, he was running for office. And this is his personal mistress and his personal lawyer who was falsifying business records. And so it didn't cross over into presidential immunity.

Now, where it's slightly tricky is, I think, Hope Hicks. When Hope Hicks testified, and I happened to be in the courtroom when she testified, she was a White House employee at the time. And she, at the time that she was a White House employee when she testified, not when she testified, but what she testified about was when she was a White House employee. And she testified about how when he was, when she was working, for the White House. He basically said something like a good thing that all of that, the Stormy Daniel stuff, didn't come out before the election because that would have, you know,

that would have tanked us essentially. And honestly, I think was the thing that put the nail in the coffin that this was absolutely a election, you know, election fraud. And I was there. It was like you could have heard a pin drop. It was absolutely like a Perry Mason moment. It was that powerful. She was crying. You could tell, she could tell that she was about to sink him. And that was the only thing that worries me that because she was a White House employee at the time and he was president and they were communicating, yes, it wasn't about being president. It wasn't about presidential duties. But that was the only gray area that I think we'll have to see how that goes. And whether the court finds, A, that is evidence that should not have come in

because of presidential immunity, and B, even if it did, was that harmless error. So that's one substantive issue. And I think the only other substantive issue in this case that I think is just, we'll see how they go, has to do with this issue about which crime did he commit. Because as you said, it's a misdemeanor to falsified business records, but it bumps it up to a felony if it was with the intent to commit another crime. and they don't have to really agree on that. And so the question is, you know, in which crime it is,

and as long as it was a crime, and what will they find, you know, would the court say no, you had to all agree on one crime? And it's an interesting question. And there is authority in New York law for this type of analysis. So burglary, for example. Burglary is a pet at larceny.

you know, just a misdemeanor larceny, except if you enter and remain somewhere with the intent to commit a crime therein. And the question is which crime. In prosecutors don't have to prove which crime because most of the time you don't know. If it gets caught before he commits the crime, for example, you have no idea what he was going to do when he was in there.

So what do you do? You lay out, it could have been rape. It could have been, there's a safe there they were going to get. You just lay that out as possible choices. You can or, yeah, exactly, exactly right. And they don't have to agree. They don't even, they just have to specify that it was to commit a crime they're in. And so there are, there, there is precedent for this type of crime, you know, in New York.

We'll see what they decide. But those to me are the two, the two issues that I think are the most substantive. Well, I think what the best thing to do is, let's see who the three judge panel is, or the five judge panel for the first department. And then you and I can kind of kibits about, do you think they're going to win on this or win on that if they're going to overturn the conviction? Let's just remember this. He wasn't the president at the time. He wasn't the president at the time he was convicted.

He wasn't the president at the time that he was doing all these bad things for which he was convicted. So this isn't about Trump as president. I know that the lawyers from Sullivan and Cromwell. And I'll leave that for another day, the commentary there. I have a hot take up on that. You know, they're, oh, this is about the presidency. It's not about the presidency. It's about a human.

being who was not president at the time who did bad things it was caught and was convicted and i i think they lose on the mershan i do i do agree with you the only sort of interesting reversible error issue that they raised is the hope hicks issue for you happen to be in the court that day um but we'll have to see you know this is a different panel than what heard the fraud case brought by letitia james that we just got the ruling on which was like well we'll find fraud to let it go up to the court of appeals But we don't like the number. Okay. But this will be a different panel.

So maybe some overlap to it. Once you and I know who the panelists are, and I'm sure they'll hold oral argument on this, it's not going to be an immediate thing. It's going to be, it took them over a year to make the decision on fraud, let alone overturning this conviction. We're in this for the long haul. Then again, we're on legal AF. We're in for everything in the long haul.

We do. We have short-term memory. We have long-term memory. We have legacy memory. We bring it all together. on LegalAF. We're glad everybody's here with us together again on Wednesday. We have another show on Saturday that I do with Ben Mycelis. We've got the hot takes that the contributors for Legal AF, including myself, do on Midas Touch, on LegalAF. It ends up being 40 videos a week and all of that.

And we're just glad that you're here. That's how you support us. Being here with us, leaving comments, coming over to the audio, leaving five-star reviews and comments there, shifting back and forth, becoming legal AF, YouTube subscribers, becoming legal AF, uh, legal AF, substack subscribers and paid subscribers and supporting our sponsors. That's what keeps, people are like, where are the wires? It's like a magic trick. Where are the wires?

They're in the wires. That's what keeps us on the air. That's what keeps the lights on. That's what keeps this comment commentary, this honest commentary coming to you the way you want it. And if you enjoy it, then you want to support us. That's the way to support us. Karen, last word.

You know, I hope everyone who's in the path of Hurricane Melissa is safe and doing okay. And I always think of people who are struggling. If you're listening to this, people are thinking about you, and I hope you get help soon. Absolutely. And thank you for joining us on LegalAF. Until our next episode, shout out to the Midas Mighty and the LegalAFers. Thank you.