Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF REACTS to MAJOR Trump LOSES

Episode Date: January 5, 2025

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back for a new update at the intersection of law and politics on the top 10 ranked Legal AF Podcast. On tonight's show, Ben and Popok cover: 1) E Jean Carroll's huge win for justice against Trump; 2) Judge Merchan's tipping his hand not to impose a sentence of incarceration on Trump despite his 34 felony count conviction; 3) Chief Justice Roberts tone-deaf Annual Report; and 4) President Biden reshaping the federal judiciary on the way out as a bulwark against Trump, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Support our sponsors: Levels: Levels is offering my listeners an additional 2 free months of the Levels annual Membership when you use my link, https://levels.link/LEGALAF Subscribe to the new Legal AF channel: https://youtube.com/@LegalAFMTN Subscribe to Meidas+ at https://meidasplus.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

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. It was a week of losing for Donald Trump in various courts, in federal court. At the beginning of the week week he lost his appeal in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the E. Jean Carroll sexual assault case kind of feels like that was months ago but that was actually the beginning of this

previous week also Donald Trump lost a major motion to stop the sentencing in his New York State Court criminal case that's right sentencing in his New York state court criminal case. That's right. Sentencing of Donald Trump will take place on January 10th. Donald Trump is pissed. His spokesperson on behalf of him is saying this is absolutely outrageous, but a sentencing will be taking place. We'll break it down. We'll talk about what we expect to happen and we'll go into the detail that you can only hear on legal af also

talking about losers the united states supreme court probably the biggest loser of 2024 and by proxy the united states becoming the loser of their loser and unconstitutional rulings well at the end of each year, the Chief Justice, in this case, Chief Justice John Roberts, submits an annual report. This was the most tone deaf, dripping with lack of self-awareness

and or maximum nuclear gas lighting report I've ever read. I wanna go into what he said were the biggest threats to the Supreme Court. And it seems like he was describing everything that his right wing Supreme Court enabled Donald Trump to do to the court. But enough talking about losers. We'll conclude this episode by talking about some wins. And that is President Biden getting 235 federal judges appointed a massive accomplishment. That's more than Donald Trump did. That will be a bulwark against many of the constitutional excesses, violations,

and lawbreaking that we anticipate part of president Biden's legacy to our country. We'll talk about that. Maybe some surprise topics throughout, maybe pop in a little bit of Giuliani whining during his contempt proceeding. You never know where this is going to go. Michael Popock, how are you, sir? That's because we never know where this is going to go, but we know it's, it's bending towards the arc of justice and we, uh, we're here for it.

We're glad our audience is too. Really excited and enthusiastic coming off of the new year with you. And moving forward now, we've gotten through the speaker selection process, moving towards the Jan 6th red letter day of certification on the way to an inauguration and then confirmation hearings and we've built Legal AF to be here for it. That intersection of law and politics is gonna be

a hot corner for the next four years. And we're gonna do our level best to bring our rigorous analysis to it. There's a hard rain been, as I said, in a couple of hot takes leading into today, a hard rain falling on Donald Trump. Maybe I saw that Bob Dylan movie. So I started thinking about that.

But, and things that you and I did hot takes about during that week between Christmas and New Year's when we were doing forward-looking content. We said there's a lot of things out there that are loose ends, civil and criminally, against Donald Trump that are gonna, those planes are gonna start landing likely before the inauguration.

I said the sentencing would be before the inauguration. We'll get into the details of what that sentencing could look like. And I'm not happy about it based on what the judge said, but we'll get there in the right segment. But just to lay out what's still out there, sentencing that plane has landed or is about to land. We have a date, Mar-a-Lago, the 11th Circuit,

which is still important to America and to justice, what the 11th circuit does, with Judge Eileen Cannon's decision that a special counsel can't be appointed by the attorney general, has to go through a Senate confirmation process and be separately funded by Congress, which is against 200 years of precedent.

That precedent's gotta come off the books. We're waiting on the 11th Circuit to make that ruling before Donald Trump takes the case away by pardoning the last two remaining litigants in the case. I'm hoping that happens. And then we've got the maybe one giant or two reports, which will likely be over 450 pages a piece of history as any guide, coming out of Jack Smith. And on Jack Smith's mandatory report reports that he has to provide to Merrick Garland to close out DC election interference and Mar-a-Lago. I believe they're with Merrick Garland already. They're being reviewed and then he has to make the decision whether it's in the public interest that we get our hands on those report.

You and I have been pretty clear that we are demanding the release of the reports issued by the special counsel. One area that we won't necessarily touch on here but we will over time is that's not the only thing I want out. There are grand jury transcripts about Donald Trump's activities by dozens and dozens and dozens of witnesses, both in the DC election interference case and in Mar-a-Lago. Those transcripts are also usually follow at some point the release of the special reports.

And sometimes they're the bigger goldmine about the criminality of the person who did not get absolved just became president again and therefore under various Office of Legal Counsel Office of the OLC guidelines they dropped the prosecutions doesn't mean he's not guilty those grand jury transcripts are going to be Chutkin is going to have to make the decision about the ones in DC election interference and I look to her to release those the decision about the ones in D.C. election interference and I look to her to release those. Unfortunately, it's Eileen Cannon making the final decision about the release of the grand jury transcripts in Mar-a-Lago, but I think the media, including Might as Touch, can help by filing appropriate briefs to try to get those grand jury transcripts out of both judges at or around the time that the reports are released. Well, I'm not sure if Michael Popak is volunteering or not to

write that brief or you can enlist the help of some of those incredible groups that work with you on the Legal AF YouTube channel, but we will revisit that over the next week or so. But I think that's a great idea. I talked about a lot of losing in the intro of this show. I should have mentioned the 11th Circuit appeal of the Mar-a-Lago document case where Judge Eileen Cannon found that special counsels simply don't exist as it relates to Donald Trump.

Yes, they exist when it comes to prosecuting Hunter Biden or anybody else in American history, but simply not when it comes to Donald Trump. And she dismissed the Mar-a-Lago document case where Trump stole classified documents including nuclear secrets. She just said, bye-bye to that case. Jack Smith appealed it to the 11th Circuit. Now, Jack Smith and his team could have just outright dismissed that appeal, but they didn't do that.

What they did was basically say, look, we're gonna transfer the file to the United States Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Florida. They can handle it when they pass the torch over or pass the torch to then torch the DOJ, if you will, with the Trump administration. But the plan is like, okay, Trump, if you want to tear down special councils, which your administration may need to use, Pam Bondi, your future attorney general may need to use,

you make that call. Good luck. And so it's a mini trap that Jack Smith made right there where he could have just dismissed the case. He did not do that. And he didn't, he did not do that for that reason because special councils may be something that Trump's DOJ wants to use, needs to use. And if they're going to create bad precedent against themselves, they could actually be neutering themselves by embracing this concept that special councils

don't exist depending on what they do in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Let's go to those main topics that we talked about at the outset. It feels like months ago, it really does, but it was actually, I had to go back and check that it was the beginning of the week. This was decided December 30th, 2024,

when you look at the cover page and that's the E. Jean Carroll appeal. I think there's a broader narrative here though, Michael Popak, because what it shows is when you stare down Donald Trump, when you fight someone like E. Jean Carroll, right? A woman who was strong, who persevered, who was attacked, but she was not bullied to back down. What happened? She's won. She won both of her trials in federal court.

And when Donald Trump appealed, this is the case involving the sexual assault and one aspect of the defamation case. There's still another defamation case that she won that's on appeal that will be heard separately. But she won on the appeal. And so it's such a juxtaposition, right, between E. Jean Carroll and what ABC did, what George Stephanopoulos did,

when they didn't just obey in advance, they willingly obeyed, they just obeyed, and they gave Trump's library 15 million, future library, $15 million, perhaps, so ABC can take a tax deduction by making it payable to a nonprofit. They also paid Trump's legal fees because Donald Trump says it was defamatory that George Stephanopoulos characterized the sexual assault a certain way. And Trump said that because George Stephanopoulos essentially characterized the assault as being

genitals versus finger, even though a jury found liability for finger, that that's tarnished Donald Trump's reputation. And Michael Popak, what we do here is we read the court transcripts, we read court rulings. You know, we sometimes offer opinions, but I go right to the documents, right? When I teach my law school classes and I mentor law students and undergrads, you know what I say? A good lawyer needs to have a hard ass. What I mean by that is you got to sit down and you got to read. And if you don't want to read, if you want to just give me your opinions about what you think the code says or what the opinions say, that's not what this profession is about. You just have to look and read the words of the opinions, the footnotes, the concurring opinions, the dissenting opinions. So

let me just read what the federal judge wrote. Then we'll turn quickly to the appeal. Let me turn it over to you, Michael Popak. This is what Judge Louis Kaplan, the federal court ruled before Donald Trump appealed it, but this is what the judge ruled. So think about this when you go ABC really settled this. The jury did not award Ms. Carol more than $2 million for groping her breasts through her clothing, wrongful as that might have been. There was no evidence of all such behavior. Instead, the proof convincingly established and the jury implicitly found that Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carol's vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long-lasting emotional and psychological alarm. Mr. Trump's argument therefore ignores the bulk of evidence at trial, misinterprets the

jury's verdict, and mistakenly focuses on the New York Penal Law definition of rape to the exclusion of the meaning of that word as it is often used in everyday life and of the evidence of what actually occurred between Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump. Another opinion, Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled, as the court explained in its recent decision denying Mr. Trump's motion for a new trial on damages and other relief in the Carroll case, Carroll 2, based on all of the evidence at trial and the jury's verdict as all the jury's finding that Mr. Trump sexually abused Ms. Carroll implicitly determined, let me repeat that, implicitly determined that he forcibly penetrated her digitally. In other words, that Mr. Trump, in fact, did rape Ms. Carroll as the term commonly is used and understood in context outside of the New York penal law. And again, I'm not giving you the Ben opinion, the Popak opinion,

the legal AF opinion, the conjecture. I'm simply reading for you as we do here what the opinions say and I hope you come to legal AF because you come to us for what the opinions say. Popak, I wanted to give that as background but I wanna pass it over to you to talk about the appeal, how big it was that E. Jean Carroll won this appeal, that it was per curiam, what does that mean? Talk to us about the ruling on the appeal.

Yeah, the appellate issues here are very important, not just for the $5 million judgment about Eugene Carroll being sexually abused, technically raped as the judge refers to it. And then to fame, that was the first case that was tried on the heels of that first case. And that was for 5 million in total. That's the one that Donald Trump didn't testify in, Alina Habba handled. Second trial right on the heels of that was not about the

sex abuse, it was about because that had already been determined by the judge to be what we refer to in the law as race judicata, meaning it had already been previously decided by a prior jury or trier of fact, it was fact that needed to be accepted by the second jury and then the second jury needed to focus on punitive damages and defamation after Donald Trump had already left office in 2020. That's the two different cases, Carol 1, Carol 2. Donald Trump testified in Carol 2, hoping that he would, I don't know, turn the hearts and minds of the jury and how did that work for him? $83 million judgment instead of a $5 million judgment. And so that also went up on appeal. Appeals not concluded. It went up first on an appeal

related to immunity because Alina Haba, very late in the game, having effectively waived the immunity argument, suddenly grew a brain and decided to argue that the case shouldn't even go forward because there was some sort of immunity. Although he was out of office when all of that happened. So the immunity seemed to be an odd argument to make. And the Second Circuit was like, not only is it not an argument to make, Ms. Habba, and she argued it, it was also a losing argument because you didn't raise it in time and you waived it. So the immunity issue has already been appealed.

He's lost it many, many months ago. He took an emergency appeal or an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and they haven't done a darn thing with it in over a year. So they're not going to bail him out on E. Jean Carroll II or the 83 million. Now he'll make and he's made arguments about how that case was run by Lewis Kaplan, but now that they the three judge panel, uh Chin and I forget the other two judges, have ruled uh three zero, no one takes credit for writing the opinion, it's the it's the opinion of all three of these people, of these judges, and they've ruled that every one of the evidentiary decisions that every one of the Judge Lewis Kaplan made is really an evidentiary decision about what we call 415 evidence,

meaning evidence about prior sexual misconduct that Congress has already made an exception to the general rule that you can't use prior bad acts to prove the the act that's in the case itself except in the area of sexual misconduct and so they said the judge allowed in the Access Hollywood hot mic moment when Donald Trump said he could grab a woman by her P word and get away with it because he's a celebrity, which he doubled down on during a deposition played for the jury in which he said, yeah, it's been going on for 5,000 years. Yeah, you can grab a woman by her P word, and I'm a celebrity and I can get away with that. I mean, that's effectively his testimony to the jury.

And so you have that. And then you had two other women who were Who authentically under oath testified the jury believed them that they were sexually assaulted by Donald Trump one on an airplane and one in a In a room at Mar-a-Lago during an interview by People magazine and so they got to testify That was the heart of the there were some other things about what about the black coat dress and the DNA? And they said, well, you didn't submit your DNA. So that was properly barred from going to the jury. So everything that Judge Kaplan did in his power

as the gatekeeper, which is what the trial courts are entrusted with in a jury trial, that's how they keep the wheels on the train in a jury trial. The trier of fact is the jury, not the judge in a jury trial. That's how they keep the wheels on the train in a jury trial. The trier of fact is the jury, not the judge in a jury trial. But the judge has these roles about evidence, but they're given broad discretion in these areas, very broad discretion. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to get any trial off the ground. Let me just give our, from our

own experience, I've been a 34-year trial lawyer there is no such thing as a perfect trial and you're not entitled to a perfect trial state or a criminal or civil you're entitled to a fair and impartial jury you're entitled to other aspects of due process but there's I've never been and I've never had a perfect trial where there hasn't been an evidentiary issue that was a toss-up or that couldn't go either way where the judge I thought made a mistake and then it's up to appellate courts to decide whether these are reversible error or not and they said time and time again everything that Judge Kaplan did they didn't completely agree with every decision but they said his heart and his

mind was in the right place and it ended in the right place in terms of not being reversible error and allowing in all of that evidence. He's now going to also lose Donald Trump, the $83 million case, which is gonna be before a different three judge panel at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, could have some overlap in it, but a different three judge panel will hear those arguments, but they now know what happened with this particular one.

And I'd be shocked if another three judge panel of the Second Circuit found any merit to anything Donald Trump has to say about how Lewis Kaplan ran that trial, which means this is back to the hard rain on Donald Trump. He's gonna be paying $100 million, which has been running with interest, to E. Gene Carroll sometime in 2025,

whether he likes it or not. And I don't see, even though we're gonna to talk about our misgivings about this United States Supreme Court, understandable criticism of the United States Supreme Court, I don't see them bailing him out on these particular items about these particular decisions by a trial judge, given what's at play. Look, when you read the order by the Second Circuit

Court of Appeals, one of the things you'll note is that it's per curiam, meaning all of the justices agreed. It was a unanimous decision. And when you look at it, it says, on review for abuse of discretion. That's the standard of review to see, did that federal trial court judge, Louis Kaplan, whose other opinions I read when I was giving my part of the segment

right here were his rulings, not just on that, but as he conducted the trial, as he oversaw the evidentiary rulings, when people objected, did he sustain the objections? Was there any juror misconduct? Was there anything unfair about this trial? Did the judge, if you think about abusive discretion for those who watch sports, right? When the refs go to the instant replay and they determine whether they need to kind of overrule,

right, there has to be enough evidence for them to say, you know what, the player's foot was in bounds versus out of bounds. Um, it that it's a version of that, what the bosses, the court of appeals, what they do to the trial court judge, right? They're like the instant replay review, if you will, I'm oversimplifying it, but that's basically what they do. So just imagine, you know, uh, a referee at the football game. If you've been watching the NCAA football go on review, we've looked at it. That's what this is on review for abusive discretion. We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated

that the district court aired, meaning did not make an error, has not demonstrated that the district court aired in any of the challenge rulings. Further, he has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial affirmed. And in my example, you could imagine the referee in the NFL game going first down or touchdown or whatever it is. So that's what took place there. And Popak points out his 34 years of trial law experience. I didn't have as much experience before I stopped practicing, but I practiced for about 13 years. And look, Popak,

and including with me, including with Popak and a lot of cases, including a case that I see now, uh, very, very much in the news on a memorable deposition that you, that, that, that you took of, well, people can Google that and look that up if they want to, I suppose. But the point is that, you know, these are not just topics that I now teach at USC Law,

but when we were practicing lawyers on issues that affected whether it was the constitution, people's personal rights, and we were in the courts arguing these types of motions, taking depositions, filing appeals, and going through this process. So when we're giving you this insight, we approach it from the practical, the theoretical,

the pragmatic, and we try to cover it from each and every side. Let's do that right now, Michael Popak, though, as it relates to the ruling in New York. And that was that Donald Trump will be sentenced on January 10th. Trump can't stop the sentencing from taking place. Another big loss, if you will,

but when you read the fine print in the 18-page ruling, or in this case, when you get to page 17, it doesn't seem that the judge is inclined to really impose any meaningful prison time or actually no prison time at all while the judge on page 17, Judge Juan Marchand says, finding no legal impediment to sentencing. And then he goes on to say that we should go through with this sentencing. Justice Juan Marchand just does say when balancing the various considerations and specifically that Donald Trump is now the president-elect,

he talks about how he's inclined to do something that's called an unconditional discharge. And I want you to describe what that means, but just to quickly remind people what's happened here recently, you may say, did you talk about this recently on LegalAid? What we talked about before was Donald Trump filing a motion claiming absolute presidential immunity and saying that the conduct at issue, the hush money payments, the fraud, all of that was done in connection with the presidency and the office of the presidency, pursuant to the United States Supreme Court ruling.

All of the fraudulent business records, Justice Mershan analyzed that in detail and that's what we covered on the last, or the last Legal AF or the Legal AF before that. Mershan's like, what are you talking about? Okay. Porn stars, hush money payments before you were president. Like, this has nothing to do with anything about presidential duties.

And even if you want to argue that some evidence that came in was during the presidency regarding the coverup, I don't see how covering up private conduct now becomes presidential conduct. You've also waived your objections by not asserting them at the right time. And in any event, this is harmless, a doctrine called harmless error, even if I allowed some of this evidence in,

because setting aside some of the small evidence about the coverup, if you will, there was overwhelming evidence of your guilt. And so it was only harmless error if I allowed in any of this other stuff. So just to kind of situate people's minds just quickly, and I'm gonna toss it over to you, Popak, there are federal

courts and state courts in our system. Okay. Federal courts deal with federal issues, federal crimes, and where there's federal jurisdiction, state courts deal with state crimes and state issues. So Donald Trump was charged by a district attorney, Alvin Bragg, with New York state crimes. That's why it's the people v Trump, not the USA v Trump, the people ofgg, with New York state crimes. That's why it's the people v. Trump, not the USA v. Trump, the people of the state of New York v. Donald Trump. And then within the federal and state court systems, kind of different systems in our federalism, there are appellate court.

There's trial courts, appellate courts, and then the highest court. So when we were talking about the E. Gene Carroll situation, what we were talking about was an appeal by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that oversaw a trial judge after a trial. And that trial court judge denied all of Donald Trump's motions after the trial to try to get rid of it.

What we're talking about in the state court system is a trial court judge, Juan Marchand, rejecting Donald Trump's ability or request to dismiss. So then what Donald Trump would do after this is appeal to the appellate division in New York. That has not yet happened yet. But I just want you to all have a framework here because we talk about federal state and, you know, I'm oversimplifying things, but I just want people to situate their minds with these frameworks. Popak, tell us what Justice Prashan did.

Yeah, and I practice in New York, and so I'll give you my background. I think you and Karen did a great immediate hit on the sentencing yesterday, the sentencing thing. We were really expecting, we were expecting the rejection of what we call the New Yorker Clayton motion, which is the, oh, there's been such injustice that for justice's sake, my conviction should be

thrown out type of motion that Donald Trump filed after he was elected. That was not a surprise. I was actually surprised it took this long because a couple of weeks ago, Judge Mershon tipped his hand by denying with equally impressive intellectual gifts and integrity, dismissing the immunity argument, that there was some sort of immunity at play or supremacy at play because Donald Trump for a very small component after the conspiracy, which led to the payoff of Stormy Daniels and the 34 felony count conviction, pardon me, by the jury, very, very small shreds of evidence

and witness testimony had to do with him after he got elected, i.e. he successfully interfered with the election and beat Hillary Clinton. And the judge analyzed all that and immunity came out. I said, all right, great, I think he's gonna reject Clayton like 10 minutes later. And it did take him a little bit longer. When he rejected the Clayton motion, mainly because there's 10 factors that you have to analyze and then show on balance that you win on the Clayton

factors, and Donald Trump's lawyers, who are soon to be given plumb assignments in the top leadership of the Department of Justice and the Solicitor General's office. I'm talking about Todd Blanch, Emil Bové and John Sauer, but they haven't covered themselves with any Gloria in New York practice. In terms of the nine or 10 factors, they didn't analyze any of them. The people, the Alvin Bragg side, the Manhattan DA side, went through methodically in like 100 pages why they fail every factor. The judge then went back through the 10 factors

and said why he's rejecting the Clayton motion, he's not throwing away a 12-0, 34 count conviction that a jury worked very hard on. I was expecting that. In the back of it, the last page, he then turned, and a page before that, Judge Marjan then turned to sentencing under a title listed as sentencing. And there he did what you and your world in California,

you guys are familiar with. we're not in New York, which is sort of a tentative ruling where the judge tells you like in advance where his head is at, and then you have to try to convince him otherwise at the oral argument and further briefing. And what he said was, I've started to balance these competing interests

of a person now elected president, the start of an administration, the immunity issues that may be in play, and a sentence. And he said, I reject some of the arguments made by the people, which is Alvin Bragg. Particularly, I'm not going to use what's called the Alabama rule in New York. I'm not going to just mark down that he's a felon and then pick up four years from now and do sentencing because I think that Donald Trump has any criminal convicted person has the right to an appeal and I'm not going to delay the appeal for years. If he wants to appeal, he can appeal now.

He needs some sort of definite sentencing issue now. I also for those same reasons reject Sentencing him now but delaying the start of the sentence until after he comes out, which was my that was the popak one I said he was going to be sentenced before the inauguration looks like that's going to happen But that he'll defer the sentence I wanted to be about a year year and a half two years Until after of course he starts it after he comes out of being the president. He didn't like that one either. And what he said was, I think the proper balance, having found no president-elect immunity,

no supremacy clause immunity, no other immunity here, is that I'm going to, and I'm going to wait for briefing, and I'm going to pull all this together on the 10th of January that's the date he said and Donald Trump you can zoom in or you can appear in person but we're doing it on the 10th and where my head is at so everybody knows is that I'm gonna do what's called a unconditional discharge which is that the the felonies 34 of them stay on the books indelibly forevermore. That is Donald Trump's scarlet letter. He is a felon in New York convicted and the judge is not discharging that or taking that away. However, when it comes to the sentence,

without condition, I'm going to discharge any punishment, meaning there's not community service, not picking up papers on the highway, nothing. But he will live under the scandal of having been and always will be a felon in the state of New York. He says, I'm going to take briefing on this. And I've done a hot take where I'm encouraging the Manhattan DA's office to cross appeal on this issue because I think it's an insult to the jury. I think if you told the jury when they were deliberating that you're going to listen to weeks and weeks of testimony, you're going to convict the guy on 34 felony counts after listening to the overwhelming, a beyond a

reasonable doubt standard of evidence. And then at the end, the judge, because the guy got elected president, is going to literally get out of jail free card and he's not going to be suffer any consequences other than the trial itself and being labeled a felon. I think they would revolt. And I think they find it revolting today if the press and the media tracks down the jury and asks them their opinions. I'm sure that's gonna be a new wave. Maybe we can get some of the Midas Touch network. If I were the jury, I'd be pissed off. And I think it sets a terrible precedent. I think the Manhattan DA spent all this time and money getting the first conviction, and now it appears to be the only conviction of Donald Trump.

And they owe it to the American people and to the people of the state of New York to try to convince the—if they can't convince Mershon on the 10th through briefing, then get it up to the first department appellate division in New York and Manhattan, which is that intermediary appellate court that goes first, and then up to the court of appeals. I don't see any of these issues, but well, let me back up. The Supreme Court could stick their noses in this case because of the immunity and supremacy clause issues if they wanted to. Donald Trump's got a few days here to file an emergency appeal off the weekend. Could even be tomorrow. He's done okay with emergency appeals at the appellate division first department. He's occasionally, he draws this one duty judge

who sides with him time and time again. So he could get a stay of the sentence while the appellate court decides whether now that Mishan has tipped his hand, whether Mishan is in the right, is on the right ballpark or not about his thinking about sentencing, or he should have granted the Clayton motion.

So I assume we're going to get an emergency appeal on the judge's failure to have granted the Clayton motion to discharge the convictions on the various factors. I think he loses that, by the way, but I think we'll see an emergency appeal. And the question is either can they cram the emergency appeal into a full panel between now and the 10th will they do what they've done in the past sometimes with Judge Brashawn which is they put a pin in it they do their own briefing they delay delay delay now or past the inauguration and all of that that could happen and then Donald Trump could try a lateral and try to do an emergency appeal to the United States Supreme Court on these issues

because he's raised through his soon to be number two in the Department of Justice, number three in the Department of Justice, Solicitor General. He's raised all these issues. But the first stop on that train as we reinforce time and time again on Legal AF is Judge Sotomayor who sits over

the all things New York and federal, and she's going to have to either make the decision on her own, no, or turn it over because of some of these bigger implications. I'm not sure that the Supreme Court, I want to hear your opinion of course, Ben, I'm not sure the Supreme Court is that ready to wade back into immunity. One last thing before I finished, he did drop a footnote, Judge Murchon, footnote number two in his order in which, and we're gonna tie it on the other side of our ad break, to the Judge Justice Roberts annual report. That's already paying dividends because when Roberts talks about a tax on the judiciary coming from public actors, there's only one person you can think about is Donald Trump.

And the judge spent considerable ink chastising Boves, Sauer and Blanch about crossing the line in their zealous advocacy and calling the court and the prosecutors effectively calling out what they claim was criminal activity, which is a big no-no. Can't just throw that around unless you have some evidence of it, and the judge took them the task on that. At the end of the day, though, I do think, I want to hear your opinion, I do think Murchon sort of lost a little bit of his balls here

in the sentencing area. I want to hear why you think he went to unconditional disposition as his where his head is at and what do you think the Supreme Court's gonna do about it? Well, you'll hear from me about that after our first and only break of the show and we come back We have a lot to discuss. I'll answer your question We'll talk about what I also think the Supreme Court is going to do which is a perfect segue into this completely tone-deaf or just dripping with lack of self-awareness annual report by Justice John Roberts, who calls out the biggest threats to the Supreme Court. It's the Frankenstein the Supreme Court created.

I wanna remind everybody about Michael Popak's YouTube channel. That's the Legal AF YouTube channel. Check it out. Make sure you subscribe there. I just learned the play board charts, which tracks the top YouTube channels in the United States of America. As of Friday, Michael Popok, the Midas Touch Network is number one in the United

States, number three is Fox News and number seven right now. And it was number five before was the NCAA college playoffs. Not bad for two lawyers who are just sitting in their living rooms, just talking it up with this incredible Midas mighty community. I want you all to think about that because that's an accomplishment we share with you but I'm want to talk about it here because I want to see that Legal AF YouTube channel also hit those numbers. Also remember patreon.com legal AF is a great place to go and join as well and I know Michael Popak will be hosting a bunch of lectures there as

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So I guess let me go in, uh, the, the order that you, the reverse order you mentioned at the end, uh, justice Mershon, did he kind of lose his steam? Was he scared? What was happening here? I mean, look, I think that justice Mershon realizes that with all practicality while Trump is in office, there's really no chance of Trump actually being incarcerated or, or imprisoned or thrown in jail.

And also I think that he worried that if he imposed some sort of fine or penalty or something else like that, what it could do is allow that to be an issue on appeal, call into question the overall judgment, and could the United States Supreme Court, which I think Varshan is focused on what the Supreme Court is gonna do, even beyond what the Appellate Division and the highest court in New York,

which in New York is called the Court of Appeals, because they are the Court of Appeal because they like to be tricky with law students. And it's always a funny thing in New York, the lowest court is called their Supreme Court and their highest court is their Court of Appeals. And then they have appellate divisions, which is their intermediary courts. But I think the audience here by Mershon is that emergency appeal to the Supreme Court. I think Mershon feels comfortable that his ruling falls outside the outer perimeter of any absolute immunity,

core constitutional functions, official acts, and then he buttressed his decision. Remember back in our analysis with all of those various layers of shields and protection? Well, okay. Well, you you waived your objections number one number two. You don't get absolute immunity number three I'm the trial court judge. I find it harmless error regardless so he gave three ways the Supreme Court can rule against Donald Trump and I think that his audience is the Supreme court. So I think he's thinking, look, at this point, an unconditional discharge, um, even though Trump won't serve jail time, it'll make the

historical record of what went down. When Trump appeals this to the Supreme court, Trump's buddies on the Supreme court may not want to further extend and entrench this absolute immunity doctrine to like hush money payments to porn stars and fraudulent business transactions because you would see him in a reading of the opinion that falls outside of it and don't give them an excuse to do anything to hand Trump a potential win here. And I think he also realizes, look, you know you know, in, in four years, anyway, you know, Trump's going to be what?

Eight 80, 82, 83 years old, uh, going on 84, whatever it is, you know, when I think that, um, you know, Murchon's thinking to himself, okay, he's 84 yet by the time sentencing gets set, if you delayed this to when Trump's 84, you know, you're going to have a new district attorney. You're going to have a new team. So sentencing would probably start a year after. So you figure then Trump's, you know, 85 years old. And I think Mershon just thinking in his own mind, going through those reps, you wouldn't have. Remember, a unconditional discharge is a final

judgment. Okay. So even though Donald Trump was convicted of felonies, there's not a final judgment until that sentencing happens. So if he just delayed things until 2029, Trump can go around and say, well, technically, you know, even though I was convicted by a jury, you know, I'm X, Y, and Z. And I think Mershon is worried too, what's the next judge? If I'm not a judge, what's the next judge going to do in 2029? So Popak, I think it was rooted in those considerations, which brings me to your other point. I think this Supreme Court though, you know, if and when they hear

Trump's appeal with the unconditional discharge, I actually think that they you know, call me naive here But I think that they won't side with Trump that the conduct in New York was Subject to the absolute immunity. I think the Supreme Court and John Robertson will talk about his annual report. I think he wants to give kind of the Nixon v. Fitzgerald v. Clinton v. Jones test. And for those who don't remember in the civil context, you have Nixon v. Fitzgerald. You couldn't sue Nixon because that was viewed as an official act, even though he fired someone wrongfully. And as of a cover up that was part of the executive branch. But in Clinton v Jones, that was, you know, a private sexual incident affair with Clinton and Paula Jones.

And the court said that's clearly outside the outer limits of civil immunity. So I think that John Roberts is looking to kind of say, well, yeah, I gave you absolute immunity, a la Nixon v. Fitzgerald, but now I'm gonna give you New York v. Trump, which is my Clinton v. Jones criminal corollary. So that's my thinking there, Popeye. Yeah, I understand it. And I know the judges, and I agree with him that he

that Trump and others should have the right to appeal now and not wait around in four years. I just don't think, I think he could have gotten away with an imposition of a sentence of a year, year and a half, which is, you know, based on the survey of other similar convictions for this type of fraud, this type of business record fraud, and this type of in furtherance of another crime. You know, Norm Eisen and other groups have done a pretty good job at looking at, you know, the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cases. And there's, of course, his is completely unique because there are so many counts. And also because it interfered with an election, he was a candidate for the presidency, I think the proper message that society through the judge should have sent is a year, year and a half in jail,

to be served after he comes out in 2029, regardless of age, we're talking about a year, and then have it there and let the appellate courts do their thing let him argue he shouldn't get anything and he's not he shouldn't be a felon and let the Manhattan DA argue for more or less I mean look we covered a lot of Jan six sentencing a lot since at one point it was my bread and butter it was like all I all I did in hot takes for weeks about two and a half years ago was the beginnings of the Jan six sentencing since they were so important to America to understand how the justice system was handling insurrectionists. And there there were

times when the federal prosecutors, the analog for the Manhattan DA, agreed with the judge. Sometimes the judge went higher than their recommendation. A lot of times they went lower and they had to make decisions about whether they were going to appeal the judge because it was just too low. I think from a institutional standpoint that the prosecutor should not take this lying down. I agree with the way you've analyzed it. I don't I'm not saying you're coming out in the wrong, coming out the wrong hole. It's just that I think that there's a bigger public policy here and a public justice system issue here that needs to be pursued by the prosecutors.

And they can. They can cross-appeal. If Donald Trump appeals, I'm not a convict, they can cross-appeal. You're not getting a high enough sentence or your unconditional discharge isn't going to do it for us. And I think that's where we're going to see what Alvin Bragg is made of and what his political and tactical strategic decisions are here moving forward. But I know it's not what we all wanted, it's not what this the

audience on this channel wanted. I got what I wanted in the terms of having a sentencing likely unless the appellate court steps in before the the inauguration, but not any type of... Why do you think, what was your, I have a view, why do you think Ben, the judge, because they don't usually do this, tipped off where his head is at in sentencing so in advance to both sides, why? Why do you think he did that?

I think it's to both sides, I think it's to the public, I just think it is to set the tone that this is, you know, is Donald. If this is something you really want to appeal, I'm not, you know, it's a big deal. I mean, you're going to be doing because it would be in, it's a bombshell if he doesn't soften the blow by saying that it's that if he just said, I hereby sentence you, everybody would be thinking on January 10th, this guy is going to get thrown in in jail. This guy's going to get thrown in prison that day. It would probably fuel absolutely an emergency appeal right away to the Supreme Court.

And then the Supreme Court may intervene because it's like you're going to throw someone who's in their transition into prison. So I think he's sending a message, you know, to all of the courts that end the public because imagine if he said sentencing to it, I hereby sentence you to nothing. It would cause unrest. So he's given a lot of messages given the unique circumstances, but Popeye, look, let's be real. I just wanna be, you know, look, Alvin Bragg is not gonna pursue incarceration.

He isn't. And how do I know that? After, after? I don't mean, nobody on this channel is believed or argued that he was gonna go to prison as president-elect or during the four years. But you don't think Alvin Bragg is gonna argue that he should go to prison when he comes out? No. Okay all right we're gonna see we'll see the briefs and you and I will bet a lunch on it. While this court as a matter of law

must not make any determination, I'm reading from page 17, yeah, while this court as a matter of law must not make any determination on sentencing prior to giving the parties and defendant an opportunity to be heard. It seems proper at this juncture to make known the court's inclination not to impose any sentence of incarceration, a sentence authorized by the conviction, but one, the people, meaning Alvin Bragg, concede they no longer view as a practical recommendation as such in balancing the factors that he talks about an unconditional discharge. So Alvin Bragg has already said in motions that now to your point, Popak, perhaps Alvin Bragg was saying during the next four years, but Alvin Bragg will take the unconditional discharge because one

of the things that Alvin Bragg even suggested was the Alabama rule, which is basically treat Donald Trump like he's a dead person, the Alabama rule. Sentence him, but then say, you're dead to me. So you can't be actually, you can't do the time. So the option, so one of the options was the Alabama rule, which is do a fake sentence and then be like, ah, we can't sentence the dead person. And so that's my view, but we'll see. I'd like to tell people that I think he can be incarcerated, but I don't think it's going to happen. Let's talk about the United States Supreme Court. Let's talk about this completely tone deaf, as I say, dripping in lack of self-awareness annual report filed by or lodged or submitted by Chief Justice John Roberts. I guess this is

an annual report where the Supreme Court says how great they are, why nobody should regulate them, and what they're worried about. So it's kind of a combination of patting themselves on the back, whining and expressing their inner Freudian thoughts, if you will. And so you take a look at what John Roberts is saying in this report. He goes, unfortunately, not all actors engage in informed criticism or anything remotely resembling it. I feel compelled to address four areas of illegitimate activity that in my view do threaten the independence of judges on which the rule of law depends.

One, violence. Two, intimidation. Three, disinformation. And four, threats to defy lawfully entered judgments. I mean, seriously, dude, you just, you and the right-wing justices on the Supreme Court found that Donald Trump has absolute immunity, a king-like immunity. It's the first time ever a ruling was someone is actually above the law if you say their acts are official in nature or core constitutional functions and as

Trump's own lawyer answered. Yes, Trump can order seal team six to kill political opponents. Sure Congress can try to impeach but you know, that's well within the constitutional rights and sure you can sell nuclear secrets You could take bribes, the Democratic appointed Supreme Court justices gave all those hypotheticals. And Trump's lawyer, who's now the Solicitor General, will be the Solicitor General, meaning the main lawyer who argues before the Supreme Court and the Trump administration, a guy named John Sauer. I mean, to his credit, although it was sometimes hard to listen to his voice, he was just like, yeah, absolutely. You know, we think we can do that.

It's up to Congress if they want to impeach, but they'd have to impeach first. And so we don't think that these are, we don't think that these are outside the scope and province of what the president can do. Also, you just take a look at how this report opens up, the 2024 year-end report on the federal judiciary. And again, when I say dripping with lack of self-awareness and tone deaf, it does this whole scribe about, this whole thing, December 1761, a little more than one year into

what would be a 59 year reign of King George III. He decreed that from that date forward, colonial judges were to serve at the pleasure of the crown. This royal edict departed from the long-standing practice in England enshrined by the Parliament in 1701 Act of Settlement, allowing the judges to retain their offices during good behavior. And as you go through this report, he talks about the Enlightenment, he quotes Montesquieu and talks about the all of these revolutionary concepts that found their way into the Declaration of Independence and how you need to have and how there were these pronouncements in the Declaration of Independence about judicial

independence, which then found its way into the Constitution and then Marbury versus Madison, judicial review, the idea of courts deciding the final say on constitutional questions, judicial independence. It's like, dude, what you've showed was that for you, conservative means conserving the crown, not conserving our democracy. I mean, you literally just confer king-like authorities and not just created this concept in the executive branch, but you've neutered the judiciary branch and now you're whining about these threats of violence and intimidation and disinformation and all of these things that were from Trump. You know, and it's not to say that there's nobody on the other side of the political spectrum who

engages in this, but it's not at the high levels, they both sides issue at all. I mean, Democrats aren't leading an insurrection. You heard Hakeem Jeffries when he said, look, we're gonna have a new, we have a president elect is gonna be, it's not like what, this is not what we want. And the Republicans start clapping

and Hakeem Jeffries is like, yeah, we're not, we we do We still do elections in the Democratic Party, you know, and so Popac let me throw it over to you here, but this report let's talk about that briefly and then I think it's worth talking about though a massive accomplishment by President Biden 235 federal judges that he has by President Biden, 235 federal judges that he has appointed and they've been confirmed to the bench. If this annual report was issued by a company, it would be the foundation for securities fraud. It is not an annual review of what matters to America. It is not addressed and completely ignores that your tone deaf argument. Most of what America cares about

and why America considers the Supreme Court to be so lowly regarded. If you would have told me, you know, okay, well, what's in the annual report, Pope? Like, of course he would have somehow addressed the immunity decision and the impact on American society. No, the Colorado 14th Amendment, section 3 decision. No. The millions of dollars lining the pocket of Clarence Thomas from people who have business before the court.

No. The upside down flags of Sam Alito and his wife. The flags of insurrection flown by a sitting United States Supreme Court justice. No. It's all about the four attacks on the independence of the federal judiciary, both foreign and domestic. He spends most after I get through the what I call the oil painting section of it. Like you said, droning on about King George, which, you know, if we were able to exhume the bodies of our framers and founding fathers or do a seance, I assure you that if we told them what that John Roberts Court did in both the combination of the immunity decision and the insurrection disqualification provision of the 14th Amendment, they would just say,

no, that is not what we intended. That's, and that is not why we left King George. And what did you do to the co-equal branches of government and the balance and checks and balances that we so delicately created? You destroyed them by levitating the presidency above the other two branches? So John Roberts, as you said, is completely tone deaf. What's the phrase the kids use on the internet?

Doesn't know how to read the room. Doesn't know how to read the room. It doesn't know how to read the room. And so instead- I want to use it on the internet these days, Michael. Yeah, that's on the internet. Yeah. That's what they're saying, the little kids. Yeah, that's what the kids say.

Is this ageism again? All right. I was pointing to parliamentary inclusion. I am the demographic of our audience, so let's go. All right, so let's continue. So that's what you would have written about. Instead, John Roberts spends a considerable amount of ink attacking you and me, not by name,

attacking Americans who have First Amendment rights to criticize the Supreme Court and what it's done. And basically says, I'm paraphrasing now, these kind of ill-conceived and uneducated criticisms of the court are uncalled for and unjust. I'm like, oh, poor John Roberts. I mean, one of the things that I've been talking about with Court Accountability Action over on LegalEye off the YouTube channel is, is it the case that it is the that the Supreme Court

is the only entity, only stakeholder in our political republic that gets to declare what the Constitution says? Don't the people have a role and are at the table? And how does that work moving forward? And that's a dialogue and that's a conversation I'm going to continue over on Legal AF with Court Accountability Action. But here, he talks everything I wrote in the margin next to his commentary was Trump. It was a veiled criticism of somebody that looks and talks and acts exactly like Donald Trump. What public officials are attacking judges for being politically biased because of their race or their gender or other things because they don't like decision making?

That sounds a lot, that's not Joe Biden, that's not Hunter Biden, that's not Bob Menendez, the senator for New Jersey. Who is that? That's Donald Trump against Angoron, against Mershon, against Lewis Kaplan, the judge in the E. Jean Carroll case. Like you said, he's Dr. Frankenstein and then he's talking about the monster that's ravishing the countryside. So that just completely disingenuous without intellectual honesty whatsoever in the way he wrote this report. I mean, I guess he's got to write about something every year, but for it to be the attack on the judiciary, to try to salvage the reputation, which is in tatters, because of their failure to abide by race judicata

and precedent and ripping out of the books not only precedent that's been on the books for 50 years or more, and a woman's right to choose, and all the other things, and the Chevron decision about how administrative agencies protect our, you know, through them, our water, our air, our energy, our, and everything else. But overturning precedent that it's only been on the books for five or 10 years, only because they have the numbers.

Lisa Graves on Court Accountability and Action, and I just did a hot take over there that I think is up this weekend, in which she said, this is an illegitimate court because we've had, for over 75 years, Republican-dominated courts before. In fact, because of the way it went from Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Bush, Bush.

We've always lived in a society where the Republicans, the small R Republicans, small R conservatives, have been in charge of the United States Supreme Court. That's not what's new. What's new is the callous calculation by the Federalist Society and Leonard Leo and Donald Trump and others to get onto the court people to give them the numbers in order to overturn our constitutional guardrails and precedent and to reverse

all of the progress that we've made at the United States Supreme Court using our Constitution. That is the scandal. It's that they got Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett with 36 days left to go in an administration to join Thomas and Alito. That's the scandal. And then Roberts, rather than having any gravitas or any intellectual honesty, just gave up from being a moderate center right

and just joined regularly with his alt-right constituency. That's the scandal. It's not that we have Republicans in charge, in the majority, it's how they got there and what their agenda was, why they were picked and how they operate. That's not discussed at all in this report. And finally, this, we're not talking about TikTok today, but we'll talk about it next week after the oral argument.

He does do a little bit of a preview of where I think Justice Roberts' head is at about foreign interference with the judiciary and through social media, which I think is very interesting considering he's gonna be presiding over the TikTok case in about seven days time. Yeah, he dropped a strong hint in there

that he is not a fan of TikTok and he believes it to be interference by China in our elections as well as in performing surveillance on America. He seemed to, without saying TikTok, he's pretty much described the case right there. It's an interesting point, Popak, because people think about the old Republican judges who were on the Supreme Court.

And, you know, and with lifetime appointments, like it worked when they were, when they were somewhat good faith actors before this Federalist Society kind of movement. Cause you know, you think about a Republican governor of Massachusetts, someone like a Charlie Baker who now leads the NCAA, you know, he's like a moderate guy, you know, and so he's a Republican, but, you know, people are like, he was Republican, but we liked him as Democrats. And, you know, he was a collegial person, you know,

and we got along and it was, you know, it was whatever. So in contrast to what a Republican governor looks like today, right? Whether it's a DeSantis in Florida or a Greg Abbott in Texas, right? So the Supreme Court's gone that way also. So you went from having, you know, somewhat moderate Republican appointees on, you know, to basically this whole Federalist society, like these are actually Democrats in disguise. They lied to get on the bench. And then when they got lifetime

appointments, they were actually caring about people, civil rights and liberties and reading the constitution. We need to groom these people from law school through the Supreme Court. And that's kind of the Federalist Society goal basically, is you take them from law school, you bring them up through the ranks. So by the time they're judges, you know exactly how they're going to rule in radical extreme right ways. It's important that you have good federal judges. So let me leave everybody with this video right here.

This is the video that president Biden released about the 235 federal judges who he appointed and were confirmed. As he said, these aren't Biden judges. He said they're American judges. aren't Biden judges. He said they're American judges. They come from backgrounds that are one that reflect the diversity of this country. These are all highly qualified, highly skilled people. There's no one like when Trump would appoint judges who were viewed as like not having the requisite trial experience to be judges. And they come from backgrounds, civil rights backgrounds, public defender backgrounds, and backgrounds that you may not see,

but real experience people. Let me just show you this video. With president Biden working by our side, Senate Democrats have confirmed 235 judges and they represent the best in America. It's all about preserving the constitution. We are proud of the fact that these nominees have bipartisan support. More than 80% of them receive bipartisan support for passing. These judges will be independent, they'll be fair, and they'll be impartial. And I respect the rule of law.

And most importantly, I never thought I'd be saying this, they'll uphold the Constitution. Judges matter, you know, shaping the everyday lives of Americans. We have a record number of judges with backgrounds and experiences that have long been overlooked in the federal judiciary, like advocates for civil rights, workers' rights, immigrant rights, and so much more. Point is, for the first time in a long, long time,

we have a bench that looks like and represents all of America all of America Beautiful video right there Michael popak. How big is it that these judges were appointed? I'll give you the final word of the show Yeah, thank you. No, we've done a lot of hot takes on it. It's amazing. It's not just the 235 in sheer number It's the diversity that it represents. I mean it is a majority women, 60% women, the stands and start. The average, the prototypical Donald Trump nominee in the first term, and I'm sure in the second term too, is a white guy in his late 40s or early 50s. And for Joe Biden, it's the opposite. It's a woman in her 40s,

probably part of an ethnic group or diverse. It has a, he has a tremendous amount of black and black women that have been put on and over 60% of them. I mean, he even beat Obama in a lot of these categories, certainly beat Joe Biden, I mean, Donald Trump. I mean, Donald Trump put, I think, 12 diverse people on him, it was ridiculous.

And then from where they come from, we have our first group of people coming out of the public defender's office who understand the criminal justice system from the defense side, not just from white shoe law firms or for the prosecution side. You know, we have people coming out who are constitutional scholars. So I really love the makeup of this.

I mean, sure, we had to sacrifice a couple of appellate court judges, which are important, and unfortunately, Joe Biden was only able to put on one, although a powerhouse in Katanji-Brown Jackson, on the United States Supreme Court. And then just as importantly, they are not handing on a silver platter on one, although a powerhouse in Katanji Brown Jackson on the United States Supreme Court. And then just as importantly, they are not handing on a silver platter the amount of open vacancies that Donald Trump inherited

when he first came in. I mean, let's not give the guy a head start. When he first came in because of Obama and everything else, he had like hundreds, I think it was like 150 openings that he had right off the bat to fill. Well, that's not happening. And based on retirements, it's projected that Trump will have less appellate court

and trial court level federal judges to have the ability to appoint between 2024 and 2029 just based on, I mean, certainly death could intervene, but just based on who's retiring and their ages. So we got that going for us. And then we just have to use that kind of reshaping of the judiciary, the remaining Clinton appointees, the Obama appointees, the moderate Republicans,

even though they were appointed by Trump, and have them plus the 235 help be a bulwark, as you said earlier in the show, against these worst instincts of Donald Trump. There is not going to be a hotter corner than the intersection of law and politics in 2025. And when all the executive orders start flying out on day one, starting on January 20th. We're here for it. This is why you and I, we built the Legal AF podcast. We built the Legal AF YouTube channel was to have a durable, resilient, uh,

platform and community ready for whoever got elected president. But certainly if it was Donald Trump again or anybody like him, so that we could follow and explain and promote the use of the federal court system to be the last line of defense along with the jury system against the worst fascist tendencies of somebody like Donald Trump. And we're gonna use, because we got some more people,

you did some great hot takes on this too, so did I, about the lawsuits that are already drafted. Some of them since 2023. We know we have the playbook, you know. It's like if you're on a football team and you go into the bathroom, the other side left their playbook in the bathroom. We have the playbook for the game. It's Project 2025. Donald Trump says out loud, if he does it, Elon Musk does all the things that they want to accomplish. The executive orders are already drafted. The pardons and clemencies are already drafted for Donald Trump. He's going to come in with a spreadsheet and he's going to wave a magic wand.

Do you think the 1,400 clemency commutations and everything for Joe Biden? And he's not even done pardoning, by the way. We've got still a lot of time left on the clock with pardons for Joe Biden. And he's not even done pardoning, by the way. We got still a lot of time left on the clock with pardons for Joe Biden. But Donald Trump's going to leave that in the dust. So by the time he's done with his raft of executive orders, those raft of pardons, that's where, not on the pardons, but on the executive orders, that's where we're going to have to leap into action and polish up those lawsuits already drafted by the attorney generals all across the country that are in Democratic and blue states and get them filed. And that's why you and I do what we do. We may not have known it five years ago

that this is what we were gonna do, but this is our calling and this is why you and I are here. Well, this is the calling of the legal AF community, the Midas Mighty and being a people powered network where we're not beholden to billionaires and oligarchs and we speak our mind, we speak the truth. We deliver the news, good, the bad, the ugly about what's happening.

We read for you the court opinions and what we try to also provide is an understanding of structures, both domestic and I'm sure you've been seeing with our videos, internationally as well and how these dynamics are all playing out together, how the threat on law and order here in the United States is actually international in scope. And when you see what's going on in the UK with their far right reform party, when you

look at what's going on in Germany with their far right party, the AFD, when you look at what's happening in Austria and the Netherlands, when you look at some of the issues that are happening in Canada, the disputes there between the Liberal Party, Conservative Party, NPD, or NDP, you start to realize that there are commonalities and threads here. We try to recommend structures about how you can approach this. And going back to the example I gave earlier with the referee in instant replay review as it relates to appellate review, you know, there are certain postures that you take in order to combat threats and how you pick and choose the fights, the legal battles, the winnable ones, how you defend territory and democracy, how you try to hold on to what you need to hold on to

when you push forward. You know, I think all of that is critical, important, and we're gonna always give you our best guidance here and always do our best to provide you with factual, honest, truthful information here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. Thank you everybody for watching this episode.

Wanna remind you all to subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. Popak's doing such an incredible job curating great, great content there. It's the Legal AF YouTube channel, so go and check that out. Also, patreon.com slash legal AF. Check that out.

Popak will be hosting lectures there as well. And mitusplus.com also, you can check that out. I think we're gonna hit just to, this is amazing, three months. I think we're gonna hit 400,000 on the new Legal AF channel, free subscribers within the next two weeks or three weeks. And I think we're gonna hit our half a million target

in the, if not in January, certainly in February, but that's all a testament to the community here around us. Michael Popok, Legal AFers, always an honor to be by your side here each and every day. And of course, on the Legal AF show. Thank you all so much. Make sure you hit subscribe here. Wanna hit that 4 million subscriber mark

soon as we can ever. Everybody have a great day, have a great weekend. We'll be with you in this fight each step of the way. Thank you so much. Have a good one. Shout out to the Midas Mighty, shout out LegalAffords.