Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF REACTS to MAJOR Updates Ahead of Trump Sentencing

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo are back with the Legal AF podcast. On tap? 1) A frustrated Trump asks the US Supreme Court to bail him out of being sentenced on Friday; 2) A frustrated Trum...p tries to get the 11th Circuit to keep the Jack Smith 2 volume closing reports away from the public; 3) A frustrated sitting North Carolina Supreme Court Justice tries to get her own court to certify her election before her opponent destroys 60,000 votes; 4) Rudy is about to be sent to jail; and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Support our sponsors: VIIA: Try VIIA Hemp! https://bit.ly/viialegalaf and use code LEGALAF! Armra: Head to https://tryarmra.com/legalaf or enter promo code: LEGALAF to receive 15% off your first order! One Skin: Get started today at https://OneSkin.co and receive 15% Off using code: LEGALAF Miracle Made: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. 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

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Starting point is 00:01:13 run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn ads. Email Bob at Libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N.com. It's time for the midweek edition of Legal AF. You know that because you see Karen Friedman-Cnifilow up there with me, Michael Popok here on the Midas Touch Network.
Starting point is 00:01:39 I don't know, my head is spinning. You gotta join the Midas Touch Network as a subscriber or Legal AF and or legal AF the YouTube channel just to keep up with what's going on in the last 48 hours in the world of Donald Trump and his criminal cases against him and we're going to cover it all today. We're going to kick it off with Karen Freeman Agnifilo's home court. What's going on with the sentencing scheduled for this Friday? Judge Mershon, having tipped his hand about what he's gonna do about sentencing, I want to hear Karen's view on this
Starting point is 00:02:10 unconditional unconditional discharge. But more importantly, Donald Trump has lost not once but twice before two separate courts to try to stop the sentencing from even happening on Friday. Why does he care? He's not going to go to jail, but he does care. And now as we go on the air, we've got new reporting that he's filed and asked the third court to stop Friday's sentencing. And I want to get Karen Freeman-Aknifilou's opinion about that. Then there's so many moving parts in the Jack Smith volume one and volume two of his special
Starting point is 00:02:49 counsel, a court, a law mandated final report that, you know, we had to wait just to like wait for the dust to settle. There's been so many filings that if you, if I did a hot take an hour ago, it was already stale by the time we were done with it. Volume one and volume two, it's not Kill Bill we're talking about. We're talking about volume one about the DC election interference wrap-up final report, which is probably 500 pages or more, and volume two which is about Mar-a-Lago. And what did Judge Cannon do, of all things? Why did they run into Judge Cannon? We know the answer to that, it's rhetorical, to try to get her to stop the publication to the American people of
Starting point is 00:03:31 the final report and how did that go? What happened to that order and what's the 11th Circuit doing about it? And what did the Department of Justice just file in an effort to try to get the 11th Circuit to reverse again Judge Cannon? Will that be successful? Will we ever see any of these volumes? Will they ever see the light of day? Volume 1 and Volume 2. And why did Jack Smith show any of this stuff to Donald Trump in the first week in January anyway? Why do I have to know what his opinion is about Volume 1 and Volume 2
Starting point is 00:04:02 before I even get to see Volume 1 and Volume 2. I'm all hot about this Jack Smith report. I really want it to come out, and we're going to talk about it more here on Legal AF. Then the MAGA GOP that controls the North Carolina Supreme Court is trying to block one of its own. I mean, Alison Riggs is already on the North Carolina Supreme Court, having been appointed to it. She then ran for her first election and she won. After a hand count, an automatic count, a recount, she won by 774 votes at a 5.5 million cast. She's the winner. That's not good enough for her opponent, who's also a judge but not a judge on the Supreme Court. He wants to throw out 60,000 six zero sixty thousand votes of Carolinians North Carolinians throw them in the trash disenfranchised them
Starting point is 00:04:55 Arguing that all their voter registration. Oh, there was a smudge. Although they didn't have their social security number Oh, where's their driver's license? All I know is 60,000 North Carolinians, including those in the service, voted and she won. Everything else is just a craven attempt to try to steal a Supreme Court seat away from a Democrat. So we got a battle brewing between the Republican-dominated North Carolina Supreme Court and the Democratic-dominated state election board who wants to certify and make Allison Riggs the Supreme Court Justice that she already is. Confused? You won't be. Pardon me when we're all done. And then lastly, Rudy Giuliani. God, I'm tired of talking about him, but you know I'm not tired of
Starting point is 00:05:42 talking about how justice is handling him, I'm not tired of talking about how justice is Handling him. We have not one but two contempt hearings. He's already been found in contempt and this week is only halfway through by judge Lyman in the Judge appointed by Donald Trump who sits in the Southern District of New York here where Karen and I practice He could have thrown him in jail, but he decided to do something else as it relates to an adverse inference that that means we're probably one step closer to having his Palm Beach, Florida condo turned over to Shane Moss and Ruby Freeman who hold 150 million dollar defamation and punitive damages judgment against him. It will tell you what the judge ruled
Starting point is 00:06:25 as we flip into Friday, not only is Donald Trump hopefully gonna be sentenced, but Rudy Giuliani's gonna be back in front of another federal judge who's none too pleased about him breaching her order related to Ruby Freeman and Seamus. And I think he's out of moves. I think that judge is gonna put him in jail.
Starting point is 00:06:44 And I think Rudy knows it because now he's asked for permission not to appear in the courtroom, i.e. near the federal marshals, you know what I mean, and appear virtually because, well, he doesn't feel well and the Iranians are after him. I'm not making this up. This is what he wrote to the federal judge. We're gonna continue to follow it all right here and so much more I can't even think about at the intersection of law and politics. Karen, God, new year came and went. We did midweek last week. Haven't talked to you all week. Catch me up. What's going on in your life? Yeah, I mean, I'm originally born and raised in Los Angeles, California. And so my entire family
Starting point is 00:07:27 and friends and all that are still there. And LA is on fire in the most horrendous, most horrendous way imaginable. And my heart just really goes out to everyone who's displaced. I mean, I was on the phone with family and they were telling me how dozens and dozens of friends lost everything, lost their homes or in hotels. Everybody I know has been evacuated. I've lived in LA, like I said, for a long time and I go there very frequently. I've never seen anything like this ever. I mean, there's always been fires, but the fires have always been kind of in the hills or in the forests, you know, in the areas that not that,
Starting point is 00:08:15 that I've never seen it wipe out entire towns and cities in the city part of LA where the densely populated part is. All the schools are closed, entire communities are burned to the ground. I mean, Pacific Palisades was one of the areas that was very near where I grew up and the entire Pacific Palisades, almost all of it is decimated. The high school, Pali High is burned to the ground. I mean, it's just a, I don't know how LA comes back from this. It's not under control. And my heart, it just really just goes out for every person. It's just, it's, it's utterly devastating in a way that, that I just can't imagine. And it's
Starting point is 00:09:01 profound. And hopefully, the last few years of floods and fires and storms and all of the horrendous things that have happened in various places, North Carolina, just there's so many stories. Hopefully people will start waking up to the effects of climate change because this is just not sustainable to live like this. And, you know, I was hearing that a lot of people don't have insurance because insurance
Starting point is 00:09:32 companies recently, inexplicably really raised prices. And so a lot of people had to cancel and it was just a few months ago. And while they're shopping for insurance, this happened. And so they're not even insured. It's just really just sad, you know, and I just feel for people. Yeah, I'm glad you did that in particular. Last time we were on the air we had to do it for the victims and the families in the community of New Orleans with just so much
Starting point is 00:10:00 mayhem and devastation that just goes on on a daily basis. I mean, I'm not even talking about the stuff that Donald Trump's responsible for, which we could do when we've done entire shows over. It's just, you know, natural disasters and of course, mass casualty events, which happened. And yeah, this one caught me by surprise because of course we live on the East Coast. I don't have other than the Midas brothers and things.
Starting point is 00:10:22 I don't have as many relationships out in California proper. And it kind of caught me off guard how quickly this fire started to rage and where it went. And there, I think our producer was telling us before we got on the air, for telling me there was like 11,000 acres already, maybe in a backyard fire, that's how it started. I mean, just really,
Starting point is 00:10:46 really, really crazy stuff. And so for those in our audience that are either in California, these affected areas or know people that are our heart goes out to you, we're with you, we're a community. And we appreciate you. I'm so glad you brought that up, Karen. Let's, let's switch gears and get back to New York for a minute. Why don't you lead our audience through sentencing from where we left off after midweek last week. So, Mershon issues his Clayton ruling about not dismissing the case or not dismissing or throwing out the convictions, then gets into sentencing, and then we're
Starting point is 00:11:25 off and running with Donald Trump doing various filings, both with the trial judge and with appellate courts. Yeah, so look, Judge Mershon, I think, did something really smart in that case. He decided the case that there's absolutely no grounds to dismiss the case. That was a motion that Donald Trump filed and asked that the case be dismissed in the interest of justice. He cited a case called People v. Clayton, which sets forth certain factors that would allow a judge to dismiss something in the interest of justice. It was of, it was not even a close call in my opinion, but the judge agreed and said,
Starting point is 00:12:11 I'm not dismissing this case in the interest of justice. I'm also not finding that anything was, in the prior ruling, he said, presidential immunity doesn't apply to this case. And so now there's nothing left but sentencing. And he wanted to bring finality. And he said, let's just close out this case. My favorite part of the ruling was
Starting point is 00:12:33 when he said essentially, Trump, you're the one who asked that this be postponed until after the election. I did this for you. And so now you're complaining. I postponed it until after the election. Now you're for you, right? And so now you're complaining. I postponed it until after the election. Now you're saying I can't possibly be sentenced. I mean, he kind of calls him out almost,
Starting point is 00:12:52 without calling him a liar, basically throws it in his face that he's kind of a liar. It just proves the point though, with Donald Trump, you can never win, right? No good deed goes unpunished. It's never, he doesn't play by the same rules as the rest of us. There's no kind of, okay, you said this, so we'll do that.
Starting point is 00:13:11 He doesn't care. He's just a bulldozer who keeps flowing forward. And so here we are. The judge basically said, we're going to sentence and it's supposed to be on Friday. But he also previewed, and I think this was really smart, that he's not that the law, the fact that he's about to be president, the law doesn't really
Starting point is 00:13:34 allow him to put any restrictions whatsoever on Trump because he's a state court judge and he's going to be president. And there's things like federalism and the supremacy clause, etc, that prevent him from really putting any restriction on the president of the United States, including, you know, community service, whatever, you can't do anything, let alone jail. And so he said, Look, I'm basically going to just sentence you to
Starting point is 00:14:02 nothing. It's called an unconditional discharge. It just means you're sentenced. It means the case is over. It's final. It's closed. And then it counts as a conviction, because in New York, you are not convicted, fully convicted, until you are sentenced. So it's really just so that there's finality.
Starting point is 00:14:22 And Donald Trump would be the first president to take office as a convicted felon and He's supposed to appear on Friday Virtually and the reason I thought all this was smart that he put it out there was There's he really left nothing for Donald Trump to appeal or to complain about right? He can appear virtually He doesn't have to appear in person, which is highly unusual for a criminal case sentencing I've never seen it never heard heard of it. Even in COVID for a felony, I don't think that was done when there was virtual appearances. I might be wrong on that, but it's so rare. And so he said,
Starting point is 00:14:58 you can appear virtually. So he can't complain that there's any interference with his getting ready to become president duties, the transition duties. He basically said he previewed that I'm not going to sentence you to anything. There's going to be nothing there, so that he can't complain of irreparable harm if he were to go seek some sort of appellate stay. He really took the legs out of any argument that Donald Trump could make
Starting point is 00:15:28 to try to seek some sort of appellate stay, meaning stop, pause, don't let this happen. And just basically said, you know, let's do it. You can appeal and your appellate rights, you know, will be preserved. You can do them whenever, but let's just get this trial done. And then you can go forward and appeal now or in four years or whatever you want.
Starting point is 00:15:48 That's what it is. And Donald Trump did what, frankly, I've been saying, I'm surprised they hadn't done this before. They are appealing and seeking a stay. First, he went to the Appellate Division First Department, which is the interim state court, appellate court before you get to the highest court. And that was heard by one judge, the duty judge that day, who was extremely skeptical of this argument and refused to stop it. And then he is simultaneously appealing to both the Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court.
Starting point is 00:16:24 And the reason he's doing that is typically you can't go straight to the Supreme Court without exhausting your appellate remedies. So he's basically appealing it in the Court of Appeals in New York and the United States Supreme Court, but basically saying, I'm only doing this because there's not enough time. You know, rush, rush, rush. Don't do this to me. And we'll see if if the Supreme Court will rescue him. And if you again, I'll say what
Starting point is 00:16:50 I say a lot, which is if as a lawyer analyzing the law, if I were going to, I was if I was going to, you know, do a lawyer analysis of applying the law to this scenario, I would say, of course, they're not going to do anything. But there's nothing usual about this case. There's nothing usual about how Donald Trump is treated. There's nothing regular or normal about it. So it's anyone's guess. I have no prediction whatsoever on what the Supreme Court will do. But Friday's right around the corner and Judge Mershon is ready to sentence him. What is interesting is what if Donald Trump refuses to appear? That is an interesting question because you can't really sentence someone in absentia can't really sentence someone in absentia absent him being afforded certain opportunity to appear. So that'll be an interesting question if he does that. So I don't know. What do you think, Pope? What do you think that's going to happen? I like that last part you just said, which is not that
Starting point is 00:18:02 I like it. I just think that nobody's talking about it. You know, if he doesn't appear before the judge calls out the dogs and marshals and bailiffs and Department of Protective Services, whatever it's called there. Well, what you're getting at, and I'll just, if in a normal case, if it was a normal defendant, and a defendant doesn't show, right, you well, before you do that, they literally they go knock on, they send the cops out to knock on his door, they have to call all the hospitals to see if they're in the hospital, you have to run to see if they've been arrested and they're in jail, you have to really do a whole quick search. You just go on social media, you know where he is. You issue a bench
Starting point is 00:18:49 warrant, you know, there's all that's what you do for a normal defendant, right? Yeah. But if Judge Marshawn is already signaling that he has no authority over Trump, how is he going to issue a bench warrant? Like, you know, it's just an interesting quandary. He has authority over him enough to do the actual sentencing ceremony. And I think that's what Donald Trump's trying to avoid. Some people are like, what does he care? He knows he's not going to jail. The Manhattan DA is going to lay down on this one.
Starting point is 00:19:15 And he's going to get this, yeah, the felony count is going to stay unless and until he gets a full appeal to reverse it. But what does he care? Why? Because you saw the language, right, Karen, that that M Rashawn used in denying the Clayton and in the sentencing, it sounded a lot like a judge who thinks this might be my last opportunity to say what I feel about the the defendant. It was very sentencing hearing-like. It was like you have an accepted responsibility and you have grave, grave crimes that you committed
Starting point is 00:19:51 Including election interference. I mean, you know, he was doing a fit and Donald Trump doesn't want to be chastised by Judge Mershon who he continues to call, you know an animal and ethically conflicted and a partisan hack and In all this other stuff, he keeps writing on social media about him and about Alvin Bragg so he doesn't want to sit for that he doesn't want to sit through the recitation of his crimes and and then the ten different ways that Donald Trump committed contempt was contempt contemptuous of court contumacious of court just want to hear that again and then have at the end but having said all that I'm going to do an unconditional discharge. So that's what they're fighting for. But the appellate
Starting point is 00:20:29 court, you know, Guestmer, Justice Guestmer, who was the, thank God she was the one on duty down at the first department, the Manhattan Appellate Court, because he's sometimes gotten this other justice that loves issuing stays for him. And I was like, oh, they're gonna do that again? Friedman? But she's, yes, Friedman. She actually scheduled, as she's allowed to do, the briefing schedule for the first department, appellate department, is the day after, times out for the day after the inauguration.
Starting point is 00:20:57 So January 21st is the briefing schedule on the appeal, but they're not gonna do a thing. And I said on a hot take, and it looks like I was right, that he's gonna try to lob one last Hail Mary into the Court of Appeals, the highest court, to try to get them to issue the stay. But that's even narrower grounds, which I don't think apply here, for him to obtain that kind of stay. So he's going to be done exhausted with another day here with the state process. Does he try to jump the tracks as you said and get over to the federal system? I'm just not sure. Although, you're right, we can't trust
Starting point is 00:21:30 anything that comes out of the mouth of that court. They've had opportunities to bail him out on immunity before. This is a case where the core allegations that were proven in front of a jury are about conduct when he was not president. So he wasn't president for the conspiracy, he wasn't president for the indictment, he wasn't president for the trial, he wasn't president for the conviction, and he's not president for the sentencing. So I just don't see that this is the moment when the Supreme Court grabs the third rail again about immunity and decides to like save him on this particular matter.
Starting point is 00:22:09 They didn't know in a civil matter, they let lie, they let stay in place, everything related to E.G. and Carol, even the immunity allegations, immunity defense related to it. So they didn't bail him out there. They know how to bail him out when they want to. I just don't think this is the one that they're gonna come in on, especially since as you said, Mershon smartly signaled that
Starting point is 00:22:30 he's not sending the guy to jail. So we'll see. That doesn't mean there's not going to be another emergency application that one of us is going to be reporting on on the Midas Touch network, but that's, I kind of think he's going to get sentenced on Friday. Open to your, I know people are writing in the chat, like don't give him any ideas, trust me. They've already thought through the things that we're discussing on this podcast about not showing and making Rashaan who's conflicted about his jurisdiction take the next move.
Starting point is 00:23:00 We'll see. It's a ballsy thing to do, but I don't know. The guy's about to militarily take over Panama and Greenland. So This would this would be nothing. This is this is a walk of the park for him We'll continue to follow it there anything else on the New York sentencing issue you wanted to touch on before we move on Karen You know, no, I think I think that was I think we I think we covered it. Yeah, so we're when we I think we covered it. Yeah. So we're when we we're gonna we're gonna go off to our sponsors in a second but when we come back we're gonna talk about volume one and volume two. No it's it's not Kill Bill it's Jack Smith trying to get his
Starting point is 00:23:38 reports out the door already been delivered as of the 7th of January to his boss Merrick Garland. One of them, a spoiler alert, one of them, volume 2, had a love note from Jack Smith to his boss about what he thinks Garland should do with volume 2. Now we also learned that Donald Trump and his lawyers, at least Todd Blanch and Emil Beauvais got put into a hermetically sealed room on the fourth or fifth of January and they got to look at the report and make comments on it and they issued a 15-page letter that we now
Starting point is 00:24:14 know about. We'll talk about that process and what do I think and Karen think the 11th Circuit's ultimately gonna do with Judge Cannon's stay order blocking the release of both volume one and volume two, even though she has no jurisdiction over any of these matters any longer, and certainly never had one over the DC election interference case and what I think the 11th circuit and Karen thinks the 11th circuit is going to do next. Then we'll turn to the fight that's broken out into the open between the MAGA Republican-dominated North Carolina Supreme Court, which apparently doesn't want to have a four to three majority with Alison Riggs in the third seat for the Democrats,
Starting point is 00:24:54 wants to have five to two. And so they are siding with Judge Griffin, who's a judge in another court, who's the only way he can overcome the 774 vote final tally advantage and the state election board controlled by Democrats certifying it, is if he tosses 60,000 North Carolinian votes into the trash and disenfranchises them. Is that a good thing to do? Just because you want to be on the Supreme Court? We'll talk about that and then we'll catch everybody up on Rudy Giuliani. We got an amazing collection of existing and new sponsors for 2025. All been vetted by Midas Touch and by
Starting point is 00:25:34 Jordy and by us as podcast hosts and we're gonna have them be here. They support this ProDemocracy channel. Other ways to support the ProDemocracy channel is to subscribe here on the Midas Touch Network, hit that blue button. They're moving towards, this number is incredible, four million. It seems like a year ago we were talking about, let's get the two, four million. And then Legal AF, the YouTube channel that I curate, help us get to half a million by its half birthday. I like the way that sounds. We're already almost at 400,000, four months in, almost a little less than four
Starting point is 00:26:10 months in, but we should hit with your help half a million at our six-month birthday. Come over there, we're doing some amazing work over there. Six or seven videos a day at the intersection of law and politics. Gonna be the hottest corner around, especially now and going into 2025. We've also got Patreon, I'm back up and running Patreon again, got some new content up there, patreon.com slash legal AF. Thank you to one of my colleagues, Terps, I'll just leave it at that. A friend of Salty is helping me out with the Patreon.
Starting point is 00:26:42 Thank you Terps for getting that first video up today. So we're doing a lot of things there. Okay, so let's, and of course Karen Freeman at Gnifilo when she's not a practicing lawyer doing amazing things out there in the world that everybody should know about. She's doing hot takes with us. She's got her own podcast that's on regularly on the Midas Touch Network on Thursdays. And it's another way to support what we do here. We are people powered. I started using that phrase. Everybody started using that phrase. We are people powered. We have no independent outside investors. You are our investors and just investing your time and your thumbs in your comments. We really appreciate you. And now a word from our sponsors. Have you heard
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Starting point is 00:32:00 off. Again, that's trymiracle.com slash legal AF to treat yourself. Thank you Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. All right, let's turn to volume one and volume two. Frame it this way of the Jack Smith report. By law, by law approved by Congress, the special counsel, the one that Eileen Cannon doesn't think exists, has to prepare a final report at the conclusion of their investigation, regardless of how it ends. In this case, it ended by their target becoming president again and the Office of Legal Counsel's opinions about what you can do or not do about that.
Starting point is 00:32:39 That's the only reason it ended. And so we speculated a couple of weeks ago on midweek about whether it was going to be one volume or two volumes, one report or two reports. You had a good suggestion that it was going to be two reports, and it is good, two reports, volume one and volume two. That I predicted properly that it was, it was already done and that it was sometime around Christmas. And it was delivered, apparently, to the attorney general, both volumes on the seventh, prior to it being delivered on the seventh of January. And I think this is not in the statute. Maybe it's part of DOJ guidelines, but they gave Trump's lawyers the opportunity to take a look at
Starting point is 00:33:16 it. Now I know Biden's lawyers were given an opportunity to take a look at the final report of Robert Herr related to the talking. That's why they did it. It's not in the statute. It's they were doing it as a courtesy because that's what happened in the last one. I don't know why they keep bending over backwards to do these courtesy things. Exactly. I wrote in our chain, you were I was like, when are we going to stop being nice? I mean, you know, we just lost an election
Starting point is 00:33:41 because we were too nice. But it's one thing to be nice if the other side's being nice. They aren't playing by the same rules. Oh, yeah. We would never get that report if the roles were reversed. So they gave him the report. And all that gave was Donald Trump the opportunity to have his lawyers take copious notes,
Starting point is 00:33:57 even though they couldn't take photos of it. And they generated a 15-page letter to Merrick Garland. And then they said, well, we just mailed to Merrick Garland, nobody will know about it, what should we do about it? I got an idea. We'll tell because they're directing traffic here. Carlos de Olviera and Walt Nauta, who are the co-conspirators in Mar-a-Lago, will tell their lawyers, who Donald Trump's paying for by the way in his PAC, to include as an exhibit our letter in their emergency filing with Judge Cannon and the 11th Circuit because they filed two pieces of paper yesterday looking
Starting point is 00:34:29 for an emergency stay to block the release. So I, first of all, Cannon takes the bait, right, because she always does, and she's like yeah it's good I think I should issue a stay and block the special counsel from releasing the report where the Department of Justice releasing it or leaking it over everything. Okay, both volumes, I guess, even though she had no role in the DC election interference case whatsoever. Her defendants in front of her who are no longer in front of her were not involved in DC election interference case. So she has no jurisdiction. involved in DC election interference case so she has no jurisdiction and she dismissed her indictment and it's up on appeal so she has no trial court jurisdiction so why she's issuing injunctions or stays in any case I have other than she's kind of working working with the Trump side so that gets the dander up of the Department of Justice and they do but I thought they were
Starting point is 00:35:22 gonna do is they went to the 11th circuit they do what I thought they were gonna do is they went to the 11th Circuit. They skipped her. I thought they may file a motion for reconsideration with her like they did last time when she made some mistakes about certain of the CESA, the SIPA laws on confidentiality, but no they just skipped her, went right to the 11th Circuit, filed their brief earlier today at which they said a couple of things. One, this is the Department of Justice. Merrick Garland said, I've had the reports, pardon me, volume one and volume two. I've had them since the 7th of January. So you can't enjoin me getting them. I have them already. Also, Trump's lawyers don't know, because it wasn't their business that when the special counsel transmitted volume two about Mar-a-Lago, this case, he put a note with it, a little love note,
Starting point is 00:36:09 and the note said, I do not recommend that this volume be released in the public interest while the case is still ongoing against Alviera and Nauda, the co-conspirators of Mar-a-Lago. Love and Kisses XXXOXO Jack Smith. And Merrick Garland has informed the world in his filing that he agrees with special counsel that he's only going to release volume one to Congress and to the American people on the DC election interference case, which of course she has zero jurisdiction over and no involvement by the those two co-defendants. Now what's up at the 11th Circuit to remind everybody or to tell them fresh here, and it's fully briefed, is whether Cannon was right or wrong several months ago before the election when she dismissed the indictment finding that the special counsel was unconstitutionally
Starting point is 00:36:59 appointed and unconstitutionally funded. First time in 200 years that a federal judge didn't think that the Attorney General had the power to appoint an and unconstitutionally funded. First time in 200 years that a federal judge didn't think that the attorney general had the power to appoint an inferior officer in the form of a special counsel. She's going to get reversed. Just that the 11th Circuit hasn't gotten around to it yet. What's taking them so long? It's been really brief. I don't know. I'm pissed off about it.
Starting point is 00:37:19 Me too. When the pardons come flying out on Jan 20, and Carlos and Walt get one, that case is over because there's no live case anymore. And they won't, if they haven't ruled already, they can't rule. It's like, oh, we never got around to it. So her order dismissing is still precedent until somebody higher than her reverses it. So that annoyed me. And then here's the reality. Because Merrick Garland, and we could do a whole show about Merrick Garland, because Merrick Garland is holding in his back pocket volume two, we're never gonna see the Mar-a-Lago final report, ever.
Starting point is 00:37:55 Because the prosecution of those two guys ends in January when the new administration comes in, and or they get a pardon. And also, January when the new administration comes in and or they get a pardon. And also that volume will die and be buried by Pam Bondi, the new Attorney General. We will never see volume one is a different story. So we just got, as we were coming on the air, we got the filing by the 11th Circuit ordered Alviera and Nauda to file and tell the court why. Now that they're only releasing something that doesn't involve them, volume one on the DC election interference case, why we should keep the stay in place that Judge Cannon put in place. Why?
Starting point is 00:38:39 You don't have standing, you don't have jurisdiction. Tell us why. And the best they could come up with based on their filing is that maybe Congress, i.e. the Democrats, will leak aspects of Volume 2 and we can't allow that. Okay, here's the problem with that argument. That's not what Merrick Garland said he was going to do. Merrick Garland didn't say he was going to transmit Volume 2 to Congress and ask them pretty please not to release it. He said he's going to bury volume two in his office and not transmit it until that case is over, which will then be the responsibility for Pam Bondi if she ever gets
Starting point is 00:39:15 confirmed as attorney general. So they are making an argument that's inconsistent with the filing where Merrick Garland said I'm only going to send volume one and volume two, I'm leaving on my desk for my successor. I think the 11, I want to hear your opinion, of course. I think the 11 circuit finds that to be wholly unavailing and they're going to, I don't think they're going to issue their rulings and are ready yet on whether Canna was right or wrong
Starting point is 00:39:41 on the underlying substance, but they're going to reverse her for the third time in this case, and they're going to vacate her stay, and they're gonna let special counsel Jack Smith do his job under the law, for which he's not been enjoined, and let Merrick Garland do his job under the law, a law that was approved by Congress, and release finally,
Starting point is 00:40:00 at least the DC election interference case matter to the public. What do you think's gonna happen? So two things number one. I just want to comment on Judge cannon's lawlessness. First of all, as you pointed out, how did she have any jurisdiction over this to issue a stay whatsoever? Because when you appeal something it divests the jurisdiction of the district court something, it divests the jurisdiction of the district court. So I really don't understand how she could issue the stay and then how there's in no world does she have the ability to issue a stay to the January 6 case, right? Like the election case, that case was not before her. So I don't think she has jurisdiction over either case for kind of two slightly
Starting point is 00:40:42 different reasons. One is just ridiculous. It just ridiculous. There's no matter before her, right? That's before Judge Chutkin. And so I think that one easily gets reversed by the 11th Circuit. The Mar-a-Lago one is a little trickier because there are two people left, right? Jack Smith dismissed the case against Trump and there are two, but he left it with Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira and he didn't dismiss that because he wants to appeal this ruling, this special counsel ruling to get the 11th circuit to rule on that.
Starting point is 00:41:23 The problem is they're not ruling on it and they haven't ruled on it. And so he's kind of playing this game saying, oh, they're gonna rule, they're gonna reverse it. I have to make sure, knowing that Trump is either gonna pardon them or he'll dismiss the cases. I think he might dismiss the cases and not pardon him,
Starting point is 00:41:39 pardon them. And the reason is because there's dicta in certain Supreme Court cases that in order to be given a pardon, you have to accept the pardon, you can't just wave a magic wand and pardon someone, the person has to accept it. And by accepting it, they are, there's some admission of guilt, in a way. And so there's a lot of people who are saying if Biden tries to give these pardons to people on on the hit list of cash pat Cash patel's hit list. Uh, they're saying they wouldn't take it because they didn't do anything wrong and it's admission of guilt
Starting point is 00:42:11 I personally don't understand that. I I don't understand You know take your pardon and go on with your life whether let people think what they're going to think. Um, that's that's my own personal opinion, but but uh, So I don't know that they're going to want to have that stigma when he could just dismiss the cases and that's just as good. So that's what and dismiss them, have them dismissed with prejudice or just pull the prosecution
Starting point is 00:42:37 and stop prosecuting him. So knowing that's going to happen anyway, part of me wonders why didn't just so really quick back to what I was saying, when there's a pending case, prosecutors feel very strongly that you're not going to do anything to jeopardize that pending case. You're not going to release information that could hurt the public, that could hurt the case
Starting point is 00:43:02 by prejudicing the defendants, by tainting the jury pool, right? Prosecutors bend over backwards to do that, so that typically they bend over backwards to do. That's what you're supposed to do. People are entitled to a fair trial. They're innocent until proven guilty. And so Jack Smith, that's what he's doing. He's saying, look, there's these two cases against,
Starting point is 00:43:24 two defendants, sorry, that still have open cases, by releasing that report, that could prejudice the pending case. But there's not going to be a pending case because Trump is going to either dismiss it or pardon them, as you said. So why isn't Smith just dismissing it against the two of them and then release the report? I know why, because he was hoping that the 11th Circuit would rule. You need to have a case pending so that the rule,
Starting point is 00:43:51 this reverse the special counsel ruling that Judge Cannon found. But honestly, at a certain point, just forget them. They're minions, right? They're not the main people. Just dismiss the cases, release the report. The American people have a right to know. The January 6, the election case, that indictment has so much detail in it. And then the hundred and something page report that Jack Smith, or it's not really a report,
Starting point is 00:44:23 the filing that he had to submit to Judge Chuckin about the evidence, that gives so much detail. In some ways, you almost don't need that report, right? We've had the Jan 6 hearings, we know that evidence cold, we've had the detailed indictments, we've had that filing that lays out the evidence that Jack, that Smith has and had. I mean, I want to see the report, but we have so much detail in that. The Mar-a-Lago case, because of the classified documents,
Starting point is 00:44:52 there's a lot we haven't seen. There's a lot we don't know. We haven't had the same amount of public filings detailing that. That's the report I really want to see. That's the report that jeopardized our national security and that's the report that for whatever reason is going to get buried because once again we're bending over backwards to do the right thing when it's not going to do anything. If the 11th, because
Starting point is 00:45:17 you know you play this game of chicken so that you get the 11th circuit to rule, well guess what? The 11th circuit isn't ruling, you lost it all. You literally lost it all. The special counsel law remains the same. Or the 11th Circuit rules later, right? After the cases are dismissed, the report's buried, Donald Trump is sworn in, and then they rule, right? Then it's like, okay, who cares, right? Who cares?
Starting point is 00:45:37 It doesn't really matter at that point. So I find this very, very frustrating. And this masterful game of chess that Trump is somehow playing and it's just winning at every turn. And this one just really, really infuriates me. Well, we've got a new chess move since we've been on the air. Donald Trump has just filed an emergency application with the United States Supreme Court to try to stop Friday's sentencing.
Starting point is 00:46:04 Skipping Sotomayor completely, who I think is the first stop on that train. I actually fashioning it, I just looked at it briefly while we're on the air, fashioning it as just an emergency application for stay addressed to the entire court. I don't think that's how that works. Procedurally, John Sauer is back.
Starting point is 00:46:21 It's 51 pages long. I guess that's what he's been working on now that they've gotten Two different judges judge Mershon and judge Gessmer at the Appellate Division first department on the state side to reject it And I'm sure they don't think they're gonna be able to get the Court of Appeals the highest court in New York To rule in their favor and they're running out of time as we said earlier on the show So they've skipped a couple of steps gone right over to the into the Supreme Court. We'll do a deeper dive into it. Like I said it's 51 pages. It's gonna take a minute for us to unpack it but I wanted to at least hit on it here as we thought he's gonna try to go to the
Starting point is 00:46:56 United States Supreme Court. I still stand by my position subject to me reading the brief that the Supreme Court is not going to interfere in this. They got to get four votes for it. I mean, they always want to bend over backwards for Donald Trump, and I'm not sure this is the type of immunity decision that they want to bring more clarity to. But if I'm wrong, I will dutifully report on it as soon as we see if the Supreme Court is interested in this. Will they issue, is there four votes or actually five votes to issue a stay of Friday? There could be, there could be, you know, everybody's sort of hunkering down for a long process here before sentencing.
Starting point is 00:47:34 That could happen. It could be a stay because they know if they don't give the stay or they just sit back and don't do anything and let the hearing go forward on Friday. Well, what do you think Karen, now that you know what's just happened with the Supremes? I don't know. I genuinely don't know what's going to happen. They bend over backwards for him. I could see them doing it again, but I hope not. I really hope not. Yeah. I'm hoping they won't. From an intellectual integrity standpoint, I don't think they should hear, given what they've already done in terms of, because the issues, the issues at play, even if you're being kind to their analysis on the July immunity decision, which we, you know, we're going
Starting point is 00:48:19 to pick over, we're going to daven over like the Talmud for generations. They don't even know what it says. It was written so hastily and so poorly. But if you look at it, it seems to be about when you can or can't have a prosecution against a person based on crimes or activity while they were president and whether, and you always have to do at the beginning of that prosecution, an analysis as to whether it falls into conduct that was corp constitutionally protected conduct for which there's absolute immunity, presumption of immunity for what's, you know, what's on the job description for the president, stretched to its outer boundaries as official conduct, or just good old-fashioned criminal conduct that's private.
Starting point is 00:49:05 Like if the president raped somebody, that's not going to fall into the first two categories. And so that's what I thought that that was about, not what somebody did before they were president while they were campaigning, while they've never been president during all critical moments. And the only issue is discrete pieces of evidence. And whether that discrete pieces of evidence, given the mountain of all the over overwhelming evidence, is the reason the jury voted against Donald Trump and to convict him.
Starting point is 00:49:33 Even his own lawyers, even though I'm sure they've reversed course here, even his own lawyers in prior filings have admitted that they're not trying to claim that he was immune from prosecution about activities in 26 before he became president. They're just arguing about that aspect of the immunity decision that goes to evidence of potentially official conduct, like writing the check while you're in the White House or talking to your executive assistant or the press secretary saying something, and whether that, given the rest rest is reversible error or not. That's the narrow, narrow immunity issue. Is that what they're arguing? Obviously,
Starting point is 00:50:11 it just came out, so neither of us have read it. But the issue that you just pointed out to me is the only issue that they could rule the stay on with a straight face. In other words, if the Supreme Court wanted to stop the sentencing, what they could say if Donald Trump made this argument, because don't forget in their immunity ruling they said presidential immunity is something you can appeal before conviction. You can appeal midstream. It's an interlocutory appeal. They were silent as to whether that applies to what you just described. Post-conviction? No, no, the evidence.
Starting point is 00:50:49 Oh, yeah, the evidence. They were silent about whether you can appeal that midstream, these evidentiary rulings. I think the only argument that you can make is that you can't go to sentencing. We have the right to an interlocutory appeal. And if that's true, then I could see the Supreme Court hanging their hat on that and saying, okay, we're going to stay this until this is resolved. And then of course, he'll become president and say, oh, you can't prosecute. There's the OLC memo that says you can't prosecute me during while I'm president. And everybody agrees that that's this temporary immunity
Starting point is 00:51:32 that he has. And then the sentencing gets put off for four years. And the appeal goes on up and down for years and years. And it never happens. So that, to me me is the only argument that has any potential merit that the Supreme Court could hang their hat on, whether they do it or not,
Starting point is 00:51:52 or find something else who the heck knows. But that's, to me, that's where we are. And we've got new reporting. We'd love to continue to update here. See, people thought Legal AF was gonna be more abundant during this period. It's not. We just got new reporting that Sam Alito took a phone call from President-elect
Starting point is 00:52:06 Donald Trump to talk about whether one of his law clerks should get a job in the incoming administration. He thought that was okay to kind of get on the phone with Donald Trump while there are pending matters before him, including the petition that just got filed. He thinks that's appropriate to give a job, a job reference. I mean, this is just shows you how corrupt this is what court accountability action. That's a quid pro quo.
Starting point is 00:52:33 Hey, I'll hire your guy your Clark will you scratch my back? Okay. Yeah. So I mean, it's so corrupt. He's got to get he's got to get bounced. And we're going to report it. We'll be reporting on a lot of that. And then we'll kind of flip into Rudy Giuliani because there is justice being served on behalf of Ruby Freeman and Seamus.
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Starting point is 00:58:22 that new channel legal a F the YouTube channel at Legal AF MTN for Midas Touch Network which I curate, help us get to half a million by our half birthday. Merch alert, we're gonna get Jordy to make up t-shirts. And that is we're about 400,000 right now with your help doing five or six videos a day over there. We got Court Accountability Action with us, Dina, Dal, Karen Freeman, Nick Nilo, Sean, Shan, Wu, and the rest of the crew. So really appreciate you helping us out there. Patreon.com slash Legal AF. We're getting some amazing new videos up there as well. Kind of going back there and tending to Patreon. That's another way to support the show and of course all the great things that Karen Freeman, if a look does on the network, including her own podcast on Thursday. So let's, let's move Karen to Rudy. Rudy Rudy. So how do we get here? Okay, so everybody remember two and a half years ago, two years ago, Rudy got $148 million judgment against him. The first part of it, the liability side was a default default judgment because he violated numerous court orders and pissed off, rightly so, Judge
Starting point is 00:59:29 Barrow Howell about his conduct in refusing to participate in discovery, turnover documents, lies, failure to pay fines, all sorts of things. So she finally had it and she entered a default judgment against him as a sanction and then left it to the jury to decide how much he would have to pay, how big of a So she finally had it and she entered a default judgment against him as a sanction and then left it to the jury to decide how much he would have to pay, how big of a check he was going to have to write. And after hearing from Rudy, including him acting out of the courthouse steps that ended up being brought into the courtroom in real time by the lawyers for Ruby Freeman and Che
Starting point is 00:59:59 Moss, they're the Fulton County mother daughter team that were just doing their civic duty count and votes. They hit him with a $148 million judgment. A few weeks later, Donald Trump got hit with an $80 million, $83 million judgment by another jury because he sexually assaulted and defamed E. Jean Carroll. So it was all sort of in that same era. And ever since, last year and a half, Rudy's tried every which way to get out from under that judgment. He took an appeal and didn't post a bond, and the appeal failed. He filed for bankruptcy. He was found to be a bad
Starting point is 01:00:34 faith filing in bankruptcy. He got brought into court, federal court, with Judge Lyman, who's enforcing the creditors' rights of Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss, and he's refused to turn over documents or information. He's played fast and loose with the rules. He won't turn over any most of the property that he owns to pay off the judgment, including watches and title to cars and title to apartments. And finally the judge has had it. And so this week the judge, Judge Lyman, after two-day hearing, found against Rudy and made it and made what's called an adverse inference, which means that he can no longer argue really with any
Starting point is 01:01:18 evidence that his home in Palm Beach County, sort of Mar-a-Lago adjacent condo, is somehow protected by Florida's debtor rights laws. We call them Homestead Protection because he hasn't produced any documents to demonstrate that he's established Florida residency before the judgment was recorded. And now the judge has said no, I'm going to make the assumption and the inference that you don't have any documents that would help you and any documents you have would hurt you on that issue because you haven't produced them and that's your penalty.
Starting point is 01:01:50 And to the lawyer for Karen, for Rudy Giuliani, Paul, what's his name? Joe Camerata, he said, oh, this is the death penalty for my client economically. So that's what happened in the early part of the week. You want to talk about Beryl Howell and what she's about to do on Friday, of all things, with Rudy? You go ahead. I love hearing you talk about this because this is your world, right? You know this stuff. This is what you've done. It's just fascinating to me. And I
Starting point is 01:02:24 want to hear. Got it, because really, really, I read this stuff. And I look at it, I'm like, Okay, but what's the consequence? What's where's the teeth? I love this part, right? So go ahead. I want to hear I want to hear. So so she's calling him calling him on the carpet. Because he's violated another court order arising out of the case. She was the original trial judge, right, Karen? And she, the lawyers who are doing a masterful job for Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss for free, they're pro bono at Wilkie Farr Gallagher, a big firm in New York. And they were going to sue him for more damages and more defamation because he wouldn't shut up about Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss and kept defaming them even after the trial. So he agreed because he doesn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.
Starting point is 01:03:10 That's a New York law phrase. He decided to enter into a consent decree, an order with the judge to stop bashing them. In return for that agreement, in court order not to do it, they would stop suing him. He signed it and she signed it, the judge. And then the beginning of November, he ran out of gas on his podcast, and he started bashing them again and calling them fraudsters, that they were flipping votes
Starting point is 01:03:33 from Trump to Biden and using a phony thumb drive to stick it in the machines, just ridiculous stuff. But he kept doing it. I've seen the clips. It's sad, and he's doing it again.'ve seen the clips. It's just it's sad and he's doing it again So lawyers brought it before the judge and said contempt. Here's here's the issue with her Here's the nut there's three or four ways a judge can handle contempt civil and then criminal contempt One is money. That's usually the main way fines
Starting point is 01:04:02 Thousand a day five thousand a day ten thousand thousand a day, a hundred thousand a day, until they are able to do something. But there's nothing to do here. So and he doesn't have any money. So I don't think she has that. I think you take that out of her, that arrow out of her quiver, right? Done. Throw that up.
Starting point is 01:04:19 So second thing you can do is you can make the adverse inferences against something in the case. So you can default them related to something that'll give the other side justice. There's nothing left in this case. This case is over. You can't like default them and then because it's not like a judgment and then go to a jury trial on damages and all that. So throw that arrow out. What's left?
Starting point is 01:04:43 Jail. She can't warn him. He's already refused. He's already shown that he's a recidivist and he won't listen to reason. Can she put him in jail under civil contempt? And I ask because if she puts him in jail under criminal contempt, pardon Trump can pardon him. Yeah. Yeah. I think she can do it. I think he can get pardon either way. I don't think it's criminal. Well, you think pardon him. Yeah. Yeah, I think you can do it. I think you can get pardoned either way. I don't think it's criminal. Why you think pardon power is limited? You can't do a civil penalty that puts you in jail. If he can pardon you civilly, then he can also pardon him so that
Starting point is 01:05:15 he doesn't have to turn over his property. That's why I don't. That's why I don't. It'd be the jail part. I mean, I'm talking about the jail part. Yeah, that's a very interesting question I mean usually it's civil contempt warning more warning criminal contempt violation jail but I I think he could I think she could skip a step given the his complete lack of Compliance with any of her orders
Starting point is 01:05:43 And I think he's worried about the potentiality that she could pick him up and put him in jail for a day or two. But why, where's the teeth to hand over the keys to the kingdom? I mean, in other words, why can't somebody physically get that deed and order it to be belonging to-
Starting point is 01:06:00 That's not her issue. She's not the deed lady. That's Judge Lyman. She's the, you breached the agreement not to defame them person. I see. Yeah. So if she so why doesn't she put him in jail then before Trump can pardon him? So at least he goes in for two weeks. That's what I that's what that's where I think this is going. I think he's worried about that because now it'd be really easy if he showed up in jail for her
Starting point is 01:06:25 to go marshals and he goes back to the federal detention center where some cooling, like you like to talk about it, some cooling cell somewhere in the bottom of the basement of the federal courthouse in DC, she's ordered him to appear. He just filed some lame brain filing, which didn't work with Judge Lyman either, to appear virtually because he's got a knee or lung condition and the Iranians are after him. I mean, they always have to add this. By the way, if the Iranians are after you, guess what? The safest place you can be is in jail.
Starting point is 01:06:54 I agree with that. You know what? That's a very good... To protect you, I'm going to put you in federal custody. Yeah, the marshals will protect you from the Iranians. I mean, it's just. I wrote in our chain a little snarkily when somebody posted that issue about the Iranians.
Starting point is 01:07:12 I just wrote, oh, if only that were true. God. I mean, you know. So I think, just to wrap it up here, I think she's not going to let him off from appearing. I think they're going to have to just hold their breath and see if she's going to put him in jail. And we will report dutifully back on all of these open items.
Starting point is 01:07:39 The Supreme Court on the sentencing. Come back to Legal AF and the Midas Dutch Network. The release of volume one and or volume two on the Jack Smith Report. Come back to Legal AF and the Midas Touch Network. What happens with Rudy and whether he goes to jail? You know what I'm about to say. Legal AF, the YouTube channel and the Midas Touch Network.
Starting point is 01:07:59 This is your home for law and commentary and analysis like no other. So we've reached the end of the midweek edition of Legal AF. So appreciative of our audience, so appreciative of those in and around California who are suffering right now, just as we were for New Orleans when that happened. Karen, as always, last word. So we said in the beginning that we were going to hit on this North Carolina thing. So I think-
Starting point is 01:08:21 Oh, that's good. Very good. See, I got very into the whole Giuliani thing. Yeah, I skipped the North Carolina. Yes. So I think we should just mention it quickly because what's going on there is absolutely bonkers. Right. So first of all, I didn't know that people run for office in North Carolina to be the elected highest court in North Carolina, but they are elected. highest court in North Carolina, but they are elected. And it used to be a non-partisan election, but they changed that and made it partisan. So you have Democrats and you have
Starting point is 01:08:51 Republicans. And there's a majority controlled Republican North Carolina Supreme Court. And there was a judge, a justice on the Supreme Court, a Democrat, Alison Riggs, she was already on the court and she ran for reelection. And the Republican, her colleagues, right? The court, her colleagues are refusing to certify that election because her opponent is trying to block it. So she won by a very, very, very narrow margin, something like 734 votes.
Starting point is 01:09:23 And he's challenging almost 60,000 of the votes because saying that the voters didn't provide the last four digits of their social or they didn't provide their identification, et cetera. And it's just atrocious, right? And I don't understand how they can do that, how they are in a position to do that. It almost seems like it's just a very strange system that they have set up.
Starting point is 01:09:53 And so they're refusing to certify it. So it just feels very partisan, right? It feels extremely partisan what's going on there. And look, the other thing that's happening is the Democrats control the state election board, and they're rejecting the arguments of her opponent, right? They're saying, look, that is that your arguments are don't have merit, and they're rejecting it. So it's just a very strange situation that's going on down there and the justices are issuing opinions, the election board's doing it, and you know, I think they're going to try to stop it and halt it. And I think they're going to try
Starting point is 01:10:32 and make it give it to the opponent. That's what they're trying to do down there. It's not that unusual for Supreme Courts in different states to be elected. I mean, you know, Florida has an elected thing. First they're appointed, but then they get they're up for election or we call a retention vote. Here's, I'll just end it on this and then come back to you. The DNC, which led the charge to go to federal court to try to stop this very thing from happening
Starting point is 01:10:54 and stop the disenfranchisement of 60,000 voters had this to say today about what just happened. Today, the Republican led North Carolina Supreme Court blocked the certification of justice Alison Riggs. She already, as you pointed out-led North Carolina Supreme Court blocked the certification of Justice Allison Riggs. She already, as you pointed out, is on the Supreme Court. No, she did not vote on this particular matter. She recused herself properly. Despite two recounts verifying that she fairly won the election in what has become a month-long anti-democratic campaign, this is the Democrats now, at taxpayers' expense against Justice
Starting point is 01:11:25 Allison Riggs, who was found to be the clear winner of North Carolina's November state Supreme Court election by two separate recounts. The Republican-led North Carolina Supreme Court is now attempting to give itself the sole power to decide its next member rather than the North Carolina voters who unquestionably elected Justice Riggs. Make no mistakes, these craven attacks on North Carolina voters, the 60,000 he's trying to trash her opponent, are an affront to the country's foundational values of democracy and the rule of law. One day after the four-year anniversary of the
Starting point is 01:11:57 Jan 6th, of Jan 6th, Republicans are once again attempting to overturn an election in plain sight. And that's the end of it. And it should be the end of it. And we're gonna have to see what the Supreme Court does there. I think that's something if they rule the wrong way that the Democrats have to take it up to the United States Supreme Court in order to protect the voting rights of 60,000 North Carolinians that went with open heart and good mind and voted, including veterans, I mean, overseas service people who voted and just because, well, and I'll explain this just so people have it
Starting point is 01:12:30 as a talking point. The reason why in your voter registration, you may not have your social security number or your driver's license on there is because that was a rule change that happened in the last few years. If you registered to vote like I did in New Jersey in 40 years ago, that wasn't
Starting point is 01:12:45 a requirement. And they don't make you re-register if you stay in the state. I mean, I left and came back, but they don't make you re-register. So some people from 20 and 30 years ago on the old system of voter registration didn't have to use their, what do you call it, their Social Security card or the driver's license. that explains a lot of the 60,000 It's just you know We as a party the Democrats are about enfranchisement or about counting every vote about making it easier to vote and the Republicans are About voter suppression making it harder to vote. That's why Donald Trump's it should end at 10 o'clock on the day of the election Everywhere why why can't it be a week-long vote where I'm at the ATM and
Starting point is 01:13:26 I'm voting at the same time, as long as we can make it secure? Why does everything have to be hard when it comes to it? That's why 20 million people sat out our democracy in November who were registered and decided not to vote, besides 9 million Democrats who didn't vote for Kamala Harris that could have. 20 million people just said, nah, pass. Hard pass on our democracy. That's a problem. That's the result of voter suppression like we're seeing in North Carolina. Yeah, this is terrible. Last word to you for our show. Then it's a wrap. Yeah, look, I just, the fires, I can't get them off my mind, so I just, you know, thoughts and prayers as they say to all the people out there
Starting point is 01:14:06 affected by that. And I hope it gets under control. And that's all I can, that's all I'm thinking about right now. Appreciate, appreciate you and appreciate your sentiment. And again, everybody stay safe and be safe and be well in California who are in harm's way. Saturday, Ben, my Salace and me, who, and people that know this from Substack and from Midas's thing, both, two of the brothers are sort of in the path of all of this. I know Ben evacuated with his family and is safe. I think he's making hot takes again.
Starting point is 01:14:37 I don't mean that as a pun. I mean, he's really making hot takes again. And Brad is safe and sound too. Jordy lives on the East Coast, so he's okay. And the rest of Saturday, I'll do it with Ben Mycelis on our Saturday edition of Legal AF. Tuesdays, POPOC Live, new show, Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. right here on the Midas Touch Network
Starting point is 01:14:56 and then all the other ways you can support us. So until then, shout out to the Legal AFers and the Midas Mighty.

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