Legal AF by MeidasTouch - MAJOR DEVELOPMENT in Trump NY Criminal Trial TWO WEEKS Away

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

MeidasTouch hosts Ben Meiselas and Karen Friedman Agnifolo report on a new motion filed by Donald Trump in the Manhattan DA criminal case set for trial on March 25 where Trump is claiming absolute presidential immunity for conduct that took place before he was in office and that related to his own personal conduct. Thanks to our sponsor HumanN! Get a free 30-day supply of SuperBeets heart chews and a FREE Full - Sized Bag of Turmeric Chews valued at $25 by going to http://legalafbeets.com Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! 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 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 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm joined by Karen Friedman, Agnifalo, former number two at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Karen, Donald Trump just filed a motion to exclude evidence and a request for an adjournment based on what he says, presidential immunity in the Manhattan District Attorney case set for trial on March 25th. In other words, Donald Trump is seeking to stop the Manhattan District Attorney criminal case against him for making these hush money payments and then falsifying the business records. The conduct, the thrust of the conduct, took place before he was ever in office. But Trump is arguing here that because some of his conduct, the intent type of elements that would have to be shown may have taken place while he was in office, statements that he made after,

this entire case needs to be thrown out or at very least it needs to be delayed or put on pause right now. What do you make of this motion? What do you think its implications are? But Trump's seeking to delay that trial, claiming absolute presidential immunity for conduct predates when he was in office. Ben, first of all, you called this the minute the Supreme Court granted cert that this was going to be his opportunity to seek delay. A bunch of us who just lawyers who work in Manhattan

and who are following in this case have been thinking about how is he going to try and delay this trial? Cause we all know he doesn't want to go to trial in any of his cases. He wants to just keep playing the victim card. And the trial is the last thing he wants to do. So we've all been wondering, what's it going to be? How is he going to delay it?

And we thought one way to, for sure, delay it was to create a conflict with one of his lawyers. And so there, you have to get a lawyer. That could still come. Let's see if that's what he tries to play. But this was the only other card he really has, which is to try and say, to try to use this recent grant of certiorari that the Supreme Court is doing

in his DC Circuit case to determine whether or not there will be presidential immunity for criminal acts committed while in office, whether or not it's within his job description and in the outer whether or not it's within his job description and in the outer perimeter or not. And he is basically, if you look at the motion and you read it, he's basically recycled all of the arguments he's been making and lost in the DC Circuit on presidential immunity, right? He's talking about how, he talked about the Blasingame case, He's talked about the fact, the outer perimeter argument,

which is all civil, is not criminal, but he's trying to make an analogy to civil. And then the other thing he recycles is this impeachment judgment clause, that argument that you have to impeach me first and then convict me in the Senate in order for me that argument that you have to impeach me first and then convict me in the Senate in order for me to be able to be criminally prosecuted.

And that argument makes some sense that he would at least make it in the DC circuit case because that was a federal indictment that is a case that he was impeached for and acquitted. But this case in the Manhattan DA's office is about his personal life. This has nothing to do with while he was president. In fact, most of the conduct, the criminal intent

that was formed, I should say, happened prior to him becoming presidency. In fact, the whole reason he did it was to try and steal the presidency frankly was to try and What was to try and suppress information from the voters? So they wouldn't find out about the fact that he was sleeping with Stormy Daniels when he had a newborn at home and was married so

So that's really that's that's that was a personal thing and the thing reason I think this is going to ultimately fail now there's two questions will it succeed and will it delay the case because by delaying the case in some ways that's succeeding the reason I think it'll substantively fail ultimately is he's been making all long arguments that this is personal conduct right he was making this before before there was ever a case he was saying oh this is personal this is personal this has nothing to do with the election. And so when he made, if you remember, Ben,

he went and went to Judge Hellerstein in the United States Southern District Court, right? The district court, federal district court in the southern district of New York. He tried to remove this case, the Alvin Brad case, you know, the federal removal doctrine where you argue that it's not appropriate to prosecute me because this was official acts. I was acting under the color of my authority and I was a federal

officer, etc. And he tried to do that, right, to get it removed to federal court and et cetera, and he tried to do that, right, to get it removed to federal court. And Judge Hellerstein, all these arguments were made already and said, this is personal. You even argued that he was your, that Michael Cohen was your personal lawyer, that he had nothing to do with the campaign, that he had nothing to do with your presidency. This was personal. And so you can't argue two different things in two different places and then think that the judges don't know. So he's already tried to make that argument. So that's why I think he's ultimately going to lose that argument because Judge Hellerstein rejected it.

And then he didn't bring up presidential immunity then. He didn't raise it. So I would argue that he has waived it and That it's already been found to be personal nice try to try to shoehorn it in though now Into this particular grant of cert because that's what he's doing. He's trying to say oh, I'm not delaying This could only happen now because the Supreme Court just recently granted certs an important question You have to delay it. And so that's why he's doing it now.

And he tries to fit in. He tries to kind of shoehorn in what he knows to be personal into official acts by saying things like, well, the Twitter account that I tweeted some stuff out on this. And the prosecutor talked about wanting to use this stuff. But the Twitter stuff was all an official presidential account.

And so therefore it implicates a presidential question. And oh, and by the way, the reporters asked me, we're talking to me and I made public statements on Air Force One, that's presidential. I mean, just because you happen to be president and you're doing things in your personal life, doesn't make it presidential. So I think it's gonna ultimately fail.

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Get this exclusive offer only at legalafbeats.com. Now, will it delay the case? That's another question, right? That's Judge Mershan is going to have to really look at this because the supremacy clause, right, which means the federal government or the federal laws, Trump state laws, the supremacy clause could complicate this. But I would argue that Judge Mershawn is not gonna delay the trial and that he's going to lose on all accounts here.

This has nothing, of all the cases, this truly has nothing to do with his presidency or his candidacy. But with an out of control Supreme Court, it doesn't matter. I mean, and that's what it comes down to. When I saw the Supreme Court grant, certiorari, which I thought they shouldn't do in the first

place, and the Washington DC criminal case for Trump's attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. My first comment to you, Karen, and to our group chat with Popak and others who work at Legal AF was, let me tell you exactly what he's going to do next. He's going to use this in New York to try to delay the Manhattan District Attorney trial and some of our producers and others who work with us go. But what are the grounds? I go, it doesn't even matter. He's just going to use it and say, see, absolute presidential immunity. And I agree with you, Karen. He's going to lose here before Judge Mershan. He's going to lose at whatever the next levels are. But what he's going to do,

and I didn't do a hot take on this earlier, because I didn't wanna be accused of giving his legal team ideas, even though I knew they were going to do this anyway. I didn't want to go, well, Ben, you did a hot take on this, and now Trump's doing it. I knew he would do it anyway. But again, for the sake of being cautious,

I didn't wanna do a hot take. Trump will go to the Supreme Court in the next two weeks. He's going to seek an emergency stay of the trial so that they could at least hear the issues. And I think that the Supreme Court will likely grant a stay of the trial. I think they'll probably say that there should at least be briefing on the issue. They'll have a two to three week briefing period. They may take some time before coming back about whether they will merge this with the other case or not. And I don't know what they, they shouldn't merge this with the April 25th

oral argument that's going to be taking place. But who knows what they'll do. But I could see them to be taking place, but who knows what they'll do. But I could see them actually delaying this case because they're so rogue and they're so out of control. I have to believe that the Supreme Court's going to do the worst possible thing when it comes to our democracy. They've given me no evidence to the contrary. And again, people may be saying, absolute president, what could he possibly be claiming? And Karen, you pointed out essentially another way of saying it is, Trump argues that a lot of the, some of the evidence against him for his coverup

and him trying to, and evidence that he engaged in the criminal conduct before he was in office were statements that he made while he was in office. So imagine somebody robs the bank, right? That's the crime. And then they go into office and they either start bragging about robbing the bank or they start denying that they robbed the bank. Trump's trying to basically say, all of those statements of me saying I didn't rob the bank, that actually cloaks the bank robbery in immunity so I shouldn't be charged with the bank robbery because I denied robbing the bank while I was in office. And that's basically what this is about. I mean, that's what the absolute

presidential immunity claim is. That's why it's so absurd. It shouldn't matter what political party you are. This should be offensive to any concept of common sense and law and order. But that's where we are. That's the filing that Trump just made moments ago. Karen, I'll give you the final word. Yeah, just Ben, I give you a lot of credit. You called this, I mean, you really did. You called it the minute it happened that he's going to use this to delay the case. So for people who watch the Midas Touch

Network and watch Legal AF, you know, we kind of all know a lot of what we're talking about from experience and especially in this particular case, because I worked at the Manhattan DA's office, I'm hoping I can give some of the reveal codes of what's going on and insight into what people are going to be doing that then That's just really impressive that you've gotten you that you've gotten to know Trump's legal antics to the point where you can actually predict exactly what he's going to do even before he does it so Hopefully Judge Mershan will do this quickly and deny it quickly. And I'm hoping that the Supreme Court will just rule that this was clearly, clearly personal and had nothing to do with his presidency, even though he

happened to be president at the time that he wrote some of the checks and falsified some of his personal business records of his personal business. How, uh, how embarrassing to our country. I mean, just embarrassing to our country, embarrassing to law. You know, just I never thought being a go into law school and just even seeing these arguments, you know, that this would ever even be fathomable. But folks, that's why it's important that we just get out the truth, get out the information, make sure we improve everybody's understanding of what these moves are.

We'll keep you updated as we learn more here at the Midas Touch Network. Karen Friedman, Agnifilo will be doing more daily updates on all things, Manhattan District Attorney trial coming up. And so we'll keep you posted there on what that schedule is going to be like. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 3 million subscribers and thank you so much for watching. Have a good one.

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