Legal AF by MeidasTouch - New Criminal CONVICTION is BRUTAL SIGN for Trump

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

Look out Trump you may be looking at a 16 year sentence in the Mar a Lago case. Michael Popok explains how the conviction of a former air national guardsman for the same Espionage Act violations for retaining classified national defense information (less sensitive than Trump’s) led to a conviction and recommended 16 year sentence. Head to https://TryFum.com/legalaf and use code LEGALAF to save 10% off when you get the journey pack today! 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

This is Michael Popak with the Legal AF Hot Take. Is Donald Trump looking down a barrel of 16 years in prison for violating the Espionage Act for his retention of national defense information at Mar-a-Lago and hiding it willfully, criminally from the government, from the National Archive, from the Department of Justice, from federal judges? Why 16 years?

Well, let's use a comparator, somebody that was indicted right around the same time as Donald Trump is Jack Tashara. Jack Tashara, a former Massachusetts Air National Guardsman who decided he wanted to brag to his buddies who were gamers inside of the Discord gaming platform and decided to share with them national defense information material he got

with his with his security clearance related to Ukraine and its air defenses, South Korea and its anxiety over ammunition levels, the Israeli Mossad and China. And because he wanted to show off to the boys, a lot of them teenagers, but there's no defense for there's no gaming platform showing off to your buddy's defense under the Espionage Act. And now Jack Tashara has pled guilty, pled guilty to counts of felony for violation

of the Espionage Act, the very same counts against Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago for his national defense information, failure to turn over with knowledge, with criminal intent, his national defense information. He has even more sensitive, classified, top secret information in his pile that he refused to return, Donald Trump,

than this poor Massachusetts 22-year-old national guardsman. classified top secret information in his pile that he refused to return. Donald Trump in this poor Massachusetts 22-year-old national guardsman. I mean, Donald Trump, may I remind everybody, was the president of the United States at one point? It was the president of the United States. And in addition to being the president, he had loads of documents related to national defense information, which is the heart of the Espionage Act, which just requires that you have retained NDI and that you have disseminated it willfully and transmitted it. You don't have to benefit from it.

The fact that Jack Tashara, you know, his street cred went up with his buddies. Didn't matter. That's not an element of Espionage Act, nor is it against Donald Trump. Donald Trump has to worry now that the espionage case is very strong against him. And if he tries to argue vindictive or selective prosecution by the prosecutors, how does he explain Airman, former Airman, Jack Tashara? Okay, he got prosecuted for retaining willfully national defense information at a lesser degree than even Donald Trump's and is now going to jail

for a recommended sentence of 16 years. He mean, the guy got indicted. He got caught in April. He got indicted in June. Right? And, you know, this is a perfect comparator for Donald Trump, because Donald Trump is not Jack Tashara. He's worse. The sheer volume of the information, the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, the dozens of boxes containing NDI that was retained by Donald Trump and his attempt to criminally hide it. I mean, Tashara did some things too.

He tried to hide it and down, you know, and delete his conversations and chats on the Discord platform. Try to do some other stuff when he thought he was gonna be caught, you know, the old, oh, I did an auto set on my phone, you know, how did that factory reset? How'd that happen? Yeah. Well, Donald Trump's got his own problems.

Donald Trump, of course, misled his lawyers, including Evan Corcoran, to compel them unwittingly or not to lie to the Federal Department of Justice prosecutors, ultimately, to a magistrate judge, to a grand jury who issued the original subpoena. He tried to hide the documents from issued the original subpoena. He tried to hide the documents from the government before the search warrant. He changed a lock on a door that had always been under lock and key by the secret service right before the execution of the search warrant. He was told by his lawyers that if he did not properly now respond to the subpoena

and didn't turn over all the documents he knows to exist within Moralago or through a reasonable search that he should know, know or should know that they exist, he will be committing a crime, which completely defeats any good faith or innocence or reliance on counsel type defense. Not that Donald Trump has a conscience. I mean, everything that we've seen about him, he looks to be not only a pathological liar, but he seems to be a sociopath. And a sociopath isn't gonna read what I just told you about

with Jack Desheris and say, oh shit, he's gonna say, well, it's not me. I don't know that, that Eric Coriman, that's the weaponized Department of justice going after the poor kid. All he wanted to do was show off for the gamers and tell them all about Ukraine, all about their air defense system. All he was doing is telling strangers about the anxieties of one of our allies about how much ammunition they had against North Korea, just revealing Chinese secrets.

about how much ammunition they had against North Korea, just revealing Chinese secrets, Donald Trump did more. And if this doesn't lead to a wake-up call for Judge Aileen Cannon, the federal judge overseeing and presiding over the case in Mar-a-Lago, to have her deny any kind of motion to dismiss that's been brought by Donald Trump about the Espionage Act claims. I don't know what is.

You've got a Massachusetts grand jury that indicted, a Massachusetts unrelated U.S. Attorney's office that prosecuted, and lawyers for Tashara that saw the writing on the wall. This guy was dead to rights. And he has confessed and pled guilty to avoid a lengthy trial in which he would certainly be convicted and to try to get the judge to give to give him leniency. Ever tried to break a bad habit and felt like you're climbing Mount Everest in flip flops? Yeah, we've been there too. But here's the breath of fresh air, fume. It's not about giving up, it's about switching up. Fume takes your bad habit and simply

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You can spin your fume around on it, start the year off right with the good habit by going to tryfume.com slash legal af and getting the journey pack today. Fume is giving listeners of the show 10% off when they use my code legal af to help make starting the good habit that much easier. Start the good habit at tryfume.com slash legal af to save 10% off the journey pack today. Look at the amount of time that he took. He took 16 years.

The guy's gonna be like 40 when he gets out of jail because of this. Now, what does Donald Trump thinks happens? If this trial can get up and running before the November election. Let's assume the November election goes in a way that we didn't anticipate and Trump somehow restores the Trump presidency.

All bets are off at Mar-a-Lago if that trial hasn't happened or if it's not completed. Now if we get the jury verdict, he's got a big problem. Even Judge Cannon is gonna have to look at the comparator of Jack Tashara and say, jury just convicted you of a vespionage act. How do I give less than 16 years at that point? And that's what Donald Trump is worried about.

That's why he's trying to move heaven in hell or hell in hell, to get the trial delayed, to see if he can get to the point of the finish line and win the election. The American electorate can of course cut off that defense by sending him back and packing back to New York or Florida or wherever he's gonna reside. But right now, this takeaway from the hot take is gotta be Aspenaj Act serious business along with the obstruction case

that's pled against Donald Trump and the other co-defendants in the case at Mar-a-Lago and if we can just get a judge Maybe being replaced if the 11th Circuit will replace Judge Cannon Which in other hot takes another analysis of legal AF we've talked about Then this case has a hope of going to trial before the summer. Otherwise the only hope we have It's like Star Wars. the only hope we have, Obi-Wan, is to have the DC election case set after the Supreme Court rules in April. Now, look, we just had a Supreme Court that decided today basically nine zero on the issue of

Congress has to make a further decision before somebody can be disqualified from the ballot, despite the literal language of the 14th Amendment, Section 3, insurrectionist disqualification clause. And so the usual suspects lined up, really a decision led by John Roberts, joined by Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, Alito and Thomas with Katanji Brown-, Sotomayor, and Kagan standing opposed, but not on the issue that states can't themselves take somebody off the ballot. It's a federal issue for some federal entity. They all agreed on that. That doesn't mean, however, just to manage expectations that we're going to lose, democracy is going to lose on the issue of whether, like, say, presidential immunity applies to allow a person in the office of the presidency to commit crimes and not have, uh, and then be able to use the immunity

defense after they leave office to stop prosecution. I don't think it means that we'll see, we'll watch. And if that happens, that ruling happens by the Supreme Court sometime in May. There's time for Judge Chut going to get that case back up and running and have a completely finished, tried and jury verdict, thumbs up, thumbs down, right, convicted or exonerated by a jury before the November 5th election. That could happen. We'll continue to follow it one place. Midas Touch Network and Legal AF on a show we cheekily refer to as Legal AF.

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And all because of you. So until my next hot take, until my next legal AF. This is Michael Popak reporting. Love this video. Make sure you stay up to date on the latest breaking news and all things Midas by signing up to the Midas Touch newsletter at MidasTouch.com slash newsletter.