Legal AF by MeidasTouch - NY Judge REJECTS Trump’s FINAL ATTEMPT to Save Himself

Episode Date: July 26, 2024

In a breaking story, NY Supreme Court Justice Engoron DENIED Trump’s transparent and bad faith effort to have the judge removed from the case to try to overturn the Judge’s $465 million civil fraud judgment against Trump. Michael Popok explains it all on his latest hot take. Soul: Go to https://GetSoul.com and use code LEGALAF to get 30% OFF your order! Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF 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 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 Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Michael Popak, Legal AF. Let me not bury the lead. Judge Angoran, who presided over the $465 million judgment against Donald Trump and found him to have committed persistent fraud for 10 years in New York, running his organization and running his businesses, is not going to disqualify himself. He's not going to remove himself from the case or fine.

That recusal, which is what we call it sometimes, is appropriate after Donald Trump filed a motion. We just got a new order, a new decision in order from Judge Angoran, and I'm going to break it all down for you right here. This is also a teachable moment for those that are lawyers or considering going to law school. If you are, let me tell you what you shouldn't do using the model of Mr. Adam Bailey, who's in deep trouble based on this particular decision because in the order, the judge said that Mr. Bailey has defamed him, has been unethical, has lied about him, and has committed professional misconduct.

This is a lawyer that nobody ever heard of because he's not affiliated with the case in any way. He's not affiliated with Donald Trump purportedly in any way. He's not hired by him. He's not a lawyer in the case. He's not a client in the case. He's not a party to the case. He's not involved with the case. So why am I even talking about Mr. Bailey? Because Mr. Bailey is an interloper who stuck his big fat professional nose in the middle of his case in order to get publicity. And then after he had this 90 second, this is the judge's word in his order, I'm going to read it to you,

92nd interaction with Mr. Bailey that he found wholly unpleasant, in which Bailey harangued him and criticized him inappropriately because the judge hadn't yet issued the decision in order in February of 2023 against Donald Trump. That hadn't come out yet. Trump's side argued, oh, Bailey, Bailey, you had an interaction with Bailey who we never heard of. You must't come out yet. Trump's side argued, oh Bailey, Bailey, you had an

interaction with Bailey who we never heard of. You must be influenced by Bailey. Well, there's a problem with that. The problem is Bailey was promoting Donald Trump's position. He was advocating for Donald Trump. He wasn't advocating for the New York Attorney General's office. He was wrong. He misinterpreted the law that's applicable. He's not a party to the case, but this is not grounds that a squalifier recuse. And here's the teachable moment. If you run into a judge and the judge has not yet issued an order and you know he's presiding over a case, don't try to start a conversation with the judge about the case where he hasn't yet issued his final order or when the case has not yet gone through appeals. And better yet, don't go and bust in on the judge

while he's putting on his robe in his roving room, which is what it sounds like, the place where judges put on and take off their black robes. And if you don't like the response, don't, as the judge is trying to get away from you, don't chase the judge and stalk the judge down a judge's exit,

which is exclusively for judges in a courtroom. Because if you do all that, you might be found to have committed professional misconduct and you might get a bar referral to the grievance committee for your bar license. That's where we're at. That's why this hot day is going to be a lot about Mr. Bailey and not a lot about the analysis around the recusal or the disqualification because that was never, that was never on solid ground. And it was, and Donald Trump knew it. Or as the judge said in his footnote in this order, I'm going to read from you, he said, this is not about you believing there was really an ethical conflict or an ethical

issue that had arisen. This is about Donald Trump trying to change the outcome, the trajectory of the case. And how does the judge know that? Because the party that Mr. Bailey was lobbying on behalf of was not the New York Attorney General, it was Donald Trump. And yet Donald Trump's the one that wants to get rid of him. That explains everything. What kind of night is it? Is it a single? Double. A triple? I'm not talking about alcohol. I'm talking about Sol's out-of- of Office microdose THC gummies in three strengths, plus no hangover. Out of Office gummies come in 1.5 milligram, three milligram and six milligram doses

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Let me read to you what happened here. Let me just frame it quick, timeline. There is the filing by the New York attorney general under a very specific body of law in New York or it's called 63-12 of the executive laws, which gives the attorney general tremendous amount of power to go after business fraud in New York, the business capital of the world, makes a lot of sense.

Also empowers the judge, not a jury, to go through and sift through all of the facts and make a decision in order about whether there's been persistent fraud in New York. That's exactly what they did over a three-month period. A three-month period that then concluded right before the holidays, and it took the judge several months,

you know, 80, 90 days or so, to put together his decision and order and find against Donald Trump and all the Trumpers for over $465 million. In February, a couple of weeks before the judge issued his order, Bailey, like a bad penny, goes after the judge and attacks the judge, then goes to the media on purpose in order to get his 15 minutes of infamy and argues to try to suggest, as the judge pointed out, he has some sort of influence over the judge. He's some sort of Angoran whisperer, which would be valuable to this guy, even though he's a landlord-tenant lawyer representing landlords and tenants in commercial or residential

disputes about leases, which has nothing to do with this case. He fancied himself to be an expert on the persistent fraud law in New York, and he was wrong. So he goes after him. The judge then issues his decision at order, doesn't mention the 92nd interaction, the nutty one with Mr. Bailey, the unprofessional one with Mr. Bailey, the comments that Mr. Bailey made to the media, which were false and defamatory. How do I know that? Judge Angoran said they were, which is always a bad place to be as a lawyer. When the judge in his own decision calls you out for being unprofessional, having committed ethical misconduct and being defamatory against him, this is not going to go well for you. My next hot take, let's say. So here's what the judge ruled in his order,

which we have right off the presses here. And the judge said, here's how he described the quote, unsolicited ex parte communication, meaning, well, I'm not even sure if frankly it was ex parte. I think what he meant was it was an interaction he had with somebody that wasn't a party to the case and it was about a case and not in the courtroom. I think that it's more like extra judicial, but the judge called it ex parte.

Here's what he said. He said, I was leaving my roving room in the courthouse, this is page two of eight, at the courthouse at 60 Center Street and I rode an elevator down to the main floor. There on the outskirts of the rotunda, that's the famous lobby of the building, Bailey accosted, this is Adam Bailey, accosted and started haranguing me about the executive law that he was going to make the decision about. He did not relay any alleged facts, so he didn't know anything. He didn't inject new information. He just started spouting off about the executive law. On executive law, the judge has spent three and a half years studying in the very case

that he was talking about. The judge said on page two again, prior to that time, I considered Bailey a professional acquaintance and a distant friend, heavy emphasis on the word distant. This is where the judge takes great umbrage. Basically that Bailey abused whatever goodwill that he had from being a quote unquote distant friend and decided he was going to cross all sorts of appropriate ethical boundaries and start lecturing and hectoring the judge about a ruling that he hadn't yet made in a case that he wasn't even involved with. He said, his sudden appearance, Bailey's sudden appearance in the face of the judge and his vehement speech took me back. This is the judge again. And I simply told him he was wrong.

He trailed after me, still droning on, sounds like stalking, as I descended the judge's stairs to the street level. All right. At this point, if you're Bailey, you see the judge heading for the judge's stairs to the street level. All right. At this point, if you're Bailey, you see the judge heading for the judge's exit and you're not a judge, you've probably gone too far, don't you think? Then he got into his car and left. He said, the judge referred to this as an unpleasant experience, one that he did not enjoy. Then he gave the ultimate New Yorker dig to Bailey and put him in his place. He basically said, I deal as a judge with complicated, complex commercial litigation and I know what I'm talking about. You sir are nothing more than a landlord tenant lawyer. My apologies by the way to people that practice in landlord tenant law, but this is the way the judge meant it. The judge meant it like, you are a lowly lawyer who handles, I don't know,

residential or commercial leases and I'm up here. Technically, the judge is up there and on the bench and is the person presiding over the case. Here's what the judge said on page two, that to stick it to Bailey, he says, I certainly did not need a landlord tenant lawyer ranting about it. I did not initiate, welcome, encourage, engage in, or learn from, much less enjoy Bailey's tirade. Then he said that he did not base his ruling on any part of it. Here's where the professional misconduct comes in. Bailey has outlandishly, mistakenly, and defamatorily claimed to the media. He did not have any impact on my rulemaking. It was a 90-second interaction.

It was, as the judge likes to say, a nothing burger, but one that unethically and illegally Bailey has nonetheless publicly boasted about. This is why this hot take quickly has become all about Bailey and his professional misconduct because the judge isn't going anywhere and Trump didn't provide any case law or facts that support a finding that the judge had an appearance of impropriety by this interaction or his failure to report it. The judge called out Trump and said, the guy was lobbying on your behalf, not on behalf of the New York attorney general, and they're not upset with him, and they're not trying to get rid of me. So it can't be about ethics. It's got to be about you trying to change the outcome and trajectory of this case. And

the judge went through all the case law and said, I know the case law for recusal. I know for disqualification what's required, and none of the tests have been met here. And then the judge takes on Donald Trump and calls out his quote unquote evidence for what it is. And his evidence consisted according to the judge on page five, says the defendants, that's Trump, cite to an array of opinion editorials and blogs. Oh, blogs are always good for support. From the Wall Street Journal, from the National Review, from Newsmax, from New York Post, from YouTube videos, I don't think my hot ticks, and the Volokh conspiracy critiquing this court's legal rulings, which defendants collectively use as

quote unquote evidence that this court's final judgment had certainly imperiled public confidence. The judge says, I already ruled once before that editorial opinions in New York papers or otherwise that denounce the plaintiff's case are irrelevant and have no evidentiary value. So get them out of my courtroom. The judge then surgically dismantled every case cited by Donald Trump and said these cases are also not only factually completely distinguishable from what happened here in this 90-second interaction that I didn't like, I didn't ask for, I didn't use. But in most of the cases, it went against you.

In other words, the judge was not recused. So I don't understand why you're citing them. And then he says on page six to judge, finally, defendants emphasize their claim that this court based on public reporting is also now apparently under investigation by the Commission on Judicial Conduct. However, the judge said, the commission has not contacted me, nor am I aware of any such investigation. An unsubstantiated allegation of an investigation cannot require disqualification. I'd go further, judge. I think them claiming that without a good faith basis for it is an ethical violation in and of itself in attacking the judiciary. You should look into that.

And then the court goes on to say that he is supremely confident in his ability to serve and to be impartial. And this is where Bailey gets in trouble again. Because the judge says in denying the second relief that Donald Trump was seeking, which was, well, if you're not gonna recuse yourself, give us an evidentiary hearing, like a mini trial in front of another judge and we'll put on evidence.

Now, the judge already gave them what they wanted a month ago and I did a hot take on it. They wanted a subpoena of all the communications between Bailey and the judge about this issue. Well, they wanted a bigger subpoena, a broader subpoena, but the judge gave them, sure, I don't have any of those. Go to Bailey. Bailey doesn't have any of those either, but you want to go rooting around, looking at Bailey's files, and have him produce all documents of communications between the two of us about this case?

Go ahead, have at it. There's nothing. How do I know there's nothing? Because Donald Trump didn't file anything. He didn't mention anything. He didn't raise anything. It's not in support of his motion in any way. It's not filed on the court docket,

which means it doesn't exist. And so the judge says, I'm not giving you an evidentiary hearing. I gave you a subpoena and asked to Mr. Bailey, you cite to case law, Mr. Trump, that you think you're entitled to an evidentiary hearing in order to cross examine witnesses. That's only for the lawyer

who's accused of professional misconduct. And there's only one lawyer who's been accused of professional misconduct, and that's Mr. Bailey by Judge Angoran in this particular decision, saying that the judge says, I've been defamed by this bar member. This bar member has lied about me in our interaction. This bar member has crossed the line of professional conduct and has moved into misconduct, and only he would have the right and have standing to cross-examine witnesses because of moved into misconduct and only he would have the right and have standing to cross examine witnesses because of his professional misconduct. I'll

go one better. I don't know if it's happened, but the judge certainly has the right to drop a dime and as do anybody that's a member of the bar there or otherwise, member of the public, drop a dime on Mr. Bailey and argue to his grievance committee, his disciplinary committee, that there has been a violation by him of him trying to act like he's the Angoron whisperer. He's the judge influencer. He's got judges in his pocket. He gets to talk to them and tell them his opinion and they use it in his decision

when that's all a big fat lie, according to Judge Angoron. And so he's potentially in deep hot water. Donald Trump, he's not getting out of this case. Judge Trump? He's not getting out of this case. Judge Angoran is not getting out of this case. And if Donald Trump doesn't like it, which he won't, he can go file another motion or another appeal with the appellate division first department, where I practice, who's already hearing the appeal on the amount of money and whether persistent fraud was appropriately found by Judge Angoran. They can argue Judge Angoran should have accused himself and bring up the same ridiculous stitch together of vlogs and hot takes and YouTube clips and whatever else is masquerading as

evidence in their motion. It will get rejected. Here's my prediction. There is an exactly 0% chance that Donald Trump's going to get Judge Engar on off this case. So we'll continue to follow it all right here and all the developments right here on the Midas Touch Network and particularly on Legal AF every Wednesday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern time right here on the Midas Touch Network. You can free subscribe and watch us on YouTube as we do the podcast where we take the top four or five stories, the intersection of law

and politics, and we bring it together with you for you right here. Wednesdays, I do it with Karen Friedman at Knitfulo. Saturday with Ben Mycelis, it's lawyers talking about things at the intersection of law and politics. They know what they're talking about. How refreshing. Right here, uncensored. Nobody tells us what to say right here on the MidasTouch Network. So until my next hot take, until my next Legal AF, this is Michael Popak reporting. Heary, heary, Legal AF Law Breakdown is now in session. Go beyond the headlines and get a deep dive into the important legal concepts you need to know and we discuss every day on Legal AF. Exclusive content you won't find anywhere else, all for the price of a couple of cups of coffee.

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