Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Prosecutors Ready to LAUGH Trump OUT OF COURT and INTO JAIL with his Latest Filing

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

All of the 4 motions just filed by Donald Trump’s lawyers to try to dismiss all or aspects of the DC election criminal case ultimately suffer from the same defect and are fated for certain denial by the federal judge presiding. Michael Popok of Legal AF explains why Department of Justice is not seeking decriminalize speech, focuses it’s indictment only on Donald Trump‘s criminal conduct, and why Trump’s “acquittal“ by the senate related to his impeachment for his involvement in the Jan sixth insurrection, does not undermine the criminal indictment. Go to https://eightsleep.com/legalaf and save $150 on the Pod Cover Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Salesforce, we're all about asking more of AI. Questions like, where's the data going? Is it secure? Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure? Get answers you can trust from Salesforce at AskMoreVai.com. This is Michael Popok, Legal AF. Some of my most enjoyable moments as a legal commentator

for the Midas Touch Network in Legal AF is when Donald Trump's lawyer's vile motions to try to dismiss his indictment somewhere. And they've done it again in a late night flurry of activity split between one of his lawyers, John Loro and as another lawyer, Todd Blanche, they filed not one, not two, not three, but four separate motions, all addressed to Judge Chutkin. Some people might be thinking, why didn't they put it all in one? Because there's a page limit in the federal rules they wanted to avoid the page limit and give themselves even more rope to hang themselves over and over again. The fundamental misconception, intentional, in all four of the

motions, one to dismiss the indictment based on certain statutory grounds, one to dismiss the indictment on constitutional grounds, one to dismiss the indictment because they think it's selective and vindictive prosecution by the prosecutor, and one because they don't want to see any mention of Jan 6 in Syraccia or Riot or attack on the Capitol mentioned in the pleading against Donald Trump. They, the fundamental misconception at the bottom of all of them is that Donald Trump. They the fundamental misconception at the bottom of all of them is that Donald Trump is being prosecuted and the Department of Justice wants to put him in jail for his speech. Let me clarify something now once and for all. That Donald Trump said that the

election was rigged, that he says it in social media, that he says it at rallies, that he says it as ways to try to get reelected is not the heart of the case, nor criminalized by the indictments. First amendment speech to say that you won the election, to say that Joe Biden is a criminal, to say that there was fraud in the election, even if it's wrong, is allowed generally, generally under First Amendment analysis. There are exceptions. In the face of stubborn facts like the security and integrity of an election, certified

by each state secretary of state, supported by the testimony and it relates to elections by the attorney general, by the deputy attorney general, by the White House Council, by the deputy White House Council, by the acting attorney general. And every other person charged constitutionally was securing our election at the state and federal, the state and federal, the state and federal. us counsel by the acting attorney general and every other person charged constitutionally was securing our election at the state and federal level. You can't against all of those facts continue to maintain your own opinion about those facts.

So there's two major problems with all of these motions, which infects all of the motions, and will lead ultimately to Judge Chukkin in my view, to reject them. One, the indictment does not criminalize speech. It criminalizes conduct. Of course, there's speech, unless Donald Trump, along with his co-conspirators, that's listed in the indictment in DC are doing pantomime or charades. They have to speak in order to execute their plan. The plan that was mapped out first in the Jan 6th Committee report and the five and six

links of the chain starting with the, you know, starting with the pressure campaign on the, on the each state, the battleground states, election and elected officials, fake and phony legislative hearings, fake and phony, alternate slate of electors and the use of them, the pressure campaign on Mike Pence and when all else failed, of course, either starting the Jan 6 inurrection and using it to try to overthrow democracy, which is the Jan 6 committees view or at least in the indictment by Jack Smith using the benefit of the firestorm created by Jan 6 as a way to take advantage of that to continue to cling to power so chaos Right so entropy I take advantage of it to try to stay

in office. All of that, of course, there's speech related to it when you tell somebody to do something, when you tell Mark Meadows to do something or you tell one of the lawyers that works for you, like a Giuliani and Eastman, a Jenna Ellis, a Sydney Powell, a Ken Chessbro the last three, all Trump lawyers now convicted criminals. They're speech involved. But, but to make it clear and to pull the mask off this argument that's repeated over and over again in all four motions, the indictment in DC, the indictment in Georgia against Donald Trump does not attempt to put him in jail for the things he said. It puts him in jail if they're successful for the things that he did to try to overthrow democracy and violate existing criminal statutes and conspiracy statutes that are on the books

already. See, that's the dilemma for prosecutors, right? You have to take the crime that happened, the fact pattern of the conduct that happened and then find criminal statutes that it fits. You don't get the luxury of creating a new federal statute, a new federal criminal statute that perfectly fits the crime. You have to map the elements onto crimes that already exist. That's fair notice. That's due process. My person has to be on notice that what he is doing is criminal. It already has to be on the books. And that's what we watch with the mapping of the indictment and the federal crimes on to the conduct that was observed. But time and time again in every motion, that was

filed. For instance, the motion to dismiss the indictment based on statutory grounds and memorandum in support. You know what's missing from this? Any kind of correlated map between the allegations of the indictment on conduct of Donald Trump and the statutory elements. Instead, it's just two thirds of it is just free speech, free speech. He's allowed to hold his own opinion. They even go so far in this particular motion, which I found to be the most calling as to say that Donald Trump gets to have his own facts that there is no, for instance, that there is no proof that there wasn't election

fraud. Prove it to me, that there was an election fraud that was outcome determinative. They act like they don't know what outcome determinative means, even though all reasonable people do. That means there is fraud in every election, but not enough to overcome the electoral and popular vote advantage of Joe Biden in the last election period. And particularly they say that there aren't, there's only a few government officials who told Donald Trump it was their opinion that he lost wrong.

Every state official who certified the election for Joe Biden, every elector who signed the certificate, every court and there were 60, 60 of them, state and federal, your head of cybersecurity, your attorney general, your White House counsel, deputy White House counsel, and so on. all-told Donald Trump that he lost. Facts are a stubborn thing. With my active recording schedule and law practice, I can't function without a great night's sleep. And the bed's temperature in my old bed always seemed wrong.

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Now shipping within the US, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU and Australia. The other argument, besides the loser argument that this is some sort of gag order and that Donald Trump gets to have his own opinion about fake and fraudulent electors, even in the face of facts that tell him otherwise, is the argument that there's a double jeopardy problem or there's an impeachment problem. And let me just, that just shows you they don't understand the lawyers for Donald Trump, neither double jeopardy nor impeachment. For example, double jeopardy means in general that you can't be prosecuted for a crime twice. Right?

It has to go all the way to a to a to jeopardy, meaning you've been indicted, and there's a trial. And then unless if you are acquitted, there's a jury verdict, you can't be tried again. If you got convicted, you're convicted, if you're acquitted, you're acquitted. If it's a hung jury, you can be tried again on charges that they never reached a verdict on.

The double jeopardy argument here is Donald Trump was already tried by the Senate in impeachment and therefore can't be tried again. Okay. Jack Smith very carefully drafted his indictment in a way that sort of annoyed some of us when we saw it because we said, why didn't he put in there the Jan 6 riot, the Jan 6 riot. We know that Donald Trump was responsible for it and he lit the fuse. He pointed that, that weapon of his angry mob and pointed them and if they'll minted them

right at the Capitol and fired them at the elected officials who were vulnerable, Capitol police and Metro police. And we know what happened with the carnage on our cradle democracy. When in the indictment was written, Jack Smith very craftily said, Donald Trump took advantage of the Jansick's insurrection, not that he caused it. Why? One working theory that we came up with on a legal AF with Karen Friedman, Ignifalo, it was to avoid a double jeopardy argument. The Senate did try the impeachment of Donald Trump on whether he caused the riot and the Senate, of course, controlled at the time by Republicans, acquitted Donald Trump of that.

The House controlled by the Democrats. They're the prosecutors. They indicted Donald Trump, if you will, that he caused the riot. That's the impeachment with the articles of impeachment related to the riot. Articles of impeachment then get tried in the Senate, right? They're impeached in the House, tried in the Senate. And just to remind everybody, in order to, the things were already late, were in February, February of 2022, by this point, by the time we got around to the trial.

And there was going to be more delay and they were fighting over witnesses. Should there be witnesses or not witnesses and finally the Democrats and the managers of the impeachment process, including Jamie Raskin said, we'll skip the live witnesses. You can read all the transcripts from the trial below, from the impeachment process below, and let's just get right to the arguments and get to a vote of the Senate. And then, you know, because the Republicans controlled it, 54 to whatever, he was acquitted on the riot. So a good argument would be that if you want to read the Constitution in a certain way, that he can't be tried again

on the riot issue because it was already tried once in the Senate. I have another argument, which is the Senate and impeachment and trial is different than our criminal justice system and a president who was rogue, which Donald Trump obviously was, can be the subject of a criminal indictment even on the same facts. But rather than test that theory, Jackson Smith eliminated that from the indictment. So they keep arguing he was already tried. He was not tried, Donald Trump, on all of the conspiracies and statutory crimes that are at the heart of this indictment in DC.

So cross that off the board, right, do process, or double jeopardy off the board, or that the impeachment process somehow lets him off the board or that the impeachment process somehow lets him off the hook now under the criminal process. In fact, even Mitch McConnell said at the time, well, that's well, we have criminal laws. Criminal laws can take care of a rogue president, even if we don't do it here in the Senate. Right. I agree with that. So, the fact that he was acquitted by the Senate on the riot does not mean that they

can't prosecute him now. That is a loser argument that will lose at the DC Court of Appeals. And all the way up, I believe even to this US Supreme Court. The other motion that was brought was on Jan 6th as well, recognizing that he was not almost conceding that the double jeopardy argument doesn't work that I just outlined. The lawyers for Donald Trump, and let's see who signed this one, John Loro just came to the case in August,

his six-page motion here to strike inflammatory allegations in the indictment. They don't like the indictment, which is not evidence, by the way. Yeah, the jury gets a take a look at it, but it's not evidence. The evidence is the burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt. And it's and Jack Smith has that burden at trial. But they don't want they don't like that indictment out there. They want to get rid of that. They're saying, see, we weren't indicted for Gen 6, right? And why is there even a mention of Gen 6, right? Because a it happened,

it's a historical fact that the jury should know about. It is the culmination of his clinging to power. And even Jack Smith, even though he didn't credit or try to indict Donald Trump for causing Gen six, he said he and his followers used Gen six to their advantage, right? Got behind the chaos of Gen 6 to take advantage of it to continue to cling to power. It's part of the narrative is important to the history of the case. It's important to the US history

and how the history is written here. And it belongs in the indictment, but not according to John Loro. He doesn't like it, it's inflammatory, it's terrible. Why mention it? Don't tell the jury about it. As if the jury is like Rip fan winkle who lived under a rock And has no idea what we're talking about when we're picking a jury. So I think that

That loses as well and the selective and vindictive prosecution. I don't even understand Jack Smith brought the indictment within less than a year after he became special counsel It's a record time for four conspiracy counts and one former president as the defendant. To say that he's doing it in a rush to judgment in order interfere with the election, no, he's trying to get a criminal to trial, a, because the public has a right to know whether Donald Trump is a convicted criminal, or he's acquitted by a jury, prior to them voting for the man for the highest office in the land. And to be the leader of the free world, it's a good thing. All the judges, even the one in Florida believes he should be tried before the election. And so to say it's been a discriminatory

and selectively prosecuted, right? And why are they going after him for using fake electors? There's been seven elections at which there's been alternate slate of electors, not like this one. Now with a phony group of electors who were induced to sign the certificates under the guise that they would only be used

after a federal judge or a judge allowed it and they were used Anyway, right? This is why Ken Chesbroche is pled guilty in Georgia because they were used anyway and sent to Mike Pence in a pressure campaign for him to bang his head and go I can't figure out which one are the real electors the one for Donald Trump or the one from every state certified by the Secretary of State of the governor, big wax seal on it that says Joe Biden, I don't know what to do, I'm going to throw it over to the House, or I'm going to throw it over to each state house and the Republicans dominate the state houses and so Donald Trump by a boat of the state houses would have won the election.

That is what they were trying to do. And so to say, he's allowed, Donald Trump's allowed to promote an alternate slate of electors, not in the face of true electors. There's no such thing as an alternate slate of electors. You have an alternate slate of electors that stops to exist in the universe as soon as the real electors are certified. Then the ones that wanted to vote for the guy who lost, they don't become an alternate slate of electors. They become non-electors.

And that is the problem. So all four of these motions, I know the big press was last gaspeffer Donald Trump tried to dismiss the indictment and four big motions. There's going to be four opposition papers filed by Jack Smith's team in in seriata, min short order in front of judge Chuck. And she'll there'll be one more replicator reply brief. That'll be Trump's to have. He gets the last word and then she'll hold the hearing or she doesn't have to federal judges don't have to hold hearings. They can do everything on the papers. And then she'll rule. I'm sure against all of these motions. And if Donald Trump doesn't like it, he can take her up on appeal. It's not

going to stop the trial in March. He's not going to get the DC court of appeals to stop the trial already scheduled for March. That is a freight train without a break that is heading for the March date red circled on the calendar. And that's it. And he's going to trial. And if the DC circuit court of appeals wants to do it on an expedited basis, they can have at it. And the Supreme's even though they're mag a right so far on issues that matter to the Republic about the president and former president, they don't side with Donald Trump. And I'm not expecting them to do it here. We'll continue to follow filings by Donald Trump's lawyers wherever they may be.

And at whatever time in the middle of the night they are, one place, the Midas Touch YouTube channel right here where you're watching me here, exclusively here. We tied all together in hot takes like this one, the leaders of legal AF, Karen Friedman, McNiflo Ben, my Salis, me, Michael Popok, and then we have the podcast legal AF. It is what you think. Every Wednesday and Sunday night at 8 p.m.

Eastern time and then on audio podcasts wherever you can find them. Give me a thumbs up if you like this particular hot take and until my next hot take until my next legal AF. This is Michael Pope, reporting. Hey, Midas Mighty. Love this report. Continue the conversation by following us on Instagram. AtmitusTouch to keep up with the most important news of the day. What are you waiting for? Follow us now.