Legal AF by MeidasTouch - SLOPPY Judge Cannon’s Latest Move FINAL STRAW for Prosecutors

Episode Date: March 23, 2024

Will Judge Cannon’s latest fundamental blunder to have the JURY decide the law that applies and NOT THE JUDGE lead to her REMOVAL from the Trump espionage/obstruction criminal case known as “Mar a Lago” or not? Michael Popok explains the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals’ “lemon law” and how it could be applied here to get her off the case and the case tried before Election Day. Head to https://policygenius.com/legalaf to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. 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

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Only $6 at A&W's in Ontario. Experience A&W's classic breakfast on now. Dine in only until 11 a.m. Kathleen Cannon inexplicably not announcing a trial date and raising eyebrows tonight with new directions just given to the prosecutors and Trump's team. Out front now, Ty Cobb, the former Trump White House lawyer.

And Ty, I know that you have been focused on this new order by Judge Cannon this week. Tell me what stands out to you about it and why you think Jack Smith could actually have a remove from the case because of this order. Yeah, this is a remarkable misunderstanding of the applicable law. It's embarrassing. You know, she's been struggling so dramatically in this case ever since the start when she was,

she butchered the special master's decision and the 11th circuit took her to task for it. This is a totally baffling position. First, she appears to believe that the Presidential Records Act is actually consequential in the case, which it is not. This is an espionage act case. This is not a Presidential records violation act case. This is the theory that Trump has the ability to designate classified material

as personal records is absurd on its fix. There is no legal support for that, but she has put Jack Smith in a position of trying to draft jury instructions in advance that would posit that question to the jury. I think that it is such a fundamental error and it is so reflective of bias, that it does provide a basis, not a dispositive basis,

but it does provide a basis for seeking her recusal. This is Michael Popak with the Legal AF Hot Take when a Trump lawyer in Ty Cobb who worked in the White House for Donald Trump, picked by Donald Trump, comes out swinging against federal judge Aileen Cannon, calling her basically incompetent and that she's purposefully,

or at least from an incompetent standpoint making a mockery of justice down in Florida in the Mar-a-Lago espionage prosecution against Donald Trump. You know things are going terribly for Donald Trump. Don't be fooled by Donald Trump's false bravado in his public statements and those of his lackeys around him like Alina Jaba and Stephen Chung and others. He's in a serious world of hurt

when it relates to the Mar-a-Lago case. And now the question that's been posited by many people and now including former Trump White House counsel Ty Cobb is whether enough is enough, whether Jack Smith now has the ability based on some recent rulings I'll discuss here on this hot take by Aileen Cannon has the right now and the grounds to go to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals

that sits in Atlanta that is ultimately Aileen Cannon's boss because she's a district court judge in the Southern District of Florida to have her removed or recused from the case. The 11th circuit has what I've humorously referred to as a lemon law. Three major mistakes by a judge on a case is usually grounds to have them removed. I've had Judge Ludig, a well-respected, Federalist society, constitutional scholar, former appellate judge on and interviewed him. And his view without having that much background

in Mar-a-Lago was that it's very difficult. And I agree with getting a judge removed, but haven't we reached that point yet? And that is what Ty Cobb, Donald Trump's lawyer, now major critic, is suggesting. It starts, and I'll bring you up to speed on what happened recently, but it starts for those that are kind of new to this, with Aileen Cannon, a relatively inexperienced federal court judge in an area where I

practice down in Florida as well, who had only been on the bench less than a year, most of that during COVID. She tried very few cases. She had only a handful of trial days under her belt when she got assigned this case in a rural backwater division of the Southern District of Florida up in Fort Pierce, Florida. And so not the person that you would have if you're picking your, your most experienced jurist to handle the case, somebody like Celia Atenaga, the chief justice or chief judge of the Southern District of Florida, I could name more than a dozen judges better qualified in the Southern District of Florida handle this case, but the wheel, which was a little cockeyed

because of the fact that it was filed up in that division up by Mara Lago in Florida, spun and landed on Aileen Cannon, a Marco Rubio appointee who'd been a member of the Federalist Society. I'm not holding that particularly against her, but very inexperienced. And there's only one way to interpret her conduct. It's that she's trying to intentionally delay the case

in order to avoid having a Trump trial on espionage counts, criminal trial, before the November election. I mean, there's no other way to put it. Every other judge that's handled a case, every judge that's handled a case involving Donald Trump, state or federal, around the country has properly set briefing schedules, pretrial schedules, and trial schedules so that the American people get what they're entitled to under our constitution,

which is public justice. Public justice that we know in a transparent way how things are happening and why they're happening. The problem is even on legal AF, and with an analyst like this, an analysis like this, we can't explain to you. And that's a problem. What's going on?

The fact that I as over a 30 year practitioner can't look you in the eye, having practiced in federal courts my entire life, and tell you what is happening with any certainty based on my reading of every motion that's been filed in front of her, every order that she's issued, every non-order that she's issued should tell you something. And what Ty Cobb is saying, and it's important, is that she has a fundamental misapprehension and misunderstanding of the law concerning the indictment that she's presiding over.

This is an espionage act case, as Ty Cobb so properly put. This is an obstruction of justice case. This is not a presidential records act case. And the presidential records act does not give any defense to Donald Trump's alleged indicted conduct. There's no other way to put it. His holding a Q clearance, security clearance from the energy department

upon his leaving the White House doesn't help. Okay, doesn't undermine or provide a defense that would go to a jury through a proper application of the law by a sophisticated seasoned jurist in a judge at all, to which it wouldn't. Now this, as I started to say, is not the first series of mishaps by Aileen Cannon, or nor the first series of mishaps

that she's committed in that courtroom, even in other cases, which shows her lack of training and sophistication. She inserted herself improperly, not once but twice, into the search warrant process before there was even an indictment, which is exactly the place that a trial judge should not occupy. There's no other way to put it. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, including the Chief Judge, there William Pryor, twice, twice slapped back and admonished Alien Canada's trial judge to back up and back out of the investigation process being conducted by the executive branch and the Department of Justice, unless and until there's an indictment and she deals with it at another time. It took two orders, two orders reversing her decisions

for her to get some message. That's two strikes as far as I'm concerned. And as I said earlier, the top of the hot take, the 11th Circuit generally has a three strike rule. I call it the Lemon Law. Got a defective judge not doing her job properly in a case, can have her removed. That is what Jack Smith has been evaluating all this time

with a series of inexplicable decisions, lack of decisions, orders, non-orders, lack of movement to progress the case. There's a body of law in the 11th Circuit that talks about a stalemate being created by the judge's own improper orders, where they make an improper order and then they double down on that improper order and make other improper orders and paint themselves into a corner. When that happens, the 11th Circuit can evaluate that.

They say, yeah, we've got a stalemate situation going on here. It's a biased situation because now the judge is trying to protect their own reputation and flailing around at that at best and has now undermined the administration of justice in that courtroom. And that is how the 11th circuit is going to evaluate that when it gets up to them. They can't on their own intervene. They've got to wait for Jack Smith's special counsel's office to bring a motion. And she, the judge, is basically challenging them to do it. Go ahead. Sort of like Representative Moskowitz challenging the Oversight Committee to impeach Joe Biden. Bring the vote, I'll second it.

She's basically challenging them to get rid of her. There's no other way to put it. As most of you know, I'm married and a baby on the way. And finding the right life insurance to protect my family with policy genius has never been more important. Make life insurance part of your financial planning this year. Start shopping now with Policy Genius to find a policy to protect your family.

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to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com slash legal AF. I mean, her most recent wrongheaded, mystifying decision that Ty Cobb was alluding to is where she's asked the lawyers for both sides, Jack Smith on one and Donald Trump's lawyers on the other, to submit competing jury instructions

that would put the jury in the position of having to determine what the law is, whether the Presidential Records Act applies as a defense. I mean, there is such a thing as a federal judge school, she was supposed to have gone to it, and the first thing they teach you, including in law school, is that judges are the law givers. Judges instruct on the law. Juries are the fact-finders. They determine the facts. Then they apply the law as instructed by the judge in the black robe to the facts against the indicted claims, the indicted charges.

In this case, espionage act and obstruction of justice. There is no presidential records act violation that's been alleged, that's not a criminal statute. And that's not a defense that's ever been recognized. But now she's turned it upside down and abdicated her responsibility and wants the Department of Justice to participate in it. Let's create jury instructions that have the jury

determine the law in the area. Sorry? Is this like the old Star Trek episode where I'm on the alternate enterprise where Mr. Spock has a beard? What is going on? This is not our justice system. I mean, literally this is not our justice system. I mean, literally, this is not our justice system, nor her job. And the sooner Jack Smith takes this up, I got to

tell you, and I know some of the judges on the 11th Circuit, because I practiced in Miami for a long time, and a number of them got elevated from various judge positions in, out of the Miami court system, state and federal. Some went, you know, state to the highest, you know, to courts of appeal in the state side of Florida. Some flipped over to federal and then federal up to the 11th, some directly to the 11th Circuit out of the state system. There's various, various things that have happened here. Lawyers who, lawyers who were never judges that ended up on the 11th Circuit. I know a couple of those too. I won't name names because they're still friends. But the 11th circuit has got to be like cracking

their knuckles and chopping at the bit to get the Aileen Cannon issue, the problem named Aileen in front of them. So they can address it. I mean, it may be a slightly right wing leaning, appointed leaning circuit, but they know bad law and bad judging when they see it. And they have to preserve the integrity of the 11th circuit.

And so I trust that my colleagues used to be lawyers that I practice with on the 11th circuit, like, I won't name names, but I almost listed a few of them, will do the right thing. Now it's up to Jack Smith to take it up there. Because he can't have a judge who just has a fundamental misunderstanding of her role

and the laws that apply and the defenses that may apply. And to Ty Cobb's point, why isn't there a trial date set in this case? We have a trial date set in the Stormy Daniels Hush Money case. It was March 25th. Now it's gonna be somewhere at the end of April. That's the criminal case

that'll go first against Donald Trump. We got Fonny Willis, who's, you know, that that doesn't kill her makes her stronger. She is now calling for an August trial date which will be televised of Donald Trump. Right when people are voting. Early voting is already going on by that point, right?

And the November election, it'll go through the November election. She wants that to happen. We've got a trial date that will be set quickly by Judge Chutkin in the DC election interference case as soon as we hope the United States Supreme Court rejects the attempt to apply immunity to the indictment in the DC election interference case

in front of Judge Chutkin. And after the April 25th oral argument, sometime in May or June denies the appeal, sending it back to Judge Chutkin with a band-aid, and then she's gonna add 90 days onto that. We know that from her past comments. And she's gonna set that trial for sometime in July. The Mar-a-Lago case has been going on forever

without a trial date. That indictment is a year and a half old. Speedy trial would have required it to be set within 70 days. Yes, I understand that it was waived by Donald Trump, but come on, we're a year and a half out and she's still playing coy with a little Cheshire cat smile about when she's going to set the trial. That's why nobody believes her. When she says, well, she originally said May, now she says, well, May is impossible.

May is impossible, let's be frank and clear by Aileen Cannon's own making and her own sabotage of the case. No other way to put it. She's bought every BS argument and delaying tactic of Donald Trump's side hook, line and sinker. Everyone. She hasn't seen a delaying tactic of Donald Trump

that she hasn't enjoyed or liked or adopted. Okay? And that's why we're in March with no trial date of something that's a year and a half old in a federal criminal case. I've never heard of such a thing. I mean just as a comparator, Senator Menendez from my home state of New Jersey is going to trial four months after his indictment on bribery charges. That's four months. If Aileen Cannon had it, it wouldn't happen till 2025 or never. She wants to throw him a life preserver.

There's no other way to put this. She sees that he's being indicted and judged, a rapist, a judged, a fraudster, going to trial for criminal matters in a fraud in New York, Georgia. She wants to throw him a life preserver. And so by her own creation, she's created the delay that she's claiming existed.

It's like that scene in Casablanca, you know, when they give the, you know, they give the, the law enforcement person his casino winnings right after, you know, he said he was shocked that there was gambling going on. And then two minutes later, they handed him his winnings in his pocket. Here are your winnings, sir.

Oh, thank you. She created this mess and now points to it as the basis for not scheduling the trial. So we've got, what do we got? Where are we right now, Popok? Here's where we are. Haley and Cannon doesn't understand her role

as the lawgiver in a case, has created and allowed to be created a series of delays for the last eight months that now makes it almost impossible for her to set this trial and she won't set this trial, leaving Jack Smith with no choice but to take her up on appeal for the third time to the 11th circuit and ask for them to exercise their lemon law, my words,

doctrine and remove her from the case and have it reassigned to a judge and there are many of them in the Southern District of Florida who have been on the bench for a number of years who are qualified to handle this case. Transfer it to Miami if you have to. Give it to Don Middlebrooks, Judge Middlebrooks in West Palm Beach next to Mar-a-Lago if you have to. Sure he's got experience with Donald Trump, having fined him and Alina Habba a million dollars for a meritless case, and that's why Donald Trump wants to get as

far away from Don Middlebrooks in West Palm Beach as he can. That's why in forum shopping, Donald Trump just recently filed a case in the Southern District of Florida against ABC News, Disney, and George Stephanopoulos for defamation, another BS case to distract from a bad news cycle. And he filed it in Miami, 70 miles south of where he lives in Mar-a-Lago, to try to avoid Don Middlebrooks. It's obvious. of where he lives in Morillago to try to avoid Don Middlebrooks. It's obvious. Sign it to Don Middlebrooks. He'll get the case tried.

He'll get the jury picked and justice will be done. Until then, we are just watching an embarrassment going on in the Southern District of Florida at the hands of an inexperienced judge who's allowed herself to be manipulated by obvious, transparent, dilatory, delaying tactics by Donald Trump's side. And just this is being undermined as a result. We'll continue to follow everything that happens down in Mar-a-Lago and in the espionage and obstruction

trial. One place, one place on the Tile, the Midas Touch Network and this YouTube channel. Help them get to 3 million free subscribers and follow our show, our podcast we call Legal AF. After listening to this hot take, you understand why. It's every Wednesday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern time. We curate the top four or five developments

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and then I'll interact with you back, I promise. That's something you find interesting. So until my next hot take, till my next Legal AF, this is Michael Popak reporting. Hey Midas Mighty, love this report? Continue the conversation by following us on Instagram, at Midas Touch to keep up with the most important news of the day. What are you waiting for? Follow us now.