Legal AF by MeidasTouch - The Rule of Law Meets GOP Outlaws and Insurrectionists

Episode Date: March 20, 2022

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF x MeidasTouch is back for another hard-hitting look in “real time” at this week’s most important developments.  This week Ben and Popok discuss and analyze: 1. The start of the confirmation hearing for the next Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson. 2. The Bannon criminal prosecution and Judge putting the DOJ back on its heels. 3. The North Carolina Bureau of Investigation looking into whether Mark Meadows committed voter fraud. 4. Former law enforcement and Republican state legislators pleading guilty to crimes for their role in the Jan6 Insurrection. 5. Trump being ordered to pay the legal fees for trying to enforce an in illegal Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) against a former female campaign worker. 6. A rare win for President Biden as the Fifth Circuit rules in his favor on environmental policy. 7. A former navy veteran suing Iran and its state-sponsored terrorism for the torture he endured when held as a political prisoner in an Iranian prison for 2 years. 8. Update on the potential case against Hunter Biden. Special Easter Egg: Loyal listeners and followers are given the chance to obtain Legal AF 1 year anniversary completion certificates with the proceeds going to help Ukraine. Support the Show! AG1 by Athletic Greens -- Athletic Greens is going to give you an immune supporting FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase if you visit https://athleticgreens.com/legalaf today. ExpressVPN -- Protect your online activity TODAY with the VPN rated #1 by Business Insider. Visit https://ExpressVPN.com/LegalAF and you can get an extra 3 months FREE on a one-year package. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Midas Touch Legal AF. If it's the weekend, it is Legal AF. But not just here for you on Saturday and Sunday, Ben Myceles and Michael Popak, the Popakian Legal Connoisseur, a Michael Popakian. We're delivering. But now we're making you Italian right now, Michael. legal kind of sad, a Michael Popakian. What delivery? But I will tell you, what making you Italian right now, Michael Popak, but we are delivering

the truth, the law, the key legal cases of the week, the key legal issues that are going on right now, and we break them down to you and try to take away all that legalese explain what the relevance here is for the case, for the country, for you, and we try to, again, break it down in ways you understand, Michael Popock, happy first year birthday. Is this technically do we turn one today? We did. We are we are we are out of short pants.

We're no longer a toddler. We are a legit one year old podcast. How many podcasts can actually say that? Not many. And how many have taken only a year to end up in the top 50 worldwide for news analysis. And in the top 200 for news, just news in the country. We are, it's, there are two million podcasts. And we are in the top 0 0 1% of all podcasts. It's not because of you and me. Because as I've always said, you and me are not that interesting. It is the energy that is brought to us by the listeners, the followers, the mightest mighty, the legal a efforts, the popoqins We just can't get enough that is exactly what I was going to say popoqin definitely isn't me It may be your good looks. That's doing it's not your intellect

It is definitely the energy of the mightest mighty of the legal a effort We have a special treat also for the legal a efforts that we're going to be telling you about midway through then we're going to take all of the money that is raised and we're going to donate it to Refugees from Ukraine who are going into Poland. There's someone who we've gotten in touch with NBC did a great report We've been supporting through might as touch her efforts. And I just want to highlight it here. Her name is Mary Kay Leonard. It's at Mary underscore K underscore Leonard. And it's called love in ALX. She lived in Alexandria, Virginia. She was inspired by Midas mighty Midas Touch.

She actually left her home, went to Poland. And she's on the border and she's driving Ukrainian refugees and finding homes for them. And we want to make sure we're supporting her. And we thought one way we can do that one is to help the legal aephus as well with their degrees and support the legal aephus. And then more importantly, help the refugees there. And we could all kind of as a community help out, which I think is just a great cause.

It's great. And it answers the question. We've been asked ing just throughout the year. When do we graduate? When do we, you know, all the people that say I'm listening to each podcast twice just to absorb and all the compliments that we get? Here's your answer. You're getting your first year legal effort diplomas and they are signed by Ben and me with our actual handwriting

with a, uh, actual embossed, well, it's PDF, but there's an embossed, uh, label on the, on the left corner that was designed by Jordy, which I absolutely loved. And I think everybody well too. And now we're now we're doing it for a great cause. Absolutely. So printed out, posted up, take photos, tweet about it. Excited to see that. And we're excited to share that with the legal afer's Pope by go let us get into the legal news. And I want to frame this episode around why our legal system here in the United States is so critical. So as we talk about updates from previous cases, we're talking about in the United States as we talk about our legal system, let's compare what goes on in Iran.

Let's compare what's going on with Brittany Griner right now in Russia. And let's start by focusing on Iran. Let's talk about a US Navy veteran Michael White. It's a really sad story. He's living in Tijuana right now. He doesn't have really, you know, any money, it's a really sad story. And he was dating someone who he thought loved him. And she told him to come to Iran. He went to Iran in 2018, probably not the best idea of someone you're dating, you know, tells you to do that. So that may be a red flag, but he goes out, he goes out there and they basically take him as a hostage and they keep them there as a bargaining chip and as a bargaining tool and they torture him in retaliation for Trump pulling out of the nuclear disarmament deal that Obama had entered and he became a bargaining token chip between geopolitical rivals. And Iran is on the

United States terrorist list. So under the sovereign immunity act and the terrorist exception to it, Michael White brought a federal lawsuit against Iran against the revolutionary guard, suing them for, this is the damages amount asked in the complaint, one billion dollars for the torture that he endured over the two year period that he was here. Popak, speak to this lawsuit if you can. Yeah. Well, you you hit the human dimension of it really well. It's a sad case. It's a, I mean, it's almost like a lonely hearts case that starts where he meets,

like white meets a woman in a chat room and it ends with him going and visiting her not once, but like several times. And I ran on this last visit, whether because she was working for the Iranian government and the secret police the whole time or she had gotten turned by them, she broke it off with him while he was there on a strip. He was on his last day of sightseeing with a tour guide on his way home, broken-hearted, and the Iranian police and intelligence officers picked him up and threw him into what he's

referred to as an intelligence jail where he was interrogated, tortured for two years. He was able to actually write, I think I don't know if you saw this in the reporting event, a over 156 page diary of his actual in real time sufferings. He was able to get it. He snuck it out of the prison. And so he has that as evidence in real time of what happened to him. And then he eventually got got released through the the intervention of the of the state department. And now as you said, he's suing for a billion or two billion dollars against the Iranians. The short answer for everybody might be scratching their head, like, well, are the Iranians going to hire a law firm and the peer in court and defend

this case? And the answer to that is, no, they are not going to do that. They are likely to allow a default judgment to be entered against them. And then in the next follow-up question, I would think would be, well, what is that worth a piece of paper? Well, there's a fund that the US government has established. It's called the US victims of state sponsored terrorism fund, the USVSST. And that is funded by, um, it's funded by assets and money that is forfeited, that is captured, if you will, by the US government, from other states, sponsored terrorism and terrorists, like all these oligarchs that are getting their yachts forfeited and captured by different governments.

I don't know if you saw Italy has captured and has now forfeited almost $800 million worth of yachts and property of Russian oligarchs during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. All of that kind of money ends up going into this fund. And then when there's judgments for victims like Mike White, he can then go and apply to the fund and have his judgment paid. Now right now the fund to the fund and have his judgment paid. Now right now, the fund is a little low on funds. No pun intended. It's had upwards of $2 billion B billion with a B over time, but they've they've handed it out to victims of state sponsor terrorism. But he'll the next time, apparently, they're going to make a distribution from the fund. It's going to be in 2023. Mike White wants to have his judgment in time for that so that he gets compensated for having been captured, tortured and used as a political prisoner, much

like we're going to talk about the next segment or so, Brittany Griner in Russia. So the foreign sovereign immunity act, the F S I A, the word immunity is built into it. And so what the rule, what this law passed in 1976, generally establishes is that you can't, C-A-N-T can't sue foreign sovereigns. You know, that they have immunity from these types of lawsuits. And the idea is reciprocity within the international system, comedy amongst countries, not comedy, comedy amongst countries, if everyone would sue each other, everyone would sue everybody's politicians and other kind of major political figures and leaders. But there are exceptions. The most prominent exception is the commercial exception. Like if someone's just conducting business outside of their capacity as someone who is representing

the country, that is oftentimes an immunity. If this is just a private business transaction or a contract that's taking place. Someone disputes, you know, there's a dispute over, you know, purchasing someone's home and someone disputes the sale or foreclosure, like that would not fall under the foreign sovereign immunities act. And another exception that was passed in the late 90s is this terrorist exception. And that's the exception being sued here. And your firm action is a lot of work on this. Yeah.

It actually goes further. And you and I have talked about this. We've talked about this on prior podcasts. There was a major carve out in 2015 under the justice against sponsors of terrorism act, JASTA, J-A-S-T-A. We've talked about it in the context of the 9-11 victims and what they're able to do now in the last year under JASTA to go against Saudi Arabia.

But yes, partners in my firm have made it a life mission to help victims of terrorism and to go after state-sponsored terrorism and collect on behalf of these people, like Mike White, and they have collected on behalf of victims throughout the country. So Jasta has been set up as a congressional exception to the sovereign immunity that you've been talking about. Yeah, we should also note that today Iran is holding at least four Americans of dual nationality and our hearts go out

to all of them, including environmentalist Marad Tabaz, businessman Ahmad Shagari, father and son Bacar and Simak Namazi. And you know, the torture that they're likely going through, the pain and suffering their families are going through, our hearts also go out to them. And our hearts go out to Brittany Griner, a story that's not getting all that much attention. Now there's one thing.

Not getting any better for Brittany. Yeah, you know, there's one school of thought, Popo, that says, we shouldn't be, you know, there are people who are saying, let's not publicize this or highlight this because could that be viewed as fervent and harm her chances of getting back? I, that's generally not the way these things work. Usually when there's public pressure and there's transparency and exposure on these things. As they say, democracy dies in silence. Sadly, we see that being literal

with individuals when people don't talk about that. And by not giving it attention to me, it motivates and empowers and sometimes emboldens the foreign enemy here. So, um, Britney Griner, the Russian, I want to call it a legal body with the the kind of kangaroo court system that they have over there has now essentially indefinitely, you know, extended. I mean, they said they're going to revisit it in May as they conduct

more investigation. But in the United States, with our writ of habeas corpus, with our constitution, with our ability to petition the government, not to be held without just out just cause and to have speedy trials. We don't, in theory, our system is built to avoid that from happening. It's not always a flawless system, but there, they kind of do whatever they want to do. And that's what we're seeing with Brittany Griner, someone who is very popular in Russia, actually, as well, has a basketball player out there.

When she's not playing in the W as well, you know, as a basketball player out there. When she's not playing in the WMBA, she plays out there, you know, and just going through some real difficult times right now. Yeah. And Karen, on the Wednesday show, we did a whole nice piece on Bernie Griner. We even talked about the issue that you just talked about, which is why isn't it getting more publicity? Is it a conscious choice by her people? That's K.F.A for everybody listening

to Cam Freeman Agnifalo. Our favorite character is this number two and Popoca and her host a midweek legal AF, which is on every Wednesday. Yep, a 40 minute or so. And so let me just bring the, because you we haven't talked about on the weekend wrap up. So so Brittany three-time champion on the WNBA has been an Olympian and Olympic champion as worn the red, white, and blue for this country. When she's not playing in the United States for the Phoenix team, she plays along with a lot of very successful WNBA stars because of the money. Let's be for and the ability to perform at a high level for her sport. Same as the men has been playing for the most lucrative team

in terms of cash, in terms of salary. That's out there. And it is in Russia. It is a team that is in a region right next to Siberia. So she's not going there for the palm trees and the lifestyle. She's going there to play and make money for her and her family. And she plays for a team called UMMC,

Ekaterinburg. It's owned by a Russian oligarch, two Russian oligarch brothers. They're on the list of the United States as one by a Russian oligarch to Russian oligarch brothers. They're on the list of the United States as one of 96 Russian oligarchs who have more than a billion dollars. They are very close to Putin. They're in the copper and mining business. And frankly, they might be the key. I've seen some reporting. They might be the key to getting her out because if they put enough pressure on Putin reverse, they might be able to get her out of there.

But for right now, she had been home because the Siberian League takes a break for about a month to allow their players to play for the Olympics and other world championships. And she was traveling back from JFK Airport in New York to an airport in Moscow with a small bag. And she got picked up at the airport, allegedly by a drug dog.

All of this is Russian reporting. So it's not believable unless you're watching Fox News. So if it's to be believed, a drug dog picked her up and found a pen that had some sort of marijuana oil in it. And that is like a marijuana vape And that, like a marijuana vape. Yeah, like a marijuana vape. It wasn't like bags of marijuana,

even in their own reporting, it didn't sound that serious, except Russia has the very serious drug law laws. So she got picked up mid February. We in the media and on podcasts didn't learn about this until March. She was two weeks in a jail on this issue. And now the State Department has gotten involved by the State Department with Anthony Blinken. And they've asked for a meeting to see her. And it's been refused by the Ministry of Justice or injustice, whatever you want to call it in Russia.

And now her cause has been taken up by Colin Allred, a Republican, sorry, a Democrat from Texas in the house because she's, she's Texan, she's from Texas. So he's taken up her charge and working with the State Department. They're trying to get her out. In the meantime, this court system has said, we're going to hold her in a two person cell, so she's not alone. She's with another person. It's already been reported that because she's six foot nine, she doesn't fit in the bed and they haven't done anything about that. So she's in uncomfortable circumstances in a jail. Now, I want to say one thing to some people, I'll call them trolls that are out there who have said, good, good, she deserves it. She was, she was

playing in Russia. Why was she doing there trying to make a lot of money? She deserves to be in a jail for the rest of her life. I mean, they're people saying that, Popak? Yes. And I have no sympathy for Brittany Griner. I saw people jump on when Karen and I reported on it. And then you're not a patriot. You're not an American because an American who wore the colors of this country, the way you probably haven't, is sitting in a jail because she has a vape pen at best. And because she went to Russia, yes, because if she stays in the United States, she makes

a couple hundred grand, which to, which to 99% of America, that's a lot of money. It's, it is a lot of money. But when you're at the peak of your career, why should she be denied along with the other WNBA stars, making the maximum amount that she can make? Does anybody really begrudge $50 million for LeBron James or $40 million for a baseball player? Then why are we begrudging Brittanyron James or $40 million for a baseball player, then why are we begrudging Brittany Griner for making a million dollars a year instead of $100,000 a year

playing in the United States? That's a reflection on sports and inequality and inequity in sport and America more than its reflection on her decision-making or judgment to go play for the highest dollar wherever the market would allow. I'll take a one step further. So every corporation, whether you were a McDonald's, whether you were any of the high-end fashion retailers, you can go down the litany, whether you were a streaming digital service, whatever. They were all making hundreds of millions of dollars in Russia before Putin's unlawful invasion. Now, Putin did unlawfully annex Crimea.

Putin did unlawfully engage in horrible atrocities before then, but we should all realize that the focus on Putin's true terrorist ways came into focus through his unlawful invasion of Ukraine. I think we all in retrospect, myself included, could have been better advocates against what Putin was doing when he annexed Crimea, for example, and his atrocities in Syria and his atrocities throughout the world and arming and helping other authoritarians grow and become many Putin's around the world. But she played in Russia that predated what was taking place right now. And so, Popeye, I'd probably, if someone right now went to play in Russia or did business with Russia, I would take a very hard and harsh stand against that right now. You know, I do think though before Russia's unlawful invasion of Ukraine, we have to do that in context.

And it's also a bit of a kind of philosophical intellectual, economical indictment on the disparity of pay between male athletes and female athletes. We've covered this on legal AF. We've talked about the US women's soccer team and their lawsuit and their recent resolution, but women in sports do not get fair pay in the United States, which forced Britney to play in Russia. I'm sure she'd rather play in the United States and earn you know, and, and, and, and earn the full salary that she deserved to be made. Like she wants to, with her wife, she wants to live in a country that doesn't recognize her protect and prosecutes, people who are gay and LGBTQ. That's what that's what she wants to do. No, she's doing it for her

family. And so that while she's at her peak of her athletic career, which is a short term anyway, if you're lucky, the average baseball player lasts four years. I think the average NFL player lasts three years. You'll know this better than me. People think, oh, all the money, the average person on these teams, let's say 56 people on an NFL team. Most of them don't make money, a lot of money, and they make it for a three-year window. And then that's it. They're done with their life, their life calling. So, but I thought you made a really great point before that I don't want to, I don't want to leave yet about America having its handout to allow Russian oligarchs and Putin to come into our country even after Crimea and make major donations and accept it willingly.

The New York Times did an article a couple years ago, which I just found again and we'll post about how many oligarchs have donated money, meaning how many it, arts, it, art institutes in the, in America from the Guggenheim to the New Museum to opera houses, to the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts, right? Where, where, where the, where the president does a giant award ceremony, have taken willingly tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars from oligarchs who put them on their board. Did you know, and so I you know until I didn't know this so we go Ben, did you know until two weeks ago, there was a Russia gallery inside of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and inside what's the center in Washington that Kennedy Center, the Kennedy Center, the Kennedy Center

had an entire room put Putin himself paid for. That was decorated in Russian history and red that they used for their major donors until the invasion of Ukraine. And they decided to redecorate it and call it something else. So American, the arts and business have bloody hands for a long, long time related to Russia. So why are we bashing poor Brittany

Griner who's sitting in some 10 by 10 cell with another political prisoner because she wanted to make a living for her family? Okay. I agree with you there. A very brief footnote. I was helping a lot of you mentioned the football players, their short career. I was helping in my legal career a lot of the retired disabled players. And not only are they not very rich people at all, but when the collective bargaining agreements often get renegotiated, what tends to happen is their disability benefits that they believe they previously bargained for are the first

kind of bargaining chips that the union often gives up and that the league takes away. And so in a lot of these cases, I was speaking with the wives of the disabled players who serve as their kind of permanent caregiver and these are players who could barely even interact on a day-to-day basis. They could barely communicate. They can barely even talk and we don't talk about them. But here on Legal AF, I want to acknowledge like there's a whole community of retired disabled players who are not wealthy people who played

football and who can't even walk or think anymore and more attention needs to be on that. And you know, we'll keep highlighting those issues where we can on legal AF and special shout out to my client also Eric Reed, who's no longer playing in the NFL. Eric took a knee with Colin. He was the first to take a knee. He said two franchise records on the Carolina Panthers in his last season there in 2019 and 2020. He was the one with me. He pointed out that these disabled retired players, their benefits were being removed under the collective bargaining agreement. The NFL and the NFL PA said that Eric Reed was lying.

There was a big headline. You're not telling the truth. Eric Reed after setting two franchise records and coming out with that, he was cut from the Carolina Panthers. He hasn't been able to play again. It's like the seventh pick in the draft, like a superstar player. And then three, four months later, the union and the league admitted that they took away the benefits and they restored the benefits. Think of the court. Thanks to

the courageous work of Eric Reed, although Eric Reed's not playing in the NFL today, which is another travesty in addition to Colin Kaepernick not playing in the league. We're talking about foreign donations, Pope, and tens of millions of dollars in these foreign donations that were going to art museums and theaters and organizations and Russian money that was going there as well. But also we should focus on political contributions. And this is highlighted by what's going on right now in a criminal trial right out here in California where indicted representative Jeff Fortenberry. We talked about him about 20 or 30 episodes ago, so you know around the time of what the accusations and criminal indictment was, but a Fortenberry, this Congress member

from Nebraska representing their first congressional district, he became this past week the first sitting member of Congress to stand trial in 21 years. And this all basically relates to kind of a straw man donation scheme is the allegation that this Nigerian born but Lebanese descent business billionaire this guy Gilbert Chaggery Decorate yeah Chaggery and he he donates a lot of money also to lots of causes and theaters He's a big donor of St. Jude and so he he's done good work, you know, as well, in terms of his charitable giving, I mean, supporting St. Jude is a cause that I think we all would believe is an admirable cause, you know, to give millions of dollars to. But there was a Los Angeles fundraiser that was held by this LA doctor. And what the allegations are is that

a doctor. And what the allegations are is that Chaggery gave money to someone who gave money to the LA doctor, who gave $30,000 to this Congress member. So, so Chaggery, two strong men in the middle. Yep. And then it ends up in Fort and Berries Bank account for his campaign. Correct. And accepting a foreign donation is illegal is unlawful. Under way, we're in legal AF law school under the Federal Election Campaign Act, the FECA FECA 52 USC 30121, which says that foreign people cannot donate and contribute to any campaign, state, local or federal. So there's an FBI investigation in general into Chagarris donations. They find these donations with Fortenberry. Fortenberry is interviewed by the FBI.

He denies it. There's also an informant who is calling Fortenberry about these donations and he's saying to Fortenberry, hey, you realize that was a, you know, that money where it came from, right? It came from Chaggery. He's a foreign guy. That's illegal. You know, you can't do that right words to those effect on the call and Based on the call it seems that Fortinbury acknowledged that or recognize that it's recorded. It's a record is recorded phone call right and so the case basically turns on

Fortinbury's meeting with the FBI. Did he lie to them and say he did not accept These you know, foreign donations? He didn't knowingly accept it. Um, and then it also turns on one. Did he act? We know he took the money, you know, so, right. And then three, you know, was this phone call from the informant? Was he basically admitting to the crime at that point. And Fortenberry's defense, and this is what his defense lawyer put forward in the opening

statement, and then press the informant during a cross examination and press the FBI during a cross examination. It's a cell phone conversation. It's static. You know, there was bad reception and Fortenberry's a real busy guy. And so he didn't even realize like he's taken lots of calls in a day and that those words didn't have any significant meaning to him on that call. And come on, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

You realize that like we have all these calls all the time, bad service, you're in a rush. Like, do you think that's really him confessing to the crime? So this was the, this was the, can you hear me now, defense? And can you hear me now? Now that would be an ad for one of these cell phones. Good cell phone service could have got you out of a federal indictment. So I, yeah. I like this case. I want to ask you a question because I think our legal efforts like when we bring real, real world into our analysis. So do you know Stan Blumentfeld, the judge that's handling this case? He's a central district. I have never appeared before Stan Blument. Yeah. I was wondering how he's running the courtroom,, you know, because we spent a lot of time

with the written house case and people got to see a judge who's sort of outsized himself and taken over the courtroom in a way that's not appropriate. But I haven't heard anything about Blue Michelle. I was wondering if you had any insider knowledge about him. But I think based on the evidence that's been presented so far that it's been reported to the media and that I've seen. Lee Fortenberry's got a tough road to hoe. He's got an uphill battle here. I think the recording is powerful. I think he, the money ended up as you said, Ben, in the bank account. And he asked to uncoople that and say he doesn't have criminal intent because he didn't, he didn't know the money was coming from there.

And then, of course, they're going to get into, well, what do diligence do you use or anybody in your campaign use to make sure that you're not under the Bank Secrecy Act or anti-money laundering statutes? What are you doing to make sure that to that? Do you have an obligation? Your campaign has an obligation to make sure that you're not taking anything that touches on foreign money. And so what do you do? What were your controls that you had in place in order to do that? And I'm sure they're going to get to that

sometime in the trial. So just doing some brief background on Judge Bloomon Feld. He was appointed by Trump in 2018. He received his judicial commission on September 18th, 2020. And so also kind of during the COVID period. So that's why you haven't been in front of him because he's only been there during COVID and I haven't had any of my cases assigned to him. But I'll say this from a, I think the location of where the trial is going to take place is also not in Fortenberry's interest. I mean, he took the money in LA and...

Well, talk about that. Why is it in LA? That's a good... And he's in Nebraska Congressman. He's in Nebraska Congressman, but the event where the money was, the deliver to him was an LA fundraiser from an LA doctor. And those are the strong men that are being alleged here, you know, all that happened in LA. And so to me, if this case was being tried in Nebraska with the Nebraska jury, some of those arguments that he's making, you know, may resonate a little, you know, a little more, you know, and maybe you can get one or two members of the jury to try to hang that jury.

Because I'm afraid it is such a good observation. You need a unanimous jury here in LA making these arguments about, you know, bad cell phone service. I just, I don't think that's going to fly with with an L.A. jury, who people who talk on the phone all the time. And we would know if we were on a phone call and somebody said, Hey, you're making an illegal contribution versus, you know, saying, Hey, you know, I'm sitting in Nebraska, you know, some fast talking, you know, L.A. or, you know, reached out to me and started saying all these things. I was out here just running a campaign fundraiser and you expect me to, that's the,

I was having a fried butter on a stick at some 4F, you know, and that's not going to work at LA. Plus, I don't know how this plays out, but the jury composition is interesting. I don't know about it. Diversity wise, other than gender, it's eight women and four men. I'm off to see how that plays out for him because it will. Having picked juries, there is a difference when there's, when there's more of one than the other. I don't know exactly how that plays out for him yet. We're going to have to see the result. We will see those results. And PoPock probably get time to say that this podcast is brought to you by athletic greens.

Everyone knows athletic greens is my favorite. They say the proof is in the pudding. I say the proof is in athletic greens. It is an incredible part of the proof is in the powder. Just I always say look at the proof is in the powder. Just I always say look at the Proof is in the powder. You just did it. You know, but you know, here's the thing. That's my own slogan. I athletic greens may not like that I make up slogan so far, so good. But I think they do like that all the legal a efforts are using athletic greens now, not all of them, but a significant portion of

our audience. And photos and circulates photos. And they've had the same experience as I did. You look at photos of me four or five months ago, you look at photos of me now. Like you literally went on this athletic greens journey with me as I've gotten more energy, as I've been feeling better about myself. And that's to let me do more things like work out really hard. And I really attribute that to A, G, one,

A, G, one by athletic greens is a category leading super food product. It brings comprehensive and convenient daily nutrition to everybody, keeping up with the research, knowing what to do, and taking a bunch of pills and capsules is hard on the stomach and hard to keep up with and to help each of us be our best. They simplify this path to better nutrition by giving you the one thing with all the best things. And so it's just one scoop, as I like to say, the scoop de-dupe de, you put the powder in the cup, you shake it up, you drink it, it contains 75 vitamins minerals, whole food source ingredients,

including multi vitamin, multi mineral probiotic, green super foods blend and more in one convenient daily serving. This special blend of high quality, bioavailable ingredients, and a scoop of AG1, works together to fill the nutritional gaps in your diet, support, energy, and focus, aid with gut health and digestion, and support a healthy immune system effectively replacing multiple products or pills with one healthy healthy nutritious drink. And as the research changes, so does AG one and most nutritional products are just stagnant AG one keeps up with the research. It's produced over 53 improvements over the last decade and it's lifestyle friendly. So

whether you eat keto, paleo vegan, dally free or gluten free, it contains less than one gram of sugar, no GMOs, no nasty chemicals or artificial anything while keeping it tasty and good. So join the movement of athletes, life leads mom dads. I say most importantly, legal a efforts and to make it easy athletic greens is going to give you an immune supporting free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. If you visit athletic greens.com slash legal AF today again, visit athletic greens.com slash legal AF. Get that free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs. That's great value. Athletic greens.com slash legal AF. Take control of your health and give AG want to try and experience

the same great nutritional journey that I myself have experienced. Let me tell you also about express VPN, another partner of legal AF. How did you choose which internet service provider to use? The sad thing is most of us have very little choice because ISPs operate like monopolies in the regions they serve. They use this monopoly power to take advantage of customers, data cap, streaming throttles. The list goes on. But worst of all, many ISPs log your internet activity and sell that data to other big tech companies or advertisers to prevent ISPs from seeing our internet activity. I protect all of my devices, all of our legal app devices with express VPN. So what is express VPN? It's a simple app for your computer or smartphone and encrypts all your network data and tunnels it through a secure VPN server so that your ISP cannot

see any of your activity. Just think about how much of your life is on the internet. Sadly, the list of people you've messaged, sites you've visited, and videos you've watched, they get tracked by tech giants who can sell your information for profit regardless of if you're on incognito mode. They know what you are searching. That's why you need ExpressVPN. That's the reason I recommend ExpressVPN as the best way to hide your online activity from your ISP. You just download the app, tap one button on your device and you're protected.

In my experience, I don't want advertisers to have access to what I am looking at and start selling me a bunch of stuff. I don't like that. I also value the privacy as a lawyer of the documents and things that I have to search for my clients. I'm sure you have the same issue. And so just get ExpressVPN. It does all of this without slowing your connection.

That's why it's rated the number one VPN service by business insider. And the Verge is like pop out when we go out, we wear sunscreen, right? When you go on the internet, use Express VPN. It's like sunscreen for the internet. You need it to protect yourself. So stop handing over your personal data to ISPs and other tech giants who mine your activity and sell off your information. Protect yourself with the VPN that we trust that keep our online identity and our online activity private. Visit express VPN dot com slash legal AF.

That's expr SS VPN dot com slash legal AF to get three extra months free. Go to express VPN dot com slash legal a f to get three extra months free. Go to express bpn.com slash legal a f right now to learn more and pop up Getting back into the law. Look, this was a story that was in the news today or in this week And we need to cover what's in the news as I've been saying we need to cover what's in the news. As I've been saying, whether you're a Democrat, whether you're a Republican, whether you're an independent, I don't like labels. I don't like labels anymore. If you go through my ideas, my ideals, my views, my values, they will almost certainly lined up with quote unquote liberal, what's quote unquote progressive. That's where I stand. But if I think that there is a view that is associated

with Republicans on a specific policy that I think is a good view, I'm not going to say, oh, I cannot support that because that's or that comes from that team. I think unfortunately, though, the Republican team right now is not in any way conservative. That's why I hate these labels because I think I am a lot more conservative than Republicans. At the very core, I believe in conserving our legal system. I believe in conserving our democracy. I believe that when there's a deadly pandemic, you go out and you get a vaccine to try to make yourself and your family healthy. That's something that I believe that personal responsibility. I believe in hygiene. Okay. I don't know when the conservative party became the anti hygiene pro pandemic insurrection

to put that's those are their actual platforms pro Putin. It's absurd and it's ridiculous. But I'll tell you the moment my political party if they ever start telling me that I need to inject myself with bleach because that's how you deal with it. I'm going to say no, I'm not going to support that person. So we're going to cover on legal AF issues, even sometimes if they are a story that would arguably not be something that a progressive channel should be giving people the facts on this show. And so I don't know how we can ignore. We have to address it. That there was a

New York Times story this week about the ongoing federal grand jury proceedings relate that are arising in Delaware, the criminal tax probe to the president of Biden, Hunter Biden. That is something that is taken to the son of the president. Yeah, son of the president, Hunter Biden. That is something that is taken to the son of the president. Yeah, son of the president, Hunter Biden. And you know, one of the things that we also learn is that an Arkansas woman who had a child by Hunter Biden, um, she testified in front of the federal grand jury. They had a child together. They met and her lawyer said that they turned over lots of records, you know, gigabytes of data over regarding payments that were made to her and how those payments

were made. But ultimately, I think Popeye, we have to acknowledge this is ongoing investigation. It has nothing to do with Joe Biden, other than the fact that it is Joe Biden's son. And this is used as projection by Republicans who are deeply invested in distracting from the criminal cartel that is the Trump organization. But we should acknowledge, and I think every logical legal person would say, Hunter Biden made a series of very bad decisions. Hunter Biden went on and he admitted that. You know, the difference between the Trumps and Hunter is that I've seen Hunter go on, Joe's, one, he's not representative in any way of the administration unlike the Trump children who speak on behalf of the administration who hold positions in the administration.

This was something when Biden was running for office, he left his positions, Hunter left his position. But Hunters went on and showed remorse for what he did. He said that he had drug problems and that he made a series of mistakes. And that's something that every American family, I think, can relate to that we all have, or we all know of a friend, family, members, whoever, who have serious drug problems, who have gone down a path. I am okay for second chances.

I am okay with people showing remorse and decency and rehabilitating. That's what Hunter is showing. And moreover, the Hunter saga for me, is showing what a great father Joe Biden is. That's the kind of person who, that level of compassion that Joe had when you see messages of Joe supporting his son through drug addiction.

I'm always here for you, son. I love you, not throwing him under the bus. I'm here for you, son. I love you. Like that to me is the kind of dad that is, this should be applauded, especially as dads across this country can recognize that they may have a son who suffers from drug addiction and these issues.

But that's what's going on in the law there. We got a report on it, it's happening. And again, it is no relation to Joe Biden, but that's what's going on. Yeah, like the Republicans like to use things like wayward children of the president in order to try to disable the presidency and under the president. We saw it with white water, which was sort of a trumped up bullshit investigation that the Republicans latched on to, sunk their teeth in to, and wouldn't let go

for the entire Clinton administration, to try to undermine him, disable him and stop him from passing policies and progressive policies that you and I and others that listen to us are interested in and they're going to do they don't have it against Joe Biden. Joe Biden is about a squeaky clean having been 50 years in the government as one could be. There's a reason he was known and is known as Amtrak Joe. I mean, he has an unimpeachable, unassailable record of public service to this country, starting as Senator vice president and out president of the United States. Does he have children that have problems? Yes. Is he the first politician that's ever had a child who's had problems?

No. There are plenty of Republican children of politicians that have drug problems that have been involved with crime. There are plenty of democratic, unfortunately, elected officials whose children have had problems. I could name a bunch of them, but I'm not going to. I'm both sides of the aisle. But what does it matter? Unless the parents are actually involved in the crime or the misconduct, it's all much ado about nothing. And it's really just publicizing the private pain and private trials of a person for political gain and to sell newspapers. I read the New York Post because I want to see

what they're writing, and occasionally because I want to see the sports section, but they spend an anordinate amount of time and ink on Hunter Biden and have ever since Joe's been elected in a way that it's sort of like who cares? Everybody's had some sort of, you know, the fact that he's got a daughter that has mental health issues or a son that had a drug addiction. This is a, this is a father who's lost his, his wife in a car accident upon being elected to the Senate and had a raise basically two children, including Hunter, who were, you know, who just lost their mother in a car accident. Now, Hunter Biden is also in his 50s. And I'm not saying keep blaming the fact that his mother died in a car accident for his problems. But this was not an easy

childhood or growing up. And I think that Joe Biden did an ad-rival job just as he's done an ad-rival job in every elected position that he's ever had. But as I said to you before we started tonight, we got to talk about things that are going on. We can't act like they're not going on. So the Delaware U.S. Attorney's Office for the last couple of years has been conducting a grand jury proceeding to get to the bottom of two things related to Hunter Biden. One is the attachivator that pay his taxes? Did he file his taxes? Yes or no? He even has has publicly admitted that he's owned. He's owed a lot of taxes. And the question is, is it a criminal offense about how he handled his tax affairs? Yes or no?

They've also, according to the media from quality reporting, there's also a suggestion that part of the grand jury is investigating whether Hunter Biden violated the the law that we've talked about, the Farrah law that we've talked about related to lobbying on behalf of foreign countries without registering properly with the Attorney General, yes or no. And that's the issue. Whether this grand jury indites him, you know, could happen. I think our followers and listeners should be prepared that Hunter Biden may get indicted for one of either or both tax evasion or fraud and or this registration issue related to lobbying.

We know from other reporting that the federal government, the Department of Justice, has subpoenaed records from different banks, including JP Morgan, to see if there's a link between Burisma, the oil back to Burisma, the oil company in Ukraine, 100 who had him on, who had him on the payroll for $50,000 a month as a member of their board. That's all in the public record. And whether certain monies that came through a bank, including the Bank of China made its way through JP Morgan Chase and into Hunter Biden's hands. And whether there's anything illegal about any of that. But we're going to follow it. I don't want people to say, you know what legal

AF doesn't do? It doesn't follow the hard stories and follow them where they lead when it involves democratic leaders. We do. We do and we break it down with the nuance that it deserves and have the complicated discussions because one thing that I love about legal a efforts is that the reason that we have developed collectively, we, this great community, is that nuance matters. And the mainstream media unfortunately derides nuance, hates nuance, it's all about kind of coming up with the headline and a story,

and we don't talk about complicated issues and they treat the public like the public is dumb and that's what turns a lot of people off. I mean, you have on the one hand, you have kind of Fox News, though, which is knowingly manipulating people with kind of falsehoods. And then on the other side, though, you have to me, probably 70% of the population, 80% of the population that really just does want to know the truth. They want to really get into the weeds. They care about these issues. And there's no outlet for that. And I like that legal AF, frankly, is an athlete. Yeah, I agree. That's why we're growing. That's why Yeah, I agree. That's why we're growing.

That's why when we started this, if we got 300 people to join us on a Saturday night, we were high-fiving it virtually. Like, oh, that's great. Now we're doing 2,3000 every time in just a year. If we did 15,000 people listening to our podcast during the week, I was pinching myself with pride about what we were doing. Now we're doing 10 times that. And that's because people are, people are turned on by how we treat them and how we treat the issues and the nuance that you just talked about from a progressive democratic lens. People are turned on by you, pop, pop. Mark Meadows, we talked, you gave me a, you gave me a softball pull. I know. He ended out of the post. So Mark Meadows, we talked about this on the last

legal I have. And we said, oh, Mark Meadows may be in a lot of trouble here because Mark Meadows, New Yorker did. He said he should be prosecuted for voter fraud. That was the end of our segment. Yeah. You know, the New Yorker did this incredible piece, which basically showed that Mark Meadows was declaring as his address for purposes of voting this trailer in North Carolina where he had never been to. They spoke to the current owner of the trailer, but I don't even know who Mark Meadows is.

It would be a weird place for the chief of staff to go. I think for us, I think we're decorating, but it's not up to his speed. Yeah. And further kind of digging into it show that Mark Meadows wife, you know, may have stayed there once or twice, but North Carolina critical swing state. And so every single vote mattered. And so for Mark Meadows to apparently clearly make up an address where he didn't live to vote for Trump in North Carolina was part of a concerted strategy to try to get Trump

elected by means of actual voter fraud, actual voter fraud. Right. Right. Right. Male in voting may create voter fraud for Republicans and high end officials in the Republican party. It's always projection with them. Right. And they're the ones

engaged directly in the conduct. So you have the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations. They're SBI confirmed to Axios in a number of other news outlets that they are actively investigating Mark Meadows for voter fraud. Seems like a pretty clear cut case, Popok, of he didn't live there. He voted for there. The question that you get asked as a North Carolina voter is your permanent residents. Is that where your permanent residence is? That was not his permanent residence. He seems to have been caught and he needs to be prosecuted.

And we've talked about, you know, Republican people trying to prosecute the slightest deviation of it. We talked about that case in Tennessee, where the woman got six years because even though she believed because her probation officer, would you say? Moses. Yeah, Pam Moses out of Tennessee of Tennessee where her probation officer gave her the okay to vote. So she followed the probation officers and registered and then they prosecuted her through in jail for six years. If she got, if she got that Mark Meadows deserve grant that she got a new child recently. But Mark Meadows should go to jail too. So here's here's something fun we can do tonight as an interactive and our producer. I'll love this. People should go to jail too. So here's something fun we can do tonight as an interactive and our producer, I'll love this.

People should go on Google Earth and plug in 495 McConnell Road, MCC, O-N-N-E-L-L in Scali, SC-A-L-Y Mountain, North Carolina. And take a look at where Mark Meadows claims and with his wife that he lived because that's the exact address that he listed that his wife allegedly took out at least she stayed there for two days according to all the reporting and I want to do a shout out to both the New Yorker who did amazing investigative reporting and a local television station and rally North Carolina. was television station in Raleigh, North Carolina, who also broke aspects of this story. Let me see if I can pick that up while we're talking. And it's this trailer that as of Thursday of this week, then he's still registered to vote there, according to the online for North Carolina voter registration. So everybody go on 495 McConnell Road Scally Mountain, North Carolina, 28775. And that is allegedly where our former chief of staff for Trump resides.

I think he's going to have a hard time here. Even though North Carolina has one of the shorter residency requirements of most states in order to vote. It only requires that you be in residence 30 days prior to an election. A lot of states are much longer than that. I don't even think he hits the 30 day mark to prove residency. Not just that he owns it or he visits it like a vacation home. Residency means something else. As a lot of courts have put it in this battle of election law where somebody claims a residency.

Unfortunately, it happens a lot. People get in a little apartment, they claim residency. Residency is generally considered where you hang your hat, where you consider to be your home. And I don't think Mark McDonald's going to be able to make out that this is where he hangs his hat. And I think he should be prosecuted successfully for voter fraud. Absolutely. I would love to see a deposition or his testimony. In that case, I want him to explain. I just want to see him sit there and have to explain that trailer and why

he claimed that trailer as his permanent residence. Because there really is zero, zero explanation for it other than his intent was to provide a vote for Trump in a swing state. And you know, and it was, there was, there was evil, evil intent behind it. And it's the, it's what you always see with Trump. It's evil meets stupidity. And that's a great summation of the Trump administration. Speaking of that, speaking of that, Steve, you know, Steve Bannon, you're going to do banner. Do you want to do Trump and his NDA? Let's hit on Trump's NDA super

quickly. I'll let you give the breakdown of the NDA. then let's talk about that. But let's do, you know, the the NDA story super quickly, you tell it and then and then I'll tell you, you do the color commentary. I'll do the breakdown. So there's a there's a campaign worker in my in Florida, near Tampa, for the Trump campaign. She works for the Trump campaign. And in 2016, what he was candidate Trump, not president Trump, he visited this campaign trailer, another trailer, they love trailers, these Republicans. I don't know what that's all about. He visits the campaign trailer. And at some point, this person, Alva Johnson, ALVA,

claims that he tried to kiss her, hundred to tight, made her feel uncomfortable. And then later she sued in federal court in the middle district of Florida and Tampa, claiming race discrimination, an age discrimination, and sex discrimination, all because she wasn't being pay inequity, all of these things. Now, the foundation of her case against Trump

was that he did all these bad things to her. Unfortunately for her case, and at the moment, a victory for Trump is that the Trump organization, the campaign found a video that actually was counter to what Ava Johnson said happened in that trailer because it showed not that he tried to kiss her on the lips, which is what he claimed, what she claimed, but that it was more of an air kiss cheek to cheek. And they found the video.

And when the judge in the federal judge in Florida saw the video, he commented to the lawyers, perhaps you want to rethink continuing with this case now that we've seen the video. And she ultimately, the case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning she could bring the case again. But this was a victory for a moment, at least for Trump, because, you know, this person that claimed that he had sexually assaulted her raster dismissed the case. So that should be a win for Trump, except we're talking about Trump. And he decides he's going to go after her now and retaliate against her by claiming that she breached a non-disclosure agreement, what you and I referred to as NDA, when she joined

as a campaign worker. And he sued her and ended up in arbitration before the American Arbitration Association, what we call the AAA within arbitrator, a former federal magistrate from your backyard in California, who ultimately ruled that the NDA that Trump was ultimately trying to enforce was invalid, unconstitutional, and had been ruled so by various federal courts. And therefore, because he sued her Trump versus Johnson in arbitration. And she won on the issue of the NDA not being enforceable against her. She was the prevailing party, meaning she's entitled to fees and cause for Trump for dragging her into arbitration. So he had to pay her by arbitration order almost $400,000

in legal fees for a case that he effectively won in the middle district of Florida on sex harassment. Okay. You untie that, not. Well, I would say in the middle district of Florida case, the only new onside give to you is, you know, she dismissed the case. I think that I still think she had a good case. I just think that she was, you know, the campaign, all of the pressure they put on her, is intended to intimidate her. And I think she just thought, look, it's easier at this point, just to kind of go away. What did I get myself into? Trump to kind of further go

after her, the campaign then sues her. And as you mentioned, Popak, in an arbitration for violation of the NDA, it just goes to like legal strategy here. This was a, this was a moronic, evil, mean, you know, strategy by Trump to do this. And fortunately, they lost. And we would have, if that was our client, not that they have to take everything that we say, but our advice to our client would have been Trump, you won at the, at the federal level, going after this poor woman in arbitration for an N NBA that's probably not enforceable is probably not your best course. And then you and I have to decide whether we're going to stay as lawyers. If he says, no, I want to file it anyway because I want

to go after her. But our advice would have been you won. Don't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Move on. But this is not how Trump operates. It's also not Trump's money. You know, so, you. So this is money that he raises. These are other people's money that he doops. So for Trump, it's kind of like whatever. I'm using other people's money. You know, pay or at least we'll be able to harass her for another year. But where that logic doesn't kind of end in a logical conclusion is he's a loser. He lost. So if that was his strategy, and that's all of the Trump cases, every, mostly all of these cases that you see right now of Trump that are out there, Trump is going to lose. Like when Trump sues the social media companies, he has no exit strategy for those cases. And so once he even

affirmatively sews, his goal then is to cause all of these delays and to kind of delay the inevitable loss because he was never actually prepared to file the lawsuit in the first place because the lawsuit just to PR stunt to raise money. That's Trump strategy kind of affirmatively ensuing. And on the defense side, it literally is to wear people out with time to try to delay every case through every procedural move, move possible to make it last five years, 10 years, 15 years, everything is an objection. Everything is an issue. You don't give a single inch in the litigation and you delay, delay, delay.

And you hope that a new lawyer comes in who's less interested, a new prosecutor comes in, who's less interested, a new administration comes in, that's more supportive. That is his overall strategy. And that is what the January 6th is up against though. You know, when the January six committee subpoenaing all of these records, you know, they are up against, we need to get these records immediately. We need to get everything right now while we have

the ability to show transparently what happened. That's what they're, you know, rushing, you know, against right there. There's an all there's an old adage that Trump obviously subscribes to, which is when bad things are happening to you, make them happen slower. And that's what he's trying to do because time is on his side. And you made, you've made that perfect point time and time again. He doesn't care unless he gets completely sanctioned as a vexatious litigate and thrown out of federal and state courthouses, which he's not close to doing. Unfortunately, despite the fact that we hate the position that he takes and we we we transparently observe what he

is doing. It's just a talking point for a piece of fundraising literature or social media campaign. He's going to this $400,000 that he has to pay if a Johnson and other lawyers. He's going to raise that in 10 minutes on hit on truth, social or wherever he's currently, talking his wares or some fundraiser, live fundraiser, dinner party, where he charges $500,000 to get a picture and a cold chicken platter with the former president. Absolutely. And so I said, we were going to talk about Steve Bannon. So an interesting story in the ongoing federal prosecution of Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress, you recall, Steve Bannon refused to testify

in front of the January 6th committee. I think he tried to claim executive privilege, even though he's a podcaster and was not even working for Trump during the relevant time period. The DOJ prosecuted Bannon. They have not yet prosecuted Mark Meadows, and we'll see what happens on the Mark Meadows prosecution. The Mark Meadows prosecution is slightly more complicated because he was an active chief of staff there and there were executive, there are some legitimate executive privilege arguments, some completely not legitimate executive privilege, but there's at least some executive privilege there, but that doesn't exist with Steve Bannon. And Bannon's doing what we expect. Yeah, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, ended a filing where he leaked to the Daily Beast, even though there was a protective order, which is supposed to prevent confidential information from being leaked to the press.

I would say this. I guess technically we don't know who leaked the documents to the Daily Beast, but it appears that one person would have the motive. The choices are either the Department of Justice or Steve Bannon. I'll go with you, Ben. Exactly. There's Steve Bannon's people. So I'm going with, it appears Steve Bannon leaked it. And basically, it's a lot to do about nothing where the prosecutors in subpoenaing certain records of a lawyer affiliated with Steve Bannon, the prosecutors through their database, subpoenaed the wrong person's records,

like someone with a different middle name. And so Steve Bannon did this filing that the government doesn't know what they're doing, the government's trying to expose these other private citizens, to maliciously prosecute Bannon. This shows that the government's trying to harass Bannon and harassing private citizens. And in doing so though, banan basically released the document that kind of would expose

the individual's names anyway and kind of put it out there. And the government just did a filing saying, one, it looks like he violated the protective order to we do admit as the government we subpoenaed the wrong person, but it was just because there was an error in the database, but this has nothing to do with anything judge. Let's keep the wheels back on track here. And that's what I fully expect to happen. It's just a ban in kind of tactic of create a mess where it's a very simple case, should Bannon have testified in front of the committee? Yes or no? And yes, he had every obligation to. He could have taken the fifth. He didn't do that. We see a lot of people now doing the strategy with the January 6th of just kind of taking the fifth on every question. But Bannon didn't do that. And you know, this case is going to go, I think Bannon's going to be found guilty, but what are you gonna say about Judge Nichols?

And when? Well, we got it, we got it, because there's been a kind of a nuance and new development off of the hearing. And I kind of thought it was gonna go in that direction, but then Judge Nichols, so we got Carl Nichols, who people will remember one, because, of course, he got assigned to the badden case.

But he's also one of the only judges in the district of Columbia, the DC Circuit Court, who has dismissed an obstruction charge finding that the way that the obstruction charge is being used by the Department of Justice against the Jansics insurrectionists is not appropriate. It's not what the obstruction charge was meant for. Why is that matter? Because it's the highest charge that the Justice Department is using against a long, long time or to reach a plea deal with them to put them away for a long, long time. And so Nichols is one of only seven who are sitting currently on the bench. And of course, he's a Trump appointee

who found that the obstruction charge is invalid and dismissed it against somebody. Why does all this matter? Because he's sort of his own person. And so when the Department of Justice went in to talk about, well, we didn't mean to accidentally subpoena the email account and records of the wrong Robert Costello, one of the lawyers for banning.

We were just trying to establish that the email of the subpoena from the Gen 6 committee that went to Costello went to banning because we have to prove as an element of the crime that he had knowledge of the subpoena. But the hearing went a different way, Ben. The hearing went into the judge basically taking the position that perhaps you don't have to be in the White House as an employee to be under the executive privilege, you can still be a presidential advisor, even if you're outside of the White House as a podcaster or otherwise. And, and therefore, the fundamental question for Nichols has become. Was it reasonable for ban and to rely on a series of office of legal counsel, the OLC, which is the Justice Department office inside of the executive branch that provides counsel

daily to the president. And there have been a series of executive privilege memos and our fans, our fans, our followers, sorry, our followers can go on the Department of Justice website today under executive privilege under the Office of Legal Counsel and find the four or five memos that have been written, starting in 1977 all the way through 1996, 1984 under Democratic presidents and the like and Obama and see what the position has been about prosecuting someone in the executive branch or under the executive privilege who violates a Congress investigation subpoena. And so, Bannon's defense is that I relied on my counsel who read these memos and told

me that they applied to me, because I was a counselor to the president, even though I wasn't employed that way. And therefore, I enjoy executive privilege and I do not have to respond. And therefore, I did not commit a crime. And that got a lot more interest and a lot more mileage at this hearing on Wednesday than anybody thought it would with Nichols. In fact, he's ordered the Department of Justice to turn over their internal deliberation memos to Bannon's defense team about how they went through the memo analysis of the office of legal counsel to ultimately make the prosecutorial decision to bring the case against Bannon, because he thinks that's fair game for banan on his issue

of whether he has criminal intent or not. So it has taken a turn under a judge who's already out of step with the vast majority of federal federal judges about Jan six goes to show you though the importance of elections because judge Nichols is a Trump appointee.

Every other judge finds what the insurrection is to be obstruction judge nickels throughout the obstruction charge and an insurrectionist case. Here, if you're the government and the way these we talk about this in other legal apps, it's a random selection of which judge is going to get the case when it's filed. So it's like roulette, like you just, you know, picks the judge. And in this game of, I guess we won't say Russian roulette, but in district court roulette, if you will, here, this would be the single worst judge that the DOJ would want to pull for the ban in case period. And this is exactly why for the reasons that Pope ox to the reason for one and for one other,

which is weird because I know people that know Nichols when he was a white collar defense lawyer at one of the most preeminent law firms. I won't name in Washington DC. And he was sort of considered a down a balls and strikes person, but he has another link to privilege and executive privilege here that came up with the hearing when he was with he was in George W. Bush's Justice Department as an assistant US attorney and pardon me. And he litigated a case where he pushed for the broadest extension of executive privilege possible for the, for the Bush administration. He lost at a federal judge, this is so ironic, a federal judge at that time ruled against his position.

And it actually came up, it was sort of funny. It came up during the oral argument or the hearing on Wednesday. And when very politely the Department of Justice to remind the judge about the law and how it's developed at executive privilege, the judge jumped in and said, I know one of those cases very well. So it is a bad poll, but in a weird way, you know, and to prove absolutely your point, although we're not going to talk about it tonight on the pod. I don't know if you saw Ben, the fifth circuit, which we've talked about time and time again as being a the bane of of Biden's existence, a bur in his saddle, fighting him at every move and every policy.

Another three judge panel just gave him a victory in the environmental world, why? Because two of the judges were Obama appointees and one was a George W. Bush. So that, you know, slot machine, cherry, cherry, cherry came up in favor of Biden in a rare win at the fifth circuit, but it just proves your point about judges matter and who's putting these judges in matter. And we're going to talk about that when we get to Katana G. Brown Jackson. Yeah. And I want to talk, I mean, we could we could talk about very quickly the fifth circuit case, but yeah, moving on from batten, but yeah, we'll follow what's going on with the batten case, but I'm with you, Popak, that this judge, this judge's history on the executive privilege issue, you know, and being a Trump appointees very problematic.

It's just thinking about it and kind of all of its context, extending executive privilege just to like random dudes who talk to the president is such a dangerous or, you know, it's such a, it's such a dangerous, strange concept that anybody can be the president's advisor. It's just a guy and Duncan Donuts who he strikes up a conversation with is now a presidential advisor. Everyone gets executive privilege. Boop, you get executive privilege. Boop, you get executive privilege. That is not what the intent behind the laws. It renders it stupid. But then at the same time, you have people like Nichols, judges like that who want to, oh, let's have a unitary president. And the president has all the authorities, everyone that the executive, you know,

he declares executive privilege. They're executives, except when it's like executive rulemaking, Biden can't do that when it comes to Biden enforcing COVID mandates. So when it's a Democrat, Biden can't for the Republicans. So under this theory, right, you can declare anybody subject to executive privilege who works for you, but a president can't create a policy of actual staff that they need to be vaccinated. Well, here's, but it's even more insidious as you're perfectly blueprinting this. Nichols actually used and made an equivalency, an executive privilege equivalency

between Bannon, podcaster Bannon, two years removed from the White House. And the judge said it would be as if the Department of Justice was prosecuting Ron Claim, who was the current chief of staff for the president of the United States. He actually said, Ron Claim, are you saying you could prosecute Ron Claim for not responding to the Gen 6 committee, Sapina? Yes or no? Why are you comparing Ron Claim, the sitting chief of staff to homeless guy podcaster Steve

Bennett? And then strategically you say, well, why isn't the Department of Justice prosecuting Mark Meadows? And the question though is, the answer to that question is what you just pointed out Popak, the DOJ strategically in this absurd chess match created by these corrupt Trump judges has to anticipate that question coming on and they could answer the question that you just gave and say, well, we're not actually prosecuting Mark Meadows right now. As far as I know, Mark Meadows is not being prosecuted. Steve Bannon is not Mark Meadows,

but if you had a prosecution of Mark Meadows, Carl Nichols, he's waiting for that. I mean, Judge Nichols, he's waiting for that. You're right about that. That's right. So, so then the DOJ just goes, well, we're not prosecuting Meadows, but if Meadows was prosecuted, you could lump them together. So Nichols' argument there is almost a prescripted argument that he's waiting for, but it makes no sense because Meadows isn't being prosecuted. I want to just take a time out for a minute. Sometimes I'm even subquitely surprised by the level of in-depth analysis that you and me come up with on the fly without any rehearsal whatsoever. I was like, this is like perfect. We could even scripted this. Well, you call

it up. It's a popokian backpack. Pat himself on popokian bats himself on the back alive. Do you know, you don't see that on CNN? No. Let's get into though. You'd mention this fifth circuit thing. I think it's maybe less exciting and interesting, even though there were two Biden, you know, appointees who were on. Oh, it was a Biden. I said Obama. I'm sorry. Obama appointees. It's Obama, not Biden. But the, yeah. So the fifth circuit, Court of Appeals halted this ruling, basically blocking a Biden administration climate risk measure. And what was the Biden climate risk measure at issue? It was basically, we want to factor in an administrative policy decision making. We want to factor in climate change as a risk factor.

Like we should talk about climate change. Not saying that that risk factor will actually be implemented into any administrative action, just consider it as a factor. That is something that Republicans objected to, not only objected to, Republican state governments and legislatures file lawsuits against the Biden administration because Biden administration issued an executive order. So Trump got rid of an executive order that basically created this intra agency position that would provide recommendations that included a climate change calculation into kind of risks and rewards of agency decision making.

And so Trump got rid of that. So Biden restored that intra agency position where, hey, we're going to at least factor it in. And so the Republican legislatures, the Republican governments and AGs and they all get banned together, they sued and they drew a judge where they won in the district court. And the district court said Biden, you can't even consider climate change in a don't not even a factor. So Biden appealed that. And what this decision from the Fifth Circuit simply said, though, Pope, is you can consider it.

Like, could you, we're not even fighting over the issue yet, though, of whether climate change should even be a determinative factor in an actual discrete policy. Because what the Fifth Circuit says here is that there's no standing for these attorney generals and legislatures to bring the action because they haven't been injured yet because no policy that factored this in has been promulgated. When the policy is promulgated, you can sure as heck bet that the legislatures, the AGs, all these Republicans will sue on the specific policy because they've sued on the very concept of, hey, administrative agencies should consider climate change through this intra-agency kind of group that will make climate change recommendations. How absurd. How absurd are we? I think about that

movie on Netflix where they don't look up, where the comments coming at you, and there's a whole band of people that are saying, don't even look up, we're protesting looking up. Like how stupid and dumb are these Republican leaders to say we're suing you for including climate change as something that we should even think about. Yeah, so the states, the states, as you can imagine, were all coal mining and fossil fuel states

who are scared of Biden, you know. By the way, Biden was never gonna go any further than Obama did. It's not like Obama destroyed the coal industry. Some people would say he should have, but he didn't. And we'll just leave it on this. The standing decision that there was no standing for these states because they haven't been harmed, their harm is too

speculative. Standing is a very common way for courts, including all the way up to the Supreme Court, to conserve a jurisprudential jurisdiction so they don't have to make a decision. And they have a policy, as part of precedent, that if a party is an injured before them, and they're not in the business of making advisory rulings about future conduct unless somebody is injured now, that's the fundamental premise of standing. And so when they have hard decisions, sometimes it takes two or three procedural moves to

get there because the party in front of them doesn't have standing. So it's not uncommon for a panel to say, you know what, we're not gonna get to the substantive issues. We don't even think these people belong in this courthouse. And while yes, it's a technicality, it's often used and sometimes successfully to permanently put off the issue. So it is a win for the Biden administration,

even though on standing grounds. I think that's where I want to kind of leave the segment. Let's leave the segment, but let's go into what I promised at the beginning. This is the time for you to check out. Don't leave the pod yet. Wait till the pod is over or use another device for you to do this before you get your legal AF certificate. But the way you go now go to store.mitistouch.com, download the legal AF certificate, search for legal AF certificate of affiliation. They are $10 to download. You can then put them up on your house, wherever your apartment, wherever you want to put them in your car, wherever you want to put them.

Hey, take, hang them proudly next to your other diplomas. Paying the next to all of your diplomas. Primarily when people walk in the first thing they'll see is that you are a legal a effort. And as we mentioned at the beginning, we will be providing all of the proceeds that we get. We will be donating to Ukrainian refugees. We will follow up with you about where that money is going into all the great help that money's been put to. But we wanted to make this both a way we can congratulate you, the legal community of

legal aeifers, and a way that you can at the same time be helping out by doing a great cause and helping out Ukrainian refugees in Poland and helping out our great partners who are now in Poland who are working with Midas Touch to help Ukrainian refugees there and doing such an incredible, incredible job. And I think while we're there in the Midas Touch store, we also have legal AF mugs. We have legal AF t-shirts. I don't know if those special edition popaki and T shirts are available any longer or they're going to be like root beer, root beer popsicles when

I was a kid, they are, you rarely spot them. And then and then everybody climbers to get that when they're out. We got a lot of great merch, Pope, pop, pop, with a lot of great merch. And then again, Mary Kay Leonard and love in ALX. She's from Alexandria, Virginia. She left, inspired by you, the Midas Mighty and her own courage. I mean, she's an incredible person. I mean, she left and is now in Poland on the border of Ukraine, working with us, working with other groups to help out. And so we want to support the work there as she's literally driving to the border and helping place Ukrainian refugees into housing in Poland. And so we're going to help her out with

her work through these legal AF, sir, certificates. So thank you for that. And let's talk popok about two guilty pleas from January 6th insurrectionists. One involving a police officer, now former police officer, one involving a lawmaker. Always, it's always very just shocking and tragic when you see how people with these serious positions have been radicalized. They ate it and embedded the insurrection.

And so this ex-V officer, Jacob Fracker, pled guilty to storming the Capitol. And then we have the former West Virginia legislature, Derek Evans, who pled guilty as well. This, the Derek Evans, I think about that Dave Chappelle skit where he's like, I'm Rick James, you know, the skit where he goes that when Derek Evans went into the Capitol building in the insurrection, he literally chanted Derek Evans in the house. And the guy literally said, this is a West Virginia legislature who when he went into the

Capitol during the insurrection shouted, Derek Evans is here. Derek Evans. Well, Derek Evans is now doing a perp walk and is pleading guilty. Then we have this. Is that the one before you move on? Is that the one where he got elected? But he didn't even get seated because he went and did the insurrection. And so he got elected, but he never got to serve because it turned out he was an ex-serectionist in his part time. Derek Evans in the house. If Derek Evans not in the house. Derek Evans. Derek Evans not in the house. And yeah, he resigned from his seat representing the state's 19th house district within a week of the attack. And then that was before

indicating he would take a plea deal in February. So he week of the attack. And then that was before indicating he would take a plea deal in February. So he's officially pled guilty. And then you have Fracker, this former Virginia police officer who also pled guilty and likely will be serving serious time. But let's do a quick roundup of where we are, scoreboard, scorecard. 760 people have been charged with crimes related

to the insurrection. 230 have pled guilty. 127 of them have been sentenced, some to misdemeanors, but some to felonies, and more than 100 are await trial dates. We've already saw the first trial two weeks ago. This is a big lift, a heavy lift, the Department of Justice,

and they are certainly doing their best job. Before anybody that questions what the Department of Justice is doing, it's bringing 760 people to justice from top to bottom in every way. And Fracker, to bring it full circle band to the Judge nickel's discussion, while did judge nickels is busy dismissing obstruction charges. Fracker pled guilty to an obstruction

charge. One count. He's now going to be a cooperating witness against another police officer, Tom Robertson, that was there. And these idiots were war gas masks and carried sticks and attacked the Capitol police while they were there. So Fracker, having now been now convicted of obstruction, will testify against his co-conspirator Tom Robertson. Paul Pot, great breaking it down. And there's, you know, the, the slowly, methodically, you know, the Gen 6th commission is doing a great job. And the DOJ just doing a great job in their prosecutions. I mean, they've plea after plea that that's one of the common themes. Go back and watch all these legal apps. We always talk

about the plea agreements. And then last legal, I have, we talked about the guilty verdict that they got within four hours, which basically also included lunch. So the jury convicted the insurrection. And I get through and I just around it out to square the circle, so to speak. We as progressive Democrats have to get out of the habit, it's such an easy habit of what aboutism. Well, what, yes, there's been 237 people that have been

sensed, but what about, and then fill in the blank? This is a body of work that has to be considered overall. Think about the thousands and thousands of law enforcement investigations, investigative people and US attorneys who are involved every day with nothing other than Jan 6th prosecutions. And that's just on the prosecutor's side, let alone on the court system side, the rest of the officers of the court and the defense attorney side, which we're going to talk about the importance of defense attorneys, including public defenders, even in the face of charges about insurrection, but we talk

about Kentangie Brown Jackson. Let's get into it. Talking about Kentangie Brown Jackson. Her confirmation hearing starts this week upcoming week. This is, it shouldn't be a contentious hearing. I mean, she was recently confirmed for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in a fairly bipartisan matter. She was also confirmed as a district court judge in a fairly bipartisan matter.

But of course, the Republicans are going to Republican and they are going to try to come up with anything. So they're new line of attack on her that we could expect. She's been endorsed by everybody. She's been endorsed for whether groups from the left or the right. I'm not talking about politicians, but law enforcement groups, progressive groups across all issues. She's universal. The public defenders, the federal public defenders all endorse her and the National Police Chiefs Union. So you have both sides of law law and order have both endorsed her.

No, so she exactly. But the Republican line of attack now, we can expect based on documents that have been circulating by, remember Josh Hawley who raised his fist at the insurrection of, I mean, this pathetic fool, and is on the, wait, and is on that fool is on the Senate judiciary committee who's going to have a vote about confirming her. Oh, absolutely. And you, you can bet that he's going to vote against confirming her. I mean, Josh Holly, Josh Holly's like just a literal piece of crap. Like he is a walking, he's walking feces. Josh, he's a human, he's the human embodiment of a poop emoji. Josh Holly is feces is the best way to describe like what a trash, you know, you know, and he's a smart guy too, who is just, he's just everything that's wrong with politics

is Josh Holley. So he's using his talent for evil instead of for good. Sick man. And so he's now circulating a memo that says that Katanji Brown Jackson was weak on child predators and weak on child molesters and they're going to kind of lean in on that and claim that through sentencing commission she was on as a district court judge and are sentencing against child predators and against child sex offenders was not strong enough and we can anticipate and expect

that to be one of their strategies, which I think they're all gonna look foolish and Holly's not a good questioner. And these people are just pathetic. Supreme Court nominee Judge Katanjee Brown-Jackson is going to be confirmed. She deserves to be confirmed. And I'm excited that Biden Schumer everyone's moving

this nomination along quickly. Well, yes, it's record time, 25 or 26 days from when she was nominated. They're already holding the first hearing. So we'll go about four days next week, and we'll report on it at the end of the week. But here's the interesting thing about this. Remember for our followers and listeners in the history of the Supreme Court,

Katangi Brown Jackson holds the unique distinction. I know people are thinking I'm about to say first black woman, first public defender to ever be nominated for the US Supreme Court in the entire history of the US Supreme Court. Of course, they're going to attack her. Well, when you were a public defender for those two years, let's look at all the cases that you defended, totally undermining our system of justice, which requires an adversarial system that there be zealous advocacy on both sides, even for the most heinous of crimes.

And I won't even create a scenario of the most heinous crime. Someone can think of, but I want to live in a country where that person is represented at our trial and our, because our entire system of advocacy and adversarial process is, is found, found it on fundamentally on having zealous advocacy on both sides. And if the market won't come forward and private lawyers won't represent that person, then the public, the federal public defenders and the state public defenders have to. Otherwise, we're no better than the Iran's, the Russia's, the North Korea's that we, that we that we criticize. Now, here's the nice thing that's not gotten

a lot of press, but I want to bring it to the fore here today with you, Ben, is how many federal public defenders and public defenders Biden has successfully nominated and had confirmed as federal judges. People might think, oh, this happens every day. Well, it doesn't. Biden in one year has already nominated and had confirmed seven people who have federal public defender or public defender background as federal judges who will now be for lifetime appointments. Seven doesn't sound like a lot until I tell you the next fact you're ready, Ben? Seven or now eight actually, there was one that was recently confirmed, is more than Trump, Obama, George W. Bush, and Clinton combined.

All of those presidencies combined have not matched what Joe Biden has done in one year and putting federal public defenders, public defenders into the federal judiciary, changing the shape from the inside of criminal of of of creating criminal justice reform and changing the face of the judiciary in a way that in a way uniquely that no other president has ever done. Isn't Ann Kentonji Brown Jackson is the is the cherry on the top of the Sunday now getting a federal public defender in because she is going to get confirmed, write it down 100% chance. She's going to be our next justice as soon as as soon as Briar steps down after the next at the

end of this term. Yeah. And it's why elections matter and it's why having control of the Senate matters, even if it's a 50 50 with the vice president, Kamala Harris, tiebreaker. It's just so critical. And sometimes when I want to be very critical of a Joe mansion and a Christian cinema, be very critical of a Joe Manchin and a Christian cinema. And rightfully so on all of these issues, the fact that they are still Democrats allows Schumer to be the majority leader. And that will take it further. Take the compliment further. I don't like Manchin and cinema mostly. They have not objected or stood in the way of one judge nomination by Biden. So on judges, they're fine. That's why that's how Schumer is is shoving all of these nominations through. And that's why Biden is doing well with the federal judiciary because they haven't stood

in the way. And taking this episode full circle when we talked about the beginning. I ran and Russia. You now see through this legal AF, what bad politically corrupt judges can do. Like the judge we talked about, who I can never appear in front of ever again, judge Nichols after, after saying those things. You know, what's up? Hello, judge Nichols. I'm not your honor. I'm the guy who, but it's true. And I'm going to call

people out truthfully and transparently. And, you know, but you think about what Judge Nichols did, back going to the, you know, banning, that's like what a Putin judge would do. They're like, Oh, that oligarch, he is a friend of Putin executive privilege. Throw out the case. That's what we expect in corrupt systems. And those are the type of judges that Trump appointed. And let me, let me scare you one step a little further. Nichols is a smart guy at least. Like Nichols was at least the qualified. He, he had the years of experience and qualifications to at least be a judge. And he still rules like that. Trump picked a number of judges who, number, most of his judges who were deemed unqualified for the position by bipartisan panels of people who have the EVA, the American Bar Association,

and you would see committee hearings where they would ask these judges, have you have these people being confirmed by Trump? Have you ever been at a trial before? Raise your hand if you've been at a trial. No one would raise their hand. Raise your hand if you've if you've taken a deposition, one person would raise their hand. So tell me about the deposition you took well, Senator, it was actually I was sitting next to the lawyer who took the deposition you took, uh, well, Senator, it was actually, I was sitting next to the lawyer who took the deposition. So no one took any depositions. Trump would pick people who were incredibly corrupt toward district judges now and who didn't even try cases who have no legal, like significant legal experience. That's what you scare the shit out of you. And

that's why though for all the bad with mansion and cinema, we have great experienced smart judges. And that's the ultimate kind of safe keeping against us becoming Iran and Russia and us having a valid legal system. So that's taking this episode full circle and leaving on an inspirational and aspirational note. Judge Katanji Brown, Jackson really does represent the good, the hope, the fairness, the justice in our judicial system. And we will keep all the legal a furs up to date on what's going on. I'm sure you'll do a midweek recap of those proceedings with KFA, popok, final words. I just think that after to bring it full, full circle, our legal a furs,

listeners and followers after a year of following us and listening to these shows and think about it, we do two hour shows. That's 55 shows at two hours. If that's a lot of legal experience, that's more than lawyers take in their continuing legal education. They are more qualified to be federal judges than the ones that Trump picked. Popak, appreciate you. Appreciate us turning one took off your diaper today.

You put on put on your underwear. You is to be particularly. I mean, it's on your underwear, you stopped calling. It's a big, particularly. I mean, it's a past. It's a one year old. We started, it was stopped calling, we started walking. Everybody get your legal AF one year degree. It's the honor system.

It's the honor system. We're trusting that you've attended your one year academic. At least half of the classes. You can print out at the plow. You can print out it to plug. You can click you can print out at the Plumber store.mitustouch.com look at the legal AF certificate download it and the money will go to you creating refugees will keep you posted About how much money we've raised where the money went as we always do at minus touch Popak always a pleasure. We talked about a lot of issues today. Thank you all LegalAFers for all of your support. Make sure to give us a five-star review wherever you get your

podcasts, wherever you listen to it. Subscribe to the MidasTouch YouTube channel. MidasTouch is now the exclusive home for videos of the Mayacolpa podcast as well. In addition to the MidasTouch podcast, in addition to LegalAF and all our other great podcasts. So go subscribe to Midas Touch YouTube now and check that out. Subscribing to the YouTube channel helps us out as well. So even if you don't wanna watch all of those episodes, just subscribe to it,

and that helps us out well, and subscribe to Legal AF. You may be watching this, but not actually subscribe to the podcast. So make sure you click the subscribe button and leave that five star review. Ben, my cell is Michael Popock. We are going out to celebrate our one year B day right now

and we will see you on the next Legal AF. If it's Saturday or Sunday, if it's the weekend, if it's every day, frankly, it is Legal. AF Special Shoutout to the Midas Mighty.