Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Top Law Experts Meiselas & Popok BREAKDOWN the Week’s BLOCKBUSTER Legal News

Episode Date: December 11, 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 at the wheels of justice in “real time” as they analyze and discuss this week’s most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this week’s episode, the anchors break-down and analyze: the Special Counsel’s moving for contempt in DC against Trump related to his failure to turn over more subpoenaed documents, and his issuing new subpoenas to state and local election officials concerning Trump’s interference and fake elector scheme; the criminal felony conviction of the Trump Organization and what it means for the future and the civil fraud case; Ivanka Trump cutting a deal with the NY Attorney General to be let out of financial monitoring requirements and what it could mean for the case and Trump; the Supreme Court’s oral arguments on LGBTQ+ discrimination and whether State Legislatures can refuse to certify federal elections; and a DC appeal court considering whether Trump has full immunity from civil suit for his Jan6 speech that led to the Insurrection and the attack on the Capitol, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: AG1: https://athleticgreens.com/LegalAF AURA FRAMES: https://auraframes.com/LegalAF LOMI: https://lomi.com/LegalAF GET MEIDAS MERCH: https://store.meidastouch.com Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gilti, gilti, gilti. The Trump organization is convicted and found guilty on 17 felony counts in New York State Court. And with it, I don't know your take, Popok, but for me, it feels like the floodgates are open on Trump's criminal liability in other proceedings as well and by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office on other matters. The Department of Justice Criminal Investigations of Donald Trump are heating up under Special Counsel Jack Smith, the Department of Justice under Jack Smith's leadership, even filed a motion for contempt in the secret grand jury proceedings before Judge Barrel Howell, who's overseeing the criminal grand jury's investigating Trump's crimes.

Although the court ultimately denied the contempt motion, we'll explain right here on legal AF why that is not a win for Donald Trump and let's talk about the likely strategy, the aggressive newest strategy being deployed by the Department of Justice behind that motion for contempt. The Supreme Court heard oral argument in two critical cases that we will talk about on this weekend's edition of Legal AF, 303 Creative versus Eleonis, which was a case that would allow private businesses to discriminate against the LGBTQ plus community if the business claims that their discrimination is just part of its religious beliefs.

And we'll also talk about a case more versus Harper. That's the case involving the radical, extremist, independent state legislature, doctrine or theory, which would essentially hold that state legislatures can do anything they want with federal elections regardless of the state courts and the state constitutions, even though the state constitutions create the legislature. I don't even think the right-wing extremists are fully buying this, but the fact that they even heard this case is something that is really, really frightening.

Ivanka Trump entered into a bit of an odd deal with the New York Attorney General's office this week in the Attorney General's $250 million fraud lawsuit against Trump, the Trump Organization, and his adult children, which includes Ivanka. And the deal here provided that the independent monetary restrictions and all of the oversight that's being done over the Trump organization and Trump's other adult children. For some reason, won't apply to Ivanka,

but let's discuss why we think the New York Attorney General made this deal I want to get Popox take on that. And then the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeal, yes, the Washington, DC Circuit Court of Appeal heard oral arguments in Trump's appeal this week where Trump is claiming absolute civil immunity from his conduct on January 6th on the basis that under our Constitution and as the president has interpreted article 2, presidents are entitled to absolute civil immunity and a case back in the 1970s involving Nixon

V Fitzgerald set forth that precedent, but the lower federal court in Washington, DC found that absolute civil immunity did not apply here because Donald Trump was not defecuating any constitutional rules and responsibilities quite the contrary. But let's break down what the court of appeals was grappling with what we think the likely outcome is. And I think based on the questions being asked by the Court of Appeals there, it's a little bit of a closer call than I would like. Ultimately, what I think the ruling is going to be there.

But Michael Popak, thank you for joining us. I have a bit of a sore throat today. So I apologize for all of those watching and listening. All these hot takes after a while. They have taken the toll on my voice a little bit. I was going to say, don't adjust your electronic knobs, Ben's not feeling well, at least that is throat. But we're going to make it through because this is like the postal service, neither rain, nor snow, nor sleep, nor dark of night, nor laran jitus for one of the co-workers is going to stop

us from making our appointed rounds through the legal system. I got a teaser from one of our segments. I got a prediction. I think the 17 count conviction of the main entity that Trump applies his trade through the Trump organization, or at least it's two major subsidiaries, coupled with the fact that he has not replaced his counsel with the New York Attorney General civil suit and is still relying on Alina Habba of all things. I think it's more likely now that there will be a settlement of the civil fraud case, much

to Latisha James' advantage. And he's not going to go all the way through trial now having lost in front of a jury. I don't think even Trump can't afford two fraud convictions, almost back to back, and this one involving his children. I'll talk more about that when we get to the segment. Well, let's get into the segment right away. So first, let's talk about two different things, right? First is the criminal case against the Trump organization.

The other is a civil case brought by the New York Attorney General's office. So, why didn't the New York Attorney General's office bring a criminal case? Well, the New York Attorney General is invested with that power, who is invested with that power is the District Attorney's offices, and the Manhattan District Attorney's office here brought the criminal case against the Trump organization, and certain of its executives, and Alan Weiselberg, for example, the Trump organization, CFO, who previously pled guilty to 11 felony counts.

In this case, involved improper benefits that were being given to executives. They were being given off the books so that the Trump organization itself would not be taxed for it. They could claim the costs, and they could claim it as an exemption. And the executive was not claiming it on their taxes. So it was kind of on both ends of it a fraud. And so first you had Weiselberg, pledilty, the criminal trial took place. What was about seven weeks, right, Popok, with jury selection, maybe a little bit. Yeah, it was about seven weeks and less than six hours of total deliberation when you subtract lunch by the jury to convict on all 17 counts against the two main subsidiaries

of the Trump Organization, which is Trump Inc. and Trump payroll. Go ahead, Ben, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, no. So tell us about, I mean, it was a swift verdict by the jurors. As you said, the overall time they were out was 10 hours. If you subtract lunch and other breaks, we're talking about six hours for all 17 felony counts. We're talking about six hours for all 17 felony counts and the instructions at issue though for them to have found

The Trump organization guilty They had to have found that the Trump organization Itself was the recipient of these benefits that it did this knowingly and that the scheme was led at the top the scheme was led at the top by Donald Trump. And even though Donald Trump was not a criminal defendant in this case, his name was brought up right before deliberations because when the jury has to deliberate, who is the managing agent, who is the person from the corporation that is the one

who was involved in this. Donald Trump's name was the name that came up. And one of the things I think to mention too, is that Trump, the Trump organization put up a lot of people, including Weiselberg who tried to basically claim that Trump himself may not have known and there wasn't any benefit there, but the jury didn't believe that. The jury thought that like on those issues that all those Trump executives were lie. What was your take on this verdict? Yeah, and you and I did along with Karen, Freeman, Agnifala. We did an hour and a half the day of the verdict on the analysis. Let's see, we can bring something new to the table today that's really interesting. My take is that Weisselberg did what he was

supposed to do. He was, he, he, he, he colored within the lines as far as the cooperation agreement or the agreement he had with the prosecutor's office to testify truthfully or he wouldn't get the five months in Riker Island deal on his conviction. And they're not done with Alan Weisselberg. The reporting is, and we'll talk about it today, that Alan Bragg is reinvigored and newly turbocharged coming off a major, major win with Karen Friedman at Nifloar, Coenker, called an example of a prosecutor getting their sea legs in Alan Bragg.

And now it's reported not only has he brought on a new prosecutor who from the world on the civil side, who's successfully gone off after the Trump organization and the Trump charity in the past. And those were all those things are better. Matthew Kalangelo. Matthew Kalangelo is now working for Alvin Bragg. But Alvin Bragg has even even looking at a potential second count of fraud against Alan Weisselberg to squeeze his anatomically incorrect body parts to get

him to testify again against Donald Trump in an insurance fraud scheme. That Alan Weisselberg, on behalf of the Trump organization, lied to the Hartford Insurance Company on an appraisal issue. And that gives rise to an insurance fraud also reporting that Alan Bragg is looking at the Stormy Daniels election fraud, whether money was used to improperly benefit Canada Trump off the books that should have been disclosed as part of election law in the state of New York. So you've got an emboldened Alvin Bragg who who actually getting reports from

his prosecutors, the things are going really well for him. As you noted in one of your hot decks, even announced that he was adding on to his Trump team before the verdicts. It was while they were still deliberating before the verdict even came out. So my, yeah, really gutsy. And it shows that he's getting great intel, regained intel from his, from his people, prosecutors who are watching the jury and the jury. I'm sure they're reporting like Josh Stein glass, the lead prosecutor there who did the closing that the jury's buying what we're selling. It is not buying what the Trump organizations lawyers are selling.

And these were a couple of very well regarded white collar criminal defense lawyers. They're not the typical, you know, barrel of monkeys that Trump usually hires for cases. These were really well established people. But you know, the fact of the facts, the laws, the law on your witnesses are your witnesses. And the jury obviously credited Alan Weiselberg for admitting that he committed fraud and didn't buy that in a very small family run office where the executives all have the last name Trump that they didn't know about the under-the-payment payments being made, under-the-table payments that were being made for apartments and school tuition

and car services for 15 years made absolutely no sense. And also I'm sure the credited the jury credited this fact that in 2017 the Trump organization suddenly cleaned up their act and got rid of the under the payment under the table payments and started paying Alan Weiselberg and two other, $200,000 more a year in income, which of course was reported at that point to pay for all of these perks. Well, who made that decision? Avanka, Don Jr. Eric, and Donald Trump. So they were not buying this very weak, weak T of a defense that this was all about a

rogue set of executives, three of them, including Al Weisselberg, that just decided to pay themselves off the books and the boss didn't know. I mean, I can't even get that statement out without it being, you know, passing the straight face desk. But here's my next analysis, and I want to get your take on this. He can say whatever he wants with this guy, Steven Chong, that seems to be his current spokesperson every time there's an event now, it's the exact same talking point. Donald

Trump is standing against a weaponized department of justice or a weaponized prosecutor's office or a weaponized New York attorney general's office. And he's the last bashed gene of hope for America. Okay, put that aside. Who cares? All of his tweets. Who cares? The reality is that his organization has been found to be a full felon, 17 times in the state of New York. A, they're going to have to leave the state of New York because they're no longer going to be able to operate a business in New York under that corporate name because they're completely radioactive with lenders, insurance companies, regulators, licensing agencies, and the like, that's one.

Two, they got to get out from under Latisha James, and her broad civil authority under what we call the 63-12 powers of the New York state powers, given to the New York Attorney General. She does have some, by the way, we said earlier, she doesn't have criminal powers. She does have some limited criminal powers, not applicable here, but her civil powers are extraordinary.

And on a much lower standard of evidence, a lower burden of proof that she has to make out, she's a scary person if you're a fraudster like Donald Trump. I also predict he's going to have to leave the state, take that organization, either to Delaware or to another friendlier state and get out from under future attorney general oversight by Latisha James. And the third thing I think happens because of a 17 count conviction or the fourth thing is that it emboldens future prosecutors and current prosecutors

that they can get a conviction against Donald Trump or an organization so close to Donald Trump that it's almost it's almost no there's no daylight. This emboldens Fawney Willis and others to say, you know what, it's the first time ever that a jury convicted Trump or a Trump related entity of fraud. That's great. That emboldens prosecutors. And the last thing is Trump's got to settle the civil case. There is no way on God's greed, earth, that even he believes that if he loses again and he will lose again in another jury trial this time with Latisha James, where his only defense is Alina Habba at present. He's got to settle that case if she'll take a settlement. I think she takes a settlement, but it's like on her terms

and it'll be very, very broad and sweeping because if he loses again, convicted in this almost the same year, I'll be the well within six months, he'll be convicted of fraud twice, civilly and criminally. It's the death knell for Donald Trump, no matter what he tweets. I hope that she doesn't settle number one. But if she does settle, I hope she settles for at least a billion dollars. And if she's watching this,

or if others in the New York Attorney General's office are watching this, or other lawyers who are potentially prosecuting Trump or watching this or maybe prosecuting Trump or watching this, you see how weak Donald Trump actually is, just like when he was in office. It's all a facade. It's all the bravado and bluster. It's all bark and absolutely no bite at all. And when we think about who didn't testify at the criminal trial, who I'm sure the jury

would want to hear from. And this is one of the instructions that juries get. Did one of the parties have the opportunity to bring a witness in, to dispute an evidence, to dispute an item of evidence, and that party was under their control, but they didn't present them. That's something that the juries are told in their jury instructions, and Donald Trump did not show up at the Trump Organization, criminal trial, and he could have showed up. Similarly, when he was deposed in the special proceeding that predates the filing of the lawsuit by New York Attorney General Leticia James first. Donald Trump tried to do what he always does,

which is run away. Run away from his problems, run away from the deposition, and then when he was finally compelled to be deposed, New York Attorney General Letitia James showed up. She was at the deposition and she asked him the most basic of questions and a jury gets to hear this in a civil case, unlike in the criminal case, that Donald Trump invoked his fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination over 400 times. And he was asked the most basic of basic questions by Leticia James. So, Mr. Trump, can you please tell me what was the appraised value of the Trump towers? Mr. Trump, what's the appraised value of Bedminster? Mr. Trump, what's the appraised value of Mar-a-Lago? Okay, what's the valuation of

those properties? Why is there a difference between the appraisised value of Mar-a-Lago. Okay, what's the valuation of those properties? Why is there a difference between the appraisal and the evaluation? Mr. Trump, who prepares your statement of financial conditions? Mr. Trump, the most basic of questions, right? Those are the questions that Donald Trump goes, I plead the fifth, I plead the fifth,

I plead the fifth, I plead the fifth. And a jury at that trial, that trial is currently set for October of 2023, which we've talked about as an extraordinarily quick trial date for a civil case brought in New York in September of 2022. Letitia James gets to go in front of the jury and say, we wanted to resolve these issues with Trump. We asked him the questions. He invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-aggressive. She gets to show the video. She gets to show the video of the deposition of Donald Trump. And you all, because he made

those statements, you all, and because he invoked the Fifth, you all can make an adverse inference against this. You can infer that he engaged in the misconduct because he's refusing to answer the questions. And then the other thing as we talk about how Latisha James is aggressively pursuing, the civil case, we must not forget, there's currently an independent monitor retired judge Barbara Jones, a former federal judge

from the Southern District of New York, who currently has access to Donald Trump's statement of financial conditions and other financial records. Judge Arthur N. Gauron, who's overseeing that Trump civil lawsuit brought by Latisha James, ordered that Trump turn over like a whole structure of all the Trump organizations. Any type of material transaction Trump has to show that independent monitor, Barbara Jones. And so that's taking place as well. But let's just bring this up right now, Popeyes, so it's not disjointed in this episode because of Ivanka Trump,

they'll enter it into that deal with the New York Attorney General's office, where even though there is the independent monitor, which I just discussed, why do you think it was that Leticia James entered into a deal with Ivanka? Why were they okay with it? So that Ivanka was not subject to the independent monitor kind of oversight and requirements. And I get Ivanka stated and she signed a declaration saying that she had no affiliation with the organization for the past four years

But I mean come on. I mean he's like lying low lives. I don't yeah, and here's my take on it I don't think that Ivanka is completely blameless in fact, when her lawyer tried to get her out from the financial monitor, the independent monitors, scope in the courtroom with Judge Engorant, these arguments were made. Same arguments. I left Trump organization in 2017 to join

my father's administration and I never returned. I'm now a housewife in Miami. I'm not even involved with the Trump campaign. Yeah, man, my husband, he just gets billions of dollars from the Saudis now. Right, right. I get blood money from the Saudis. I don't need to get it from my father any longer.

They tried that and Judge Engoron said, yeah, no, you're staying in. And Latisha actually, Latisha James' office actually fought back in the courtroom and said, that's not entirely true. She has blood on her hands, not literally. Ivanka was involved at least in potential loan fraud with Deutsche Bank. It was named specifically in the hearing in terms of appraisal issues. She was involved with a similar financing of which we think was civil fraud in Chicago.

And so no, she doesn't come to this court with clean hands and she should not be let out. Now, so what happened since then? Let's let's say a couple of things that I'm sure we can all agree on. T. James is supremely bright. Is a chess master, a grand chess master, and is holding all of the cards at the present time. And as I said on my, on one of my hot tics, and she's also holding some other anatomical parts as well, which she can squeeze at any moment. That independent monitor, financial monitor,

can, based on the order, demand immediate turnover of any financial information from any of the children, Don Jr. Eric, Annie Vanke, until she got let out. And Trump, on five days notice, in other words, turn it over five days from now. And there's really no recourse. That's how strong her powers are.

So there is obviously a deal that's been cut. And there's two theories about it. I'll give you mine and then I'll give you a summary of our co-worker, Karen Friedman, Diffaloid, which you did it with me on the midweek. Mine is that Ivanka is going to be a lot more cooperative. I'm not saying she's going to drop a dime on daddy, but she's going to be a lot more cooperative with Atisha James in turning over information and in potentially coming back in for an interview, recall that

the last time she fought just as hard as her as her brother and her brothers and father, not to testify. She shares a lawyer, a co-counsel lawyer with her brothers, but she does have her own allegedly independent counsel, one that I'm sure Daddy's paying for. But she, she did put up the Fifth Amendment in response to some questions that were asked of her, but I don't think as frequently or as vigorously as her brothers and Donald and her father. Now I think, let's see, she has extracted something in return from letting her out because

let's see, she had all the leverage and all the cards. So, A, I think she got a more cooperative version of Ivanka. That's one. Two, if of, if this is Karen's theory, if the, if Latisha is trying to streamline her case, One way to do it is to focus all of her attention on Don Jr. and Eric and Eric in particular and and the father and kind of cut out the and get out of the courtroom. Somebody that's a little bit controversial and some people still like, which is in all of her star power, which is Ivanka, and making a tactical decision that she has been gone since 2017. And if there is a transaction that's going to happen, because this is an injunction hearing to enjoy certain maneuvers and moving of money and assets, if John, Jr. Eric or the father

are moving assets around, they're going to know it because they're still under the monitor. And if they're moving them to, to super enough to try to move them to Ivanka or something that touches Ivanka, we're gonna see the asset transfer out from the brothers and the fathers so we don't really need to get a Ivanka under, under the whip of the monitor. I think it's that.

I think it's the streamlining of the case. You don't need, you don't know how a jury is going to accept Ivanka. We criticize her heavily and rightfully so on the podcast and in other places, the Midas media network. But she's controversial. And some people like her and you bring her into a courtroom with all that wattage and star power. And she's the best looking of all the Trump kids. And she still has a little bit of celebrity, cachet. That could blow the minds of some jurors and they're not focused where they

need to be on the financial fraud on the financial crimes. So you put her on the sideline, you get a cooperation agreement, streamline your case, you focus all of your energy and all of your firepower where it belongs on Eric and down junior who have been running the company along with their father Donald Trump. That's an interesting take on Ivanka. I think she's probably other than Donald. I mean, they're all incredibly deplorable low lives, but I don't think she has any jury

appeal. I don't think she has any appeal at all. I think she's a total fake and fronny, a phony. I think New Yorkers attest her. I think by and large, most people see that she is just a complete liar and just a complete BS artist and gas lighter, but I hear you take the one other point. Well, I mean, but remember, I'm in New York.

I'm in New York. I can tell you that everything you just said totally applies to Jared Kushner. I will tell you that she is a mixed bag when it comes to her celebrity. She's done a lot of good in the city. We all believe that she enabled her father in all the wrong ways while she was in the administration and that she's a force of of evil and bad, not good, but I will tell you that there are people that still like her in New York. And if you're what if you're a jury, New York City. She's a lot of charitable, a lot of charitable things. And she's been able, she's a little more

teflon coated than her brothers are because she's not out to, you know, she's not dropping, you know, TikTok videos, looking to be impaired on drugs like Don Jr. Eric kind of stays off the radar too. I give you. Yeah, but I'm telling you to low threshold. She does not. You can tag videos of herself looking like a me. Yeah.

Right. Anyway, we'll see. But in other words, if you're Latisha James, you don't need Ivanka. You don't need Ivanka. She didn't drop her as a defendant. She dropped her under the financial monitor part of it. And if she cooperates with her, maybe over time in return for something even better, her lawyers can convince Lattice should have let her out of the case.

We'll see. But it's not nothing. I don't want people to come away with, oh, it's interesting. She just let Lattice, you know, she just let Ivanka out from under the financial monitor. Something was extracted and returned. We just don't know what it is yet. And look, uh, letitia james can immediately turn back on that switch in a second and get the financial monitor back in place there. It's not like this, like totally removes a financial monitor. And the judge hasn't been the judge hasn't approved it yet. This is a stipulation that the parties have brought,

but the judge has to sign off on it. And you know, somebody's gonna have to explain to the judge why Ivanka is suddenly no longer a part of the financial fraud that she needs to be let out. I think the argument that she has been gone for the last five years, and they can catch all of the transfers without having Ivanka turn over to Barbara Jones,

all of her financial information. We know why Ivanka doesn't want to be part of that because of her financial relationship with her husband and the ones with the overseas Saudi Arabians. Which is precisely why I think that she shouldn't be let out because the complete end-to-run around the Trump organizations, failings is by the blood money to Jared Kushner. And so to have access to the end-to-run around I think is important, but I do agree with you that she's still a defendant. This independent monitor is still an incredibly strong maneuver in any litigation to take place

and in any event, any of the financial dealings for the Trump organization to have any material deals or dealings will still be seen regardless of this by the independent monitor retire judge. Barbara Jones, let's talk about this Jack Smith DOJ contempt motion because a lot of people have wanted the DOJ to get more aggressive on these like discovery related kind of issues with Trump not turning over records. And here they got as aggressive as you can go, which is going right to the federal judge overseeing these grand jurors, the grand jury investigating Trump's crimes and asking the judge, Judge Barrel Howell, she is a federal judge who oversees all of the grand jury proceedings in Washington, DC federal court,

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These are auras lowest prices ever, so get yours now before they sell out. If you miss the current sale, don't worry. There's going to be so many great deals throughout the end of the year in terms and conditions. Apply. Now, Michael Popak, I do want to talk about Jack Smith's contempt motion. You know, so one thing I should frame this as is and let people know, though, the proceedings before criminal grand juries in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere pre-enditement are done in secret. So unlike the January 6th committee where you see what's going on in public, the way we learn about what's going on is through sources that are there, or sources familiar, good reporting and occasionally because there exists an under sealed docket, you can

maybe see the dates of filings but you can't even see what's being filed but as certain lawyers walk in and leave the courtroom, you can kind of deduce, okay, something big is happening, and then try to work sources to find out what transpired in court. So what we had learned is that the Department of Justice had filed this motion for contempt against Donald Trump and perhaps other members of his team because they weren't designating a custodian of records. Nobody who works with Trump wanted to put their name on a declaration to say all of the documents that Trump stole have now been returned.

And they don't want to do that because they know the Department of Justice after conducting the National Security Review, probably knows all of the documents that are still outstanding and that we're stolen by Trump. And so one of the things that I think Jack Smith is trying to do is bait somebody into perjury or just have somebody make a statement, a declarative statement that is false or even if it's not false and if they want

to say that there are other documents outstanding, at least kind of corner Trump with that. So we heard about this motion for contempt because no one in the Trumps world was willing to put their name into this custodian of records, which is a fairly common easy thing that happens in all litigation. But then we found out that the judge didn't grant the contempt motion, but said to the parties, go and try to resolve it amongst yourself first. And I think a lot of people on social media,

their immediate response was, who's this judge? Oh no, Trump won again. What's going on? Which is completely the wrong read from this. So Popeyes, I was a little bit about judge Barrow Howell, what happened here, and why the fact that the judge didn't immediately grant contempt is a normal thing

that you and I would see in the courts. I'm not sure, he was a lot of things. I'm just not sure that Donald Trump and his organization were in contempt, and that was the problem, I think, Barrel Howell had. And yeah, so all these things are in secret, although a number of news organizations, including Bloomberg and others have filed applications of petitions and motions with the court to try to get as much information about these proceedings under the doctrine of fair reporting. And proceedings under the doctrine of fair reporting and first amendment as possible, although I don't think Barrel Howell, who's, we have nothing but praise for it based on how she's

handling the supervision of every grand jury that's can be conducted at present in the District of Columbia, including at least, I think, three or four that relate to January six, the insurrectionist, the fake electors, Donald Trump, Mar-a-Lago, and the like. The good news as we've reported before is that we'll never have to say the names Eileen Cannon and Donald Trump related to Mar-a-Lago ever again, as you've reported and I've reported, Trump gave up through in the towel, um, and did not appeal to the US Supreme Court or even to the full panel of the 11th Circuit, the decision by the very well, uh, reasoned decision led by Chief Judge prior of the 11th Circuit to eliminate and dismantle the entire special master program that Eileen Canada put it.

When everybody forgets on social media and otherwise, and we try to remind and analyze, is that the search warrant was the last straw at Mar-a-Lago, but a subpoena has been pending for six months supervised by Barrel Howell, who's really the judge that Trump should worry about in the District of Columbia. She's responsible for all things related to Trump turning over an obligation to turn over by law and criminal penalties. All documents responsive would no matter where they reside, no matter as long as they're

under Trump's care custody and control, it doesn't matter if they're a storage locker, a foot locker, a desk drawer, a electronic server, a storage unit run by the government. We'll talk about that in a minute given to Trump as part of his ex-president office allotment. It doesn't matter. Trump is obligated to respond fully, completely and falsely to that subpoena. And what's been going on in the courtroom, including the day before yesterday, is that the Department of Justice has learned through disclosures by Trump's lawyer team, not all of their lawyers. And we'll talk about the internal struggle that seems to be going on among the Boris Epstein wing of the lawyers for Trump and the Chris

Kyswing of the lawyers for Trump, much like what happened in the White House with the White House councils that were Republicans in name, but not Trumpers, and the real crazies like John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark and the battle that went on to the White House. That battle is going on now, apparently apparently among the civil lawyers and the criminal lawyers about how to respond properly to these subpoenas and these search warrants. It turns out that the private lawyers, the lawyers for Trump learned that there was another place to look for documents that there was a federally run and managed storage facility in West Palm Beach, Florida, by the GSA of all things, the General Services Administration, which

I presume is part of every ex-president gets an office and staff, whether you're Obama, Carter, Bush, you all get that and Trump gets it. And we pay taxpayers pay for this. Taxpayers pay for his office. I'm sure we're paying a percentage of some Mar-a-Lago rental fee. It calls me to say that. And staff and secret service coverage and like storage units. So they went to the storage unit

or they sent in an independent company. The Trump lawyers did and found two more classified documents which they had to reveal to the government. And the government just slopped its forehead and said, see, judge, they're, they're spoon feeding us information. They're not appointing a records custodian. Trump's not signing any affidavit or declaration about what's been searched, why certain things have been searched and they haven't been searched, which has happened in every other case that's involved Trump.

I mean, even in New York, they forced Trump to certify at some point, Alina Hobbit, a certify that desk drawers were searched. So that was the last straw for the Department of Justice, like two more classified documents. This late in the game eight months out. What else hasn't been searched? We need a proper inventory. We need somebody to sign on the dotted line judge and they're in contempt where the judge in peers pushed

back was on the contempt. The power of a judge to find someone in contempt is that there has to be an order. And you can argue that the, the subpoena is an order, of course, and that there has been a violation of that order and a contemptuous or consummacious way by the other side. That's where I think, Barrel Howell, in a temperate manner, in a, in an adult mature manner, said, I don't think that you reach the level of contempt yet. Go talk. You know where I'm going with this. I mean, judges can signal to the other side with their gavel and their look with this. I mean, judges can signal to the other side with their gavel and their words, right? They can signal where they want the outcome to

come without throwing down the hammer of a contempt order against Donald Trump. So I'm sure she didn't sit there passively during the hearing, but she let the other side know. And I've been told this many times. And so if you go out the hallway, go out the hallway and work this out or I'm going to make the next ruling and nobody's going to like it or you're not going to like it. Mr. Trump, where they bring you into chambers, which you do and you don't want anybody to know, but when they're in, it's a secret hearing anyway. So they probably were in the courtroom. And I'm sure there was a stern warning by the judge to the Trump team. Here's where the, here's where I thought the judge would take a little more interest. And I said this on one of my hot takes.

She now knows from reporting at least that there's a battle between Boris Epstein and Chris Kice about what to search, what to disclose, when to disclose it, and what to turn over. If I'm the judge and the Department of Justice, I'm sure raised the issue about the feud among the lawyers. I'm like, you know what? Let's have an evidentiary hearing. Let's find out with Mr. Kice, you know, and we've got attorney, client privilege issues, but I want to get to the bottom of why the record search is so screwed up here. And what is the problem and get lawyers to talk about that. So she's read that reporting, I am sure. And look, if the kai swing of the lawyers doesn't prevail and win the next motion for contempt

that's brought by the Justice Department by Jack Smith is going to be granted. So if they don't come to Jesus off this hearing, if that didn't scare the crap out of them, the Trump lawyers, to now sit down with Trump and everybody that's responsible for any of his facilities and say, I wanna know every desk drawer, closet door, storage unit that Trump has access to where records could

be and go back and do a diligent search. And somebody signed in the dotted line that they did that, so they're responsible. Then I think they're going to have a much more amenable barrel howl to go to what we call progressive discipline, the next step. But judges are often low to do contempt as their first penalty. They'd rather encourage cooperation and good behavior under the federal rules with the threat, with the sword hanging over everybody's neck,

that if you don't do it right this time, and we find one more classified document sitting in an unsearched locker or storage or desk desk drawer hell is going to be there's going to be hell to pay. I think that's the next step. Everybody should just back off at Barrel how she's doing a great job in managing these things from what we can see from the docket and the reporting and what Trump is doing. They're searching these places because they're worried that there's even more classified documents that haven't been revealed.

A few points to add to that judge, Barrow Howell is an Obama appointee. Judge Barrow Howell is the one who recently made the ruling that Trump's top former White House lawyers, Pat Zipaloni, Patrick Filben, and former Vice President Pence's top staffers, Mark Short, the former Chief of Staff, and Greg Jacobs, the former General Counsel, that none of them were entitled to assert any executive privilege, and that they must disclose their direct communications with Donald Trump. So to Popox Point, when he says Judge Barrow Howell has made a number of important rulings and helpful rulings and

Constitutionally correct rulings. That's one of them. I want to point out next thing. I want to point out is hiding documents concealing documents destroying documents in response to a subpoena to me is contempt the appropriate remedy or more likely, in one of the things that Judge Barrow Howell may have said, is those things actually are crime,

and it's the crime of obstruction, obstruction of justice that carries with it a sentence of up to 20 years for obstructing the subpoena. And so knowing that obstructing a subpoena is the crime, that is a crime, one of the questions then becomes, can legally, how do you do it? How do you compel somebody to become a custodian of records where they are in jeopardy of criminal prosecution. And does that potentially raise with it a fifth amendment right against self-incrimination to be invoked? Because if I'm a lawyer and I want, I was going to say, if I'm one of the lawyers representing

Donald Trump and whatever, I'm going to be. Yeah, you are a lawyer. I want, I was gonna say if I'm one of the lawyers representing Donald Trump and whatever I, you are a lawyer. It makes me sicker though, then. Right. I was a lawyer. But if I was the lawyer representing Trump, I would say, look, judge, I'm the lawyer. I'm not signing a custodian of records declaration.

That's not my job. My job is to defend the client and ultimately, your honor, this is a criminal investigation taking place of Donald Trump. He's not going to sign anything because he's invoking his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. And part of what makes me think that, Popo,

and you're going to like this insight. If you rewind a little bit to the cash Patel proceedings, one of the things that the department of justice argued was that cash Patel should not be entitled to invoke his fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination, which is a kind of a unique argument. Like why wouldn't someone who's being criminally pro, criminally investigated be able to invoke it? And I think what they were arguing was a similar custodian of records, style argument as well. Someone who pointed this out who I want to give credit to

when I read it and I thought was really, really smart. And she's always on point with everything is Alice and Gil from Muller, she wrote, and she made the point about Cash Patel that I just raised but I do think that the actual somebody signing the custodian of records making an attestation potentially invokes Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination However, that is an issue though with Jack Smith being as aggressive as he is, I appreciate that Jack Smith is trying to force the issue.

I appreciate that the likely outcome was probably some variation of what you just said, Popok, and I just said, where the judge probably discussed all of those issues with the party and basically said, soared it out or even told the Department of Justice, look, if ultimately you think they're not responding to your subpoena and you have evidence that they're not turning over documents, file your case, file your criminal case, that's obstruction, that's a crime.

So that's my take-boat. Yeah, on cash, on cash, but tell they gave them immunity in order for him to testify and drop the fifth amendment after after right so when they originally made the argument that he should not be entitled to assert his if the amendment rights and then judge barrel howl still made a ruling he's a given immunity and I'll testify and that's what they all exactly That's why I think that's what he that and also Go for a puppy. No, I was gonna say you I think I think you're right there. There is a fine line There's a needle that's being threaded in real time by barrel howl about How far she can go to compel somebody to do something that is also

Potentially the basis of the criminal prosecution. And I think she's threading that needle really, really well. Judges don't even like contempt to begin with and they'll do it in the extraordinary circumstances. She thinks with the power of her black robe and stern warnings that she can get what she needs without having to, without having to walk through the minefield that you outlined of Fifth Amendment problems undermining the criminal prosecution. And like you said, if Jack Smith has the goods, it's not Jack Smith's burden to show compliance

with the search warrant. It's Trump's team, ultimately, has the burden to show that they've complied with the search warrant. It's Trump's team, ultimately, as the burden to show that they've complied with the search warrant. If they don't want to go search that locker, sitting in West Palm Beach or in Chicago or in Trump Tower, some man-sized safe and Trump Tower of Fifth Avenue, then woe be them when the Justice Department gets fresh evidence from cooperating witnesses that seem to be multiplying by the day that there is in that there are documents contained in those places, giving rise to a new grounds for a new search warrant. We're letting him go through a subpoena process. This is Jack Smith's view. While he's cooperating and being a good boy, he's shown that he's not. He can't be trusted.

The next thing Trump's got to worry about is a new executed search warrant in one of these locations or all of these locations with another magistrate judge or the same magistrate judge if it's in West Palm Beach because that's Southern District of Florida. I think they go back before Reinhardt on that one or in Trump Tower in New York or whatever. If he doesn't turn this stuff over out of his cold dead grip at this point, he's just inviting Jack Smith to have another search warrant executed at these locations based on witness cooperating testimony that I'm sure they have. Couldn't agree more with you. One of the things I also want to just add there before we go to the next topic is a flurry. It was a flurry of subpoenas. It was raining subpoenas this week.

And Jack Smith had sent subpoenas out to local boards of advisers, I mean boards of elections in Arizona, board of supervisors in Arizona, Maricop County in Wisconsin and in Michigan and also to these secretaries of state in Michigan and Arizona and is moving very aggressively there and is focusing not just on the January 6th insurrection itself, not just on the fake electors scheme where these state legislators, and we'll talk about the independent legislature theory in a moment, but that these state legislators want to disomit their own names as a fraudulent elector state. These extremist, magna, republican legislators said, we're the real electors, not the actual real electors. So not just focusing on the fake elector crimes, but also Trump's efforts at pressuring individual local boards that

certify election results like the boards of supervisors in Maricopa County. We'll keep you updated as a new question. Can I ask you a question? This is going to love this segment. Can I ask you a question? Yep. Do you cook? Sometimes.

Do you eat? Do you eat? No, I know you're cooked. So I cooked. Did you know that? You know that I got a yen for cooking. I wouldn't put a pastio. I can imagine it would be.

Yeah, so three to four days a week, I actually whip up some family meal over here. And I didn't really do that before, but now that I got a decent sized kitchen, I started doing it. And I started generating, in doing that, as you can imagine, I started generating a lot of like food scraps and I like roasting vegetables

and proteins and things and I had sort of a lot. Yes you do. What do you think? You're the only one that doesn't ad-read? Okay. So I have, at the end of a meal, let's say I do a Sunday roast, I've got buckets and buckets and buckets of wet food and scraps and all sorts of things. And I fancy myself to be a green person.

And I like to work on my carbon footprint and dumping all of that wet stuff pounds of it into a garbage can and putting it out for the daily trash collection, sort of always stuck in my craw until I discovered a device, a kitchen appliance made by Pila called the Lomi. In fact, for those that are watching, and for those that think we don't really use this stuff, here's my Lomi. Okay, here it is. I mean, seriously, I love this thing. Look at this thing.

I'm going to hug it. So the Lomi is good if you're a chef or even a weekend warrior in the kitchen because literally pounds of a wet scraps, food scraps, vegetable scraps, meat scraps and everything else that goes from your cooking can go in the loamy. You have it in the kitchen with you. I had it. I actually just took the canister out of the loamy. There's a metal canister inside.

I leave it in the actually just took the canister out of the loamy. There's a metal canister inside. I leave it in the sink, and a larger sink, and I just, as I'm putting the vegetables and the scraps, I put it in there by the end of a meal. It's almost entirely full. If not entirely full, I might add some other things from the refrigerator that are sort of rotting in there, unfortunately, and I fill it up completely. And this allows me to take pounds and pounds of food scrap and turn it into dirt and soil

that I can then use. Either I can throw that dirt and soil away in such a small compact amount of product, or I can actually use that dirt and soil because it's nutrient rich and put it into a garden or a planter or something in the home and kind of eliminates my whole my whole eco-gilt. So getting this low me allows me to turn my food scraps into dirt with a push of a button. It's a countertop electric composter that turns scraps into dirt. Some people say it isn't a compost.

No, it's dirt. We call it dirt for a reason. We call it soil for a reason and that's the reason. You can do it in under four hours. There's a setting, a fast, expedited setting that you can turn this giant catastrophe of food scraps into small little balls of dirt in four hours. There's no smell when it runs, and it's really, really quiet.

It's actually, because we tested it, it's actually more quiet than a dishwasher on a setting. It's less garbage each week. We've gone from three giant bags or plastic bags of garbage to less than one, or none if I'm able to use all that dirt and soil in plant and planting. Since I got my low meat, I throw out a lot less garbage. It means there's a lot less going to landfills and producing methane.

And instead I turn my waste into nutrient rich dirt that I can feed my plants. So look, if you're interested in turning huge bags of garbage into small little balls of dirt that you can use in various ways and reduce your carbon footprint, then you need to get a low me by peel up. And if you want to start making a positive environmental impact or just make cleanup

after dinner, that much easier. Low me is perfect for you. So head to lowme.com. That's L-O-M-I dot com slash what else legal AF and use the promo code legal AF to get $50 off your low me that's $50 off when you head to L-O-M-I dot com slash legal AF and use promo code legal AF at checkout food waste is gross. Lomi is your solution with the holidays just around the corner, Lomi will make the perfect gift for someone on your shopping list. Turn your food waste into dirt with the press of a button with Lomi, use the code legal

A F to say $50 at Lomi.com slash legal A F. That's where I was going, Ben. By, you know, the head fake, you if you faked me out, I didn't know where you were going. I mean, you know, we may have to do a little work on the transition. I thought like the you cook had to deal with what the topic we were talking about. That's usually the way we do transition. The way transition usually I like this one. Keep it safe in the pot. Stay in the pot. Do you like the product?

Kopak, do you like power shooting? Do you like budgie jumping? Have you ever fallen off of that? Let's talk about the other. OK, Kopak, two really big oral arguments that took place in the Supreme Court. I mean, there were more, but I want to focus on these two because of their importance on everybody's lives

who are watching this and here in the United States. So one case, 303 creative versus Eleonis. And this was a case that would allow private businesses. It was a website designer who didn't want to make wedding websites for anyone who's part of the LGBTQ plus community. And they wanted, even though they never actually were approached by anyone from the LGBTQ plus community, what they were claiming their injury was this business at issue was they wanted to put their Colorado business and they

wanted to put a sign that basically says, no gaze welcome on their website. I mean, it's a little, a little bit more detailed of a sign than that. No, that's about it. That's about it. That's about it. You're about right with that description.

And the state of Colorado said, under our state anti-discrimination laws, that's discrimination. And so no, you can't put on your website that Gays aren't welcome to your business because that's unlawful. And that company, led by Republican Federalist Society members, said, I'm injured.

I'm injured by that. You caused me an injury. I need to put on my website. I want to put on my website. We didn't actually confront a situation where anyone came our way that we turned away, but we need to put on our website that hate. We need to put on no gaze welcome on our website because as part of our religious views, we don't believe anybody should be a part of the LGBTQ plus community, our religion is against that.

And I want you to talk about this case a bit, Popeye, but you know, you had people like Judge Alito and other right wingers be like, yeah, yeah, you know, and they gave some of the, some of the most sadistic and like sick analogies that they thought were like funny. And there was one analogy where Judge Alito was like, well, are you telling me hypothetically if there was a black Santa Claus

and a little kid wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit? Are you telling me that the black Santa would have to hug that child and the solicitor general from Colorado was like first off What the hell are you talking about? Number one, he didn't say that but he's like what like well no you a Ku Klux Klan outfit in a public accommodation is not protected So Pope what's yeah Yeah, that one was even weirder and what it it shows, and I talked about it on a hot take, when you have Alito joking about in response

to the only black, well, well, she's a black woman. I was saying the only black person. I keep forgetting Clarence Thomas is also African-American. But in response to a very well formed example by Contanjee Brown Jackson,, Justice Jackson, in which she said, let me get this straight. Suppose there's a mall Santa, and the mall Santa, and they decide the photographer involved

who's a creative person, so it matches up with this creative exception that the right-winger seems to be making about when you can discriminate or not. If you're in the creative field, you can discriminate all you want, as long as it's a deeply held part of your Christian values, which what would Jesus do?

I can tell you what would Jesus do? He wouldn't be discriminating against the LGBTQ community. But having said that, Kataji set up the following very good example to the solicitor general of Arizona. Suppose the photographer wanted to have a 1940s look and feel to his photographs and wanted it to look like it's a wonderful life or Norman Rockwell painting and didn't want black children to sit,

because black children, you know, a lot of states weren't able to go into a mall and sit on a white Santa's lap. And so no black kids, no black children. That is a powerful use and proper use of a searing question to get to the heart of the matter. Showing that the right wing not only has a 10 years bigoted racist, but also believes that has a jockularity about racism that comes with, with having the majority and having the and being cocky because you have the majority

and you have the votes leads one Sam Alito in a completely inappropriate humorous attempt at humor to then follow up Katanji Brown Jackson by saying, well, well, how about children of black children in KKK Halloween costumes? And the court watchers were like, did he just FM use the KKK and black children to retort Katanjee Brown Jackson? A, it's wrong, B, it just shows you Ben that the fact that they can inappropriately joke

in racial terms and tones, primarily the white people on there, just shows you how morally unhinged and unmoored they become to think that they can get away with it because they've got the votes. He then went on, it gets worse. I thought this was like a lost episode of the handmaid's tale.

The court were you gonna talk about the Ashley Madison one where he talked to them? He turns, he turns, yes, he turns to Kagan, which apparently when they're not under the Clea Glights of being on the bench, they're kind of friendly. He turned to Kagan who, who, referring to some Amicus briefs that were, that were filed. He didn't have to use all the examples out of the Amicus briefs. One of the Amicus briefs talked about G date, which is a Jewish dating service like match.com for primarily Jewish people.

And he turned to Kagan, who's Jewish, and made a reference to G date. And people were like, you know, one eye closed, like, where is this going? You know, trying to like, you know, back slapper, this is funny. About a very serious matter about a, not just about a website designer who's using her Christian values to discriminate against people and not make a same sex wedding website,

a marriage website for, which goes beyond that to be racism at its core. Now for the first time ever tolerated by the US Supreme Court in the guise of religious freedom. So this is not like a happy, jocular moment, but to start Kipitsyn, that's a Yiddish legal term, with Kagan next to him about J. Day. And then he went one step further. He actually brought up Ashley Madison, as you just said, which is a notorious dating service and website

for married people who want to, who want to date outside their marriage. I mean, you know, when he goes, he goes, he goes, just as Kagan, I'm sure you know about Ashley Madison. Ha, ha, ha, ha. It's like, what are you talking about? But you know what, we know where this comes from. This comes from the confident, the cocky confidence of the right, right wing. This is why Clarence Thomas talks now in the last four to six years when he never spoke

before. This is why Sam Alito picks up the microphone like a borscht belt comedian in the God skills and starts telling jokes like it's like a lost episode of Mrs. Maisel. You know, I think get a get an F and grip. You're talking about, for the first time, the US Supreme Court, likely based on the oral argument, likely ruling that religious freedom allows you to discriminate at a public business, a business that gets its money from the public, can say no to blacks, can say no to Jews,

can say no to Hispanics, can say no to blacks can say no to Jews can say no to Hispanics can say no to LGBTQ plus community. If it's against their deeply held religious views and still be in business and not violate a state's public accommodation and racism law. And then you had Gorsuch who turned it into this or wellian thing. Well, doesn't Arizona, this is Colorado, right? Doesn't Colorado, doesn't Colorado require businesses to have training in the area of discrimination, what they can and can't do, which good to know. So he goes, the Orwellian part of what he goes,

is what he's talking about, the prior case in Colorado that involved the wedding cake maker who wanted to discriminate. And that was decided on narrower grounds. But one of the things Gorsuch as the solicitor general was, well, don't you force people in the state of Colorado to go to reeducation camps? Reeducation camps. Isn't that what isn't that what it is?

Well, I wasn't. It isn't that what it is? I wasn't. I'm going to give you a yellow card. I was about to get there. You decided to jump in. It's okay. It's all right. My point is he raised the issue of what is normal. Every business in America in order to get the benefit of defenses to discrimination does some sort of training either online or live in a person for their employees, and states do the same thing. And the fact that Gorsuch has the temerity to call that, you know, some sort of reeducation, like notification, reeducation camp,

in a well-earned fashion just shows you how far the right wing has gone and how confident they are that they can say anything in an oral argument to telegraph to both the public and to their fellow justices where they're going to sit. The bad news of this, and I want to hear your view, Ben, bad news is if the oral argument in this group is terrible at keeping, at having a poker face about where they are. If this oral argument and the way the questions were asked is indicative of where their ultimate

ruling is going to go. Unless Roberts can somehow pull this thing together and thread it, they're going to rule that if you're a Christian or some religion and you're in the creative world, not the guy that does your jiffy, Lou, Boyle change, but something that they find tantamount to creative expression, they're going to find it's okay to be a racist and it's okay to discriminate, which is so f'd up because let's be honest, the way they should be threading the needle on this is to argue is to accept that this is not the expression of the website designer.

This is the expression of the couple. This is their expression. We're not forcing the website designer to do anything that's not compelled speech, which is at the heart of this analysis. It is the creative, the message is from the couple. They're the editors of their own life. They're their narrators of their own life. Not the website designer. The website designer is just like making it look pretty and putting it together. She's not writing their nuptials. She's not writing how they first met on their, you know, their cute meat first date.

That's the lives of those. That's their expression. So if it's their expression, which is what both Kagan and Katanjee Brown-Jackson said, why are we even talking about the first amendment rights of the website designer overcoming, you know, being allowed to promote racism. Yeah, and the one thing I want to mention there too,

and people may be wondering, well, why do we care about a website designer or a cake maker or a random coach in some school? Because the reason is, is that creates precedent on all other businesses. And so these cases are basically created in right-wing Republican, federalist, society case factories, like a cake factory, but case factories. They pick sympathetic sounding fact patterns.

They generate and gin up a fake injury. In this case, the wedding designer saying, I'm injured that I can't put up no gaze welcome on a website. And then they're talking about, well, look, this is just a devout Christian and they want to have it. It's a small business owner and they're doing these websites or they're making cakes and why are we going to ruin their cakes. And so the trick that they do, and this is why we need to be aware of it, is that the public at large thinks, this is about a wedding cake, or in the cases we talked about a few months ago, in the previous term of the

Supreme Court in Unleagal AF, is the coach who knelt in prayer after a football game. Pretty sympathetic guy who goes, please don't discriminate again. I'm just, I'm exercising my religion after a football game of violence sport alone, just telling the players, if you wanna join me, join me in prayer, but don't worry about it at a public school,

that's the fake out. Because once the Supreme Court rules that the coach can kneel in prayer Then the floodgates are open that creates a precedent for everyone else saying there is no separation of church and state in Public settings and here you know what you know it proves your point in that in the case of the of the coach Alito actually said in oral argument the facts. You're really messy. Let's not get bogged down in the facts. Wait a minute. I thought the Supreme Court is supposed to take a case of live controversy to have jurisdiction and then make a ruling to prove your actual point that you've just made. Alito let the

mess slip for a minute and set out loud in an oral argument. We don't really, the facts here are really messy. Was he on the playing're really messy was beyond the playing field, it was the off the playing field, did they compel people to join? Who cares? Let's talk about religion in a school setting. So they gave themselves this much broader mandate to create this dangerous set of precedent,

this case factory that you talked about. And it's one of the first times I ever heard a judge basically tell the advocates before him, I don't really care about the facts. Let's just get to the law that I ever heard a judge basically tell the advocates before him, I don't really care about the facts. Let's just get to the law that I want to make. Let's just get to the law. I want to make the law that I want to make. Can you stop talking?

Stop that talking thing so I can just make the law. I want to make. And here the facts are web designer, LGBTQ plus, but the precedent that will be created, as you said, is a private business that's claiming a religious basis can discriminate against LGBTQ plus, but also against African Americans, against anyone. I mean, businesses can discriminate.

And then to one just point to ad, you said, well, they can't do it to a jiffy loop. This, we're talking about creative expression for now for now It because then the next set of cases that then are generated through the case factory Relying relying on this case relying on this case. Well, isn't isn't a jiffy lube? Isn't the auto mechanic a form of artistic expression as well? And therefore isn't all business some form of artistic expression as well, and therefore, is an all-business, some form of artistic expression, and then basically you create a discriminatory regime

that overcomes decades and decades and decades of civil rights legislation that protects against virulent discrimination. It brings us to a point in the gap. You know, it's a creative venture that welcomes all including everybody in the LGBTQ plus community and every other place podcasting and legal a f and the mightest touch network. And it brings us to an important point though about ideological

consistency and the lack thereof of the right wing because there is no ideological consistency. So the same people who tell you states right, states right, states rights. Now we're confronted with the case called Moore versus Harper, and that involves the independent state legislature theory or state legislature doctrine, which basically holds when it comes to federal elections, a state legislature can do anything that they want.

It doesn't matter what's in the state constitution, it doesn't matter what the state supreme court does. Think about that. It doesn't matter what the state supreme court does. The state legislature can just do whatever they want in this regime of federal elections. And the case at issue, more versus Harper, involved a North Carolina Republican, Jerry Mandering scheme that ran afoul to the political Jerry Mandering provisions

in the state constitution. And further under the state constitution, it's specifically vested the state Supreme Court with the ability to strike down unconstitutionally, politically, gerrymandered maps. The State legislature then files a lawsuit that worked its way up to the Supreme Court arguing this independent State legislature theory, which up until now was viewed in law schools and in academia and just in everywhere as just some batshit crazy dystopian hypothetical that maybe you just kind of laugh and mock when you brought it when you

bring it up like if you go through a provision of law school and you go well what if but no one ever took it seriously the very fact that this Supreme Court is taking it seriously is very, very, very problematic. Because what it basically would say is, look, the state legislature and North Carolina can come up with any type of map that it wants. State Constitution, Supreme State Supreme Court be damned. And that holds. No one can challenge it. This state legislatures independent. The purported basis of this is article one which involves the legislative branch section four congress clause one Which says the times place and manner of holding elections for senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof, but the

Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations except as to the places of choosing senators. And so the time place and manner of holding elections being prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof was always just thought to mean, okay, like literally the time, 8 a.m. to 6, the place, here's literally the schools and the community centers, and then the manner itself would be like literally, here's the date, you can do it on weekends, but not that it means that the state legislature can literally do whatever the hell it wants. And it also doesn't make any sense because state legislatures are species of the state constitution. A state legislature is created by the state constitution. So the

very concept that the theory would be that the legislature is more powerful than the document that created it is such a weird and bizarre thing to begin with. And then the fact that you're staying the state supreme courts have no power makes absolutely no sense at all. And even though this case, this more versus Harper dealt with the gerrymandering issue, it didn't deal with, well, can state legislatures

just pick who they want to win the election and not have to deal with the actual electors. In other words, the fake elector scheme that was perpetrated by Trump, what if the state independent legislator theory says, you know what? The state legislature can just say, we want our slate, not the real slate. Can they do that? Well, this case didn't address that point, but it certainly felt like it would open the floodgates for that point, if you're saying, the state legislature is independent and doesn't have to deal with state constitutions

and doesn't have to deal with state Supreme Court. So here, one of the things, and it was Neil Catell who argued for Democracy, you know, for the state Supreme courts for the states against the state legislature odd kind of dynamic of who's on each side of the issue But what Neil Cotial I think did great was he really pointed out all of what these judges have said before in trying to dismantle the federal government. They've said repeatedly that state Supreme courts aren't are vested with this power and the state constitution is vested with these powers. So Katayel was able to and he was a guest on the Midas Dutch podcast, he was able to point out, look, here are all of the examples where you specifically said the exact opposite

of what the state independent legislature doctrine requires. So what ultimately do I think is going to happen in that case? To the extent there is any finding about the independent legislature doctrine being allowed, it's going to be on a very, very, very, the most narrow ground possible. But I don't believe that even this right when courts go into agree that the state independent legislative doctrine holds here. But we will see in the ruling, Nothing would shock me or surprise me there. Pope, I'm gonna go on to the next topic

unless you got any final commentary you wanna make about the end of the year. No, we could have just dropped your hot take in there. That was perfectly done. I don't think this, I'll just say one thing. I, based on the oral argument, I don't think even this right wing is going to give, it's gonna result in a muscular

reanimation of this doctrine that's been part of the Federalist Society platform and plank for a long time. And every once in a while when like Clarence Thomas or Alito, you know, drop a footnote about it or others. I mean, there's even Gorsuch has said that he sort of leans towards it, but even there not going to undermine the entire federal election process and give that much power and authority based on that very slim read of the Constitution that you just read and find that that enables state legislators, legislations to run a muck when it comes to how they run and certify federal elections. I mean, that would be a Pandora's box that even this Supreme Court would want to open.

I couldn't agree more with you. And now let's just go to Washington, DC, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard oral argument in Trump's appeal of a district courts ruling that he doesn't have absolute civil immunity relating to the January 6th insurrection. Judge Amit Mehta was the federal judge. We've talked about a lot, but back in February and February 18th of 2022, judge Amit Mehta found absolute immunity didn't apply here. And it's an interesting one, Popak, because generally when it comes to, we're talking only about civil lawsuits here, okay?

We're not saying that, you know, that there's absolute immunity from criminal liability engaging in crimes, but from monetary damages or other civil remedies based on the reading of Article 2 and a precedent established by Nixon versus Fitzgerald. It was generally held that presidents are immune from civil lawsuits during their term.

And you contrasted the Nixon Fitzgerald fact pattern, which was a 1982 case involving someone who worked in the federal government who sued Nixon for retaliating against him after a congressional hearing. The lawsuit was brought after Nixon was in office. It was brought, but then it was heard by the Supreme Court in 82. But there the court said, look, even if the conduct by Nixon was unlawfully retaliating

against a member of the government for testifying truthfully before the Congress as a whistleblower. Even if that's the case because a president is responsible for hiring and firing, we're not going to let presidents be sued for that because it would open the floodgates to civil damages. You can trust that that with the 1996 Clinton versus Paula Jones case, which was before Clinton was in office and there the Supreme Court held Conduct that takes place before the term no absolute immunity, but absolute immunity means what it sounds like it's supposed to be absolute Unless there is some reasons that it doesn't exist, but it's not like a qualified immunity is some reasons that it doesn't exist, but it's not like a qualified immunity.

So one of the things the DC Circuit Court of Appeals was grappling with is, well, if there was any example where a president should not have absolute civil immunity, this would be one where you're literally leading an insurrection, but under our case law and precedent, Trump was still the president and he was still giving a speech And where do we draw the line between a speech as a president versus a speech as someone who is

campaigning and This case just to remind you was brought by Members of the House of Representatives like Eric Swahwell in Benny Thompson It was also brought by Capitol police officers And they brought it under the Ku Klux Klan Act, which prohibits conspiracies using threats and violence of intimidation to block official proceedings. But that's what the DC Circuit was grappling with. And the lower court, the federal court said, look, this is the rarest of fact pattern that's outside of absolute civil immunity because he was not faithfully executing the Constitution by leading an insurrection against the Constitution.

But I'm a little worried about the questions by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals because they seemed a little uncomfortable with the concept of finding that an absolute immunity is not absolute, even where you have someone like Trump engaged in an insurrection. But I wanna be clear, Popeye, we're talking about just monetary civil damages and being sued. Yeah, but I don't wanna undermine the case. It's an important case, judge made a found, just to be clear, Benny Thompson wasn't original plaintiff

but he dropped out, mainly because he was gonna be the chair of the Gen 6 committee. But there are capital police and other elected officials, including ones that were in the courtroom for the oral argument on Wednesday that went for two and a half hours, including Barbour Lee, a representative from California, where you sit. It's important to use things like the KKK act against the deprivation of civil rights against individuals, no matter how high they're their position, no matter if they were the leader of the free world at the time that they violated these things. The judge made a found and we reported on it in legal AF at the time in a breathtaking fashion that the president was part of a civil conspiracy

to deprive people of their civil rights under as a violation of the KKK act. He made that decision with great concern about the president but said this is the set of facts that would indicate that it's appropriately applied. He dismissed the KKK act case against others, including Giuliani, but kept Trump in. The three judge panel for the appeal was interesting. And it was really just one judge, I thought, that suggested that there was absolute immunity here. And that's Judge Katzis. So you had three, Srinvason, who is the chief judge, chair of the panel, always on the short list for Biden for Supreme Court. Obama pointy.

Obama pointy. You had a Clinton appointee in Judith Myers, but here's the problem that's going to get all of our listeners and followers into a tizzy. Rightly so you had Katzis, Greg Katzis as one of the, he's not only a Trump appointee, then he was, he was the assistant or deputy White House counsel under Don McGan for Donald Trump for 11 months. So he served in the administration as Trump's lawyer, his number two lawyer for an 11 month period. Yes, he was in a Bush appointee when he was a US attorney

and he may be ideologically Republican rather than MAGA, but he worked for Donald Trump as his lawyer. Again, another example where these judges rather than Maga, but he worked for Donald Trump as his lawyer. Again, another example where these judges don't find anything at all, starting with Clarence Thomas on down, setting the example that will lead to a recusal or disqualification and nobody moved to disqualify him. So he's sitting on the panel and it was Katzis that led all of the, I'm not buying this.

I think that Donald Trump's speech is not the type of speech in his presidential. He has the right to make comments and commentary and give speeches while he was still president. And the link between that and the attack on the Capitol is to remote in his view to in order to find that this was a violation of the KKK act. He basically just by the way he asked his questions telegraph that he will vote for full immunity for Trump and against these lawsuits. Now, the question is whether Shree and Judith Myers is going to, it could be two to one against Katzis.

Katzis is clear. Based on those questions, there's no way he is voting for stripping the immunity away from Donald Trump at all in this civil conspiracy. I'm troubled. I mean, don't you think the guy should have recused himself? Why is he sitting over? It's not just a Trump appointee. He was the number two lawyer for Trump in the White House, not during Jan 6th, I'll give him that. But at any time, he's saying, you know what, I pass, I'm not gonna sit on that panel. Yes.

I mean, these people are, but you have to remember, they're not good faith actors. These are people, as we've talked about on this episode, without any ideological consistency, whose goal, frankly, all along has been to destroy our Constitution and to turn the United States America back to ages in their own mind where racism can run rampant and they can enjoy all of the privileges that they think that they deserve in life for being born the way they were born.

And it's like, it's just really sickening stuff. Like, like, like, like, Katzis, not recusing himself, is an FU to the legal system. Like, but that's, that's the goal, you know, and look, Trump appointed some judges who have upheld the law. And we've talked about a lot of them here on it. So it's not like all of them, but, you know, he's appointed though the judge, I lean cannons and the judge pitmans and people who no matter what the fact pattern is, they are going to find anyway that they could undermine any type of situation where people are treated equally or people could be healthy or they want to like literally torpedo America to make it look like some fascist regime, they want to make it look like Russia.

By the way, they have courts in Russia. They have courts in North Korea, right? I mean, they've had courts in fascist regimes. That's what they're looking to do. Until the dictator dissolves the Supreme Court in those countries, but they're puppets. Well, they know them. Well, you know, I mean,

there are courts in the courts to make these corrupt rulings. And when Trump goes out there on the speeches and he talks about quick trials, that's what he says. He says it like that, like a freaking idiot. We need quick trials. We need quick trials.

He got a quick trial. He's getting quick, you know what the good news is? He's getting quick trials. He's getting quick convictions. They're very good, very quick. Very, very, very quick convictions. But look, the overall takeaway is the wheels of justice keep moving in the right direction.

There's going to be so much legal news to report on in the next year and few years. So buckle up, I will try to get my, I will try to get my voice back. You know, pofak and I will be here with you. Having these communications, rain or shine. I want to just let everybody know who watches this, how grateful Michael Popeuck and I are for the legal AF community, the minus mighty community.

None of this is possible without you. We're so grateful for you each and every day. If you do want to check out our Patreon account, check it out at patreon.com slash MidasTouch P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash MidasTouch, you know, we at MidasTouch Network, we're not funded by any outside investors at all. We flipped all media model on its head. So where the media is normally funded by millionaires and billionaires who dictate the both sides coverage and the fastest coverage that you all love like we do. We're like let's flip the script. Let's do a whole media network funded by Patreon,

funded by you, the community, where it'll be 100% independent and 100% accountable to you. You will love the exclusive content that you could only get at patreon.com slash minus touch p-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com slash minus touch M E I D A S T O U C H. But most importantly, help grow this independent media platform. And in addition, check out store dottouch.com for the best pro democracy gear we got a lot of legal AF gear that you will love including the wheels of justice long sleeve shirts go check it out at store.mitustouch.com I'm gonna have some orange juice maybe more tea, do something for my voice, Michael Popeye.

Always a pleasure spending these weekends with you and special shout out to the Midas Mighty.