Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Top Legal EXPERT Ben Meiselas breaks down mid-week Legal Developments

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

January 6th Committee officially serves Trump, briefs filed in Student Debt Case, Arizona Republican Party Chair appeals to the Supreme Court, and Mark Meadows is ordered to testify before Fulton Country Grand Jury and much more! As Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo prepare for trials, Ben Meiselas rides solo on this mid-week edition of Legal AF, bringing you the hard-hitting legal analysis you've come to love and expect! GET MEIDAS MERCH: https://store.meidastouch.com JOIN US ON PATREON: https://patreon.com/meidastouch 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

Donald Trump is officially served by the January 6th Committee with the subpoena for his documents and testimony. His lawyer, Alina Habas, says he will appear or he should appear. The question is, will the item think so? Maga extremist Kelly Ward, who is chair of the Arizona Republican Party, filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court to stay and block turning over her T-Mobile phone records to the January 6th Committee after her appeal to the 9th Circuit was denied. Justice Elena Kagan and Obama appointee, though just granted a temporary stay. This just happened for her to turn over records blocking the enforcement of the subpoena that

is until the January 6th Committee responds. A little surprising, but I'll explain why I think this was done. But it's only temporary. The January 6th Committee is going to respond. And I think ultimately Kelly Ward's attempt to block it is going to be denied. Mark Meadows, former chief of staff to Donald Trump, was ordered to testify before the Fulton County Special Grand jury.

Boy do these people, just not want to talk about what happened on January 6th. And he was ordered to appear in Fulton County by his local court in South Carolina. What's up, Pickens County. And the eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which granted that temporary injunction last week and that lawsuit filed by Nebraska

and the other GOP-led states, which has temporarily blocked the Biden administration from discharging the student debt under the cancellation program. Well, it's now received all briefs, received the briefing from the Department of Justice, and from the Republican states, and a big ruling which will impact the future and fate of the student debt cancellation program could drop at any moment now. I am Ben Mycelis and this is legal AF. I'm doing it solo today, my co-hosts, Michael Popock and Karen Friedman Agnifalo are both out there

being real lawyers. They're preparing for trials and they've got depositions that they're working on. So I'm here with you, solo, and in honor of doing this solo with you all, I'm going to take some questions today from you at the end of this podcast, at the end of the show. We will do a Q and A session where I will try to answer your legal questions. I will try not to be long-winded as my younger brother Jordy said today. If that's how you're going to answer each and every question

Ben, we were doing a Q&A on our Patreon account. If you're going to answer every question that long, we are never going to finish this. We've got 300 Q&A questions that we got around that on our Patreon account. And while I mentioned that, you should check out our Patreon account, patreon.com slash and might as touch support, independent media like this, but it is an honor and privilege to do this show solo with you, although I know you love Popok and Karen Agnifolo.

So let's get right into the first topic, which is Donald Trump has been officially served with that January 6th Committee subpoena. It calls for the documents to be turned over on November 4th. It calls for his personal appearance for a deposition testimony. We've got to pull up right on the screen right now for our YouTube viewers, the actual subpoena. It calls for his in-person deposition testimony, November 14th, and his lawyer, Alina Habba, went on one of these right-wing networks the other night, and she was asked, well, what should he do? Will he testify?

And Alina Habba says, well, she recommends that he does testify. I think we have the footage, so let's play that clip. He's got a couple options here. He can ignore the subpoena and maybe run into a van in world or he can go and play the fifth or he can go and testify. Any idea what you think he's going to do? What would you recommend? I would recommend that he cooperate because when you have nothing to hide, that's what I always recommend. The same reason that he always comes out and speaks on any of my cases. He has no issue being deposed, even though the left wing media would like to

pretend that he does. He has no issue being subpoenaed and answering questions about what happened that day. And he should, what he did was very public. And it was really nothing other than to say to go out peacefully as we know. So who picked it up there? Who picked up what was really going on there? And I know some of you probably the light bulbs going off, but let me show you what's going on there. First off, Alina Habba is wrong about literally everything, like she's literally the worst lawyer ever. I mean, like literally the worst lawyer. Like she's worth that worse than that Jenna Ellis who got farted on by Rudy Giuliani, like by far. That's how bad she is. But did you notice what she said? So she is not the lawyer on this case. It's actually another lawyer, a law firm out of California that's representing

Donald Trump in connection with the subpoena. So she said, in my cases, when you've got nothing to hide, he testifies in those cases, because if you've got nothing to hide, but it was about my cases. So one of the things that I think is going on there, and it was subtle, and it happened just for a second, but she's not the lawyer on that case. And Trump's actually hired a fairly more serious law firm out in California, a firm that I know the work that they do, clearly showing that he's worried about this subpoena. And that law firm has already been very critical

of the January, six committee and critical of the underlying subpoena. But for Alina Haba, she feels like she should be the lawyer on that case, but the one thing that it's hard for me to even actually articulate this, but I agree with Alina Haba, if you got nothing to hide on January 6th, what are you doing?

Just go and testify. I mean, that's the thing, as we talk about some of these other cases today, like when we talk about Kelly Ward, the chair of the Arizona Republican Party. You talk about Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff. You talk about Lindsey Graham, a senator from South Carolina. These individuals who want to talk a big game

at the rallies and social media and Fox when they're confronted in a court of law with answering basic questions truthfully, which the answers in normal course should be very basic. Why in the world would a South Carolina senator have anything to do with the Georgia state proceedings because he's an utter criminal because he's interfering with the election because he shouldn't be there. That's why he is running away and how cowardly can you be? Then you got Kelly Ward, the chair of the Arizona Republican Party, interfering with the results.

Their Mark Meadows was basically like the central hub for like all the insurrectionists who were sending him messages and was basically the the fall guy, but you have these peoplericably intertwined themselves in this insurrection conduct. And now they are, you know, everything Trump touches dies. And they are, you know, all, you know, in the line of fire right now. But we admit as touch, we did a video because we agree with Alina Habbah there. He should testify unless, of course donald trump is scared and he is he scared is he is he is he is scared to cut and let's play the video that we just produced at

might as such play this new video that we do called trump is scared what's the matter donald the january six committee subpoenaed you and you're not going to show you said you're such a strong man. You aren't a coward, are you? You aren't guilty, are you? Are you that afraid of Liz Cheney? They say you threw hamburgers at the wall.

Well your supporters know you would never waste a good hamburger. Oh, please. Won't you come testify Donald unless you're scared. Might as well as be responsible for the content of this advertising. That was a video produced by our political action committee arm. It's so good and so true. And ultimately, that's why whether you're a Democrat or Republican, whatever. I mean, these insurrectionist criminals are also just cowards.

You know, when I think back to when Hillary Clinton was called before that ridiculous Benghazi committee, and she sat there for 12 hours, didn't plead the fifth once, answered each and every one of those questions. That right there is courage, but you're the secretary of state too, like we expect them to be courageous. She rose to the moment, but that was also the role. These people, the Trumps and the meadows and the Kelly wards and all these people, they're cowards who should never have been in these positions in the first place. They are weak, they are cowards, and they are traders. And speaking of weak coward and trader, MAGA extremist Kelly Ward, the chair of the Arizona Republican Party, filed an emergency

application with the Supreme Court to block turning over her phone records. She desperately, desperately does not want to turn over these team mobile phone records, but here's the thing. With these records, it's not even the actual text messages. It's not even the actual text messages. It's the metadata. So literally all the messages that the January 6th Committee could receive through this subpoena, lists the phone numbers, who it's from and who it's to, who's the sender, who's the recipient, when the call took place, and how long the call was. And so she filed a lawsuit in the district court of Arizona at first. And she said,

I'm the chair of the Republican Party in Arizona. I have a first amendment right to have these private communications and to not have the government intervene because it would chill these political activities that I engage in or chill political membership activities. And so you, Arizona District Court must impose an exacting standard of review that only if there is a compelling need and only if the subpoena is narrowly tailored, can this exacting standard be met and the January 6th committee get these records and the department and the court, the district court judge of Arizona said, well, absolutely, there is a compelling need for the January 6th committee to get these records. There was an insurrection that took place and that is a compelling need for them to investigate

the sources of the insurrection, what caused it, your role in it. Also, Kelly Ward, you pled the fifth amendment. You took the Fifth Amendment and in this proceeding, unlike a criminal case, by you asserting the Fifth Amendment, it is an adverse inference that you engaged in unlawful conduct or you engaged in misconduct here because when they tried to call you and use less intrusive means than subpoenaing your phone records, you refused to testify and you took the Fifth Amendment to each end every questions. So she appealed the ruling by the district court where she lost and she appealed it first

to the ninth circuit, Court of Appeals. There was a Trump appointee on there, a George W. Bush appointee on there, and a Clinton appointee on there. And in a two-one to decision, they denied Kelly Ward's relief that she was seeking to block turning over her records. And they went through that analysis.

I went through. I mean, first they said, the exacting first amendment scrutiny standard here doesn't apply because we're not talking about anything that would chill political speech. We're talking about the January 6th insurrection. This is not like the January 6th Committee's subpoenaed like membership roles of the Republican Party.

These are, it's a narrowly tailored subpoena about people who you spoke with relating to the insurrection. And so it shouldn't be this exacting standard. But even if you applied a strict scrutiny, exacting scrutiny standard under a First Amendment analysis, there's clearly a compelling interest here for you to turn over these records, and the Sipina is narrowly tailored.

In response to losing with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, In response to losing with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Kelly Ward filed a motion with the Supreme Court, and in her motion to the Supreme Court, we have it pulled up right there. She asked for an emergency application of the Supreme Court to block her having to turn over these records. And we've had these conversations before here on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network

that the different Supreme Court justices are assigned to supervise various circuit courts. So each Supreme Court justice is a supervising judge as well of a circuit court who hears emergency applications. And emergency applications should be so rarely, rarely given. And it's different than the normal process in which the Supreme Court hears cases. And the way the Supreme Court normally gets a case in front of it is it has a final judgment. And after the final judgment is appealed to the higher court, the court of appeals, a

searchri petition, a petition for searchri or cert is filed with the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court can accept or deny certiori in that specific case. And they like deny it in like 97% of the cases. It is so rare that the Supreme Court take a case. That's how cases are normally heard. And then they're heard in a specific term of the Supreme Court and there's full briefing, there's full oral argument. But there's been this other process that's always been

allowed, but it's been utilized more under the Roberts Court than it ever has before, and that's why it's often referred to as the shadow docket, where there are these emergency applications that are filed to specific circuit court, to this specific Supreme Court justice, who is assigned to a circuit court, and only rarely should these emergency applications ever be granted, but more frequently, the Supreme Court justices have been granting emergency applications, which has been referred to as the shadow docket, which actually in many cases has a substantive effect and has like a real outcome. And so in addition to the shadow docket, the cases are normally supposed to be heard

through the search-yari process. In this specific instance, the case was filed through this emergency application process, and the Supreme Court Justice, who oversees the ninth circuit, is Justice Elena Kagan. For example, with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal, the Justice who oversees that is Clarence Thomas. That's why Clarence Thomas was the one who heard the Mar-a-Lago search warrant case after Trump lost in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He filed an emergency application to Clarence Thomas there.

And when Lindsay Graham lost in the 11th Circuit and he was compelled to have to testify before the Fulton County special grand jury investigating the election interference, he had to appeal an emergency basis to Clarence Thomas, who oversees the 11th Circuit Emergency Applications. Here we have Justice Elena Kagan and Obama appointee, and she's the one who hears it. So normally, we would think, well, Justice Elena Kagan would just reject this outright, or that she'll definitely reject this outright.

I mean, here you have a case where it involves the insurrection. You have Kelly Ward, who was inextricably involved in the insurrection. You have an Obama appointee. There's no way that she's going to actually help out Kelly Ward here. And so there was a headline today, though, that Justice Elena Kagan temporarily blocked or temporarily stayed the House January 6th Committee's subpoena for these phone records. But here's the thing. This is only temporary.

What happens next is the January 6th committee has been ordered to respond. They are going to respond. And what I believe Justice Elena Kagan is doing here is that she just wants to be fair. She understands that we're dealing with issues of significant import. We're dealing with issues regarding the January 6th insurrection. You had Clarence Thomas also also request full briefing in the Donald Trump Mar-a-Lago search warrant matter where he ordered the Department of Justice to fully brief the issue in the Lindsey Graham matter, the Fulton County district attorney has to fully brief that issue

before Clarence Thomas. And so I think Elena Kagan is just looking at that and says, look, we got to go through the motions. I want to hear from the January 6th committee. I don't just want to, you know, reject this emergency application outright. I don't want to be accused of this being like so political that look and Obama appointee just rejected it, which it shouldn't be. It should be following the law. And so she's saying, look, I'm going to temporarily block the enforcement of the subpoena. We're going to have a very short response date

for the January 6th committee respond. And then I'm going to make my ruling. That's all that happened there. And when you think about it, it's actually not too different than what Justice Clarence Thomas did earlier this week with respect to Lindsey Graham. And now you'll recall that Lindsey Graham is like desperately trying not to testify before this Fulton County special grand jury that's doing the criminal investigation of 2020 election interference. And Lindsey Graham has invoked the speech and debate clause

and says that he was just engaged in legitimate legislative functions and activity. That's why he was calling Brad Raffensberger and telling him to overturn the actual votes in a free free fair election. And the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument and said, no, that's not legitimate legislative activity.

The Fulton County Grand jury can question you on three topics. They could question you on whether or not Lindsey Graham, you exorted, cajoled, or basically engaged in undue pressure or extortion or criminal conduct, trying to tell Brad Rapinsberger, the State Secretary of State to overturn the results of the election. Lindsey Graham, your communications with Donald Trump are not subject to any legislative speech and debate clause immunity, and any of the statements you made to the press

are not subject to any speech and debate clause immunity. So all of that is fair game. And Lindsey Graham desperately not wanting to testify before the Fulton County special grand jury ran to the Supreme Court the same way Kelly Ward did. And what happened there as Clarence Thomas, also granted, on a temporary basis, a stay from the Fulton County Grand Jury, enforcing that subpoena, the same way, and the ninth circuit that I just talked about with Kelly Ward,

there's a stay from enforcing the subpoena for T-Mobile records, but just like there's a stay for the team mobile records, pending the January 6th committee's response, it's the same thing in the 11th circuit, it's pending the response of the Fulton County District Attorney, Fawni Willis, and her response is due October 27th, and so we'll see the response there. Ultimately, once a ruling is made after these issues

are fully briefed, then we can make and draw conclusions. But I wouldn't really worry about either of those proceedings, the Lindsey Graham one or the Kelly Ward one, based on what the Supreme Court's done yet. We want to see what their actual ruling is once they take the full briefing. And my prediction for both is that the subpoenas will be enforced for Kelly Ward and for Lindsey Graham because that is what the law is. You shouldn't be involved in insurrections and then claim privileges to try to get around

it. Now speaking of privileges and trying to use privileges to not have to testify, Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff and the former criminal cartel of an administration, the Trump administration, he was ordered to testify today by his local state court He was ordered to testify today by his local state court in the Fulton County special grand jury proceedings. So he lives right now. I think he lives in Pickens County.

I say I think he lives because you all remember that he was also registered to vote in like North Carolina and some random trailer during the last election or he was registered in like three states at the same time, but he claims he lives in Pickens County. And so in a criminal proceeding, when you want to subpoena somebody from out of state, states have a uniform code for subpoenas out of state. And so it's a two step process. So the process that gets followed here by the Fulton County District Attorney is you go to the judge who's supervising the special grand jury.

And that's Judge Robert McBurney. And you go to Judge Robert McBurney and you say, hey, here is the reasons why Mark Meadows is a material witness and why a Sapina should issue you make that showing judge Robert McBurney makes the finding and grants permission to issue this Sapina out of, but a state or an individual can only be compelled to do things from a court that has jurisdiction over the person. There's got to be personal jurisdiction over the individual. And so that's why step one, if you're trying to subpoena somebody from out of state, you have to get your local judge within the state where you want the testimony to sign off

on it. But then you got to initiate an action in the other state where the person resides. So here, Fawni Willis then went to South Carolina. She went to Pickens County. In fact, she went within Pickens County to the 13th Judicial Circuit and the Court of Common Pleas. The judge there is a judge by the name of Edward Miller. And she asked Judge Edward Miller, hey, look, Judge Robert McBernie signed off on this. Can you sign off on a two and compel Mark Meadows who lives in your state to have to fly out and

testify in our state? By the way, we'll pay the costs because that your state to have to fly out and testify in our state. And by the way, we'll pay the costs because that's what you have to do if you're gonna make someone leave their state. You'll pay for the travel and you'll pay for the flights and lodging. And Mark Meadows resisted this and Mark Meadows made a number of arguments first.

Mark Meadows tried to argue that what was taking place in Georgia and Fulton County was not a criminal proceeding. He said that's a civil proceeding, the special grand jury. And that was rejected because the Fulton County Superior Court judge, McBernie, has said, this is a criminal proceeding. At the end of this, there will be recommendations of people who should be criminally prosecuted. Ultimately, that grand jury is not a grand jury that has the power to indict the recommendations then go to an actual grand jury, but nonetheless, it is a criminal proceeding

that is taking place. So that was one of the arguments. So that argument was knocked out. And the other argument that Mark Meadows tried to make was that he should be cloaked with just total executive privilege. That's why I said, leading into this segment, that he's claiming all of these privileges to try to get around his conduct in the insurrection. And what you'll recall with Mark Meadows is that he was subpoenaed by the January 6th committee

in around September of 2021. And around that time, he actually turned over like 2100 text messages. And it looked like he was cooperating or was going to cooperate. And then his deposition was set for like December 7th or 8th or 9th. I forget the specific day. But a day before his deposition was going to be taken, what did Mark Meadows do? He said, I'm out executive privilege. I'm not participating in this anymore.

It was a real surprise. He goes to the January 6th committee's not legitimate. And he filed a lawsuit that lawsuit has been assigned to a federal judge in Washington, DC, Judge Carl Nichols, and its Meadows versus Pelosi, asking that the judge find that he doesn't have to testify on the basis of executive privilege. And in that case, the January 6th committee has filed what's called a summary judgment motion. So they filed a motion basically to dismiss Mark Meadows claims of executive privilege saying,

look, you don't get to cloak yourself an executive privilege for the insurrection. That's not a task of the chief of staff to be involved in insurrections. And those are the questions we want to ask him about. His involvement in the insurrection. And so he shouldn't be able to say, oh, this is private communications with the president, because that's not what it was. This was what took place on January 6th

was Trump's insurrection activity relating to the election, his campaign his campaign had nothing to do with what presidents should ever be involved with. And so that motion for summary judgment in the DC district court, that is now pending and Judge Carl Nichols, that name might sound familiar to all of you, right? Judge Carl Nichols, Judge Carl Nichols, who is a Trump appointee, but he was the judge who presided over the banan case and sentenced banan recently.

But Judge Karl Nichols has expected to rule on the summary judgment to dismiss Mark Meadows case any day now. But in any event, the South Carolina State Court was not buying those executive privilege arguments, nor was it really their call to make. I mean, I suppose when Mark Meadows sits in front of the Fulton County Grand Jury and he asks questionsis go and file for contempt or file motions to compel or file motions that it is an invalid claim for Mark Meadows to make there. But the short of it is, Mark Meadows is going to happen. He may try to appeal it, but people always ask too, they're like,

because I see it in the comments. They go, he just go to appeal it to Clarence Thomas or whatever. But our legal system is a bit complex and it may be confusing. But in our system of federalism, we have federal courts and we have state courts. And so when I mention judge Carl Nichols, that is a federal judge. When I mention the eighth circuit court of I mentioned the eighth circuit court of appeals, or the ninth circuit court of appeals, those are courts of appeals in our federal court system that oversee district courts in the states. Courts of appeals is the next layer, and then you have the United States Supreme Court at the federal level, and they hear questions that involve federal issues or where there's federal jurisdiction.

That's separate and a different court system, although occasionally if a federal question arises, it could go to a federal court, but the Court of Common Police, 13th Judicial Circuit, that is a state court, not a federal court, but in South Carolina, there will be a district court, or perhaps multiple district courts in various states, in a state like South Carolina. But for example, the case going on right now, the criminal case involving Donald Trump, the Trump organization is a defendant,

rather a criminal defendant. That case is taking place in a Manhattan state court. That's not happening in a federal court. The Proud Boys, or the Oath Keepers trial rather, or the Proud Boys plea that happened recently, that took place in federal courts, in the DC district court. I know it could get confusing, but here,

I suppose if Mark Meadows was going to appeal, he would not be appealing to the United States Supreme Court. He would be appealing through the state court system is what he would be appealing through. But ultimately, what Judge Edward Miller relied on in ruling that he needs to show up is basically comedy, not comedy, comedy between the states that here's a judge in Georgia saying that this witness needs to go there. I'm just going to listen to what the Georgia judge says. The same way, if I say someone should show up here, I want the Georgia judge to listen

to me. And so we'll see what happens with Mark Meadows. He's going to have to testify, but I'm sure he's going to try to obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. Everybody get those Q&A questions ready, because I am going to take questions here from you and try to answer it on this live edition of Legal AF. And before talking about the next topic, I do want to tell everybody, though, if you support independent media like this and you want to support shows like this and other shows that

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channel and make sure you're subscribed to our audio on legal AF and that you've left a five star review. So just search legal AF wherever you get your podcasts, search legal AF on YouTube if you're podcast listeners, subscribe on YouTube if you're a YouTube listener. Go on subscribe on the podcast. It helps with the algorithm. And as it says in the YouTube right now, ask your questions for Ben in the chat. I will try to field some of those questions. But the next topic I do want to talk about though is what is going on in the eighth circuit court of appeals. The eighth circuit court ofals granted this temporary injunction. They called it an administrative stay, but it was really a temporary injunction.

This was in a lawsuit that was filed by Nebraska and several other GOP-led states. Those states are seeking to completely block and to declare unconstitutional Biden's student debt cancellation program. I mean, it's just such a cruel effort that they are trying to undergo. And what the Republicans are doing is they're trying to attack Biden's student debt cancellation program from all sides. So this lawsuit filed by the state of Nebraska is one of literally dozens of Republican lawsuits

from all angles. And you may remember, for example, another case that was filed in Wisconsin by a group called the Brown County Tax Pairs Association. And they filed one and saying that their taxes would be increased as a result of this targeted student debt cancellation program. That was appealed to the seven circuit, which rejected it.

There, Amy Coney Barrett was the judge who oversees emergency orders from the 7th Circuit and she rejected or denied the relief by the group seeking to cancel Biden's student debt cancellation program. They tried to block Biden's program and the reason that their lawsuit didn't succeed was on the basis of standing. It didn't even get to the issue of the merits. And the issue of the merits that these groups are arguing

is that the Heroes Act, which is a 2003 legislation, which calls for the Department of Education and Secretary of Education, to do things like cancel student debt in a targeted fashion in case of war or other emergencies. These Republican groups argue the Heroes Act should not give authority for the Department of Education to declare the emergency related to the COVID pandemic. And the other emergency claims that the Department of Education made to cancel the student loan debt.

But to get to the merits, you first have to start with standing. Meaning, are you even the right person to sue and does the court have jurisdiction? So in that Brown County taxpayers, there is no general taxpayer standing. And so before even getting to the merits, that case was rejected. Now, Nebraska and these other states, which filed their case in the Eastern District of Missouri, that's

a federal court, they took a different approach. They said as states that they have standing because when you discharge debt, when you cancel student loan debt, they argue that these states could potentially lose income from taxes if they were to tax the discharge debt as income. They make a few other arguments, but their argument is that the states are losing money when student debt is canceled because they'll lose income from state-related taxes. The ultimate irony here is that these Republican-led states pretend to be all about, oh, lower taxes, lower taxes, but it's no. They want higher taxes for everybody other than billionaires at the end of the day,

and they'll be willing to use arguments that they want to tax people when it comes to actually giving relief to the 99.9% of the rest of us and not billionaires and millionaires. And again, I just think this overall effort is just so freaking cruel here. You know, you have under the Trump administration the deficit was increased by like $7.5 trillion with tax cuts that were in paid for. And none of these Republican states even like raise a peep about it. You got all of these bailouts for billionaires. And here we're talking about targeted relief.

Most people who benefit earn less than $75,000. A year we're talking about canceling debt of like $10,000 and $20,000 for Pell grants. And here you have the Koch brothers and all the Republican groups. How dare we help real Americans? How dare we help just regular hardworking Americans? But remember, this is not a both sides issue.

And that's one of my problems with mainstream media as well, which is these are Republican states and Republican judges who are trying to screw over you. That's just what those are the facts. And you have democratic led administrations and democratic appointed judges who are just trying to recognize that it shouldn't just be billionaires and deca millionaires and millionaires

who get all of the relief. And so anyway, in the Eastern District of Missouri, Nebraska and these other GOP-led states filed their lawsuits. And it was actually, I believe, a George W. Bush appointed Judge there who rejected it and said, you have no standing. You're claim that you're going to tax discharge debt

as future income, that's hypothetical and speculative. There's no evidence that you're actually doing that and then these other claims that you're losing money are also speculative or not actually damages from the state. And so these states then filed with the eighth circuit court of appeals. Now, who is the judge who oversees emergency applications for the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals? So we have our legal education, right? We know that Clarence Thomas is the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, right? We know Amy Coney Barrett is the 7th, like Alito is the 5th. We know Elena Kagan is the 9th. We've all talked about those today. Kavanaugh is the judge, the justice who will hear emergency applications

for the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. That's not a good sign that justice Kavanaugh would be the one who would make the emergency application grant or denial after what the 8th Circuit does. It's also not a great sign that there is of like I think the 10 judges who sit on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, only one of them is a Democratic appointee. The others are George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Trump appointees. So it's like 9 to 1. And so we're not going to get a sympathetic panel to the Biden administration and department of education here. But these issues have now been fully brief.

And what the eighth circuit did is they temporarily blocked the enforcement, or they temporarily blocked Biden's student debt cancellation program from going into effect. And they've temporarily blocked it pending the briefing schedule, and then they could make a more long-term order, potentially either blocking it or denying the relief being requested by the states pending the overall appeal. And appeals take a long time.

And so if the eight-circuit court of appeal eventually grants the relief of these Republican-led states and grants a long-term stay pending their appeal and the appeal takes a long time, the Student Debt cancellation program can be halted for a really long time. My advice is this, though, regardless, because there's going to be a lot of activity taking place by the Department of Justice who filed their own brief and a lot of activity by the Biden administration. I think close to 25 million people have already applied and given information to the student debt cancellation program. If you haven't, please apply.

Make sure you apply. Do not let this scare you away. At all, apply, apply, apply. We'll have to see what the eight circuit does, but we have the Department of Justice, they filed, their brief, the Republican-led states, they filed their brief, the Republican led states, they filed their briefs, and the Department of Justice argued, look, this is a pretty simple issue. These states don't have standing. Think about it. If you're going to

claim that these states have standing here, and they're claiming they're losing their taxable, um, that they're losing income as a state that they could tax by taxing discharge debt as income. Under that theory, states could claim standing on literally every case. And there wouldn't be any case where a state can get involved in any law that they don't like and basically completely disrupt and destroy the, the ability of federal law to have effect. That would be the impact of it. And then you have the states that are arguing, look, the district court's got it wrong. We're damaged.

Look at our states. We're coming from you. We're state attorney generals. And we're telling you our income is going to be affected by this debt cancellation program. And then let's get to the merits. This hero's act should not apply to this debt cancellation. This the hero's act was something that was passed around 9-11 and it relates to wartime issues and and and never was intended to cover the COVID pandemic. That's, I don't agree with that. And the authorization in the Heroes Act seems to be broad and directly cover an incident like this.

The same way that collection on student loans was suspended also in the Trump administration in voking powers under the Heroes Act. And also that it's also been done the same under the Biden administration collection has stopped of the student loans temporarily. So if you can do that, why can't the Department of Education

do very targeted student debt cancellation of $10,000 or $20,000 for Pell Grants. And like the broader issue for me, I guess some people say, well, it's a controversial topic. And to me, our government has bailed out billionaires and millionaires over and over again. They've gotten tax cuts and rarely is relief given to people like who make less than $75,000 a year. And here we have an opportunity. And really, because of student loan debt, it's really created

this log jam of people to become productive actors in our economy. It affects people's ability to buy homes and to engage in a number of other activities. And so I think that with the student debt relief, people can be free to go out there and to participate more in the economy. And so that's my political view. I just want to be compassionate. I want to be helpful to people. We shouldn't just have this two-tier system

where all of a sudden we just have billionaires and millionaires and they get bailed out. But when it comes to targeted student debt relief that that's not allowed or not acceptable. All right, so now I'm going into the question and answers. I'm looking at the YouTube right now. I'm going to just go at random and see whichever questions I get asked. I'm going to do my best to answer. Let's see, let's see, which of the

many cases against Trump is most likely to ultimately bring him down. This is from Todd Zilla. I think it is the top secret sensitive compartmented information case. I think there's an imminent, Trump is an imminent danger there, and it's a home run, it's a completely home run case there. You have Trump stealing top secret sensitive compartmental information. You have clear evidence of obstruction. You've got lawyers who have filed false declarations or learning what these records are, you know, and the classification status of them don't matter for the crimes, espionage act violations, obstruction, concealment, and mutilation are what the investigations for.

But the timeline of what Trump did in January of 2021, when he stole these records, to him himself cherry picking documents and after being caught with these documents, returning only a cherry picked amount of documents back to the National Archives in January of 2022. And then you have a grand jury subpoena that issues in May. And then Trump has his lawyers and his custodian of records, Evan Corcoran and Christina Bob do false declarations saying that all of the documents were returned when the documents weren't returned. We have all of these statements that Trump is making publicly.

And so to me, also from a strategic standpoint, and from a prosecutorial standpoint, the jury instructions that would be given, in a case involving the theft of these government records, it's kind of a very basic case. You know, it's not quite as simple as this, but remember in the banan contempt of Congress trial, where the witnesses really only had to hit certain elements. All this extraneous stuff was not brought in because the question was like, look, did you

get the subpoena and did you not show up and did you not respond? That's it. That proves the crime. I mean, here, did you have these records? Did you hold these records? Did you take these records? Did you not return these records? Are you aware of the subpoena?

That's it. And then you talk about the obstruction. You have all these other witnesses. And we're learning about the valet who trumps Valet at the White House, who also then worked at Mar-a-Lago, who was told to move these boxes, and he was caught on surveillance, and then Christina Bob's declaration.

And so there's a lot of good evidence there. One of the other things there that you see the Department of Justice moving very aggressively is Cash Patel recently testified there in front of the grand jury there. You've got so many grand juries going on in the DC Courthouse. You've got the grand jury regarding stolen records. You've got the grand jury regarding the insurrection. So as Mark Short, the former chief of staff to former vice president Pence is leaving one of the grand juries because he was just compelled to testify regarding issues that he didn't testify back in July because his executive privilege claims were rejected in these secret grand jury proceedings. As he's

leaving, you got media watching him and then cash Patel is coming out and cash Patel is speaking to the grand jury regarding the stolen document case and apparently cash potels coming out and cash potel is speaking to the grand jury regarding the stolen document case and apparently cash potel pled the fifth. But cash potel, if you look at some of cash potels interviews that he's done, like he's done interviews with Breitbart where he's like, yeah, Trump declassified all these Russian documents and all of these national security documents. I was there when he did it and then when he's asked the questions, he pleads the fifth. But that's the one that I think will be most likely for Trump to be prosecuted.

This question, Ben, did you ever consider labor law? I'm referencing a post on Twitter and the legal I have community. I, you know, in relation to my own practice, I do practice labor law. One of my practice areas when I was a more day-to-day, daily litigator in the work that I did, I would do employment cases. And I think one of the biggest labor law cases in the history of sports law,

I was one of the lead litigators on. And that was the Colin Kaepernick NFL case, and I represented Colin Kaepernick, and that was a case that touched directly upon labor law. It had to deal with the collective bargaining agreement and Article 17 provisions, which is the collusion provision of the collective bargaining agreement and employment rights in the sports context

with the overall context at that time of a national anthem policy, where you had Trump basically saying, get the son of a bitch off the field. And so I do practice labor law. Here's a question, why is the fifth a get out of jail freak card for Trump pubs repeal the fifth? Look, I disagree with that. I don't wanna repeal the fifth a get out of jail free card for Trump pubs repeal the fifth look?

I disagree with that. I don't want to repeal the fifth the Fifth Amendment is an important constitutional right the right to invoke the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination for having to testify against yourself and the purpose of it and normal course is to require the government to gather enough evidence on its own without having to like, cajole or from the old days like, if they had to go after you and you didn't have a Fifth Amendment right. And this is one of the issues that our constitutional framers were thinking about the Fifth Amendment right. You think about it from a historical perspective right, going after the Middle Ages and when our Constitution is, you know, is, is eventually written in the 1700s, people were tortured for information. Because they couldn't invoke the fifth amendment, right? And so one of the ideas around the fifth amendment is because of a history of

mankind, of like torturing people and doing things like that. But is the fifth amendment is because of a history of mankind, of like torturing people and doing things like that. But is the fifth amendment frequently abused? Yes, but in a civil context for any money lawsuit or in an injunction lawsuit or a lawsuit seeking something other than criminal. If a party pleads the fifth, an adverse inference can be drawn against the person. And so you could go to the jury in a civil case and say, look, this person pled the fifth amendment, you can assume because they're pleading the fifth that that person was responsible for what they are being accused of. You can't do that in a criminal case. In a criminal case, you can't say, oh, look, that person's not testifying or that person's

not pleading the fifth. But a few things regarding the Fifth Amendment. One of the things the government can do with someone like Cash Patel who could plead the fifth is you could grant immunity on the specific issue of where you're questioning. It's not like a blanket immunity. It's a targeted immunity. And if you grant immunity to them on that issue, they can no longer plead the fifth,

because it is a fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. And if you are given immunity, there is no fear of self-incrimination. You can then be compelled to testify in that situation. One of the other things the Department of Justice can do where they don't want to give immunity is offer a cooperation agreement to somebody

like Cash Patel and say, look, we're just going to charge you with a lesser crime or we won't charge you if you cooperate with us or we will give you a more lenient sentence. But I do believe the Fifth Amendment right in normal course is an important amendment. It's important that people who are accused of crimes in all contexts be given fair trials. But what bothers me and what probably bothers you, and asking that question, is here you have these MAGA extremists, they go on their social media platforms, they go and they do

these rallies, and they talk about all of these issues publicly. And then when they are finally asked under oath, when they're not trying to gaslight and manipulate and spread disinformation to their followers, what do they do? They then plead the fifth, fifth, fifth, fifth, fifth, fifth. But ultimately, pleading the fifth amendment, though, also doesn't stop you from getting records that are not subject to, you know, any other privilege. But look, I think the fifth amendment is an important, is an important constitutional amendment. And I think in normal course, the work of criminal defense lawyers is very important. And I do think that we should have a healthy skepticism. We shouldn't just embrace and accept everything that the government says and we shouldn't accept everything the police say we shouldn't accept everything the Department of Justice says we shouldn't accept. I mean, we should have a healthy skepticism for power sometimes. But at the end, we have to recognize the truth and the facts

before us and draw distinctions between the truth and the facts of what Merrick Garland is doing and saying. And what Donald Trump is doing and saying, what MAGA extremist and the lies and their phony declarations and their false declarations and their constant gas lighting, but we can view these issues through an intellectual lens and put on our thinking caps and actually assess these issues and ultimately come to the conclusion,

no matter how you analyze it, that these Trump mega extremists are criminals and need to be held accountable and that they are cowardly as heck for pleading the fifth repeatedly repeatedly. All right, let me see if I can get to, I let me see if I can get to more questions. Susan Fleming says, now I'm confused. You said Meadows would appeal to the state. Isn't he trying to get out of testifying in the same case as Graham in Fulton County, Graham ultimately appealed to Scotus in that case. Different issues there. So what Lindsey Graham's lawsuit

is about is a constitutional argument, right? Lindsey Graham is saying that under the United States Constitution, he is a federal employee, he is a senator, the speech and debate clause of the United States Constitution prevents he argues senators from having to testify in these proceedings. So that's why it is a federal issue that is in the overall dispute here. Does the speech or debate clause apply? And where there is a federal dispute, a federal issue like speech and debate clause, that goes to federal courts.

Now, ultimately, the federal court rule that the speech and debate clause does not apply, the speech and debate clause does not apply. That's why it's going to the Supreme Court. But ultimately, with that finding on the day-to-day objections that could be made when Lindsey Graham testifies, you still have, and this is where it gets a little confusing, but I hope I'm addressing the confusion a little bit there, there is a state court judge in Georgia and Fulton County, Judge Robert McBurney, who's

overseeing a state criminal court proceeding. So as it relates to state procedure and as it relates to state law issues, McBurney, the state law judge would be the one who makes that call. But because Lindsey Graham's claim is under a federal rule, under a federal constitutional provision, the speech and debate clause, I don't have to testify. There's something what's called the supremacy clause under the United States Constitution, where a federal law trumps state law, I hate using the word trumps, in certain situations. And here, that's what Lindsey Graham's argument was, petitioning the federal court, my federal

rights, which are supreme to the state court rights, preclude me as a federal employee, a senator of South Carolina from having to testify there. That's why that goes there. On the other hand, when it comes to Mark Meadows, there is no. Mark Meadows is not invoking a speech and debate clause privilege, he's not invoking a federal right. If Mark Meadows invokes some federal right,

Mark Meadows could potentially petition to a federal court and say, hey, this federal right is being impacted. Can you make a ruling and a federal court could jump in and make a ruling? And then that goes ultimately to the, that could go to the Supreme Court. But ultimately, Supreme Court of the United States can also resolve a state issue where the state issue conflicts with federal law and where an issue addresses whether a federal law is supreme to a state law, then there is a situation where a ruling

or where a ruling by a state's highest court violates our United States Constitution. The Supreme Court can hear those cases as well from the highest state court. So I know that could be a little confusing, but there are a number of paths to the Supreme Court, but that's why Lindsey Graham filed in federal court because he was invoking a federal right and there is no federal issues yet being invoked in this state uniform state subpoena system that sent the subpoena from Georgia, Fulton County to Pickens County. So Susan, I hope that helped explain that and

we definitely got in the weeds there. What's other question? Can blue states sue for damages, loss of tax revenue for PPP loans? It's a great question. The short answer is no. They shouldn't be able to. But the same analysis that these Republican states are using for standing here,

when it comes to the cancellation of student loan, you would think, if that was the case, then couldn't any state just sue the PPP program and say, look, we've got standing. This is affecting and harming our state. The massive fraud that exists in the PPP program has harmed our states and its harmed our ability to conduct business here. Therefore, we want you to cancel the PPP program. That would be a potential impact here of the ruling

if the eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rules in favor of these Republican states, because these states would have basically limitless standing to do whatever they wanted to do and have standing in any case. Ben, how long do you think Miss Habba has before she needs her own lawyer when that happens? Who do you think is the next in line for Trump hiring the rest of the party? I mean, I think honestly she needs a lawyer now.

She was, she's in a lot of jeopardy. The statements that she's made publicly have all been false. It could be construed by some as attempting to obstruct the efforts of the Department of Justice. She filed that other lawsuit. Remember they filed that RICO conspiracy lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and all these other

40 other people in the Southern District of Florida, and they tried to get Eileen Cannon to be the judge. They tried to go judge-shopping to get Eileen Cannon when they filed this like RICO conspiracy lawsuit. That was like 200 pages of gibberish. There, not only did their case get dismissed there, but the federal court reserved jurisdiction for potential rule 11 sanctions.

And rule 11 sanctions are sanctions for severe misconduct by lawyers putting forward bad faith arguments when she tried to sue Clinton and all these other people. So not only did that case get dismissed, but she's in the hot seat there in that case and could potentially have hundreds of thousands of dollars in sanctions. Let me see if I got any more questions. I'll try to get to one more if there are any others.

I don't see any other questions. So, okay, without seeing any other questions, I want to thank everybody for watching this episode of Legal AF, appreciate you all. It wasn't as easy doing this effort solo without Michael Popack and without Karen Friedman Agnifalo, but it was great to spend the time with you all. Make sure you go to patreon.com slash mightestouch.

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