Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Top Legal Experts Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok REACT to Breaking Legal News LIVE | Legal AF

Episode Date: November 6, 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: A New York state judge granting the NY Attorney General’s motion for preliminary injunction to appoint an independent monitor over the Trump Organization to prevent continuing fraudulent conduct; Trump’s transparent efforts to deflect attention away from the independent monitor order by filing an incoherent new Florida suit against the NY Attorney General; Chief Judge Howell of the Federal DC Circuit denying Giuliani’s efforts to dismiss the defamation and intentional infliction of two Fulton County (GA)’s election workers, while also granting the DOJ’s request to give Trump’s former national security and presidential records “expert” Kash Patel’s limited immunity to testify in the Mar-a-Lago investigation; the Supreme Court’s 5 hour oral argument to consider eliminating “affirmative action” in higher education, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: AG1: https://athleticgreens.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

A devastating preliminary injunction order is granted against Donald Trump in New York, in connection with the New York State Attorney General's fraud, lawsuit, the order of points and independent monitor to review all of Donald Trump and the Trump organization's finances, going forward, in other words, Trump's worst nightmare. And Trump files a frivolous lawsuit in Florida State Court against the New York State Attorney General, Leticia James. It is incoherent and the rantings and ravings of a mad person, Popo and I will try to make sense of it suffice to say

it is going to get dismissed and Trump is going to likely be sanctioned. Also, the Department of Justice grants a top Trump aid cash potel what's called derivative use immunity and compels him to testify in the federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump's criminal conduct in stealing thousands of government records, including top secret, sensitive, compartmental records from our government.

And earlier in the week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument on two cases involving what remains of affirmative action in the week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument on two cases involving what remains of affirmative action in the college admissions process, and the Supreme Court will almost certainly overrule precedent and rule that affirmative action in any form is unlawful, judging by how the extremist on the court, ask their questions. Finally, Rudy Giuliani's motion to dismiss the defamation lawsuit filed by Shay Moss and Ruby Freeman is denied by a federal judge in Washington, D.C. We will discuss the ruling and why the judge who made the ruling. Judge Barrel Howell makes the ruling in my opinion. Don't know about you, Popak, even more important. The most consequential legal news of the week of our time. This is legal

A.F. I'm Ben Micellus joined by the wise sage, Michael Popak, also known as the Popakian. Michael Popak, how are you? We can put this into context, thanks Ben, of the midterms that are coming. The Trump is going to likely announce that he's running for office to try to fend off all of these criminal cases that we're going to talk about. But the Department of Justice is ready. You and I are going to talk about today and on other podcasts. The reshuffling of prosecutors related to the Department of Justice is ready. You and I are going to talk about today and on other podcasts, the reshuffling of prosecutors

related to the Department of Justice, the addition, as we talked about last week, not just of David Raskin, but David Brody, a former Sidley and Austin partner who has now rejoined the Department of Justice. We have a supervisory prosecutors who have been moved out of the supervisory role onto being frontline prosecutors, handling all of the grandjuries now, the Mar-a-Lago grandjury, which

we'll talk about with Cash Patel, the fake electors grandjury, the Jan 6 grandjury, all being led by now, seasoned, aggressive, pit bull prosecutors, because as soon as the midterms are over, Trump might have something up his sleeve. But so too does Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice and Fawni Willis has said she's delivering her report to chief judge Mick Bernie in Georgia before the year is up. That means 60 days. And now she's got Graham, she's got Meadows, she's ready to wrap up her report.

So if Trump thinks he's got something up his sleeve, the prosecutors have something up theirs to nail him. Well, in other words, the Department of Justice has put together their A team, their A team from the existing prosecutors who work at the Department of Justice and what we're seeing happening is some of the top former prosecutors who got these nice cushy jobs working at big law firms are leaving those jobs to now work for far less money because

of our national security interest in having these criminal investigations against Donald Trump become successful. And so people are leaving private practice to join the DOJ. Join Merrick Garland in that team. We will talk about the cash, Patel, derivative use immunity, the import of that later on in the show. But first, let's talk about this preliminary injunction order that was granted by Judge Arthur Engoron, a New York State court judge.

That's the judge who was overseeing the fraud lawsuit, brought against Donald Trump and the Trump organization after the three year special proceeding launched by the New York Attorney General investigating fraudulent business practices by Donald Trump and the Trump organization. Yes, it was in those special proceedings that Donald Trump was asked under oath to discuss the valuations of his property because the underlying issues are that Donald Trump is adult children. Donald Trump juniors, one of the signatories of these financial representations that are made to third parties, but that these financial valuations that they make in the statements of financial conditions are all false that they send to the lenders that they send to

taxing authorities that they send to insurers and just for example you have a set of 12 apartments that the Trump organization reports to own the appraisal comes in at $750,000 and what is Trump list on a statement to a financial condition? $50 million on the statement of financial condition. By the way, by the way, the reason some people might be thinking, why are apartments in New York so cheaply, cheaply valued because they are rent control departments for the life of those apartments, meaning the flow of income that would come to anybody that would own

them are severely limited below market rate rent. But that doesn't trouble Donald Trump in his mind, his imagination. I don't know if you caught it, and we're going to talk about the Florida case next. They actually said in the Florida filing to counteract the press, the bad press of the injunction that his brand and his real estate is of incalculable value. I mean, we're back to the, as you said earlier, to start off the podcast, this is the ravings of a madman that there's no objective value that can be placed on property because it's whatever he thinks it is on a given day, bolder-dash. That's literally what the Florida law so do file them.

It literally says, as though it was written by a third grader, no offense to a third grader. Trump is great businessman, great business man who accomplishes massive accomplishments and therefore knows more than the communists, Tish James and the communist judge. Like I'm slightly exaggerating that, right, exaggerating. But that is basically what the paragraphs say. And you have to read 119 paragraphs of those randings and ravings before you finally get to, okay,

well, what are you even asking for? This is insanity this document. And what he's asking for is the Florida court to grant an injunction to stop the New York judge from ordering that the revocable trust which he claims to be to have jurisdiction in Florida to produce records relating to that and we'll talk more. We'll unpack that in a bit because it's a made-up request for relief that will never be granted at all. Like he literally made it out. It'll be dismissed for because you can't sue the New York Attorney

General outside of her jurisdiction. It'll be dismissed reasonably quickly because you can't sue her in Florida. We'll get there next. I'm sorry. Back to the preliminary judgment. The fraudulent valuation scheme that is at the heart of the New York Attorney Generals, special proceeding, and then the lawsuit that they filed, I gave one example there about those 12 to 15 apartments. Another example is the triplex that Donald Trump lives in, that Donald Trump says that it's 30,000 square feet. It's actually 11,000 square feet. And he gave it a valuation of $350 million, which was like $200 million to $250 million more than like

the most expensive apartment in all of New York at the time when the appraised value of it was somewhere like $200 to $300 million less. And you just go through all of the properties I won't waste time, but we're talking about objective facts appraisal this and then a lie on the statement of financial condition. Stay on that, Ben, because you're on to the exact question that the judge used during Thursday's hearing. Is there was a hearing that preceded him entering the preliminary injunction and the 11-page order. And when Chris Kice, who kind of fades in and out of being Trump's lawyer, depending upon what he picks and chooses to appear, he's the guy that has the $3 million retainer.

He's the same far and agent of that as well of the Maduro Reef. Yes, right. Working for a firm up in Tallahassee, Florida. He showed up, I guess, as special admission into the New York bar for the day. And he started really challenging the judge and said, well, it's all good faith disputes over real estate valuation. He said, really, what do you, this is, to his example, exactly what you just gave to our listeners and followers.

The judge said to him, well, let's find out about this good faith. Trump's lawyers, what do you say the value of the trip lexas in Trump tower that he lives in? And he could go, well, I don't really know. And he said to the, of course, the well-prepared attorney general lawyer sitting there and said, what's their position? Their position is it's 300 million.

And what is the objective value, value based on the fact that it's one third the size. And they said, it's 80 million. They said, well, he turned to the lawyer and said the difference between 80 million and 300 million is not a good faith dispute over land value. And by the way, Judge Arthur and Garon, you practice in New York. The guy's reputation is like he's a great judge. If anything, he leans in New York more towards the deference to businesses. He worked at a large law firm before being elected first to the civil department in 2003 and then elected again in 2015. He wasn't like appointed by a Democrat or anything like that and the guys got this impeccable reputation in New York

But anything that Trump touches or anything that he does Trump didn't even do the bare minimum in this preliminary injunction hearing and the reason this preliminary injunction hearing was brought though was because after T Tisch James brought the lawsuit following the special proceedings, so special proceeding three years, then Tisch James says, okay, we've discovered in the special proceeding, you've engaged in fraud. She then brings under a New York law, which is New York executive law section 63-12, this lawsuit seeking at least $250 million in disgorgement damages, as well as other injunctive relief to stop Trump's bad business practices. But Tish James said he's engaged in ongoing fraud,

judge, right now. So on an emergency basis, we need to appoint an independent monitor who will come in. This is like a person who's got CFO qualifications who actually understands generally accepting accounting principles. One of the funny things from Judge Arthur Engoron's order is that the individual from the Trump organization who signed off on the financial representations saying they're consistent with generally accepting accounting principles was Donald Trump Jr. who do it, who during Donald Trump Jr.'s deposition says he doesn't understand gap. He doesn't know generally accepting accounting principles. He was, all I know is what they taught me at Wharton in college 101,

I mean, which is just the total, you know, and Alan Weissselberg. And Alan Weissselberg signed a law for a lot of their financial statements. He's about to go to jail for five months for tax fraud. And he's basically going to be cooperating witness in the down the street when the Manhattan DA's office resumes on I assume on Monday in the case against the Trump organization in the criminal case. So you got this ongoing fraud taking place. And then so the New York Attorney General says, look, Judge, we need you to intervene now. We're not asking yet to appoint a receiver, which is an important point that came up because

Trump and his lawyers kept an asking like, well, they want a receiver who would actually, a receiver ship, a receiver comes in and actually takes over the fraudulent criminal business when there's a finding made. But here, no, no, no, Judge, we need an independent monitor is what the New York attorney general said. I always talked about the irony there because I'm like, it's kind of like a special master, although you pointed out Pope, pop on the last leg left, it's far worse than a special master because an independent monitor is literally inserted into your business. But I don't know if you caught this, but one of the funny things that judge Arthur

Engoran said during the hearing, which is why never threaten the judge, like Donald Trump did, who's overseeing your case. No number one in law school. Don't threaten the judge. Judge Arthur N. Garan goes, I wonder if Judge Raymond Deerey, the special master, may be interested in doing the job. He cracked the joke during the hearing, which was very intentionally done, and I thought very funny,

but the findings that were made by the judge are very, very, very harsh on Trump and appropriately. So you go through this order and the main point was that was made by Judge Arthur and Grana's, look, Trump, you had the opportunity to speak and answer when you were deposed. You pled the fifth over 400 times. And okay, fine. We want to say, you took the Fifth Amendment, you invoked your right against self-incrimination when you were

asked the questions about the valuations and when Tisch James said to you, okay, so that property is appraised at this. And then you valued it at that. Can you explain? I plead the fifth. I plead the fifth. Well, that's not a great sign right there. But then what Judge Engrin said is, but also you could have submitted an Iota of evidence in response to the preliminary injunction. The judge judges, I have detailed declarations here from the New York Attorney General's office saying, here's the financial misrepresentations, you've submitted nothing. Zero, literally, he says, not an IOTA of evidence.

And then I thought on page 9 of 11 of the order, this was when they make the order that an injunction is necessary. And to make that, you have to find a probability of success on the merits and balancing the equities is in favor of the New York Attorney General. That's the standard, but the judge goes in the absence of an injunction and given defendants demonstrated propensity to engage in persistent fraud. Failure to grant such an injunction could result in extreme president to the people of New York. And then he goes furthermore, given the

persistent misrepresentation throughout every one of Mr. Trump's statement of financial conditions between 2011 and 2021, this court finds that the appointment of an independent monitor is prudent and narrowly tailored. So now the parties go and select through the independent monitor is they got to do that in the next 10 days, then they comment on each others, then one will be appointed this month. Pope, what else you want to say about that? Yeah, let me, let me throw a couple of things back in there, some of which is tying together some things we've

done in prior episodes of the podcast. The power of the New York Attorney General is very unique. A lot of Attorney Generals around the country don't even have, they would envy the power that the New York legislature has given to the Attorney General. The Attorney General through the Martin Act, which is you referred to as a properly as 63-12 has tremendous abilities in stopping what is referred to as repeated fraud by defendants. And that includes what she did here, the power to go into a courtroom and have an independent monitor appointed, a preliminary injunction issued by a judge on a standard that is less burdensome than if you and I for a private client tried to get an injunction or an independent monitor

or a receiver. As you said, in this case, because she is representing the people through a doctrine we haven't talked too much about, but through an overall doctrine called Parents Petri, which is Latin for effectively, she's standing in the shoes of the people. And she's trying to protect the people and the public from this ongoing forward. And under that doctrine, under that power that the Martin act emanates from, she in conjunction with the judge can do lots of really aggressive things against a defendant, even before they are found to have

committed the fraud. Remember, this is based on a 200 page filing, a three year investigation, very little defense so far in opposition and no trial. Look at the powers, the New York Attorney General has. Look at the powers that the, which is why Trump is so scared, and look at the powers of the judge. All she had a show and she did is likelihood of success on the merits that she's going to win her case. And that's where the findings that you just talked about are so, so important. We're going to talk throughout this podcast today about findings that judges made when their hands are

forced by people like Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump to finally go on the record and say what they believe based on the law and those findings are terrible for people like Giuliani and Trump. We'll talk about it later with Barrel Howell. Howell. Here, Judge Engoron says, because of the propensity of the Trump organization to engage in persistent fraud, I'm going to issue this injunction. Po poetic. And I'm going to issue the injunction. To be fair, the injunction is not as far reaching, I think, as as Tis James's office wanted, but it's going to be his organization is not going to be able to transfer any non cash assets, real estate property, restructure their business, restructure things away from the Trump

organization into this new entity in Delaware or in Florida without giving the New York Attorney General, the monitor, and the court 14 days notice so that there could be a court hearing present. So it's not going to run the Trump organization business. That's, as you said, is what a receiver would do. I've been involved with receiverships in defending them. They're scary things, unless you want one. If you want one, it's great because the receiver takes over the entire business, runs it like the business person, issues reports to everybody, and the judge takes in money. I mean, literally, if the business is

making socks, it runs the sock business. So it's not, we're not there yet, but this monitor is in place. But what did Trump do to dovetail this into the next segment? Trump knowing there was going to be hearing on Thursday this past week and judge Angeron's courtroom knowing he was likely to lose. I've seen some of his lawyers quoted before saying, yeah, we're going to, yeah, she's going to get the monitor. Knowing that, he hired another law firm we've never heard of based on a whole different part of Florida than where the case was filed

on the West Coast of Florida's law firm. Some sort of, I think, trust in a state's law firm. And they run into Palm Beach County Circuit Court where I used to apply my trade and I've tried cases in the 15th Circuit, the night before Angorans hearing and filed this ridiculous, to use your words, facetious, silly, punishable, sanctionable case about nothing in Florida against Latisha James, which she only used, you know, because they're smart. They knew about that filing and they filed a letter brief,

Tish James's office the night before leading into the hearing, saying, look what they just did in Florida. This indicates that they're not going to respect your orders, that they're going to try to move assets out of New York and to Florida away from you. And this is just a exhibit A of why we need the moderner. So another backfire, why don't you wait another day for that? Because he wanted to step on the news cycle. It's all he cares about. But the problem with the moving to the Florida case, the problem with the Florida case, I don't want to remind everybody that I'll turn it over to you, man, to kind of give the outline

for the Florida case. Let's remind everybody, Trump has sued Latisha James in four different for a and has lost every time related to this very civil investigation. He ran, he didn't like Judge Angeron. He ran to the northern district of a federal court, northern district of New York. And he, and Syracuse area, and he lost in May. He took an appeal to the federal second circuit trying to get rid of Angeron and get rid of Latisha James. And he lost. He brought another case in front of the New York state with Angeron. He appealed Angeron to try to get a retissue James. On these very same things that she's got a witch hunt that she's just doing this for political grand standing that this is there's no real case here.

And he lost at the first department, which is the first level court of appeals and the court of appeals of New York. He has lost every time raising the very same things. So if anybody's going to read this complaint down in Florida and scratch their head and say, hmm, there might be something here. There isn't these very same things have been raised in front of four different courts, including a pellet courts, and he's lost every time. He's going to lose in Florida.

That case is going to dismiss, is going to get dismissed very quickly. I want you to kind of do the overview of it. I'm going to talk about the judge situation. We've got a little judge situation down in Florida, you know, no surprise. And I'll talk about that. Yeah, because Trump isn't filing like lawsuits. He's not utilizing the courts. He wants to use the courts as sound boards for his fascist press releases. And look, as practicing attorneys, Popo can I deal with preliminary injunctions frequently? This isn't like a

new thing, preliminary injunction. Oh my gosh, what do you do when there is a preliminary injunction? If you are in the receiving end and you're representing someone who the order can be against, what do you do? You submit declarations with affidavits that has evidence and go, well, here is what rebuts the showing that they can establish a probability of success on the merits at this stage. Instead, Donald Trump's arguments in the New York case were, uh, Tish James doesn't have jurisdiction. And it's like, yes, he does literally the statute that New York executive law, like literally gives the jurisdiction,

like it's right there. And then Trump's other argument, not evidence-based, he just goes, well, I give this disclaimer in my statement of financial conditions. And the disclaimer is a disclaimer of his accounting firm, Mazers. And it says, don't rely on us, Mazers, because we've relied on Trump.

And the judge is like, how in the world are you relying on that as a disclaimer against you? I love it. It's not even yours. It's not even your disclaimer. It's your accountants disclaimer. And you can't just lie that would defeat

the whole purpose of a statement of financial condition if liars can get away with it by lying with it. So just complete and utter BS. One more observation. Alina Haba practices in New York. She was the lawyer. But guess what? They called in Christopher Kice because guess what? Alina Haba is not like a real freaking lawyer and I keep telling you she's like the worst lawyer in the world. Like I think worse than Jenna Ellis. And if she was a good lawyer, they would have her argue that, but they brought in Chris Kice, because Chris Kice actually

has a reputation in Florida for being he was the solicitor general. And so his role was a little. He's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he. Like he's already a Supreme Court. And you know what he's doing, but he goes there, you know, and all he's got really is

the $3 million that he's grifted off of the Trump frift of the Save America organization grift, but he's there with no evidence. He looks like an idiot. And so he told Trump's team, don't file this stupid Florida case. This Florida case is stupid. I'm already gonna look stupid in this, what he said, like this is what the reporting is. I'm already gonna look like an idiot

when I go in front of Judge Arthur Engron. Can you please make me look like less of an idiot when I argue? There's the first thing Tish James is gonna do when you file this stupid freaking lawsuit is she's gonna send it to the judge in New York and say, look, they're trying to hide their assets. See, this is exactly what they're doing here. And that's exactly what was this year was this your hot take where

the lawyers are fighting over who's going to commit malpractice first. They're all saying you're committing malpractice. You're committing malpractice. They've all accused each other of committing malpractice. But look, as I pointed out in the video, malpractice, you insinuates that the client is the victim or the client, but the client wants this malpractice. So it's not malpractice. It is unethical. And this lawsuit that they filed in Florida in the circuit court of the 15th judicial district for Palm Beach County is a completely frivolous gibberish weird thing. And you remember at the beginning, I said, like I gave you the example of what this like

lawsuit says, this is what it says. This is literally what it says. As a private company, nobody knew very much about the great business that then business man Donald Trump had, but it now it is being revealed by James and to Harsha Grimm, the continuing witch hunt that has haunted and targeted Donald Trump. Since he came down, the quote, golden escalator at Trump tower continues since 2015. Trump built a great and prosperous company, but they compete. Never the less that must be carefully and delicately, yet

powerfully managed. And the appointment of a political monitor, like, you read this, where is the punctuation in the sentence? There is it. Then I'm like scrolling down. And I'm like, okay, I'm on page 10. And it's just saying that Donald Trump, good, Tish James communist. Okay. Where it, what is he alleging? And then I get the fuck. Ben, wait, wait, wait, wait, go back. Look at the allegation on personal jurisdiction.

And you pick it up the, in order to sue somebody in a state, the court has to have fundamentally first what's called personal or imperceptive jurisdiction over the party or the other person. So you have to make a good faith allegation in your pleading if you're the plaintiff, as to why the court should even hear this matter involving the person that you've now sued. Look at the paragraph on why the court has jurisdiction over the New York attorney general. They quote to some trust power that she's not exercising, that she

has, she hasn't even gone after the trust in Florida. And using that is the hook for jurisdiction. And don't acknowledge because they either don't understand it or they want to, they want to keep this suit alive long enough so it gets the press to step on the injunction press that an anger on court because they know this is going to go out the window as soon as a judge takes a look at it. You can't sue a municipality, a state entity or actor outside of the state which they operate. They it's called home rule municipal home rule. You're you only can sue that person. You could only sue Tish James in New York. You can't sue them in Florida, but they don't care about little niceties like we don't have

personal jurisdiction over the person we're suing because as you said, this is a press release masquerading once again as a lawsuit. Same thing we talked about last week with the sanctions motion that has been filed against Trump and Alina Habba for bringing that ridiculous, rico racketeering defamation, whatever the freak lawsuit that was that they filed back in March of 2022 against Hillary Clinton and all these other individuals who they said they did Trump wrong. They did Trump dirty. Like, that's not a lawsuit number one.

And the judge said these are the judge literally said these are the ranting the federal judge judge minute, minute, minute, minute or mid, a judge of the other judge are middle, middle, middle, middle Brooks, middle Brooks. Yeah, I said it's the rantings and rave. The judge said it like what is this? And the judge retained jurisdiction,

Clinton and all those other defendants in that federal case are seeking $1,074 thousand dollars in sanctions jointly and severally against the lean hop and Trump and the judge is going to grant it there because the judge has already said it was a frivolous loss and it's fine. And don't gloss over that under rule 11, which is the rule one of the rules that he'll be using or as inherent authority as a federal judge to issue a sanction. It'll definitely be against Donald Trump. It could also be against Alina Habba.

I hope she's made a lot of money representing Donald Trump. She gets it with a half a million dollar personal judgment as a bar member. You know, like let's say she gets half of it. That's a lot of money for a small little law firm sitting on the back, the back 18 of the Trump golf course. By the way, in most states, and I assume it's similar in New York, if you get sanctioned by a judge over a certain limit, you have to self report to the state bar of your sanction. What's that?

I guarantee you, being sanctioned for a million dollars is going to be. And the main sanction statute, and I guess I'm digressing talking about the Alina Habasenctions, but I love talking about the Alina Habas sanctions, but I love talking about the Alina Habas sanctions. The best part about it though is that it would likely be against her, and the main statute that issue is actually against the law firm. That's the easiest one to get. And she has to pay it, and she has to pay it, and if the bar finds out that she borrows the money for instance, because people are thinking,'ll trouble pay it for, he can't.

It has to be a punishment against the lawyer or the law firm. And if she doesn't pay it, and I've seen this happen before, she'll be in contempt, literally in contempt of court and she could go to jail and lose her law license. So it's a serious thing. Again, making attorneys get attorneys, A serious thing when you represent Donald Trump and you sign pleadings as an officer of the court. You and I are officers of the court. When we sign a pleading, we appear at court,

we look at judge in the eye. We're not tweeting about it. Okay, we have duties and ethical responsibilities. You know, lawyers get a bum rap, rightly so for some people on this show, but we are ultimately the members of an honorable profession that is a very highly regulated profession ethically. And you can get your ticket pulled, get your license lost because of these ethical violations

that you and I have outlined over the last two years. Yeah, you know, one of the things that Kamala Harris said when she was the attorney general of California and she spoke before a group that I was in in 2011, she said, a lawyer, I still remember this very vividly. She says, a lawyer needs to understand the power of their pen. And when I signed something as the AG and when you signed something, people's lives are impacted by it. Always remember the power of your pen.

That's something that's always left a lasting profession for me. But as you scroll down through this ridiculous incoherent ramblings and ravings of a lawsuit, you finally get to paragraph 119, which I think is what he's actually asking for. And it goes, President Trump, by the think is what he's actually asking for. And it goes, President Trump, by the way, he keeps calling himself President Trump. It's like, dude, you're not the president anymore. But it goes, President Trump reasonably fears that James is handpicked justice. Again, handpicked, what are you talking about? We'll require President Trump to disclose the terms of his revocable trust and find president Trump $10,000 a day for not providing it.

If she asks for such relief in the New York Supreme Court, which he has given every indication she will do. But hasn't done yet. But hasn't done yet. And so this is about hiding the revocable trust, which just goes to show you it's the exact reason why Tish James wants the independent monitor because he's going to try to shield his assets when he's hit with the discouragement order.

He's going to fraudulently transfer. Okay, the all this lawsuit says is I Donald Trump, former president of the United States are planning to fraudulently transfer out of New York jurisdiction into my revocable, not even irrevocable, my revocable trust in which I am both just to have a little trust in a state's law breakout session year. I am both the grantor, meaning I established the trust and the beneficiary, meaning I get the benefit of the trust, same person, in a revocable trust, meaning I can revoke it at any time, which again, I don't, does not quite get the same protect.

Usually people set up trust funds for their kids. Usually people set up irrevocable trust funds for their kids. Trump sets up revocable trust funds for their kids. Vocable to himself. Right. Okay. So that's real inside. That's a pride, pride, grit, and then, okay.

And that is the, so he's asking for basically an advisory opinion because there's no real harm yet to enjoy a party that is not properly before the court because she is the New York Attorney General, does imply her trade in Florida or Palm Beach County, hasn't done anything in Palm Beach County in order to have the court exercise what's called long arm jurisdiction to drag her in, even if she could be dragged in under principles

of comedy and the like. And then lastly, I want to just talk about the judge for a minute. I don't know if you caught this part, Ben, you catch with the judges for now. Who's the judge? So, so and I'm not making this up. The division that the case has been randomly assigned to, because they do the spinning of the wheel in Palm Beach County, in the circuit courts as well, is division A F.

I'm not making it up. It's like legal A F. And division A F is currently staffed by one judge. Okay, his name is Judge Castrenakis. The problem with judge, he's great for the case potentially and against Trump. He's great for democracy and for liberty. And he's terrible for Trump for as long as he remains. And I'm gonna tell you why in a minute.

Castrenakis is a former assistant US attorney, prosecutor, Southern District of Florida, who made his bones prosecuting public corruption. He's like the Tish James of Palm Beach County, federal side prosecutor. He brought down five major commissioners, county commissioners and elected officials in Palm Beach County during his 14 years as a prosecutor. He then ran, no, I'm sorry, he was appointed by Charlie Christ, who's now running for Democratic governor,

but was that a Republican moderate governor onto the bench. He, a little controversial. He's had some issues, he's had some issues about some of his rulings and jailing certain people. He's decided that he is not running for re-election next, like this week. And so he's gonna, he is not running for reelection next, like this week. And so he's just gonna finish out,

till he's just gonna be the judge on this case until January. Now there could be a lot of activity between now and January. If the case stays in division AF, there's two people running for the job. One is a Federalist Society member. She's a juvenile dependency lawyer by trade, but she is an active member of the Federalist Society.

She's running against a former assistant attorney general for the state of Florida, who before she came to Florida 12 years ago, worked as a lawyer in New Jersey, okay, this is strange bedfellows, where she practiced litigation and real estate law. And she said she went to a federalist's society meeting once but didn't like it

and decided she didn't want to join. So we don't know quite who the judge is gonna be. It could be Kostor Nakas, but if there's motion practice about lack of personal jurisdiction, motion to dismiss, for failure to state a claim and all of that, it's probably going to be in front of one of these two judges that's running for election on Tuesday. Wow.

Popoque, we will keep everybody updated there, but it seems like a pretty obvious one to dismiss. I guess if there is a judge who would lean in favor of Trump, the best that they could really hope for is that they're not going to be sanctioned, tens of thousands or millions of dollars would probably be the best result in outcome. But here's the thing, the media really needs to call out these lawsuits for what they are as frivolous as completely without merit that needs to be in the headline. It can just be Trump files lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and then when he's hit with these sanctions, the media doesn't care about it. We talk

about this a lot on you. You've been great. You've been great. Your brother's been great about this all too. Thank you. That's why I have beyond, so I can compliment you. You've been great because it's not just both sides and which it is. It's putting these things on moral or legal equivalency because of the way you run your headline business. Every, because we all do research before we get on this show.

I know some of our trolls think we don't, but we do. And so when you pop in, Florida lawsuit, Trump, Latisha James, every headline in every major media outlet, independent alleged, you know, down the middle of alleged is exactly the way you just framed it. Trump sues Latisha James in Florida for whatever he's suing it for. What it should say in the first paragraph, first, second or third line is, in an obvious attempt to step on the media coverage

from tomorrow's injunction and monitor hearing in New York, he has filed what it looks to us as legal analysts to be a load of shit. But they won't write that. This is why we have a UNI in a lane where we can speak every week in UN almost every day about media coverage of lawsuits because they don't understand the power of the pen that you talked about that left an indelible mark on you as a professional. The power of the media to give equivalency to things that are not

equivalent because of the way they cover it, to balance the scale where one is a bowling ball, you know, like Latisha James's case, and the other is a feather like Donald Trump's lawsuit and say, oh, it's balanced. It's not balanced. Call it for what it is. At least at least in some aspect of your media empire, your media outlet, have legal commentary. I listen to legal commentary because, you know, this is our hobby now. So I listen to it on CNN and MSNBC and it's terrible because they are twisting themselves into pretzels to try to be quote unquote fair and balanced. What all they're doing is setting up in a intellectually dishonest equivalency

between two things that are not equivalent. And then you have the 30 seconds each. Tell me about the position of 30 seconds go. Well, you can't, if you want me to really explain to you the issue, that's just not the way it works. Speaking of which though, Popeyes derivative use immunity can't be explained in 30 seconds, but I bet you you could do it in three minutes,

the difference between derivative use immunity, transactional immunity, what that means that the DOJ has granted cash, Patel derivative use immunity. They've compelled him to testify before the grand jury in Washington, DC, that is overseeing the Department of Justice's criminal investigation into Donald Trump's theft of government records. Where does cash Patel fit into all of this? Well, cash Patel during the Trump administration was one of Trump's

hand picked lackeys to join the Department of Defense. He was appointed as the chief of staff position. His goal was to literally stop the peaceful transition of power. Remember the fascist pillow guy leaving the White House with that piece of paper also saying point

a point cash Patel acting CIA director. There was attempts to literally have cash Patel take over the CIA to take over the Department of Defense and everybody inside that was quote unquote team normal, which to me is still team complicit with the Donald Trump administration all rebelled against that concept. But after Trump left, cash Patel was appointed as Trump's designated representative

to the National Archives, which basically mean Patel did nothing because there was no process with the archives as Trump stole all the top secret records. But then Patel ran his mouth with all of these right-wing extremist magazines and papers and media and stuff. And the Wall Street Journal.

And the Wall Street Journal. And the Wall Street Journal. Well, the most egregious one I thought was this early May interview he did with Breitbart where he goes, I was there when Trump declassified everything and he bragged about it. He said he declassified things about Russia and other things about our national security. I'm not going to tell you more than that, but he declassified all of those things, and he goes, and then he blamed bureaucrats. He goes, and the issue is, these idiot bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. didn't paper it,

and they should have, but he declassified all that document, which goes to Trump's intent, which we know exists. But anyway, you have to prove your case sometimes, so it's helpful to have this evidence evidence that Trump stole these records about Russia He stole these other top-sea correct that he specifically wanted to keep for these purposes to use for his own use So that's one of the things that cash Patel is useful for in addition to a number of other things But he so he testified first October 13th in response to his subpoena. He pled the fifth to each and every question.

The government then went in front of the judge who's overseeing all of the grand juries in DC. That's Judge Barrel Howell. We'll talk about her in the Rudy Giuliani ruling. It's become the Barrel Howell show. I love Barrel Howell. By the way, Barrel Howl had previously ruled in the other grand jury she's supervising in connection with the January 6th insurrection, which is basically

across the hallway that people like Mark Short, the former chief of staff to former vice president Pence, people like Greg Jacob, the former general counsel to former VP, and there's also now more motions about other Trump lawyers that they couldn't assert executive privilege to not testify there. So she gave a very favorable ruling to the DOJ in that other grand jury. But here she found that, look, cash Patel based on his testimony could be incriminating himself. If you want to compel him, you have to give him immunity.

They chose to DOJ chose to give him derivative use immunity versus transactional immunity, which still means he can be prosecuted if they find independent information on him outside of what he testifies to. But break it down, Popeye. Derivative versus transactional and why this is important. I'm gonna do it. I got one question for you.

Let's go back to Ben for a minute. Move your microphone. What does your shirt say? I think I know. I'm going to do it. I got one question for you. Let's go back to Ben for a minute. Move your microphone. What does your shirt say? I think I know it says Ben doing Ben what? Things. I love that. Where's my own Popeye doing Popeye things?

Holy shit. I get a team for the holidays. Yeah, I love that. That's really great. OK, so let's talk about what you said, cash, Patel, and use immunity and transactional immunity and all that. And this does tell us with what I said

to start the show with you, Ben, which is the DOJ is batting down the hatches and is getting all their ducks in a row and getting all their prosecutors reorganized, lined up and interbo-charging their prosecutorial front line on all of these grand juries that barrel howl as the chief judge is supervising. You and I have talked about it. We think there's four or more. Could be up to six. We think there's four or more. And every time there's a question of does attorney client privilege apply here or as it been waived or is it the crime fraud exception?

The answer to that question goes before barrel howl executive privilege is being asserted. Is that appropriate? That goes to barrel howl. So all of this is going on pre-mitterm elections so that and getting people like cash, Patel immunity so that the Department of Justice is ready to go. There's even reporting out there, better than you caught this. There's even reporting out there that Merrick Garland is strongly considering after the midterm elections. If Trump announces that he's running the appointment of an independent prosecutor against Donald Trump, we'll talk about that if and when it happens, but the fact that that's even out there, that that thought process is out there means the Department of Justice is ready for the

chess board. Whatever move Trump makes next, if they, if anybody thinks that that office is going to be caught flat-footed by an announcement at some rally, the Donald Trump is running for office, which everybody knows he's going to announce. They are in for a rude awakening. Cash Patel first among them. Now what they didn't grant cash Patel, as you said, is what's called transactional immunity, which the federal government almost rarely does anyway, which is come in and tell us whatever you got.

We're giving you absolute immunity for any crime that you could have been charged with just come talk to us, rarely done in the federal setting. There's two types of what you call derivative or use immunity, one of which we've talked about in the past, which is queen for the day, queen for a day. It's the same thing as what they just gave cash but tell, but it arises in a different That's what they just gave Kash Patel, but it arises in a different behavior or conduct. Queen for a day is the defendant, the target, in this case, Kash Patel, through his counsel, work out a negotiated deal and an agreement, a proper agreement, to proper proper to offer in writing or in interview testimony. And if the proper is the following, right, and that's the lawyer writing this, the government agrees in advance to give that person use immunity, what's called queen for the day.

You're the queen for the day, and you can tell us whatever you want. And if we're going to do anything against you, we can still prosecute you, but you can tell us whatever you want. And if we're going to do anything against you, we can still prosecute you, but we can't use your statements. If we independently, if we independently originate them or find them through our investigative techniques, we can use them, but not exactly what you just told us. The difference here is cash but tell. There's a person like that has not entered into a voluntary negotiated position or agreement with the Department of Justice instead. The Department of Justice using its power and authorities under the DOJ manual and guidelines

is applying to judge how the judge overseeing the grand jury for permission to grant the witness use immunity so that whatever he tells them in those negotiated, in those discussions, it can't be used against him, but he can still be prosecuted for anything else if they independently originated. So it's a little bit different. One is private lawyer negotiating queen for the day to a use immunity. The other is you apply to the federal judge to up to grant use immunity. The other is you apply to the federal judge to up to grant use immunity. And she's already told the Department of Justice because she had a hearing on this and she

said that the Fifth Amendment assertion by Kash Patel was genuine and appropriate and in good faith. And I'm not going to strip the Fifth Amendment away from him. So if you're going to have him testify, you're going to have to come back here and apply for use immunity, which has now been granted. And now he said he will of course testify because now he can't argue, fit the amendment because anything that he says will not be used against him in the court of law. And so now she can compel him to testify because he has no, and he did, and he did testify. We don't know it's grand jury, it's secret. We don't know exactly what it was, but we know what it's going to go to.

It's going to go to all his stupid comments, including to the Wall Street Journal, where he said things, just remind people, things like Trump has the ability to just think about it and declassify something. There doesn't have to be any formal writing or procedure. That's a lie. Second thing he said was, there's a lot of things that Trump rightly took with him, like Russia gate stuff, like Hillary stuff.

Right, it's exactly what we said. He has an enemy's list and for his own personal use, transactional use, he had Donald Trump, sticky-fickered Trump took with him all of these documents that he found interesting that he would use against his political enemies at some other time. That's not the purpose of president, I don't know why I'm getting so excited,

that's not the purpose of presidential records. It's exciting, it's an exciting episode. So that's where Cash Patel is, and he's already testified, but the thing that I love about doing the show with you is that we get to literally, visually connect the dots and all the roads and all these dots that we've been talking about for half of the show, go back to Barrel Howell's courtroom,

Judge Batcheeb, Judge Barrel Howell's courtroom, who she alone is making all these decisions. So don't worry as much listeners and followers to what's going on in Judge Catton's courtroom. And, you know, we'll give you updates on Ray Deerey. But the person through which all of the, all the roads against Donald Trump is going through a barrel house courtroom on a daily basis. One thing to point out as well, if Cash betel lies during his compel testimony, he can be charged with the crime of perjury. So that is not extinguished simply because he's granted a derivative use immunity. I want to point that out. And then you mentioned Judge Eileen Cannon. You know,

we talk about make attorneys get attorneys. You know, she's an example, though, of a judge who sacrificed all of her dignity for the most like irrelevant. Like when in the scheme of things, as you point out, Pope, after the 11th circuit basically said, you know, give the Department of Justice, classified records back, what are you doing? Like this whole process before the special master there at this point, we're just basically waiting for the expedited appeal to take its course. We pretty much know she's going to lose and that or Trump's going to lose and her assertion of equitable jurisdiction

should never have been given in the first place. But I like that you see other judges also just who throw shade her way as well because she's like the laughing stock in the judiciary. So in a recent case where Mike Lindell, the fascist pillow guy tried to basically do the same thing that Trump did, but in a courtroom in Minnesota. And he was before the district court there. There, the judge, I think the judge named his toastrod, who's actually a Trump appointee, threw in a footnote and basically said,

and it is beyond anyone's, you know, beyond the doubt that you can't just assert equitable jurisdiction in these situations. And so just judges throwing shade at her for her absurd, For her absurd rule. And let me remind everybody, because in case we want everybody to, we want all of our information to track

you and I spend in an ordinary amount of time trying to get this right and trying to explain it in a way. And not, you know, we don't dumb it down. I think that nobody that has listened to 150 or 200 of our podcasts, things we've ever done, anything down. We have an intelligent, sophisticated audience who may not be all lawyers, but we explain it to them in a way that makes sense, that fits together in a coherent system.

The Mar-a-Lago subpoena that was, that the Mar-a- Lago issues are also before a grand jury in Washington, DC. That's where some of these subpoenas have come out of and they end up back through barrel howl, not through cannon. The one that was executed in Mara Lago, yes, but the broader issues, cash betel testified not in the southern District of Florida. He testified in the Mara Lago Granjury sitting in DC supervised by Barrel Howell. Have faith, have confidence. We've got judges and adults on the bench, including Trump appointees who, as you said, are thrown

shade on all these ridiculous, nonsensical, irrational legal positions. And Judge Aileen Cannon simply was involved. As you mentioned, because, well, she shouldn't have been, the search warrant was executed. It was signed by a magistrate judge who had we talked about jurisdiction earlier in this episode, where jurisdiction lay in the Southern District of Florida

was before the magistrate judge. And then this judge, Eileen Cannon asserted equitable jurisdiction that should never have taken place in the first place. And if you like independent media like this, I do want to tell everyone we have a lot more to discuss. But if you like independent media like this, please check us out at patreon.com slash might as touch join one of the memberships there at patreon.com slash might as touch a number of memberships there with exclusive content behind the scenes footage exclusive podcast exclusive merch drops and more but

most importantly you can help grow this independent network. We are not funded by any outside investors at all. So no millionaires are billionaires who fund the both side is Media none of the people who fund the profacious meeting none of that We are purely independent because we are fueled by you if you can help no matter where you are in the world Join one of the memberships at patreon.com slash Might as touch also today's program is brought to you by athletic greens,

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Give age you want to try and get that free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs. Popock earlier this week oral arguments were heard in a very critical affirmative action case that will determine whether or not affirmative action in any form at all can be utilized in admissions criteria in colleges and the cases at issue involved both a private university, as well as a public university. It was intentionally combined this way

by the United States Supreme Court because let's face it, they're trying to overrule their prior precedence in both settings and get rid of any aspect of affirmative action. That's why they lump these cases together. The cases are students for fair admissions versus Harvard and students for fair admissions versus University of North Carolina. One's a private at University Harvard,

public is University of North Carolina. But both of these cases, these groups, student for fair admissions, is really just a front group for that guy. What's his name? Popeye Ed Blum, the right wing guy who challenges the Voting Rights Act, and he challenges affirmative action.

Anything where he claims that white people are being persecuted and that we live in, that there is no more racism taking place and that we need everything to be race neutral, including voting rights laws and laws that are supposed to improve diversity. You're shaking your head, Popeye. No, not because you're wrong, because you're right. Exactly right. I'm shaking my head because we are not, and this is the problem with dismantling affirmative action and allowing universities or precluding universities from using as one factor in establishing or a mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere mere the, or read the oral argument, which went over five and a half hours.

Chap my SD here, them talk about, oh, we're post, we're post-racist in this country. No, we're not. There's other ways to get a more balanced class without having to use race as a proxy. That may be true, but there, but it is, if you're using it as one factor, along with, is this kid an alumni potential selection. Did his parents go here, which is a proxy for wealth and a proxy for letting in people that are not so, that's allowed. So you're allowed to let in the kid whose father went to Harvard because his grandfather went to Harvard. So you're allowed to let in the kid whose father went to Harvard because his grandfather went to Harvard. So you're allowed to bake in and bounce

the historical racism, okay? Because my people, and there's no surprise, I'm Jewish, okay? My people, yes, are doing fine in getting into Ivy League schools now. But in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, including Harvard, Jews couldn't get into these places because they were, there was anti-Semitism, and they literally found ways to keep them out, and then other universities got established, like Brandeis and things to kind of absorb a Jewish population.

And now Blum is trying to use the Asian attack to say that Asian Americans are being unfairly picked on by the selection process because they're using race. And so, you know, it's a zero-sum game. You've only got 500 seats in the entering class or 5,000 or whatever the number is. And so, if you give it to this person for all the reasons that you would wanna have a well-balanced, diverse, equitable class, you have one less seat for filling the blank. And I wanna also say something. We are, I know that Sandra Dayo Conner

we're gonna talk about her during this piece. And I have a lot of respect for her, the late Sandra Dayo Conner, who used to be on the Supreme Court. She wrote the decision that they're probably gonna dismantle now back in 2001. And I have a lot of respect for her, the late Sandra Day O'Connor, who used to be on the Supreme Court. She wrote the decision that they're probably going to dismantle now back in 2001. And she said, I hope, I hope, aspirationally, that in 25 years or so, we won't need affirmative action.

I got bad news for her, you know. We still do, because we have not evolved, despite the fact that Barack Obama was elected twice as a president of the United States, we have not evolved enough where people below the process are on equal footing so that race should not be a factor in selecting that entering class. I would love for that to be. We would love for that to be where everybody is sort of on equal footing, regardless of race, national origin, gender, orientation, sexual orientation, but it is not the case.

If anything, the Trump era, the MAGA era has taught us how stubborn racism continues to be in a country that is increasingly becoming black and brown. But time will solve this problem. 50 years from now, your children, grandchildren, 100 years from now may not have this problem, but we currently do have it. So to give a student a backpack filled with a 50 pounds of weight and have them run against a stoot next to them who does not have that backpack and say, go, make it to the finish line,

but I'm carrying 50 extra pounds. Yeah, just keep running. Oh, sorry, you didn't make it. You don't get to be in the entering class. That is the opposite. To put on blinders now and say, we can take Ray out of the equation It'll be fair and balanced. No, it won't be and anybody that says that is somebody who is

Who is blinded by their own racism for Clarence Thomas During the oral argument to say out loud. I don't know what diversity means. I don't understand the concept Yeah, you know what? Then look to your left and look to your right because you have a, not because of the Republicans, you have a diverse Supreme Court and not because of affirmative action, but look at the benefit of having black, Latino,

white women on a Supreme Court that used to be all old white guys. I went, I'm not sure your background, I went to public school. I went to public school, filled with children from different socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnicities and the like. And I'm a better person.

And I am the person that I am because of that. And I went to NYU undergrad. And even though it was a private school, it was tremendously diverse as was the city that I grew up in as a young adult. And I'm a better person because of it. And why this Supreme Court with the right-wing majority who all benefited in some way or another by having somebody help them up, right? Give them a helping hand. Why they don't see that this is still a requirement so that Harvard is all not just all lily white or all Asian-American. I don't want all of anything. I, you know, even if

it means that I didn't get into the school that I wanted to get into, and I'm sure there's a couple of those that that's the reason. That's okay because I want to live in a society where there is a balanced student body, equity and diversity. We're better than that. We're better than that. So let's talk about Popak, the players, though, because the Amicus briefs, the friends of the court briefs that can be submitted by outside parties were one, all these corporations that were basically saying, if you prevent diversity from being one factor that can be considered, you are actually going to harm American business because we require diversity, not just because

we want to be good people and do the right thing, but also it is critical for our business interacting in a globalized society and in a diverse country to have diverse representation here. Who also submitted an advocacy brief or was represented at the hearing through their opinions was the United States military because military academies except admissions too. You are going to harm our troop readiness by impacting diversity within the troops.

You know, and I know these mega extremists than the Ted Cruz's, they look to Russia as, you know, that's not a woke military. Look at all those white guys, white men in the Russian military. Isn't that how we want to structure our military? No! No! We absolutely don't. And what we have here, the dynamic, is Ed Blum, the same guy, the same white guy who wants to disenfranchise black and brown communities from voting,

that's his other main issue, want to stop them from getting into universities. And so what he did is he created this proxy group purporting to represent a group that represents the Asian community and filed a lawsuit that basically tried to pit Americans against Americans for the purpose of helping exactly what we said at the beginning of this legacy white kids to get into the schools based on

those criteria and to not factor in diversity in you. Look, I'm not going to get totally in the weeds here, but you go back to a 1978 case called Regents Versive California Vibhaki. And that was one of the first cases that recognized what you can't do it as quotas. You can't do it as point systems. But it is important to have diversity as a factor. And it is not a violation of the equal protection clause of the United States

Constitution. You go further with the case that Popock mentioned the grutter case as well. In that case, too, the Supreme Court recognized that affirmative action does not violate the equal protection clause and that it is something that can be utilized. You even go to the case, Fisher versus University of Texas in 2016. It was recognized as still being permitted. But yet you have for generation, well, since that Sandra Day O'Connor opinion in 2003, this is what the priority has been on.

We need to protect amongst the right wing conservatives. And let's not mince words. We need to protect our legacy white students to get in. And there should be no other countervailing factors at play here. And we should not focus on diversity. Everything needs to be completely race neutral, which the reason that we have these other laws that exist is because we recognize that when you claim race neutral, and it's in the hands of right-wing extremists, they use that as a proxy to be racist. That is neutral. Race neutral. You're exactly right. Race neutral only works after an appropriate period of time where below that we have achieved organically equality, absent and the and an absence of stubborn racism. Then you can go race neutral. I'm all for race neutral, as long as the society

has reached a level where systemic and dynamic racism has been removed by education, by the lapse of time, by the ethnic development of the country, we're gonna be race neutral. I hope fingers are crossed in some period of time, not 25 years from 2001, but some other period of time because eventually, one out of four voters in America is going to be a Hispanic descent. That's what our demographics and that's what our census tells us. And hopefully in that world in the future, which I can see, but I will not be at. We will be in a position

where we no longer have to use race in a great or grandchild, a great grandchild. We'll say, wasn't that quaint they had to use race in order to get a diverse class. Now look at all my friends. But we're not there yet. And to say now, artificially, race, it's time for race neutral. That, that only all that does is is bake in the racism that already exists below the admissions process that the admissions officers are trying to overcome in giving a helping hand. Or as Judge Kagan said, in a retort to judge, to judge this Thomas, not at this hearing, but at other, in other hearings,

you say you want people to pull themselves up by their bootstrap. Some people can't reach their boots in order to pull themselves up by their bootstrap. And education is supposed to be not the great leveler, but it's supposed to be a way for people to change their fortune and their lot in life. Okay, there's too many minorities in this country,

black especially, that have to choose the military because they don't have any other pathways available really to them. And that's why our military, the percentages of ethnic groups and racial groups is different than the society at large and more overwhelmingly black than blacks as a percentage of America, because that is an opportunity for them that they can get into directly. But that shouldn't be the only path open to them. They should be able to apply to go to Harvard

or apply to go to University of North Carolina or any of these other schools that give them a leg up. It's not enough today just to graduate from community college or graduate from a four-year institution. It's not enough. If you have the talent, you have the mind, you can contribute to the community. Why shouldn't you be in the place that's going to connect you through a network of people to a better life? You should. And why are

we locking the door? This isn't Europe. You know, this isn't Russia where you don't get to choose your profession. Oh, you're nine years old. You have science aptitude. You know, this isn't, this isn't Russia where you don't get to choose your profession. Oh, you're nine years old. You have science. I have to do it. You're going to be a doctor. You're not that great in coloring. You're not going to be a doctor. We don't do that in this country. We're not supposed to do that in this country. We have a myth about Horatio Alger. Everybody's going to just do it themselves. That's why people come to this country, then give them access to education, not just education, give them access to the closed networks of really rich people that can help you in your career

the way you've been had and the way I had because of the schools that we were able to go to. And everyone sees how this all fits together. So you have this taking place in this Supreme Court being pushed by the Federalist Society judges and being pushed by the Federalist Society judges and being pushed by a Federal Society person like Ed Blum, who literally almost in a laboratory puts the case together, has it go up the various stages, go to the Supreme Court, and what's taking place at the same time in the MAGA Republic in World,

book burning, attack public education, minimize the opportunities there, remove any semblance of reflecting diversity there, erase our past over here, allow the white legacy, high kids who go through the private schools to get the advantage. And ultimately, what that all does, in addition to being viciously and violently and horrifically

racist, then should be called out as despicable, it's horrible for our country. The military is telling you, it's horrible for the country. Don't you love the military, Republicans? I thought you loved the military. We all love the military. How about we freaking listen to what they're telling us? What about the corporations? You claim to be pro business?

Every freaking business is telling you, this is gonna be helpful. You are not, it's all a freaking fraud with these mega extremists. That is why we need to call them out. But speaking about the fraudulent mega extremist, Rudy Giuliani probably defines that better than almost anyone. And we could talk about his fall from grace, but we would be doing this podcast for about

12 hours analyzing all of that. But let's talk about this motion to dismiss that he filed against Shay Moss and Ruby Freeman, the election workers in Georgia, they testified before the January 6th committee. They were defamed by Giuliani because they were two black women who were on a videotape that Giuliani then selectively edited and basically called them

known election fraudsters and criminals and insinuated that these two black women who were fighting for just people's right to vote. Period. That's it. Just just working. Just working at an election place, you know, because they thought it was their civic duty to do that. They became, you know, as their fault, Giuliani pointed at them, Trump pointed at them. They spoke about their experience at the January 6th committee. Rudy Giuliani filed a motion to dismiss. He claimed that what he said was merely an opinion and that it couldn't be construed as actually a fact that he was actually defaming them. He claimed that the people wouldn't be able to even know that he was actually talking about them in the statements that he made about them.

And then he also argued that they should it should all be analyzed through an actual malice standard versus just negligence, but judge barrel howl a federal judge overseeing it. And this is what I want you to talk to Pope Ock because because the grand jury proceedings in the criminal matters are private. We hear about the rulings that Barrel Howell has made, but we don't know what her views are about the insurrection about January 6th. She's made favorable rulings for the Department of Justice. But here, the Department of Justice is not involved. This is a civil lawsuit brought by Shay Moss

and Ruby Freeman against Giuliani and OAN, OAN settled the case though, so they're no longer in it for an undisclosed amount, probably something that is not insignificant, but in this civil case, because the federal judges here both criminal and civil cases, which is actually different than how many state courts work where you have different judges do civil and criminal, but federal judges do both that fall under federal jurisdiction. This judge wrote a scathing order and where a motion to dismiss you accept the facts that are pled as true. So what you're looking at is the complaint. In the opening statement, though,

Pope, I don't know if you saw this. Judge Barrow Howell went a little off script, I thought, in a good way for justice and didn't really quote from the complaint, but really kind of gave her views, which are the undisputed facts, if you will, about January 6th and what took place and what her views are about Giuliani and it was very, very, very scathing. She denied Giuliani's motion to dismiss. So now, Jay Moss and Ruby Freeman will get discovery and the case will proceed to the next step and then likely to trial. But, Popeyes, what do you think about this? Yeah, I love seeing the inner workings of Barrel Howell in her civil, which is where her civil trial hat.

It's a stupid motion by Giuliani. It gave Barrel Howell a free pass to slam him, to shame him, and to tell him, he should settle this F and case. That's my words, not Charles, although she might have been thinking it. The two, mother daughter of, I always said voluntary temporary election workers, and that's not unusual.

I've done election law and election counting myself that involved with both processes and especially for the presidential election you have to bring in temporary workers. Most of them are temporary workers who are trained to supervise and monitor what is now primarily electronic voting with paper with some paper receipts and paper balloting included Optically fed into a machine digitally read by a machine and the like, but there's of course a role for human beings in that process both at the intake you show up with your card or your ID.

This is your precinct you want to vote. They check you in. They have you sign in. They look at your IDs. They resolve issues related to eligibility in that precinct or otherwise. And then you're passed through to another set of temporary workers. Trump in his phone call to Raffin Spurger in Fulton County mentioned Ruby by name and her mother. Giuliani, there was no doubt he was talking about her on podcast, claimed erroneously, fraudulently, defamatorially, that Ruby and her mother had fake ballots in favor of Joe Biden. 18,000 of them was the claim. And that that 18,000 ballots were in a black box sitting under their desks and the video that they sliced and diced, which

barrel howl politely called the edited video. I think she wanted to use something else for that, which showed them taking a black box out from under a desk after some Republican observers had left the room and then to Trump's words and Giuliani's words, they were all for Biden. How does he know it's in a block box or what they are? And then fed them in a machine and that's why Trump lost Georgia, you know, these two workers. Okay, so when the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the GBI, did a full investigation of all of these allegations, which they did. They looked at the entire video clip for the state farm arena where all of this counting was going on and they found nothing of the sort.

It was a lie. These were ballots that had already been counted. They get put into a lock box. They get moved from room to room off the table on the table, depending upon how they're being processed. Nobody lost track of whether these were counted ballots or ballots yet to be counted. Certainly Ruby and her mother didn't lose track of that. And so all of these insinuations were a lie. They brought a lawsuit against OAN, the podcasters, Giuliani, in District of Columbia, interesting choice. See, Democrats can form shop just the way

Republicans can. And they could have brought the suit in Georgia. They could have brought the suit in New York or Giuliani as a bar member, but they brought the suit in Georgia. They could have brought the suit in New York or Giuliani as a bar member, but they brought the suit in the District of Columbia in federal court. But under DC law, we're back to DC as a territory like a state having its own body of law. Why? How?

Because a federal court, unless you're involved and less a federal statute where the US Constitution is involved, a federal court only has jurisdiction over a dispute if it has diversity jurisdiction, meaning two residents from two different states or a state and another country. So Giuliani is a resident of New York. These two women are residents of Georgia. So we have diversity. The amount and controversy, the amount of money they're seeking is high enough

to put it in front of a federal court. Why DC? Because Giuliani is currently, at least last time I looked, a member of the District of Columbia bar, the DC bar. He did not fight personal jurisdiction. He did not fight personal jurisdiction at all. So now it's sitting in front of Barrel Howell, which is the worst poll for him as a judge. She went through the defamation claim. How were they defamed? Because they were falsely accused of doing something underhanded in creating fake ballots

and feeding them into a machine. That's defamation. Intentional inflection of emotional distress, which is a cause of action that every state recognizes, and it's exactly what it sounds like. Somebody does something against you that intentionally causes you emotional distress. The emotional distress is easy as the judge pointed out. These women were mercilessly attacked on social media by name. Everything from you should be dead, you should shoot yourself, you should kill yourself,

to them reaching out to their homes, sending them pizzas every hour. It's called doxing. They didn't swap them, which is worse, which is calling in fake police reports to send a SWAT team to a house in order to maybe get them shot and killed, but everything else was done to them. So bad that the FBI, the real FBI, the national FBI, told them that they should go into hiding after Jan 6th, and the hearing started and all of that because of threats against their life.

They've got the intentional inflection count. And the barrel hall will agree with that. They've got the defamation count. She didn't buy any of it. And the best line in that order back to poetic justice, real justice is when barrel howl the judge said, there is ample circumstantial evidence alleged in the suit about a civil conspiracy between Giuliani and the Trump campaign. Think about that, Ben. There's a federal judge, another one.

We had Judge Carter in California. Now we have Judge Barrow Howell saying there is ample circumstantial evidence to establish a civil conspiracy to commit election fraud by the Trump campaign and Rudy Giuliani. Devastating. Devastating. And so he lost, case goes to,

case goes into discovery, meaning depositions. And if after reading that ruling, Giuliani doesn't try to reach a settlement if it's possible, he's a fool. He's a bigger fool than I thought. Yeah, well, it's not possible because he doesn't have any money. And I think the importance of the discovery here

is more important than ultimately the, I mean, it's a civil lawsuit, right? So at the end of the day, the remedy that Moss and Freeman have is a dollar value and they can get a judgment But will they ever collect upon the judgment? Well Not sure he doesn't have any money by the way. I see him traipsing around New York going to all the fine places Smoking all the cigars. He's got a pension. He's got money

I'm sure he gets a payout from his old law firm. Don't be so surprised. He still does consultancies. He's not a pauper. Okay. Well, yeah, what we'll see. So in his divorce case settlement with his ex-wife, not the ex-wife who was the his cousin, but the other ex-wife. Don't ever.

Yeah, so he couldn't pay or did everything he can to avoid paying. I think it was a $200,000 or so dollar settlement there. And we've had reports though that Trump never paid him. He's never going to be, I'm not sure that consultancy is a thriving business and, you know, currently, but nonetheless, to get the insight from this judge about the civil conspiracy knowing this judge

in her other role as the chief judge who supervises the grand juries overseeing criminal investigations of Trump, then you piece that together with the fact that she's previously ruled that Trump's assertion of executive privilege with those criminal grand juries, with respect to trying to stop former administration officials to testifying that she wouldn't allow him

to assert executive privilege and compelled the testimony. You start putting these puzzle pieces together and it all starts making sense in a good way for justice. The wheels of justice turn or as somebody pointed out to me, Pope, I don't know if you know this, the wheels of justice, metaphor, I was being told I was mixing the metaphor, and I was told the wheels of justice is actually like a wind meal. Let me just read this for you, because I got a very big fan who was upset. I listened to your podcast from the beginning. My husband and I really enjoyed. I have one small problem with your analysis. You refer to the wheels of justice

as wheels moving forward, following the arch of history. Unfortunately, I believe you misunderstand the metaphor. The wheels are not transportation. The wheels of justice refer to the mills of the gods, where sinners were ground fine to grind the truth out of their souls. I hope you can use the expression correctly in your future opinions. The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine.

So the wheels of the science. Exceeding exceedingly fine. Yeah, I researched this before we went with it. It's the same it's it's it's also a Chinese philosopher. It's the same one who did the art of war and talked about the wheels, Sung Zoo. And that's that's usually who's credited with it. We like to talk about it as a giant wheel that crushes people under it. I'm going to still like it like that. Yeah, I mean, yes, it could be a wheel that's spinning a mill that grinds people under its crushing, crushing stones, but you know, that doesn't fit on a t-shirt that great. Speaking of the t-shirt, don't check out the t-shirts at store.mitustouch.com for your mightesturch and legal a stays in the pod, might as touch and legal

a f merch. Also, if you support independent media like this or want to continue supporting it, please check out our Patreon website now at patreon.com slash might as touch. There's lots of great exclusive content there, but we have zero outside investors. So if you can be helpful there, no pressure either way, it does go a long way. Check it out at patreon.pat.rom.com slash might as touch. I told you about store.mitustouch.com for the best unapologetically pro democracy gear. That store.mitustouch.com for the best unapologetically pro democracy gear. That's store.mitustouch.com.

We got great legal AF merch there as well. And also make sure you subscribe right now. So to our audio listeners, subscribe on YouTube right now. Go to the MidasTouch YouTube channel for our YouTube viewers. Please do me a favor right now.'s so simple hit subscribe here then wherever you get your audio please just hit the subscribe button there and leave a five star review on the audio as well and audio listeners leave a five star review on the audio as well by subscribing to the audio and listening on the audio it helps out a lot and leaving that five star review is super, super helpful. Thank you all for joining us on this episode

of Legal AF. We covered a lot. Love spending these weekends with you and Michael PoePoc. Let's keep, let's keep it up. Oh, vote, vote. And make sure anyone that you know, make sure family members. That's of all of the things that you can do right now. This audience because by the time you count audio plus video, we hit around 200,000,

which is kind of similar to the shows that Fox does. We, when I talked about it, we do more views than Shepherd Smith at Fox, then when we saw his numbers. But here's the thing about our network. It is a community and it is a community that puts in work. We could be the difference. All of us here, you watching this, you listening to this, you could be the difference. All of us here, you watching this, you listening to this, you could be the difference in this election.

I promise you you can. So please call up family. If you have, whether it's kids or siblings or parents or grandparents, help them vote, help drive them to the polls, whatever you can do, call up your neighbor, your coworker. Make sure of course they vote blue for democracy, but please, please, please, I'm asking you, please put in the work right now. We have four to eight out.

Let me put the math, let me put the math in perspective. If it's you plus four other people and we do 200,000, we do more because we almost do double that with the week, the Wednesday version. Hillary Clinton lost the election overall by a swing of 700,000 votes across five states. If she had gotten 700,000 more votes total out of all that were voted, she would have been the president and we wouldn't even be talking about MAGA or Donald Trump at all. 700,000. You and I are doing 200,000 or more. If all those people bring four people with them to the polls, Hillary Clinton would have been elected president.

Good math, good night, let's do it. Special shout out to The Midas Mighty. The Midas Mighty.