Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Top Legal Experts BREAK DOWN Trump’s Complete Legal COLLAPSE

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

On this mid-week edition of Legal AF, Karen Friedman Agnifilo is joined by Ben Meiselas to discuss how the legal walls are finally closing in on Trump. The hosts discuss the seditious conspiracy convictions of the Oath Keeper’s leaders and how that will impact the criminal investigation of Trump, the testimony of former top Trump advisor Stephen Miller before the federal grand jury investigating Trump’s crimes in Washington DC, Mark Meadows losing his emergency application before the South Carolina Supreme Court to block his testimony before the Fulton County Special Grand Jury, and Trump’s threats against Special Counsel Jack Smith. It is obvious that Trump is more weak and desperate than he has ever been. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: LOMI: https://lomi.com/LegalAF GET LEGAL AF 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

The Oath Keepers leaders, Stuart Rhodes and Kelly Megs were found guilty in DC federal court of seditious conspiracy, a huge win for the Department of Justice and for all Americans and horrible news for Donald Trump. And former Trump chief of staff, Mark Meadows was compelled to testify before the Fulton County criminal special grand jury after his emergency application with the South Carolina Supreme Court was denied. And I love the language that the South Carolina Supreme Court used. They called Meadows motion, quote, manifestly without merit.

So poetic and former top Trump advisor, Stephen Miller, who is the opposite of poetic, but is getting his poetic justice testified before the criminal grand jury in Washington, DC, the federal grand jury that is part, the federal grand jury, that is part of the Department of Justice's investigation into Donald Trump's crimes relating to the January 6th insurrection and his criminal election interference. This was the first witness to go before the criminal grand jury since special counsel. Jack Smith was appointed and a big one or a little one, but a big one for justice.

And then Donald Trump, Karen Friedman and Nifola, he keeps attacking the special counsel, Jack Smith. He's attacking Jack Smith's wife. He's attacking Jack Smith's late mother-in-law. He's attacking Jack Smith's sister-in-law. Apparently, Trump thinks that this is a good idea, committing more crimes, but I got to hear it from your perspective as a top prosecutor. And now the co-host of Legal AF midweek edition, I got to have your take.

This is Legal AF, the most consequential legal news of the week midweek edition. I'm filling in for Michael Popock and where Karen Friedman Nignifalo and I last left off. We did a video and emergency live video hit after Jack Smith was appointed special counsel Karen Friedman Nignifalo had worked with Jack Smith at the Manhattan DA's office for some time. And then Karen Friedman and Nifalo rose up the ranks, became the number two deputy in the entire office in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. And Jack Smith went on to his very successful career as a federal prosecutor and as a war

crimes prosecutor. But Karen seems like the public is warming up to Jack smith now almost as if you were right or something Well, you know sometimes when you know somebody and you know them well, and you know their work product It's it's not hard to predict how people are going to come around You know it's interesting. I've been following as everybody else has what Trump is saying about Smith and it's all it's he's Trump is saying about Smith. And it's he's attacking, as you said, his family. He's attacking his wife. He's attacking his sister-in-law, his late mother-in-law.

But he can't really say anything about Jack himself. Other than he makes these big proclamations that he's totally compromised. He's a political hitman. But he doesn't back it up with anything. He doesn't say, because this happened, or because he once did this, or because I have evidence of that. And so it was very clear to me that the reason he is going after Smith's family

is because he has nothing on Smith, because there is nothing on Smith. There is absolutely nothing you're going to find about him that will show that he's in any way political, that he's compromised, or that he's a political hitman, whatever it is he's been saying about him. There is nothing that you will find about Jack Smith that will be able to back up these ridiculous claims. I mean at one point, I think he even went after the judge who officiated at Jack's wedding, Judge Garifus, who's a Southern District Judge. I mean, if that's where you're grasping to go after Judge Garifus, who's one of the most respected jurists in New York. I mean, if not, you know, larger than the New York in the Southern

District, he handles some of the most high-prof profile cases. Nobody would ever call Judge Garif as political or that he does anything remotely political, that he doesn't follow the law and follow the facts. But somehow, because he officiated at Jack Smith's wedding, you know, that's all he could find. Anyways, so I just thought it was interesting that in all the things that he's doing, he really Trump hasn't found anything on Smith and he won't because Jack Smith has got his, he's independent. I have no idea what his politics are because any good prosecutor keeps politics out of the courtroom and out of the office and out of your life as a prosecutor. It's not, when you're a prosecutor, there is no politics. You follow the facts wherever they lead, and you bring justice without fear or favor it.

That's it. And so that's what Jack has done his whole life. And you're going to find, because he has prosecuted elected officials, and he was in the political corruption unit, and he's been, those are the types of cases he's been doing over the years, both federally and internationally. You're going to find that he's prosecuted equally. He's investigated and prosecuted equally, people of all parties.

It really doesn't matter because that's just not how prosecutors work and that's not how they do their job. And so Trump's not going to find anything. He's going to keep trying to grasp its draws and go after him. Who's next? Their dog, if they have one. I mean, really, who's next? Who are they going to say is next? Because if you're going after somebody's sister-in-law, that's really, and they're dead mother-in-law,

someone who's going to put pressure on him. I think that's just shows how desperate he is to try to find something to say about this truly stellar prosecutor. And Karen, so from the perspective though, as a former prosecutor where Donald Trump's kind of harassment of the special counsel, Jack Smith and of Jack Smith's family, does across the line at some point to not just being evidence that's going to be used in a future prosecution of Donald Trump, but does it also become

kind of independent potential bases for bringing criminal charges against Donald Trump for obstruction? I mean, it's not normal behavior to threaten a prosecutor or the judge who are presiding over your cases and whereas Donald Trump may have gotten away with it before when he was the president because he had other lawless people in powerful positions protecting him. That's the opposite of law and order. So what's your perspective there? My perspective on that question is if he hasn't crossed the line, he certainly walked right up to the line. When it comes to attacking Jack Smith and saying things about him, I think it's clear he's trying to intimidate him as a prosecutor and he's trying to interfere with a criminal investigation through this intimidation.

But that I think is a little bit, I think some would say fair game. And you have to be able to have discourse. And he has free speech right to comment on the prosecutor. I think where he's clearly crossed a line is by bringing his family into this. He's put pictures of his wife up there. He's put pictures of his sister-in-law up there.

And he's really, I mean, some would argue that Jack Smith is a public figure or a limited purpose public figure. Certainly he is now by taking on this role. And but his family, that is not fair game. His family has nothing to do, unlike Donald Trump's family, his kids who worked in the White House, and so they were and are political figures, and they put themselves in that position. There is no such thing with Jack Smith, certainly sister-in-law or his wife, I should say,

or his deceased mother-in-law or his wife, I should say, or his mother-in-law. And so that's clearly trying to not only intimidate them, but I think also get others to intimidate them. He knows that his base, he knows what they do. He knows that they will start doing the things that they do, whether it's reach out to them, whether it's save vitriolic terrible things about them if if people start actually threatening or doing things to his family I think he's gonna I think he's in big trouble for that because that's just outrageous and I do think that actually crosses the line. And I mean from your perspective I mean being a high

profile prosecutor I mean I'd love for you to share your perspective, I mean being a high profile prosecutor. I mean, I'd love for you to share your perspective too about, you know, people would love to know, like, was that something when you were in the Manhattan D.A.'s office and you would have these high profile cases that you'd be worried about? And, you know, even like in mobster prosecutions, like they usually still have the sense not to go after the prosecutor and the prosecutors Emily You know, maybe they engage in other witness intimidation, but like what's your own perspective from your personal experience? Yeah, so you know my husband was a federal prosecutor who prosecuted gangs for many many many years and

for many, many, many years. And as a result, he did get some death threats. And at one point, there was a Molotov cocktail that was found on the lawn of his parents' house. And we had to have police officers at our young, who were then young children's school. It's scary. It really, really impacts your life. And, but that's coming from criminals.

Only criminals threaten somebody's family. You don't threaten somebody's family. A normal person, a normal civilized person, does not threaten a prosecutor's family or a prosecutor. Look, I had it as well. But what I would get is much more pressure. I'd get more, I would call it bullying than threats, you know, kind of the, you know, people would say negative things about me or say negative things about what I did or

about decisions that I made or that sort of thing, but no one ever would talk about my family ever. You know, so it's just, it's just a different ball game, you know, to talk about somebody's family. But you know, like we all know that's Donald Trump's playbook, you know, whether it's Hunter Biden, you know, or whatever it is. He goes after people, he's the biggest bully there is, and he goes after people, and everyone's fair game. There's no one off limits for him.

And he stoops so low and will absolutely go after, go after someone's family. But like I said, it's one thing to go after someone's wife or child. When you're going to someone's wife's sister or wife's mother, he is desperate. He is grasping for straws. He's trying to find anything on Jack Smith.

Like I said, you go after someone's the person who officiated their wedding. I mean, that's the most you have on him. That just shows you how frankly squeaky clean Jack Smith is, because Trump has nothing. And he's just being a bully. And we'll see where it goes. And we'll see if they do anything about it. I think they will say we have bigger fish to fry, than to prosecute him for somehow interfering with this. I think hopefully they'll just put their head down. Jack Smith and his team will put his head down

and turn off that noise and do their job. And it looks like he's doing his job and like he's doing his job quickly. I mean, as you were talking, you know, saying before, he's already got people, you know, Steven Miller testifying in a federal grand jury, you know, that's at least reported on CNN. So, you know, it looks like Jack Smith

is just, you know, tuning out this ridiculous noise and doing his job and hopefully we'll see something soon. No, and you got to give Merrick Garland credit as well in the entire Department of Justice for building this brick by brick. You and I have discussed it before here on the midweek edition and we've discussed it also on the weekend edition as well about how the Department of Justice went about these prosecutions and investigations. So first, kind of just starting with the low-level trespassers and the kind of bizarre, extraimists, and the kind of just strange cult members who were there. Like, the one example I always give is like the shaman, but just a bunch of these other kind of brainwashed people who entered

but didn't like steal or do anything violent, but did a bad thing by breaking into the Capitol building. So those people were disposed of first and they either were prosecuted or plea agreements were entered into there. Then the next level were the violent trespassers who got very serious sentences. And then the next level after that were these terrorist groups like the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and others like that. And they were tried for the one of the most serious charges that exist in federal law, seditious conspiracies, treason, basically overthrowing the United States government.

Now, I almost recall a little bit even more than a year ago, a lot of the talking points to by right wing talk media and other right wing politicians is like, well, you're all calling this sedition, but there no one's even being charged with sedition or treason. And then a lot of people back then were hating on Merrick Garland too and saying, well, you're not even charging anyone with sedition, but in order to get to those terrorist groups and charge them right with seditious conspiracy, you had to build all these other layers, develop the evidence, then methodically bring the seditious conspiracy charge. And that is what they did there. And at the same time, parallel track, what we'll talk about a little later too, is the grand jury

proceedings whereby top Trump officials have been testifying about the highest rung of who led this conspiracy, right? I mean, all roads eventually lead to Donald Trump. And what this seditious conspiracy trial against the oath keepers shows us. And it was a seven week trial. Testimony was taken on, began around October 3rd. Jury deliberations took about three days. This first batch of O'Keefer terrorists, there was five of them.

There was Stuart Rhodes, Kelly Megs, Jessica Watkins, Kenneth Harrelson, and Thomas Caldwell. Rhodes and Megs were some of the top leaders. Rhodes literally let it. Megs ran the Florida branch, but one of the interesting things is that, like these individuals were not actually in the capital building themselves, right? And so what this prosecution showed is that

you didn't literally have to be in the capital building and storm it to be guilty of sedition, conspiracy, seditious conspiracy, which is what made the prosecution actually a very very difficult one why it took so long why the evidence had to be developed the way it did. But the fact that you had steward roads and Kelly Megs convicted of seditious conspiracy, although you had Harold and Watkins and Caldwell were ultimately found not guilty of seditious conspiracy. Although you had Harrelson, Watkins, and Caldwell, we're ultimately found not guilty of seditious conspiracy. But on the conspiracy to obstruct, Rhodes was found not guilty. Megs and Watkins were found guilty.

Harrelson and Caldwell were found not guilty. But then on the obstruction of official proceedings count, everyone was found guilty. And so the overall takeaway here though, is that the obstruction count is still a 20 year prison sentence as is the seditious conspiracy. So everybody was found guilty for a felony obstruction that carries within a serious sentence.

But the successful prosecution of seditious conspiracy here for the leaders, roads and megs, and the very nuanced analysis that the jury did here, I think also spells very bad news for Donald Trump. Because ultimately, if someone like roads and megs could be found guilty based on their ability to, or their attempts at doing what was called the QRRF a quick reaction force where they had all these weapons stored at a hotel in Arlington, Virginia They were ready to go but they were waiting on Trump's order to invoke the insurrection act and they believe they were working in concert with Trump in fact they were calling Trump and so what do you make of this guilty verdict?

It's impact and how do you think it could impact the investigation of Trump? So this is a mixed verdict. It's a success. It was all five people were convicted. But as you said, they weren't convicted of every charge. And the jury was out for three days. And because they had this where they were guilty on some and not others and it took a few days, it shows how thoughtful they were.

I think that's excellent for any appellate record because sometimes on appeal, I know Donald Trump's going to argue that this was political, that it was in Washington because this happened in Washington. He couldn't possibly get a fair jury and that a jury was going to just go along with the prosecutors no matter what because they were there when it happened. I think what this type of verdict is going to show the appellate courts and what the appellate judges will see is that no, that's not true. This jury was absolutely able to look at the evidence and look at it fairly and make

new wants decisions that weren't just knee-jerk because they are in Washington or whatever, you know, whatever the things that Trump's going to say. So I thought that it showed that they were thoughtful and really deliberate. The one thing that I was a little concerned about is that there was a couple of charges that Rhodes was acquitted of, sort of the conspiracy, the planning ahead part of it, that this was some grand plan in advance.

And he was acquitted of those. I just hope that no appellate judge or appellate court will find that that was repugnant with his other convictions, because it is a little weird to say he was not guilty of conspiring to do the thing that he was then found guilty of doing. So we'll see if, it's just a tiny little point that may or may not be made, but I do think that this is significant. I do think also that they should sentence him as soon as possible, and he should start serving his time,

because if God forbid, Donald Trump wins when he runs again or another Republican, he can just pardon all of these guys. So although Stuart Rhodes is facing, I read somewhere on the three counts that he was convicted of he's facing up to 60 years, if he gets pardoned, then he might not do any time or much time. And so that was my only concern about this

is that it's so important because there've been almost 900 prosecutions that, you know, the Justice Department has done a lot of work on this and it could all be for not if a Republican wins in 2024 and pardons everybody. It also reminds, you know, everyone should be reminded how important Fannie Willis' case is in Georgia. I know most people want the DOJ to be the ones to bring that case and not funny will this, but I just want to remind everyone that a Republican president can't pardon a state conviction. So it's important that the state cases also remain active and supported and they are. They are moving forward. But so, you know, I was sort of just to answer your question.

I think your question being what impact does this have on the larger investigation. I think, you know, at one point I think Ben, you had said in one of your other podcasts, you would talk about, does this, in one of your other podcasts, you would talk about, does this, would roads ever cooperate with the Department of Justice and try to get less than the,

couple of decades worth of time that he's facing? And I thought a lot about that and I think the Department of Justice, he might come forward and say, okay, look, I'll cooperate now because I want less time. But I don't know how receptive the Department of Justice would be to that because he testified in this trial and he testified under oath. And so either what he said there is the truth, and then that doesn't help the Department of Justice in their case, their ultimate case against Trump, or he lied under oath and committed

perjury. And so he's kind of a useless witness either way. I think what is more likely is that there's still another case coming down the pike. That's not the Oath Keepers, it's the Proud Boys and Riki Tariot, who's the head of the Proud Boys. They're coming up next to trial and he's kind of just as bad as Stuart Rhodes. And he, I think, might look at this conviction and say,

wow, maybe we need to think about cooperating because now we can see that the government can prove stitious conspiracy that they can bring these charges. In the beginning, Merrick Garland even was worried about this as a charge. And so it took a while for this charge to be brought by Marik Garland because it hasn't been brought in so long, and it's a big deal charge. It's of one of the most serious charges this country has.

Case was brought, and it was upheld by a judge, and that was great. But now that it's been found by a jury to have met the standard of seditious conspiracy, I think that these other cases, these other defendants are gonna be thinking long and hard about whether they go to trial or whether they cooperate. That's my feeling. I think that's a incredible point.

And Recall and Marie-Kahtario was actually hanging out with the what hanging out at the White House after the 2020 election and he was posting photos of himself on social media and said, I got a surprise invite or like a surprise Christmas invite look where I am. And literally you have this terrorist leader inside the White House and taking selfies of himself. I remember just that image sent chills down my spine. And so you're right. Enrique Tario is probably thinking, I'm probably going to go to jail for the rest of my life. Like these people are serious. And he may hold important knowledge important knowledge that could be very useful in a prosecution of Donald Trump. And so I think that in Riketari, those lawyers are probably reaching out to the Justice

Department right away there. Now that proud boy, Sadishis Conspiracy Trial, I want to think to mention two, Karen, because I think this is helpful for people to think about it. Like the Department of Justice now was able to learn to what worked with the jury, what didn't work with the jury. And so they get smarter with each of the cases that they try. And so by the time the proud boys go to trial,

all this institutional knowledge and what maybe they could have improved on, they're all talking about that. So they're gonna have a very tight case against the proud boys when that trial starts. And that trial was supposed to start in mid to late December. I saw one of the court orders, basically reflect that it looks like

that really testimony is going to begin probably after the new year. But like Justice moves in the right direction here. Have a lot to talk about here on the midweek edition of legal AF. We got to talk about Mark Meadows being compelled to testify before the Fulton County criminal special grand jury. And we got to talk about Steven Miller's testimony before the federal grand jury in Washington, DC. Before doing that, I got to tell everybody about one of our sponsors, Lomi. I love my Lomi because I had all of this trash all over my house.

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before the grand jury in Washington, DC. And so while these hundreds of prosecutions have been taking place in federal court in Washington, DC, of these insurrectionists that I talked about earlier, you've also have these very active federal grand juries in Washington, DC. There's two that I'm aware of.

There may be another, but there's two that I'm aware of relating to Trump crimes. There's one about the January 6th insurrection and Trump selection interference, and then there's another one, a separate grand jury, also in Washington DC, about Trump's theft of the thousands of government records, including top secret, sensitive, compartmented records. And the Department of Justice has been very active in both of those grand juries. They've been issuing subpoenas to Trump's inner circle. And for example, Steven Miller's name came up back on Midas Touch reporting in September because there, the Department of Justice, subpoenas Steven Miller's phone and subpoenaed him for testimony.

One of the interesting things about Steven Miller's phone and Sapina, him for testimony. One of the interesting things about Stephen Miller's phone that I always found interesting was that he was still under his mom and dad's family plan, even when he was a White House official. And so to Sapina, his phone, they had his Sapina, his mom. I don't know. And look, not to say that that's problematic. It's just Stephen Miller in the White House that you'd have to Sapina his mom. I know. And look, not to say that that's problematic. It's just Stephen Miller in the White House

that you'd have to subpoena his mom in that setting, just kind of, you know, struck me as for all of Stephen Miller's bravado. It's like, come on, Stephen Miller, get your own phone plan at this point. If you're going to try to run our government, you know, maybe run your own phone plan first, run our government, maybe run your own phone plan first, but he finally testified before the grand jury. And I think one of the important things that this tells us, though, too, is this brick-by-brick strategy of the Department of Justice has been working to build their case and to stop Donald Trump

from trying to assert these frivolous objections to testimony. And we know that Donald Trump's been trying to assert executive privilege to stop people from testifying about their communications with him in his inner circle. It's a frivolous objection for him to make, but nonetheless, something he's able to make that any other citizen of the United States

cannot make that argument. So in that sense, when people go, if it was any other person other than Donald Trump, they would be indicted right now. And to that, I always say, yes, but it's never been a situation where a former president of the United States has engaged in criminal content. We've never had that happen before. And because the United States Constitution, like the very founding document of our nation, in sconces in it, all of these awesome powers

in the executive branch, even a former president can wield these protections. And you have to overrule them. You have to overcome them. And for these past 18 months, the Department of Justice has been doing just that. And they prevailed in the grand jury testimony of top Trump officials before. And they've gotten rulings from Judge Barrel Howell, who's the federal presiding judge in Washington, D.C. who oversees those grand juries, compelling people like former vice president

Pence's former chief of staff, Mark Short and Greg Jacobs, the former general council, and the two Pence and the department of justice's poise to get those same rulings with Trump's top lawyers, Pat Sipollone, and Patrick Filman, Sipolloni's top deputy. But here, the fact that we've learned that Miller testified before the grand jury for a very long period of time. These grand juries are secret, pre-indipement grand juries. We don't get to know about.

So we have to kind of use our sleuthing skills and try to figure out if they're a leaks and try to read redacted portions of vacates to see what's taking place unlike congressional committees which happen in public, but here we know that it took a long time, we know that it was lasted several hours and we believe they asked him a lot of questions. So from that we could at least deduce that Trump's attempt to assert executive privilege has weakened considerably his ability to stop the people from testifying,

has all but broken down, and the fact that Miller, who's his closest ally, is testifying, also to me says that Jack Smith's work in hard right now, and means business and hasn't missed a beat. What conclusions do you draw? That's same.

You know, Jack Smith, like I think we talked about, it wasn't going to take him any time to get up to speed. You know, this cases aren't rocket science and he has years and years, years of experience. So he can make these decisions very easily. And so he's moving forward. This is a very senior high level person who testified in the grand jury. And so one could say they are making their way higher and higher. One could also make it the other argument, which is you want to get these high level

people in first and hear what they have to say before you go to some other people. But either way, they're moving forward. And it'll be interesting to see who's next. But no one can possibly say that Jack Smith has slowed this down because of Steven Miller going into the grand jury. And you know, when you think about what he talked about with the Jan 6th Committee, I think that you could one could glean that as Trump's not only his close advisor, but as senior advisor, but also his speech writer, that at least one of the topics that they're going to have questioned

him about was the conversations, you know, he wrote the speech on the ellipse, you know, on Jan 6th. And so there was a lot of back and forth in a long conversation about whether or not put the stuff in there about Pence. And, you know, one point it wasn't in, and then Trump put more in, then wasn't, and then he ad-libbed some of it. So I think what's gonna come out is the mindset

of Trump on January 6th, and the mindset of kind of what they talked about on the speech. So we'll see if we're right about that, but just to kind of talk a little bit more about what you were saying about the executive privilege argument. argument, you know, what's with reason it's not been successful in these grand jury executive privilege arguments is because executive privilege is a privilege that can be pierced with if there's a compelling need. And judges have been upholding over and over again that a criminal prosecution and testifying in the grand jury meets that standard. And so that's why some individuals are being required to testify in the grand jury, like Lindsey Graham or others, because you can't really do the executive privilege thing when it comes to a criminal investigation in this, at least in this particular

case, I think one question I have is when it again, you know, what about Pence? And that will be a really important witness. And I know there are negotiations with him now about it potentially, but that's the one I'd love to see in the grand jury. I agree with you and we've seen some of that reporting out there. And Pence doesn't have the same arguments that he's, I think frivolously asserted, but nonetheless, has been able to assert these of the January 6th committee to try to run out the clock there.

And the argument he's made is that there's a separation of powers argument, and that executive branch officials, even former executive branch officials, shouldn't have to go before a congressional committee like that, which is kind of totally made up and contrived. But nonetheless, the January 6th committee recognizes that to litigate those issues would ultimately take many, many,

many months, if not years, to litigate it, and they just simply don't have the time here. Now, these executive privilege issues came up with the January 6th committee, and there, you'll remember in Cipollone's testimony, in shorts testimony, and Jacobs, they were constrained in what they can say about the communications with Trump. And they kind of would hint it out by they would say, basically, well, everybody who worked in the White House felt this way, and then you'd hear the question, well, what did Trump say? And then they would say, well, I mentioned everybody who was not running the White House, you know, what felt a certain way. So I can't answer beyond that. So they hinted out what

Trump's view or, and look, it's not really like a secret. Donald Trump's a freaking maniac. Like he was rooting for the insurrection. He wanted Mike Pence killed. Like we know that. We just need it to be sent. We need the evidence because, you evidence because I'll take you back to the decision reached by the jury in the Oathkeepers, Seditious Conspiracy cases. I mean, these juries, in general, usually get it right, but not always. They are though, they could be very mercurial and there are lots of technical areas of law. And if you present the case poorly or have defects in the case,

it is easy for a defense lawyer to poke holes in it and show that there is doubt that the prosecutors cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person is guilty. And so one of the things that Trump's defense lawyers in a prosecution would point out, and this is a jury instruction, which is if the vial of executive privilege was not pierced,

one of the instructions says, well, you should look at the ability of a party to put forward evidence and why they didn't put forward the evidence. And so Trump's lawyers would say, well, they didn't show any of these witnesses. Don't you think that if Trump was really guilty, they would have got a witness to come in here and say that this is what Trump said. And the Department of Justice would not be able to say,

how you know what, we just had to rush it. We really had to rush this thing because everybody on social media was like, what's Marigarland doing? Like, we had to rush it. And that's why we're here, Jerry. So that would not go well. And then all of the, what's the expression? Monday morning, quarterbacking, although now there's football games on Monday, so I'm not sure that expression holds,

but all of the kind of second guessing in hindsight is 2020. The same people who were hating on Merrick Garland for going slow would hate on him for saying, man, that was prosecutorial malpractice. How do you not pierce executive privilege? Merrick Garland doesn't know what he's doing. And so there's a difference between Merrick Garland and John Durham, right? Durham, who ran this politicized witch hunt in its truest sense and didn't have evidence, but just wanted to push forward a narrative.

And Merrick Garland, who has secured almost with a perfect record convictions, convictions, convictions, convictions from the insurrection and has continued to do this diligent work. Karen, I wanna finally sum this all up by talking about Mark Meadows, though, too. Trump's former chief of staff. He's really good.

Warning away. He's been running away from subpoenas like like there's no one's business. And I thought he maybe had something like wired with the South Carolina Supreme Court. When he filed this like emergency application after losing with the state court and he filed it directly with the Supreme Court and they granted his ability to like just to hear it. And then but but I was like man what do I know about the South Carolina Supreme Court? But they rejected his emergency application to block his testimony before the Fulton County special grand jury. I just thought Mark Meadows arguments though were so disgusting too about what he tried to use to block it. And he used the same technical arguments, which were loser arguments anyway. He claimed it wasn't a criminal proceeding

but was a civil proceeding. And he claimed that like the date was wrong in the subpoena and that it now. Yeah, but that argument flew in Texas. But which person did it fly? No, the Texas courts have been saying, it's basically saying to the Texas residents that this special purpose grand jury is not a, it's not a thing, because they don't have that in Texas. And so they're saying it's more like a civil thing. And so they don't have to, the witnesses don't have to go down there.

And, you know, because for a state court to be able to summon and add a state witness, they have to go through the Uniform Act created by the states in 1931. It requires a certificate of material witness. There's a whole procedure you have to go through. And it's fascinating to me that, thank God, South Carolina is not buying this. But that's why Texas is basically saying, no, this is a civil. This is civil.

And so they've been putting up roadblocks. But other states are not buying this argument. And in fact, I love the language that South Carolina Supreme Court used here in their three paragraph written opinion where they said we reviewed the arguments raised by a pellant and find them to be manifestly without merit. I mean, it's just, you know, I love, I love when judges say things like that. But anyway, so I just, I'm sorry, I untrue up to you. No, no, no, it was, it was, it's, it's a great point because you're right that every other state, whether it was

New Gingrich trying to block it in Virginia, you know, here Mark Meadows trying to block it in South Carolina, a number of other states I can't recall right. But, but most of the often were like, well, you know, we, we, we trust what Georgia is saying, you know, other than Texas here. But the other thing that Mark Meadows tried to argue is that he had this privacy right. Like he was the fact that his name could appear in a report in the Georgia proceeding, because that's what the Grand jury will do is prepare a report and recommendations. He said that violated his privacy rights.

And I just thought how despicable that he's invoking privacy rights from having his name appear in a report when Republicans are taking away a woman's privacy right or taking away Americans privacy rights or taking away a woman's right to choose. And here you have a man who was involved in an insurrection to overthrow our democracy and he's whining about his privacy rights for his name to be mentioned in a report. I just think it's like a so pathetic. What do you think? By the way, he's a public figure.

You know, he's not like Jack Smith's sister-in-law talking about her privacy. You know what I mean? He's so hypocritical. You're absolutely right. You know, that he thinks he has a privacy right when he's a material witness, first of all, in this matter. And he's hopefully going to soon be a criminal defendant in this matter since he has helped to overthrow our democracy on January 6. So I just don't, you know, this was in his official, you know, he was working at the time

and doing Trump's bidding when he's the one who set up the call on January of 2021 with Brad Raffinsberger to find the 11,780 votes. He set up the call. He also did a surprise visit in December of 2020 before that to Cobb County, Georgia, wanting to participate and view an election audit, but they wouldn't let him in. So it's not like he's, you know, this is to call it a privacy right when he is a material witness in this very investigation and hopefully a target as well. But, you know, this is that just doesn't make any sense. And it is hypocritical, and I agree with you. And it's preposterous. And now he's going to be forced to testify. And I,

you know, I, I, Fanny Willis is, I think, doing her job, and she's doing, putting one foot in front of the other as a prosecutor, and she's just bringing this case and being methodical. And, and we'll see, you know, there may or may not be an'll see you know there may or may not be an indictment and there may or may not be an indictment before the report so she doesn't have to wait for the report in order in order to do that so let's see let's see what happens but well here's something that we know for sure though indictments are coming out of fauni willis is special grand jury whether that's through a regular, I mean, it would have to come from a regular grand jury, but we know that the special grand jury would

provide the recommendations, but we know that she's going to be inditing some people. And so that will likely take place, you know, within the next what, Karen, next 60 to 90 days. I mean, the special grand jury runs its course through the end of the year. And then I would say what by early January, we'll probably hear about indictments. If she waits until the end of the, you're right. So there's a special purpose grand jury that she formed that only can issue a report and it's being overseen by a judge. It can't issue indictments. So she would have to go into another indictment and or I'm sorry,

another grand jury in order to bring any indictments. But who's to say she has to wait until the report is written? She might have enough evidence at this point to go into a regular grand jury. So we'll see, you know, there's no reason it has to go one and then the other, but she may choose to do it that way or she may not. But yeah, it could be, I think your timing makes a lot of sense. Karen, I appreciated you sharing earlier in the episode as well. Your first 10 stories too, yourself and your husband, he's a former federal prosecutor, your former top state prosecutor and those experiences. So I didn't know you were going to ask me about those things. Those times. Well, you know, you've got to, you got to get those, you got to get those

reactions spontaneously. But I appreciate you sharing that with our audience because it really situates that our justice system, though, is also a human system right there, people behind, these cases, they are hardworking people, behind these cases, they are people fighting for justice, who we wanna highlight, and there are people who are fighting against justice, who we wanna highlight for the opposite reasons,

we wanna highlight them here. And that's what we do each and every week here on legal, AF, shout out to our sponsor, Lomi. Also, I want to tell everyone to check out our Patreon website, consider becoming a patron of the Midas Touch Network. We have exclusive content, exclusive legal breakdowns, exclusive breaking news breakdowns, exclusive behind the scenes footage,

exclusive merch drops. There are some membership tiers there where you can become an honorary producer of the MidasTouch podcast. And there's so much more exclusive content you can only get at patreon.com slash MidasTouch. P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash might as touch, but most importantly, it helps grow this independent media platform. We are not funded by any outside investors at all, so no millionaire or billionaire investors who fund the both sides media. We 100% rely on you. So if you can, no worries if you can, but if you can wherever you are in the world, head to patreon.com slash mightestouch now and become a member at one of the membership tiers. I know you will love it. I'm Ben Micellis joined by Karen Friedman-Agnifalo, Karen, any final words for the legal A.F. is out there. Just great to see you and great to be here. Thanks everyone for

listening. Until next time this has been Legal AF. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.