Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Top Legal experts REACT live to biggest legal news of week

Episode Date: June 5, 2022

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF x MeidasTouch is back for another hard-hitting look in “real time” at this week’s most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics.  This week, Ben and Popok discuss and analyze: 1. The Fulton County (Atlanta) Georgia District Attorney moving closer to an indictment of Trump and others for election fraud and racketeering as the Special Grand Jury begins hearing from over 50 expected witnesses. 2. Former key Trump White House advisor Peter Navarro very bad week, ending with his being indicted for Criminal Contempt of Congress and arrested by Federal Marshals as he was about to board a plane, and being separately subpoenaed by a second DC Federal grand jury to give testimony on other January 6-based matters. 3. The Manhattan DA’s office moving closer to indicting Steve Bannon for the “build the wall” foundation fraud and his using charitable monies for personal living expenses. 4. Trump’s “Special Prosecutor” John Durham spending $4.2mm of taxpayer dollars only to lose badly his only jury trial, and Michael Sussman being acquitted by a jury finding that he did not lie to the FBI’s general counsel when he provided a tip that the Trump Organization and Putin’s Alpha Bank were working together. 5. The Florida Supreme Court denying an appeal to throw out DeSantis’ racist, gerrymandered electoral maps before voting starts in June and August, handing the Republicans a 20-8 advantage in House seats for the Midterms. 6. The US Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision siding, for now, against Texas’s SB20 law that would prevent large social media platforms from “de-platforming” users and taking down offensive, racist, sexist, violent content and “disinformation. And so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: AG1 by Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/legalaf 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 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Let's hit the legal topics of the week. First, the Florida Supreme Court permits Governor Ron DeSantis racist and Jerry Manderd map to remain in place. Sadly, there was no surprise here. The United States Supreme Court halts a Texas law which would force social media companies to apply the Texas speech standards to their social media apps, aka radical right hate speech and racism would have proliferated like the radical right ring wants. The Manhattan District Attorney is purportedly investigating Steve Bannon for his we build a wall scheme for state law criminal violations since Trump's last-minute

pardon only applied to federal crimes committed by Steve Bannon. Bill Barr's special counsel John Durham suffered a humiliating defeat this week, losing his only trial to this week, losing his only trial to defendant Michael Susman, now free man, Michael Susman, who was found not guilty after less than six hours of jury deliberation in a case pop-up that you and I said from the outset was a bunch of BS. Trump advisor Peter Navarro is arrested at the airport by the FBI. He's thrown into jail, the same jail cell as John Hinckley, Jr. I love that fact. And charged with contempt of Congress wasn't an a joy to watch Peter Navarro wine after

he was released. But why did the DOJ decline to file charges on Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino? Might they be cooperating? And the Fulti Counten Special Grand Jury begins hearing evidence against Donald Trump for election crimes and racketeering with high profile names like Brad Rappensberger expected to testify. The most consequential legal news of the week and our lives.

This is legal AF Ben Myceles and Michael Popak breaking down those legal issues and the legal issues I just mentioned on this show. Michael Popak, how are you doing? Good evening, Ben. Wow, what a week. You and I were talking offline. The Supreme Court is going to issue 33 decisions before the end of the summer. We've got the ban and trial in July. We've got the abortion decision could be as early as Monday.

We've got the second amendment decision probably coming sometime also in June. And you and I had 30 stories to choose from today before we curated and picked the top six to go over. What a week, what a month, what a summer. Let's get into it. Let's get into it. We picked the top six stories of this past week.

As you mentioned, the Supreme Court is ready to issue 33 decisions over the coming weeks, including the decision that has previously been leaked over turning Roe v Wade, a decision which we all expect to drop. Another decision we expect the Supreme Court to drop is one further expanding purported rights that the Supreme Court created under the Second Amendment to allow unfettered use by individuals of their weapons, their AR-15s, their guns, especially in the wake of what we've seen over at Uvalde, we're seeing in Buffalo, seems pretty horrific that the Supreme Court

is going to go there. But let's talk about the Florida Supreme Court for a second, permitting Governor DeSantis map to hold. We've been talking about this now for a few weeks on the legal AF podcast, governor DeSantis himself drew a map of how he wanted the flora congressional of Florida congressional districts to look like, which we explained was very strange because normally it's the legislature who draws it. So the legislature in Florida, which is controlled by Republicans, prepared by itself a very gerrymandered map to begin with and they sent it

to governor DeSantis design. And governor DeSantis said, you know what, that's not gerrymandered enough. Let me draft it. And so governor DeSantis and his legal team drafted this incredibly gerrymandered map, which would basically remove black representation from Florida, remove the black congressional districts from Florida is the intent behind it and the effect of it. And even the Republican legislature said, Governor DeSantis, you're going a little too far on this. He says, I don't care. You better put this, you better sign this into law. What is the stuages of the Republican legislature and Florida do? They pass it into law. And then judge J Lane Smith of the second circuit, which is like the trial court, right? Popaka, Florida, the first, actually, the first district, you're talking about the trial court in Leon County. Yeah. Yeah. Judge Lane

Smith of the second circuit of Florida. What about him? Yeah. Yeah. Judge Lane Smith of the second circuit of Florida, what about him? Yeah. Yeah. Second circuit is the circuit court. It's the trial level for Leon County in Tallahassee. Yeah. And so, you know, sometimes the terminology there, I always wanted to kind of clarify that for those listening because the Supreme Court in New York is the lower trial court and the court of appeals in New York is their Supreme Court as you would traditionally view at the highest level court. So here the second circuit court of Florida, the judge Lane Smith is the first court that would hear the case.

And judge Lane Smith's a judge who was appointed by DeSantis. He looked at the DeSantis map and he said, look, this is unconstitutional, unconstitutional based on Florida's constitution, which has an anti-political gerrymandering provision and judge lay in Smith says, you've violated the Florida constitution here. It's clear what the intent is. And again, Judge Lane Smith was someone who was appointed by DeSantis and he said it

because Lane Smith though is someone who did that initial fact finding as the judge who took in the evidence. So then DeSantis appealed. He appealed that to the first district court of appeal. And what they did was they stayed that temporary injunction issued by Lane Smith because Lane Smith issued the injunction stopping the map, the DeSantis map from coming into place. And the first district court said, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. We think that DeSantis may have some really good points here. Lane Smith,

we're going to stop what you're doing until we rule on it. Has the first district court of appeal ruled on it? They haven't. And so they want to drag this out as far as possible. Also, so the first district has an issue, their decision, they simply stayed with the lower court did. So then what happened, the people who challenged to Santas as racist maps, then challenged it to the Florida Supreme Court, the highest court. And what does the Florida Supreme Court say? We don't even have jurisdiction to hear this yet. We can't listen to this yet because the first district court of appeal, they have been ruled yet. They've only stayed the injunction.

So what are we even ruling on? So the purpose of this, of going over this case too, though, is not just to show you the ruling because the ruling is, you know, an easy one for me to tell you, the ruling would be the, the flared a Supreme Court basically is allowing to Santas is map to stay in effect. But really how these courts and these radical right courts wield their power to me is fascinating because you have basically the flared a Supreme Court saying, wow, since the court of appeal in Florida has not even ruled yet and all they've done was state, we have to wait till they're ruling.

And meanwhile, what's happening? The deadlines run out and now the Santas map is going to stay in place. Michael Popak, what do you think Popak? What's going on here? I know you are from Florida. Yeah. And I know some of the Supreme Court just this year. Curial. I knew him from practice. And he's now on the Supreme Court.

And look, it's exactly what you said. They found a way at the Supreme Court level based on an allegate a position that they did not have jurisdiction because the first district court of appeal has not yet completed their appellate process. So the Supreme Court very conveniently wanting to uphold the map set, ah, premature, we don't have jurisdiction. Let the first district court of appeal has to continue through a briefing process and decide whether the lower court judge, the trial judge that you identified,

whether, you know, he was right or wrong about issuing an order enforcing new maps, that was the real issue on appeal. The issue on appeal was the lower level judge, the trial judge, said not only was he not going to allow to synthesis maps to be the maps used for the printing of the ballots in the primary in June and the election in August, but he was going to impose new maps that he had had created or court ordered maps. And the appellate court said, you went too far. You can find those maps to be invalid, but then you had to send it back to the drawing board and let the legislator do legislation do their job. Well, because of the timing

issue so close to the ballot printing, the trial judge says, no, I'm going to impose new maps, which by the way, in different states in this patchwork of different states, has been found to be okay, for instance, in New York. In New York, a stuban county judge way up in the hinterlands of New York in a place most people had not even heard of. Ordered the maps by one guy you've never heard of who was last minute who never, who's not even a New York resident who designed these maps. It's now the map that's being in the state of New York for primary. So it is allowed in certain states. It's just that the Florida Supremes want to show and

genuinely reflect to DeSantis. So the Sup Supreme's found a way. Now the open question, Ben, which has been asked among our legal aeifers, is what about the US Supreme Court? What about Merrick Garland? What about the Department of Justice? And to refresh everybody's memory from prior lessons, especially you, Ben, on close in time to a primary and what does the US Supreme Court

as currently constituted do, A, under the Voting Rights Act, there's very little for a Marric Garland of the Department of Justice to do, and B, even if he did it, and it went to the Supreme, what do you think would happen, Ben? Of the Supreme Courts have made a concerted effort to gut the Voting Rights Act over the past two decades. That's been even before it became radical, radical right, like it is now. The Supreme Court under Roberts has taken all steps to do everything to dismantle the Voting Rights Act protections.

And they basically, their theory is basically America is not racist anymore. And when the Voting Rights Act was passed, congratulations, America. I'm being serious. No, I'm not being misceasing. And that's what I want people to know. Their basic thesis is that when the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, America was racist, but since then, America has cured its racism. So the very notion of analyzing the idea that racism exists, the focus that racism is a thing is itself according to the Roberts court racist. And therefore, we should not even be asking these questions

because what existed before a Supreme Court decision in 2013, one of the most fundamental strong things of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was this concept called pre-clearance, where the Department of Justice or Federal Judges would review the state maps, apply a formula to determine if the state maps were racist. Before the state maps could go into effect, now that pre-clearance in 2013

was dismantled by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said the formula used under the Voting Rights Act does not apply in the current times and therefore, pre-clearance can't exist. So now what we have is the burden shifting and the burden is now on civil rights groups to challenge these state maps where the state maps are viewed as presumptively okay maps having no racism and no problems in it to begin with. The problem is, once these civil rights groups challenge the state maps, then what the courts

do is exactly what you see in Florida, exactly what the Supreme Court does, where they basically said, well, now we're too close to the election. So we can't do anything. So we're just going to let the map that So we can't do anything. So we're just gonna let the map that the legislature proposed stay in place. That's what they do. And so what would happen if you challenged on a voting rights act challenge,

a map in front of the US Supreme Court, you ain't getting no love. They will further gut the voting rights act. And it encourages bad behavior, as you can imagine, it just encourages the racist state legislators to issue their maps late in time so that any challenge is going to run into the headwinds or the buzz saw that you just identified where the Supreme Court says, you raise very interesting points, but we're so close to the election, we're going to let the racist map stand. And that is a confounding and maddening result

of the doctrine that the Supreme Court has used to, as you said, to gut the Voting Rights Act and to throw it back to the States, under the argument that, well, it's all politics, and we're the Supreme Court, we try to stay out of politics when they actually do the exact opposite. Absolutely, and we'll keep an eye on what's going on, but what will happen, and what appears that's going to happen is the Florida map is going to stay in place, the court of appeals in

Florida, the state court of appeals. They're not incentivized to make any ruling anytime soon whatsoever. And here's the real life, result. The way the map that we're talking about that has now been endorsed by the Florida Supreme Court and will be used to print the primary ballots and beyond 20 out of 28 districts. And this is for the house run, the house races in the midterms. 20 out of 28 in Florida are now basically safe Republican eight are Democrats. So if we're trying to win, if the Democrats are trying to win the midterms, Florida is

not going to be the place to do it because now it's plus four in favor of the Republicans off the map drawing. Yeah. We will continue to follow what's going on in Florida. We'll continue to cover voting rights act cases across the country on legal a if I want to talk though about this Texas social media law that governor Abbott signed into law that he had the Republican legislature passed. The idea was to treat social media companies like Twitter.

I think that's who was specifically in mine, Twitter, but also any social media company that has 50 million or more users. So basically, all of the big ones and not the ones that are run by Trump and these radical right-wingers, so the big ones. And to treat the big social media companies as common carriers where these big social media companies would not have the right under this Texas law to in any way moderate the content of, you know, that's on its social media company, unless the content is like causing imminent violence or child pornography, or child pornography. But other than that, if someone were to put false propaganda, you know, spread the big lie, provide false information about COVID,

these are actually the things that the radical right wing want to have on the platform. They want medical disinformation on have on the platform. They want medical disinformation on the social media platform. How to buy a ghost gun. How to buy a ghost gun. They want hate speech on these platforms, cause that would be required to be carried on the social media platform. So racist speech, anti-Semitic speech, anti-LGBTQ plus speech, that would have to be covered on the platform, all of their lies about the election,

all of their views about overthrowing the government, all of that would have to be covered under this Texas law, all that would have to be allowed in permitted communication. So the social media companies challenged the DeSantis law, all that would have to be allowed in permitted communication. So the social media companies challenged the DeSantis law. They challenged it first at the, we're in federal court now. So the same way we talked about that Florida state courts have that lower court, the middle court, and then the Florida Supreme Court.

So now we're in our federal system. And why is this in federal court? Because the social media companies challenge that this Texas law violated their constitutional rights, which write their first amendment right to free speech, because the Texas law would force these social media companies who are private entities to speak the way the government wants them to speak. In other words, to speak this hate speech that the social media companies want to moderate and not have on their platform. So it went to a federal court, a federal district court when first in front of an Obama appointee and the Obama appointee

said that the social media companies, they had their first amendment rights violated by this law. So this judge issued an injunction stopping this law from being in effect. Then you had the fifth circuit court of appeals, which is the federal court of appeals that overseas, that district court judge in Texas, where the challenge came. And the district court there did something similar to what we saw at that state court of appeals, where the district court stayed the injunction and said, you know what, we need to issue a ruling on this. We have an issue to ruling on it yet, but we want to stop that lower courts ruling, which was stopping the law from going into effect.

In other words, let's keep this law on the books while we decide what we need to do here. In other words, the Fifth Circuit was saying we're going to create some freaking havoc here by allowing this law to be in place. But unlike what we talked about in Florida, here there was an appeal that was made to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court in their shadow docket. Here actually issued the right ruling and in a five-four decision, basically said that the district court's injunction should stay in place and that it shouldn't be stayed. And so keep the injunction in place and an unsigned shadow docket opinion.

And so then now that'll go back to, we'll see what the fifth circuit court of appeals is ultimately going to say, but for the time being, this Texas law is not in effect anymore. Michael Popeye. Yeah. Listen, I, as you said, the headline is right. Supreme Court rules against Texas law that would have required social media platforms to not de-platform users who violate terms of service, read that as Donald Trump on Twitter. And to not regulate or moderate content, it would have stopped social media companies from

taking down propaganda, disinformation, hate, and violent speech information about how to acquire weapons, information about anti-COVID type things, and all the things that social media companies from their own first amendment protected speech position have the right, at least most courts have ruled this way, have the right to moderate and decide what is up and down as content from their platforms. Not so in Texas and not so in Florida, who passed almost identical laws. Earlier in the week before the Supreme Court ruled in favor of or against the Texas law, ruled in favor of or against the Texas law. The Florida highest level of pellet court, the 11th Circuit, also ruled that Florida's version of it was unconstitutional in a violation of

the social media platforms, fundamental First Amendment rights to decide what content that they wanted on there. And that is always something that I want to bring you and I want to bring home to the legal aeifers and those that follow us. It's not people say, oh, my first amendment rights are being violated. It can only be violated by the government. It can't be violated by a private entity.

You can't force a private company, public, you know, public-owned, private-owned, whatever. You can't force them to post your flyer at their cash cash register or let you stand in the middle of Starbucks on a soapbox and start spouting out whatever conspiracy theory you want to spout out or the equivalent electronically of posting whatever you want in social media without any type of regulation or moderation. That is not your right. They have the right under

the First Amendment to bar you from doing that. And that is the fundamental tension. Add to that Section 230 of the Communications Act, which gives a civil insulation or the insulation from liability to social media platforms, which the Republicans and people like Justice Thomas hate, and have been trying to rip away from social media for a long time. And so you have the first stop in this train is how you've described it. And for right now, it's a minor celebration, five to four Supreme Court rules against Texas SB 20. But when you get into it, first of all, it was a weird five to four.

One of the four in descent was Justice Kagan. So Kagan flipped over, which was really weird bedfellows. And she joined, let me see the light up here. She joined Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito in the descent. Now, she didn't join their actual written descent because Alito put out a four page descentito in the descent. Now she didn't join their actual written descent because Alito put out a four page descent or five page descent and Kagan didn't join in the analysis there, but she would have ruled sort of for right now in favor of SB 20 being allowed to be enforced while the full appellate process went forward. The rest, including Amy Coney Barrett and Kavanaugh jumped over to what is considered the liberal

side of the Supreme Court and joined Sotomayor and Briar to stop SB 20 from being enforced in the state while the full appellate process. Now interestingly, because we like to talk inside baseball here a little bit, Alito is the duty judge assigned to the fifth circuit. He could have made, we want to talk about shadow dockets, he could have made this decision completely on his own, but he decided to refer it over because there's been a lot of flack about shadow dockets in Alito right now. He referred it over to the complete set of nine justices to make this decision. Again, this is the round of last decisions to be made by Justice Breyer. And then everything else starting next term

will be with our new Katanji Brown Jackson as our new justice. So the reason I say it's the first stop on the train pen is because you already see in the dissent as written by Alito and joined by Thomas and Gorsuch and Kagan, you already see inklings like, you know, social media has changed the First Amendment world statement by Alito. First amendment and how we communicate on the internet is all, you know, is a game changer and needs to be evaluated

differently. And then you got Thomas who thinks section 230 of the of the communications actually be completely ripped away so that you can sue Twitter when you don't like something that's on its platform. So when they finally get their grubby hands on this law in the next term, if they decide to take it up in the next term after a caucus, now with Katanji Brown Jackson there, we'll have to see what they finally do. But I am completely, and I've said this on the Wednesday podcast, I am completely against any analysis that converts Twitter, Facebook, and the rest of the social media private companies into public utilities or common carriers.

You know, the Alitos, for instance, Alitos comment that basically Facebook and Twitter is the new town square. Yeah, I mean, and Starbucks is the new library, but that doesn't mean we're not living in the world of Anne Rand. We're not going to nationalize Starbucks because people do most of their reading and analysis sitting in it. They have their own corporate First Amendment rights. I think they have to be protected and I think it's going to be another struggle in Tussle with the Supreme Court when it comes down to the First Amendment rights of these companies.

Three quick observations that I want to make. First, why would Justice Kagan not join the kind of shadowed docket majority here and put a halt to what the fifth circuit court of appeals did, which was to stay the injunction by the lower court. Why wouldn't she do that? And so my view is that Kagan's come out against the shadow docket so hard that in this specific instance, she could not join the shadow docket, even when it was an area that she agreed to, which is why she didn't join the actual descent, but simply didn't want to join the shadow docket concept.

As much as she disagreed with the underlying ruling, is my view there. Going to the 11th Circuit ruling that you referenced, I just want to quote from it, which was the heart and soul of its ruling, basically holding that the Twitter's and the social media companies have this first amendment, right? Quote, we hold that it is substantially likely that social media companies, even the biggest ones are private actors whose rights the first amendment protects, that they're so-called content moderation decisions, constitute protected exercises of editorial, judgment, and that the provisions

of the new Florida law restricting large platforms, ability to engage in content moderation, unconstitutionally burdens that prerogatives. Wanted to read that three. A very smart thing, a legal smart maneuver that the social media companies did here. They hired as their lawyer Paul Clement, the solicitor general under the Bush administration, Paul Clement. And Paul Clement is a right wing viewed as a conservative lawyer. And so to have Paul Clement representing your case in front of a Supreme Court with essentially his colleagues and people who really respect Paul Clement and view Paul Clement's conservative bonafides was a really just smart decision to have Paul Clement as the lawyer here.

So just wanted to make those three observations for you, Michael Popak. Now I want to turn to what's going on in New York, where a lot of people have been very, very, very upset with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office regarding their failure to prosecute Trump. But we have information right now that the New York Manhattan District Attorney's Office is moving closer actually to charging Steve Bannon in connection with his, we build a a wall financial scheme where if you recall they fund raised

They crowdsource funded to basically build a private to put private funds Towards building a wall that they put millions and millions of dollars They raised millions and millions of dollars, they raised millions was being prosecuted for his federal crimes from stealing money, from stealing charitable funds, but on January 19, 2021, he received a pardon from President Trump, a last-minute pardon that basically minute pardon that basically dismissed all of the criminal charges against him. And Steve Bannon filed a motion to dismiss. We talked about this ruling on legal AF. And when we talked about this ruling on legal AF, the federal judge in the case when she granted Bannon's motion to dismiss the charges against them from stealing from the charity,

from the charity, quoted from sources over and over again, that basically say pardon implies guilt. If there be no guilt, there is no ground for forgiveness. And this venerable principle applies applies in the 21st century. Acceptance of a pardon implies a confession of guilt is what Judge Annalisa Torres wrote over and over again in that over and over again in that opinion when she had to grant Bannon's motion to dismiss because ultimately it was had to be granted to Trump gave the pardon. But now it seems that basically the same charges, the state version of those charges likely are going to be filed against Bannon. One of the things that sources say was happening was that the state prosecutors were waiting to see

what would happen in the federal case because Bannon's co-conspirators who also stole the money with him Trump didn't give those guys partens. He just gave his buddy Bannon a pardon But now those individuals there's only one individual who hasn't taken Plead deal but a number of the other individuals have taken plead deals They pled guilty to stealing charitable funds for this fraudulent build the wall scam where they pillaged charitable money for themselves. But seems like that and will be charged here, Michael Popeye, as

you do a new background. That's a real background, technology thing. It was like a filibuster. I'm not sure this much left for me to add, but let me add this. Manhattan D.A.'s office in Alvin Brack gets a lot of flack because it looks like they've pumped the brakes on the prosecution of Donald Trump and Trump organization. But they do other things, and one of the things they've been doing since the, almost since the day the pardon was granted, was to work parallel, or or at least watch parallel to what the Southern District of New York prosecutor's office was doing with the prosecution of Brian Kulfage,

who was the founder of Bill DeWall. He tripled amputee Air Force veteran, Andrew Bodeland, and then Tim Shea. And Trump and his infinite wisdom did not, as you said, pardon all those people, allowing the federal prosecution to continue against them. And now, ban, and if he thought he had to get out of jail free card because he got a federal pass, does not, because there are state law crimes that are commensurate

or co extensive with the federal crimes. And it's good to see that there's some muscular prosecutorial chops being exercised here by Alvin Bragg's office, even though he's been taking a lot of flack about what's going on with Trump. Unfortunately, we're going to talk about a district attorney who has brass ones and is bringing what you and I predicted six months ago is probably the the prosecution

with the most potential to put Trump behind bars is the one that's going on down in Atlanta and Fulton County. Couldn't agree more with you Pope, and a lot of accountability we see as we approach these hearings for the January 6th

committee which set to take place this upcoming week. There's going to be the first one in prime time, which we will be covering live on the Midest Touch YouTube channel and across our social media channels. But an individual who refused to testify before the January 6th committee, who simply wrote a email response back when he was requested to appear for deposition. His response was just executive privilege. He

didn't say anything else. Like just what it like. My hands are tied. My hands are tied. Executive privilege. I mean, these people are just the worst individuals ever. It doesn't like write a full email back. He just writes executive privilege. How privileged do you have to feel you are that you are totally immune from prosecution? That when you're subpoenaed by Congress, you just write back executive privilege and you don't write anything else back. So I want to talk though about Peter Navarro getting arrested at the airport, thrown into jail, and then whining about it afterwards. But before doing that,

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travel packs with your first purchase. Just visit athletic greens dot com slash legal AF athletic greens dot com slash legal AF. Again, simply visit athletic greens.com slash legal AF and take control of your health and give a G1 a try. I promise you you will love you will love athletic greens popo I know I said we were going to talk about Peter Navarro's arrest. I'm so excited to talk about that. So I got a little bit ahead of myself before talking about that though. I want you to talk about Michael Sussman. I've been talking a lot in this podcast, Michael Popeye. So if you can break down this Michael Sussman John Durham prosecution, Michael Sussman was found not guilty and under six hours by a Washington DC federal jury. He was charged with purportedly lying to the FBI when he brought forth information to the FBI about Trump's affiliation with Russia. According to John Durham, Susman should have said that he was representing Clinton and he was a Democratic lawyer at the time and they said that he claimed

he was there on his own behalf and that that was a material lie to the FBI. But maybe take it back a little bit before them. Like what was this John Durham? He was hired by Bill Barr as the special counsel to basically go after people who Trump had grievances with? Yeah, this is a long and sorted history of John Durham. I have a history with John Durham when he was the, when he was the US attorney for Connecticut. I was not shocked that John Durham lost a jury trial, having seen his work in the, in the district of Connecticut before he was appointed. First as a line prosecutor

and then as a special prosecutor by Bill Barr, we'll talk about that. So so Bill Barr at Trump's behest hired John Durham who was then a former prosecutor having left the Connecticut prosecutor's office for the US Attorney and hired him with sort of an open mandate. He wasn't yet appointed a special counsel. He was there to investigate the links between Russia and Trump and whether that was a hoax and whether the FBI's investigation was improper and whether people should be prosecuted as a result. So he's running around for, I'm not kidding, Ben, 14 months looking for something. And right at the moment when it looked like

Trump may lose the election to Biden, Barr did him a solid, Donald Trump a solid and appointed an elevated and gave new job security to John Durham by actually nominating, appointing him special counsel. And under the special counsel, what used to be called the independent, independent counsel law, that gives that position, newfound powers, and also a lot of, a lot of job security, because it's very difficult to remove. There's a whole set of steps that have to be taken by the replacement attorney general in this case, Merrick Garland, before you can remove it because the goal

was not to depoliticize or was supposed to depoliticize that role. But when he comes in, he immediately goes political along with with with bar. How do we know that? Because the office of Inspector General for the FBI had already issued a 500 page investigation and report clearing the FBI of any wrongdoing in the Trump Russia, you know linkage investigation. And what's the first thing that Durham and Bardu is they shit all over the civil servant independent office of Inspector General at the FBI and his report because they have to because to justify their own existence and John Durham's existence, they can't just adopt it and say, well, there's nothing to see here. Inspector General says though, they totally eviscerate the Inspector General's 500-page report that was done over years and instead launched their own John Durham lead investigation, which is now at a, has spent a wasted $4.2 million of taxpayer dollars and all that's come out of it in the last two years, almost three years. All that's come

out of it is one indictment and conviction that really preceded John Durham. He indicted Michael Sussman, a very well-connected, powerful and well has a very high reputation at Perkins Coey, a firm based in Washington. He's also Mark Elias, a lot of people know Mark Elias in his podcast. He's Mark Elias' partner and Mark served as a key witness for assessment in the trial.

He brought a one count case against one lawyer in a federal court in District of Columbia, which no prosecutor worth their salt. And I pose this question to our colleague, Karen Friedman-Ignifalo, a former 30-year prosecutor, no prosecutor worth their salt would have brought this case against Michael Susman. It's based on one conversation that was not recorded, and there's no notes of it, between Michael Susman

and a friend of his, literally a friend of his, who at the time was the general counsel for the FBI, a guy named Jim Baker, no, not that Jim Baker, another Jim Baker. Jim Baker was supposed to be the key witness to testify that Michael Susman misled him because he didn't reveal out loud that he represented, he was there representing the Clinton campaign

and or the DNC, which were well-known clients that everybody in Washington, K Street, L Street, all the alphabet streets knows Michael Sussman represented Clinton's Clinton campaign and the DNC. And you'd have to be and moron not to have known that. But when he called, when Michael Sussman called to come in to talk to Baker, he said, I have a tip for you. I'm coming in as basically citizen Sussman. I'm not representing a client, not that he doesn't represent clients, just like you and I do, Ben, but he wasn't right there on behalf of a client at the time. And he had data and information, actually from another client of his,

which at least on its surface, show that there was maybe a link between Alpha Bank, a Putin-controlled bank in Russia and the Trump organization, that there was computer traffic off of servers between these two entities. Now, by the way, the FBI took that lead, took that investment, followed it and drilled down to the ground and found there was no link between Alfa Bank and the Trump organization. That's a little known thing to get talked about in the media. The FBI did investigate off the tip.

The quality of the tip, then, is not what the trial was about. It's not that Michael Susman lied about the link between Alphabet and the Trump organization. It's that he allegedly lied because he was there on behalf of a client. And why is that important? And Karen did a good job on Wednesday talking about it. It's because the FBI and prosecutors need to know

if there's a secret or hidden agenda that is coming along with the information. I mean, everybody has one. I joked on Wednesday that if the pope called it a tip, even the pope has an agenda. So they wanted that, that's the lie that Michael was representing the Clinton campaign and didn't tell Jim Baker that although Jim Baker would have known that. And that's what the jury had at the side over. You said six hours, I'll call it lunch plus three hours because they did it over two days and it really was a very fast acquittal of Michael

of Michael Susman. And I believe in looking at the transcripts and the media reports that the thing that killed the prosecution, one that never should have been brought, is that Baker, when he testified, testified under oath that he had, he couldn't remember 116 different things related to Michael Susman and this meeting. There's no notes of the meeting, there's no video of the meeting, there's no audio of the meeting, and there's no witness to the meeting other than Michael Sussman who did not testify and Baker. And I'm sure the jury concluded, wait a minute. This guy barely can remember what he had for breakfast in the morning. And this is your witness that we're now going to convict that man over there and ruin his entire career for lying to the general counsel of the FBI. I mean, it's such an esoteric bullshit case

that when you have, and then Jim Baker actually, I don't know if you've read this, Ben, Jim Baker actually helped Michael because he also had to admit that Michael did things that are completely against the Clinton campaign's position. First of all, it's well known that the Clintons and the Clinton campaign did not trust the FBI for various reasons, including whitewater and the Clinton's experience, you know, 20 years earlier. So they're not like pro FBI, especially after what happened to them with Comey and all the, you know, the servers. They're not like, yeah, FBI is involved. That's really great for the campaign. Secondly, it is well known. It's been written in books by people involved that

Hillary Clinton and the campaign wanted the article about the link between alpha bank and Trump organization to hit the paper to be in the media like a October surprise to help her campaign. Michael Sussman told Jim Baker who the reporter was that was working on the story in order for the FBI to kill the story while they were working on the investigation as the FBI hates, you know, things ending up the New York Times at the same time they're doing their investigation. That is, I'm sure the jury concluded that those two things are not consistent with representing Hillary Clinton if that's really the case.

And that's it. Now, what I hope that I want to hear your view on this. Does Merrick Garland now call Durham in and say you spent $4.2 million? You just lost your only case that you brought against Michael Susman, a lawyer, no less. I think it's time to wrap up this when I'm going to conclude your role as special counsel.

Does that happen? No, because it's going to kind of, he has one more case that I think he's looking at. I think this is an incredibly embarrassing thing to Durham by itself. And I think the Durham special counsel, it's fading away anyway in disgrace. And so why strategically would you want to terminate it now and then give the radical right a talking point? You know, so I think it'll just naturally fade away and go away, which is kind of where the direction

that is how it is. I just hate making decisions because of what we think the radical right is or is not going to do. We're gonna talk about pick it up Navarro at the airplane at the airplane door in a minute. But, you know, I am against policymaking that is based on what we think the radical rights reaction in the Twitter verse is going to be to something. It is either right for me or wrong for me to terminate the special counsel position having now seen the fruits

of his labor. But I don't disagree with you. I think it might as well just kind of peter itself out rather than actually go through it. But I would mind having, you know, Barrett Garland showing some brass ones that he's been accused of not having and actually firing the guy. Yeah, and look, I think the idea that Merrick Garland has been criticized, the way he has when we see what he did with Peter Navarro. To me, I think you have to look at the full picture of what Merrick Garland is actually doing and what he's already built and where he's going,

ultimately with the investigation. But I'm with you, Popuck. I agree that you can't do something purely based on what the public backlash is going to be. Although I don't think it is a Twitterverse issue so much as it is the co-opting of the special counsel process and our legal processes and how they've been manipulated by the Trump administration,

places, law and order people like Merrick Garland in difficult conundrums, where normally you would let the special counsel continue until the special counsel completes their work. You know, unless they engage in four cause, four cause bases of termination. But it's when you have statutes like that in place, you don't expect them to be used for such heinous purposes like the one that Durham did to put Merrick, Ireland in a situation

where he would have to invoke that for cause authority. Now, one thing to mention here too, as I conclude talking about this topic, Bill Barr when asked about the Durham prosecution and the failure to get a conviction in Michael Sussman, Bill Barr, who's just a total piece of crap, his response was, I thought it was a good job that he did. I thought he exposed a lot of malfeasance in the process and he exposed the Russia hoax that exists. So I think he did a good job. Literally if you watch the Bill Bar interview, that was like basically, it was like,

is that how he sounds? Yeah, he sounds just like that. It's like a, it's kind of like a Winnie the Pooh meets Pooh actual shit. Like it's a combination. Did you hear Trump say you hear what Trump said about the about the acquittal? I'm sure I'm not a DC jury was in on it with the Clintons coach. It's going to motivate him to run in 2024. I mean, it's, yeah, it's beyond stupid. But, um, but when Bill Barr says that this was effective, that just shows you how defective and how disgusting that these Republicans actually are. It's like when you hear Louie Gohmert saying, Republicans can't even lie anymore to the FBI.

They can't even lie to more, anymore to Congress. He actually said that on Newsmax, what's going on? You can't even lie to the FBI and lie to Congress anymore. They're so out of touch and out of sync with actually true law and order and the law that they just make comments like this for Bill Barr as a prosecutor. This is the biggest disgrace and biggest embarrassment in the world and the fact that you take joy that a prosecutor essentially engaged in a completely with malice prosecution so that you can put up a bullshit narrative that Trump was getting spied on or there was this Russian hoax.

And then the one case you use to try to prove that one is the dumbest frickin case of all time. And you lose the case in a publicly embarrassing way where the jury says you shouldn't even brought this case in the first place. And so going to disgrace, going to embarrassment, we're talking about Peter Navarro right now. And so Peter Navarro is someone who worked at the Trump administration. And I'll just read from the indictment of Peter Navarro for who Peter Navarro is.

He was a private citizen, but from January 20th, 2017 until January 20th, 2021 during the administration, a former president, Trump, Navarro worked in the executive, worked in the executive branch as an advisor on various trade and manufacturing policies. That's kind of the DOJ's way and the indictment of saying, who is this freaking guy? You know, the trade and manufacturing policies, but what Navarro was actually used for because he was a six son of a gun was that he was one of the main people out there who was spreading the COVID disinfo and was spreading the COVID disinfo and then spreading the election disinformation stuff out there.

That was really what his role was there, aka, he was the chaos agent. And Navarro, since leaving the White House, since Trump got destroyed in the election, has written books. And in the book that he wrote, he talked about the plan to steal the election has written books. And in the book that he wrote, he talked about the plan to steal the election. He gave it a name.

He called it the Green Bay Sweep, which referred to the Green Bay Packers under Vince Lombardi, how they would basically advance to score touchdowns by using blockers and then slip in the touchdown, slip in the football in the end zone when no one was looking. And so here what the Green Bay sweep was,

was what we heard about, which was having these senators and members of Congress object to the results of the election while an insurrection was taking place to try to throw the election back to the States, to then have these various States that we talked about like Arizona and Georgia and Pennsylvania and Michigan, etc. Overthrow the results of those elections, have the state legislatures do that and then declare Donald Trump as the emperor.

That was the goal, that was the green bay sweep and he talked about it. So the January 6th committee, because he talked about it and spranged about what he did and they knew what he did. They subpoenaed him on February 9th, 2022. The select committee, the January 6th committee, served Navarro with a subpoena for documents and testimony relating to its inquiry, incited all of the things that he had said

in his book and that he had said publicly. They also demanded documents and demanded that he appear for in-person testimony. And all Navarro did was respond in an email that just said executive privilege. So he didn't show up. He didn't even show up to assert the privilege the way you're supposed to assert that privilege. If he claimed there was an executive privilege, what do you do?

You show up when you're being interviewed and you say, I'm invoking the executive privilege on a question by question basis or I'm invoking the Fifth Amendment privilege. The privilege here to be clear folks does not apply because he talked about it in the book. Number one, number two, as we hear time and time again, if you think about the case in California, in the Central District, privileges don't apply when you're engaged in underlying criminal conduct.

The California case related to the attorney client privilege, not executive privilege, but the concept supply also. So you waive the privilege when you talk about a privilege publicly, because now you're the privileges secret. You're talking about a public, so no privilege. And when you commit the crimes,

you don't have a privilege to commit crimes in the United States, under the United States law. And so he doesn't show up to his depositions. He's referred for contempt of Congress, one for not showing up at deposition, two for not producing documents. And we have the DOJ this week arresting him at the airport, actually prosecuting when the January 6th referred these charges to the DOJ. Yes, the DOJ acted on the referral with Bannon. They acted on the

referral with Navarro and they arrested this guy at the airport. They cuffed him. They brought him to jail in Washington, DC. He actually stayed in the same jail as John Hinkley Jr. He talked about which I just think is, well, chef's kiss for the person who told them that and put them in the same jail cell as someone who tried to assassinate a sitting president, tried to kill the leader of the free world. So I think that was apropos. But then also one of the things that we learned, Popok 2, is separately Peter Navarro received a grand jury, Sapina, which doesn't seem to be necessarily directly related to ultimately the reason why he was arrested here.

The grand jury, Sapina talks about his interactions with Trump and banning and others. And that grand jury is an indication of the fact that that grand jury exists. And they're issuing subpoenas like that. Yes, there is a grand jury assembled by the DOJ to prosecute high level individuals who now engaged in the insurrection. These are the people surrounding Trump and likely Trump himself. We learn that this week also. So two big things.

Of course, Navarro, after he's arrested, he winds, he claims it's unconstitutional to be arrested. Like these people are so enraptured in their own privilege. That this takes place every day. You break the law, you get arrested, buddy. That's what happens in our system. You break the law, you get arrested, buddy. That's what happens in our system. You break the law, you get arrested. He does this whining, whining, press conference. But

ultimately, that's the story on Peter Navarro. I want to hear your take on that. And then I do want to touch upon though, Dan Scavino, uh, deputy chief of staff, Mark Meadows, chief of staff, they were both referred to the DOJ for contempt. And they were not prosecuted for contempt of Congress. And in fact, the DOJ sent a letter back to Congress end of last week, same day, I think as Navarro's arrest, basically saying we're declining to prosecute meadows and Scavino for contempt of Congress. It doesn't mean they're declining under other Bases to prosecute them at a later date and for other things, but I want to talk about that too

But first I think I hit everything on Navarro. You want to add anything poppy? Yeah, listen Navarro It's got a big problem. First of all, we know now there are multiple grand juries in operation in the District of Columbia by the Department of Justice. At least one of them is by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia who's Matthew Graves. They are looking at different issues and different concepts, and there are overlapping potentially indicted people like Peter Navarro. You can be indicted by one grand jury at the same time you were indicted by another grand jury on a whole different issue in the same jurisdiction and in different jurisdictions. So that's part of the

lesson for legal AFRs. We now know, whereas we didn't know three months ago, even as recently as three months ago, that there not only is one grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia, there are multiple grand juries, one of them indicted him, Peter Navarro, for a two counts of contempt of Congress, which is, or criminal contempt of Congress, which is a Mr. Meener, just like Bannon, with no no greater than a one-year sentence. So it's not the huge pelt on the wall, but it is something that holds people accountable for their bad actions.

We also know that separately, he himself was called into testify, not in the grand jury that just indicted him, but several days prior to that, he was called into testify, and another grand jury, probably where he was not the target, meaning against Trump, maybe the fake elector scandal, maybe other aspects of the gen sixth issues, all of which Peter Navarra was involved with.

He has not yet appeared there in the interim, the second grand jury indicted him, not only indicted him, but unlike Bannon, which you referred to earlier, which they gave him the privilege, if you will, of self-surrender and coordinated surrender because Navarro is such an a-hole and has been on television and an Ari Melbershow and all the social media platforms and wrote books, they made a good faith argument to the judge in the case that the indictment should be sealed until the day of arrest because they didn't want to tip off Navarro because they had a legitimate fear of the prosecution that he was going to flee the jurisdiction, witness or document tamper, or otherwise impede or interfere with the investigation, and convinced a federal judge that the indictment should not be unsealed until the moment he is arrested. So at the moment that he was arrested, all the Navarro knew in the last three days, trying to hit that door for wherever he was flying to and

not making it was that earlier in the week, he had filed his own lawsuit in the district of Columbia, challenging Matthew Graves, the district attorney and his authority, challenging the Jan 6th committee and challenging the grand jury. That had happened on the 31st of May, right off of the memorial day. A judge already in that case said, you screwed up because you're representing yourself. Peter Navarro in his brilliant mastermind decides he's going to be pro-say representing himself and all of these matters. Because as an economist from Harvard,

he has legal training to try his own case in his own mind. The judge said, you already screwed up your filing because you're attacking the grand jury. Everything about the grand jury process has to be sealed. You need to seal your filings and you need to make an application to the chief judge of the jurisdiction in this case, District of Columbia. If you're going to attack anything related to the grand jury process. So, good day, sir. That was on that was on Thursday. He then goes on Ari Melber and brags about his role in the green bay sweep the green the green way of whatever it was. And in the meantime,

what he doesn't know is the prosecutors are working behind the scenes and have convinced the judge not to tip him off to the arrest, which happened yesterday or day before yesterday. And so they didn't give bad they didn't give them the ban and right to come in and self surrender and appear. They shackled him. I heard it was handcuffs and shackles to his legs. Everybody of the Republicans are, oh my god, he's 72 years old. Who cares how old he is if he committed the crime? And now he made his first appearance yesterday, and now it was released without bail. And he's going to go back to his home until that trial. Remember, parallel to this, Bannon's trial is July 18th on his case related to that. And separately, Navarro is not out of the woods on testifying in front of

another grand jury related to his and other people's roles in the case. So this is a perfect example of, you know, he, after round and he found out what it's like to go against a department of justice and a weight of evidence and going to jail. And he had an interesting quote that I don't know if you saw it. He originally said at some point that unless he's dead or in jail, he is going to be one of the leaders of Trump's return to the White House in 2024. Well, he's doing a very good job of taking himself out of leadership because there's more likely than not he's going to be in jail. One last comment.

I always like to use some historical references. Watergate versus Trump. In Watergate, 40 different people affiliated with Nixon were indicted and or went to jail for zero including people that we've that are now commentators television like like John Dean and all of that so far the Trump administration and the Trump behavior and criminal gang has indicted or jailed 11 people soon to be many, many more. And that includes Baden, Michael Cohen, who went to jail, Michael Flynn, Matt Affort, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone, and the like. This list is only going to grow over the next year or so based on the Department of Justice investigation. And those of other prosecutors that you and I

are going to talk about. I do want to talk also about Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino not being prosecuted for their contempt of Congress. Lots of people were upset about that and I totally, totally get why you'd be upset about that. They flaunted Congress, they taunted Congress, they refused to do what they should have and they were supposed to do. I have two reasons why I think the DOJ is not ultimately prosecuting Mark Meadows and Scavino for contempt of Congress.

First off, as it relates to Navarro, Navarro's role wasn't so directly linked to the executive by the nature of the job itself. So Navarro's actual role was trade and manufacturing policies, and the fact that he involved himself in these other areas was not actually what his job description was and the ability to have an executive privilege claim is a little bit more difficult for Navarro to establish also as I talked about Navarro you know completely waived it kind of over and over again. We know for example with meadows, meadows did turn over. Nine thousand. Yeah, we have a lot of documents from meadows. And so you know, the question is, what's really going on with meadows behind the scenes? Is meadows and scaveno possibly cooperating. Number one, number two, do they anticipate that

there will be able to flip meadows and scaveno at a certain period of time? And that by charging them with contempt of Congress, this misdemeanor doesn't ultimately serve their ends. Or also do they believe that charging Navarro, the way they did can be used now to send a message to other trumpers like meadows and likes Gavino and say, you know what? We're gonna give you here, by the way, this is how mafia prosecutions take place. And that's the way this is being modeled after,

a kind of a mafia prosecution starting with lower level and going up to the top mob boss and basically say, look, we're going to give you one more shot. If you play ball with us and you give us information, we didn't charge you with x, y, and z, which is what we actually want to charge you with. The reason we didn't charge you with contempt of Congress because we don't even think there's anything you can give us there that is even going to be helpful. We already got the information from your staff members there. But what we really want is this piece of information. We want you to think long and hard about your cooperation because we will go after you. And I think that is a message that is being sent. And you can't just look at one offs in these prosecutions over what the DOJ is doing. It's saying, well, they're not going after the meadows. They're not going after scaveno. I don't read that that way at all.

I read it as either meadows and scaveno are cooperating. Number one, or number two, they're not going after scaveno. I don't read that that way at all. I read it as either Meadows and Scaveno are cooperating. Number one or number two, they're telling Meadows and Scaveno, look, this is what's going to happen to you. But this just goes to show you this is what law and order actually looks like. And when confronted with law and order, people like Peter Navarro and Louis Gomer, Louis Gomer, by the way, Louis Gomer, by the way, and I just want to say this, he was a judge in Texas. He was appointed to be a judge and he was the chief judge of their court of appeal in Texas. And he goes on TV and says Republicans aren't even able to lie to Congress and the FBI anymore. He says that with a straight face.

It wasn't a mistake what he said. He really meant it and think about that was someone who presided over your cases in Texas as a judge. That's what Louis Gomer believed. But this is what real law and order looks like. What Republican law and order looks like is what law and order looks like in fascist countries. I don't want that white supremacist BS fascist. They just choose who they prosecute based on who their political enemies are.

That is not what the United States of America is all about. But speaking of law and order, we have to talk about this special grand jury, which has now assembled in earnest in Fulton County. We have a district attorney there in Fawni Willis, the Fulton County DA, who is no nonsense. We now have learned that over 50 witnesses will go before this grand jury. District Attorney Foniewales was waiting until the election, you know, so this wouldn't be politicized before pursuing charges before this grand jury in earnest. High profile people like Brad Raffinsberger will be testifying before this grand jury. And what's the grand jury doing? They're determining if Donald Trump engaged in criminal conduct

when he extorted Brad Raffinsberger and said to him to find him the 11,780 votes. And that that phone call and related conduct like when Lindsey Graham reached out to Raffinsberger and Lindsey Graham reached out to Rafansberger and Lindsey Graham reached out to election officials in Georgia and threatened them on behalf of Trump, whether all of that constitutes criminal conduct. And we know that Fony Willis is pursuing racketeering charges and other similar charges. So Popeye, I have a great degree of confidence here. Now, this is actually going to result in an indictment of Trump. Bonnie Willis is going to indict Donald Trump. It's just a matter of when I could say this one with 99% certainty that that's where this is going. We've always liked Bonnie Willis's case.

We've said earlier when everybody was down in the dumps about Alvin Bragg and the Manhattan D.A.'s office about the Trump organization, that the things about the Trump presidency were probably going to be fast-tracked in Fulton County and Atlanta because of the phone call that we all know took place very publicly and recorded by Brad Rapinsberger. People forget that was a recorded message, a recorded phone call. There is physical evidence of that. And Fawni Willis, who is a, you know, they do things politically down in Atlanta. She was a Democratic-elected Fulton County, former Fulton County assistant district attorney, and then became the actual

district attorney and Fulton County covers Atlanta. You're so right about racketeering. And why that's so important is because that will bring into the net, the prosecutorial net that she is using. Lots of other people who are part of this conspiracy, at least as she's going to be alleging it, conspiracy with a hub in the middle and spokes around it, a wheel, you know, it's a wheel system in a conspiracy. And that will bring in people from outside of Georgia who may be never set foot in or even made a phone call into Georgia, but will bring within that into her jurisdictional web their conduct. So she could be prosecuting more than just Donald Trump, but lots of other people. For instance, let's not forget that Rudy Giuliani and his infinite wisdom among his road show where he went to different state legislators and different state legislations and made presentations about the, you know, the big lie, the fraud in the election.

He made a presentation to the judiciary committee of the state of Georgia because they have a judiciary committee. have a judiciary committee. In fact, we know that two of the people on Fony Willis's list of 50 of their subpoenaed witnesses are two state senators who sat on the judiciary committee that listened to Rudy Giuliani's bullshit. So they've been brought in. So I love the racketeering aspect of it. And just as a reminder, because you and I have done a lot of prior podcasts about these special grand jury process in Georgia, which is unique. This grand jury, which is around for one year, I think they're two months down on a one year timer. This will make ultimately a report and recommendation, not indictment.

Most grand juries indict the prosecutors make a presentation and they, it's called returning an indictment. The grand jury returns an indictment. Here, they're not going to do that. Here under Georgia law, they're going to do a report and recommendation about whether the prosecutor should indict and then she makes the decision to indict. I don't think she impanels another grand jury. I think she can indict off of the report and recommendation. So that's an interesting distinction. I want to make sure everybody is aware of. Fawni Willis just to show you how important and how much of an insecure position she and her team is in because of Donald Trump. Donald Trump in January attacked

Fony Willis by name and said that it was a political witch hunt, which he always says, going after him that had no merit. She and her office and the other prosecutors and line prosecutors in her office have received credible death threats as a result of the crazies that follow Donald Trump. She has issued, listen to this pen, this is, this is chilling. She has issued armored vests, bulletproof vests to her staff as they come in and out of the Fountain County Courthouse related and otherwise related to this. And this is before Buffalo and before you've all de. So this is the world that we live in where the second amendment and crazies and Trump

all come together to maybe shoot and kill a prosecutor. One that is doing probably the most important level of prosecution right now and is closest to potentially inditing Donald Trump for election fraud, racketeering, and other things related to the attempted coup in on January 6th. Well, Popoq, you look at what's going on, even in like Wisconsin, where someone who identified as being part of a militia killed the Wisconsin

retired judge and had a bunch of other politicians on their hit list. And one, that's not even, that's not a militia. That is a terrorist. And that person should be called and referred to as a terrorist. But these are individuals who are being, they're like cells. They're terrorist cells who are being inspired by the trumps. People like that with these messages to go out and do these things. That is what is taking place here. And it is a very scary situation

what's going on across the world, what's going on across the United States and across the world, but specifically across the United States, what's going on in Georgia, but Fony Willis has showed unbelievably unbelievable and relentless perseverance. And I do think we're going to see an indictment though at a Fulton County at the end of this process. Once the recommendation is made, I think she

will ultimately indict. So there you have it, Michael Popak, the most consequential legal news of the week and our lives. Another great addition of legal AF. Everybody go check out store. MidasTouch.com. Check out all of the Midas Touch merch. Do me a favor here too. We're very close to 1000 reviews for the legal AF podcast where you can get your podcasts.

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Wherever you download podcasts, please go right now, once the show's over, and subscribe to Legal AF, wherever you listen to your audio podcast, in addition to leaving the five-star review there. But definitely check out on the audio, so that helps the audio algorithm as well,

and keeps us on the top of the charts on the podcast because if you add it up our YouTube and our audio, we'd be top of the podcast charts literally we'd probably be in the top five or top 10 of all podcasts, but because the audience kind of splits, we don't get into the top 10 but but help us out, get there by subscribing to both YouTube and where you get the audio. Thank you so much everybody for listening, Michael Popock. Always great spending these weekends. You too bad. You're talking about these legal issues. We'll be back next week on legal AF. Of course, on June 9th, this Thursday at 8 PM,

the January 6th committee will be broadcasting on prime time at 8 p.m. Eastern. We will begin live coverage on the Midas Touch YouTube channel beginning at 7 Eastern on the Midas Touch YouTube channel. We will have full live coverage of all of the January 6th proceedings, all of the hearings. We'll have a great group of guests who will be breaking down everything that's taking place at this hearing. So we hope to see there as well. If it's the weekend, it is LegalA F Special Shoutout to the Midas Mighty. you