Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Top Legal Experts REACT to most important legal news of the week - Legal AF 9/3/22

Episode Date: September 4, 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. On this episode, Ben and Popok discuss & analyze: the DOJ and Trump’s “legal team” duking it out in West Palm Beach (FL) Federal court over Trump’s request for a “special master” to review the government documents seized Mar-a-Lago and why his lawyers may be in jeopardy as well; Trump’s former White House Counsel’s testimony this week before a DOJ grand jury about the “fake elector” scheme (involving Ginny Thomas as well); a Jan6 insurrectionist receiving the harshest sentence to date (10 years) of any of the 250 convicted so far; Senator Graham losing another round to avoid testifying about his interference with the Georgia presidential election; the denial of Steve Bannon’s motion to dismiss to avoid sentencing in October; and a Trump-appointed judge’s ruling that a wedding photographer has a First Amendment right to discriminate and cannot be compelled by local government ordinance to photograph a same sex marriage & so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: AG1: https://athleticgreens.com/LegalAF GET MEIDAS MERCH: https://store.meidastouch.com Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More chilling details from the search warrant executed at Marilago Emerge like empty folders of top secret classified information, hundreds of documents of our nation's highest top secret, sensitive, compartmented information stolen by Donald Trump and what's Trump and Maga talking about? How upset they are about the photographs of the evidence of the crime that we're taking. We will analyze that and the very bizarre hearing before Judge Eileen Cannon, who's proven to have just no clue for Judge Eileen Cannon, who's proven to have just no clue what she is doing. She has not issued an order yet out of the Southern District of Florida, but let's break that down. Popo Trump's Top White House Council, Pat Zipaloni, and former Deputy White House Council,

Pat Filman, who were previously interviewed by the FBI, related to the Mar-a-Lago top secret documents, Trump's toll, went before the grand jury this time, the January 6th grand jury in Washington, D.C. on Friday. This was underrated and underreported news, with huge implications, and a focus we're seeing po-OC on fake electors as the real driving issue in that election interference grand jury. Now, speaking of fake electors,

emails emerged of Ginny Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Radical Extremist Clarence Thomas, telling Wisconsin state legislators after the November 2020 election that the court stone matter the governor doesn't matter nothing matters just send a different slate she calls it a clean slate which means a fake slate of electors on January 6th. Trader, and on the topic of January 6th, a former NYPD cop, Thomas Weber, turned January 6th in direction. It's who showed up in body armor,

attacked a DC police officer with a flag pole, was just sentenced to 10 years in prison after his guilty conviction, marking the longest sentence yet for an insurrectionist good riddance. And Trump says people like that will get full part in as if he's ever re-elected. Again I mean the insurrection is still ongoing. And then let's turn to Fulton County where Lindsey Graham is ordered to testify again before the special grand jury hasn't testified yet but attempt after attempt after attempt by Lindsey Graham to try to block his

testimony and surely more attempts are to come by this coward insurrectionist. And finally let's go to Louisville, Kentucky, where a Trump appoint a judge rules that wedding photographers can discriminate against day-sex couples. The cruelty is the point for these radical, Republican, MAGA extremist, the most consequential legal news of the day, then my cell is Michael Popak, legal a f Michael Popak. Oh, are you sir? Ben, the late Keith Jackson, the sports newscaster would call this a barn burner and boy, do we have a barn burner episode today to cover everything in Trump world,

in Sirection world and the fight for our democracy. You know, Polpok in that intro, I didn't talk about even some other topics because that intro could have gone on forever. We should also talk about in this episode as well. Steve Bannon's motion for new trial denied. He's set to be sentenced in October, also Trump turning over financial records finally to the House oversight committee, which was basically characterized as a deal, but it really wasn't a deal. I mean, Trump lost at every level. And so he had to turn it over.

And I guess it made his ego feel good that it was a deal to turn it over. He lost there, the House Ways and Means Committee beat him in that court case because Trump isn't making valid legal arguments as long as our federal court system is a federal court system. And they're trying to destroy that these radical Republican magas because every time they actually have tried right with the lead up to the January 6th, and all of the cases that they lost, where they were not just laughed at, of court, but lost their legal license. Fortunately, the federal courts and our court system generally, while certainly not perfect.

And bar, bar, from perfect, still has provided that remaining very thin layer where you have to go and at least speak semi-logically, ideally before a judge. Except where the judge, except where the judge may not be fully logical, which is one of the ways Trump tried to attack our judiciary, frankly by appointing inexperience and unqualified judges like Judge Eileen Cannon, who's a judge in the Southern District of Florida, a judge who, when the search warrant was executed at Mar-a-Lago, on August 8, signed by Magistrate Judge Reinhart through the normal procedures.

This isn't new, this isn't novel. Search warrants get issued every day. A Magistrate Judge signs that the Magistrate Judge has jurisdiction over it. There's a probable cause determination. And these issues are fought before the Magistrate Judge, whether there's a special master or not, I mean, these types of issues go before a magistrate judge

and it's the very idea of a special master is really only in the most narrow of circumstances where courts have found that a law firm is the target of the search warrant. And there's all these other client documents entangled in it. And there's a lot, there's a large quantity of documents, a very narrow circumstance.

But here, Trump didn't file anything before the magistrate judge, Reinhart, ever even to this day, really made no arguments before him. But certainly filed no pleadings. But instead filed this motion for judicial oversight in the Southern District of Florida, because he appointed a lot of his own judges. There's a random assignment, but he got assigned one of the judges he appointed. I lean cannon.

I don't think any of us fully realize just how inexperienced she was. One of the tip-offs were, as she asked for briefing on this issue, a group of bipartisan Republican Democrat former federal prosecutors tried to teach her what the law is, namely Judge Cannon. We know that Trump and his idiot lawyers filed things before you, but you don't have jurisdiction under the fourth amendment that deals with unlawful searches and seizures and it's concomitant rule in federal rule of criminal procedure, 41G,

which relates to the return of property. You don't have jurisdiction for a number of reasons, including that the threshold issue is that the property at issue has to belong to the person asking for it back. And the rights that somebody has are very well defined, but very limited at the pre-inditement rule 6e grand jury stage. And judge, you don't really have the right to even hear this for a number of reasons. These documents don't belong to Trump.

There is no claim of executive privilege. It's not a close call at all is what these federal prosecutors had to tell Judge Eileen Cannon. And so Judge Cannon over last week and while we were actually recording, the last legal AF popok, what Judge can and says is I'm inclined to grant a special master and we've talked about a special master, which is just an independent third party,

usually a retired judge or a practicing lawyer who would go through and review all of the records and review all of the documents and prepare a report to the court. And the judge says, I'm inclined to grant this. All legal observers like, what do you mean you're inclined to grant it? Aren't these issues already moot? Aren't these issues? Didn't the government already review these records? Number one, and number two, what would a special master even be doing here at all?

What would be the role of a special master where the process was set forth in the search warrant? There was a filter team that reviewed the records already and segregated what privilege may exist, a very small subset of attorney-client privileged records. And so what would this special master even need to do? The government made its filing on the 30th. The filing had attached to it an actual photograph of the documents that Donald Trump stole, just

one little photograph. And here's the point I want to make about that photograph before I was returning it back to you Popeye. When the government filed that or took the photograph, they didn't know that Trump was going to ask that all of these things be made public. Far from it, the normal course of pre-indipement conduct at issue

is that all of this that we're seeing is unprecedented. Like Judge Eileen Cannon in one sentence, what she should have done is just said, either the issues are moot, I don't have jurisdiction over this. It goes back to Judge Reinhardt. So what Trump and his legal team basically said is we want you to, we want you to file these documents. They didn't put this in their writings to judges, but they said this publicly.

And they taunted though the DOJ to make these things public. And so the DOJ makes it public. Then we have this hearing on September 1st before before Judge Eileen Cannon over the issues of whether there'd be a special master where she really shows she has no clue. Like it was some of the most bizarre conversations back and forth that we heard where she's like, but what would be the harm of a special master and the government has to explain, you don't even have jurisdiction to hear this, to even ask this question, judge. And the harm would be to our national security, the DOJ, we're the executive now. Executive privilege is with

the current executive, not past executives, Judge Cannon. And this point, Popak, is so not controversial that even people like Bill Barr have gone on the propaganda channel known as Fox. And they go, this issue of special masters are red herring. There's no need for a special master here at all. This is executive privilege documents. If belongs to Biden, you even have bar saying that the other one point I want to make of this September hearing and then I'll throw it to you, Popoq is at this hearing before Canon. You have Trump's lawyers lining that some of this information from the affidavit was made public.

They're the ones on TV every day saying make a public and they're saying this is so unprecedented and the DOJ has made it political. You made it political. The DOJ said nothing about this until y'all tweeted, I tweeted, but whatever the freak is, stupid social platform is over and over and over again, and said to do it publicly. You had people like Cash Patel saying, unredact everything, and then when it was unredacted, he goes, now I'm a target.

Gaslighting liars, illegal arguments are wrong. Popa, did I just cover it all? Did I steal your thunder? I know I didn't. I know I didn't. Let's see. No, no. I think people thought maybe I took the weekend off

and you were doing it on your own, but let me see what I can add. So first of all, there's a disconnect between the legal team for Donald Trump and reality. They think winning a news cycle and having two minutes of fame, on nightly news and Fox News or Newsmax is the equivalent of victory or a victorious strategy in a courtroom and it just isn't. The Department of Justice

under no circumstances except when they were challenged and or the other side the criminal defendant in this case Trump opened the door. Would they ever have revealed as much information as they have? As you said just before in your in your analysis, DOJ doesn't normally operate this way, but certainly when the door is open and the opportunity is presented as a gift, they are going to take it. I'm not aware of any high-profile criminal defendant, especially one like Trump, who has ever challenged the Department of Justice this way in order for them to have another second and

third and fourth bite at the apple to present their case to the American people. Department of Justice is much more circumspect than that. And we all know that that Marik Garland is very sober in his appraisals and how to run a case, but they're not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. In this case, Donald Trump's lawyers, whether it's Evan Corcoran or it's the Sky James trustee or any of the other ones that have been involved. It will talk about them as well. And some of them are now in a precarious situation, including Christine Bob and Alina Haba because of their connectivity to Mar-a-Lago and things that they're on record in their own affidavits as saying.

So don't be surprised if there's yet another layer of Trump lawyers that find themselves either being criminally prosecuted or having civil bar problems because of the representation of Donald Trump. Let's talk about what normally would happen at this moment. Having lost these hearings, having had all of this information, including the 88 boxes, or the 88 empty folders of classified and other top secret information, being revealed in the detailed inventory ordered by Judge Cannon to be released at the time of the hearing of the other day. What normally would happen in a practice like Ben and I have is that we would have already opened up a dialogue with the Department of Justice, a back channel dialogue, to be negotiating some sort of resolution

short of the continued involvement of Judge Cannon or Judge Reinhart, the magistrate judge. I don't think any of those things are going on. First of all, I don't think this team of lawyers that Trump has appointed have credibility with the Department of Justice, which comes from years of practice, usually because they were once prosecutors. Now they've moved over to the other side. I don't get the sense any of these people have the profile or the bio to have that kind of credibility with the people on the other side of these people have the profile or the bio to have that kind of credibility with the people on the other side of the table for the Department of Justice. So there's no exit ramp for Trump.

I mean, normally an exit ramp would be okay. We'll let you come in. We'll go box by box, room by room, not just at Mar-a-Laga. We'll show you the Trump residents in New York. We'll show you Bedminster Golf Club. We'll show you every place where he possibly could have stashed documents to resolve this issue once and for all in trade for something. I'm not sure what that something is. That dialogue I am pretty confident is not going on and everything's going to have to be

done in the public in the public sphere of the lawsuit itself. The goal of the Department of Justice, let's not forget this with all of the sensational reporting that's going on outside of the Midas Network. The goal is to get back stolen belongings, stolen property that belongs to the American people and to the National Archive. That's what this is all about. They tried to do it voluntarily in negotiation with the then outgoing president and his team including Philbin who will talk about next the lawyer with Pat Sipalone in the general counsel's office or the White House counsel's office when that failed they then continued to negotiate with demanding letters to Trump when they didn't like the responses

They went to a subpoena a grand jury subpoena to obtain the documents back when that didn't work or when they got conflicting testimony from cooperating witnesses that the Trump lawyers and the Trump people around him were not telling the truth about either the storage of the documents, their location, or the amount of documents that he had been that he was still retaining, then they went to get, magistrate judge Reinhinhart to get the search warrant to take back the stolen property and the fruits of the crime for which they are now prosecuting on obstruction. This last filing and the

court hearing that happened in conjunction with it gave the Department of Justice yet another opportunity to say two incredible things, Ben. One, the documents that we need have been moved, we believe, unreasonable evidence, right? On probable cause, that the documents that we are seeking from the former president have been moved and concealed to obstruct an ongoing criminal investigation.

And there is an active criminal investigation against the former president of the United States. Two things in the filing that just happened leading into the hearing with Judge Cannon and the West Palm Beach Federal Courthouse. Now, this is the part about the documents missing. I wanna be specific. The way the inventory is written,

it is obvious that there are 88 empty folders that were more classified or returned to secretary or returned to attach a or whatever the the stamp was. Military military. We don't know from reading the inventory and the did not come out at the hearing that the government thinks that somewhere in the other list is the documents that would have went into those folders. So there's two theories.

One, there are 88 missing documents, which is sort of how we started the show. 88 other folders with missing document. It could be hundreds of documents in there, or it could be no missing documents because it could be the documents could be in the rest of the inventory, just having been removed. We don't know the answer to that. The government has to take it a position on that. And certainly it didn't come up in the hearing in West Palm Beach. That was, that was this week. Now, having said all of that, the, the, even, even Aline Cannon, even she, with very little experience, she's the most, the most junior member of the Southern District of Florida judges. If you look at the list, she's the last one there because of her experience level. She got this case, as you said earlier, been by random assignment, not because of experience, not

because the chief judge, who I know who used to be a Miami date circuit court judge assigned it to her. It's random. It's random. If there's no conflict, it goes to that judge. She probably had a lot of time on her hands because she's a new judge and doesn't have probably a full docket yet. That's how she got the case. So she's even she in the reporting from the courtroom. This was not televised, but there was a handful of legal commentators, including Hugo Lowell, who was in the room, who reported the dialogue as follows when it came to the special master. She kept asking, trustee and Corcoran, what is the special master going to do? And when you read their answers or the report of their answers, it's ridiculous. They don't

even know why or what the special master would do. Well, he would sort things out. And the judge says, what do you mean sort things out? Well, there's work product at attorney client privilege in there, which has already been identified in 40 or 50 categories by the by the tank team by the department of justice. They've already done that part. So she is getting to the rock bottom of why do you need the special master? And I don't think she heard a very good answer, which is surprising because that is the very basis of the motion that they filed. You think they would at least know why they're asking for it.

And they didn't have a good answer for that. And then there was the debate that you just talked about under Rule 41G about who owns the property. Fundamentally, the person who's arguing for the suppression or the return of the property has to own the property. And the government said, he doesn't own the property. These are all records of the federal government, the National Archive, and it became so when he was president, and certainly on his way out the door when he was packing his boxes. So the 41G fight was interesting. The one issue that you and I talked about in the last podcast last Saturday that doesn't seem to be, does not seem to be resonating with Judge Cannon is the one that you and I

actually liked. It's the one about there are the former president or the president at the time, Trump and the Department of Justice are all on the same side of the executive branch. And therefore you can't exert executive privilege when you're letting one other brand, one other aspect of the of the executive branch look at something that the president had done. She didn't seem to be buying that, but that's a very sophisticated argument that she probably doesn't have the experience to, um, to analyze properly. But she was smart enough not to make the ruling from the bench. So she, she did what, what I referred to and you referred to in the businesses, take it sub

Judas, meaning under judicial advisement. And she's going to, I assume, put her law clerk onto reading these briefs that they accept. Did she allow the Amicus briefs that you referred to to be accepted? Did she take those in? Do you know? I, I don't know one way or another, and whether she actually read it or not, you know, I don't think is, you know, I don't think is of importance significance. No, no, no, that's not my, but that's not way we hold on.

That's not my question. My question is that she, that she allowed them in. If she did, the law clerk is going to be buried up to his eyeballs or her eyeballs, looking at these briefs. And then she's going to issue the ruling. Was there more than one amicus brief file though? I don't, I don't think, I don't think, no, she's, I don't think I don't the DOJ briefs

and everything else. But look, at the end of the day, there's two other issues that are important. One is from an evidence standpoint, Christina Bob's affidavit certifying that that they're done a diligent search of the quote unquote storage room and the entire body of top secret and secret confidential information is contained in this one folder here you go, Department of Justice, but you also have reporting, and this is right, because you and I talked about it, that in May, on May 5th, in the New York Attorney General fight over documents, where the judge in that case, Ergoron, ordered the Trump

lawyers to certify to his satisfaction that a proper due diligence search had been done to respond to Tish James's subpoena in the New York Attorney General's office, which was five days or so after the Department of Justice used their grand jury subpoena to try to get the records back. Alina Hava certified in an affidavit that she had searched Mar-a-Lago, the 45 office, the desk of Donald Trump, and his bedroom is nightstand in other places, looking for documents and didn't find any in relation to a Tish James of subpoena. Why is that important?

Because A, if she's, we already know from the Department of Justice, there were at least three top secret documents in the desk drawer of Trump. So Alina Habba opens a drawer and there is top secret information in there. She either has a duty to report it to somebody or she has seen it without proper security clearance, which is another problem for Alina Habba because what happens when lawyers vouch for their clients and their clients happen to be somebody like Donald Trump who's untrustworthy because then you get in trouble. You know, you and I don't, I mean, I don't vouch for clients beyond what me through my own due diligence.

They're my own review of records, believes is true. And I'm not going to take a position in court that isn't consistent with the facts as I have discovered them. And if I feel like I'm getting bullshit by my client, I either fire the client, don't take the client at the beginning, or we do it, affidavit where the client puts down everything that they believe is true. And it's on their sworn testimony, not mine, but not Trump's lawyers. He hires lawyers that will put themselves in harm's way unwittingly unwittingly or not because they want the publicity because they want to be patriot litigators as a lena hava likes to call herself on her twitter feed and they like the celebrity of being out there signing these affidavits and the problem is they're usually untrue because they're representing Donald Trump. So we're going to see if this combination of a lena hava christ Christine

Bob and there was an interesting thing that you go low on the way. I think he asked the question on the courthouse steps of West Palm Beach at the end of the hearing. He shouted out to Evan Corcoran, the lawyer for Donald Trump, who also was a lawyer for Steve Bannon, who we're going to talk about next. He said to Evan Corcoran, have you retained your own counsel related to your representation of Donald Trump? A snarky question, but one given the long history of lawyers who are facing jail time or civil or civil penalty because of Donald Trump is not, I think, is not unfair.

You know, they say what Maga stands for is make attorneys get attorneys is one of the things that it stands for. You know, one of the other things that is worth noting about judge, Eileen Cannon, not making a ruling, though, if the whole, this is an argument that the government made about Trump waiting until the 22nd when the search warrant was served on the eighth, which is if this is really an urgent matter, like are you asking for an injunction and saying that there is irreparable harm? If the judge believe that a judge would act quickly and say, okay, this is an urgent issue. We need a special master right now because what's already happened and this is why Bill Barr is crazy that I'm citing Bill Barr says this whole issue is a red herring is because the DOJ has already reviewed all of the records. A special master doesn't even matter. Setting aside the jurisdiction

issue, what are you going to, you're going to claw back and tell the DOJ men and black and, you know, pretend you didn't see what you just saw. And the DOJ had a filter team which removed a very small group of attorney client privilege documents. That's the only privilege that's that issue. But the DOJ's completed its work. Another question I get asked is, well, what's the consequence of Eileen Cannon? You know, she could be overturned by the 11th Circuit, which is the Court of Appeals there. She could be kind of shunned by her peers as just being a clownish judge. But that's one of the issues.

There's not a lot of checks and balances on these rogue Trump federal judges. And if she believes that she has jurisdiction, the next step is she'll make a ruling. And then it'll have to be appealed if it's a bad ruling. But her. I want to see the ruling before we totally attack her. I'm not sure what she's really, but her comments, her comments and even the fact that she's not moving quickly on the issue is a kind of counterintuitive to what her words are at the hearing because if this is an urgent matter, you address it urgently. And she said things that she believed

to was urgent. So why do you take an under submission and not file something like the day of the hearing or let them know what you're going to do? Because it is, if it is that urgent, that's an issue there. I want to also just briefly say this too. Why is Trump obstructing this? Like, I think the broader point is that when you know from intelligence officials who have brief Trump on very sensitive You know dali briefing CIA matters what they'll all tell you is Trump didn't care About what what affected the nation His questions and they had to like

Drawed doodles for him because he's such an idiot to try to explain it All he cared about was how the information impacted him, right? That was his focus on his daily briefings and his time there. So why would he take these records for a transactional purpose? Why would he obstruct it? Because he doesn't want us to investigate these issues knowing that these top secret sensitive compartment and information was stolen to even understand how that could impact our national security, which we already know is

we're not going to investigate these issues. secret sense of compartment and information was stolen to even understand how that could impact our national security, which we already know it will be very, very severe based on the type of documents. Just goes to show you yet again and again and again, frankly, what Trump said in 2016, he could go and shoot somebody in fifth avenue. And what the Republicans would say is, but Obama killed the Somal Bin Laden. Presidents have killed people before. Trump can't kill. They make the dumbest arguments. That's what they would argue if Trump killed somebody from Fifth Avenue. And that is who they are.

There's no low. There's no depth to the levels and layers of their justifying this man's radical extreme anti-Americanism. We now understand why President Biden soon after taking office, cut off Trump from getting the Daily President's briefing, which most ex-presidents get because they are still statesmen and diplomats of the world. We've seen it time and time again. Carter, Obama, Bush, all took leading roles in world affairs following their departure. Biden made the decision. I'm sure in consultation with the rest of his national intelligence apparatus heads that Trump could not be trusted. This is well before Mar-a-Lago. This is immediately after because of Trump's penchant for tweeting and now truthing anything that he gets his hands on.

As you said in a transactional way, he cares about the dirt. He doesn't, and how it impacts him. Oh, oh, there's a thing about President Macron and Francis sex life. Oh, that's interesting. I'm going to take that folder with me. I mean, that's the rumor of what was in one of the folders that he took with him. But, but we now know why the first time really in modern history, a president of ex-president, was denied the presidential briefing or national security briefing on a regular basis is because it's because of Donald Trump. And my favorite line, Ben, from his, he's he's he's floundering around the law, the legal

team for him is floundering around trying to find a defense, which doesn't exist. He's floundering around trying to come up with some sort of statements that keep him relevant as he's still about to announce that he's running for office. He said a Labor Day weekend. I don't think that's going to happen. But even then, when he saw that picture that you and I talked about last week, exhibit F to the motion with all of the top, not all of it, but a lot of the top secret information from Box 2A of the search warrant on his carpet, I guess, in his office or somewhere, with

a photo taken, which again, the Department of Justice would not have released, had they not been challenged by Trump's own strategy, having backfired on him. He said, Oh, look at that. I kept the, I love the admission. I didn't have them strewn on the floor. I kept them neatly in a box. Okay, this is the equivalent of a drug lord having seen his kilos of cocaine

on a table neatly stacked behind the prosecutor saying, that's not how I, that's not how I stack my kilos of cocaine. I mean, the fact that he admitted that he still sees those documents as his mind, mind, mind, which is the exact predicate of the crime that they're investigating against him. And the fact that no lawyer will stand in his way and tell him, get off, as you said last week, get off the microphone, get off the interviews, stop social media, you're going to go to jail. Do you understand this? Take the fifth. Don't incriminate yourself. He has nobody around him that will allow that. Maybe Michael Cohen back in the day when he was still in Trump's orbit, what have been able to talk him out of it. But he has these rental lawyers that, that, you know, you and I barely

can keep track of them. One day we should just run a scroll. We should have salty run a scroll while we're talking of all the lawyers that he's had in all the cases dating back to Jan 6th. I mean, it would go on for most of our segment. But these lawyers don't care about him. They care about their own publicity. They care about winning the new cycle of getting the next client because they're associated with Donald Trump, you know, with their license, with their, with their bar license hanging in the, hanging in the balance. No, no, no, not about it. Speaking of lawyers, though, who have been cooperating with, and they really had no choice. I mean, they have to show up

before the grand jury. But these are Trump's top White House counsel. I mean, people who are fairly respected, actually, in the legal community who probably lost a lot of respect when they work for Trump, but are trying to, I guess, rebound and rebuild, if you will. Pat Cipolloni, who was the top White House Council, and Deputy White House Council Pat Filman, were already aware that they had interviewed with the FBI on these Mar-a-Lago top secret documents in connection with the espionage obstruction and mutilation concealment investigation there. But this week, they on Friday went before the DC grand jury

on January 6th issues from what we're learning. A lot of the focus is on the fake electors slate, but still January 6th in general, and election interference generally there. But Popo, what are we learning about their DOJ, a grand jury, Sapena, them showing up before the grand jury? Yeah. So they're credit, even though it's faint, faint praise. They're not fighting going into the grand jury like some others. And as you said, Pat Sipalone and Phil Bim have been front and center in front of the Gen 6 Committee,

live testimony that you and I have commented on in one of the eight or nine Gen 6 hearings. We're gonna have more hearings once we're done with the summer recess after Labor Day that we'll be covering. And they gave very strong and credible evidence about all the things related to Gen 6, leading up to Gen 6, the planning, the rally itself and all of that. Now, there's really two more categories of things because they

they were flies on the wall for a number of things. The one being we know that at least one of the grand juries, we think there's three or more that are operating by the Department of Justice and DC is focused on the fake elector, the green Bay sweep or whatever it was, that Navarro came up with along with Eastman. And they want to know what the lawyers knew about that plan and how they facilitated the plan or did facilitate the plan, what facts that they have. And I guess they're going to rely on the crime fraud exception of the professional rules of conduct and ethics

that we've talked about and give testimony about that to the, to the grand jury. They're certainly not fighting it. I also like Philbin, particularly and Cipalone, if not this grand jury, but another one that's obviously in panels, because remember then to tie this back to the beginning of the segment, there is a grand jury that allowed the department of justice to get a subpoena for the return of the classified documents held by Donald Trump. There had to have been a sitting grand jury for that. So I think Philbin, who was the reporting goes,

was involved to try to get the documents back in January all back to the National Archive. He was trying to broker it between his client and Donald Trump, met tremendous resistance in headwind from Donald Trump obviously and was unsuccessful. I see Philbin testifying about that and maybe even Pat Sipalone as well about this new obstruction charge about the documents that have been retained. But look, it's a terrible event. I don't care if that Trump whistles in the graveyard.

It acts like it's no big deal when reasonably credible lawyers, who as you said before they tattered their reputation, had good reputations in the political and legal circles, are testifying against him about his conduct and things that he knew or should have known for criminal intent. Terrible day for Donald Trump. Great day for democracy. We talk about the fake elector scheme and obviously people who have listened to legal AF know what we're talking about. But one of the plans when all of the lawsuits failed because they were completely bogus and relied on false affidavits, relating to, or leading to a lot of Trump's own lawyers getting disbarred. That's how much of a lie these horrible cases were that they filed after

the November 2020 elections. But the fake elect electric scheme was basically people like Giuliani and Ginny Thomas, the wife of a Supreme Court justice, and many others close to Trump going to state legislators and state legislative bodies run by Republicans and basically making the argument that the actual vote of the people don't matter. The actual statements by the governor or your secretary of state or whoever runs your state elections absolutely doesn't matter. This is an accord issue.

We want you to submit fake electors to the National Archives, which is kind of a processing hub for the electoral slates. And Mike Pence will count the fake electors and not the real electors. And so Mike Pence wouldn't do that. So that's when the insurrection happened because they said, if he's not going to do it, we got to kill this guy. We got to go in by force and force him to basically accept the fake electors. And so it's really not more complicated than that. And so states like Wisconsin and states like Georgia

and other states that were controlled by Republican bodies in the legislature, they submitted these fake electors. Like that's one of the things that Fony Willis is investigating with the special grand jury. Including to the National Archive, they set their certificates. They were so confident in their strategy. They sent some of these certificates to the national

archive. Imagine the day you open up that envelope, the national archive with a phony slate of electors. Well, you know, and it hinged on the vice president going along with the plan. Pence didn't and when Pence didn't, that's when they said violence, you know, which is not too different than where they are in Mar- Mar-Lago at this point. You know, you hear Lindsey Graham, there's going to be riots on the street, violence, you know, that's what Trump's lawyers are out there giving kind of talking about. And then they go, we're not saying to do it.

We're just saying, that's what will happen. It's like, you know, stop with the freaking gaslighting. Okay. And we know exactly what it is that you're saying, which makes a kind of extra cowardly, more unlensy grams cowardly a bit later, but we learned cowardly, miss a bit later, but we learned as well talking about like the fake electors in Wisconsin. We've seen Jenny Thomas's emails, and I don't want to go into this point in more depth than it is, because it's as simple as this, like CBS and Washington Post published emails of

Ginny Thomas, the wife of a Supreme Court justice. We've already have her text messages from past reporting with her sending Mark Meadows, like just some of the weirdest shit ever, like basically saying like, I mean, like, I'm paraphrasing here, but it's basically like God has called upon you at this moment to overturn the election and to and to destroy the infidel's like, I mean, literally, it's like written in that kind of like culty, like, religiously, you know, way and and God appointed Trump. And I mean, this is the wife of a Supreme Court justice. And so that was honor around the insurrection, a leading up to it.

But now we have these emails as well where she just says in the emails to these various state legislators. And it's basically a kind of a copy and paste in message where she goes, you have this awesome responsibility. Congratulations. It's up to you right now. You don't have to worry about any laws or governors overturn the election and sure enough, Wisconsin did send these idiots in Wisconsin, sent us criminals, sent us a slate of fake

electors to DC as well. And so I don't want to go into it more than we have traders, not just radical extremists, but when people look at this Supreme court, taking away rights, overturning, rovy, Wade, people like Jenny Thomas's husband, Clarence Thomas saying we need to take away gay marriage. And we'll talk about some gay marriage related type issues with the wedding photography case at the end of the show. But these people are like radical, extremist,

cultish, freaking criminals who are sitting on a Supreme Court right now. And it's so tragic to be like, I went to Georgetown law. I love the law. I love reading the cases. You could tell by the show, I love talking about these cases. And part of the education that I want to give you when you watch these cases, though, is how do we stop this? Like, and I think that legal education just outside of law schools, because I think law schools, frankly, have failed us that we now have people like Clarence Thomas and, and that ilk of radical right extreme

is sitting on the Supreme Court. So we need to just improve our overall education from lay people about what's going on because you got some real freaking sickos, extremists, and this Clarence Thomas, Jenny Thomas stuff. I don't people go, oh, it's just the wife. Oh shit. Bullshit. That's just the way. He's equally as like that. His rulings are insane. His rulings are not semi-fascist, are full on fascist. And they both talk about this stuff. I have no doubt.

There were text messages to Mark Meadows where she was clearly using kind of coded language that referred to Clarence Thomas. I think she said like our friend or something, which I knew exactly what that meant when she's like, our friend doesn't like to see this of it, but I don't wanna belabor the genu, you wanna final point of the middle. Let me make one comment. It has to do with the first amendment.

I'm fine within boundaries, spouses of Supreme Court justices being involved with political life. I'm not fine. I'm not fine. And neither are you with them crossing the line and trying to overturn democracy and election. Just like, just like people aren't allowed to invest in companies for which they're going to be judges or spouses are involved with boards on companies for which they're gonna make a ruling. There's gotta be limits. I'm old school. I don't wanna really know the name

of any of the spouses, of any of the nine members of the Supreme Court. I couldn't name, but one other one. Their actual name. And that's Ruth Bader Ginsburg's husband because he has his own personal story. That was quite interesting. And a movie was made about her.

Other than that, I really, he was a lot of professor at my loss. Right. There you go. I defy you to identify another person. And that's the way I like it. And because they've cloaked themselves in this secrecy, in this fantasy and in this fiction,

that she's independent from him and she can do whatever she wants in the first amendment. I'm fine right up until the moment of insurrection and sedition and trying to overthrow a election in this country when your husband or wife is sitting as the final arbiter of that issue. Just as they were in Bush versus Gore,re i mean there's only nine of them okay it's not like five hundred twenty seven sitting in congress in the senate you know it's got we got nine we can have special rules related to them and their wives and i think we're going to have to have a post genie thomas rule from the chief justice on down as to what other people can be

involved with and what they can't be without disclosure or mandatory recusal so that he her husband can't make rulings that are involved with her as a actor in the cast of characters around the issue that he's judging. I couldn't agree more with you. And as you see, just the corruption there and then you know, Trump out there on his failing social media platforms and giving interviews, saying how if he ever runs again and he's elected, he's going to pardon all of the insurrectionists. I think in a radio interview, he said, I'm even financially supporting some of them, which I don't think he even is because he's too cheap to do that.

But I think that he is actually would do what he said he's going to do. They they have treated the radical right Republican magas have treated these individuals from January 6th who tried to kill police officers and overturn our democratic election as political prisoners, Marjorie Taylor Green in the CPAC convention. One of the booths was a kind of fake jail cell that they set up where one of the insurrectionists who not only pled guilty, but actually was a kind of a government informant, if you will, on some of the other insurrectionists. He then dressed up in cosplay as the prisoner after he pled guilty took responsibility before the judge and then told on the other insurrectionists and then she like bent on her knees and like

kissed him and it was like just like these people pop up are out of their mind extreme radical and they're radicalizing Americans and you know you have former NYPD cop Thomas Weber, you know, someone who served in the NYPD, I think you said that he was on Bloomberg's detail. He was on Bloomberg Security detail when he was an NYPD officer. You know, he turned into a January 6th insurrectionist and I don't wanna just, you know,

just turn into a January insurrectionist. And I don't want to just, you know, just turn into a January insurrectionist. So clearly those feelings and views were there somewhere. But you watched that video, but you watched that video. Yeah, the video, which was evidence in the trial, he went through a trial, he was convicted. His, his sick and disgusting defense during the trial, despite a video showing him attacking and trying to stab an officer in the face with a marine flag pole, was that he was acting, this is what he argued in trial,

that he was acting in self-defense when he was attacking the officer, and nearly could have killed the officer. He yelled out in the video, and it's not edited. It's the video, it's from killed the officer. He yelled out, he yelled out in the video, and it's not edited. It's the video is from body cam of people there including police. He yelled out at another police,

he was a former police officer, at a active police officer guarding the Capitol behind a barricade. He yelled out, take that crap off, meaning his body armor and his face mask. In other words, fight me right here by parents. And when he said, take that f crap off, meaning his body armor and his face mask. In other words, fight me right here by bare hands. And when he said, take that f and off. And then when the guy, of course, wouldn't because he's standing guard, he pushed through the barricade, the bicycle

rack, knocked it over, leading to everybody streaming in behind it, then grab the officer with his flagpole and started to beat him with it. That's, there's no defense to that. That's why he just got 10 years, the highest sentence, the government, Ben wanted 17 and a half, but the judge cut him a break and gave him 10 years. He should be lucky for that. And he's not the last one. Just to remind everybody, Marik Garland's Department of Justice has 250 convictions already and sentencing. And this is, this is at the highest of everybody that was involved on the ground on Jan 6th. Now they're moving on to the organizers, hopefully on their way to the president and his inner circle. Yeah, the judge cut him a break because of his background. And he, he hadn't been in trouble

before. He did serve as a police officer, which I never understand when you abuse your badge, why the, why your badge should be used as a mitigating factor. You know, nonetheless, he was charged with the most serious sentence. And that's the thing, Popoq, you know, the expression, a hit dog will holler. When President Biden gave his speech condemning people who attack police officers and try to overthrow our democracy, you have the Republicans respond to that and go, how dare you be so divisive? How dare you accuse us and call us that it goes, we once lived in a country where we would say

attacking police officers is bad. Overthrowing democracy is bad. Supporting being pro pandemic and pretending global pandemics are not real that that is bad. But we certainly live in the upside down world of mega extreme Republicans where they go that's political. How dare you attack me? We believe that we should do these things. And so I go back to the expression a hit dog will holler and speaking about the hit dog will holler over and over and over again. Um, I guess one Lindsey Graham Steve batten. I get to probably applies to all of these idiot mag a criminal fascist, but we should

probably just touch very briefly on Steve batten that he filed a motion for new trial before the DC district court judge Nichols. He was a Trump a Trump appointee and everybody gets all hot and bothered when a Trump appointee sometimes gets assigned to a case. But judge nickels is a Trump appointee also. Judge nickels is a Trump appointee. Uh, uh, bannons case went before a jury two counts of contempt of Congress one for not showing up for testimony. The other for not turning over documents, his bases for emotion for new trial was he wanted to rely on this advice of counsel, defense saying that his attorney,

my attorney told me to do it. Wow, my attorney said, and there is DC circuit precedent and I'm mafia related case. I think it's like the luchini case or something. But in a mafia related case that says Advice of council is not a defense for contempt of Congress and then he also tried to make a BS claim about executive privilege. They always just try to abuse Executive privilege. He's a podcaster. He wasn't working for Trump at the time of January 6th. There is no executive podcast to privilege and executive privilege is for the current administration. Yes, we don't get executive privilege as povac, but we do a podcast. We stick it. We stick with podcasting and we don't lead insurrection. So that was just the bad and I don't need to tell you much more.

Yeah. The only other thing is just one other thing. His other grounds for the new trial or the motion to dismiss was that he wasn't allowed to bring members of this Jan 6th committee, the house, to testify where he could cross-examine them as to some of these items. And Nichol said, you're not showing me that, first of all, you're not telling me what you think these people would say. You have to make what's called a proffer. You haven't proffered to me what you think the evidence would be that you were denied. And I don't see how that's material to any claim or defense, any pro, any crime or defense here to have them come in and make a circus out of this testifying about what's going on with the Gen 6 committee. This has to do with your subpoena and you not having complied with it, not about all the other things.

So look, I'm balanced. Nichols has come out the way you and I thought he would, given his background as a sober, a sophisticated, a white collar criminal defense lawyer at a major law firm in Washington, which is the exact opposite of the type of types of lawyers that Trump's Trump picks for his own representation. I would say this though, the one issue that I think that Nichols said was he was constrained by the precedent. And he had made comments that I don't know if this should be good precedent, but I have

to follow the precedent. And so I think he realizes that when this gets appealed, which Ben and will appeal before the DC circuit, I think the DC circuit is going to follow their previous precedent. But I do think he was tipping his hat a little bit to the Supreme Court, where I do think this case will go on whether advice of counsel should be a defense or not a defense. And that's the area where he was constrained by precedent, but gave banan a little bit more than he otherwise could have. And that's actually in his, in his kind of final order. But sentencing will

take place in October. And, you know, hopefully fingers crossed, banning will actually be going to jail. It could be as low as 30 days as high as two years, one year per each contempt of Congress charge. Let's turn to Fulton County. And in Fulton County, Lindsey Graham is ordered to testify before the special grand jury. Now Lindsey Graham has been avoiding this testimony like the plague Lindsey Graham has cited the speech and debate clause, which basically says that for legitimate legislative activity, legislators, members of Congress and Senate can't be questioned anywhere really. It's a broad immunity that initially was written in a way that said, if legislators make

these statements on the House floor, they should be protected because we want, we don't want to chill their, you know, legitimate legislative speech. It's since been brought in the seminal cases a 1972 case, gravel versus the United States, which basically says that legitimate legislative activity in a modern world doesn't have to be like literally the floor. And it could also extend to the staff of the legislator, but it still has to be legitimate legislative activity. And even gravel says like you like trying to do illegal stuff and like pressure the legislative branch to do things or the line of cases. If you're speaking to public or doing media releases or press releases, that's not like legitimate legislative activity. And Lindsey Graham cited speech and debate clause as the basis. And so I want to tell you why the court basically found that the speech and debate clause may

for a limited extent apply to certain questioning, but that Fony Willis would be able to ask very narrow targeted questions on all these other issues. So the basic answer is Lindsey Graham is going to test it. So Popeye and I have to break that down. But first, I got to tell you that today's program is brought to you by athletic greens, the health and wellness company that makes comprehensive daily nutrition really simple. With so many stressors in life. It's difficult to maintain effective

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Again, simply visit athletic greens dot com legal AF take control of your health. Give AGI want to try and get that free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs. Popok, I set the stage for Lindsey Graham right there. Now, hit it out the park. All right. Judge May, remember the 11 circuit, Ben and our listeners and followers sent it back to judge may to get more granular about the application

of the speech and debate clause to Lindsey Graham's expected testimony. We all know what he's going to testify about. He's going to testify about the phone calls he made to Brad Raffins Berger and Brad Raffins Berger, Secretary of State of Georgia, right after the election at the behest of obviously, of Donald Trump about mail-in ballots and whether they could be thrown out in order to turn the election tide in favor of Donald Trump. Sounds bad because it is.

That's called election interference and it's a crime in every state, including Georgia. So, and Raffinsberger has already testified and publicly disclosed his testimony, which is he took the phone call from Lindsey Graham, the only way he thought he could take it, which was a instruction or a direction to do something, which was to throw out mail-in ballots in order to turn the election in favor of Donald Trump.

Lindsey Graham has tried to characterize all of his phone calls as kind of innocuous, ordinary, legislative, fact-finding. You know, Ben, it's sort of like Jared Kushner coming out yesterday or day before on television saying that the whole squabble, the whole kerfuffle at Mar-a-Lago about documents and stolen documents and crimes, it's just paperwork. It's just about an overdue library book. It's not a crime. And here you got Lindsey Graham saying, everything I do is covered by legislative fact finding,

because why also am I making those phone calls? And Judge May having been ordered by the 11th Circuit to do more fact finding and more work to develop the record about the application of speech and debate clause, she ultimately sided with Fawni Willis as a special prosecutor, but did find that there were certain areas that she would not allow him to be inquired about, Lindsey Graham, because they were classic speech and debate protected,

immunity protected work like legislative fact finding, but she made it clear that she's going to be able, she's going to be able to ask him questions and he's going to have to answer questions about two primary categories. One, any of his efforts to, in her words, in her 23 page order from yesterday or day before, could Joel, Exort, or Pressure Raffensberger to throw out ballots is fair game for questioning. And that's how reference burger has framed it. So you could see a prosecutor presenting the case of the grand jury with Graham sitting

in the chair saying, sir, you made this phone call on this date to Brad reference burger didn't you? Yes. And the other person from his office was present is not right, sir. Yes. And there's no recording of that. Is there no? And there's no notes of that that you have. I don't have that intake notes that day. And Mr. Raffin's burger testified that you told him the following Isn't that true, sir? So he'll either lie deny it or they're gonna have a fight over this this privilege now the second thing that the judge may said that That funny Willis's team is allowed to ask him about is about his coordination

with the Trump campaign about that phone call and about the election in Georgia. She said, look, I get that you can do fact finding as part of your legislative process and that finding out of facts is part of the process. But if a cross is over into you making facts, right, you're creating facts, throw out mail-in ballots, that's not a fact that you're finding, that's a fact that you're making. And if you're making facts as a witness, you get to be asked about it. Now, this isn't the last stop on the train. Unfortunately, for Lindsey Graham and for us, so we'll have to talk about it again. Because now it automatically goes back to the 11th circuit who already gave Graham a

little bit of daylight to try to thread his argument through earlier when they, when they ordered Judge May go back and apply this feature debate clause to kind of each potential question. So we have a better record before we make our decision. She's now done that, which means it's going to go on fast track back to the 11th circuit and the 11th circuit with Judge May's full record, the new briefing by both sides in front of them is going to make the final decision subject to the Supreme Court about whether Lindsey Graham is going to testify and to what he's going to testify to. And one last comment bet on it. As you and I talked about, remember, Judge May is also the judge that handled the same

issues for Representative Congressman Jody Heiss. And she offered Jody Heiss on a question-by-question basis. She, the judge, would be willing to serve as the special master, if you will, and make a ruling on the fly about whether he had a, he had a testify to that or not. In a footnote in, in her opinion about Lindsey Graham, she offered the same mechanism that even though, you know, Lindsey Graham could run back to Judge McBerney, who's the chief judge state court level of Fulton County, come back to me as the federal judge supervising this issue.

And I will make the ruling for you on a question by question basis, as I have offered to do for representative Heiss. Now we gotta see what happens in the next week or two with the 11th Circuit. And really Judge May did that. She recognizes that the 11th Circuit is a fairly right wing court.

And to try to insulate her order, that's why she offered to do that among other reasons. She also made some other very, I thought kind of, kind of funny remarks in it, you know, I mean, that just could be me as like a legal nerd, but the way she basically said it, which was that, you know, Lindsey Graham argues that objectively, all of this constitutes legitimate legislative activity and that he was clearly fact finding. And then she goes, that's not really an objective view of the facts. She goes, you're a South Carolina senator in Georgia. What are you, you know, what are you doing there? Which rate, you know, and she said it

in a nice way, which raises considerable questions about disputed facts between what the objective criterion should be applied here. But what she's saying is, is that, come on, man, what are you talking about? Why? We know what you were really up to. But again, it just goes to the gaslighting that the radical right Republicans do every day, whether it's in the media, on social media, in our court system, and the abuse of institutions, and things like executive privilege, or here speech and debate. I mean, to try to immunize yourself

and kind of cloak yourself in legitimate legislative activity when you go and you do this heinous stuff. Look, Popoq, if it was really legitimate legislative activity, wouldn't it be just the easiest testimony in the world for him to have? I mean, you just show up and you go, look, I really care deeply about the electoral contact. And so I asked him, I said, hey, I'm investigating the electoral contact. Here are my notes about it. These conversations informed my vote on the electoral count. I'm are my notes about it. These conversations informed my vote on the electoral counter. I'm happy to talk about it. I don't have to talk about

it. I'm the speech of debate, but I have nothing to hide here. I just, I care about the people. You know, the same way Democrats are happy to talk about, hey, we're fighting the inflation reduction for you for the inflation reduction that we're fighting for you on the pack deck. We're fighting for you for the chips. Like, we're proud of the stuff that we do the legislative fact fighting that Democrats and into and pro democracy do sure that we'll chat it we'll chat about it because we're trying to help people there's nothing that he was doing here that was help me helpful to people. Well, let me let me show let me let me let me use I like that a lot. So let me show why don't we show our listeners a followers?

What it would look like? He would call up and he would say, is there anything about the process, the electoral process, the security around the electoral process that implicates fraud or that there are votes that would, that would change the election, Mr. Secretary of State. No. Is there anything that would indicate that this is not a free and fair election

in the state of Georgia or that the people have spoken? Is there anything about absentee balloting, mail-in balloting, the operation of the individual clerks and counties or in precincts that gives you pause about certifying the election in Georgia? No. That's proper fact-finding.

If you're really first time in history, a South Carolina senator called a Georgia Secretary of State to ask him about his election process, but all right, that's arguable. That's how a Democrat would do it. Hey, you got a bunch of mail-in ballots. Can you toss them so that my president can win? That is not fact-finding. That is pressuring, cajoling, and a conspiracy to overturn an election and interfere with an election in the state of Georgia. And I think ultimately, the 11th Circuit, or maybe we're going to see what's going to happen with the numbers at the Supreme Court if it goes that far. But the timing issue is also weird here, because you got Mick Bernie kicking the can as the

supervising chief justice of the Fulton County special grand jury. He's probably going to have to renew that grand jury because he may run out of time on the one year leash that he gave to, that he gave to Fawni. But he's already said they were getting too close to the November election. Kick it off. Now we're talking to December, January, February. She's going to start running out of time on that. You'll have to re up the special, the special committee Supreme Court's going to have to rule on some exited basis of the 11th circuit goes awry or if Lindsey Graham's office appeals, which they likely will. So he may not be testifying for quite some time. Did you, to your point

about the upside down world? Did you see the comment that was made official comment that was made from his office after the ruling came out? What he's saying? His office said, we are, we are happy that judge May has fully, fully understands the speech and debate clause and has ruled that all of his activities are covered by it. I mean, that is completely upside down Kuku crazy. That is not what the 23 pages say at all. If you were to balance report this fairly the way we you and I are, he lost the hearing on the two major issues that matter to Fani Willis. And now he's going to have to take it up to the 11th circuit. No doubt about it. And then I guess we turn to the world of Trump appointed judges and just kind of Republican

cruelty all around. I mean, you know, the mentioned Democrats are fighting to make sure troops get healthcare who are exposed to toxic burn pits and building the infrastructure and how to protect freedoms. You know, I'm not sure if you saw like the Department of Veteran Affairs, for example, trying to expand the way that they offer abortion-related services to troop members and their families in cases of rape and incest and other circumstances, even in states where abortion is banned, which is one of the things that, and there are total abortion bands, and that's going to be litigated. There's a 1992 law called the High

Amendment, which tries to prevent federal funding of abortions, but then there's other laws that would do the contrary, which is what the veteran affairs is relying on. But just trying to help people, protect people's rights in these circumstances. What are Republicans doing? What are their big focus on? Like, how do we like just hurt people in very, just kind of cruel and unusual, and certain ways? So like, they're always obsessed with like wedding cakes and this case that we're talking about out of Louisville, Kentucky, where a federal district court judge Benjamin Beaton, who was appointed by Donald Trump, ruling,

this is a big, a big filing that was filed, but it's pushed by the radical right Republican agenda where this wedding photographer said her religious beliefs are such that she doesn't want to take photographs at weddings of gay couples. And that that violates her rights under the first amendment free exercise clause. We've talked about the free exercise clause under the first amendment here on the show over and over again, which is basically the clause that this radical right kind of theocratic kind of theocratic Supreme Court looks to to basically say religion can do like your rights to practice religion. Basically, Trump, pun intended or no pun intended, all of the other rights

that are out there. And so the First Amendment says Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of a religion, which is the separation of church and state or prohibiting the free exercise thereof and so the same way the radical Republicans look at the second amendment and read out well-regulated militia Regulation militia and just focus on the right to bear arms the focus here is prohibiting the free exercise thereof and so these cases focus here is prohibiting the free exercise thereof. And so these cases are filed one because of their cruelty and the issue of just putting the middle finger to gay couples because that's what they like to do.

Number one, but two, they try to use these cases to create precedent to discriminate generally in broader contexts against marginalized groups. So they go, Hey, look, we got this president of photographs. Let's extend it to restaurants. Let's extend it to who I can serve food. Let's extend it to who can, you know, who can show up at a club or a bar and who can dance with. And all of our views of equal protection under the law, the radical right Supreme Court and these Trump district, I'd say, well, the free exercise clause of the religion, Trump's all of that stuff. And so here, the judge granted an injunction with respect to this state, this local ordinance out of Louisville, Kentucky,

and the ordinance said what many ordinance to say, which is if you're operating in our city, don't discriminate against LGBTQ plus the same way, don't discriminate against other races or don't discriminate. Did we, we provide equality? And here this photographer says, we don't, I don't want equality. I want my religious beliefs, say I can discriminate. And the Trump judge said, sure, you can discriminate based on the free exercise clause. It's going to be appeal, of course, but you know, this is one of those cases, though, that

as as a legal AF listener, we flag now, because this is something we can be talking about that may hit the Supreme Court in a year, 18 months, two years, as it works its way up, but it's intentional for the effect that I mentioned. So that's good, Ben. Good setup here for that. Two things, two things for me to observe. One is shout out to Louisville, because if you had asked me of all the cities in the south, who would have this type of anti-discriminatory, including LGBTQ aspects. Louisville wouldn't have been, I'd like Louisville, I've been there, I've been there for the Derby

and other things, but shout out to that City Commission or Council for having Pat that on the books. We have this collision, this unfortunate collision of a Trump appointed judge, Federalist judge who goes by the name of, let me get his name right, Benjamin Beaton, B-A-T-O-N, or Beton. And the Supreme Court law that you and I talked about, God, a year ago, in

which the Supreme Court said, oh, if you're an artist, Baker, now Baker's are artists, photographers, you know, artists, If you're an artist, we can't compel you to use your artistic talent in a way that violates your first amendment, even if it's discriminatory or racist or homophobic or anti-LGBTQ or whatever it is. And that's sort of the precedent that we saw with the Supreme Court that now is winding its way through the lower courts and in these jurisdictions through challenges. And just to remind everybody why Ben and the brothers talked about elections mattering, it's hard to believe this and everybody saw up in arms at times, although I think the tide has changed with Merrick Garland. I think

people understand what he's been doing. He's been quiet like a crocodile, ready to snap. However, elections matter. Barr's Department of Justice in 2020, who filed an amicus brief against the Louisville ordinance. And of course, in favor of the Baker in the Supreme Court. That Department of Justice had a department, I don't know if you remember this, Ben, which is crazy. That was called the Religious Liberty Task Force.

Let's get this clear. The Department of Justice in 2020 under Donald Trump had a religious liberty task force who was charged with defending cases just like this one on behalf of people that wanted to be discriminatory and racist and biased and bigoted against other Americans. That's what our Department of Justice had. That group, that task force was sponsored by anti LGBTQ hate groups and and tasks and groups that that lobby Trump and the people around him to set up this this group within the Department of Justice. Crazy. That's why elections matter because we don't have that task force anymore. And Marik Garland's Department of Justice is not

run like a kindergarten or a personal fiefdom in a transactional way by the president, it's run by adults who care about justice and lady and lady liberty. So we're going to follow the case. It's going to run loggerheads into the Supreme Court precedent over over the the Baker issue. And the question that fundamentally is going to be what what is an artist you when I talked about this before and what other professions are going to try to claim that they're artists when it comes to their profession in order to get the benefit of this Supreme Court ruling, um allowing people to to basically giving them license to discriminate against follow Americans.

Popoq, we will follow that and we will follow more right here on legal AF where we analyze the most consequential legal news of the week of the time, each and every weekend. And of course, the midweek episode as well. We appreciate the growing community here at legal AF. I tell everybody, go to store. Might as touch.com now go to store. Might as touch.com get the best pro democracy gear out there. We've got the row, Vember t shirts, which are close to selling out. Make sure you get your row, Vember t shirts. Now we've got row, row, row your vote t shirts. We got unapologetically pro democracy t shirts convict or convict 45. We got pin bundles as well. Of course, we got legal AF gear, join the Midas mighty and get your gear mightestouch.com and make sure you subscribe on YouTube just surpassed 500,000 subscribers

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