Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Aide CAN’T ESCAPE his CRIMINAL KARMA in NY Court

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

A NY State court judge has set a hard start date of February 25 for the criminal fraud and money laundering trial of Steve Bannon, Trump apologist, and co-conspirator, to begin over his phony “build the wall” foundation. Michael Popok a practicing trial lawyer in NY walks you through the process and what to expect at trial and why Trump can’t do a darn thing about it. Lomi: Visit https://Lomi.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF and checkout to save $50! Join the LegalAF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/legalAF Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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his criminal trial in state court for fraud and money laundering about the fake Build the Wall Foundation. It was going to trial in the first week of December, but we've got some new updates from the state court judge. I'm Michael Popak here on the Midas Touch Network and legal AF. Let me cut to the chase. There's good news. This trial is still going on. It just was going to happen in the first week of December, but because the trial judge in state court, and that's an important distinction here, we're not in federal court. There's no Trump pardon coming. Bannon was already pardoned

federally before a trial even started for the build the wall fraud, but that's not going to help him now because there's no what's called double jeopardy issue and because he never was successfully prosecuted the first time. This is his first prosecution, so there's no double of anything. But we do have this judge that's presiding over it in the New York State Supreme Court, same court system that Donald Trump was convicted of his 34 felony count conviction. Same prosecutor, the Manhattan DA that was successful twice against Donald Trump's companies for crimes.

They're the ones that are prosecuting Steve Bannon. That trial now is going to be in February, so that's okay. We can live until February. The reason for it apparently, it's going to be moved to February the 25th is that the judge allowed some additional new evidence that had not been previously provided over to the defense in the form apparently of some financial transactions involving build the wall, another not-for-profit, something on a Bannon's American Express card that they late produced to the other side.

And rather than have any argument that this material wasn't provided to the defense in a timely manner, judges will often cure any claim of prejudice, especially in a criminal context by just giving the other side, in this case the defense, more time. So she rolled it 60 days, a little bit more than 60 days, till the end of February. But that trial is going to start. And there is just a mountain of evidence against Bannon, including cooperating and testifying witnesses, I presume. You've got his co-founder of the Build the Wall Foundation, this phony foundation from 2016 that tried to make bank off of Donald Trump's threats to build up a wall. They never built a wall. All they did was build up their bank accounts. They said they were going to use all the money,

100% of the money for building the wall. They used very little, no part of the wall was built, but money did go into the luxurious lifestyles of both the co-founder with Bannon and Bannon. That co-founder was a wounded war veteran, no less, is serving time in federal prison because of this very same allegations, I presume, that he will be compelled to testify against Steve Bannon, as will the records. This is pretty open and shut, pretty binary from a case presentation. This is not a complex fraud. They made promises to donors in New York and other places, that's why there's jurisdiction in New York, about what they were going to use the money for and what percentage of it

was going to be used for that charity, 100%, and they didn't do that. So hence the fraud and the money laundering and making it look like you were using it for something when you weren't. And that is a crime that could put Bannon in jail for, I don't know, between five and 15 years. I mean, the betting markets think that he's going to get at least a five-year sentence if not longer. I mean, he's not a one-time offender either when it comes to sentencing. He spent time in jail already, four months, on a conviction for contempt of Congress related to his failure, Steve Bannon's failure to testify to the Jan 6 committee and provide documents to the Jan 6

committee. So there's a two-count misdemeanor related to that that he served time in jail for for four months. And of course, even though he was pardoned, I think it'll come up in the report that he was federally investigated, and the only reason he wasn't prosecuted there is because he got a pardon from Donald Trump. And that'll all go into sentencing. I don't want to put the cart before the horse. The first thing that has to happen, of course, is that a jury needs to convict. Now, let's talk about state court versus federal court. I've tried cases in New York State and federal court, so I can kind of give you my perspective in this courthouse. The jury pool in Manhattan where this is going to pull from,

in state court, a little bit of some other counties, is pretty educated. It's going to be a lot of college two-year, four-year, postgraduate college people in the box, and I think that's a very good thing for the prosecutors. We always, as trial lawyers, want smart, attentive, interested jurors. That's what we'd rather have every time. I tried a jury about two or three years ago in federal court, and that one, everyone on the jury panel, everyone, including the two alternates, had a college degree or a post-college degree. I had chief financial officers of companies. I had investment bankers, financial planners, people that worked in medicine, doctors, people who had doctorates. I mean, it was a very, that's sort of a Manhattan jury.

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to a cleaner, greener kitchen with Lomi. And with the holidays coming up, Lomi makes the perfect gift for someone on your shopping list. Turn your food waste into dirt with the press of a button with Lomi. Use the code LegalAF to save $50 at Lomi.com slash LegalAF. Let's just look at Trump's track record as the most recent comparator to what Steve Mannequin expect. These are 12 people juries. So you have to get 12-0 in order to convict. Manhattan prosecutor went after Donald

Trump's companies with 19 counts of tax fraud, business record fraud, and the like and 19 convictions came back 12-0 from a jury in Manhattan against Donald Trump's Donald Trump's companies two years later 34 count felony conviction 12-0 in front of a New York jury for Donald Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush money cover-up election interference case That's the one that were sentencing, has been postponed probably indefinitely. Same jury pool, same elite prosecutor's office, and with somebody that's equally unlikable like Steve Bannon. Now, I doubt Steve Bannon takes the stand. I just don't think that's not going to help him prove the case. I guess they make that decision towards the end of the case and the jury has of course instructed that it can't be held against him, that everybody is presumed to be innocent, has the presumption of innocence all the way

through trial, does not have to take the stand. Nothing can be taken as a negative inference by him not taking the stand. He gets all those benefits. That's why the judge is betting over backwards to give him the additional three months here or 60 days to get ready for his trial. But once it gets started, is this Manhattan prosecutor, do they have the ability to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt which is their burden, I believe so. Based on what we understand of the evidence and the testimony and the witnesses and the math.

I mean, this is just simple math and number counting and follow the money. Where'd the money come from? Donors. Where'd the money go? Not to build the wall. That's a very short opening statement. I'd love to give that opening statement

or closing argument. And he's going to have to come up with all sorts of, well, it was the accountants and I thought more was being used. And yes, we said a hundred percent, but that was hyperbole. We didn't really mean a hundred percent of the money was going to be used, but we meant something else and all sorts of jibber jabber. But who's going to put on that defense if Steve Madden doesn't take the stand? They're going to have to do what we call a defense through cross-examination, where you just cross-examine everybody and hope you can score some points that way. The FBI agents who looked at the numbers and the bank accounts and pieced it all together, tried to poke holes in that. But I think that's what the jury's – that's a very simple question for the jury. Did he lie

in order to obtain the funds? And did the people rely on it in order to donate it? There's going to be that aspect of it based on the counts. Is there sufficient reliance? I guess they'll get a number of donors up there that said, yeah, they gave the money believing that there was 100% – they're victims – that there was 100% of the money was supposed to go to build the wall and not to put bad and un-luxury yachts. That's the kind of thing we're going to watch at that trial, but we'll have to wait now until February. I'll keep an eye on all of it. There won't be a pardon here. The governor of New York is Democrat, always will be for the foreseeable future, and she or he is not going to pardon Bannon. He is going away for five years to a really terrible New York jail and prison, starting with Rikers Island during this process. He's out currently.

We know he's out there podcasting away, but he's going to go in. And all the statements that he's made on his podcast will just go in to sentencing, the failure to accept responsibility, the denial of his liability and his exposures, criminality. It all just kind of goes into the mix at the time of sentencing. So keep talking. Keep talking, Steve Bannon. It'll all go into the pot that determines how large of a sentence you're going to get. I'll continue to follow it on Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. Join us on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time for our podcast.

We call it Legal AF for a reason. Now you know why. And then we decided before the election, we need a channel devoted to law and politics in that intersection. So we created Legal AF. What else? We're creative. We know how to come up with titles for channels. Legal AF MTN in collaboration with the Midas Touch Network. Come over there. I'm curating that channel, doing a lot of the hot takes over there and analysis, but bringing over some amazing great other people, prosecutors like Karen Freeman, Nick Nifilo and Sean Wu, court Accountability Action. We've got exclusive programming like

Unprecedented, a show I do about the Supreme Court with Dina Dahl. Come on over and help us build that pro-democracy channel from the ground up. Find out why 50,000 people joined since election day and 50 million people watch some version of Legal AF every month. I'm Michael Popock and I am reporting. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legal AF MTN. That's at Legal AF MTN.