Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump and MAGA DESPERATE and DERANGED as Prosecutions LOOM

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

The Midweek Edition of the top-rated news podcast, LegalAF x MeidasTouch, is back for another hard-hitting look at this week’s most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this episode, MT founder and civil rights lawyer Ben Meiselas and former prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo analyze and discuss some of the most important legal cases and issues taking place so far this week.  DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! ZBIOTICS: Head to https://zbiotics.com/LegalAF and use the code 'LEGALAF' SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch 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 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm Ben Mycelis, filling in for Michael Popak and this is legal AF with Karen, Friedman, Agnifalo, Karen, I'm so excited to be hosting this with you. We've got a lot of topics we will be discussing on tonight's live legal AF and to get your perspective as a former top prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. A lot of the issues we're going to be talking about. I need to get your perspective as a former prosecutor. So for example, we got to talk about the fact that Kevin McCarthy, the Maga Republican speaker of the house has turned over thousands of hours of capital security footage, not just to Tucker Carlson, but is also now providing the insurrectionist

defendants access to this footage as well, like almost exclusively, right, before the public is getting it, Tucker and the insurrectionists. And I want you to walk through Karen with us, the fact of what safeguards defendants have though in cases in general anyway, where the judge can serve as the gatekeeper over the types of criminal discovery they're allowed to have.

And we also learned about the former Republican Arizona Attorney General, Mark Bronovich, and Mark Bronovich concealed the fact that they had prepared a report, as a Republican Attorney General, prepared a whole report showing that there was no election fraud that took place in the state of Arizona, completely concealed the report while going on of Arizona completely concealed the report while going on Steve Van Enjo and others in his official capacity as the attorney general of Arizona to basically lie that there was election fraud or imply it. But now the governor of Arizona Katie Hobbs has made a bar referral. I want to talk generally about what that means and whether you agree that this

bar referral has merit. And we of course got to talk about the new filing by Dominion in their $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox. This is their opposition to the summary judgment filed by Fox. So the posture of this is different than the last Fox filing by Dominion, was filing a motion for summary judgment. But here again, we get more emails, more text messages, more under oath, deposition testimony, including lots of deposition testimony from Rupert Murdoch that I think is just so incredibly devastating. I've never seen more compelling information in a defamation case, I think, in my entire

legal career. And then we got to talk about an issue that I don't think is getting enough attention, but we need to delve into it, which is the fact that the United States Supreme Court has finally heard the case where a lot of Republican states and a Republican-led proxy groups are trying to block, and they've already blocked it, but now they're asking the Supreme Court to finally and completely block Biden's student debt cancellation program. There was a case out in the district court in Texas before a Trump appoint a judge and then the eighth circuit after being in a district court

in St. Louis, Missouri. And those two courts blocked Biden student debt cancellation program. Biden's DOJ appealed to the United States Supreme Court who heard oral argument. This will impact at least 26 million Americans and that is the potential to impact up to 40 million Americans. So we want to give everybody an update with what is going on there. And first off, just want to say it's great to spend some time with you, Karen. It's great to be here. I love doing shows with you.

Even if people are a little bit more disappointed than I get in Pope Bach, they get Ben, how are you doing? And they don't have Pope Ock's glasses. They don't get to see which ones he would have chosen this week. So I'm doing great. I'm in Miami for a conference. And so I'm sitting in a hotel room. It's great.

You can broadcast for many where. So I'm doing really great. It's really interesting. I was thinking the other day that the moment in time we are is so momentous because right now as we speak today, we always know that prosecutors were in the grand jury regarding Trump. But we know that they're in the grand jury actually presenting evidence about potential charges. Now the grand jury is what obviously determines whether or not there will be charges brought. But when you think about it before, when there was evidence going into Fanny Willis' grand jury,

that was, they only were for a report. That wasn't for an indictment. Same thing with Alvin Bragg at the Manhattan D.A.'s office. We know that he's in the grand jury through Michael Cohen and all of what's going on there. And same thing with Jack Smith that he's now getting to Ivanka and Jared. I mean, think about where we are just to take a moment in time of history to just say how profound that is, that there are three separate entities, grand juries, considering charges against the former president right now.

So I host a podcast with Michael Cohen called Political Beatdown, where he very frequently will break news exclusively here on the Midas Touch Network. He's not allowed to delve into the specifics, of course, of what he's been saying. I think he's now done 17 meetings with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and three recently with Alvin Bragg and his

team. And he said that they are now preparing him, I think, on Friday. And he's used a lot of, I think, kind of metaphors about the plane taking off. And thinks it's gonna land in Justice land or the land of Accountability, but he says that without getting into the specifics How impressed he is with Alvin Bragg's team? He was very skeptical of Alvin Bragg before I would say even critical of Alvin Bragg before as many of of our viewers are, but he says, Ben, I'm in there, he says it on the political beatdown. He goes, I'm in there with that team.

And he goes, I think that done and pomeranzed the prior lawyers under Sivance goes, they were great. And they deserve so much credit for the hard work their office did. He said, I also want to say, though, this team now that I have here in the Manhattan D.A.'s office, they get it, they're great. I have equal amounts of confidence in them. And again, that's coming from someone critical of the Manhattan District Attorney's office in the transition from Vance to Bregg. Does that surprise you and what do you make of it, Karen?

No, that doesn't surprise me at all. The Manhattan D.A.'s office has always been known as one of the premier state prosecutors offices in the country. I was there for three decades and I hired many of the people who work there. And so it just makes me proud. Of course, they're excellent.

Of course, they're extraordinary. And yeah, Bragg, I think is doing a great job. He had a little bit of a rough beginning as did Sivans, as did. I went to a, a new book came out on the history of Robert Morgan Thaw. And when he started 35 years prior in the 70s, he had a rough start, you know, that's just what it is when you, when you're a new DA, and you have to get your sea legs. So, no, I'm not surprised. Alvin Bragg is a very, very good person. He's a nice person. He's a smart person. And he's turning out to be, I think, a really good DA with a few bumps along the road, like, like, which is to be expected. But no, I'm not surprised because the men and women at the Manhattan DA's officer among the finest lawyers I've ever met in my life. And I'm just happy to hear that.

And when Karen saying that just for our new viewers to legal AF, Karen Friedman Agniflo is very humble, but she was the number two in the in the entire Manhattan DA's office of thousands. How many lawyers were there in the office and staff? There's about 500 lawyers, about 1,300 staff. We had $120 million budget. It was a real operation. It was a big deal. And Karen was pretty much running the operation with, of course, help by all the great lawyers

and staff that worked with you. But as the number two there, you come with very unique perspective. So at the top of the show, too, we're talking about a lot of these issues, like the January 6th footage being given to insurrectionists where I want to get your perspective from a prosecutor of how that could impact cases. But we talked about this on the last episode I co-hosted with you and Popo was not available. This idea of Donald Trump threatening the prosecutors, threatening Foney Willis, threatening the Manhattan District Attorney's Office,

threatening Leticia James Attorney General of New York, threatening Jack Smith. I mean, I think he, in the past 48 hours, he's called Jack Smith, mad dog psycho. He's attacked Jack Smith's wife, family, and friends, and relentlessly saying horrific and horrible things about them, although as I joked with my brothers on the Midas Touch podcast, someone called me mad dog psycho. I may take it as a compliment.

I'm not really quite sure yet. It's kind of a tough name. But how unusual, like even mobsters though, and the mafia, which I think is, there's a good comparison there between Trump and mobsters in the mafia. It's one that Michael Cohen makes, but to actually see someone so brazenly, so out in the open, attacking prosecutors

themselves, their family, their wives, like do you think this will be exhibits? Could this form independent? Does across the line into obstruction of justice? Like how do you react as a former prosecutor in this behavior that just continues to escalate? Well, he just acts like a desperate bully. I mean, he seems like he's the bad dog put in a corner,

right, that just doesn't know what else to do, but attack because he has nothing left. He has no facts. But it's true. He has no facts. He has no truth. Because if he did, he would come out and say that, right? So all he does is his name call and act like a bully.

And the good thing about, so Jack Smith also comes from the Manhattan D.A.'s office. I have to do that. You know Jack. I do know Jack, yeah, we started together. We were in the same small unit together and we worked together for years. He's fantastic and he's great.

But the good thing about working at the Manhattan D.A.''s office is, and I say that because of at least the Jack Smith's investigation and the people he works with and has worked with, as well as Alvin Bragg's investigation, those are the major leagues. The Manhattan DA's office isn't just some podonk local prostate prosecutor's office. It really is the major leagues.

And the Manhattan D.A's office has historically handled some of the most important criminal cases in the whole country. And so they're used to it. They're used to a lot of pressure and name calling on the outside from the press, from interest groups, from defendants. And you just learn how to turn off the noise. You put your head down and you follow the facts where they lead. And if there's a case to be brought, and there's evidence that's admissible, and that's the just thing to do, that's what prosecutors do. But you learn how to turn

off the noise. And you have to just stay focused on what you do. And so him making all this noise isn't phasing or bothering anybody. This is just what he does. He blusters. If anything, it makes him look more desperate and it makes him look really scared. So I don't think anybody is bothered by it. Is it obstruction? I mean, he does some witness tampering like things. You know, when he bullies those witnesses or arranges for them to do or say what he wants them to say and do their bidding. But he's just, like I said,

this is a historic moment in time where we know there are three criminal grand juries that will be hearing evidence and considering whether or not to bring charges all about the same time. And who goes first and what happens first, I think, you know, who knows who that's going to be. But to me, it's stunning where we are. And I know that people are frustrated that things are

taking a long time and Fanny Willis probably shouldn't have said the word imminent, you know, that I think got a lot of people's hopes up about when charges would be brought. But these things take time as you yourself and Professor Pope Pock have always said over and over and over again, I know people are tired of hearing it. And I was tired, frankly, because I didn't even think they were doing what they needed to do to get into the grand jury.

It seemed very slow and stalled in all three of the jurisdictions, but there is no doubt right now that they are actively in the grand jury presenting evidence and the only thing that comes next is to finish the evidence and then take a vote. And grand jurors have, there's 23 people. And you need to have a quorum.

And it's just a majority vote, that's it. So we'll see, it's a probable cause standard or reasonable cause to believe that crime was committed. But you know, in a high profile case like this, they wouldn't just present probable cause. They would make sure that they had enough proof beyond a reasonable doubt in these cases. So if indictments come and I think they will, in all three jurisdictions, you will see evidence that the prosecutors themselves believe they

can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, one of the things that I think will become a theme of this episode, which you just mentioned, is the presentation of evidence. Evidence matters so much. We are an evidence-based system. I think all of our viewers should be reminded how important evidence is Not just evidence, but but admissible evidence Right exactly you know and

admissible evidence in court but but facts you know, and, and missable evidence in court, but, but facts. Here are what the facts are. Here is what the documents show. Here are photographs. Here are, here are things that are real. Not the tweets, not the social media posts, not the BS documentaries. Here are the facts, right? The reason Donald Trump lost over 70 cases, federal state, in front of his own judges, that he appointed in front of other Republican judges, in front of all federal judges, and state court judges, not because they were all part of a secret society that just, if we don't like Trump, he didn't provide evidence of election fraud capable of overturning the results. And he had ample, ample ability to do so if it existed.

And when we talk about the importance of evidence, I'm reminded again, we see this format right now, although it's not a courtroom, we're starting to see what happens where the MAGA Republicans are holding these committee hearings. And they're trying to say the things that maybe they get away with when they go on Fox, which we'll talk about a bit later on the show and how Fox is just an outright propaganda network. We see it in the text messages and the emails. But then they try to bring that into committee hearings and they're one liners that I guess work on Tucker Carlson

to a segment of the population when it's confronted by evidence and facts and frankly a lot of these democratic members of Congress who are lawyers. I mean, when you talk about Jamie Raskin and Dan Goldman, I mean, former top federal prosecutor and Eric Swalwell, former top state prosecutor, Dan Goldman, former top federal prosecutor who prosecuted some of the biggest cases out of the SDNY. When you're talking about Jamie Raskin, Harvard Law, one of the most renowned constitutional

law professors started a whole institution at American University and they're going through and saying, okay, you are saying weaponization? Well can we talk about the dates? Let's start with the dates. In 2020, who was the president? Okay, let's start with that fact. And then you want to talk about what Trump was doing when he was praising she, you want to talk about

what Trump was doing when he was spreading these conspiracy theories or when he was calling this media organization or that social media company because he thought that there was mean posts about him and he wanted him to take it down. Let's follow the evidence, which brings me to the next point, which is one of the topics we're talking about, which is the fact that you have Congress, though,

so desperately trying to turn over this surveillance footage from inside the Capitol building over the objections of the chief of Capitol police, who says, you're going to give away information about safe rooms, about how we protect members of the House of Representatives, and the Senate. Don't turn that over. It's the only reason why the January 6th committee was very careful in what they released. Public spaces, rotunda, outside, and it all had to be cleared. And even then, it was reluctantly cleared by the Capitol Police, but it went through a process.

But here you have the Maga Republicans as part of the deal they made. So Kevin McCarthy could obtain the speakership and you could have all of these outrageous committee hearings, which by the way are just backfiring masterfully on the Republicans. Bring on more of those committee hearings, by the way, is Kevin McCarthy and the mega Republicans turning over this capital security footage first to Tucker Carlson exclusively. And we could argue on the semantics

that he actually turned him over, like they're not tapes, like he gave him access, exclusive access to review things. Tucker Carlson, who we're gonna talk about later in the show, has text messages admitting to lying and calling the viewers, effing lunatics, but saying that this is what we need to do to preserve our ratings and we don't want Trump to destroy us. That's who gets the first exclusive look. I mean, that very relationship

sounds to be unlawful and collusive in my view, but then what do they do next? They then turn it over and provide access to the January 6th insurrectionist. And Karen, what I really want you to go through and explain is one, you're overall view of this. But two, as a prosecutor, it's not like these capital, it is not like these insurrectionists don't have a path to get these records that are relevant to your point relevant and admissible in their case. They do and they do get it where a judge determines through the discovery process that it is relevant and missable evidence in their case. So that process already exists. So here, this is some very strange and unfortunate

and fascist leaning fascist, performative stuff to rally behind the insurrectionists. What's going on here, Karen? So from a prosecutor, just we'll get to the other question, the what's going on here question in a minute, but from just what the prosecutors go through and what their obligations are is when they're going to when they're going to present a case and I've done cases involving big riots and lots of people and and where you charge many, many, many, many people, and there's lots of people involved. And it's a painstaking process. What you have to do is you have to go through the videos and you have to identify, if I'm wearing a bright pink shirt,

you'd look for the bright pink shirt in the videos. You try to follow the person and you follow them both kind of into the capital and then out of the capital. You try to trace their footsteps the entire way so that you can account for everything they did while they were in there. And it sounds like the capital has lots of cameras from lots of different angles because as we know the January 6th insurrection didn't take 40,000 hours. So, all right, so to get to 40,000 hours worth of video, it's got to be the different camera angles, different hallways, different people, et cetera.

And so you're going to have prosecutors who will have gone through and investigators, FBI agents, et cetera, going through and finding the, whoever you're charging with a crime, from the minute they stepped into the Capitol building, to the minute that they go off camera. And if there's any gaps, they would talk about that too. But, and that's what they do.

And what they also have an obligation, and that's what they'll present to the jury. But what they also have an obligation to do, in all cases, prosecutors have an obligation to do, in all cases, prosecutors have an obligation to find Brady material. And that comes from a United States Supreme Court case called Brady versus Maryland, where it talks about how prosecutors have an obligation to find ex-culpatory information and turn it over. And you have to actually identify it as Brady. So they can't say, oh, well, you had the 14, you know,

because I guess the prosecutors turned over 14,000 of the 41,000 hours of tapes to the defense. They can't just say, oh, you had all 14,000 hours of tapes. There's Brady in there. So, so therefore you had it. You actually have an obligation to identify it as Brady for the defense. And so if there was any Brady and then it contained in any of those tapes, I'm sure they would have turned it over because prosecutors know their obligation. And Brady is defined as anything that could tend to ex-cultate or show that the defendant might up, you know, in favor of the defendant, you know, that he could be somehow innocent, that he didn't do it, or something that contradicts the prosecution's evidence, that sort of thing.

And that's what's in Brady material. So the prosecutors, well, you know, as a prosecutor, you would say, well, we'd have turned over the 14,000 hours. I'm sure they went through the 14,000 hours themselves and picked out anything that's relevant, admissible, or Brady to the particular defendants as well as turning over all of it to them. But what's crazy or what's happening now is Kevin McCarthy got a hold of the remaining 27,000 hours of video and that's what they're turning over. And it sounds like the D.O.J., the prosecutors did not have access to those video footage. So if I'm the prosecutor, I'd be a little worried that perhaps

there might be something that could be called Brady in there. However I really do think I can't imagine what it could be because I really do think they will have gotten everything involving the individuals who they were prosecuting. But perhaps they talked about a theory of the case or something else involving the case and there might be a video that contradicts that or shows something different. I don't know. It's when you have something as chaotic as the January 6th insurrection, there's going to be something that is slightly different than somebody's memory or somebody was noticing, you know, something, but they were focused on this and not focused on that. And so they missed something. And so really,

what this, I don't think this is going to be substantively significant, but it's going to be a big headache for the prosecutors because the defense attorneys, the 900 or 1000 defendants who have either gone to trial or played guilty already, who are called, you know, that's convicted, they're all gonna say, oh, well, you know, we want access to this and we wanna review it and we think there might be Brady in there, we want new trials or we want our please back because we didn't have this information

and the, I think the proud boys are two weeks into their trial. And, you know, they're already asked for a continuance so that they can have time to review this and have some, have a pause in the proceeding. So it's already having a big impact on the, on the Department of Justice. Again, I don't think I would worry that it's going to overturn anything because I think they were methodical and did a good job. So I do think in the end it'll be okay, but this is a huge headache

for them and they're now going to have to answer all of these motions. And it's just when you think that the cases were over, they are definitely not over. And then there's, of course, a separate issue, having nothing to do with the cases, involving capital security and whether or not these should have been turned over to begin with. And whether or not Kevin McCarthy is endangering the lives

of members of Congress, including himself, by the way. So if he wants to turn over all the secrets on how he's protected, I guess that's on him. So that's a whole separate issue that they're doing. But I think that I've heard people say that this could have been Kevin McCarthy's goal all along to get this to the defendants to try to upend the patriots, you know, how they call them patriots, the insurrectionists, which I actually think they're traitors.

But you know, that they want to get it to them so that they can somehow get them, you know, get them, you know, a new trial or, or exonerated in some way. I mean, look, if the next president is Republican, he's going to come and he's, and, or he or she, is going to pardon all of these individuals anyway, you know, that's what they want to do. They view them as heroes and patriots. That's what they want to do. They view them as heroes and patriots. That's what's the most disgusting thing here because there would have been a time in our history

for all the disagreements that may exist between political parties where we could look at what took place and say terrorists are bad. These insurrectionist terrorists are bad. Yet in 2023, you don't, you don't have that. And so for me, when people are like, oh, you know, this is, you're so political like, and I'm like, because I believe

insurrectionists are bad. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's a political view. I mean, I think don't we optionally all agree with that? And that global pandemics we should take serious like doesn't that something that should be relatively not controversial when we take it we take it seriously and that you know people who show up at hospitals who are dying should be treated with humanity and and get life saving care and not be sent to where

or we don't you don't feel that way anymore, Republicans, or we believe in free and fair elections, or earlier today, Donald Trump posted a QAnon meme on his social media. Does it like every day? But like, hey, we don't like death cults here, right? Can we all agree on that? It's kind of the upside down

with what the Republican Party has has become. And it's of really unfortunate because I miss the days of having civil discourse and and and disagreement, but ultimately advancing the interest of the country and and and and hopefully the world. You mentioned two points, though, there about the strategy behind what Kevin McCarthy does. And I think it's just important to briefly unpack once again, number one, you know how like the MAGA Republicans talk about virtue signaling? Well, would they engage in something I like to call fascist signaling? And so one part of what McCarthy's doing here is fascist signaling, letting everybody

know, letting the new MAGA Republican base, the Trump cultist form of the base, that new base. No, look, we believe that these insurrectionists are political prisoners. We got there back. We're going to tuck our first. Then we got the insurrectionists. These are the people who we care about. That's number one.

And then number two to cause strategic delay to actually try to cripple the department of justice to your point, Karen, this likely isn't going to change a single outcome of any case. But that's not what McCarthy's doing. You see everybody, it's far more insidious than that, which is why having Karen's perspective here as a prosecutor is so incredible. Because what McCarthy is actually trying to do is the equivalent where you go to, you file a lawsuit and the

defendants represented by like a large law firm and you ever hear the expression like well they're just trying to paper you to death basically. It's a version of that, which is like dump thousands of hours of irrelevant footage and throw it into the matter, even though it doesn't matter. Your own personal safety, our national security be damned because that is how we are going to own the DOJ and cripple, uh, Merrick Garland for a broader ambition of trying to distract them from other prerogatives and existing important prosecutions uh... and i'm just reminded to of the lack of civility uh... completely disgusting nature

earlier in the day when america rland went in front of the senate uh... committee and people like josh holi who puts his fist up and then runs away like a little chicken, you know what during the insurrection or people like Ted Cruz who run away to Cancun the moment that there is a natural disaster in their state, among other completely cowardly conduct where they just go there. Oh, and the Louisiana Republican John Kennedy. And they either take the approach of just yelling at Merrick Arland, yelling at him and not letting him speak, because they're competing for their sound bite on Fox. They want to get invited.

So they think that just by yelling at him, and not even letting him answer the question, that that's just how they communicate it it because they don't actually care about the answer or spreading a conspiracy theory like Republican Kennedy did when he was just like, so, you know, why would you tell the Department of Justice to arrest parents during COVID who care about their children? And Merrick Arland's like, what are you talking about? That's not what the memo said at all. If there were individuals making terrorist threats against the schools and we're going to kill you or blow it up, that is within the purview

of the FBI and the Department of Justice. But Senator, if you look at the first line of the memorandum, it says that people have an absolute right and a first amendment right to engage in vigorous debate and exercise their first amendment rights and have legitimate disagreements. That's absolutely protecting under the Constitution, but you can't threaten terrorist acts against schools because they're trying to implement safety measures, that is what the Department of Justice and the FBI was focused on there. All right, let's talk though about now. To me, a lot of these issues are related as we talk about here McCarthy turning over the footage of the insurrectionist.

And here we have a MAGA Republican former attorney general in the state of Arizona who conducted an investigation because of all the allegations of election fraud in the state by Donald Trump as part of the conspiracy theories invested 10,000 hours into it. Actually had a report that conclusively demonstrated there was no election for out of the state of Arizona, capable of overturning the results of the 2020 election. But instead of showing the report to the public, the Arizona Republic in Attorney General, who's no longer in office, Mark Bronovitch,

buried it, hid it, concealed it, took photos with Donald Trump, praised Donald Trump, and went on Trump proxy propaganda, like banning show and others, and basically intimated or outright stated that the system was rigged and that there was election fraud. So when there wasn't. So the governor through her general counsel or chief counsel, the new governor of Arizona Katie Hobbs made a referral to the state bar to look into the ethics behind what Bronovitch

did. My own view is that Bronovitch should lose his legal license. I think it is the utmost breach of trust. It violates all of his ethical responsibilities. What do you think, Karen? Yeah, this, first of all, this report that he commissioned, I'm positive that he didn't pay for that himself, right, that he used taxpayer dollars to commission this report. And as such, and even if he didn't, if he, if somehow they did it for free or whatever, this is the property of the government.

This doesn't belong to him. This wasn't his own personal report that he did. He had access to things that he only had access to because of his position. And so this report was the property of the people of the good state of Arizona. It didn't, it was not his personal property. And it certainly wasn't his personal property to Barry and to hide. And thank God for Chris Mays, who's the current Attorney General, and she is a trained investigator

because she's the Attorney General. And so she went and didn't investigation into her internal computer systems to see if the report was ever done. And she worked her way backwards. I'd love to know if she had to go into deleted files and that sort of thing, but they found the report and they found that this

report completely debunked these conspiracy theories and totally cleared Maricopa County officials of any wrongdoing. This should have been released. The people had a right to know this information and the fact that he continued to promote the big lie and the fact that he continued to promote the big lie, and the fact that he hid this information. What was stunning to me about both this case as well as the Dominion Voting System,

Voting Machine case that we're gonna talk about, the Fox Files case. What's stunning to me is that, and you've been saying this all along, and a lot of people have been saying this all along, and maybe I'm just a little bit late to the party, but there are a lot of people who were talking about the big lie, and a lot of the people were people

that I love and respect in my circle of family and friends. And so there was a there was part of me for a long time thinking, they must actually believe it. You know, like that all these people must actually believe that Trump won because, you know, I feel like some of these people are really good people. And what these stories show is they knew that it was false. They believe it was false, but they would promote the lie anyway. And that to me is disgraceful.

And really, you know, that's where it goes from, you know, we just disagree, right? I have this, like you were talking about earlier about you know kind of a dis you know a civil discourse You know that you have with with a family member who used to be you know a Republican But now you know when I say a Republican I mean like old school Republican and Democrat, you know you talk about taxes or you talk about law enforcement or whatever those types of things and You know in the in the beginning I and again I maybe this is just me, but I thought, well, maybe they really believe Trump won.

And I really was like, what, I wanted to understand, why do people believe that, you know? And what these stories are showing is that what you've been saying all along is true. It's, they knew it wasn't true. They knew it was a lie lie and they promoted it anyway to get their way. And I find that to be so offensive and disgraceful. It's one thing to genuinely disagree, but to know something is a lie and you're a public servant. You are the attorney general of Arizona. You are the top law enforcement officer charged to enforce the law and protect the people

of the state of Arizona. And you know that there's a report that shows that this entire theory is a lie. And you promote that lie and you bury the report, I think that's a crime. I don't know why we stopped at a disciplinary action to frame to lose his license. I think he, I think that what he did was a crime and a crime perpetrated on the people of the state of Arizona.

I think it's outrageous, actually. To your point that it is a crime and it's a great point, I'll tell our viewers to check out this portion. It's one of the, not talked about as much as some of these other explosive committee hearing moments that have already taken place this week, but there was a moment where Democratic Congress member Dan Goldman questioned Sheriff Mark Lamb of Penal County in Arizona, who was a big kind of Trump or MAGA. And Sheriff Lamb was there basically to try to really go after Biden on the border and think the Republicans kind of set that up. Congressman Goldman kind of had of, you know, asked some questions that said, oh, by the

way, do you believe that the election was stolen in 2020? Sheriff Lam was caught off guard, but his answer was a bit Freudian and a bit actually he told the truth. He goes, there's no evidence of that to support that. But the first thing he basically said, as a law enforcement officer, I must say that there is no evidence to support that. It was such an interesting framing of how we're saying it. First off, one of these mega supporters who go at all of the rallies, getting caught off guard and admitting it to in the moment because he didn't expect the question coming. But to your point, he says, as a law enforcement

officer knowing, given the position, it could be a crime to just outright lie about that NBA sheriff. And there could be repercussions. And knowing that there is a Democratic administration, a Democratic 8G. Now, Chris Mays, a Democratic Secretary of State, Adrian Fonte, and Arizona, a Democratic governor, Katie Homs, there was a layer, even if for that fleeting moment of accountability. We gotta talk about some of these Fox messages as well, because this is explosive, but I really wanna talk more about the implications

of them on the legal case, as that trial is set to start in April, right after these quick messages. And now let's think of quick break to talk about our next partner, Zbiotics. You ever skip a workout because of drinks the night before? Well, me too. If you're committed to your healthy routine this year, you need Zbiotics. Zbiotics pre-alcohol probiotic is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. So here's

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Remember, head to zbiotics.com slash legalaif and use code legalaif at checkout for 15% off. Thank you, zbiotics, for sponsoring this and now back to the video. All right, we are back. Let's go through these messages briefly. We've talked about them at length on the Midest Touch Network.

So I don't need to read all of the messages again. The one I will highlight though is this fact that during Trump's campaign, Rupert Murdock provided Trump's son-in-law, and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, with Fox Confidential Information about Biden's ads, along with debate strategy, and there's the exact portion of the deposition transcript where Rupert Murdock admits to that.

There's also this moment where Rupert Murdock admits that he was platforming these hosts who he knew to be lying and spreading election disinformation. And then this one moment was particularly poignant for me, which kind of sums it up. It's what took place the day before the insurrection. Rupert Murdock understood that Fox could do something about the false claims. Indeed, he believed Fox was, quote,

uniquely positioned to state the message that the election was not stolen. End quote on January 5th, Rupert Murdock and Suzanne Scott, the CEO of Fox, discussed whether Hannity, Carlson and Ingram should say some version of quote, the election is over and Joe Biden won. He hoped those words would quote, would quote, go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election was stolen. Suzanne Scott told Rupert Murdock and the CEO of Fox told Rupert Murdock that quote, privately, they are all there.

Quote, but we need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers. So nobody made a statement. The next day was the January 6th insurrection. There's also a moment in there where Rupert Murdock says that for him. He didn't care that it was red or blue. He cares about the green. He cares about the money at the end of the day. And that was his motive. This is a defamation

lawsuit brought by Dominion. It's set to go to trial in April. The procedural posture of this new motion that was unsealed is that Fox tried and is filing, has filed a motion for summary judgment asking the court to throw out the case before it even goes to trial. That's how arrogant Foxes, with all of the evidence, they are citing the what's called the neutral news gathering privilege. In other words, Foxes arguing, we were just promoting news. Even if it was controversial news, that was it. We were just hosting guests. That's all we were

doing. We weren't doing more than that, but Dominion's lawyers put deposition transcripts of Rupert Murdoch that just totally guts that theory right there. Here's the questioning on Rupert Murdoch's deposition from Dominion's lawyer question. you are aware now that Fox did more than simply host these guests and give them a platform correct answer I think you've shown me some material in support of that. So Karen from my view right there summary judgment denied That's the standard and that that's the standard. Did you do more? Then simply just report on news and say this is Incorrect or inaccurate news, but we have we're talking about it Did you actually platform it and endorse it?

And then there's clearly a bunch of other text messages that are just so damning and damaging we spend we can spend hours and I did spend hours Talking about we don't need to do that here, but let's talk about the legal ramifications. So Do you think that Fox is gonna, I think Fox will lose this motion, but is this going to go to trial? Do you think Dominion could win their summary judgment motion that we talked about two weeks ago? What's going on? I think there's enough here to get to trial, personally, but at trial, I do think defamation against a news agency, even in an egregious case like this is hard, it's hard to do because news agencies have, I've been afforded, a huge

first amendment protection. So, interestingly, so today I'm at this conference in Miami and the keynote speaker at lunch today was Camille Vasquez, the attorney who represented Johnny Dep in a defamation case. And so I feel like this is defamation day for me, but just to remind everybody in a defamation case like this because these are all public figures, the standard at trial that they'd have to prove

is actual malice. And actual malice is defined in this context. Either they knew it was false or they were so reckless that they disregarded information that it was false. And I think the text messages and depositions and things that you read kind of point to the fact that they knew it was false. And so they weren't just reporting on, oh, this is what Giuliani said, or this is what Trump said. You know, because even if they kind of think

it sounds a little outlandish, that is news, right? That is newsworthy that even just the fact that Giuliani or Trump are making these kinds of claims. But when they take it one step further and actually endorse it as true, I mean, there was that reporter who said that came forward, the woman who came forward

and said that it wasn't true. And then there's all those text messages and emails saying, oh, we should fire her, get her off the air. It's tell her to stop doing this because as you said, it was hitting their bottom line. So whether they're going to be able to meet the high burden of actual malice in a news organization defamation case where they do have these big, huge first amendment protections that allows news organizations to make mistakes.

That, you know, I guess, will be up to a jury, but I do think they get to a jury and I do think of all the news defamation cases that I've seen, you know, that have come forward. I think this one comes close and I think that the more than comes close, I think they have a really good shot. I mean, this, not only did they not, not only do they know it was a lie, this was actually their business strategy. So, we'll see, we'll see what, you know, Jury's can do whatever they're going to do.

But I think here, I think the summary judgment motion, I think they get past the summary judgment motion stage and they get to get to a jury. Yeah, you know, and I think, frankly, the summary judgment filed by Dominion versus the summary judgment filed by Fox makes a more compelling case than me. If the judge was going to grant either side's summary judgment, I think they should grant dominions, which would just mean the case only focuses on damages. But because it is a very high profile case, and it is a case involving a media defendant where there to your point,

Karen, are a lot of protections there, even though I have strong degrees of confidence here that Dominions got well past to defeat any of those immunities and protections. The safest thing for a judge to do in a situation like this, not what I would do as a judge, but that's why no one's making Ben Myceles the judge anytime soon, but the safest thing for a judge to probably do here is say, you know what? Instead of getting reversed or overturned, there's a lot of factual issues here. Let's have a jury trial in April.

Let the jury hear it. Maybe the case settles before it goes to a jury. I personally hope it doesn't settle so that I want to see Tucker and Ingram and Hannity and Murdoch's and Suzanne Scott and all of these people. I want to see them on the stand, but we will, you know, so I hope they don't settle, but I think this case ultimately goes to trial for that reason, even though I think that summary judgment in my favor could potentially buy an aggressive judge be granted for dominion

given that they've just, they've laid out all the facts and you got all those deposition transcripts that's just so damning where the Fox people, they have to admit it because they wrote in text messages and emails contemporaneously. We see their messages. I guess they were so arrogant, they never thought it would see the light of day, but that's why you have civil discovery and dominion lawyers have done just an incredible, incredible job here.

And finally, I don't want to get too much in the weeds, but I think it's helpful just to update our listeners and viewers about a important case that's gone before the Supreme Court, Biden versus Nebraska. And it's got another associated case filed by individuals in Texas. But in these cases, it's the culmination of lawsuits filed by Republican proxy groups and states across the country to stop Biden's student debt cancellation program, the Department of Education under Biden utilized what's called the Heroes Act. It's an act passed in 2003, which provides certain powers to the Secretary of Education to do things like modify student loans.

And the Heroes Act, while it has a strong military component to it, also has language in there that specifically refers to or other national emergencies. So even the Trump administration invoked the Heroes Act when it engaged in forbearance on debt collection. We're still in that forbearance period right now, which said to expire in late June or July, it keeps getting extended. But the eighth circuit court of appeals, and then ultimately a district court in Texas, a Trump appoint to judge, then ultimately the Fifth Circuit rulings combined effect was to block the student debt cancellation program from taking effect, the Biden administration appeal to

the Supreme Court. They got basically a fast track writ of search theory, so it could be heard as a normal oral argument, oral argument was held this week, the court, the the the right wingers on the court who outnumber the other judges six to three seem like they're looking for a way to strike down the student debt cancellation program. So I don't have a great degree of confidence that the student debt cancellation program will ultimately come into effect based on the oral arguments that I held. The one thing that has the barrier that the individuals who have sued the Biden administration first have to overcome is that they have standing and the states argued somehow they're

tax. They're going to be able to collect less taxes, essentially, it's a little more complicated than that, but that's basically their argument that they're not going to be able to collect less taxes, essentially, it's a little more complicated than that, but that's basically their argument that they're not going to be able to collect the same amount of revenue because of student debt cancellation. Then you had these individuals who sued one who would only get $10,000 in relief instead of $20,000 in relief. Another student who had commercial loans who wouldn't get any relief under the student debt cancellation, and they argued because we're not getting the benefits.

Therefore, that's an injury. And to that, I say, if that's an injury, then every time the banks get bailed out and Wall Street gets bailed out and corporations get bailed out, that's an injury to me. I should get, everyone should get $8 billion, I suppose, if we're going to be bailing out certain industries. The bottom line is that, look, you may disagree with Biden's policies, but here's the thing. First off, it's surgically done. It generally impacts lower income Americans significantly, and it's capped at $10,000

in student debt cancellation, which often is basically the interest when you think about it for a lot of these student debt loans, not even the principal. So you're talking about cancellation of $10,000 and $20,000 on Pell grants versus, you know, in other administrations we've seen student debt cancellation, that's student debt cancellation. We've seen debt cancellation or other types of bailouts of industries and bankruptcy to the tunes of billions of dollars per entity or per corporation. And so to me, it's hard to say, well, this group can get it.

The Supreme Court will say, it's okay when billionaires get it. But when you do a targeted program that seeks to help lower income Americans and middle class Americans in this targeted way, uh, uh, that's unconstitutional. But the other ones are fine. And so that to me is whether you support it or whether you don't support it, it seems that the Supreme Court and all of these courts, which are heavily influenced by Republican appointing judges, are just applying a different sentence. Personally, if you want to know my views, I support this due to debt cancellation program. But my politics

aside, you know, if you think about PPP and other bailouts, you have the same Republicans who are getting their debt extinguished now saying, it's not fair for $10,000 in debt to get extinguished from students. And I'll make one more point, and I'm sorry for hugging this topic, but I do feel a bit passionate about it. It is actually helpful for the economy. It's a net plus for the economy

because there's so many people who are, even if you had to pay your student loans and you think that, hey, this is unfair. And you feel that strongly, I would just have you reflect for a moment that there are so many people being strangled in this economy who can't buy houses, who have horrible credit, who can't engage in paying their bills, and that this money would actually be injected into the economy, and would actually be a net plus for you is what economists say.

So that's my overall perspective on it. I don't want to harp too much on it, but I'd love to get your perspective. Yeah, look, I mean, there's the legal perspective on this, right? This is a true separation of power is question. You know, the Congress is, is who passes laws and who passes laws to give out money. And, you know, the president basically doesn't have the ability to do that unless Congress

acts. And so that's what this kind of, and then the courts interpret the law, obviously. So, and that's what the discussion boils down to from a legal perspective, putting aside your views of whether it's fair or not. And, you know, that's what they were focusing on in the Supreme Court was two things. They were focusing on, is this, does this fall within what's called the major questions doctrine? And the major questions doctrine is basically a principle of statutory interpretation

that says, if Congress wants to give an administrative agency the power to make decisions of vast economic and political significance, it must do so clearly. So what they're saying is Biden doesn't have the Supreme Court said was, no, the major questions doctrine doesn't apply here because unlike other cases where the court has applied that doctrine, here, the Department of Education is saying, we're not doing this as, within our regulatory authority, right? We don't even need to have regulatory authority to do this. We're doing this through the Heroes Act, which Congress has already provided the mechanism and the ability to do this.

In fact, Trump, as you said, paused the student loans. So this isn't a major questions doctrine. It's really a statutory interpretation question. And the statute in question in the Heroes Act says that basically in the case of any emergency that the education secretary has the ability to waive or modify this, right, the loans. So those are the two words that were debated in depth in front of the Supreme Court. Is this a waiver or is this a modification? And Chief Justice Roberts said, no, this isn't a mere modification of student loans.

This is half a trillion dollars and 43 million Americans. That doesn't fit within the normal definition of what modifying is. And Kavanaugh said that modify might not fit, but what about wave? Wave is an extremely broad word. And Gorsuch said that they went back and forth on on kind of all of this, but you know, that's what this is going to boil down to. This is going to boil down to a political philosophical decision shoehorned through whether you're going to decide, does it fit this definition or that definition, or does this person of standing or that person have standing? And so they're going to cloak it under the

guys of the words weren't put in there, but it's really going to be a political, philosophical decision that's going to, I think, come down on party lines the way so many decisions before the Supreme Court have lately. It's really a shame, but that's really what the case is. What do I think? I think absolutely, it not only fits legally within the letter of the law, but I think it's the fair and right thing to do.

Couldn't agree more with you. I think your analysis is spot on. And finally, I just wanna leave with this piece of breaking news obviously that dropped slightly earlier today that I think it is important we cover, which is Kellyanne Conway has met with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office as well in connection with their criminal investigation of Donald Trump. Of course, Kellyanne Conway is his one-time chief strategist and White House advisor. And she was seen meeting with Minat and District Attorney Alvin Bragg earlier. She was

walking into the District Attorney's office shortly before 2 p.m. on Wednesday and is the latest, of course, as we mentioned earlier in the show, of the string of witnesses to meet with the prosecutor in the last few months. And she was there during the campaign. She was there during the White House. And Dan Goldman, who I mentioned also, even named a new law that he introduced after her, which he calls the Kellyanne Conway Law, which is to make it a criminal offense to violations of the Hatch Act, which Kellyanne Conway and the Trump administration violated repeatedly will give you more updates as we learn more about what took place.

In the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, and of course, we will get Michael Cohen's reaction to it tomorrow on the political beatdown. Karen, let me tell you something about Kelly and Conway really quick in the Manhattan DA's office. So, not everyone knows this, but the Manhattan DA's or the DA's office, you don't have the power to force someone to come talk to you. And you have subpoena power, but your subpoena power is only through either the grand jury or at trial.

And the way to get trial subpoena power is you have to have a pending case. So the only way they could get Kellyanne Conway to go to the Manhattan DA's office would be that she voluntarily came and said she would go talk to them voluntarily or she was given a grand jury subpoena. And if she was given a grand jury subpoena, that doesn't even entitle a prosecutor to question someone if they don't want to be questioned. And if she was given a grand jury, Sapina, that doesn't even entitle a prosecutor to question someone if they don't want to be questioned. They can insist on going into the grand jury and only giving their testimony to the grand

jury. So, I just want to point that out as a procedural point for people to just know that she's either they're voluntarily or she was sapinaed to the grand jury and may have testified. And an important one at that Karen Freeman, Agnifalo, always in honor to host this with you. I know that Michael Popack is always disappointed when he can't do the Wednesday editions. I know how much he loves doing these mid weeks with you. We also live for each other. Exactly, exactly.

And we want to thank all the Midas Mighty out there for all of your incredible support. We're marching to 1 million subscribers in the month of March in March. So please hit the subscribe button right now to help us get to 1 million subscribers. Also, make sure wherever you get your podcasts, that you audio your podcasts that you

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