Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump ARRESTED, INDICTED, ARRAIGNED and LOSING HIS MIND

Episode Date: August 6, 2023

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast Legal AF is back for another hard-hitting look at the most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this weekend’s edition the anchors discuss: 1. The DC arrest, arraignment and release of Trump for the latest Special Counsel Jack Smith Jan6 prosecution, including the District Judge ordering the parties to be prepared for an 8/28 ruling on when the trial will be set; 2. Trump threatening federal prosecutors on social media following the arraignment, and the prosecutors firing back with a motion for protective order, now set to be decided by the District Judge early next week; 3. The "defenses" raised by Trump's trial team, on the streets in front of the courthouse and on right wing television, and their relative "merit," 4. udates in Fulton County Georgia DA's impending indictment of Trump and others for Georgia election interreference crimes, including Trump losing yet another attempt to have DA Willis disqualified and the body of work performed by the special purpose grand jury over 7 months thrown in the trash bin, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! LIQUID IV: Get 20% off when you go to https://Liquid-IV.com and use code LEGALAF at checkout! REEL PAPER: Head to https://REELPAPER.com/LEGALAF and sign up for a subscription using code LEGALAF at checkout, and automatically get 30% off your first order and FREE SHIPPING! SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop NEW 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 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 MAGA Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Donald Trump indicted again, arrested again, fingerprinted and arraigned. That's right. A Washington DC grand jury returned a four count criminal indictment against Donald Trump in connection with special counsel Jack Smith's criminal case for Donald Trump's crimes relating to the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection. First, let's talk about the indictment, the counts, the co-conspirators, the surgical precision

with which special counsel Jack Smith crafted this indictment in order to get a 20, 24 trial before the election. Next, let's talk about the federal judge presiding over this case. The judge who was assigned is none other than federal judge, Tanya Chutkin, along with the magistrate judge, up-ya-ya, law and order judges, Trump's worst nightmare. And these judges who are the complete opposite of Judge Eileen Cannon down in the Southern District of Florida, they are already moving this case forward in an expedited manner. Then let's talk about the arraignment before the magistrate judge where Donald Trump

pled not guilty, what went down inside the court, what went down outside the court, and let's talk about the next major hearing set to take place on August 28th and the warning that was given to Donald Trump by the magistrate judge, which doesn't seem like Donald Trump has followed. By the way, Popeyes, did you see that the Democrats in the House of Representatives led by Congress member Adam Schiff sent a letter to the administrator of the federal courts requesting that all case proceedings be televised. Not sure they're going to allow it, but I'm glad that Democrats at least are asking for transparency. Then let's turn to the frivolous defenses that

Donald Trump's attorneys have been parading to the media. They're claiming this is a freedom of speech issue. It's an advice of council issue. They were relying on John Eastman. And also, Trump's lawyers are arguing that Washington DC is not a fair venue. Pope Akinai will describe and explain why all of these defenses are just completely frivolous. And of course, Donald Trump can't control himself at all. And what appears at least to me to be a direct violation of the Magistrate Judge admonition during the Arayment. Donald Trump made this post, if you go after me, I am coming after you. Well, shortly after that, special

Jack Smith was like bet and immediately filed a protective order motion Friday evening that included that post in it. So then at around one a.m. there after Donald Trump got scared and had his spokesperson respond that no, he wasn't threatening the judge or prosecutors. In the ultimate gaslight, and Trump's spokesperson said, Trump was referring to the rhinos and the co-brothers and the Republican donor class. That's who he was threatening. But federal judge, Tonya Chutkin was having none of it. And she issued an order this morning requiring

Trump to respond to the protective order motion by no later than August 7th, moving this case along. Talk about historic events, Michael Pope, and of course, along. Talk about historic events, Michael Popak. And of course, another historic event to come. We're going to turn to Georgia where barricades have been going up. And we expect a criminal indictment of Donald Trump by Fulton County District Attorney, Fawni Willis, which could come as early as this week. Michael Popak, a historic, historic week, indeed, indeed. How you doing, Michael Popak? I'm too great. I was just doing math while you were going through our lineup today.

Because when you and I two and a half years ago said, you want to do this thing at the intersection of law and politics called legal AF? I said, sure, I was worrying about content. We now have a former president who is four time indicted, soon to be five time indicted for a total of 75 current felony counts. If you actually, 78 felony charges. Well, 37, 34 and four, right?

So far, so far. This is something, well, sorry, I and 4, right? If so far, so far. This is something? Well, sorry, I'll do my math. 37, 34 and 4, 17 convictions for his main organization up in New York. So I'm at about 92 and we haven't even heard from Fonney Willis yet. And whatever the right-wingo want to say, okay, 100 or more

felonies against somebody is not a witch hunt. It's not based on prosecutorial misconduct or election interference in 2024 or a desire to cover up because Hunter Biden did bad, bad things when Daddy was looking or whatever else they're trying to link in some perverse logical illogical fallacy. It has to do with the conduct of one man, while he ran for office, while in office, and after he left office. And nobody's, no one is to blame for this hundred plus felonies and counting. Then Donald, And nobody's, no one is to blame for this hundred plus felonies and counting. Then Donald, J, Trump, and the J stands for John,

apparently based on its comments he made at his arrangement. So, Popoak, let's get into it. Let's talk about the indictment that was filed on Tuesday. It is very detailed. Ironically, it is 45 pages in length. It has four counts that I want you to get into, but special counsel, Jack Smith, in this indictment.

I think really narrowed and focused these issues. You and I had been speculating that if special counsel, Jack Smith wanted to, this could have been a thousand count indictment. This probably could have been a 5,000 count indictment. Special counsel, Jack Smith, could have brought charges for money laundering, for wire fraud, for campaign finance violations relating to the various political action organizations that Donald Trump used to commit crimes. But when you do that, what you open yourself up for is you have forensic accountants come in, economists come in, massive troves of financial discovery,

tens and millions of documents, thousands, tens of thousands, potentially of witnesses. So what does all that mean? Time, that means time. And that a case could take years, as much as five to 10 years to go to trial with some of those really complex financial cases. So, special counsel, Jack Smith knew that, Michael Popak, and he made a surgically precise

case. Jack Smith had to hold back criminal counts, thousands of them in order for the greater good of our democracy to do everything he could to position this case for 2024. Of course, you're going to go through the various counts, you're going to go through the Koch conspirators. I'm going to make one other observation though here because we're going to talk in a little bit about the defenses. We'll look later in this episode about the defenses that are being paraded to the media by Trump's lawyers. Special counsel, Jack Smith, in addition to quoting people and evidence and all of these things,

he predicted in the complaint what Donald Trump's lawyers were going to be saying as part of their PR campaign, campaign and what they were gonna be saying as part of their PR campaign campaign and what they were going to be saying as one of their defenses. And he addressed it right here in paragraph three, right away, he goes, Donald Trump had a free speech, right? I want to acknowledge that from the very outset. Special counsel, Jack Smith said, the defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election, and even to claim falsely that there had been outcome, determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits

of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed in many cases, Donald Trump did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful. And then it goes into where the crimes were committed, right? Where it goes from free speech, whiny, lamb, Donald Trump, the election stolen, you know, and special counsels Jackson, you have a first amendment, amendment right to be a whiny, fascist baby, but what you don't have the right to do is then weaponize those lies and then engage in conduct

that constitutes a conspiracy to overthrow the results of a free and fair election, paragraph four. Shortly after election, they, the defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results. Inso doing the defendant perpetrated three criminal conspiracies, a conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty fraud and deceit to impair, obstruct and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted and certified by the federal government to be a conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January

6th congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified in violation of 18 U.S. Section 1512K and see a conspiracy against the right to vote to have one's vote counted in violation of 18 U.S. Section 241 Popok. This is a detailed complaint state by state goes through the battleground states, the specific conduct quotes from former vice president Pence quotes from people in Donald Trump's inner circle showing Donald Trump new, showing intent, what were your major takeaways? Let's dig into this indictment. Yeah, and let's let's do it at a high level and at a molecular level. at a high level and at a molecular level. You are so right that this is the product, this indictment of prosecutorial decision making and affirmative choice about what to put in the indictment that

was necessary to indict and show the weight of evidence that's required to support an indictment, the indictment itself, the criminal counts of an indictment, the indictment itself, the criminal counts of an indictment, and what was unnecessary to put in the indictment, both in terms of people at present, and facts, and allegations, and themes, and narratives, and timelines, that will, however, end up in a courtroom

when the evidence is presented, not everything to remind people, not everything is put into an indictment, not every piece of evidence, every scrap of testimony, every nuance, every narrative, every timeline ends up in an indictment. The prosecutor has to strike a balance, and this has been surgically struck by a by Jack Smith and his team to put in what is necessary in a speaking indictment in this way in a conspiracy-based indictment in this way to make out the elements of the crime, it's a put the defendant on notice as required

by the Constitution of what he's being charged with. But no more and no less than that. The rest, the rest is truckloads, or what I like to call shed loads of information, evidence, and testimony that's both provided to the other side in the discovery process. We'll talk about that in a little bit. And presented at trial through witnesses, oh, like people like Evan Corcoran and others in Giuliani and Eastman and Boris Epstein and Ken Cheeseboro and Sydney Powell and the rest that are currently in this indictment, co-conspirators, not in the caption, not as defendants.

I'm going to talk about that in a minute. So we have that approach and you could tell the decision-making tree or decision-making rule for Jack Smith was as follows. If I don't have hard evidence corroborated multiple times by witness testimony and documents, I'm not putting it in my indictment. For example, we always thought pundits like you and me and people that do this for a living then. And we did it. That off the Jan 6th report in December, Jan 6th, Special Select Committee on all things Jan 6th, that when they said that Donald Trump weaponized that crowd on January 6th on purpose, starting with his tweet, be there,

it's going to be wild, that this was part of his strategy to when all else failed, attack the capital, stop the peaceful transfer of power, attack our democracy, and stop the electoral certification process. Jack Smith did it a different way. It's still in there. It is still one of the three or four major components of the conspiracy. We'll talk about them here on this on this hot tech. I'm out on this podcast. Do so many hot takes with you. I forget where I'm at.

But the way that Jack Smith did it, because you can tell he didn't feel he had the complete dead to rights evidence on this issue, is not that Donald Trump is being held responsible for starting lighting the match that lit the flame that led to the explosion that attacked the Capitol, which is how the Gen 6 Committee portrayed it. He's saying that it started almost like passive voice. It happened. The Gen 6th, they left the ellipsis, others skipped the ellipsis altogether in the speech, speechifying by Donald Trump and

Eastman and Giuliani and others. And they went right to attack the Capitol. But what what what a Jax Smith said is once that happened, Donald Trump and his henchmen and those around him, Eastman, Clark and others and Meadows used that, used that attack to their benefit to also use as a cudgel as a club to stop the peaceful transfer of power. So, it's a little bit different. It's not that they started it, but once it was in progress, they jumped on board and used that attack. And so, that's why the count is listed there.

The conspiracy elements are still the same. The tried and true elements that we saw in the Jan 6th report, shout out in Kudos, the Jan 6th committee. You've got the use, the fundamentally, the heart of the indictment, the use of the fake electors, the development of the fake electors scheme by John Eastman, implemented by lawyers like Captain of Team

Crazy, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and Ken Cheeseboro. And then on the ground, the ground game of collecting all of these fake electors, making sure in the battleground states, these anti-patriots met in secret basements, signing what they said were electoral certificates for their state and put wax seals on it and quill pens

and then had to deliver it both to the National Archive and Mike Pence, the next step in the chain. That was coordinated by conspirator number six and that's gotta be Boris Epstein, somebody that we've talked a lot about on legal AF as being a lawyer for Donald Trump, sort of this year's Michael Cohen, a fixer, a guy that is brought in Todd Blanche

as the lawyer sits at council tables, but not this time at a rainment. We'll talk about that later and considers himself to be some sort of political operative. He's there on the right in the picture, whispering into Nosferatu. I mean, Giuliani's ear is three piece, ever present, three piece suit. Boris Epstein also ran the ground game to collect and coordinate the collection of all the fake electors. So the fake electors, and then you have the last component before you get to the

Jan 6th insurrection and the use of that to stop the peaceful transfer of power, which is the pressure campaign on Mike Pence. Mike Pence, who's running apparently on a campaign right now for president, that relies on and to quote or paraphrase him yesterday, nobody is above the Constitution. And anyone that tries to say they're above the Constitution should not hold presidential office. And anybody that tries to get me to put them above my oath to the Constitution should not hold constitutional office. That's apparently his his campaign message to voters. It's not going well. I'll just put it that way in the Republican party. The things that were missing that

were interesting, but I think we'll show up in the actual trial of the case where things Ben that you and I had talked about like the December 8th meeting in the White House, the what Cassidy Hutchison referred to as Things are gone, you know the wheels have fallen off and things have gone crazy in the West Wing a screaming match involving Rudy Giuliani the West Wing, a screaming match involving Rudy Giuliani, the overstocker, what I call overthrow.com guy, a Patrick Byrne and Sydney Powell and Mike Flynn yelling and trying to convince then President Trump to both suspend the Constitution, implement Marshall Law and seize voting machines until Pat Cipalone, the White House Council, getting wind of the meeting, ran into the meeting to break it up and started questioning, why is everybody here?

How do you all get in here? What are you doing here, overstock guy? What are you talking about? And Eric Hirschman following behind and telling Donald Trump he couldn't do it. That consideration of seizing voting machines, I assure you, will end up in the trial. It's just not something that Jack Smith felt he needed in order to make out the elements of his three separate conspiracies, but interrelated conspiracies that form the basis of the entitlement. The one that we knew was coming because, you know, let's be honest, there's been strategically

because I know Karen and our premium and a Gniphyl Oarkoic are disagrees with me on this, but there's been strategic leaking. And so we knew that the section 241, 18 USC 241 claim was going to be used in a very creative way to argue that the use of the fake elector certificates was in effect stuffing the ballot box, the electoral ballot box with fake votes. And that kind of voter or vote fraud is handled with a law that came out of our reconstruction after the Civil War, in which a law was passed to ensure. You shouldn't have to have this law in the books because the Constitution should be enough, but there needed to be a law

to protect newly freed slaves in their ability to exercise their right to vote. And that body of law 241, which is the driver for this indictment for me, it also comes out when you have that very perfectly put ruling by judge Thurgood Marshall in which he said everyone, everyone Republican Democrat, independent or otherwise, is entitled to a fair count of their vote. Everybody should be up in arms. If having voted, your vote has been, has been the tally has been tampered with. And nothing tamperes with the tally of a presidential election more than the ultimate thing that gets him the the seat the White House, which is the electoral vote We're an electoral vote country not a popular vote country

So the popular votes are important only when you get to the electoral certificates the electoral the electors voting So that is the ultimate steal you popular vote Schmopular vote. Let's go right to steal the electorals. That's never been done before. And there you have section 241. But you're so right and Karen was so right. When she said, we're going to see a two or three count indictment with very little other people in there because this case has to get the trial.

But now we got that judge to do it before the election. One last thing done. We're not done, as I said in a recent hot take. This is not a going at a business sale for Jack Smith. As he said in his press conference, there's more to do. We're still investigating. That's one, two witnesses are being pulled in.

In this month, this grand jury is still in business. They did not shut the door and put up a gone fishing sign. And what we're going to see obviously because history is prologue is two different things. And we'll continue to watch it only one place here on the Midas Touch Network one. We're going to see a superseding indictment again. He got enough to get this thing out after nine months, kudos to jack smith. He's got three three indictments against Donald Trump in nine months, two in Mar-a-Lago one here, but he's not done. Super sitting indictment is likely against Donald Trump, but other co-conspirators being

indicted individually in their own independent cases is also likely. It's either going to be some combination of Johnny Smin, who's not cooperating. Rudy Giuliani, who's barely cooperating, but when he on his podcast, he tells the world he's fully in favor of Donald Trump every way, shape and form. Ken Cheeseboro, who's not heard from too often, except through counsel, Boris Epstein, who flew on the Trump jet to the arraignment, sat in the back of the room during the recent arraignment and flew home with the president after the former president after the arraignment. He's likely to get indicted and Sydney Powell.

One or more or all six of those will likely be indicted in their own cases, on their own trial tracks, on their own thing, not consolidated and combined with Donald Trump's trial. And at some other later date, we'll continue to report. You know, I think that the proceedings before Judge Eileen Cannon in the other case where Donald Trump was criminally indicted back in June for the willful retention of national defense information, as well as obstruction of justice and conspiracy and making false statements. I think the assignment to Judge Eileen Cannon, what she is doing there, actually has also

informed the strategy of how to pursue the case against Donald Trump for the crimes that he was just charged with here, and whether it was going to be a more expansive case or shorter case, I think that special counsel Jack Smith, like I think you and me, believe that you can't trust Judge Eileen Cannon. So even though there's currently a May 2024 trial date with all of the things that she does, you know, is that really the date May 2024. On the other hand, in a little bit, when we talk about the judge who was assigned this case, we'll talk about a little bit, Judge Tanya Chukkin, Law and Order Judge, No Nonsense Judge. The only judge in DC who's actually sentenced January 6th insurrectionists to greater prison sentences

than even what the DOJ asked for. Judge Tanya Chutkin has previously been on a case in DC. Federal court filed by Donald Trump. She made that big, big ruling. The first big January 6th committee ruling came from Judge Tanya Chutkin, where Donald Trump filed an injunction to try to block the National Archives from turning over to the January 6th committee, all of the records that were made and produced and created during his administration that first tranche of records that was like the first big January 6 committee battle

Trump filed an emotion a case for an injunctive relief trying to block the committee trying to block the archives and in a very powerful order back in 2021 would you and I talked about back in 2021 as well as the Chutkin sentences. So legal AF viewers will know Judge Tonya Chutkin. But in that 2020 2021 ruling, she says, Presidents are not kings. Donald Trump is not the president. These documents don't belong to him and turn them over to the January 6th Committee over Donald Trump's executive privilege assertions. And that began a whole series of losses for Donald Trump where he probably lost. I'm not making this number up probably close to a hundred, maybe 200 other assertions of executive privilege

before other DC federal judges, but Judge Tonya Chutkin was the first and we'll talk more about her, we'll talk more about the magistrate judge in just a moment, but just a few other places in the indictment that I wanted to talk about just so everybody could get a sense of how precise this is written. Like, if you go to paragraph 90, for example, and this is the section that talks about Donald Trump's threats to former vice president Mike Pence, and by the way, Pence is a witness. I mean, just think about that. That you're going to have the, he's testified before the grand jury. You're going to have a former vice president as one of the key fact witnesses against Donald

Trump. And so I'm just going to read you one paragraph, for example, but this is what a jury is going to hear. It's going to hear the following. On January 1, Donald Trump called the vice president, berated him because he had learned that the vice president had opposed a lawsuit seeking a judicial decision that at the certification the vice president had the authority

to reject or return votes to the certification, the vice president had the authority to reject or return votes to the states under the Constitution. The vice president responded that he thought there was no constitutional basis for such authority and that it was improper. In response, the defendant told the vice president, you're too honest, you're too honest. Within hours of the conversation, the defendant reminded his supporters to meet in Washington Before the certification proceeding tweeting the big protest rally in Washington DC will take place at 11 a.m On January 6th location of details to follow stop to steal and I very much believe that testimony comes directly from pens

Also, we saw Donald Trump's lawyers kind of parading out this thing that all Donald Trump did was asked Pence to do was to pause the electoral count. It was just a pause and Pence has already been interviewed saying, you know, in the past 48 hours, saying no, it wasn't a pause. He wanted me to overthrow the election. Now, Pence has no spine at all otherwise, but, but Pence over the past 48 hours has said,

no, it wasn't a pause. He wanted me to overthrow the election. That's what he was asking me to do. And pens is going to testify that one more paragraph that I want to show you just how in the weeds, special counsel, Jackson, this because I could spend probably five hours going through this indictment. I'm not going to do that. This is an abbreviated summary and, and, and discussion that we do here on legal AF. But you know, Jack Smith goes every battled ground state with the exact same evidence that I'm going to be, you know, sharing with you here. But for each state with the state officials, you go to paragraph 81. On the afternoon of January 3rd, co-conspirator four, who's Jeff Clark, who Pope Acky identified,

spoke with a deputy White House counsel. The previous month, the deputy White House counsel had informed the defendant that there is no world, there is no option, Donald Trump, in which you do not leave the White House on January 20th. Now the same deputy White House counsel tried to dissuade Coke and Spirit or four from assuming the role of acting attorney general. That's how we know it's Jeff Clark. The deputy White House council reiterated to co-conspirator for that there had not been outcome

determinative fraud in the election, and that if Trump remained in office nonetheless, there would be riots in every major city in the United States. Donald Trump's co-conspirator responded well to this deputy White House council. That's why there's an insurrection act basically saying that Donald Trump was going to use the military on the American people. He was going to turn the armed, that was the plan. That's what a Trump deputy White House counsel provided testimony to the grand jury. Trump was going to use the military. I just want to be very clear against the American people

to claim power as a dictator. So when people go, oh, well, it's a free speech. It's a free, no, that is not a free speech thing there. And finally, Popoq, one other thing I wanted to mention, just so people understand what are the sentences, the maximum prison time, prison time for these counts. The obstructing and official proceeding is a 20 year max prison sentence. The conspiracy against the right to vote is a 10 years and a defrauding the United States count is five years.

If you add up all of the counts from all of his cases in terms of the prison time, when you're talking about the 78 felony charges, I mean, you could be talking close to 500 years in prison right there. But Popoq, I wanna go over the judges, I wanna go over some rulings that the judges have made this morning.

I mean, this case is on a rocket, docket, and it is good to see law and order judges. Let's talk about the judges. Let's talk about what went down at the arrangement. Let's talk about what Trump's lawyers are saying. Let's talk about some of the motions that have been filed already. This has been a historic week and I want to remind everybody as well that we just launched MidasTouch.com, our new website. It's now the number one pro democracy source of information.

One of the things, special counsel Jack Smith told everyone to do at the press conferences. Read the full indictment after legal AF. go to MidasTouch.com. We have the full indictment there. Make MidasTouch.com your homepage and check back in for all of the breaking news. MidasTouch.com will supplement, complement all of the things we do here on the MidasTouch YouTube channel and the audio podcast. Let's talk about all this additional information when we come back from this quick break. As you know, I'm a trial lawyer

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about it was yesterday, but you can always start today. That's the next best option. Same thing when it comes to becoming a legal AF or so before the break, Michael Pope, I gave some background on who judge Tanya Chutkin is her 2021 ruling regarding the January 6th committee turning over those records and that that scathing order against Donald Trump back then, talked briefly about the magistrate judge, up at the Yaya, I hope I'm pronouncing the name correctly, and if I'm not, someone can correct me

and I will make a better effort in the next one. We talked to, and also one of the things we've seen during the arrangement, which I'm sure you'll talk about in a little bit as well, is how the magistrate judge was prepared for Trump's delay tactics, and she had already spoken with Judge Tonya Chutkin about briefing schedules, and when the next hearing was gonna be on August 28th,

and all of that, but Donald Trump's already saying, unfair judges, unfair venue, unfair, unfair. But if you can, Pope, I talked to us about who this team of the judges are, the federal judge in the magistrate. Sure. So a little bit of a primer, federal magistrates are not what we call Article 3 judges. They don't have lifetime appointment, but they are appointment for a term of years. And they handle at the federal level, especially civil

and criminal, the case, the dockets aren't split in federal court. Judges handle both federal dockets, federal criminal cases, civil cases, as well, disputes over money and injury and that type of thing. Magistrates in the criminal context handle things as we've seen time and time again, because we've had now, for example, three examples. They handle arrangements. They handle conditions of release, because remember Donald Trump was surrendered, arrested, digitally fingerprinted, and then released only on special conditions. And we'll talk about those special conditions. That's what magistrates do.

They also generally supervise search warrants, the search warrant process. I mean, there's a federal judge over that, a supervising judge over that, but they handle the logistics around the decision to issue a search warrant. Usually comes through a magistrate judge. We saw that in Mar-a-Lago, which is Reinhart, for example, same thing here, discovery issues and discovery disputes, the production of documents and evidence and proposed evidence from the government to the defendant goes through, passes through, the Magistrate Judge. So the Magistrate Judge is usually either for the day of an arrangement, whoever happens

to be on duty that day, or it may be the Magistrate Judge that's assigned regularly to her boss or his boss, the federal article three judge, the presiding judge that's that's assigned regularly to the her boss or his boss, the federal article three judge, the presiding judge, the district court judge. So the district court judge for this case is judge Tanya Chukkin, Jamaican American descent, worked at some amazing law firms tremendously qualified and was placed by Obama in the DC Circuit Court, which is one of the crown jewels of the federal judiciary. Not all federal courts are kind of equally have the credentials of others. If you're asking me which are the ones that are the feeder program for the Supreme Court

and somebody be prepared to go to the Supreme Court. It's the DC Court of Appeals, the Federal Circuit, which is what we're talking in the Federal Circuit, the Circuit, the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, and the Second Circuit in New York is where often a lot of these Supreme Court justices come from. Recent example, Katanji Brown-Jackson having gone this route. If it wasn't for the fact that she's now presiding over the case of Donald Trump, the most important federal prosecution of a former president in the history of our republic, I would tell you that I thought Tony Chutkin could be on the short list and should still be on

the short list for Joe Biden should he get another opportunity to appoint somebody to the Supreme Court? She's married to also a state or territorial judge, former judge. So being a judge is a family business, the family affair. She's evidently qualified. We've seen her in action involving Donald Trump time and time again. And as Donald Trump likes to note, and I think this is a good thing, not a bad thing. She has given the harshest sentences to Jan 6th and Syracianist, even above

what the Department of Justice has asked for time and time again and written opinions like the one that you referred to earlier, Ben, in which she reminded the world that in our Republic, our constitutional Republic, the president or former president is not a king. And she's very clear about that. If I were to pick a judge that Donald Trump would not want to see come up on the in on the random wheel in DC for his indictment, Tony Chucke would be on my first two fingers. I could think of some other people. Some of those other people actually were in the courtroom for the arrangement, just to

we're going to talk about who for Donald Trump was there and who's trying to continue to act like they're in his inner circle and why they are there outside the courtroom or inside the courtroom, but for the, for the good guys, for the white hat, for the black robe. Let me tell you who was there. The magistrate judge had her entire family there watching her, which I thought was special and really heartwarming. She just got nominated. She just got appointed to that position a year ago.

She's Indian American. And I think that was an amazing gesture because she was a reigning a former president, and that was important. But also in the courtroom. And it was the courtroom of the chief judge, which is now Jeb Boseberg. He decided to attend, even though he had no role in the process. It was just his courtroom. He doesn't have to be there, but in his black robe, he sat in the gallery, the galley,

or the not on the bench. He didn't want to undercut the judge. You can see here in the courtroom sketch, because cameras were not allowed in the courtroom. You've got Todd Blanch standing at the podium. You've got John Loro covering his face there that the sketch artist caught. You've got, that's a pretty good rendering of Donald Trump, who also looks like the Grinch. And then you've got Jack Smith off to the left. I believe that's Jack Smith, because that's how close in these rooms, these tables are for the defense of the prosecution.

And then you've got some other people to back in there as the magistrate judge sitting there. Now, you also had next to Jeb Bozberg, Amy Burman Jackson, another district court judge who also, if I would believe she's on the short list for the US Supreme Court, who has also been a very harsh critic of all things Jan 6th and the people in front of her when she sentences them and Judge Randy Moss. So this was, if anybody doubted how important of a day

this was in the history of the judicial system for America, seeing three district court judges watching the proceeding along with the family of the magistrate judge sort of disabuses you of any notion that things are as typical. This is just a typical day in the court. However, the process couldn't have been any more ordinary. The magistrate judge came in 24 minutes late. You and I will talk a little bit later who I think she was having a cup of coffee with before she hit the bench. And I think that was the district judge, Judge Chuckkin, because she came in,

unlike the magistrate judges that we see at Mar-a-Lago, like Judge Torres and the others. She came in having spoken to the federal judge, district judge, her boss, Tonya Chuckkin, and she had messaging and direction to the defense of the prosecution about the trial date Direct from the judge. So there was no question who was in charge of this whole process Now at the actual arrangement You know Donald Trump stands up. What do you plead first state your name Donald J. Trump? Very interesting despite all the lawyers for Donald Trump in their filings, calling him some combination

of President Donald Trump, that's a lie. We don't have a president, Donald Trump. We have a former president, Donald Trump. Former president, they almost never say former president or 45th president, or with Donald Trump identified himself at the Arraignment in New York three months ago, businessman, Donald Trump. Donald Trump didn't, she didn't ask him his occupation, but he didn't say president,

Donald J. Trump. He's a Donald J. Trump. John's, J's for John, I'm 77. Okay. Are you under the influence of any drug, sir? That took special delight in that question. She could have skipped that question, but she wanted to make sure there was no impairment and that he was fully present to in order to confirm his understanding of the rest of the proceedings.

And he said, without flinching, I'm not. Okay. And then she had her own special conditions, which this time the government, I think, as you said, Ben learned their lesson from things in Mar-a-Lago. It's like artificial intelligence. They're learning every time they're interacting with Donald Trump and his band of lawyers and judges about how to improve. In Mar-a-Lago, they didn't ask for a special condition. And then the judge said, I'm going to insert one. Judge Goodman said, match straight, judge Goodman said,

you know what, I don't want that guy, the Trump talking to witnesses, all right, except through lawyers. So I'm gonna make that a special condition. You make up a list, and we'll have a list about who he shouldn't talk to, it was a whole big elaborate thing. Here, the government asked and the match straight judge ordered

that he have no contact with witnesses that are expected in the case, she didn't create a list process, which I think is already very difficult to enforce since he's flying home on a plane. He flew home on a plane with Boris Epstein, co-conspirator number six, Walt Nauta, who's continuing to be a co-defendant in a superseding indictment in Mar-a-Lago and others. So, and presumably, maybe even Evan Corcoran, he's already potentially violating these orders, but that was put in place by the Magistrate Judge

as a condition of release. And once he accepted and read through, there's reporting that he sat in the shuffled papers and read through the conditions and then he had to get sworn in again under oath before he accepted the condition signed as John Hancock or Donald J. Trump or whatever he did. And then this was over.

But before it was over, the magistrate judge had a message from the judge, Judge Tonya Chutkin. She said the judge wants the government's position on the trial date and a response from Donald Trump in the next week or two. And a hearing, I'm gonna set right now for Judge Chutkin,

and I'm giving you three dates to choose from, 23, 24, 28 of August. That's your date in front of Judge Chutkin and Judge Chutkin has, and they picked the 28th, the defense. And Chutkin has already told them that on the 28th, having heard from the government, having heard from the, the defense, she is going to set the trial of this, what amounts to the third indictment of Donald Trump by Jack Smith. And my prediction and Ben, I know you're, you got your own view on this is that with the targets on the calendar of we know in March of 2024, we're going to trial Donald Trump,

people versus Donald Trump in New York, Judge Vershon for the Stormy Daniels Hush Money Coverup Business Record Froad case. We know in May, at least for now, subject to shenanigans in front of Judge Cannon, we have on the calendar at least a trial in May of 2024, in which he split the difference between what the government wanted and what they wanted, the defense on the Mar-a-Lago case, either with the superseding indictment. And we know that in November, we have an election. So where do you think, Ben, this judge who is rocket-docket, as you said, all about justice, efficiency, and knows that the world in history is looking at her? When do you think she sets the

trial for this? February? I liked it so before, before even New York's trial. Yeah, I mean, I think that she could have a placeholder date before New York's trial. You see what happens, and then maybe you slide it in for April.

You see what's interesting is, you know, on this kind of chessboard, if you will, that we're putting up here, if Judge Eileen Cannon now kicks her May trial date, then Judge Chutkin slots this in for May. So, it, so if you go back to the hot take that you and I did, that we got some pushback for when the case was assigned to Judge Eileen Cannon because you and I did that we got some pushback for when the case was assigned to Judge Eileen Cannon because you and I were like, I'm not really worried that the case got assigned to Judge Eileen Cannon. It wasn't because we weren't worried about Judge Eileen Cannon. It was because we had a great deal of confidence in special counsel,

Jack Smith, and the precision and fluidity within which he exercises prosecutorial discretion and makes move. So if you think about it strategically now, right, even if now Judge Elling Cannon wants to kick her trial to 2025, well, that's perfect. Now you get the other trial right there in that April and May period. And so I think that you'll probably have the judge slotting in on a speedy trial basis, early 2024 Judge Chuck and Will,

and if there's any changes and alterations from Canon, I think it gets moved back. I think ultimately the trial probably is in April, is about an April trial, but I think what you're gonna to see April or May, but we'll see, obviously, you can't have overlapping trials. But then one of the things we'll also see is if there's coordination from a scheduling standpoint between the feds and state prosecutors of, hey, you've been at a district attorney,

yeah, you got that March trial date, but this one's a little more important. Can we move ours here in March? So you may be seeing some of that. What's your thought, Popeye? Well, I think you got it exactly right. And the other data point that reinforces that your analysis is what we talked about, which is Jack Smith in Got the Indicament right before the Tuesday hearing in Mar-a-Lago to talk about the trial date. And we said that was messaging from Jack Smith's team to Judge Cannon, which is you are not going to be the only district court judge that's gonna have

defendant Donald Trump in front of them. There I have another case and I got another judge. In other words, the eyes of not only history are on you, Judge Cannon, but your other, you know, at a, let's be frank, you know, yes, they're all major league baseball players, but the federal district court in Washington is the Phil in the blank New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, and you know, she's the Miami Marlins. Although they're doing pretty well this year. My point is, this is a bigger, battered federal judge in a more elite unit than Judge

Cannon. And this is also Jack Smith's portfolio theory, which I've talked about in the past, which is I'm going to bring three or four indictments or more between superseding and co-conspirators. He may win one or two. He may get a hung jury on me in one jurisdiction, but he's not going to run the table and win, you know, whatever the number of 7,800 felony counts in four different jurisdictions. And then if we take that one extra layer, he's not going to do it in adding New York and then Georgia. Because in order for him to survive this gauntlet of cases and get to the White House intact,

which I think is virtually impossible, he has to run the table and win like six separate cases in front of juries, many of which are being pulled from areas that are not pro-Trump. Washington, D.C., the site of the Gen 6 insurrection is not gonna be filled with Trumpers. Okay, New York and Manhattan is not filled with Trumpers. We saw it already when a jury convicted his company of 17 tax evasion counts and all of that.

Georgia and not Georgia, Fulton County Georgia, Atlanta, which is the bluest of blue in Georgia is not going to be a world where Trump is going to be holding a Maga rally or where he wants to pull a jury from. So this magical thinking that Donald Trump and his lawyers and we'll talk about things that they've set out loud, which indicate that they confirm the conspiracy rather than provide its defense to their client. This magical thinking, like, you know, like a unicorn is going to show up in my backyard and crap gold bricks is sort of Donald Trump's theory about how he's going to be president of the United States. You know, when he says in

a rally, well, I hope I get it done again. One more indictment, this thing will be over. Yeah, it'll be over in the Republican primary. But he's not generating any new independent or women voters every time he gets a judge to be a rapist, I'm sorry, sexual abuser, or he is convicted of very serious conspiracies against our democracy.

Okay, he'll get his 37%. I'll give him another five. He'll get his 43%, but you can't win the presidency that way. And all of this stuff, and I'll leave this rant on this, that the mainstream media, which to a certain degree in the investigative reporting area, does do well. And you and I do look at the stuff that they do add on our own analysis and report when we can.

But when they run stories like, well, there's been two other presidential candidates in history that have run from federal prisons. And they start talking about Eugene Krebs. And I'm like, are you effing kidding me? Don't put that out there. That's not real reporting. Yes, under our constitution, even a convicted felon can be the president of the United States. That's a little quirk of our constitution. We should fix that, by the way. However, that doesn't mean that at the end of the day, the American people who I put tremendous amount of trust in as an entire election body, just like I do, the jury system is going to

vote for the man. Well, let's now talk about what Donald Trump's lawyers have been saying, what they've been previewing is their defense. I mean, from the just kind of absolutely absurd and comical and frankly, incriminating stuff against Donald Trump, like Alina Habba. I mean, she was outside of the arrangement talking about Hunter Biden. And she also said, everybody knew that he lost the election. Everybody, everybody knew it. So you have Alina Habba, which is at this point, so deranged that it probably doesn't even, it's not worthy

of a serious legal critique of what she has to say. John Loro, it's borderline, I'll give it a serious legal critique because, but I think he's a very unserious, he's presented himself as a very unserious person. So here are the kind of main things that they've been messaging. In terms of the defenses that they're going to rely on the Trump legal defense team, you know, I guess led in part by this new lawyer, John Loro, advice of counsel, which is that Donald Trump relied on John Eastman and Giuliani and other lawyers who told him that this was not a crime. Put a pin in that one for a moment.

The other one I talked about is Donald Trump saying he has a free speech right to overthrow our democracy. And the other two kind of ancillary issues they've been messaging is this indictment is a great thing because now we get to conduct discovery and prove the 2020 election was actually stolen. Now we get to go and send, you know, and send subpoenas to Brad Raffinsberger and prove that he's wrong, you know, that's not gonna happen.

All of these things have been debunked. And of course, the data that special counsel, Jackson Smith's gonna turn over is Trump, here's the research teams that you paid. Your political action arms paid these two research teams, each close to one million dollars each. And they told you there was no fraud. How about you, Sapina, your own people?

How about you look at your own data? So that's the other thing. We're going to get great discovery. No, you're not. It's just going to get more incriminating from here on out. And the other thing they talk about is we're're gonna try to move this case to West Virginia. We're gonna transfer it out of DC. Absolutely zero chance of Judge Tanya Chutkin

granting a venue change motion. The Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution specifically says that the cases are to be tried where the crimes take place. That's for example, why special counsel, Jackson Smith had to file the case of Donald Trump's willful retention of national defense information in the Southern District of Florida,

only in the most extreme of cases where, you know, someone can't get a fair trial. Like in a situation where the prosecutor gives a press conference and says, we are targeting this person, like only in that situation, which has not occurred here, would there be a transfer granted? Numerous January 6th insurrectionist, all the way up to one of Donald Trump's co-conspirator terrorists, Stuart Rhodes of the Oathkeepers.

He sought to have a venue change before Judge Amit Maita, citing the exact same things Donald Trump's going to say, oh, it's a democratic area, Washington DC votes Democrat, because the insurrection happened in DC, you can't get a fair trial, all courts say the voidier process, the jury selection process, cures any of those issues. And then even the Trump appoint judge, Judge Carl Nichols had been presented in the past with venue change motions. And he has rejected those venue change motions with January since six insurrectionists. Judge Carl Nichols has made some unfavorable rulings from a law and order perspective in

favor of January six insurrectionists, but even he didn't transfer the case. So zero chance, the case is going to be transferred. When you talk about an advice of counsel defense, Donald Trump would have to take the stand for an advice of counsel defense. He'd have to wave his fifth amendment rights because the lawyers for Trump couldn't say this person will confirm

that Donald Trump was taking the advice of his lawyers. This person will say that. That's hearsay. So to get around here, it's inadmissible hearsay. so Donald Trump would have to take the stand and he'd have to say Here is the advice that I took from the lawyers and here's why I was misled by the lawyers or here's what Johnny He's been told me and then Trump would open it up for all cross examination across all issues He's not going to take the stand. He is a very, very scared person. We'll talk more about that in a bit, just how scared he is backtracking after making this threat

when special counsel, Jack Smith, called him out. So advice of counsel, just that's not going to work. Trump would have to take the stand there. And then we talked earlier in the episode that it's not a free speech issue to engage in a conspiracy to overthrow our democracy and we gave you earlier in this episode very specific concrete examples But again, go to MidasTouch.com to read the full indictment because again, we can spend hours talking about it here But there's very specific concrete examples of how Donald Trump did this on purpose He knew what he was doing trying to change votes from Biden to Trump, trying to change electoral votes from Biden to Trump. And that's illegal. You can't do that. And a special counsel, Jack Smith says, look, Trump, if you want to say you won, and if that makes

you feel good and you want a line of the people, that's upsetting that you would say that. It's it's it should be disqualifying, but you don't, that's not the crime. The crime is where you weaponize that and then affirmatively take action right there as well. And then we're gonna cover this in a little bit as well, but there's been a lot of filings taking place earlier in the day, Popoq, as well, but there's been a lot of filings taking place earlier, you know, in the day Popoq as well, like Trump's lawyers are already moving to delay to having to respond to the

government's motion for a protective order until the 10th of August, they're asking to set the matter for oral argument trying to get further delay. So we'll talk about that in a bit, but I wanted to hit upon the defenses and then kind of, I guess, the Trump strategy. What do you think about what they're going to be, what theirs, but they've been saying that. Well, let's, yeah, let me, let me unpack a couple of things. And let me give it, let me give an example, the difference between speech that's protected that Jack Smith preamps and references as an attack on his indictment and conduct

that isn't you and I, Ben and others in our audience, can stand in front of our local bank and we can tell anybody that walks by the cares to listen that all the money in that bank belongs to me. Some some cockamami story about my grandfather found at the bank and all the bank, all the gold that's in this, that's in all of the safety deposit boxes is mine. It's all a mine. You're allowed to do that. You might sound like a crackpot.

People might take you away, but you can do that. What you can't do is get together with your buddies in the middle of the night and put on ski masks and break into the bank and actually take the money. That's the difference between protected first amendment speech and criminal conduct that will only get to jail time. That's the difference between what Donald Trump's one thing to say, I think I won the election. I don't think I knew that woman that I sexually abused

in the dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, Eugene Carroll. It's another thing to do things in conduct that are at variance with the law or judgments or rulings or findings. And that's what Donald Trump is being accused of. And that is a difference, a difference that sounds complicated, I guess, when you're trying to create interference and you're trying to mislead people and you're talking points,

but is really, really clear and easily shown to a jury of nine or 12 sitting in the box in Washington, DC or in front of a judge like Judge Tonya Chutkin. Alina Hava outside, I don't know why anybody gave that air time, but let's just say one thing about it. She was reading from a Palm card that the Trump campaign and the Trump guy made on the way into the arrangement in which they listed on the left side, all things related to Hunter Biden trying to time it. And on the right side saying and suggesting that that led to either attorney general, attisha James bringing her civil case or Faudi Willis threatening her indictment or Jack Smith bringing his indictment and trying to make some causal link

Between the two that doesn't exist. We call that in the law and in logical reasoning post-hoc air-go-proctor-hoc Which means in Latin after this therefore because of this which is a logical fallacy that just because something which is a logical fallacy that just because something follows in time, something that preceded it, the thing that preceded it must have caused the thing. The most perfect example of that, the easiest example, the perfect month to talk about it, is in, there is statistics that murder rates and ice cream cells both go up in the summer. That is true. More people are murdered in the summer

and ice cream sales also go up. They are not related. Ice cream sales is not causing murder rates to rise. Just like anything related to Heiter Biden, whatever it is, has nothing to do with the independent prosecutorial decisions by the people that I just listed to make their decision to indict under their ethical requirements to only indict when they have

the evidence and the facts to support it. So let's just forget the clown show that was Alina Habba. She doesn't belong in a courtroom and frankly she made that decision herself. She decided to be on the street with the rest of the circus that was in front of the courtroom. Inside the courtroom, you had Boris Epstein in the back, right? So he's doing his thing, trying to concoct some sort of legal defenses. And unfortunately for Donald Trump, he's decided that John Loro, not Todd Blanch, who's the smarter of the two, in my estimation, is the one that he should put front and center on television.

And John Loro, who's looking for his 15 minutes of fame or to extend it, is a willing participant in it. So when John Loro goes on Fox News and talks about Plan D, which is Plan Delay apparently, here he is, looks great in a suit and tie. He's like this week's Joe Takapina. And you know how well that went

for him and all things related to the New York indictment and E. Jean Carroll. And he said on Fox News and took a lot of heat for it intentionally. He said, no, no, yes, Donald Trump wanted to delay the certification of the election because he wanted to give the state legislatures more time to just do one more quick pass to make sure everything was on the up and up with the electors to which federal former federal prosecutors in their unit united. Alan Weissman, the former federal prosecutor said that's an admission of a crime. That's not a defense. And Joyce Vance, a former prosecutor, said, that sounds like a coup. In other words, he admitted to the heart of the conspiracy that is at the heart of the three conspiracies that are at the heart of the indictment. That's not a good place to be. And then he doubled down on it and made it worse because he's went on television to correct the record

because he said he was unfairly attacked by pundits for what he said. He said, all I said is what Donald Trump said or John Eastman wrote in his memo, right? John Eastman is a co-conspirator, Mr. Loro, in the indictment for coming up with these FACACTA ideas of constitutional law and how you could pressure Mike Pence and throw over the election. So don't you're referring to the memo and things that Donald Trump said on the ellipse

and to which we all say, exactly, you were once again confirming and only supporting the indictment, you're not providing defenses. I agree with you. We see where they're going. They've been doing this drum beat. It started with Stephen Chung, the spokesperson for Donald Trump three weeks ago. Multiple lawyers have promoted this idea. And Donald Trump was just following multiple lawyers.

That's not the way the indictment is written. Donald Trump surrounded himself with people that would tell him what he wanted to hear. And he was the ringmaster. He was the puppet master of these, what Mike Pence so properly labeled crackpot lawyers, Giuliani, Sydney Powell, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, Ken Cheeseboro, whereas he had legitimate adults around the table that were appointed to cabinet positions or otherwise, like his acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, his acting deputy attorney general, Richard Donaue, his White House counsel Pat Filbon, his deputy Pat Filbon.

All the people that were paid and took a constitutional oath told him the exact opposite that he surrounded himself with crackbots that would sell him anything and tell him anything is not a defense. And then you're so right, how do you get to that defense if you don't take the stand? And I know he's he's telling his followers and listeners, I can't wait to testify. He will never testify in any of these cases. He'll come up with some excuse. So fly to Scotland to open up another golf course and say, I wish I could have been there, but it was a very important ribbon cutting I had to do. I'll see you at the next one. He's never going to testify. Steve, Steve Bannon tried

this, this type of reliance on defense of council approach. Didn't work as the elements of his crime of obstructing justice or obstructing Congress, the judge at the time, which we've talked about, said, I don't, Judge Nichols said, I don't really see that as an element, but he would have had to testify, as you pointed out, Ben, in order to take advantage of that defense.

This is all to try to keep his candidacy afloat to continue to bring in more money to pay for the attorneys, because this attorney bill for him in all these actions and all the witnesses that he's got to pay off and pay out is gonna be $100 million for the end of the year. He's got to continue to grip.

All he's told his people, like John Loro is, keep me in the game, keep me in the campaign, keep me in the ability to raise money. Maybe there's a shot in hell that I'll be reelected and I'll be elected and I will pardon everybody. Doesn't help him in Georgia, we'll talk about Georgia next. But that's all he's got left.

This is a riverboat gambler with nothing to lose and he's just gonna continue to do, but we should not misinterpret that on this show or any place else in the Midas Dutch network where we don't. No one who watches us should misinterpret the things that Donald Trump says, the things that his lawyers or his shills say

as being legitimate merit-based defenses that get him off of being convicted. That's why we go through it in a very detailed way. And go look, here's what they're saying. Here's why it's not going to work because here is actually what the law is. And there's the old expression, right, that if the laws against you argue the facts and if the facts are against you, I guess the facts and if the facts are against you, I guess if the law and the facts are against Daniel Donald Trump, you know, it's kind of what the

Magger Republicans do every day, which is what he's kind of led is threaten people, threaten people. I want to show you, this is a post that Donald Trump made on Friday. It says, if you go after me, I'm coming after you. If you go after me, I'm coming after you, which is a clear threat. There's no other way to interpret that as a clear and present threat. And later at Friday evening, special counsel Jack Smith filed a motion for a protective

order and formed the judge of that threat about why it's so critical that a protective order in this matter be entered immediately. And in the court's filing and the filing, rather, the special counsel, Jack Smith made with the court. He explained on page three that the government's proposed order, it's consistent with others that are commonly used. It allows Donald Trump to have prompt and effective use of discovery materials and connection with his defense. All the proposed order seeks to prevent is the improper dissemination or use of discovery materials, including to the public, such a restriction is particularly important

in this case because the defendant, Donald Trump, has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him. And in recent days, regarding this case, the defendant has issued multiple posts, either specifically or by implication, including the following, which the defendant posted just hours ago. And here, special counsel Jack Smith is showing the judge very specifically what Donald Trump said,

which, I believe to be a violation of what magistrate, what the magistrate judge said during the arrangement you're not to issue any threats and not specifically ask Donald Trump. You understand that, Mr. Trump, again, not referring to him by any other title. You understand that, Mr. Trump? He stated, yes. The way I view what special counsel, Jack Smith, filing that immediately is doing is basically saying that's your warning strike right there and We're going to inform judge Chutkin, but you know, you may be saying well Should we put a gag order on them? Should we throw them behind bars right away?

I mean, I'd love all of those but remember the more he talks the more he incriminates himself number one and number two I think what special counsel Jack Smith wants to balance here is, yes, these threats are dangerous. But I think Jack Smith knows what a coward Donald Trump is. Like he knows that he's dealing with a petulant third grade kind of fascist bully, but he's dealing with like just an amateur. And special counsel Jack Smith wants this trial date. He doesn't want to do anything at all, including even if that means temporarily remanding Donald Trump into custody for a short period of time, that could make this case go on a year excursion into briefing about that. Jack Smith laser

focus. I want to trial date because I want to send this guy to jail for the rest of his life. Let's focus on what that outcome is. Get him in jail for the rest of his life for his serious, serious crimes and for Donald Trump being a traitor against our country. And look, within a very short period of time, there's been a lot of action, Pope, on the docket, right? So you have Trump makes that post, special counsel, Jack Smith, then files the motion for

our protective order. And then immediately last night, Donald Trump's spokesperson, then issues a statement just showing what a coward they are saying. The post cited is the definition of political speech and was in response to the rhino, China loving, dishonest, special interest groups and super PACs, like the ones find by the Koch brothers and the club for no growth. I mean, traditionally Republican groups, Trump saying that's who he was threatening, not prosecutors, you know, and so it just shows you again, just that's just the ultimate gaslight, right? And that's the whole. Yeah, well, I was

saying one comment on that. There's a reason that the $25 million that Jack Smith has spent so far, $9 million is for protection protective services for he and his people. It's because Donald Trump, all the stuff that Stephen Chung, however, just put in there to try to say what I meant was, that's not what crack pots and others that are mentally unstable or otherwise around Donald Trump or triggered by Donald Trump or want to get the favor of Donald Trump who could pick up a weapon and do something dangerous

to a federal. We've had federal judges and their families assassinated in this country. We've had federal prosecutors and state prosecutors and state judges killed in this country by the crazed followers of people like Donald Trump. We saw what happened when he said it will be wild on Jan 6th and it was. We had an insurrection. There's a reason that Jack Smith, yes, he's gonna do his job, he's gonna cut his wood, he's gonna eat his subway sandwiches,

and he's gonna put this guy to federal penitentiary for a long, long time. But he's gotta protect his people from other people being triggered by things like, you come after me, I come after you, then some guy goes and picks up a weapon and shows up at Jack Smith's house. No, absolutely.

And then after Trump issued that statement earlier on Saturday, a minute order was issued on the weekend by Judge Tanya Chutkin, just showing how she wants this case expedited. It is hereby order that by 5 p.m. on August 7, 2023, defendant shall file a response to the government's motion for protective order stating defendants position on the motion if defendant disagrees with any portion of the government's proposed protective order his response shall include a revised version of that protective order with any modifications in the red line and then within hours after that, earlier this morning, Trump filed a motion to revise the briefing schedule and set oral argument regarding the government's motion for a protective order.

And they're asking an additional three days for their response by August 10th of 2023, they want to respond and have an oral argument on the briefing schedule already seeing that they want to kind of seek a delay from what Judge Tanya Chukkin did. And what this motion that was just filed by Donald Trump's lawyers are saying is, look, we were meeting in conferring about a schedule and we were talking about the protective order. Then all of a sudden, the government just filed this thing out of nowhere. And obviously, not addressing the fact that the government filed it because Donald Trump just issued a threat.

And they're saying, if you go after me, I'm coming after you. So it wasn't exactly a good faith, meet and confer process where your client is now engaged in criminal threats. And so that's kind of the status right now where we're at. We'll see what Judge Tanya Chutkin does with that motion as well. But that's basically the status Pope. I think that brings us. I don't think it does. I, but just around it out. I, I, they're not, this is this ain't I lean cannon. I don't think judge Chutkin is going to give him from Monday to Thursday. I don't think she's going to give them oral argument. I think she's going to make a ruling.

She gave a very, this is her opportunity, I think, to put them in their place because if you give them a finger, they'll take a republic. And I have to think in the back of her mind, she's thinking, if they're gonna keep trying to nickel and dime me on, I said Monday is a federal judge. I've been doing this for 32 years in front of federal judges. I have never not complied no matter how short of a turnaround time I thought the order was the

the order for me to do something I never asked for more time and then asked maybe we're all argument I've occasionally asked for our argument but to say no Monday doesn't work for us judge hold on let me check my counter how about Thursday Thursday's good for me what about you I think I think she cuts the legs out from under room and says I don't know what part of my minute order didn't you follow Monday if you got a problem, give me a red line, and then I'll make the decision on the protective order. I'm not sure I need a hearing.

We'll see. It'll be very interesting. I think the next move obviously is the woman in the black robe. And I think she's going to say, I'm the judge. You're not. This is what we're doing. Now, let's turn to Fulton County, Georgia, if you will. I think we've rounded out our coverage on all things,

arrest, indictment, arrangement, the judges, and now our attention only turns slightly, because we're going to cover everything at the same time. But our attention turns to Georgia, specifically Fulton County. You've had the grand jury now and panelled for a few weeks. They've been presented with evidence. We've seen barricades going up around the courthouse. We've heard from the Fulton County Sheriff that he's ready for an indictment. And, you know, he's also stated, the sheriff's stated that Donald Trump is not only just going to be booked,

he's going to be fingerprinted, there will be a mug shot taken. And the sheriff made Pat LeBat made also comments, you know, look, we don't appreciate keyboard warriors threatening law enforcement here in Fulton County, Georgia. You made a statement to that effect Fulton County District Attorney Fony Willis. She stated that she's ready to go She's in an interview. She didn't you know provide any more specifics other than that she's prepared And and we'll have made a decision prior to September 1st But Popeyes this could happen this week,

it could happen next week, but I'll just say this before tossing it to you. You go back and look at the Midas Touch Network and specifically our legal AF shows. I would say maybe within about a few days, or in some instances, a one week difference. I think we've accurately called when all of these things were going to happen with a great degree of confidence that they would happen. You and I both put our we knew when we did

this. We were putting our professional reputations on the line because if we were wrong a lot of people were gonna say hey you guys have just been selling us Hopium for the past whatever and you know what we were just saying is here's what the data is we're not trying to push Some narratives because they're exciting or interesting, you know the same way that if there was truly damaging evidence on President Biden, if 17 audio recordings were real, if the whistleblowers were real, if there was actual data, I would not be here saying, you know, this is a deep state house of representative Jim Jordan conspiracy. I would say that's, that's a bad piece of evidence. That's a bad piece of data. But I would say that's a bad piece of evidence. That's a bad piece of data.

But when you listen to Jim Comer or James Comer and Jim Jordan and they're interviewed and they're saying, Hey, do you have any evidence on President Biden and they go, Well, I hope so there's a lot of smoke. Yeah, that's, that's not what our system is. We're on an evidence-fact-based system. And if you're watching Legal AF, you're here because we care about facts and data, but PoPock, you think we're going to see this indictment this week, and then we're going to see it next week.

I mean, look, we're going to see it in the next two or three weeks. That's for sure. But it can happen at any moment, Ellen. Yeah. And to continue with one of your themes there, about smoke, on this network and on this show, we don't start the fire. We're like the arsonist,

reconstructed arson reconstructionists, forensic examiners who come in after and try to explain to you what the accelerant was, how the fire was started, what lit the fuse. But we don't create the stories. We're not creating it in order to get ratings. You and I didn't found the show based on, hey, let's pump up some crazy stories and see if they'll stick. I mean, aren't you, we are practicing lawyers. I do have a professional reputation. You do too, that I want to be as accurate and precise as I possibly can.

Are we always right? No, because we're not in control of the case. We're reporting on it. We're not inside the beehive. We're reporting on it from outside with our best analysis based on years of experience. But as I joke on on my social media, we're, legal I have, we're almost never wrong podcasts because we are almost never wrong. And that comes from hard work and from experience and from gut and from from years of doing what we're watching others do and being able to report on it in a fair way

without blowing smoke or sunshine. Now, having said that, there is one other development. Oh, let me answer your question, then I'll give you the last development in Fulton County. That's important. She's got a Fawni Willis Fulton County DA has now three full weeks of an inditing grand jury that she's been presenting evidence to, it stands on the shoulders of a year and a half investigation and seven months of a special purpose grand jury, which was her investigatory assisting grand jury, not her inditing grand jury, to develop 75 witnesses, testimony, and all that evidence. So that's why things are going to go more rapidly, even though

there was a gap between March and the time she started her actual regular indictment, processed once she's in there, she's done. She said in an interview to a local news channel while she was handing out school supplies and backpacks at a discount for returning children. She said, I'm ready, we're done, the work is done, we're ready to go. I owe it to the people of Fulton County. I owe it to the people of America. These

are hard decisions. People aren't going to be happy about them, meaning Trumpers and the others on the other side of the aisle. And that's why we saw video feed of barricades being put up in Fulton County. I think it's either this week or later next week, and then it'll be unsealed sometime in early September, and she's got the rest of the Fulton County administrative and the sheriff, a batty and all that, ready, because she's told people work from home,

the whole end of August beginning of September. She's told and ass that the administrators of all the other office buildings that are governmental down there because the statehouse sits across from the DA's office, which sits across from the courthouse and a triangle in Fulton County in Atlanta. I know because I go in that area quite regularly. And so that could be a ground zero. And she's worried about that powder keg. And so she's trying to deescalate it by having less people there. They were putting up, I imagine, barriers while you and I and Michael Cohen were doing the arraignment live coverage on the Midas Touch Network, we went to a live feed of them doing

that because I guess she was also fearful that maybe this would be an area where they would attack his supporters, Trump supporters, to pay back for what was happening in Washington to see DC and she wanted to be ready. I happen to be leaving tomorrow morning to go to Atlanta where I will be for the next three days. And I have promised the Midas Touch brothers you that if something happens like an indictment, I will high-tail it down there and I will do some sort

of live reporting from at least the outside of the courtroom and the courthouse about that indictment. I think it's late next week, early the following week, but spoiler alert, it is coming. He will be indicted. And I think that indictment will be a much broader or sprawling indictment with multiple people because I think under Georgia law, she really has one shot at this. She's going to get it right. One last bit of reporting, Ben. We had a recent development. We know earlier in the week Judge McBernie at the end of July, denied, denied, denied the

three things that Donald Trump was looking for. He was looking to have fawny willess disqualified for the second time. And Judge McBerney said, no way. I don't see any misconduct on her behalf. She's just doing what any elected prosecutor would do. And so that's out. I want he what Donald Trump wanted to have the special purpose grand jury's body of work for seven months thrown out and make her start all over again at the grand jury level. And and McBerney said, you don't even have standing to be making that argument because you're not even indicted yet. Maybe one day or as Judge McBerney so eloquently put it, perhaps you'll be indicted, perhaps,

perhaps, but not today. And just as you made a mistake and you got slapped back and so did Judge Cannon in having trying to interfere in the federal criminal prosecution after Mar-a-Lago search warrant was executed last August. Hard to believe it was a year ago, you're not allowed, you don't have standing to interfere with a criminal indictment, pre-indipement. You're not indicted yet, come back.

When and if you are indicted, Mr. Trump, you may bring up all of these issues about you don't like the prosecutor, you don't like the color of my thigh, you think that the special purpose grand jury's work is unconstitutional and it shouldn't be used, you can do all of that in front of a judge, it won't be me. In front of a judge randomly assigned in federal court or state court to this case, and you could take it up then, take it up with those people. So based on that ruling, which the Trump people have been waiting for since March, but came out just July the 31st, Trump dismissed a second petition that he had filed in Fulton County

trying to once again, for the third time, disqualify Fawri well as disqualify McBernie who already ruled and to get rid of the special purpose grand jury body of work, that petition, which is identical to what McBernie basically just ruled upon except it didn't include him. McBernie being disqualified at all, was reassigned to another county, another circuit court in Georgia by the chief judge of Fulton County because he didn't want the situation where McBerney was gonna be judged by other people, his colleagues in Fulton County.

So it was sent down to the another judicial district, including I think Cobb County, to be ruled on ahead, already been assigned to a judge but they hadn't done anything yet. Seeing the writing on the wall, just yesterday Donald Trump's team voluntarily dismissed the petition, telling the world that we'll take this up with the appellate court

based on what McBernie just ruled. And there's two ways they can go now. I'll leave it on this. There's two levels of appeal in Georgia, appell pelvic courts. There's the Court of Appeals, which is where most first level appeals go, and then you get, if you can, you have the grounds, you can get up to the Georgia Supreme Court. There's nine on the Georgia Supreme Court. They're Republican appointed, basically, and there's 15 on the Court of Appeals, and they hear the case at three judges at a time. However, because there's 15 on the court of appeals, and they hear the case three judges at a time.

However, because there's probably a constitutional attack on this based on the equivalent of the Sixth Amendment rights, I assume that they're going to try a direct appeal to this Georgia Supreme Court again, having already lost there two weeks ago, nine zero, when they try to get this, get rid of Fony Willis, get rid of McBurney, get rid of the special purpose grand jury body of work. So we'll have to follow that closely. But in the meantime, that does not go. There's no injunction.

There's no attempt to stop anything. Fony Willis is going to indict in the meantime. And the move by Trump to directly go around all the other courts and go directly to the Georgia Supreme Court a few weeks back. He moved by Trump to directly go around all the other courts and go directly to the Georgia Supreme Court a few weeks back. That backfired miserably because not only did the Georgia Supreme Court rule that procedurally the case should not have been filed there, but in the order the Georgia Supreme Court also addressed the merits and stated that on the merits Trump would lose as well.

So if Trump were to bring these claims before them, again, in this posture, I think the Georgia Supreme Court has now established their frivolous Trump petition precedent where they would rule against Donald Trump. I've seen so many new members here on our YouTube channel today, and that's so great to see, you know, we joke here at the Midas Touch Network that it's probably not the greatest business model

we have here not to take outside investors. And so right now it's based on all of the memberships and the patrons, and so we appreciate all of the memberships on our YouTube channel that allows the network to grow and expand and bring on more people. And really thanks to everybody here, we've been able to build out MidasTouch.com, which is the new number one source of pro-democracy news. That's MidasTouch.com, MEI, D-A-S, T-O-C-H, dot com,

check MidasTouch.com every day. Make it your home page. We've got some great writers there, and it is a compliment to what we talk about here on the might as touch shows. For example, when we talk about the indictment, go search the might as touch website might as touch dot com and read the indictment Follow along with us as we go through these documents. That's mitestouch.com. Thank you everybody for being a, there it is right there, thanks everyone who's become a member, who's gifted other people, memberships.

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That is some fly gear right there. Store.mitusTouch.com gear up. Now, make sure you're subscribed on our YouTube channel. I think we'll hit 1.5 million subscribers by this month. And then we're gonna be on our way to try to hit two million subscribers in 2023. That would be great indeed. And so spread the message, spread the word about this show. Just let one person, two people, three people, five people, ten people, know about this

pro-democracy show, let them know about the legal AF community and let them know what it is that we do here. That's one of the best ways you can help us out no matter what. And I just want to say it's such an honor to be here each and every weekend and each and every day with this incredible pro-democracy community. The legal AFers, the Midas, Mighty, y'all are just the best. And I'm just so grateful to be a part of this with you. And I was always looking for a community of compassionate, intelligent, like real patriots, people who, it's not just performative with the Constitution. It's like people who's conduct each and every day is to support and defend our Constitution

and to support our democracy. And just thank you all, Legal AFers, for organically creating this community that Michael Popock, myself and all of our contributors are a part of. Thank you so much, a historic week indeed, and it was an honor to spend this historic week with you. No where else I and Michael Popock would rather be. We'll see you next time on Legal AF, shout out to The Midas Mighty.