Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Being HIS LEGAL CHAOS to DC…Total MESS!!

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo are back with the midweek edition of the Legal AF podcast. On tap? 1. Matt Gaetz "sex crimes" report update; 2. Trump tries to get his NY Convictions dismissed immediately; 3. DC Judges are flooded with demands to dismiss Jan6 cases and avoid sentencing and or trial because Trump won; 4. Rudy is in trouble again with a new motion for sanctions and for contempt this time in the original defamation case in DC: and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Subscribe to the new Legal AF channel: @LegalAFMTN Subscribe to Meidas+ at https://meidasplus.com Thanks to our sponsors: Armra: Head to https://tryarmra.com/legalaf or enter promo code: LEGALAF to receive 15% off your first order! Zbiotics: Head to https://zbiotics.com/LegalAF to get 15% off your first order when you use LEGALAF at checkout. Sundsays for Dogs: Get 40% off your first order of Sundays. Go to https://sundaysfordogs.com/LEGALAF or use code LEGALAF at checkout. Public Rec: Upgrade your wardrobe instantly and save 25% OFF during the @PublicRec Holiday Sale at https://publicrec.com when you use promo code: LEGALAF #publicrecpod Miracle Made: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. Uplift: Visit https://upliftdesk.com/legalaf and get four free accessories, plus an extra discount off your entire order. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The future is clear. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. To discover how, visit bhp.com slash better future. It's Legal AF. At the midweek. Karen Freeman at Nifilo. Michael Popak. God, we have so much to talk about at the intersection of law and politics.

Let's go. We got the Manhattan DA case, 34 felony count conviction of Donald Trump. But to Donald Trump's, it's just a pesky little case that can just be dismissed by the judge. They don't want to be bothered with vacating a jury conviction. And we have two filings, two pieces of paper in the last couple of days, including one today, trying to urge Judge Murchon on the Trump side to immediately dismiss the case. He's the president-elect. And don't even bother going to sentencing.

And the Manhattan DA's office is saying, well, not so fast. Time heals all wounds. Time resolves all temporary immunities. Why don't we just go through the process now and then we come out the other side, he can start serving any future sentence after he comes out of being president. Felon, 2029, that's our new motto.

We'll talk about what's going on and what Judge Brachon is likely to do next. Then we'll move on to the confirmation process of some cabinet members, including the person being nominated to head the Department of Justice, Matt Gates. The closest he's ever gotten to the Department of Justice as a practicing lawyer, if you will, is when he was on the other side of a criminal investigation as to whether he sex trafficked underage girls. And now the ethics committee has met today after a five-day delay or so and decided what to do about that pesky little report that they prepared after a year and a half or two years of an investigation. What will happen to that report? Will it get to the Senate Judiciary Committee

for consideration on January 3rd? Confirmation starts before the president even takes his oath of office. Will the Senate Republicans, led by some of the women senators, get their hands on that report? Will the public? And if they don't, what about the hackers? Because we have reporting that the litigation files

of the two wing men of Matt Gaetz involved in the alleged sex trafficking, the files were breached and secret eyewitness sworn testimony was downloaded. Will, I mean, it's gonna be a race. Is it gonna be the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House Ethics Committee releasing the report, or the hackers releasing it, hopefully redacting the names of the witnesses

as new receipts come popping out? Actually receipts we've known about for quite some time. It's just getting re-reported now by mainstream media. We've got the Venmo receipts by Matt Gaetz for this this raping of underage women as alleged. We've got the checks he wrote, you know, stuff like that. Well, we'll catch everybody up related to that. We've got Jan 6th insurrectionists who are acting out again in court now that their fearless leader has been elected again,

saying that their sentencing should be postponed or they shouldn't get sentenced at all, the trial should be postponed or things like that because they're getting a golden pardon from Donald Trump. They've already applied for it. They've already spoken to people in the transition committee, judge, you shouldn't do anything else.

And some of the judges in the District of Columbia are firing back and getting upset and saying it's a travesty that Donald Trump would just blanket pardon all of these people, including the ones that committed assault with a deadly weapon and tried to kill law enforcement. We'll cover some recent comments by Judge Nichols, some actions by Judge Contreras and Judge Friedrich and what it all means now that Donald

Trump won reelection or election two weeks ago. And then Rudy, wow, I know people are thinking, are we gonna hear about the Mercedes-Benz again? No, this isn't about the Mercedes-Benz. This is about a brand new motion filed today for contempt, not in New York where the judgment and the $150 million related to Ruby Freeman and Shane Moss is being litigated and presided over by Judge Lyman. No, no, no, we're going back, back in time, way back to one of the oldies but goodies, Judge Barrell Howell, who presided over the actual defamation case. And there's a little, speaking of pesky little facts, Rudy Giuliani entered into a consent decree to avoid future litigation, which he agreed not to bash Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss ever again.

And then in two times on his podcast, he did exactly that and then bashed the judge for good measure. Well, she scheduled a hearing on that and we'll talk about all that at the midweek on Legal AF. If you're here already, hit the subscribe button. Might as well. We need it after on the other side of Tuesday to continue to grow our pro-democracy community. I can't think of anybody better to do this midweek with as my partner for the last four years, Karen, Friedman and Igniflo. Karen, how are you? Yeah, you know, I have a bit of a cold, but otherwise I'm doing great. Today, I'm kind of weirdly obsessed with this feud between Nancy Mace and Sarah McBride, the incoming first transgender congresswoman, and they are passing rules in the house basically saying that she can't use the women's bathroom.

It's just outrageous to me how she's being treated. And Mike Johnson's going along with it. And it's just this crazy, horrible embarrassment that we have these women out there like Marjorie Taylor Greene, predictably, and Nancy Mase, who are coming after a woman and going after her about what she's going, about what bathroom she can use. It just really upsets me. As somebody who's a regular user of women's bathrooms, you don't see each other's private parts. It's not like a men's bathroom that has places to stand up

and I would imagine it's a little less discreet. And so I don't understand what the issue is. I don't understand what the problem is. I don't understand what she's so afraid of and why she's so obsessed with this. And frankly, it's just a terrible, terrible statement about what our taxpayer dollars are going towards to pay the salaries of people like her

who have nothing better to do with her day than to get resolutions passed about bathrooms. I just find it outrageous and disgusting. And I am absolutely in support of Congresswoman McBride. And I hope, I mean, I can't imagine how she must feel. This has to be a terrible, terrible thing to walk into Congress and have to deal with. So I just want to call it out and show some support. I don't want to just clarify. I've been using men bathrooms for 58 years. I've never seen another man's anything in the bathroom. But that's not your point. And the point is well

taken though. I guess I just assume because you guys have those urinal things. We don't look at each other's junk. But in any event, at least I haven't. But in any event. We don't have anything like that. We have doors. I got your point.

Look, the head of the Congressional Diversity Caucus has issued a statement on this and said MAGA Congress can't get a farm bill passed, can't get an appropriations bill passed, can't get anything for the American voter pass. The last I looked, the price of eggs is exactly the same price as it was before Nancy Mace and Mike Johnson decided that they were gonna single out one member out of 538 and tell them they have to go pee in the corner.

Maybe they should create, we'll go back to Jim Crow days, maybe she should have her own, I don't know if it's she or they, but their own water fountain. I mean, that's what we're doing. This is what consumes MAGA. This is why they don't get anything done. It's gonna be another, the only saving grace from Tuesday

is that with the slim majority in the house, it's gonna be another do nothing Congress that gets absolutely nothing done. If this is what is occupying their minds in the Lady and the Duck session to welcome their new member of Congress, there's supposed to be rules and decorum in the House. That's not the way to welcome a new person in

who represents, whether they like it or not, a group of Americans who identify as transgender. And Nancy and the rest of them should just be ashamed of themselves. And they'll have to answer for it one day, either to the electorate or in the afterlife. But you're right. It's a good place to start. Let's talk about your old office. And so Alvin Bragg rightly, you know, I think all the prosecutors' heads were spinning after a Tuesday. It wasn't just us. And I think taking the lead from Jack Smith, the special prosecutor on the federal side,

everybody said the exact same thing. It was like unprecedented circumstances. We'll get back to you on what to do with the continuation of our case. Both of those cases are in different postures. Jack Smith's cases are all in the prosecution indictment stage moving towards a trial, but no trial having been set, motion practice and things like that.

But that's not the New York case. The New York case is not a case that can be dismissed. It's a conviction and a judgment that's already been entered. He is a convicted felon and no amount of magical thinking or etch a sketch or presidential elect superpowers is going to change that. And they keep, you know, I know Todd Blanche is going to be either the attorney general, depending upon Matt Gaetz, or the deputy attorney general, the number two spot, but he doesn't know crap about state court practice. You'll educate him at some point.

There's no case to dismiss. There's a post, we're in post-conviction, pre-sentencing world. And all the cases that they cite in their papers tell the judge, both in the first line and in the last line of their filing today, saying, this case must be dismissed. The people of the United States have spoken and that overcomes the people of the state

of New York and he's the president-elect. All right, good for you. They don't touch at all what Alvin Bragg's office told Judge Marchand just the other day, which is we've got the solution, Judge. We understand that there's a balance here, right? A competing balance. Public justice on one side and the sanctity of a jury verdict having spoken and the public waiting to hear from a jury. We have that. Now we got the office of the presidency. I got an idea. It's a temporary condition, this president-elect

thing, this president thing. It ends in temporary condition, this president-elect thing, this president thing, it ends in 2029. So let's do something with the sentencing and the imposition of the sentencing and the start of the sentencing. In the future, that gets over this problem, he can go off and be president, but when he comes back, we'll see him at the jailhouse.

That's sort of their position. Of course, that drove Trump's lawyers crazy. And then they filed their paper. And why don't you pick it up from there about what their argument is? And then you can bottom line it about what do you think Judge Murchon's going to do later this week as we move towards, you know, remaining days left on the clock until the inauguration and the 119th Congress coming in on January the 3rd? Yeah, I've been saying for some time now that there was no way

this case was going to proceed to sentencing since the election. There was just, it's logistically, there's just no way to do it because of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decided after the conviction in this case, United States versus Trump, they created this new category of immunity, presidential immunity. It applies to certain types of evidence. Justice Mershon has to decide whether or not that decision applies to the evidence in the case because it happened after, it's not like he could apply that rule during the trial

because the case didn't exist and the law didn't exist. This is a brand new made up law thanks to the United States Supreme Court. So he has to make that decision and that decision is appealable by either side right away, not after the conviction. It's appealable. It's called an interlocutory appeal, appeal that happens before you can go anywhere else, before you can proceed. And since that happened, there was no way they would be able to get all the way up to the Supreme Court and back, because that's where this would go, right? The Supreme Court would love to hear about Donald Trump

and make another ruling again. That just logistically can't happen before he takes office as president. Now, as a result, the sentencing was never gonna happen. And I've been saying that now since November 5th. But we didn't know what was gonna happen to the case, given the fact that they're going to appeal this. It's clear that Trump, through his lawyers,

has told the Manhattan DA's office, we are going to seek a stay. We don't even want Judge Marchand to make that ruling now. We wanna stay, a stop seek a stay. We don't even want Judge Marshawn to make that ruling now. We want to stay, a stop, a pause. Or in the alternative, we want you to dismiss this case. And that's what they're looking for. And so the question in my mind was, will they dismiss the case?

And I'm sure people are asking, why would that happen? Why would you dismiss this case? What's the point of dismissing the case the jury has spoken? And I agree with anyone who's saying that they should not dismiss this case just because Trump's lawyers want it. And I agree that it shouldn't happen. And so they haven't filed their brief yet why they think it should be dismissed. They've outlined their arguments in a letter saying that they can't possibly proceed and do anything right now because the Presidential Transition Act and then he'll be president and without a doubt there's nothing that can be done while he's president because of the Supremacy Clause. They can't

interfere, the state court can't interfere with his federal duties, his Article 2 duties as president per the Constitution and so nothing really can happen at that point. They're saying the same applies to his transition because there is the Presidential Transition Act, also a federal law that allows for the peaceful and orderly transition of power. And even if they have a point there, there's still no point to dismiss the case. So that's what's going back and forth is briefing on whether or not the case should be dismissed, will be dismissed. But really nothing is going to happen other than a ruling on that at this time.

In my opinion, I'm thankful that the Manhattan DA's office decided not to dismiss the case. And hopefully Judge Marchand will just press pause and then we can revisit it when Trump is no longer president of the United States. And that's where we are. And I think they made the right decision and we'll see what happens. I hope one of our sponsors is some sort of cold tablet or Kleenex or something to make you feel better.

Sorry you don't feel well, partner. No, I'm sorry to be so like, you know, It's all right. All over my nose, but you know, it's legal AF. I'm not going to miss a Wednesday, just because I have a little head cold. I know things that the audience doesn't know about you and this is a cold, that's not going to stop you

from doing a podcasting at all. The cold is not going to stop me from eating here on a Wednesday. No, no, no, no, no, no. Let's be efficient though and respectful of your time and how you're feeling. I have nothing to add. That all sounds like the right approach. We'll wait for Judge Murchon and you and I will jump on some sort of duet hot take or something about it when it comes in.

Let's move on to... Oh God, I hate talking about Gates more than I have to, but I guess we have no choice. So Matt Gates, for those that are tuning in late to our democracy, Matt Gates was nominated to be the Attorney General. You know, it's funny, I was preparing a hot take about Rudy Giuliani over on Legal AF, the YouTube channel, and I was listening to Rudy's mayor podcast,

like the mayor's podcast, you know, number 557, J8 or the transition, you know, he's got like nine viewers on it. But in it, while they were doing it, they have a producer like Salty, not as good, but he chats with the mayor during the thing, kibitzes with him. And right when they were

doing this thing, I was watching for this other matter, the Hegseth nomination for Department of Defense came up and they were gobsmacked. He said, just just in, Trump has nominated, wait, Pete Hegseth, Fox, and this is how he read it, Fox and Friends, a war veteran, I mean, a military veteran to be, and Rudy leaned in and said, communications director? And he said, no, secretary of defense. And he goes, wow, this is Rudy. Wow, wow, not communications director.

Wow, I wasn't expecting that so this even flummoxed Magamagagoo-goo In their reactions to these picks which are just big middle finger Trolling to the American people and the people that voted for Donald Trump who he has absolutely no respect for and the fact that he's gonna make This country less secure is to make this country less secure, is going to make this country less, it compromises national security and making a laughing stock around the world. Doesn't matter to him. It doesn't matter. The only saving grace we got out of Tuesday is that this show, the Trump crazy shit show, is going to be canceled in 2029. So it seems like a very far away off, but it could

be worse because I don't really trust the American voter anymore. So it could have been re-upped for eight years and that would be worse. So we just have to quarterize this wound. We have to do damage control through lawsuits, challenging his executive orders and try to fight off the craziest of his nominations. Now Gates has a sex trafficking allegation problem. I don't know how else to put this. We've heard about this for several years. There's a guy named Joel Greenberg, who was an elected official in Florida, that's sitting on an 11-year sentence in the federal penitentiary because he was Matt Gaetz's wingman and did all the sex trafficking and raping of underage women and arranging it at parties in Florida

that Matt Gaetz attended. The two women, then girls, have already testified to the ethics committee and to the Department of Justice apparently, and have given affidavits that were filed in a lawsuit that broke out between Joel Greenberg of all people and another wing man who was a political lobbyist down in Florida in which the political lobbyist said, "'You're defaming me because you say I hosted these parties "'that you arranged with these underage women,

"'and that's a lie.'" And Joel Greenberg has nothing to lose. He's serving 11 years in prison. He went out with his lawyers and got all of their affidavits. And that's the file that got compromised and leaked or hacked at least, not leaked yet. Hack first then leak. It's the Matt Gaetz hack gate, right? So they got the, right? So they got the files. In the files are the testimony of these women, including the two now who represented by Joe Leppard,

who have taken to the airwaves and said, this is what we're going to testify to at any confirmation hearing. In the meantime, we've got now Venmo receipts. I didn't even know, why do I have to know that Matt Gaetz adopted a 19-year-old Cuban boy, man, as his son? Why do I have to know that? And why do I have to know that he used that kid, that guy's Venmo account to pay off girls for sex? Listing it as, this is depraved, talk about

groomer in chief, tuition and reimbursement and party. Yeah, okay, we got it. We got it. You're raped underage girls, as alleged. And so I got to know all that about a guy who's supposed to be the chief legal officer of the United States of America. Karen, why don't you update everybody from there forward? You've got a background as a sex prosecutor in the past and what the committee did today because they finally met, what the Senate Judiciary Committee may try to do and what do you think is going to happen to the candidacy? And then I'll give some color off of that. Yeah, so look, they decided that they are not releasing the report, which you know, you have to say to yourself, well, obviously, if it exonerated him, they would be releasing it right away. This is a bipartisan ethics panel that investigated this, and if it

exonerated him, you know they would release it and be waving it around. So it's clear that he resigned in order to avoid this from being released. He resigned two days before it was supposed to be released. And he's going to go through this Senate confirmation process. I don't think he passes confirmation. I think he's the impetus behind why Trump was asking for recess confirmation

so that he doesn't have to go through the hearing because he can't pass any kind of confirmation hearing. I mean, to be the chief law enforcement officer, I mean, that's why every single person when he was nominated said, Matt Gaetz. I mean, that makes no sense. He is not in any way qualified to be the chief law enforcement officer in this country. Not only does he not have the experience,

but he doesn't have the ethics, and he doesn't have the judgment. And he has a problem with drugs and underage girls and sex. And he is, frankly, somebody who I think it would be very damaging to our Department of Justice if he were the attorney general, which, you know, frankly, I think is part of the point. I think that is what Trump is trying to do. He wants to dismantle our institutions completely. He wants to make it so that people quit, that

nobody of quality works there. He wants to destroy our country so that there's nothing left but him and him being a dictator. It's disgusting. It's a disgrace. But I don't think that he is qualified. I don't think anyone thinks he's qualified to be attorney general of the United States. The most powerful appointment, some might argue, that Trump could make. I don't think he gets past Senate confirmation hearing. But I don't think he cares too much because he's been re-elected to the next seat

and he has not resigned from that seat. He only resigned from the seat he has right now or had right now and that's almost over. And so for him, it's like, you know, I buried the report. See if I can, we'll see if I can get passed and get elected or get appointed, sorry, and confirmed attorney general. And if I can't, and get elected or get appointed, sorry, and confirmed attorney general. And if I can't, no big deal.

I've already put Todd Blanch and Emile Beauvais right there as deputies, the two lawyers who represented him, represented Trump in Manhattan and in other cases. And they'll just slide them right in. Or as you did a hot take on this, or maybe it was on Saturday's Legal AF, you said Judge Eileen Cannon, you think she might get slid into that position.

Anything is possible, I just don't see Matt Gaetz being the Attorney General of the United States. It's too important of a position. But then again, what do I know? He appointed whatever his name is, Hegsef, to be head of the Department of Defense, somebody who doesn't even think women should be in combat or in the military because men are better at it than women.

He said something like, women are life givers, not life takers, or something like that. You know, like, he is. So the people he is nominating and the things that are coming out of their mouth are so atrocious and offensive. I actually can't even believe it. And I have a lot of friends who work for the Department of Justice.

I can't imagine any of them working for Matt Gaetz. Yeah, the only thing I'll differ with you with, I think he, I've seen the resignation letter. He resigned from the 118th and the 119th and Florida is going forward with filling the seat. So he's not coming back to Congress, even if this thing backfires on him for attorney general. And at the rate it's going, I mean, Maggie Haberman, who I like a lot, is reporting from the New York Times that even though Donald Trump is publicly announcing that he's sticking with the gates and twisting arms

and making phone calls, the two of them making phone calls. And JD Vance is trying to, you know, he's going to try to shepherd this thing through the process. That privately he's told people that, that's barely 50-50 that I can get this guy through because they have a narrow lead. I mean, they got three, four seat lead in the Senate in the 119th Congress that starts on Jan three. And for those that don't follow politics and laws closely as we do, they start the

confirmation process before the president gets sworn in, before Trump gets sworn in on the 20th. So they'll have a lot of these hearings potentially between the third and the 20th of January. potentially between the 3rd and the 20th of January. The question is whether the Joni Ernst Republican, who was up to be head of the Department of Defense, and she's already expressed major reservations against some of these candidates,

including the ones that have sex crime allegations against them like Hegseth, who's accused of rape, and Matt Gaetz, whether Joni Ernst combined with a combination of Murkowski of Alaska, Collins of Maine, and a few other ones, peel away and just say, no, we can't get comfortable with these picks, including Gaetz. And if you don't give me the report, we're going to have to ask him these hard questions during the confirmation and maybe bring in the witnesses because the women have said, I think that they're willing to testify at some point in some way in there. So I don't think that there's any way to avoid this. And I

think there is a very, there's a group of three or four breakaway senators that could put many of these picks at risk. However, balancing against that is you've got John Thune, the incoming Senate majority leader, who's on record. He gave an interview to Brett Baer in which he said, all cards are on the table. If the Democrats don't play ball and confirm the president's cabinet picks, even the recess would be allowing, I love the nuclear option here, recess appointments, meaning the Senate would have to declare almost an immediate like 10-day recess, artificial recess, in order to let Trump just appoint acting heads of all the cabinets of all the cabinets for two years without confirmation process. And then again, are Ernst, Murkowski, Collins, and others, and Cornyn going to allow that and allow

the Senate to be shit on by Donald Trump who already treats them like they are his personal lapdog, yes or no? And then what do we do in the courts when the senators try to abdicate their Article 1 responsibilities to advise and consent? Do we file as I say we that's the royal we that's the lawsuit filing we do we file the lawsuits to get up to the United States Supreme Court about this artificial recess appointment thing in conspiracy between the two branches. That's not what the founding fathers

and this Supreme Court loves talking about separation of powers, everything. It's like, you know, it's their knee jerk reaction to everything. Oh, separation of powers, separation of powers wasn't properly analyzed by that court. No, the separation of powers doesn't allow that. Okay, how about here?

How about two powers getting involved with each other and getting into bed with each other and conspiring to give the president superior power in what's supposed to be co-equal branches of government in a checks and balance system? You see the fights that are going to be raging. And the good news is the attorney generals around the country are itching for the fight. Many of them said, you know, we thought it was a chance that Trump could win. We've been working on our plan for the last year. Right.

And so the question is going to be if Matt Gaetz goes down in flames with their with a confirmation process, who's his replacement? Karen, what do you got? You know, look, I want to just push back a little bit on Matt Gaetz. He's slimy, OK? He's as slimy as he gets. And normal people, you're right, that it looks like he, in his letter, said, I'm not going to resign.

You know, I'm resigning from both. But listen to his words. His words are, I hereby resign as a US representative, effective immediately. And I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th. So he's resigning now, but he's not saying but he's saying I do not intend. He just said I changed my mind. I didn't intend when I said it. I changed my mind. I

don't trust him. So I just want to put I just want to put just want to put a pin I was I wasn't saying it to embarrass you I just I'm just telling you that the Santas is moving forward with filling the seat and Laura and No, Laura Trump would fill the Marco Rubio seat. No, he'd have to hold a special election like any minute now so it may be but there may not be enough time because Don't trust the guy either but the Santas doesn't like Trump and so the Santas goes forward with a special... I just don't trust the guy. I don't trust the guy either, but DeSantis doesn't like Trump. And so DeSantis moves forward with a special election, that ship will have sailed. We'll see, it'll be fun to watch what Gates does if he gets shot down.

I'm more worried about the cram down in the American people about these cabinet positions for two years without a confirmation, a real confirmation process. So we're going to have to follow it all. No balls today for the House Ethics Committee, a bipartisan committee, couldn't find one Republican to side with the Democrats to break the tie. But the remaining question is, will the Senate Judiciary Committee still get that report and the one about Hegseth and the rest in order to do their job or is Thune going to pull the nuclear option, hit the button and have everybody go fishing? They can't declare that without a majority either. I feel like every time you and I talk

about these things, I feel like I took a time machine back to Andrew Jackson's period. I know, right? It's crazy. It's like bloody, bloody Andrew Jackson. And like today, a Senator picked up a cane and caned a man on the Senate floor. I'm like, I'm waiting for that to happen. I know. I mean, I know. He rode in on his horse.

And so. Yeah, right. Right, which is, by the way, that is, we'll take a break in a second. That is the reason for recess appointments. It's because it took months to get the Senate and the Congress to come back on horseback to Washington from the 13 colonies and from the other states,

I mean, eventually states. But that's why it's not because we could. No, you're right. You're right. It's crazy. That's why that exists so that there's a continuity so that if somebody, if there's an opening that happens to occur at that time, they can temporarily fill it while the horse, you know, is coming into town. Three months for the guy to get here from Massachusetts. We got an attorney general position of federal, right?

And all right, we're gonna talk about, we're gonna cover a lot more here on Legal AF, including what happened to Rudy Giuliani. Oh my God. It's just like the fact that I have to keep talking. I take a shower every time I talk about Rudy Giuliani, but we will. And the Jan 6 judges are apoplectic about what to do now that there was an election on Tuesday with people in front of them and all the Jan

Six defendants are jumping up and down all excited. Give me, give me, give me the pardon. And some of them haven't even been sentenced yet. And what do you do about all that? So we were going to cover all of that. Thank God after Tuesday, this network, this channel has sponsors. That's a good thing. And they know what we're talking about and they know how we talk about things and it's so important.

I just saw a stat that was put up by Brian Taylor Cohen in his social media feed, which I thought was fascinating, which is that all of social media, including YouTube, is dominated by right-wing viewpoints, right-wing podcasters and posters and all, even YouTube and even even YouTube, and that just reminded me it's so important that this pro democracy independent network, survive and thrive and grow. We don't have outside investors. The way we do it is the way you're seeing it. We find amazing sponsors that like our point of view, who don't edit edit us or try to

censor us who support us that that wanna be on the show. And then we do other things. We've got other podcasts like Miss Trial that Karen co-anchors on Thursday with her friends and colleagues, Karen Rice and Donnie Perry, former prosecutors. We've got a new channel that we built right before the election.

Not because we wanted just to help Kamala win. We wanted to be there on the other side of Tuesday, regardless of what happened. And that's Legal AF, the channel, Legal AF MTN, doing at least six to eight videos a day, every day. We've got some great contributors from around the Midas universe, including Karen and Dina Doll and Shan Wu

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All right, welcome back. Jan's sixth trial court judges in the District of Columbia Federal Court are struggling under a weight of submissions and requests and demands by all the Jan 6 insurrectionists, including the most violent ones, frankly, about delay the sentence, avoid the sentence, don't set a trial, the inauguration is around the corner. I'm getting a pardon.

And different judges are handling it in different ways. You know, some of the judges, especially if it's a misdemeanor that's being tried, like Judge Contreras, are like, why don't we save scarce judicial resources, this guy's probably gonna get a pardon. So let's just avoid the trial until after the inauguration. And I'm like, really? Why don't we have the American people know what he did and see if he gets exonerated or convicted and then we can see what the pardon does for him? How about

that? But then on the other side of the spectrum, you got judges like Judge Friedrich, who she came out with, no, I'm going to sentence you. One violent criminal who got an eight-year sentence was like, I'm going to get a pardon. I'm going to get even restitution. I'm going to sentence you. The one violent criminal who got an eight year sentence was like, I'm gonna get a pardon. I'm gonna get even restitution. Gonna get paid back for my suffering. And she says, well, you can tell that to everybody at the end of your sentence. I'm sentencing you to eight years.

If you can get your pardon, good luck. I mean, she basically said that. And then we got this new Judge Nichols. And I'm gonna turn it over to you right now, but Judge Nichols, he fires up. I just get so pissed off at Nichols and I'm going to turn it over to you right now, but Judge Nichols, he fires up. I just get so pissed off at Nichols, you know, with these crocodile tears in court about, well, I hope Trump doesn't give a blanket pardon. That would be disappointing.

You know what's disappointing? The series of decisions that you made leading into this point. He was the judge for Bannon. He didn't make Bannon go in after he was convicted by a jury. He let him sit out for a year. He lost his appeal. Then he put him in. And he's the judge that set us on the course of the Fisher decision. He's the judge that said, I don't think you can use Department of Justice, the highest level charge you're using of obstruction of an official proceeding, because the insurrectionists

or the defendants in front of me didn't get their hands on the actual certificates because they were locked in a little leather strap box and therefore that's not obstruction of an official proceeding the way the statute is using it. We were all like what? That's not the impairment impeding obstruction component of it. It couldn't possibly be that. But that was the first decision that ultimately the Supreme Court, even though it was reversed by the DC Circuit Court on appeal, when the Supreme Court got it,

they sided with Nicholson as analysis. And now we're stuck with, you know, opening the jails and letting out all these people who were hit with obstruction of an official proceeding. What person in their right mind doesn't think that the purpose and goal of the Jan Sixth insurrectionist wasn't to attack and burn down the Capitol in order to stop the count and stop the transition of power to Joe Biden? What do they think they were doing? What do they think the gallows was that they erected and trying to run through the halls of Congress looking for Nancy Pelosi to assassinate her?

What do they think that was. I really, it's just, you know, these judges are medically sealed in their ivory towers and making all, you know, and contemplating their navels. It just pisses the crap out of me. What'd you think about what the Jan Six insurrectionists are doing, how the judges are reacting to it, and then of course Nichols. Yeah, I mean, like the Carl Nichols ruling

are actually expressing that he's like, what? Wholesale pardoning of all the Jan six thing would be very, very disappointing. A, I didn't expect that from Carl Nichols for the reasons you just said, right? He seemed to be somebody who we knew he clerked for, I think, Justice Thomas. And he's somebody who, who, as you said, would seem to be sympathetic to the Jan sixers when he made that

strange ruling. But so he came out and said, Look, you know, anything close to a wholesale pardon for the Jan six group would be frustrating would be beyond frustrating and disappointing. And, you know, look, when you think back to to all the people who have been prosecuted, it's more than 1500 of them have been charged more than 1200 of them have been pled guilty or found guilty to date. There's been over three million dollars worth of damage.

Five people died in the aftermath. 140 officers were assaulted. You know, it's just crazy how much stuff had went on. And, you know, it's not a one size fits all thing. Trump likes to call them all patriots. Trump likes to call them all, you know, people that he wants to give these blanket pardons to. But I think the judges who have been slogging through those 1200 pleas and

trials, right, of guilt, that's a lot of people that these federal judges have sat through in Washington. And it's really something that they're all different, right? Some of them are very violent, dangerous criminals. Some are individuals, as you said, charged with misdemeanor trespass. Some have criminal histories, some arranged to have guns brought, etc. Some are oath keepers and proud boys and, and you know, it's everybody's in a different position. And so I

think the judges would be and the prosecutors and everybody, the police officers, the people who are affected by this insurrection would be extremely frustrated and disappointed, including Trump appointed judges like Carl Nichol, if Trump were to just wholesale, pardon all of these individuals. Of course, I think we can anticipate there will be a lot of pardons and there'll be some pardons.

But, you know, look, it's a rare thing to have a judge make a comment like that, especially about something involving a presidential grant of either immunity, I'm sorry, clemency or pardon. So, you know, it was interesting to hear that and to hear him say that. And, you know, so he, but he recognizes the futility of going forward right now because people might get pardoned. And so he's adjourning cases to conserve judicial resources and, you know, we are where we are

because Trump's been elected. Yeah, I mean, the crocodile tears for these Jan six people throw the book. Here's my position. If I were a federal judge, sentence them, try them. I don't care about the inauguration on January 20th. If you've got work to do, you got wood to chop, chop the wood between now and January 20th. So if Donald Trump's going to wholesale pardon or case by case

pardon or whatever he's going to do, then the American people should know what he's partnering because there'll be a list and sleuthing will bring to bear and bring out into the public domain what these people did. I mean the guy that's in front of Nichols, and here's the upshot about the Nichols hearing where he went back and forth with the assistant US attorney, is that the guy that he was having the colloquy with is representing himself. He was a he was he's been indicted for eight felony counts including three related to assault with a deadly weapon

using a metal bat against law enforcement and representing himself. And he's been he's one of the poster boys for the Jan 6th hostages. You can find him online, you know, all sorts of like, oh, he's a hostage, a political prisoner, and all he's making, making great hay of it. At one point, when they were talking about the speculative and conjectural Trump future pardons. The assistant US attorney said something along the lines of, well, I could learn to bat my eyelids and fly to the moon, or there could be a hurricane and a tornado hitting at the exact same time outside this courthouse, but that's not going to happen either. To which this guy had the balls to say out loud in court, because he's representing himself,

there is a tornado and a hurricane that's hitting and his name is Donald Trump and Matt Gaetz. Here's the Matt Gaetz bringing it back to where we started. Matt Gaetz is gonna clean house the Department of Justice and I'm gonna get, the judge was like, this is not helpful. But I would have told him, sit the F down until you're spoken to, sit down. But at the end, the judge delayed the guy's trial.

So it's all this like hand wringing and oh, it'd be so disappointing, but I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna start your trial in February maybe. Now he says it wasn't for the reasons, but come on, it's obvious. Sentence, try. Do your job until you're out of a job.

I mean, that's all you can do. I have one question for you before we switch gears and talk about Giuliani. The Department of Justice, as in all prosecutors office, is made up of a lot of individual career prosecutors, right? That stay even after there's a change at the top. Some is new at the very top leadership position, but like the line prosecutors that are below,

the institutional, the legacy, what Merrick Garland in addressing the troops a couple of days ago in a tearful farewell was almost like George Washington's goodbye, said, you are the Department of Justice. You are its legacy. You are its institutional knowledge. In other words, imploring them to stay if they can because Gates could never fire everybody. All the US attorneys are gonna get canned. They're

all gonna have to hand in their resignations and if they don't they'll be publicly flogged like they were the last time. So they all got to go. Top leadership is all gonna be replaced. But then you got, you know, the workaday assistant US attorney. Do you think they should stay or do you think they should go? So that's a really tough question because these are the best of the best.

It's very hard to get a job as an AUSA. It's very hard to get a job at the Department of Justice. They call it main justice. There's some lawyers, a lot of lawyers that work there too. They do, they get to pick and choose their cases. They, it's not like when I worked as, when I was a state court prosecutor, I worked for the Manhattan DA's office. You just get every single case that the NYPD makes an arrest and you have to prosecute it or not, or do you have to process that case and deal with it.

It's different with the Department of Justice. They get to pick and choose what they want. They get to pick and choose their priorities. There's a civil rights division. There's all kinds of various divisions throughout the Department of Justice, and it kind of reflects the priorities of leadership, right? There's, for example, they have a child sex trafficking section, right?

That where they do computer child porn and computer cases where, you know, pedophiles go online looking for underage kids. Like that's a huge robust part of what the Department of Justice does. Will Matt Gaetz continue that program? I mean, who knows, right? There are, they do terrorism cases.

They do the biggest cases across the country, the most important cases across the country. And these cases are difficult. These cases are not easy to do. They take an incredible amount of work and they're all bigger cases and they rely on people like the FBI or the Secret Service or other law enforcement agencies to build the cases and bring the cases to the prosecutors, and then they do the cases together. Trump is looking to wholesale kind of bring in people

like Matt Gaetz who not only are not qualified or dangerous. The question will be will these people work for somebody like Matt Gaetz? And that's an open question. I think there are people who are concerned. I think the lower line prosecutor is probably less concerned because it won't really affect them, at least not in the beginning. But supervisors, for example, or other career prosecutors

who are there for a long time, I think some might have an issue with working for someone like Matt Gaetz. And I know for a fact some are considering resigning and leaving. And that is both in the FBI and law enforcement side, as well as the lawyer side of the Department of Justice. Which ones? No, I'm kidding. And there's a lot of people who are trying to convince their friends

not to leave because no matter what you think of the president and whoever he appoints, our nation depends on these incredible people continuing to do their job to keep us safe. And no matter what people say, it's not a political, these aren't political prosecutions. This is not a political, these aren't political prosecutions, this is not a political body. It really is, has a history of being neutral and of upholding the law and really kind of, you know, it was Biden's Department of Justice that prosecuted Senator Menendez, right, a Democrat, or Mayor Adams of New York City, a Democrat, right? It's not something, they don't look at the person's political party

and say, okay, I'm gonna go after them. Yeah, they also prosecuted Trump because he committed crimes, right? Like that's where the without fear or favor comes in. That's where that phrase comes in, you know? And that's where you follow the facts wherever they lead. And without fear or favor, that's what prosecutors are supposed to do. That's why the symbol of justice is a woman holding two

scales and she is blind, you know, blindfolded because justice is supposed to be blind. What's what's terrifying about what's happening here is they're looking to transform that. And my hope is that the excellent prosecutors stay so that excellence will continue long past this, this stain on our country. And they have an outlet. Because if they get pushed to do something that they do not believe in their heart of

hearts, part is they're a part of their professional ethics that they can do. At that moment, they can resign. None of them have to do anything. If Matt Gaetz says, I don't care, your prosecutorial discretion, I'm the attorney general, you're going after that person. No, I'm not. At that point, you can resign. But until then, I agree with you. I'd like to see these career apolitical heroes stay there to help as much as they can from the inside, restrain the worst instincts of Matt Gaetz. I mean, look, obviously, if it's Matt Gaetz, he's been given a babysitter. It's it's

Todd Blanch, who at least was in the US Attorney's Office for a period of time, at least, you know, he's going to get confirmed. And so he's gonna get confirmed. And so he's gonna be the bench coach for anybody that's not qualified, like Matt Gaetz. He's gonna be the Chief Operating Officer of the Department of Justice, which is not unusual. I mean, Lisa Monaco is basically running

the day-to-day operation for the Department of Justice, not Merrick Garland, and that's the counterpart for Todd Blanch. So you got that going on for you. But look, there's gonna be a moment where the rubber meets the road, and a prosecutor that you've just described is instructed to do something that they find morally and legally abhorrent. That's when you choose. Until then, if you can hold on, it would be better for America to have those people inside. Because even though Donald Trump wants to fire 5,000 civil servants and hollow out all

of the federal agencies, starting with the ones he wants to get rid of, like I read Linda McMahon was nominated to be the head of the education department. What's her first task? To put the department out of business? That's the one they want to get rid of. But as many of the civil servants and main justice prosecutors and things, FBI agents that can stay and try to rein in the worst instincts and not be an enabler, maybe a disabler of what Gates and Trump want to do, I think the better. Although I love the, if it was a movie,

them marching out, coming out the front door of main justice and saying, no way are we supporting these people. But you're right, they're not really supporting the people, they're supporting justice. And we need them there, that's for sure. We're gonna talk about Rudy Giuliani and stay in Washington, DC,

but we have to do the thing that keeps the lights on and keeps our network and our channel moving. It's part of the gasoline because we're independent. And even though we've got high voters as podcasters, we've got people that depend on us and we depend on in our organization. We don't take outside investors. And so we bring in pro-democracy sponsors. And so we've got another round coming up here. We've got the new Legal AF YouTube channel, another way to support our channel. It's at Legal AF MTN, Legal AF MTN.

We got some great new content over there. We're sitting 24 seven at the intersection of law and politics, not blow and smoke or sunshine. So if you've enjoyed it on the Midas Touch Network, you'll love it over there. And when I invite you to become part of our audience. We've got other podcasts for others of our contributors here on Legal AF, including Karen Freeman at NIFLO.

Check out Miss Trial on Thursdays. You wanna tease any content for tomorrow? All right, Miss Trial is, we like to talk about women-focused, women-centered issues primarily. Obviously, things that are at the intersection of law and politics, which is sort of the legal AF, bigger Midas Touch brand, of course, but those are the topics we like to talk about.

So, we've gotten a lot of really positive feedback from women who say it's been great to have a place to hear women's voices and women's perspectives and strong women. So we're really happy to be able to provide that. And so, you know, that's what we focus on. Okay, all right. And that's gonna be on Thursdays here

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like losing his Palm Beach home and making him homeless and penniless would make him a changed man. Nope, he's got a podcast. Nobody listens to her watches called, I don't even want to tell you what it's called, but I know this audience isn't going to go there anyway, The Mayor's Podcast, episode 537. Wow, it's amazing. And he says stupid crap out loud, you know, including attacking the very women that he owes 150 million dollars to because he attacked them about the exact same things. He owes 150 million dollars to Ruby Freeman and Shane Moss, the mother-daughter team that were just doing low-paid and no-paid jobs of counting votes in Fulton County, Georgia. He owes them $150 million for many reasons, but one is he accused them of committing voter fraud.

But they were passing a hard drive. I don't think he's ever seen a hard drive. That's the other thing. I don't think he's ever seen a hard drive. Thumb drive, maybe. Hard drive, no. But passing a hard drive, this is his words, to each other, which represented in Rudy Giuliani's mind, proof positive in living color, to use his words, of a computer manipulation. They were sticking the hard drive somehow into the Dominion voting systems machine in a conspiracy with Venezuela.

Right, this mother daughter team from Atlanta is now in a conspiracy with Venezuela, Dominion and Smartmatic, okay. And they have the proof of it. They were counting votes. What he said were fake votes for Biden under their desk was just them counting the votes and locking them in a black case under their desk, which is proper counting procedure. And they think that they were passing

between each other was a breath mint. How do I know? Because the Georgia FBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation already cleared them of that, already looked at the entire surveillance video, not the slice and dice thing that Rudy Giuliani used on his show against these people, and proved it. And he was a judge by, well

actually the judge as a sanctioned judge, Beryl Howell, because he violated nine different orders, found him in contempt, and gave him the death penalty, meaning she found liability, a default judgment against him, and sent it to the jury just for the amount of money. And when they were done with it was 150 million dollars. But to avoid further litigation because he kept losing his lawyers because he had no money, he entered into a consent decree, a consent judgment that said he would never, never, never defame these women again. Never! And then the election happened and everybody lost their minds and he had he had to make content for a podcast

And started kippetsing on the podcast about the judge and these women. So now what's happened Karen? Yeah, so look, I mean he went out and defamed them again He did the very thing that he's not allowed to do and made the same accusations again saying that they quadruple counted the votes and all the same things that he promised he consented to do. He agreed to do permanently. There's a permanent injunction and in less than a year, he's back online doing the same thing.

He's trying to be a mini Trump where you just do whatever you want and there's no consequences. That doesn't seem to apply to any anyone else. It only seems to apply to Trump. You know, I'm not really sure why, but so they filed a, I think it was like a 14 page filing essentially asking the judge to hold them in contempt, you know, hold them in civil contempt. And my question for you, Popak is, is what are, what can happen when you're held in civil contempt? Can you be put in jail? Is it a fine? He has no money.

So what are the remedies? Well, you're right. And this is the problem that the lawyers representing Ruby Freeman and Shane Moss, some very fine lawyers at Wilkie Farr and Gallagher who are doing it for free, they've told the judge, how do we shape the contempt here, the sanction for contempt? There's two types of contempt. There's civil contempt, there's criminal contempt. Civil contempt is where you start.

It's like a progressive discipline. The judge finds you in civil contempt first, usually for violating an order, which is what happens here. And then the judge using their inherent authority has to shape a appropriate sort of symmetrical sanction for it. Usually that means money. So it's almost always money for civil contempt. A fine. A per day fine until compliance is

met. But it's weird here because he already violated it. And so the fines got to be like a sanction for a prior violation. But as you noted, he's penniless or he says he is. So what and they're and they've taken all of his money except for some. Now he's still earning some sort of income over there on podcast world. And he's going to the inaugural and somebody's paying for that. He's got money that's hidden around. So what the lawyers for Ruby Freeman and Shane Moss have said to the judges, you need to hold another mini trial. You need to have an evidentiary hearing about this. And we got to figure out what he's got, where it's hidden,

and what would be punitive against him to punish him for doing what he did. It can't be that he's so penniless and so assetless that no sanction could ever be fashioned. He's sanction proof. Because he's not jailed in jail, right? Because he's not well, not yet. That's so so two types of content civil first, you can't go to criminal just because the civil didn't work. But if civil is violated, like, if he

violated, if let's say she she's gonna hold this evidentiary, she took one look at the filing this afternoon, it was this afternoon, it's he already issued her order, Barrel Howell. Oh, by the way, on the podcast, he also bashed Barrel Howell. Like he'd never, like he was never gonna see her again. Like it was some sort of ex-wife, he was never gonna see again.

Like, it's that he said, and this outrageous little judge, this Jan six sentencer, she's out, I'm like, oh, here we go. She took one look at this this motion and she said yeah, let's have everybody December 12th in my courtroom He's gonna you Rudy Giuliani, huh? He thinks he's Trump bashing the judge bashing. Yeah, just doing what he wants I mean that that's where he's learning. I there's only one guy that's got that super power The guy that was president and his president again, everybody else doesn't have that immunity doesn't have that So now he's got to go back in front of this judge with I don't even know what lawyer he has anymore the guy that was president and is president again, everybody else doesn't have that immunity, doesn't have that.

So now he's got to go back in front of this judge with, I don't even know what lawyer he has anymore. They all quit him. He's lost another lawyer. He picked up another one recently, but they don't want to work for him because they don't get paid. So he, God forbid he shows up by himself. Oh Lord. So he turned over his apartment in New York. He turned over the Mercedes that he showed up to vote in. Yes. So he...

Watches and rings. Watches and rings. Did he also have to turn over the Palm Beach? Not yet. Not yet. Okay. Not yet. And Judge Lyman said, let's have a hearing on that.

Another hearing. And let's do it on the 20th of January. And he said, I'm going to be at the inauguration, Judge. Can we do it on the 22nd? We're waiting for Lyman to tell us whether he's going to give him another couple of days off. Now this evidentiary hearing, which is not going to be canceled on the 12th of December, or at least the hearing to talk about an evidentiary hearing.

So she's going to have to have take evidence. Then the judge back with Beryl Hallenel, then judge is going to say, all right, here's the fine. Ten percent of whatever you're making on the podcast, what did you make on the podcast where you bashed these two? You had sponsors, somebody kept the lights on, you forfeit all the profit from that. I mean, it could be unique like that,

a very customized fine, right? So you don't benefit in profit from the defamation. That's what I would do. I would say, how much you make? 3000, 5000, 10,000, 20,000, what'd you make? Oh, yeah, okay, let's see all your records, let's see all your files. And then he's now moving towards criminal contempt.

Because if he doesn't do whatever she tells him to do, which this guy is so out there, he could violate that. She could give him one more chance, and then she could say, I'm gonna find you in criminal contempt. Now, the problem with criminal contempt, which sends you to jail, is that you have to have the keys to let yourself out in your pocket. And that's why, for instance, reporters who are ordered by a judge over their First Amendment rights to turn over the information about their sources,

and they don't, and the judge puts them in jail until they are willing to come out. The key in their pocket to get out is that they give up the name of the source. Some journalists have stayed in jail for like a year to avoid that. Eventually they get let out because the judge realizes that no amount of jail time is ever gonna make

this person speak, and you can't Leave that you can't just leave them there and throw away the key That's not the way criminal contempt work works, but we're not yet at criminal contempt Civil doesn't work. She could move to criminal I wonder if you can move to because there's a third kind of contempt as well, which is like like what what Steve Bannon was prosecuted for, right? Contempt of Congress or there's state court, also criminal contempt that you can receive the punishment of jail or prison.

So I wonder if there would be a referral to a district attorney's office, because of course the feds aren't gonna do it under Matt Gaetz, right? But I wonder if there is a way to refer, and I just don't know the answer. I'd have to think about it. I don't think so.

I think it stays within the inherent authority of the federal judge, I think. I've never seen in my life a federal judge refer anything to a state prosecutor as a local crime issue. They have so much, you know what the federal judge is, they have so much inherent authority to fashion their own remedies for people thumbing their nose and flouting and what we call contumacious conduct.

But it's gonna be, what's the word I'm looking for? A shit show on December the 12th with Rudy, either because he's not represented by counsel, he's gonna try to do this himself. Another DIY project by Rudy Giuliani, get ready for that one. He'd better bring his toothbrush. I mean, he might act out in court and get taken in at that moment for that kind of contempt. That could quickly escalate to criminal contempt. If he starts insulting the judge and

doesn't show her respect and starts acting out in court because he's so crazy, he could end up in jail for that one. So we're gonna watch that case very, very closely. But you hit the nail on the head earlier. These people, Bannon, Giuliani, the Jan 6th defendants, everybody that followed Rudy, sorry, followed Trump into the abyss, into the heart of darkness, all think they're him, but they're not.

That's the problem. Trump walking around free man, even got reelected or elected president, right? These guys, all the judges are looking at them unanimously and saying, sit down. You're not the president. You're not the president elect. You're going to jail. And then you got the pardon issue, which only works, so that magic trick only works for federal prosecutions. And to answer the questions that often come up in the chat, Donald Trump can't make the $150 million judgment go away.

Can't wave it away. That's a civil federal judgment. And the pardon power is for crimes committed or to be committed. So the next thing we're gonna be talking about, not the next thing, but as we get over the holidays and into the first day of the, I hate saying this word, it's like sticking in my throat, the Trump presidency on the 20th of January is gonna be, you know, we know he's got two giant stacks

that are gonna be put in front of him. Right? First stack is the executive orders, day one orders, dozens of them, dozens of them, that we're gonna have to challenge in various federal courts. And the other one is this giant stack of immediate pardons. It's gonna be the first time in the history of America, I think. I have to go research to see if it happened during the first five or eight presidents. Coming in, he's gonna be pardoning people. And it's gonna be a long list. It's gonna be like everybody affiliated with Jan Sixth in the House, in the Senate, in his inner circle. Everybody's getting a pardon.

And then the Jan Sixth insurrectionist. And what idiot on his presidential transition team is really going carefully through all of the charges against these people about the really violent ones that are serving eight, 10, 15, 20 years in prison and the other ones like misdemeanor trespass. Who's doing that? Who's responsible for that? I haven't been impressed with anything coming out of the presidential transition team. So who's doing that? But

somebody's in charge of it internally. Some of these John 6 defendants have said, we've been in contact with the presidential transition team. Yeah, good. Speaking of pardons, let me end this show on this on this note The the real question for me speaking of pardons is gonna be what does Joe Biden do? With his pardon power don't give it up. Don't abdicate it you earned it you earned it If anybody earned using every ounce of power left every everything left in the battery, uh, in the gas tank, it's Joe Biden.

And that's why we're watching he and his people in the white house, Chuck Schumer and Durbin working overtime. I mean, strap on the diapers everybody, because they're sitting 24 seven over the next, uh, 60 days to try to get the last remaining 30 or so federal judges confirmed. It's that important to our democracy that Biden, who's only got one term, surpassed Trump by a good margin, 30 or 40 total federal judges, to help keep the balance in power. That's why Trump is losing his day in mind, along with JD Vance. No more confirmations of

judges. No more until inauguration day. Not happening. He got his people confirmed off his one term. He had 18 that were confirmed in the waning hours. We're gonna get our 43 and uh but it's gonna take hard work and focus, laser focus to keep the Senate Democratic majority and the lame duck one 18th in place to win every vote when it's put up 49 to whatever, 50 to whatever. Because if the Republicans all showed up and the Democrats all show up and mansion votes

with the Democrats and we get one Republican vote to make that happen, we win every time. We just have to get the votes up for all these judicial appointments. That's one. Two is the pardon power. Two on the top of my list right now. One has got a name, Hunter Biden. Give him a pardon. I don't care what you promised. Now's the time. You know, because if his name was Hunter Goldberg, I assure you, he would not have been prosecuted for these crimes owning a gun for 12 days when he lied on an application about having a drug addiction 12 days he owned that gun and

Tax evasion he would have paid his taxes, which he did he would have gone to jail for it and Michael Cohen I Mean is anybody in more jeopardy in America right now than Michael Cohen. I mean, is anybody in more jeopardy in America right now than Michael Cohen? His nemesis has been returned to power as the most powerful person in the universe, who he testified against, who he served time in jail for. Michael Cohen needs a pardon

and a commutation of his sentence. He'll never get it any other time in his life. I think that's what Joe Biden should do. The American people, I think, would find that to be fitting justice. Karen had a kind of dash off, as people noticed she wasn't feeling that well. She asked me to end the show, which I will do for her.

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Mycelis and me and now I'm also doing sort of semi-regular Popak Lives on Tuesday night I'll do another one this coming Tuesday night it's the one night that's sort of dark for us with podcasts so I kind of stepped into the breach and said, all right, I'll do 45 minutes on a Tuesday night. So we have a couple up right now, Popok Live, Tuesday nights, and then of course over on our Legal AF channel. So until my next content, wherever it may be related to Legal AF, this is Michael Popok signing off.