Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump BRACES for Losing in Criminal Trial

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

Trump is 0-7 in CIVIL AND CRIMINAL cases against him in the US and internationally, with 30 jurors in 3 cases ruling UNANIMOUSLY against him, resulting in $600 million in judgments; 17 FELONY TAX FRAUD CONVICTIONS, and tens of millions of dollars in fines and penalties. Michael Popok explains how this “elephant in the room” will be Trump’s undoing when he picks his FOURTH jury of 12 at the end of this month. Sign up for a one-dollar per month trial at https://shopify.com/legalaf Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! 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 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hi there, my name is Elimin Abdel Mahmoud. I am the host of the CBC podcast, Comotion. You need to drop by, okay? Because that's where we talk about all things pop culture. We talk about what people are watching, what people are listening to, like how the Smiths got on a Trump rally playlist, or how Elmo became the Internet's therapist, or how Dad TV got so darn popular. Comotion with Alameen Abou Mahmoud, available now on Spotify. Crypto is like finance, but different. It doesn't care when you invest, trade or save. Do it on weekends, or at 5 AM. Do it on weekends or at 5 a.m. or on Christmas Day

at 5 a.m. Crypto is financed for everyone, everywhere, all the time. Kraken, see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. Kraken's registration details at kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer. So this is Michael Popak with the Legal AF Hot Takes. Time to address the elephant in the room. Donald Trump is on a losing streak in front of juries and judges dating back over two years. I'm going to explain what impact that'll have on the jury that's going to be selected.

March the 25th in his first criminal trial directly against Donald Trump for business record fraud 31 felony counts in New York. But we be remiss is if we didn't refer to as Judge Mershan who's presiding over the Manhattan District Attorney's prosecution of Donald Trump didn't refer to. If we didn't refer to the elephant in the room, which is Donald Trump and the fact that jurors have strong opinions about him, which have been galvanized and formed by a string of losses. There's no other way to put it. Donald Trump has prided himself on being some sort of Teflon Don, taking the name from John Gotti, a organized crime figure that he apparently admires. And very, that very few things stick to him. Well, I would venture to guess here

and posit on this hot take that 91 felony counts against him over four cases in four different locations, state and federal. I would beg to differ that he's the Teflon Don on the criminal side with his first criminal trial starting again later this month. But let's talk about his series of losses and I count at least seven of them

in the last 14 to 18 months. And no less than 30 jurors across three separate trials in state and federal court have unanimously ruled against Donald Trump as have state court judges, appellate judges, and federal judges. So let's go through the scorecard. I'll tie it together at the end of the hot take with what I tell you when I tell you what I think it means as a trial lawyer and how it bodes for his upcoming jury selection and trial at the end of March in the business fraud case. First, his first major loss,

the Manhattan District Attorney's Office obtained in December of 2022, a 12-0 unanimous jury verdict against the Trump organization and all their major entities for 17 felony counts of tax evasion. 17 felony counts of tax evasion. And the chief financial officer went to jail

as a result of his own tax evasion, Alan Weisselberg, who's also pled guilty to perjury in the last week in advance of the trial the Manhattan DA is bringing Against Donald Trump and ultimately against his actions including this disgraced chief financial officer No other way to posit that and position that than a tremendous loss for Donald Trump and the lawyers involved in that case At least one of them Susan necklace will be the lawyer that case, at least one of them, Susan Necklace, will be the lawyer co-defending Donald Trump at the end of this month. Hold that thought. That's a 12-oh vote jury finding. That's 12 out of the 30 unanimous jurors. Then E. Gene Carroll, a former L, a gossip columnist and editor sued successfully and got a 9-0 vote

from a jury, a federal jury selected in New York, $5.5 million, that was May of 2023. Now we're up to 21 and zero against Donald Trump from jurors. In that case, there's gonna be another theme here on the hot take, that case was co-tried by Alina Habba. Okay. Alina Habba and it resulted in a $5.5 million judgment against Donald Trump, who didn't testify, he posted a cash bond. That case is up on appeal.

Then we go to the, um, New York attorney General case against Donald Trump and his children and people like Allen Weisselberg, the CFO in front of Judge Angora on a bench trial for New York civil fraud, what we call persistent fraud under the executive laws as enforced by the New York Attorney General. And that resulted, as we all know, in a $465 million judgment running with interest, requiring Donald Trump to post a bond that'll be pushing

$600 million in the next two weeks. That was returned in September, sorry, in January of 2024, January, February of 2024. We also had in January of 2024, another loss. Now I'm up to my fourth loss for Donald Trump, this time by a jury, nine zero again, in favor of Eugene Carroll for the second time, because he defamed his rape victim and harmed her in a way that only punitive damages can properly redress. And that was an $83.5 million judgment. So now we're up to the 30 total jurors across three different cases.

State and federal have all ruled against Donald Trump in the last 14 months. That as we've reported on legal AFN on the Midas Touch Network, that resulted in requiring Donald Trump to post a $91.6 million bond yesterday through a bonding company, Assurity, owned by Chubb Insurance, but required him to pledge a lot of his cash up to the $83.5 million or $90 million. And a lot of his assets, they're not going anywhere. They're staying there. He's paying interest on that at 9% as well. And he had to pay a fee to the bonding company of about $15 million or so. And again, the lawyer for that, Alina Habba. So Alina Habba responsible for the Eugene Carroll loss at $5.5 million, the Eugene Carroll loss at $83.5 million.

And now let's move to Ann the loss at the New York Attorney General for $465 million, again, requiring a bond to be posted of $600 million. When I started podcasting, an online store was the furthest thing from my mind. Now I'm selling our legal AF mugs and legal AF t-shirts and it's easy, so easy. All because I use Shopify. Shopify is the global commerce platform

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Because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash Legal AF, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash legal AF now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com, slash legal AF. But that's not the only losses that Donald Trump has suffered even in the last week. There's an international loss by Donald Trump in a bench trial before the High Court in London, in which he had unsuccessfully sued Christopher Steele, he of the infamous Steele dossier and his company Orbis Business Intelligence for allegedly data breaches, data breaches under UK law related to the Steele

dossier being used to argue that Donald Trump was in cahoots with the Russians To interfere with the 2016 election. He lost that on a motion to dismiss and the judge Just ruled this week that Donald Trump owes The has to pay the attorney's fees as the losing party to Christopher steel And that'll probably by be about a half a million dollars U.S. ultimately. He also lost in the last month to the month or two to the New York Times, Donald Trump, in which again another Alina Habba and Boris Epstein, another lawyer for Donald Trump, his consul Yerri at present, another special of theirs, that he's going to have to pay

a half a million dollars in attorneys fees for having sued the New York Times related to their reporting of Donald Trump's likely tax fraud he committed with his father dating back more than 30 years. That was a front page series of articles in the New York Times. There's something called the First Amendment. And since it was done with proper sourcing and corroborating information, the New York Times won that case. And in fact sued under a law in New York that's referred to as the anti-slap, S-L-A-A-P. It's an acronym for strategic lawsuits

against a public participation. And it's when you try to gag, in this case, the media from reporting on you by threatening them with a malicious prosecution of a lawsuit. And that is a statutory violation in New York, as it is in most places. In fact, New York's law was changed through Governor Hockel because of Donald Trump. So he knew full well that the statute was on the books before he filed the suit against the New York Times And he lost there another half a million dollars, but I'm not done He also lost in the last two years in Florida in a federal court with judge Middlebrooks

He and Alina Habba again got sanctioned for over a million dollars for bringing a frivolous meritless lawsuit against Hillary Clinton the for bringing a frivolous, meritless lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and a lot of people who were advisors to Hillary Clinton related to some fake allegations that they had interfered improperly with the election and had committed fraud against him. We know he's also lost to Michael Cohen

and had to pay Michael Cohen's attorney's fees related to the defense when Michael Cohen was investigated. And we know that he dropped a lawsuit that because he wasn't going to win it in Florida as well against Michael Cohen. So for those out there that say, I don't know, I don't think justice is being done civilly or criminally, criminally against Donald Trump. I beg to differ. Look at this body of work. And I'm putting that mildly by Donald Trump and his lawyers. Thirty jurors, all unanimous, 30 zero can't all be wrong in three different courts.

Bench trials against Donald Trump, federal trials against Donald Trump, motions to dismiss granted against Donald Trump, sanctions against Donald Trump in the form of attorney's fees and other punitive sanctions in at least three cases. So now that is the headwinds that Donald Trump runs into when he picked a jury in March, which is why his current lawyer, who's going to be trying the case, the criminal case, like told you about, arising out of the Stormy Daniels, Hush Money cover-up affair. That's why Todd Blanche, along with Susan Necklace, who lost the 17-count criminal tax evasion matter that I started the hot take with, she's still on the team somehow, even though Alina Habba is being fired left and right, obviously from all of Donald Trump's cases.

Todd Blanche had a very interesting back and forth with Judge Mershan about jury selection, calling it the elephant in the room paraphrasing the judge who had used the elephant in the room comment when Donald Trump didn't show, but all of his organizations were on trial in the 17 count criminal tax evasion case, Donald Trump being the elephant. And Blanche said, well, we're gonna have trouble

picking a jury because who doesn't know about Donald Trump? And he's right because jury selection process for the three cases I just talked about were very difficult. Jures had, let's just put it this way, very strong feelings about Donald Trump. Some said, I hate him. Some said, I don't believe a word he says. There was a couple of Trumpers on there.

They were like, no, I like Donald Trump. And the rest of the jurors were fair-minded and said regardless of maybe their personal opinions about Donald Trump They could fairly assess the evidence presented to them and take the instructions of law by the judge and rule That's all you ask for in a jury can't get a perfect jury You just get a fair and impartial jury and you try to suss that out through the jury selection process. But it worries Todd Blanche and Susan Necklace about what the jury with the accumulated body of losses are going to do to a possible conviction against their client. Now look, I practiced law in New York for a long, long time. Did trial work as well, including criminal. My assessment of it is that there's a reason

three different juries in three different in three different matters ran against Donald Trump 30 to zero, some of which he testified out and some of which he didn't testify. And when he testified, it was worse. When he didn't testify, one jury awarded Eugene Carroll 5.5. When he did testify, insulted the opposing counsel, insulted the judge, and insulted the intelligence of the jury while he was doing social media attacks in the courtroom against E. Jean Carroll. They punished him with a punitive damage award included and raised it to $83.5 million. That's the price for if Donald Trump wanted to have his day in court, that was the price about $80 million. That's the delta between the five and a half

million and the 83 and a half million, but he didn't testify. And then when he did testify and try to do a closing argument in the New York Attorney General case, that was no better. That led to a $465 million judgment. He would have been better off not taking the stand in any of these cases. And I'm telling you, he would have saved about a hundred million dollars in my view on judge verdicts, judge judgments and jury verdicts, had he just stayed quiet, but he is genetically incapable of not talking. He's genetically incapable of not being

in an attack mode 24 seven against anyone he sees as his enemies and the jury eventually is seen by him to be his enemy and the jury knows that I've tried a lot of cases in front of juries. I just had a jury verdict come back this week for $6.5 million in a case where we were handling you know on behalf of uh uh who was then a young boy in the entertainment business who was terribly sexually abused by his manager for years. I know juries and I know what they find to be authentic and how they try to get to the right result

in the United States. And Donald Trump, I don't care what jury they pick, what questions they ask, Donald Trump is going to lose this trial for the Hush Money Cover Up case that the Manhattan DA has brought It is about as airtight a case from an evidentiary standpoint as possible And the Manhattan DA has done everything they can to prepare themselves and prepare the jury for any trick That's up the sleeves of donald trump alina habba susan necklace or or todd blanche all of them

including Donald Trump, Alina Habba, Susan Necklace or Todd Blanche, all of them, including basically disqualifying Allen Weisselberg as a witness for Donald Trump, who was his former chief financial officer, who may have given helpful testimony to Donald Trump, but two weeks before the trial, the Manhattan DA got Allen Weisselberg to plead guilty to perjury lying under oath. There goes that witness on the stand for Donald Trump. Who you got left?

That's the problem. He doesn't have anybody left. I mean, I'm straining to think of the people that jury will hear from on the defense side. I know on the prosecution side. It's Michael Cohen who led the efforts through Donald Trump to pay off Stormy Daniels and record it on the books and records of the company as a legal expense instead of being what it was, which was a hush money payment to try to interfere with the election and his campaign against Hillary Clinton. So Michael Cohen testifies some lower level vice presidents that worked in finance testify. Donald Trump doesn't even know these people's names.

He had a deposition in one of the cases for the New York Attorney General. He couldn't even remember the names of the people that worked for him. These nameless people are now going to testify against him just as they did in the New York Attorney General case. And they're going to testify about the books and records fraud that was committed. Right? So he's got a bunch of vice presidents that are gonna testify against him willingly or not. They've got Allen Weisselberg, that if he steps out of line, they're gonna, the Manhattan Dia put him on the stand,

remind the jury that he's a perjurer and under penalty of perjury, again, he's telling the truth now about his involvement. That if he wants to get sentenced to less than being basically rotting away and dying in prison for the most recent perjury conviction. They've got the National Enquirer publishers who were involved with the Catch and Kill program to gag Stormy Daniels and they're going to testify against Donald Trump. So who testifies for Donald Trump?

I mean, Alina Habba can't. She thinks she can on Newsmax and all the other places that she goes on and tries to testify. But who are the actual recipient witnesses with knowledge who can testify for Donald Trump? And does Donald Trump take the stand? He can't. This is now a criminal case, right? His acting out, his I want to do the closings, his arguing with the judge, his insulting of the jury. I mean, now he's looking at liberty. Now he's looking at his liberty being at risk. He's got to take the Fifth Amendment. He can't testify. That leaves very little people testifying on behalf of Donald Trump. And that's the dilemma that he's in in front of a jury who if we use in my, in my line of work, we often bring in, uh,

what's called model juries where we run our case in front of people that we select through a jury consultant and we run a couple of jury, uh, kind of phony juries, if you will, uh, model juries. And we run our case in front of them and see the reaction. And then we, then we're able to make improvements in how we present our case. But we already have the model juries here. I mean, we've got how Donald Trump is received by juries already baked in, right? With three different trials in front of juries, all losses for

Donald Trump. We know how he does in front of judges. Same thing. So looking at these seven different losses by Donald Trump, civil and federally, nationally and internationally, it bodes terribly for him and their ability to select a jury and then ultimately to have a jury rule for Donald Trump and not against him in a trial he most likely will not testify in. We'll continue to follow on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF every Wednesday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern time. And then I do hot takes like this when Legal AF hot takes about every day at the intersection of law, politics, and justice. If you like what I'm doing, leave me a comment, write a note. And until my next hot take, until my next Legal AF,

this is Michael Popak reporting.