Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump BURIED INSTANTLY at Criminal Trial

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Defense attorney Michael Popok & former prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo on the Legal AF pod, discuss/debate: (1) the first substantive days of the NY election interference Criminal Case against Trump, including when we expect the Judge to rule on the DA’s contempt motion against Trump; (2) the results of the NYAG bond hearing concerning the Civil Fraud Judgment against Trump, and how the Judge led the parties to improve the $175 million dollar bond to benefit the People; (3) the United States Supreme Court hearing oral argument this week on whether Trump has immunity from Federal criminal prosecution; (4) new revelations in 400 new documents that Judge Cannon just released to the public about the Mar a Lago criminal case and the search warrant used against Trump aka FBI Code Name “Plasmic Echo; ” and so much more at the intersection of law, politics, and justice. Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF Thanks to our sponsors: Policygenius: Head to https://policygenius.com/legalaf to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. Fast Growing Trees: Head to https://www.fast-growing-trees.com/collections/sale?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=legalaf right now to get 15% off your entire order with code LegalAF! AeroPress: Head to https://Aeropress.com/legalaf to save 20% at checkout! Lume: Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with Lume deodorant and get $5 off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code legalaf at https://LumeDeodorant.com! #lumepod 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 Coalition of the Sane: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coalition-of-the-sane/id1741663279 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This NBA season, make every three-pointer alley-oop and buzzer-beater even more exciting with FanDuel. Download the app today to see why we're North America's number one sportsbook. 19-plus and physically located in Ontario. Gamling.com call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal AF. And we've got some stories we just have to talk about with our audience. Where are we going to start? You know, the New York criminal trial election interference case against Donald Trump.

Our audience is very interested, even if Donald Trump supporters aren't, because having gone down there yesterday, I can safely tell you there are nowhere to be found. There was a total of six people that were standing out in front of the courthouse and half of them were not Trump supporters and that's about it. We're gonna talk about the end of jury selection. Opening statements by Matt Colangelo and Todd Blanch respectively. The first witness in the case David Pecker and what he has said. So far I've got the scorecard as Colangelo versus Blanche on openings. Blanche versus Judge Murchon on the contempt hearing. Pecker versus Trump in

the testimony and then we'll give a little bit of a preview as Karen and Ben have been doing about but now I have her exclusively on my show as my co-anchor. So we'll give her a preview of what to expect in the trial coming up the rest of this week. And then we got to talk about some Supreme Court. Earlier today, and it'll be up in a hot take, there was a Supreme Court oral argument about what else? A women's right to choose and using abortion to save a mother's life in case of emergency under the EMTALA statute in Biden administration's attempt to try to do some damage control and remediation in the wake of the Dobbs decision. But tomorrow, and we'll talk about this now, tomorrow, and it's going to be on the Midas Touch

Network, is going to be a live feed of the oral argument for the United States Supreme Court on whether Donald Trump as a former president has immunity for official acts while he was in office. Yes or no? Thumbs up or thumbs down? And how does that impact, of course, the election interference case before Judge Chutkin, which is sitting there on ice until this Supreme Court makes its ruling. It's a very narrow appellate decision. It's a it's one that the appellate court says they're interested in and no other. And there'll be argument tomorrow, I presume.

It's going to be John Sauer, or whatever his name is, the gravel voice guy I can barely listen to, as an advocate for Donald Trump on the one side. And then of course, it's going to be people from Jack Smith's office. And I'm hoping that the Solicitor General on behalf of the Biden administration is going to weigh in as well, because I think her voice is important. And then we're going to move quickly from there to we had the results of the bond hearing. We talked a lot on Legal AF about the civil fraud case in New York, $465 million judgment obtained for the people of New York by Letitia James, the attorney general.

And there was a big bond hearing about whether that bond for $175 million was properly posted by Donald Trump or it was going to be found to have failed though to allow the collection efforts to begin on the 465. But we have a resolution and we're gonna talk about it briefly here. And then lastly we'll talk about in our last segment Mar-a-Lago 400 pages have come out about Plasmic Echo. No it's not the next in the series of Ghostbusters sequels. It is the apparently the name, oh, there we go. It's apparently the code name for operation.

Let's get all the national defense information documents back from Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago that the FBI used. It was called Plasmac Echo. We found out a lot of fun facts, including the fact that the FBI was also doing surveillance of Trump's plane, Trump Force One, the CIA had stashed any documents there. They coordinated with the Secret Service to execute the search warrant. Fox News likes to say raid on Mar-a-Lago.

I like to say execute the search warrant after a year of negotiations to try to get back national defense information. Top secret documents of you and me back failed. We'll talk about what we learned in some of these 400 pages. But listen, a couple of little updates here before we get going. Curtains are open. We're doing this recording just a wee earlier on Wednesday to accommodate some scheduling and calendaring for Karen and me and our practices and the things we do. Number one is legal AF, but we got some other things in our life that sometimes pull us in different directions.

I'm working from home today as you can see. Karen is on the set of Law and Order where she is the law advisor. And so we decided, let's just do this early. It's a dark down day in the trial. There's not a trial day. And hopefully there won't be anything major that we're gonna go, crap, we missed it. But I don't think that's gonna happen today. So we took that risk, but Karen, how are you?

I'm really, really good. I'm having a lot of fun being able to record every day from wherever I am and all of our legal AF watchers are getting a chance to see the crazy life that we all lead, me and my 12 full-time jobs that I seem to have running all over the place like a chicken with my head cut off. You got some high grades on the cab reporting. It was like Cash Cab, but starring Karen Freeman and Niffl. I think that was one of your highest-rated. But you got some high praise on the cab reporting. It was like cash cab, but starring Karen Freeman and Niffl. I think that was one of your highest rated. I've, I've stepped in for Ben on one and just so everybody knows what the heck we're

talking about, uh, as new programming for around the trial, four or five, six weeks, whatever it's going to take. Ben and Karen or maybe some of those I'll step in are doing a morning, uh, preview of that particular trial days, expected events from the perspective of a longtime prosecutor and Ben. are doing a morning preview of that particular trial, Day's Expected Events, from the perspective of a longtime prosecutor and Ben. And then at the end of the day, they're doing a daily rap for that.

And then, of course, Ben and I and others are doing hot takes throughout the day about things that we think are interesting from our own perspective. So that is a great thing that's going on there. Yesterday, Popok was from the train. I did it on the Acela. Oh, you're on the South of Washington, maybe. Yeah, so the last two days I've had to be

on the set of CNN in Washington during the day, and then I come back to New York at night to do CNN. And so in between being on set in Washington and on my train back to New York was when court adjourned. And so that's when we did it on the Acela and people were so incredibly patient dealing with the wifi issues. And I'm sitting there whispering

because there's so many people around me and I was sitting next to this really nice. That's the dedication of, I mean, that's good for you. Last time I was on the Acela, Dionne Warwick was sitting across from me going down to a charity concert. I loved Dionne Warwick. But that's what you do wherever you are.

I mean, when Trump got indicted the first time by your Manhattan District Attorney's office, I pulled over on the side of the road in a car I was in and jumped on with the guys. I think you were on a plane. I think you happened to be out of town that particular moment. But this is what we do. Gorilla reporting. Right? We don't let anything stop us and and you know this we go with the news cycle and that's why you and I end up working along with the rest of the team. You know morning, noon and night, around the clock. Let's jump into

our first topic. Everybody's waiting on it. The New York trial, I'll give my two cents and turn it over to you. The, we got to contempt hearing that led off a part of this week in which, uh, as I, as I only, uh, slightly jested at the opening, it was Todd Blanche who's increasingly losing his credibility with this judge against Judge Mershon. Very little of what Todd Blanche said in the motion for contempt hearing to try to stop his client Trump from being found in contempt for violating the gag order was resonating with the judge. In fact, he was just, it was the, and I think this applies to Trump too. They're just the incredible shrinking men. They're just shrinking before our very eyes. Trump is just, you know, if you took him to a copy machine

and you put 65% reduction, that's what you're seeing of Donald Trump. He's not the president in that courtroom. He's not even the leading candidate for the presidency, as he likes to say. He's just a guy in a suit that's a garden-variety criminal defendant, and he's given just that amount of respect or no respect as anybody else. When he tries to leave the room early, the judge says, sit down, sir.

You're not excused, just like anybody else. And so what I've said in prior hot takes, I'm gonna get your view as a former prosecutor, Trump and his lawyers are losing credibility almost moment by moment in front of this jury, both in the things that they were told in their opening statement by Todd Blanch and then the way Donald Trump just acts in the courtroom, which is diminishing him and making the jury sort of get annoyed. On the contempt hearing, I'll take a break for a minute,

just we'll stay on contempt. You heard the evidence. You know how many times he violated that gag order. You know the issue about reposting of other people's negative comments about witnesses and jurors. Two questions for you, Karen. Did he violate the gag order and what does the judge do about it within his toolbox of things he can do, $ dollar fine and or jail, either at the back of the courthouse or at Rikers Island. I'll just stay in contempt.

What do you think about that? Yeah, so look, he's violated it at least 10, 11 times. And in fact, he continued to violate it last night. He was talking again about witnesses in the case and going to places that he's not allowed to go given the gag order. So he's just showing no interest in stopping talking about it. And despite his coming out and saying he's under a gag order

and can't talk about the case, he talks about the case. He talks about Alvin Bragg, which he's allowed to do. He talks about the judge, which he's allowed to do. And he gets to talk about himself. He's just not allowed to talk about witnesses, people's families, and jurors, yet he does that anyway. And at the hearing, what was so frustrating was the fact that they were not even providing any legitimate or straight-faced reason or excuse for it, and the judge wasn't having it. And at first I thought, wow, Todd Blanch must be so upset because the judge said to him,

you're losing all credibility when he made arguments like that Donald Trump is trying his hardest to comply with the order, or, hey, judge, we thought it was waived because the prosecution only brought a few of the content. They only brought at first, if you recall, they only brought three of the postings saying he was in contempt. They didn't bring the other eight. And so we thought it was waived, which both arguments have absolutely no merit and completely strain any sense of a credible argument. And at first,

I thought, this is so surprising. Todd Blanch is a much better lawyer than that. And the judge kept saying, wait a minute, oh, the other argument he was making was, was Donald Trump's just responding to criticism and attacks that other people, that the witnesses are making against him? And the judge kept saying, show me, tell me what post. What post specifically was he responding to when he said, when he did this and he went post by post.

And of course he couldn't answer anything. And at first, like I was about to say, was I thought, that's so weird. Todd Blanch has a reputation of being a really excellent lawyer. And to on the very first day of trial, essentially the judge is saying to him or the second day saying,

you are starting to lose credibility with the court and interrupting him and really asking him pointed questions in sort of a Socratic method. I thought that that is not it was a disaster. I mean, this is an absolute abject disaster for him. And, but I've come around, I don't think he's a bad lawyer, I think he's an excellent lawyer. He didn't have anything to work with. He didn't have anything to say. He was doing his best to try to make legal arguments with shit facts because Donald Trump is not trying his best. He is not making any effort. He can't point to anything that it's a response to. And so look, he's still a lawyer who has to advocate on behalf of his client.

He still has to do the best he can, making arguments as horrific and bad as they were. I do think he probably shouldn't have said anything to lose credibility with the court. Like I said, that's a terrible, terrible- Can I give you an example? I agree, he's got a reputation for being a good lawyer. I haven't seen it

yet. Even in his opening, I thought, we'll talk about it next, his opening, I thought he's writing lots of cash, lots of checks he can't cash in front of this jury and that your prosecutors, your former colleagues are going to make him pay dearly for having done that and misled the jury for having done that. But like in the contempt hearing, when the judge, first of all, I learned in moot court in law school that when the judge's mouth is open, your mouth is closed, even if you're a mid sentence. So I didn't appreciate that he has taken on the persona a bit of his bully client. And when Judge Murchon said, I need to get to the bottom of the timing

of your client's social media posts in order to make my ruling. Why does the timing matter? Blanche interrupts. And the judge says, I ask the questions here, not you. You know, I've never been told, I've been doing this a long time. Okay.

And I've been on my feet a lot with shit facts and not a lot to argue, but I still find a way to preserve my credibility so I can advocate another day in front of that courthouse, in courtroom, in my own professional livelihood, and not to interrupt the judge and get belligerent with them. It's almost like he's doing show performance again, theatrics for his client to make his client pay his bill. Yeah, look, I'll tell you this. So think about Judge Marshawn. He welcomes vigorous advocacy. He welcomes it. So he wants people to advocate strongly on behalf of their client. And Judge Marshawn is a measured person.

So for him to say you are losing credibility with the court, that's about as close to Judge Marshawn comes to losing his temper, I have to say. Like it might be kind of, you know, it was slightly intemperate for his rep, you know, that just goes to show how much he thinks that this is, was a terrible argument and that just should show you what hot water Donald Trump is in. So what do you think? Fine? Prison? Jail?

So I think a couple of things. It was reported that the people who are, who manage corrections are making arrangements with Secret Service about what it would look like to put Donald Trump in jail. Certainly considering it as an option, and it's an option not necessarily for this particular set of contempts, but I could see it as an option in the future if Donald Trump doesn't stop and he shows no sign of stopping. Like I said, he even continued last night with his and yesterday with his with his postings. So or with his I think last night was he was speaking to the Detroit. I think it was the Detroit show in Detroit that he was commenting on. And and he continued to violate the gag order there. So I think Judge Marshawn is preparing for that option

in case it comes to that. You don't wanna do that and then all of a sudden corrections says, oh, well, we have no idea how to handle this. So there is a logistical thing because he is under 24 seven surveillance and protection, not surveillance, protection by the Secret Service. And so how would that work in terms of guards guarding him if he's incarcerated? So I do think that they are doing that.

And I think they leaked it on purpose, by the way, so that the lawyers and Trump and everybody knows that this is a possibility and it's a serious consideration down the road. I don't think that's what he's going to do at first blush. So I did some research and I actually co-wrote an article with Norm Eisen and some other folks in Just Security. And I was on the law of contempt because when this started coming up, I thought, I haven't looked at that law in a long time. And I started researching it and figure and just brushing up on it again. And the law of contempt in New York is really complicated.

There's three different contempt laws. There's a criminal one, a civil one, and a judicial one. contempt laws. There's a criminal one, a civil one, and a judicial one. And so it just depends. Each one has different sanctions, different options available. The one that is coming this way, the one that the order to show cause that the DA's office brought, that one allows fines of $1,000 per violation. It can go up to $5,000 if it's persistent or 30 days in jail. So I think what he's going to do is he's going to sanction him $1,000 per violation, maybe not for all 11. Maybe there might be one or two in there that are that he says are ambiguous or decides not to bring. But by and large, I think he's going to get hit with a fine for almost all of them. I do think he might also get a very stern warning that if you do it again, this is your last fine. You know,

if you do it again, that's when we're going to start doing other things. He was also the reason he was asking the timing of some of these posts is because the judicial contempt or summary contempt, if that happens in court, that gives the judge the ability to just, you don't have to bring a criminal complaint. You don't have to hold a hearing. He can just handle it himself because there is this ability for judges to be able to maintain order in the court. If he is tweeting or posting or speaking outside in the hall, criticizing witnesses or jurors, that could give the court power and authority that's a little more swift and quicker than the other types of contempt. You might start seeing things like that, that, that Judge Mershon puts Donald Trump, puts him in, you know, when I say put him in, I mean, puts him in jail, puts him in for an hour, puts him in for two hours, makes him sit in the courtroom in custody over lunch, does makes him be he's in custody during the court day, and he's not allowed to go

outside and make those speeches. He might do it like that and there is a holding cell in the back behind the court where prisoners who are incarcerated when they are coming to court, they hold them there and keep them there. That could be the jail cell. And of course, if he doesn't continue, they can escalate it further. But he could, I think he's going to start doing more and more things. He could also revoke or change or amend his bail release conditions as well. So that gives him other options and he can just do what he has to do to keep this under control. The third rail that Donald Trump keeps, keeps hitting is the jurors. When he says things like, this is a biased jury is 95% democratic.

You know, there's going to be someone sneaking on the jury, um, to get me that kind of thing that is incredibly threatening to jurors who might hear about that and could make them feel pressure that, wow, if I don't acquit Donald Trump, bad things are going to happen to me because I know what happens when you get in. I saw what happened to Ruby Freeman and Sey Moss and their life that was upended. I saw January 6, et cetera. His followers can be really scary.

And so that's why the judge is going to really come down hard on him when he says anything about the jury whatsoever. And same as the witnesses. So it's really interesting to watch this happen, but I think we're going to see him respond strong and swift. Great. I think we're going to get that. I agree. Let's do a quick overview of the opening statements and the theories and themes of the cases for both the prosecution presented by Matt Colangelo and Todd Blanch. They were much shorter than I thought they would be, at least from the defense standpoint. I'll do Blanch and you do Colangelo. How does that sound? Got it. All right. And I'll do, I think the way our timing

is going is I'll do my little overview of Calangelo, of Blanche is what he did. And then we'll take our first break for commercial, come back and hit up Calangelo with you, Karen. So this is what's called a little bit of a teachable moment here. Opening statement is not supposed to be argumentative, but all trial lawyers try to get as close to that edge as possible. You're supposed to be talking about what you believe the evidence will show. What you're not supposed to do is vouch for your client, tell the jury, I'm just like you and me. I'm also a Manhattan resident and this guy's not guilty. The problem with what I just said is all those golden rules were basically violated by Todd Blanch,

which is why one of the reasons the Manhattan DA was jumping up and down during opening statement and many of their objections were sustained. Because Todd Blanch, as you said earlier, I'm gonna repeat it because I liked it, he didn't have shit to work with. And so even in his opening, he was left with trying to vouch for your client.

You can't do that. You have to be an advocate for your client. You can't do that. You have to be an advocate for your client. You can't say, you know me, you like me, jury. I go to coffee shops in Manhattan just like you do. This guy over here, he didn't do it. He's innocent. I mean, frankly, it violated every cardinal rule and even potential error that I've ever been taught in successful trial practice.

And I didn't find it surprising because I don't think, as you said, to paraphrase my colleague, I don't think he had much to work with. Rather than take on, he knew, you and I, Karen, could have written the opening for Macalangelo. We knew it was going to be some version of the Trump Tower conspiracy. I've been doing hot takes on this for over a year. I could have done that opening. So, so could you or Ben. We knew it was going to be, there was a meeting with three people, you know, Cohen, Pecker, Trump.

And from there, the catch and kill program was devised. I mean, I could have written the opening. So you know what he's going to say and what you need to do in your, in what you get the chance to speak second. And you've already heard the guy go first. You've heard Matt Colangelo go first. So you knew he was going to focus a lot on that and that they were going to anticipate, you'll talk about Colangelo, Cohen.

And instead of taking on Pecker, which they knew by this point was going to be the first witness, he really just took on Cohen. And what the total takeaway in 20 minutes of an opening statement, by the way, I've done, I don't think I've ever done 20 minutes in my, I can't clear my throat in 10 minutes. 20 minutes, I mean, I've got cases just about money

and it takes me an hour to walk through the evidence and what the evidence will show and witnesses, let alone this. And this is your chance, your first chance to build credibility, authenticity with the jury, to make them like you, to make them want to follow you, to demonstrate to the jury that you're not going to mislead them. Well, he misled them in a number of ways. First of all, as you said during, it was either one of these programs you're doing with Ben or it was with me midweek,

I forget which one, but you said a version of, I think he flipped the script on the burden. The burden's on the prosecutor. Why is he talking about, we'll prove his innocence. You don't have to prove his innocence. You just have to prove that there's reasonable doubt. They have the burden, not you. So that was weird.

It was also weird for him to bolster the client and say, this guy, he's innocent, and I'm gonna prove it to you. And then when he went off to try to prove it to them, he totally misstate what he knows to be the evidence. Like he said, for instance, you're gonna hear a lot about the National Enquirer. And then he started to do he said, for instance, the national, you're gonna hear a lot about the national inquirer. And then

he started to do this mock, you know, again, this is like when they say dogs, pets start looking like their owners, you know, Blanche started taking on characteristics of Trump, obitus, and he started like mocking with a mocking tone, which you and I know, juries hate, unless they're in on the joke, which they rarely are. They laugh at things you didn't even expect them to laugh at and they will not laugh with you at the things you think are funny. I'll just warn this is my trial practice

breakout moment. So he starts mocking the the Trump Tower conspiracy. Oh, the Trump Tower conspiracy. Yeah, it's a Trump Tower conspiracy. That's when three people to get together and make a tacit agreement to do something illegal. That's what we call it. I don't know why that was so funny. And the jury was like, you know, like taking notes throughout all the openings. Didn't think that was that funny either.

And then he started to mock, you know, Michael Cohen, which, you know, I guess it's fair game there on that one. But then he started talking about things that he can't deliver on. You're the national inquirer is just a legitimate media outlet and they make their own editorial decisions about what stories to run. Come on, Todd, you know that the first witness first thing out of his mouth, they didn't even do the tell the jury about yourself. What's your title? What do you do? They started within the first 20 minutes and they got out of his mouth. They didn't even do the tell the jury about yourself. What's your title? What do you do? They started within the first 20 minutes. And they got out of David Pecker

that we practice at the net we practice at the National Enquirer checkbook journalism. Everybody laughed in the courtroom. What is that, sir? Oh, that's we just pay for stories. And we put them in there. And then and then before the first day was over, Pecker said that we didn't want to run these stories. Michael Cohen on behalf of the campaign called and told us to run these stories against political adversaries of Donald Trump. So we ran them and it didn't really help us with ourselves. So we really did it just to help Donald Trump and his campaign, which by the way is the second crime necessary for a felony. He knew Blanche that they were going to say all of this. They should have known all of

this. And yet he lies to the jury and the jury is going to punish him and the prosecutors are going to punish him at the end of the trial when they make that, when they make that, they say, you know those things that Mr. Blanche told you? They'll read from the transcript. Remember when they told you this? None of that was true. Here's the testimony that you really heard. They're gonna go, right, we were had by Blanche from the very, very beginning. I talk about it like if you're gonna write a check, you gotta be able to cash it. If you don't, your opponent is going to nail you. And I'll leave my comment on Jerry on one point before we go to our first sponsor.

Jerry Science tells us, and I'm sort of a student of it, I'm sure you are too, Karen. Jury science tells us, it doesn't matter how long the trial is, the length of the trial, juries make their decisions very, very quickly about who's winning and who's losing, who's gonna be convicted and who's gonna be exonerated.

After the opening statements, maybe the first witness, which has gone exceedingly well for the Manhattan DA, they're about ready to make their decision. Sure, they'll listen dutifully for the next six weeks of trial, evidence, documents, copies of checks. But if you were able to do this trick, I'm gonna propose this mind experiment. If you were able to pull the jury,

like after Pecker is done, and then get their jury verdict it'll match up pretty closely and if that's if i'm right about that and jury science says i am in my own experience as i am donald trump's cooked in that courtroom but i want to hear from the prosecutor on this team former prosecutor carron freeman niflo but we got some great sponsors this year and we got one coming up right now life insurance is one of the most important safety nets for your family. Trying to find the right safety net

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Terms and conditions may apply. And thank you to two of our sponsors for sponsoring the show. Policy genius, Fastgrowing Trees. Now let me turn it over to Karen Freeman at Knifilow. Tell me what you found about Matt Colangelo and his presentation and his oral argument, his opening, sorry, his opening statement to the jury

and then whatever else you picked up from Todd Blanch. Yeah, so look, the opening statements, the people are required to give an opening statement, the defense is not, and the law requires the people to do that. And so that was something he had to do. I was surprised he did it. He's not known to me as a trial lawyer, but that doesn't mean he's not. I just never worked with him before. But they gave him that really important role because it's all about connecting with the jury. As you said, it's so important in the beginning

to really get to know them and connect with them. And he didn't do any of the war, dear. So maybe they were trying to introduce different team members to the jury, but so far they don't really have one person necessarily that seems to be rising to the top as the leader of the trial team. Josh Steinglas is the one who's doing David Pecker

and doing that direct examination. And he's the senior trial counsel on the team. And so Susan Hoffinger. So allowing Matt Colangelo, who in his own right has a great reputation and comes from the attorney general's office in the Department of Justice. He's apparently a great lawyer. They had him do the opening. But his opening was good.

It was just very much what it needed to be. He got the nuts and bolts out, which the law requires you to do. You're supposed to give a preview of what you think the evidence will show. You're not allowed to argue. You're not allowed to spin, even though you can subtly do it by word choices, et cetera. But it's really meant to be a preview of what you expect the allowed to spin, even though you can subtly do it by word choices, etc. But it's really meant to be a preview of what you expect the evidence to show. And, you know, I give it a B, I would say, or a B+. I think it was really good. I didn't love the way he handled the Michael Cohen piece of it. I think that Michael Cohen is going to have some impact on the

jury, both positive and some negative that you want to take the sting out of. And he kind of characterized Michael Cohen's issues as, you know, he has some prior past mistakes, which I guess that's one way of putting it. I think it's slightly under sells it a little bit. And so that was that. And it's clear that Michael Cohen's going to factor huge in the defense case because the defense attorney, Todd Blanch spent a lot of time in his opening talking about it. So I just thought that he could have done a little bit of a better job really putting, really putting Michael Cohen's life in context and and his his flaws really, really kind of put them out there and put his spin on them. But

that so that was the one thing I kind of wasn't 100% in line with how they handled it. But I do think, frankly, the opening is something you have to do, you get through it. So much of the stress, though, of an opening statement is you don't exactly know how the evidence is going to come in. You think you know, you hope, but there's a lot in this case that is unknown, right? You've got people who are co-conspirators who are testifying and you don't know what's going to happen when they take the stand and they're sitting in the same room as Donald Trump, whether they're going to deliver the same as they do when they're in your office. And so, you know, the opening in a criminal case

as a prosecutor, you don't want to over promise. You don't want to necessarily commit to certain things that you don't know you can deliver because I think that that's really where the jury is unforgiving because the prosecutor has to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendant just has to create some doubt. So if they fire a bunch and then miss a few, that doesn't necessarily equal beyond reasonable doubt, right? That just means they're doing their job. And juries expect defense attorneys to also argue a lot more and promise a lot more. But the prosecutor has to... You can't make any mistakes. One small mistake and that's your doubt

right there. You, and you have to, you can't have all the theatrics that defense attorneys can do. You can't, you have to be the one they can trust and the one that really plays it down the middle. And so I think he did a really good job at doing that, at really just sort of talking about the things that he knows the evidence will show, but also not over-promising. And the thing of the trial, though, that has really blown me away is how incredibly crucial and critical and just overwhelmingly devastating to Donald Trump David Pecker has been. He's not someone that the media or even we focus on very much. When people talk about this case, focus on very much, right?

When people talk about this case, it was very much. It's a very much. But Cohen and Stormy Daniels was definitely is definitely always talked about the most. Hacker is they were smart to call him first. This guy, you know, and he's certainly not the subject of Donald Trump's ire either, you know, Donald Trump doesn't go after him the way he goes after the other witnesses publicly.

So I guess that's why he was, to me, he wasn't, he just wasn't top, he wasn't kind of, some people were like, why is he the first witness? And I think I too had a little bit of that at first. I don't know, I had a debate about it. I admit that he said, I think they're gonna start with a Czechs person. I said, there's no way they're gonna start

with a Czechs person. I said, you gotta start with as close to a roadmap witness as you possibly can. I knew it wasn't Cohen. And I said, I gave a list. I said, Pecker was in the top two of my list because I knew Pecker was gonna be able two of my list, because I knew Pecker was going to be able to tie, especially when you lead in your opening, with the Trump Tower conspiracy. There's only three people to that conspiracy.

Two were going to testify. But more importantly, to your point, Karen, I'll turn it back to you, is that Pecker does something that we're going to see over and over again, talk about the smartness of the trial strategy by your old office, is they know they've got a problem named Michael Cohen in terms of him having great facts that need to get out on the, be induced as evidence, but it comes wrapped in a package that's a little bit compromised, something that Matt Colangelo alluded to. And of course, Donald Trump was always going to do that. But in order to put him in the best possible position to

perform properly, and Stormy Daniels too, you put witnesses that are unassailable like David Pecker first to bolster the future testimony, even though that's not technically correct, bolster the future credibility and testimony of witnesses later on. Michael Cohen's gonna be sandwiched in the middle of a bunch of stuff. He's not coming up next. It'll be another few people to get a momentum going by this prosecution team, along with Pecker.

Pecker's not even done dumping on Trump. And to your point, surprisingly, Donald Trump went after Cohen, and went after Cohen in the opening, went after Cohen in social media, but he's silent. It's almost like he's endorsing Pecker. And that's terrible for him because as you said, he hasn't done a darn thing to tear

down Pecker. And Pecker, which is what I love, and you worked with Josh Stein glass, you can give your, of course, give your comments on this. He's got a conversational style going with Peekka right now, which is just two guys over a cup of coffee and a bagel and a schmear having a conversation. And they're laughing and they're joking and Pekka is very relaxed. You can tell it's been rehearsed, but that's great.

I mean, when you're an examiner, you've done this. Oh my God, you love when you're just having a chat and the person's not, yes, no, I don't know what you mean. You'll have to show me a document. You don't want that. Pecker is dumping willingly on Donald Trump and supporting the entire case before we even hear. They could prove this case without Michael Cohen, by the way. There's very little that Michael Cohen would need to testify to that isn't in text messages that are going to be put in. Emails, secret recordings Michael Cohen made, that you, by the time Michael Cohen, it's going to be like for me, it's going to be like an

afterthought after all this mountain of evidence comes into the courtroom. What did you think? Well, I wouldn't understate the importance of Michael Cohen. All the things you allude to can't come in without Michael Cohen. He has to authenticate them and put them into evidence. So I don't think they can try the case without him, but at the same time, I do agree with you, it's going to be corroborated by all this other evidence. But what Pecker was able to do was he really provided the roadmap for the criminal scheme.

He talked about when they devised this criminal conspiracy, right? At that meeting at Trump Tower with Pecker and Michael Cohen and Donald Trump, where they were going and they agreed that they are going to play catch and kill. They are going to amplify negative stories about Donald Trump's opponents like Ted Cruz and make up these crazy stories or Ben Carson that he left a sponge in

somebody's brain during surgery or that Ted Cruz's father had somebody to do with the assassination of JFK. I mean, you mean, it's just crazy, crazy headlines that they're going to amplify those things, amplify positive stories about Donald Trump, like that he's the healthiest elected official ever. I mean, that's just so preposterous. And that they're going to suppress negative stories about Donald Trump, and they're going to engage in a catch-and-kill. Now,

catch-and-kill is a thing that happens and it is not illegal per se, but when you become a candidate and you're going to pay people off on behalf of the candidate in order to get them to be elected. That's a crime. And I actually had an on air debate with Tim, Tim parlator, because Tim parlator, or maybe it was a tour. It was either him or Jim trustee. I can't remember. I was on with both of them. It might've been former lawyers for Donald Trump. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was sitting next to them and I was on the air lawyers for Donald Trump. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was sitting next to them. And I was on the air

with both of them last night, having a debate over this, because they were saying one of them and I can't remember which one was and I apologize that I can't remember the younger guy is Tim Pallatore. I know I know which is which is Tim Pallatore. And I know, yeah, I know, I know which one is which I just I was on for so many hours yesterday that I just can't recall. But I'm pretty sure it was Tim. Tim was saying that Citizens United,

the United States Supreme Court case that talked about a documentary that was made to help in Hillary Clinton, that they said that's First Amendment speech and that that doesn't count as an in-kind campaign donation, to which I said, spoken like a true defense attorney, whereas I'm the prosecutor would say, yeah, well, when you specifically go out and pay people off, and that is an in-kind campaign donation.

So I got him to at least admit that the case that Citizens United hasn't been tested to that point yet. But we kind of had a debate about whether it would be a legal or not or criminal scheme. But that's what's going on here is, in the prosecution's theory, is that's an illegal scheme because it was a campaign contribution that nobody was going to claim and they were going to cover it up by doing things like cooking the books like they did in this case. Well, those are the two crimes. You got the misdemeanor, which is the business record fraud. They listed the payment, the Stormy Daniels as a repayment of legal services to Michael Cohen. Let me make this clear to the audience. You want to pay off Stormy Daniels

and make her not go live with your good public with your story? You can do that and do it in a way that doesn't commit a crime nor with a multi-stepped, multi-headed conspiracy. Problem is that's not how Donald Trump did it. And the second thing is on the crime, how did they, on back to Karen for a minute, how did they explain, how did Tim or trustee explain then why Michael Cohen went to jail for almost two years for paying off Stormy Daniels? How did he get convicted of a federal election crime

and Donald Trump wouldn't have been convicted? Yeah, well, we didn't have that. We didn't continue down that road. And I found a friend. But yeah, no, but it was an interesting discussion, right? It was a very interesting spirited discussion with Jake Tapper yesterday. But that's what we were talking about, but that's what this boils down to. This boils down to a criminal conspiracy that one of the co-conspirators, David Pecker, was the one who actually spelled it all out in detail about how it was going to work, what they were going to do. And he really talked about how the sausage is made

at the National Enquirer. I mean, and it was really the thing that was also really interesting that he said was that, and I think this really helped the prosecution. There were two things that I thought were really helpful to the prosecution in addition to the things everyone else was reporting on. Number one, he said that the story, the doorman, remember there were three people, catch and kills. There's the doorman who fathered, who said that there was a child out of wedlock. There was Karen McDougall who he had one year affair with and Stormy Daniels who he had sex with once. That the doorman in particular, that story had been debunked. And what Pecker said was, if that story hadn't been debunked,

we would have run that story after the election. I thought that was critical to show this was for the purpose of the election, right? That is going to be a key piece of evidence that this wasn't about Melania. This wasn't about Melania. Anyway, so Salty just checked it was Jim Trustee who I had this debate with. Sorry, Tim. Anyway, so that I can't believe I couldn't remember who. And for those that are following at home, cast the characters, Jim Trustee was one of the lawyers that had been the lawyer before Donald Trump fired him in the DC election interference case, a former colleague

of Jack Smith when they were two different division heads at one of their offices. And Parla Torre, it's hard to believe he's been around so long, was a Mar-a-Lago lawyer who decided to leave when he thought Boris Epstein, who I can't believe hasn't been indicted, is a lawyer for Donald Trump was meddling too much in the decision-making around strategy. And now they get paid whatever they get paid to show up on CNN and talk about their former client. Anyhow, so, yeah, so I thought that was pretty significant that he talked about how this was absolutely election-related

as opposed to Melania-related I which I do think is significant because that that's the difference right between crime and no crime frankly that's number one that he said that I thought was really really critical the other thing is is is there was a question that Josh Steinlass asked him about headlines and about headlines that Pecker was talking to Michael Cohen about these headlines that he was getting out. And he asked Michael Cohen whether, he had conversations with Donald Trump about it.

And when Steing glass asked him, cause he dealt with Michael Cohen a lot, a lot more than he dealt with Donald Trump. He said, I don't remember him ever saying that the boss approved or the boss was involved in this one particular thing. And that's gonna be a summation point for the prosecutor. Cause he's gonna say when he sums up or she sums up,

depending on who does it they're gonna say if If David Pecker were lying he would have and he was making this up, right? He would have said he would have made it worse for Donald Trump He would have made Donald Trump more involved, but he he wasn't doing that. He was just telling you the truth He was telling you the things that that he was involved in the things that he wasn't involved in and he was telling you the truth. He was telling you the things that he was involved in, the things that he wasn't involved in, and he was telling you the facts just as they are. And to the extent that they match up with Michael Cohen and the other witnesses, I do think that's going to be critical for the prosecution.

He was just an absolutely critical witness. He's still on. We still haven't gotten to cross examination. But I think it's interesting that Donald Trump has not publicly gone after David Pecker, which in some ways is like endorsing him. And the other person he hasn't gone after is Karen McDougall, the way he goes after Starmie Daniels. And that's really interesting to me because, you know, there is an argument that, you know, the affair happened during the time that Melania and he were together and she was pregnant with Baron. And from a I want to protect my wife standpoint, you know, having a long term relationship

with somebody that clearly had feelings involved and, you know, was much more than a one night stand. I don't know if you're going to protect your wife from one of them, I would think it would be the former, but he doesn't seem to be denying that publicly. The other thing that I thought was weird was David Pecker was saying that Donald Trump was considered the most eligible bachelor. And I was like, he's not a bachelor. He's you know, he's talking about he was married. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. In the 80s and 90s, he was an eligible bachelor. Well, anyway, so. But not at that moment. Yeah, anyway.

Yeah. So give us a one liner about what we can expect. The trial resumes tomorrow for those that aren't following as closely as we are. Monday, Tuesday, trial days, Thursday, Friday, trial days, Wednesday, I call it dark, Karen calls it something else. That's the day the judge does something else. What can we expect on Thursday? What do we know? Well, I think we're going to get the contempt decision. And I think you're going to hear the rest of Pecker on direct. I think they have at least an hour, if not more on direct of David Pecker. And then comes cross-examination. Cross-examination is a really important part of the case, right? And the thing is you always worry about when you're a prosecutor, when you have a witness

like David Pecker, who has a decades-long relationship with Donald Trump, as much as you prep him, as much as you ask him questions and you ask him everything you can think of and you look for everything you can think of, Donald Trump knows things that you will never know and you can't anticipate what it is. I mean, Trump will know where the bodies are buried. And so let's see what comes out on cross, but go ahead.

Yeah, no, I was ahead. Yeah, I know. I was just going to say, I'm also mindful of your time today. I know we have you for a limited amount of time. Quick question. Who do you think does the cross of David Pecker, Susan Necklis or Todd Blanch? It's a great question. I haven't seen Susan Necklis do anything yet.

I think it's going to be both. Yeah. You think it's going to be both? Yeah. Well, cause didn't he move to the first chair during the questioning? Oh, I don't know. I didn't watch it that closely. Yeah, I thought he moved. He was in the first chair, Todd? That's what I thought the reporting was. Oh, okay. I thought he moved to the first chair. All right. We'll see. We will follow and catch up with Ben and Karen every morning before the trial day and then in the evening

with a wrap up show. We got a lot more to talk about. We're gonna talk about the bond hearing briefly and some Alina Haba stupidity that came out related to it, which we'll talk about. We'll talk about a little bit of a preview of the Supreme Court oral argument tomorrow, which will be on the Midas Touch Network.

Tina Dahl's sort of gonna host that, then a bunch of us are going to jump on after for a little post game, after we hear how the immunity argument breaks out and who takes the lead among the oral, the Supreme Court justices on that. Then we'll talk briefly about some scintillating new things that we found in 400 page, 400 page data dump

that came out of things being unsealed in the Mar-a-Lago case, including I learned, that it was called, and the rest of us did too, Plasmic Echo was the code name the FBI used for the Mar-a-Lago, ultimately the execution of the search warrant, all that and so much more. But first, a word from our sponsors. We've all had embarrassing body odor moments. Fortunately, Lume, whole body deodorant is making it so none of us ever have to worry about BO again.

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Some great new sponsors for Legal AF that we're proud to have with us. Let's talk quickly about the bond hearing that I want to eventually play or soon play in Alina Haba special. Alina Haba quote, she doesn't know, she couldn't find her bond with two hands, yet she feels she could be a legal commentator about it. There was a hearing. We talked a lot about it. Alicia, Alicia, sorry, Letitia James looked at the bond that was filed by Donald Trump for $175 million, which was a discount that the Appellate Division First Department gave to Donald Trump for no good reason. Instead of having him required to post an undertaking of $465 million to stop

the collection of the New York civil fraud judgment obtained by Letitia James for the people of the state of New York, they said, no, $175 million is fine. Donald Trump was all excited. Yay. I've got that in the bank. This won't be a problem yet. He was having a problem getting a bonding company to the extent that he needed a bonding company to post it. Now look, if Donald Trump had the $175 million

dollars which he apparently has in a Charles Schwab account in cash or in securities, he could have posted that. He didn't need, let me repeat, he did not need a bonding company. He could have just posted the undertaking directly to putting the cash with the court registry and his requirement would be satisfied. But Donald Trump doesn't do anything straight. Everything's through a corkscrew method. And here he decided, oh, I know I need a bonding company between me and having to ultimately

pay this money. So he went and found some home office of Don Hanke, Mr. Hanke, who his due diligence consisted of, oh, I know Donald Trump. Okay, let's give him the money. I mean, it was something like that. That was my artist's rendering. Probably was a little more complicated, but not much. This company you never heard of, no one ever heard of in New York, doesn't really do bonds in New York called Knight Specialty Insurance Company, posted the bond. We all looked at the bond posting and said, it's deficient under New York law. It doesn't have the right undertaking language and the finances seem to be underwater for the bonding company.

Like they don't seem to have enough money to post to back the bond. Then, then, uh, Hanky took to the airwaves, enjoying his 15 minutes of fame and said, I don't know where Donald Trump got the cash from for this, but I took cash. Okay. Now we know it was a Charles Schwab account. And there was built in language that the surety would have to wait two days, like give Donald Trump a two day head start before grabbing the cash to be able to pay it over to the Attorney General should Donald Trump default on the judgment. Well, that also undercut the bond. Why is there any delay? What, so people

can run to do appeals or can whisk the money out? I mean, there was no limits. Donald Trump could just suck the money out of the bank account in that two-day period. And how is that a proper undertaking or security or collateral for a bond? Well, it wasn't. So there was a hearing. And what happened at the hearing is what – I practice a lot more civil law than Karen. What happened at that hearing is what happens every day at the New York State Supreme Court.

It's like, I call it deli counter justice. Take a number, go in the hallway, cut a deal, come back and tell the judge what the deal is. And that's what Angkoran brokered. He questioned, he softened up the bonding company who was there. They had some experts ready to go and he said, I don't think the bond is sufficient. It doesn't have the right language under New York law. I don't really understand this posting of an

account where it gives you two days to do it and there's securities and cash in there. It doesn't seem to be properly collateralized under New York law. And I'm troubled by Knight not being really a New York entity that the attorney general can sue in New York on the bond. You're making them go down to Delaware. I don't like that either. Go in the hallway. Work this out. That's what judges do all the time in New York. It's a handling, haggling process, legal terms. And if you're not comfortable with it, then you shouldn't practice in New York, Alina Haba. They came back in and they improved considerably to the New York Attorney General's liking and ultimately to the

judge's satisfaction elements of the bond that we all found troubling. For instance, the Knight Specialty Insurance Company waived jurisdiction and said that they can be sued in New York instead of in Delaware. Well, that was a good thing for the New York Attorney General and the people of the state of New York. They also said it can be all in cash and not a securities account. In other words, it won't be trading. Donald Trump won't be raising and lowering the amount. You know, if it's a trading, T-R-A-D-I-N-G account, then it's tied to the stock market or the whatever market it's trading in. Sometimes it's up 3%, sometimes it's down

4%. We don't want a trading account where he can trade it away. We want it cash. So that got improved. And a couple of other things. The judge said, I bless this. That's the improvement that we will allow. Thank you, hearing over. But that's not what Alina Haber heard. What Alina Haber heard was, this judge doesn't know how to, doesn't know bonds, doesn't know financial markets. I mean, this is my artist's rendering. We actually have a clip, let's play it. To tell you how hard it was for me to keep my face straight in that moment, Sean, you can't make it up.

This case should have been in the commercial division. It had no business being in the civil division in front of a judge that today was trying to invalidate any bond and doesn't understand that cash is green and when cash is held by Charles Schwab, they can't go trade it. They can't move it around. It's not the stock market, but he didn't understand base. I mean, the more Alina Hobbit, you know, there's an old, Karen, you remember this, there's an old adage out there that says, if you keep your mouth shut, doubts about your intelligence,

you know, people can doubt your intelligence, but once you open your mouth, all doubt is removed. And every time Haber opens her mouth, and she thinks she's doing a solid for her client, she's actually just undermines her own credibility. Judge Angoran has been on the bench for 15 years plus, doesn't have to be in the commercial division. I know the judges in the commercial division. There's a couple of them. Yeah, they're good too, but every day New York State Supreme Court justices and the financial capital of the world deal with issues about

finances, corporate and complex matters and bonds. It wasn't Judge Angoran's first bond hearing, and he led the negotiations, if you will, in the hallway to improve the bond to meet his satisfaction and that of the New York Attorney General, therefore the people of the state of New York. And this whole, he doesn't get a stock and a bond and a thing and a thing and it doesn't trade, it's a stock market. She doesn't know what the heck she's talking about. The Charles Schwab account, which backed the bond, was filled with securities and it was a trading account. It wasn't a cash account. She doesn't know what she's talking about. And until it was, until they committed to making it all cash and not trade it so the value would go up and down,

it wasn't proper security. And they're going to improve the language of the bond and the undertaking to match New York law and of course the waiver of jurisdiction. But these are complicated legal issues and they're not great with a 10-second chucklefest with Sean Hannity, you know, to their public. They don't do what we do every day on Legal AF, which is break down complicated legal issues and concepts in a way that's both informative and hopefully entertaining. And that was the bond hearing. Anything you'd like to add to that, Karen? I just don't understand how she can lie.

How could she can get up there? I mean, I guess it just makes no sense to me. And every time I see it happen, I say to myself, how can they do that? How can you just get up there and say, it's a Charles Schwab account, you can't trade it, it's cash. Okay, that is the it's the opposite of what it is. Right? I mean, I just don't get it. You're a lawyer. Because she because she's taking well, I'm saying it rhetorically, she's taking advantage of her

audience's lack of attention, they don't pay. There's no right wing version of our show. Let's just put it that way. I'm not inviting one. But there is no right wing but there's no like alternate upside down earth, where there's another Karen Freeman, a nifilo and a popok without a beard who like do this but from the Bizarro Jerry from the side. Yeah, like the Bizarro. Like, yeah, right. There is like you and Ben the Bizarro. I wonder who our versions would be.

So nobody so they don't have that. So instead, the substitute for that is this chuckle fest on Fox. But first of all, she's not a New York lawyer. She's a New Jersey lawyer who has a little rented office in a WeWork. I think it used to be a WeWork that she says she's got a New York office. She hasn't practiced in commercial division. I never heard of Alina Hopper. She's from bed minster, New Jersey, not to start getting, you know, territorial over where you and I practice. But you know, you know what I'm saying? I agree with you. How much more time we got with you? Um,

like, what can you give me? I've had minutes. Why don't you lead then? What do you want to lead on? You want to lead on the immunity one? I'll let you go first. Sure. I'll do that and then I have to run. I apologize. Yeah, then I'll wrap up with Mar-a-Lago and as Karen has done for me in the past. So tomorrow's a huge day. I mean, tomorrow's oral arguments in the Supreme Court on this presidential immunity issue. It's going to be broadcast orally. We all should tune in. It's going to be a civics lesson, I think, on the founding of this country and the separation of powers and Marbury versus Madison and all the different powers that each of the branches have and what it means to be president and

what this country was founded on, which is that nobody is a king, that we don't have a sovereign that is above everybody else, that we have three branches, separate but equal. And that's what I think it's going to be all about tomorrow. I'm going to be fascinated and can't wait to tune in and hear what the oral arguments are going to talk about. But really, just to remind everybody what this case is about, it's about the difference between official acts and unofficial acts, civil and criminal and presidential immunity. And what does all that mean? Okay, let's just do the very basic so that everyone can understand.

What Donald Trump is trying to suggest is that he is immune from criminal prosecution for acts that occurred while he was president, because while he was president, he should be, he should get immunity. And that is a question that has never been formally addressed by the United States Supreme Court. Why? Because no president has ever committed crimes like him other than arguably Nixon. But Nixon, who understood to be potentially prosecutable as a crime, received a pardon. Because if he was immune, he would not have needed a pardon.

So we never had to get to this point where someone was actually prosecuted. Basically, what Donald Trump is saying is, look, if I have to look over my shoulder every day while I'm doing my job, then I will be cautious and I won't take risks. Therefore, I should be immune for anything that I do while I'm president. That's the logic of why a president or many people actually can't be sued for their official acts while they are doing their official acts, right? So the president, if he's doing his job, he can't be civilly sued. Even things that are kind of on the outer perimeter, meaning they're within the stretch of his job description,

those he cannot be sued civilly. He can be sued though, for his personal life anytime, right? Just like Bill Clinton was, and by Paula Jones he was sued because that was purely personal. And so he's saying, criminals should be the same. Criminals should be that I can't be prosecuted for anything when I was president.

Whether or not it was official or unofficial is what he starts with. And then he says, well, especially official, if you have to parse it out. And that makes no sense because, and when we listen to the oral argument in the DC circuit, they brought up that famous SEAL Team Six example, which you're saying if his official act as president, as commander in chief, he's in charge of SEAL Team Six example, which you're saying if his official act as president,

as commander in chief, he's in charge of SEAL Team Six, if he sends them out to go assassinate a rival, you're saying he can't be prosecuted for that. And, you know, or what if he gives pardons out that sells them? What if he sells presidential pardons, which you're not supposed to do? You know, anything that's a pardon is clearly an official act. So it kind of makes no sense. And I think from that perspective, he's going to lose resoundingly on that. But he's making all the arguments. He's also saying a couple other arguments he's making that you're going to hear tomorrow when you listen is that, is that in order to be prosecuted, which actually flies in the face of his immunity argument that he should have absolute immunity, he says, he

says, well, but if I am going to be prosecuted, if a president is going to be prosecuted, the only way to do it is he has to be impeached first, and then, and then convicted in the Senate. He's going to lead with that arc, you think he's going to make that argument based on how the the i don't i don't think the supreme court's interested in that at all well i think he's i don't think they're interested either but i think he's going to say that yeah he's i think he's going to say um he's going to say you know he's going to he's first he's going to say absolute immunity for official acts absolute period, while I'm president, right? Absolute immunity, A, but if you want to say no absolute immunity, then the only way to prosecute would be if I'm impeached and convicted.

That's what I was going to say. Yeah, no, I hear you. I have a slightly different sense because, you know, you and I covered really carefully, Pan Henderson and Childs and their decision, because people forget there is a decision here that they'd have to reverse at the court of appeal, at the DC Court of Appeals. And they did a masterful job in 56 pages. And they covered all of the structural immunity and you gotta impeach and convict before immunity,

even if Donald Trump killed somebody on the last day in office, you'd have to go through a conviction and a Senate conviction before you could drive all these ridiculous stories. And the only question on appeal as framed by the United States Supreme Court is the following. Whether a former president, they leaned into former, has immunity, absolute immunity for official acts. I think everything else was covered in the order. And I think if they start going down that road, I think that is a dead bank loser. I think quickly we're going to see, although, how things get framed in briefing and how things break out in the oral argument,

are sometimes there's a mismatch and that's what makes it fun for us. So you don't think he's going to say, yeah, for official acts, you have to impeach first. He's going to argue, but I don't think that's what the suit, I think this is my right. Yeah, I was just saying what he's going to argue. I don't think He's going to argue it, but I don't think that's what the Supreme Court, I think this is my run. I was just saying what he's going to argue. I don't think the Supreme Court is going to do it. I was just saying what his argument is. But my running speculation is the Supreme Court is going to cut them off early. We don't want to hear about that. We want to focus on the question at hand, which we framed specifically for this. I think they cut him off if he starts to go down that road, because that's not what

they're interested, at least that's not what the majority is interested in. And the reason I say that is I think they're going to leave undisturbed, the ultimate decision could be wrong. And you guys can play this back. I already owe Karen lunch for being off by two days on jury selection. I'm willing to pay I got you know, I got a wallet, I can do it. You were off by a week. No, I'm kidding. No, I said the following week, it was gonna be jury selection. I said no, no,

I said following week, that's a that's a week. Oh, maybe the whole week. Whatever be jury selection. I said no, no. A following week. That's a week. Oh, it would be the whole week? All right, whatever. It doesn't matter. I wish I bet Ben on who was going to be the first witness. I would have been able to double my money. All right. So that's one. Secondly, people may be thinking, oh, Popok is, we're competitive behind the scenes. People don't know that, but we love each other. A lot of Xs and Os when we write to each other. That's our love language, legal competition. All right. So, my prediction is that they're going to leave undisturbed the decision led by Judge Pan at the DC Court of Appeals, but they're going to clarify one issue about former and official conduct. I think either you find this to be not official conduct,

which is the road that Jack Smith has taken under any event, or you'd say it doesn't apply to a former, which is very interesting. We saw that in the application of the federal officer removal statute when the 11th Circuit said it doesn't apply to a former officer. I don't know where they're going to go. They didn't write former for no reason. So I want to see how that plays out. But if you're available, jump on. We gonna do it. We're gonna do a post game show on that tomorrow. After all argument, which I assume starts at 10am on the Midas Touch Network. Yeah, I'll try to jump on but I have to jump off now, Pope.

Right. Thanks so much for doing this and for accommodating my crazy schedule. Highlight of my day. Good luck. So let's turn to, well, let's compliment Karen first because I love being with Karen. There's a reason we enjoy doing these back and forths together and we don't slap our forehead and say,

oh, is this again? I got to do another Legal AF midweek? I hate, we're trying to clear everything out of our day that doesn't really matter in order to do it. And that's what we've done today with a little bit of an earlier taping for Legal AF. Let's turn to Mara Lago and I'll leave it on this. So what do we get new there? Still waiting around for Judge Canada to do the right thing. She dismissed last week, denied last week a couple of motions to dismiss that were filed by Trump's co-conspirators, at least the Olvera and at least the Butler and the,

I almost called him the undertaker, the Butler and the maintenance worker are going to a trial. Question is when, and if Donald Trump's gonna be next to them or not, but their bid to try to dismiss their entitlement failed. Now, for those that watch around the world, we try to do most of our trial work and things that end up to dismiss their entitlement failed. Now, for those that watch around the world, we try to do most of our trial work and things that end up on the docket, the electronic

filing system in public, especially about civil and criminal cases. That's just how we operate. There's no star chambers. We don't do things in a box. Yes, things can be blacked out and redacted, but things need to be put onto the public docket, not to embarrass people, but so that the public who has, is a stakeholder in our criminal justice system and in our civil justice system knows what's going on, right? And isn't, it isn't kept in the dark. And that's why there's often fights about the timing, especially in a criminal case, of when information that was used to obtain a search warrant or has been used in the case or submitted to the judge

is gonna see the light of day. It may not be right at the very beginning because of the sensitivity about grand jury secrecy and protecting witnesses. It may not be the first month or two. It may be a year into the case, which is what we're learning now. I mean, that execution of the search warrant

was a year ago, August, it wasn't two years ago, August, was it? Maybe it was two years ago, August. We're just getting now information about the search warrant and on the public docket. That's the way it works. Judges, there's always a tension. Judges are always pushing the prosecutors

to put more on the public docket at early intervals and rip off the band-aid of redacted tape, the black tape that sometimes we see on documents, to get the public who have a seat at the table of criminal and civil justice to let them know more. And prosecutors of course are like, not yet judge, it's still an ongoing investigation or we're still doing interviews or this is still grand jury testimony, it needs protection. So there's always that tension and that's healthy even in the hands of Judge Alien Cannon it's healthy and now we've got 400 pages, some redacted, of information. What did we learn that we didn't know before? I never knew that it was called Plasmic Echo. That was the name that was assigned. I don't know, we'll have to find out why in somebody's memoir down the road as to it was a link. It was listed as an investigation into the possible

mishandling of national defense information NDI, which is an espionage act violation. That there was loose surveillance, an FBI term I had never heard, I've been doing this a long time, loose surveillance of Trump Force One, the airplane that Donald Trump flies around in, likes to brag that it's bigger and better than Air Force One. Yeah, they wanted to figure out whether there were boxes on there that belonged to you and me

with national security information or not. And so they did that. They also, it was also revealed, as we suspected, that after some initial surveillance and beginning investigation, that Merrick Garland, our Attorney General, gave the green light to a full-blown, quote-unquote full-blown investigation involving this, that there was coordination as we

suspected between the Secret Service leadership and the FBI and their field offices in order to execute those search warrants without tipping off who? Donald Trump. Because he's got, as we talked about earlier, he has 24-7 secret service protection. He had it then, he has it now. Most ex-presidents have it even if they're not running for office. In any event, you know, Bill Clinton still has a security detail running around with him for his appearances. So there had to be coordination. You can't just like FBI like FBI and secret services there on the other side with their weapons drawn. We would like to avoid that,

you know, friendly fire incident that happens at Mar-a-Lago. So there's coordination, just the same kind of coordination I just reported on, I might as touch between the Secret Service, the prison directors, and law enforcement about maybe Donald Trump going to jail or prison. That's going on too. Same thing here. So there was discussion that leadership in the Secret Service, leadership for the FBI, the field office Washington, field office local for Miami was involved. We now know, as we suspected, local US attorney present from the Southern District of Florida in that office and also from the Department of Justice. They listed it as a counterintelligence attorney for the Department of Justice. If I had a guess, that's going to probably be, it'll come to me in a minute. Oh, I was on a roll. I promise you, before this is over, I'm gonna tell you who that was, Jay Bratt.

Jay Bratt is also on the special counsel's team and does some prosecuting in the case, was involved with the initial negotiations with Evan Corcoran to try to return the documents. I would be shocked if he's not the lawyer for the DOJ that was on site during the execution of the search warrants. We learned all of that. We learned there was a safe,

a real, they called it the 45 safe, right? So they had to open and look inside and see what was there, locked cabinets, locked drawers. This is the stuff the Secret Service was facilitating. And this is interesting because of the way we thought about it, you know, the mental picture that we got with the photos, with all the documents spilled out on the floor, and the boxes that they found stacked up in the ballroom and the bathrooms, spilling out with NDI on the ground and all that. I only had it in view, I hadn't really thought about the secret service role in all of this. I just saw it as like, knock on the door, FBI, boom, everybody moved. But they were coordinating. In fact, you know, the lawyers original for Donald Trump,

Evan Corcoran, and I think Tim Parlattore told the government that they wanted to be like watch or be there during the execution of the search warrant. The government said, no, that's okay, we got it. And they wanted to try to watch on video cameras. They were like, no, you're not doing that either. But there was this coordination with the secret Service. And there's other information we're starting to get out about statements that were made by the butler, by Walt Nauta, co-conspirator

with Donald Trump, promises that were made according to Walt Nauta about a pardon. There's some of that there underneath all that black tape, which is interesting. And it just reinforces my original observation with Ben on the weekend is like, why haven't these guys turned on Donald Trump and gone state's evidence, gone witnesses for the prosecution? Because they are delusional and they are living in a world

where Donald Trump returns to the White House and they're banking on it you know it's like is it gonna be red or black I don't know why I'm doing dice when I'm talking about roulette is it gonna be red or black at Vegas they're like oh it better be black because if it's not there's or better be red there's a better way to put it or they're screwed because they're gonna get convicted my view even even by a South Florida federal jury in Fort Pierce, which is a little dicey for the prosecution, with the evidence they have against Donald Trump. And by then, they will have the benefit, the prosecutors, of everything that's happening up

in New York. Just as I said, the Manhattan DA sat in on the E. Jean Carroll civil rape and defamation punitive damages case times two. They sat in on the New York civil fraud case to watch Donald Trump and his lawyers in action. They'd be fools if they didn't and they learned. It's like machine learning. They learned and they're using it now against Donald Trump in the courtroom with his intel. Same thing, Jack Smith. I don't know if there's been reporting of any feds that are in the room, but believe me, they are getting the transcripts, they're getting the reporting, hopefully like on Legal AF, and they're learning and that's gonna bring,

they're gonna use it and bring it to bear in the trial when it eventually gets set, whenever it gets set by Judge Cannon. So that's a little bit of a Mar-a-Lago update. Sometimes we don't talk about things, it's because there's not major massive things that have happened, but in Mar-a-Lago we thought this was this was a new bit of information that needed some analysis and context on it.

We've reached the end of the show and some people I know are upset and they will be upset in the chat tonight, but let me tell you how you can support the show. Almost everything I'm going to talk about is free. Free subscribe to the Midas Touch network. You're already here. It's literally just go back out and hit subscribe, help them get to 3 million free subscribers. It's not ego. It keeps the network thriving and alive. You're building the network with us. We are the network that you've wanted, hopefully, and we have no outside investors and we need

your help. So that will do that. This is a video, obviously, a video podcast, our recording of Legal AF. And then we have the audio that'll drop in a few hours and you go pick it up on wherever you get your audio podcasts from. And if you listen there and watch here, do both, every episode, that helps. It signals to the algorithmic gods that you like this kind of programming and you want to see more of it and that's important. Then we're doing, you can be part of our ad hoc marketing department since we don't have one. I'll do bumpers, I'll do introductions if you will for each of the segments tonight and we'll put it out on our feed on YouTube. We call it Legal AF After Dark as some

people know. If you've seen the segment already, maybe you wanna re-watch it. If you haven't seen it, you're a regular watcher, there's an opportunity. And if you've seen it all and that segment, take it, send it off to friends and family, people in your life and say,

hey, you know that show Legal AF I like? Here's an example. It's a 10 minute commitment or so, and maybe they'll join our audience. That's the purpose of the legal AF after darks. And to answer a question that's been in the chat or otherwise, I don't record the intro at night. We run the legal AF segment usually late at night, 12, 1, 2 o'clock in the morning in Eastern time. That's why we called it or I named it Legal AF After Dark. All free, everything I've talked about.

Then if you wanna fly the flag of Legal AF, we've got a merchandise store, people are wearing t-shirts, I think we still have coffee mugs in there, store.mitustouch.com, and then based on popular demand and the need that we're trying to fill for legal analysis at a level that we can't even do just twice a week on Legal AF or in our hot takes. We developed a Patreon account

with three levels of membership on patreon.com slash Legal AF. We get it into the molecular level, but we do it in the same way we're doing it here. Informative, hopefully entertaining, we paint primary colors. It's for non-lawyers and lawyers alike, but we know our audience and we're gearing our legal terms, whether we're talking concepts, whether it's civil, criminal, federal, state, constitutional, civil rights, voting rights, abortion rights, developments at the United States Supreme Court, arcane issues of procedure, witnesses, trial practice, you name it. We're doing 10 and 15

minute segments on each of those, posting them every week. Depending upon your membership level, you'll get early access to hot takes before they even post on our YouTube channel and other special items that you'll get for being a supporter. It's another fun way to support the show and its hosts. And so I think the entry level membership is free, but the entry level membership where you get all this good stuff I just talked about

is, I don't know, one or two cups of coffee a month pricing depending upon what city you live in. In New York, it's one cup, but fill in the blank depending upon where you live, and then there's other levels from there. So we invite you to join Legal AF at the Patreon, patreon.com slash Legal AF. And then we'll do this all again on Saturday

at 8 p.m. Eastern time on this YouTube channel. I'll be joined by Ben Micellus. Don't forget the special programming we're doing that's tied to the Trump trials. Ben Micelles and Karen Freeman at NIFILO every morning, every afternoon, after trial ends. Sometimes I step in and help out there. And of course we want to be your go-to network for all things important legal, Supreme Court. We're gonna be running a live feed of the Supreme Court oral argument related to the immunity defense by Donald Trump.

He loses that, that Chuck can trial down to the DC election interference case is back up and running before the summer and before election. It's that important, that's what's at stake. It's that important. I'll give you an example. When you guys, our audience tunes in on a live feed Supreme Court oral argument, for instance,

we'll get 50, 80, 100, 200,000 to view it. I was watching today the oral argument related to the abortion decision and EMTALA and the federal law that President Biden put in place to make sure that a woman, at least at the moment where she needs emergency care, is going to get proper care from her doctors, including abortion if needed. I looked at it. I was watching it on the Washington Post or CNN channel. There was a thousand people watching. So just to show you the power, the collective power of this audience and why we're so appreciative of everyone out there who watches Legal AF,

who watches our other legal competitors and the content here that you can only find on the Midas Touch Network. It's because of that. When we do it tomorrow, I assure you, I don't know what the number is going to be, but I assure you, it's not going to be 1,500. It's going to be 30,000, 80,000, 200,000, depending upon how much promotion we do of it, salty. So until all that content I just talked to you about,

including the upcoming Saturday edition of Legal AF, this is Michael Popok with a recently, who just left the show to go to her next major event in her life, Karen Freeman at Knitpilo at the midweek for Legal AF. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.