Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Contempt, DeSantis attacks Disney, and MORE!!!

Episode Date: May 1, 2022

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF x MeidasTouch is back for another hard-hitting look in “real time” at this week’s most consequential developments. This week Ben and Popok discuss and analyze: 1. The Supreme Court’s upcoming decision as to whether school prayer, so far banned under 60 years of precedent, will now be allowed under the First Amendment. 2. The Supreme Court’s view of whether a Texas Federal Judge can keep the Trump “Stay in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers in place or whether Biden will convince them to allow him to end it. 3. The Manhattan DA’s momentous decision to let the Trump criminal grand jury expire and what it means for the criminal case. 4. A NY state court judge siding with the NY Attorney General’s civil investigation of Trump, by refusing to find that Trump fixed his “contempt” problem to stop the $10k a day fine, and ordering Trump’s long time appraisers to turn over all of their files about his loans. 5. A new “seditious conspiracy” conviction for the Department of Justice against yet another Proud Boy. 6. Florida Governor DeSantis’ retaliation against Disney for exercising their First Amendment rights to lobby for the repeal of the Don’t Say Gay education law. 7. A new civil case brought by the DOJ against Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, related to tax evasion and hiding his assets in foreign bank accounts; 8. Why Derek Chauvin has appealed, not his Federal conviction and plea deal, but the State jury sentencing him to 22.5 years in State prison. 9. Newly-discovered text messages submitted to the Georgia administrative judge considering whether to recommend that she be banned from the ballot as an “insurrectionist” between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Mark Meadows show that is a liar and not credible. Support the Show! DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: AG1 by Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/legalaf Aura Frames: https://auraframes.com/legalaf NordPass: Get 50% off a 2-year NordPass premium plan at https://nordpass.com/LegalAF or use a code "LegalAF". Plus you get an additional month for FREE! Join the Legal AF Twitter Community: https://twitter.com/i/communities/1518253662920974338 Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Text messages of Marjorie Taylor Greene emerge, inquiring about martial law. We learned something we knew already. She does not know how to spell, and I thought she didn't recall. Derek Chauvin appeals his murder conviction in Minnesota, but I thought he pled guilty in a federal case as well. So what is going on there? Governor DeSantis in Florida's fascist ambitions play out in his unlawful retaliation against Disney.

We break it down. Paul Manafort is sued by the Department of Justice for his tax crimes, taping holes in his pardon by Donald Trump. Trump appeals his contempt order in New York court where he is being fined $10,000 per day. I think that that appeal is not going anywhere. Trump's appraisers, kushmen, and wakefield are under fire in Tish James investigation.

Alvin Bragg lets the grand jury lapse. What in the world is going on there, Popeye? Another insurrectionist pleads guilty to seditious conspiracy. Supreme court cases, let's break it down, Popeye. A coach who takes a knee, the Supreme Court rushes to the coach's defense. Where have we heard that story before, where people weren't rushing to the defense?

But the coach is taking a knee, saying it's for religious purposes, and under the establishment cause, the Supreme Court is saying, or seems to be saying, that is okay. And there are oral arguments that take place around Biden's termination of Trump's inhumane, remain in Mexico policy, Biden's termination

of Trump's policy. We've got an action packed data filled episode of the Legal AF Podcast, the most consequential legal news of the week, Popeyes, and I break it down. Welcome to legal AF. Wow, Popok. A lot, a lot to go through. How you doing, Michael? Popok, my steam co-host. I'm doing great. You can hear New York City out out in front of me there. Then I'm love and I told you I love the new opening. I'm doing my part.

It reminds me of you all't remember this, but it reminds me there used to be a commercial for Memorex, which is a, it used to be a cassette. You know what a cassette has been? You put it in for music and they said commercial. I was born in the 80s. Oh, that's true. I know what you're sensing. So they put, they put a kid in a, in a, in a chair and they turned on the music played over Mem memory X, and the kid literally got blown out of the chair by the speaker. And that's how I feel every evening when I record this with you. Well, that sounds like it's a good thing.

So I'll embrace that as a compliment. And what I want to embrace as hypocrisy are these text messages from Marjorie Taylor Green that emerged in the Treasure Trove text message leak coming from Mark Meadows phone. CNN had the initial exclusive and had all these messages to Mark Meadows. We've touched upon it slightly in the brothers, might as touch podcast, but basically it's Republican leadership, Republican leaders, Republican influencers, Republican, whatever, all reaching out to the, you know, to Mark Meadows, the chief of staff of the White House, basically encouraging him to steal and unlawfully steal the election.

I mean, that's what is taking place in these messages. So I won't be labor all of the other messages, you know, suffice it to say it's all other Republican leadership telling him, but these Marjorie Taylor green messages where she's talking about martial law. I mean, she's spelling it completely incorrectly. I think she spells it like marshals or M.A.R. Like marshals like Ross, right? He spells an M.A.R.S.H.A.L.L.

And she does it in a way that is kind of consistent with the way Republicans are, where they insinuate something horrific, but then try to like hedge? I don't know too much about this martial law business that I'm hearing about, but maybe you should explore that, Mark Meadows, and start looking into martial law. Well, when she was asked these questions about this, at the insurrection hearing where there was a disqualification efforts being made, it was live streamed on the Midas Touch YouTube channel where Marjorie Telegreen was before the administrative hearing, where voters were trying to get her off the election for being an insurrectionist under the 14th Amendment

section three, and she was asked these questions under ropes. She denied anything about insinuating martial law. And she like her, when she's been confronted with these text messages since then, she also continues to say, I don't recall where she goes, these aren't, I don't know if these are my messages. But look, she says, if they are my messages, I'm not actually calling for martial law.

I'm just simply asking, do you know about this martial law business? How irresponsible is that popo? And what are the implications here? Yeah. So, you know, I think you framed it really well. We've got a supplemental filing by the lawyers. Remember, they're not prosecutors. There's civil lawyers on behalf of plaintiffs who are challenging Marjorie Taylor greens placed on the ballot for the starting with the May 24th. I mean, we're right around the corner for the primary ballot. And they have submitted because, you know, the Jansix Committee and Mark Meadows

and the Mark Meadows text are the gift that keeps on giving. And the Jansix Committee, of course, and the others reviewing that material found text messages between Mark Meadows and Marjorie Taylor Green as you've described them. We're going to put it up on the screen today where she talks about martial law, which is exactly the thing that she said she could not recall ever discussing with the president didn't even know what martial law was. We know she doesn't know how to spell it, but she also said she didn't claim to understand the concept or that she had discussed it with the president in the United States. Why did the lawyers submit it to the judge who's writing his report and recommendation to

Brad Raffinsberger in Georgia to make the ultimate decision whether she stays on the ballot or not, because they want to attack her credibility. She has no credibility. If you string together her entire testimony over three hours of, I don't know, I don't recall. That wasn't me. I don't run my social media. The other problem now faced with that filing, her lawyers and her office have come out

with some really incredible defenses to this text. The one that I love the best, I don't know if you caught this, is that Marjorie Taylor Greene's texts are erased every 30 days. So she doesn't have access to that text message. Let's talk about the implications of that. She is a member of Congress

who has public records obligations, similar to, but not exactly the same as the Presidential Records Act, to maintain her records. So every 30 days, she intentionally allows some sort of program to erase her text messages, the way she communicates with people in the executive branch, I think that's a problem. I don't think that's a defense. So what do you think about that, Ben? I think it is a problem.

It's an interesting concept, Popak, because when you take this into the corporate sector, there are electronic discovery consultants. There are lawyers or people in the field who give advice, they consult with corporations about what are appropriate data retention policies before and anticipation of litigation. When there's an anticipation of litigation,

you have an obligation to preserve all records. If litigation is reasonably anticipated, well, what do corporations sometimes try to do to go around that? Because litigation's almost always reasonably anticipated when you're a large public company or you're a large private company or even a mid-size or small-size business.

So consultants will often say, if you have a data destruction policy that is in place from the outset, and let's say you delete every 60 days, and that's your regular course of practice, if you are challenged with that, you may have a fair argument as a private corporation to say, there's nothing reasonably anticipated, and we just destroy regularly every 60 days. It's a bit of a sneaky move. It still has to be scrutinized by the court if that's an appropriate data destruction and data retention policy, but you absolutely can't destroy records when there is litigation

reasonably anticipated and that is called spoliation. And then there's also broader issues which are do you have to keep kind of backups and load files and all these other things that may exist? But here for Marjorie Taylor Greene, it's different because she is not a private corporation where litigation is not reasonably anticipated. She is representing constituents. She stepped into a public forum

where she should be preserving records, one, because that's what public servants are supposed to do. And that idea of being a public servant is completely lost by Republicans, the servant part that they're serving citizens and not their own pecuniary and individual interests and their own ego. But also, these are politicians, these are political people and their communications with the White House should be preserved.

And if you go back to my other example, if you're leading an insurrection, do you believe that litigation would be reasonably anticipated? If you're engaged in that conduct, even under that other standard that I gave which applies sometimes to private corporations and not to public where there's sunshine laws and all these preservation requirements. I would say, yeah, if you're leading an insurrection, you should be legally obligated to save those

documents. And here's the thing with this case Pope Bucket. This is a very challenging disqualification case. Not because Marjorie Taylor Greene is a good witness. No, she was a horrible witness. And these lawyers did a workmen-like job at the hearing with very difficult circumstances. It's a difficult case because the Constitution's not really resolved about what you do in an article, in a 14th Amendment section, three type of case, and who's supposed to hear that.

But here's the thing. There is now a series of mistakes and unforced errors made by Marjorie Taylor Greene. And you can say, well, they really unforced errors, just her speaking, which she will reveal her true character. But now we know she's destroyed records, probably inappropriately, and she doesn't recall things that she should recall that are obvious things. So already, those are two major developments, thanks to these lawyers who have done a great job by I think getting that out there. Yeah, I agree with all of that. And my favorite line in corporate litigation is when a witness testifies that the document no longer exists because it was destroyed,

pursuant to the company's document preservation policy, which always seems to be an oxymoron of what is allowed. But it happens all the time. She's got government in the sunshine regulations that means she can't destroy the records that are sitting on her text phone that she's using for official business. She can't argue this is a private that she's using for official business.

She can't argue this is a private cell phone being used for private business like she's following her kid's soccer game. This is her talking to Mark Meadows, the chief of staff about whether the government and the president should invoke martial law to put down in quote unquote insurrection in order to take control of the country and suspend habeas corpus and suspend liberty and suspend the operation of the constitution the way that President Lincoln did coming out of the civil war or during the civil war. That's what we're talking about. So, look, I agree with you. We've talked about, and I don't want to beat a dead horse, but we've talked about in the past why we got a little bit

of a sticky wicket about if this judge, and even ultimately Brad Raffinsberger, is the one that's supposed to decide whether she is an insurrectionist or not, and as that term is used in the Constitution, or whether that's something Congress has to declare, or whether that's something a court has to declare after a conviction. But putting the side those niceties, she's a liar. She's not credible and this latest filing only reinforces that concept. Now, Pope, I'm going to go slightly

out of order in our agenda today. That's when when you have your own podcast, you can go out of order. You can make those executives. You're suggesting to our audience that we take it in order. There's an order. That premise could be debatable to begin with. But I want to talk though about the Trump document issue because I think it's a little bit of a seamless transition here when you're talking about Marjorie Taylor green destroying her records every 30 days.

And Trump being in hot water, being held in contempt by a New York judge for not turning over records. So this is in relation to the Tish James, New York attorney general, civil investigation that she's been undergoing, where she's been investigating the Trump organization, Donald Trump, the other leaders of the Trump organization, which are Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. And Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump. And so, Tish James issued what's called a document request.

What's a document request? Exactly what it says. Please produce the following documents. It's literally document request? Exactly what it says. Please produce the following documents. It's literally a piece of paper that says that. And there's about seven or eight requests here. And these all relate to documents relating to valuation and appraisals of Trump-related property. And so she made that request to Donald Trump directly. And Donald Trump at first kind of fought these requests and fought the depositions request. Because Tish James also sought Donald Trump's deposition. But Donald Trump ultimately, when he was challenging

these things, he didn't actually challenge the doc request portion of it. And so everyone was expecting that he was gonna turn over these documents like March 31st, because he challenged the depositions and he appealed that, but they seemed to reach an agreement that he was gonna turn over the documents. I think we even on a past legal app said, well, that's interesting.

He Donald Trump's agreed to turn over these documents. So what happened though on March 31st, he objected, which he didn't previously object, but now he interposed these objections. I don't, one, I'm objecting to turning over the documents into no documents even exist. And it's like, wait a minute, you said you were turning over documents and now you're saying no documents exist. And by the way, we know these documents exist and how do you know these documents exist? Well, guess what? Might as touch, we have the exclusive to Michael Cohen's podcast and Michael Cohen exclusive to his reaction videos and his YouTube videos. Michael

Cohen said he's one of many people who know these documents exist. He goes, I've seen these documents. I know that Donald Trump uses Post-its. I know he uses calendar notes. I've seen that he turned over some of these appraisals to like the hot deal magazine and Forbes or these magazines to try to prove that he's a billionaire. So I know these documents exist. And Michael Cohen's told me, you know, as well, he goes, Donald Trump uses calendars too. Handwritten calendars, it goes, Trump doesn't use emails, but he has a hand written calendar that I would see and I know He has a calendar and he keeps track of all of these things

So Donald Trump doesn't turn over documents. Tis James then files a motion to compel after Trump doesn't turn him over She seeks contempt of court the New York judge grants that motion orders Donald Trump in contempt The New York judge grants that motion, orders Donald Trump in contempt, finding him $10,000 each and every day. And now Donald Trump has appealed that contempt ruling. He's appealed it to the court of appeals. Pope Octelis what's going on here? Do you think the court of appeals

is gonna be friendly to Donald Trump? Each Trump tried this past week to I guess cure the contempt because Donald Trump's cheap and even $10,000 a day to someone who claims to be a billionaire. He doesn't want to pay that every single day. So he filed an affidavit or he had his lawyer file. No, he did both. They both filed. He filed one, the lawyer filed an affidavit, but the affidavit was kind of broad and didn't

really address any, like, did they really conduct a search? It doesn't even discuss like the who, what, where, when do these things take place? And the judge says, I don't believe you. Like, your affidavit isn't sufficient. So is his affidavit not sufficient? Do we believe him that he doesn't have documents? You know, somewhat, you know, if he's just there, Popeye, but what's going on? Yeah, I think here's, let me fill in the, let me connect the dots here. You've got an appeal, not to the court of appeals yet, but to the first department, which is the first level appeal in New York out of Manhattan. And not a pellet court is handling two different issues related to judge

Ergaron, who's the trial court judge that we've been talking about. The first one is, although the earlier ruling as to whether Trump and the children have to sit for deposition, they've appealed that, that first department, a panel of the first department, is going to rule on that particular issue. Now, another panel of the first department, I'm not sure it gets assigned to the same panel, is going to hear the issue of whether judge Ergaron properly found Trump himself in civil contempt at $10,000 a day, as you mentioned, or as I like to call it on Saturday, $50,000 a Saturday, because that's how much he owes since Tuesday, or whether A, he should have been found in contempt, and whether he has properly what we referred to in the biz as purged his contempt by submitting these affidavits because if you were called

Ben last week, we told our audience that there was a chance. There was a narrow path for for Haba, the lawyer, Alina Haba, for Trump to file an affidavit outlining all the things that she declared in court without any support or affidavit or sworn testimony at all, which is, I've looked everywhere, judge, along with my client, I can't find a thing. The judge said, you know what? I got to have declarations. I've got to have affidavits. I've got to have sworn testimony before I'm going to let somebody off the hook of a finding

of contempt. And so go back to the drawing board. It's just, it gave them the opportunity. So they scrambled and, and Alina Habba submitted an affidavit and she had Donald Trump submitted two sentence affidavits. His affidavit that you just commented on, proctorly, Ben said, I don't have anything. And if I had anything, it be with the Trump organization, what he did not do and what the judge commented on. And it's about to throw the book at him

again at a hearing that was just held two days ago and in prompt to hearing that the judge called the last minute to bring the lawyers back together and to consider Haba Trump's lawyers' motion to not have the $10,000 fine run since Tuesday. He said, well, let me hear, let me see the affidavits. What are they? Let me see these. Okay. Well, that's definitely his signature.

That's a well-known signature with a sharpie. The problem is Habba is that it doesn't say where he has looked, where, you know, the discovery vendor who has been tasked with reporting to the court about the document production process has said there is a file cabinet out in front of his office. There are file cabinets marked executive office in Mar-a-Lago. There is this floor filing cabinet and this device and that device that have not been searched or documents turned over. So the judge said, a one-liner that says, you looked everywhere and you can't find it, doesn't do it for me.

You're going to have to tell me where, who, what, where, and when that you looked. Let's turn to your devices, Mr. Trump, the judge said, where are your devices? Where are your, where are your, I haven't seen one of those. I haven't seen one of your post it notes. Your notorious, as you mentioned, Ben, Michael Cohen mentioned, he's a notorious serial post it noter. Where are the post it notes? We haven't seen one produced in this case. I find this affidavit to be insufficient. In Miss Abba, you saying that you talk to your client and then went to Mar-a-Lago and you can't find a document either. That doesn't do it for me either. So they have not purged their contempt as far as judge Ergaron is concerned. I don't think they will have, I don't think they'll convince the first department or the court of appeals in New York that they have sufficiently

satisfied their obligations for documents and data related to Donald Trump. But you can see how worried they are. Even Alina Haba, the lawyer, only only let him put in a two line, two sentence, affidavit. Now, look, if I'm Tis James, I would, in the deposition, you know, a big subject of the deposition, if they ever get that testimony, is going to be the whole module just dedicated to document collection and Trump's role in it. What you do, where'd you go? Where's that filing cabinet? How did you search it?

Who did you give instructions to? Where are your post-it notes? So, you know, she's chomping at the bit to get in there with a deposition and cover topics like this. And so that he doesn't get away with waving around a piece of paper, you know, in front of the judge

and try to get out from contempt. 10,000 continues to run all the way through the time. If he's successful at the, at the appellate level, maybe the fine gets rescinded, but right now it's running. By the time we talk next week, it'll be $100,000. And Popak, tell us a little bit about this Kishman and Wakefield document issue. Kishman and Wakefield trumps appraisers on a lot of his property. Tisch James is part of her investigation, subpoenaed records from them. Cushman and Wakefield said,

look, we've done a good job. We've turned over all the documents that we have. And Tisch James really called him out. And he said, no, you didn't. And seemed to even indicate too that, you know, that their conduct raised questions. There was an undertone in that, you know, there wasn't a direct accusation,

but a sharp legal eye reading the document also puts fault on, you know, looks like she's putting fault on them. And their response is, no, we've turned over to you all the records that we have. And the judge cited here with Tish James also, right? And said, no, we don't believe you, Kusham and Wakefield, there's more documents

out there. Turn them over quicker, turn them over now. Yeah, it's a potentially momentous decision by Ergor on that didn't get a lot of attention at the time. Let's recall that both Alvin Bragg, who we're going to talk about later tonight in the pod, Alvin Bragg's Manhattan District Attorney's Office criminal prosecution

and Tiss James's Civil Attorney General prosecution are really focused on the same set of crimes or violations. That of lone appraisal fraud where he pumped up the value of his assets in order to get loans, but then deflated those assets when he needed to come time to pay the taxman. That is really the focus both of Bragg's prosecution and always has been, ever since he inherited it from Sivance and to James. So Cushman and Wakefield, which has been the go to real estate firm, and I wanna talk about that for a moment, for Donald Trump forever also did his appraisal work.

Let's talk about that. So everybody knows who follows the podcast that I had a life in working for a Wall Street firm. One of the aspects of the Wall Street firm was a real estate firm that was a competitor for Cushman Wakefield. I have a pretty good sense that what Cushman Wakefield does for a living. And so people in our audience who may not know this, they are a large global

real estate services firm and they do it all for real estate clients. They'll handle their leasing if they own buildings. They'll handle the sale if they're going to sell buildings. They'll they'll handle capital markets, which means they'll raise money from different sources of capital markets to fund or finance real estate deals. And one of the things all of these well-known global entities like Kushman and Wakefield do is they have an appraisal department who does appraisals of real estate value that banks rely on in order to lend money. Now, the big difference here between Cushman and Wakefield, which has been the long time appraisal company and well respected, by the way, in the industry or had been, they are I want to contrast them with measures, which you and I talked about, which is the long time

10-year plus accounting firm. They both exited the scene and got as far away from Trump as possible, but they did it in different ways that impact the subpoena that you're talking about. On the mazer side, mazer's not only quit the relationship, but they announced to the public, and we talked about this three or four podcasts ago, that nothing in the financial statements that they have certified in the past is reliable when it comes to the Trump administration. I mean, a shocking bombshell of an account saying everything that you saw there, ignore it.

You can't rely on it for any purpose. Which puts them at risk for formal practice and being potentially prosecuted if they're not already cooperating with the prosecutor or the or the attorney general's office. Cooks from an awake field is tipping through tip towing through a minefield because they wanted to exit the relationship and not just the appraisal relationship. They have been the long time agency for Trump to lease all of his commercial space including the

Trump organization building on on Fifth Avenue in New York and all the other places. Now people are saying, well, wait, I thought not our people, but other people. I thought Trump was a real estate barren and he would do all of that, which just shows you how little real work the Trumpet organization ever did in the real estate field. They were licenseors, they were not developers.

And when it came time to leasing their own space, they didn't even think they were competent enough to do that. They turned it over to Kushman and Wakefield. Kushman and Wakefield now says, we don't want anything to do with the Trump organization. We don't want any of their millions of dollars of fees that we've been getting every year from them. And we're out, we're taking our appraisal work with us.

But they did not do what Mazor said. They did not say in our appraisal work is not reliable. They said our appraisal work with us, but they did not do what Mazers said. They did not say, and our appraisal work is not reliable. They said, our appraisal work is rock solid, because they're worried about their own exposure, criminally and otherwise, for having participated, potentially in a conspiracy on the on the loan front. You and I could spend an entire show outlining every major accounting and even some law firms that are no longer in existence because they participated, waitingly or unwittingly in a fraud. Kushner Wakefield's worried about that.

And the judge sort of threw the book at them and said, wait a minute, you're no longer his appraiser anyway. And you're arguing about the scope of the subpoena, how many documents and categories. No, you're going to turn over, not only all of your appraisal files that Miss James wants, but you're going to turn over all the memos about your decision to exit the relationship. And because we want to find out why it was done because that could be relevant the way it was in the mazer's accounting exit. Why did a major professional legal, you know, a real estate services firm make a decision to get as far away from Trump as possible? That's relevant. The judge found to what

the, uh, uh, Tis James is investigating on her side. These documents are gonna come flying out. And I think Tis James, here's a prediction, is close to filing her lawsuit, which is what will be the end product of Tish James' investigation, a lawsuit, not a criminal prosecution because she's on the civil side, a lawsuit against Trump and the organization related to her investigation. I think that's a summer event certainly before the midterms. You know, the New York procedures interesting, because people are like, well, isn't a lawsuit filed?

What she doing these subpoenas under within the New York law and the powers of the AG. She's able to conduct these investigations under the auspices of a court and the judge in this case, which could then develop into a full fledged civil lawsuit. And it's interesting that on this podcast too, and in recent news, we see where the criminal system may have had some failings, a civil system, and smart leaders who know how to use the civil system effectively like Tish James here,

and like the DOJ and the Paul Manafort matter have been able to get accountability. And before talking about the Paul Manafort matter, though, while we're on the subject of Tish James, and before I deliver some bad news relating to Alvin Bragg, I do want to say, though, justice is coming. Like the work that Tish James is, and when it's not even coming, justice is here right now. We're seeing it, we're seeing it in the January 6th committee with its hearings that are going to take place in June. We're seeing it in what, frankly, the DOJ is doing with another seditious conspiracy. Polly, that took place. This has never happened in the history of the United States.

Like this amount of seditious conspiracy, please. Like we've talked about this in legal AF. There have been in the past, like maybe like one or two other examples of seditious conspiracy charges. And here the DOJ's got its second. So justice is here. We just have to focus on the right areas where it's taking place. We have to let our listeners and our viewers know how justice works and how it's moving, but ultimately with a competent rule of law administration, which is the Biden administration

and people like Tish James at the state level, the wheels are moving in that direction, but that said, there are always setbacks. There's always weakness, right? There are always defects in the armor. And you look at Alvin Bragg, who took over from Sive Vance for those legal AF listeners, who listened to not just the weekend episode,

but the midweek, you know that Sive Vance, the former Manhattan DA, his number two at the office, Karen Friedman Agniflo is a host of legal AF with Michael Popock every Wednesday. It's the midweek legal AF edition that everybody loves. And so we get her perspective on lots of these issues. But here we have Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA who won, who was elected after Sivans left the office.

And Alvin Bragg has done what we said, we believed he was gonna do. He let the grand jury lapse. Arguably, he could potentially call in another grand jury in the future, but they'll have to relearn everything, which makes it incredibly difficult. They'll have to represent all of the evidence.

He Alvin Bragg has not contacted the critical witnesses. So for significant periods of times, he's given back all of the evidence to people. The two top prosecutors who he brought in, these outside prosecutors, they resigned and they said to us, you know, where they told the public rather what was happening weeks ago. And Alvin Bragg did this like press tour and kind of denied it. But here he's let the grand jury lapse. He's still kind of being coy with it. Like he's not like really even explaining what is rationale and what his reasoning is. And lots of people will say, Alvin Bragg, was he bought out by Trump? Is he in Trump's pocket? I fundamentally don't think Alvin Bragg at this point was the right person for the job.

Period. That's it. You know, Occam's razor. Sometimes it's the simplest answer is the right one. Alvin Bragg is afraid to prosecute the case. He believes it's difficult. He believes based on his other agendas and priorities that this would take up too much time and too much public attention. He has other agendas and he wrongfully believes that people are going to forget about this and forgive him for it and that he can then go focus on his other agendas. That's what he believes. But Popak, him letting this grand jury laps

means that the criminal side of the civil investigation that Tish James is doing, the criminal side was basically these things that Tish James is suing him for, enjoining him for stopping Trump's business practices. Not only should you stop it from the perspective of the AG, but they're criminal. You should go to jail when you inflate the values of your properties and when you lie on your documentation to get loans and that is illegal. Like if you didn't, if I did it, we go to jail.

Like we need not have to do that. So why do different rules apply to Trump? Very disappointing from Alvin Bragg, but I don't view it as Trump's never going to be held accountable because as I mentioned, in all those other areas, things are moving with the right prosecutors. Alvin Bragg, the wrong prosecutor, the wrong time, it's disappointing. And I wish that people knew about this when they were able to vote for Manhattan DA. You know, all of the candidates when they were asked, well, what would you do with Trump? They all kind of have to tiptoe around.

Well, I can't speak about a current case. I'm not allowed to speak about it. But I'm telling you, Alvin Bragg would not have one of people know that he was going to handle this way. I agree. Let me, let me, let me preface this, this part of the segment with the obvious. I, I do not agree based on what I know about the case, which is more limited than what the prosecutors in the office know about the case. I do not believe at all that Alvin Bragg will ever prosecute Donald Trump for the lone inflation crimes. I would also focus our, as you're giving the good news, which is proper. I want to focus people because a lot of our audience is putting so much emphasis on Alvin Bragg.

He's really only look his office. And this is a three year investigation, which I'm gonna come back to. A three year investigation, two years of which was under Sivance when Karen was in the office. And one year, well actually less than one year, has been with Alvin Bragg. Sivance did not indict Trump. He indicted others like the Trump organization.

He indicted Weiselberg, the CFO. But he did not himself indict Trump on the evidence that was developed over those first two years. Alvin Bragg is doing a going out of business sale, obviously, for the Trump investigation related to the loan inflation. I know people want Trump prosecuted for any old thing, and he's done many, many things, including an insider coup that the Jan 6th Committee

in the Department of Justice is looking at, which is the bigger fish to fry. But this is the one issue that is the only issue that's really been focused on at all ever in New York has been this loan inflation. He will not be prosecuted for that. Not only, as you noted, when I talk about the going out of business sale, let's, let me give you the hallmark signs of it. He not only let Pomerancin carry done walk out

the door noisily because they didn't feel like this case was being properly investigated or prosecuted, but we talked once before about a secret weapon in the prosecution, which was a prosecutor slash investigator named Solomon Scheinrock, who in his head is every bit of knowledge of the last three years about the investigation. He's been reassigned. So Solomon Shinerock is off. We already know Pomerancin done are gone and have been reassigned to new prosecutors. And now the grand jury, which frankly, they have not been bringing new evidence in or new

witnesses in in quite some time. So it was no shock to anyone following the case closely that Alvin was going to let the grand jury lapse and it is going to be very difficult for him to ever restart it. Not only as you noted, man, because he's he'll he'll lose months. And we have a five year statute of limitations that's running on every crime. Some of these crimes, assuming that he doesn't enter into a tolling agreement, an agreement to stop the clock on statutes limitations with a Trump organization. And I don't know why for the life of me, Trump would agree to a tolling agreement because

he doesn't believe now that the prosecution is really going to happen. You only do that when you're afraid if you don't enter into an agreement to stop the clock, the prosecutor is just going to invite you in tight you anyway. He has reason to believe as we all do with our eyes and our ears. Bragg is never going to do this. So these claims with the five year statute limitations are going to fall off the shelf one by one as the five years from the last event happened. And then he could be attacked the five years from the last event happened. And then he could be attacked in front of a judge for form shopping because the defense will argue, you know why he didn't, he let the the grand jury lapse because he wanted a new grand jury because he didn't like this one. So they'll have a whole,

you know, open the door to all sorts of defenses, ultimately for the Trump defense. Now, having said that, and I think everybody knows my opinion, I'm not defending Alvin Bragg, but I will make the following observations. One, that investigation was going on for two years before Alvin Bragg even got there, and it has been publicly reported that there were prosecutors not carried on and not Mark Pomeran's, but other career prosecutors undercivants and not KFA, who did not want to work on the prosecution who felt there were big holes in the prosecution in connecting Trump criminally the lone inflation,

not civilly, but criminally. So Alvin is not the first career prosecutor or prosecutor who believes there were problems with that case, even when Scydance had it. The people that I knew that are educated court watchers and in the business, when Alvin got elected and took his office in January, I had an impromptu holiday party or meeting with a few of them in December. None of them thought that Alvin, this is December of last year, none of them thought Alvin

was going to prosecute this case, not because he didn't have the brass or it wasn't consistent with his political agenda, although I think you're right, they're not. It's because he has his own reservations, as do others about holes in this particular case against Trump. So, you know, and if Si really thought there was enough evidence at that time, after two years, you know, he could have brought the prosecution against Trump. He left it to Alvin to do. So I'm not defending Alvin Bragg. I'm just saying he's not the only prosecutor who has looked at the evidence and thought,

I think there's some holes here. And I don't want to, because the worst thing would be, how about this? We're all excited about a prosecution because we all believe prosecution equals conviction. But what if they do the prosecution and there are the holes, at least some of them in the case, the prosecutor, whoever it is, is not able to make the case and Trump walks out the front wooden door instead of the metal door in the back of the courtroom. What would our audience reaction to that be? Be terrible. If you walk the job of a prosecutor, Popak, is to prosecute. And

you want them to prosecute and obviously prosecute cases where they believe there will be a conviction. And here's what I know that his two top prosecutors, Sy Vance's two top prosecutors who were bought and brought in the delay for those two years wasn't because at least with the two top prosecutors who were working for Sy Vance and then Alvin Bragg were saying, it's that Trump delays, delays delays and it's impossible to get these documents like we're seeing with Tish James. It's just very difficult and long and it's a sitting president and a former president. So it has all of those kind of complications with it, which makes it a very unique case.

But when those two top prosecutors are saying that they wanted to prosecute the case and we know what we learn from the Tish James reports, though, we know what she's finding. I'll just say this, I'm glad that there is a Tish James boss. I mean, that is, there is levels that there is a dish James boss, you know, I mean, that is there is levels of accountability there that that are going to be taking place. And there are many other areas of criminal exposure that Trump has and many areas, many more areas of civil exposure that Trump has where he will be held accountable. A lot more to talk about on LegalAF.

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by the DOJ for his tax crimes. This guy, this guy Paul Manafort, who was helping the Russian oligarchs in Ukraine who was a foreign agent who was not reporting the millions of dollars that he was receiving from foreign governments to basically overthrow democracies. I mean, when I think about Zelensky, when I think about Russia's unlawful invasion of Ukraine, and I think about Paul Manafort and Trump conniving and scheming with Putin to basically try to have a free pass to invade Ukraine, because here's the thing. Putin knew how powerful Ukraine was. And that's why Putin was using Trump to try to undermine their government to basically

walk right in and jump right in. Putin underestimated when he had Biden that Biden was going to unite the world against and unite the allies with Ukraine. Putin thought he was still dealing with an America that was going to like support Trump and all of the Trump BS propaganda. Thankfully, that didn't work, but Paul Manafort was the guy. He was Russia's guy. He was the oligarch guy, you know, and he would buy himself the $10,000 suits with all of this money.

He'd buy himself the mansions. He was Trump's, he was Trump's guy. He trans-run Trump's campaign. And so Paul Manafort, there was two criminal trials brought by the T.O.J. There was one in Washington, DC, and there was one brought in Virginia. Manafort pled guilty, literally.

He said that he did the crimes in Washington, DC's federal court. After he was found guilty on eight counts in the Virginia case. The court hung are the jury hung on the remaining counts. They basically found him guilty for one of the years of his conduct, but just not the other years. It was 11 to one. There was one jury holdout. But then in DC on another claim, but a close tax violation claim, Manafort pled guilty to all of the crimes, basically in in Virginia as part of the plea. What did Donald Trump do? Donald Trump pardon Paul Manafort. But many legal analyst,

including myself and you who have seen the part in document, Trump pardoned Flynn, Michael Flynn, as basically anything Flynn did, I pardoned Flynn for. It was like a broad pardon. But the pardon when it came to Manafort was just the things that he was convicted of. And that was the one count in or the one eight counts, but the one year of crimes in Virginia. And then the tax crime in DC, which was not those other years in Virginia that he was hung for. So lots of people say still to this day,

the DOJ could criminally prosecute at him for those other years, 2012, 2013, 2014, because those were not subject to Trump's pardon. Trump's pardon did not touch those areas. But here what the DOJ is at least doing before kind of going in that direction is the DOJ filed a civil lawsuit and basically said, you know, you ripped off the government. You didn't report these things. You always these things in taxes, a pretty open shut case.

It's like two and a half, three million dollars pay us the money. You know, you didn't report these foreign assets on your returns. You should have you needed to. It was the law you violated the law. And then Manafort's defense was, I'm working this out. I was trying to reach a resolution. He's not denying it. It's more of like, the government did this to embarrass me.

They filed this. I was trying to resolve it. This was all about embarrassing me. Give me a break. Give me a break. Yeah, and this one they filed been in the Southern District of Florida. We're back to my old stop and grounds again,

in West Palm Beach. Why did they file it there? because in the West Palm Beach division, because when Manafort scientists tax returns, he signed it from some residents in Palm Beach County. I don't know if he was in Palm Beach County proper someplace within the county. So they had jurisdiction. It could be aside to Judge Middlebrook's. I don't know yet. He's one of the judges at Sissin West Palm Beach, the judge hearing the Clinton, the Trump case against Clinton for rico conspiracy. But we'll follow this one, but I think you're right.

I think he's dead. He's dead on arrival with his defenses. He's going to end up having to pay the $3 million for Fitcher back to the government for having 20 bank accounts, some in his own name and some in the name of of of of of of of of you shell companies, including in Cyprus, in the grenadines, in other but do like a thank you. Super villain. These are the worst people.

Yeah, like that. And so he's going to lose and this is on the civil side. So to answer the question somewhere, audience and legal affords may have, what about the pardon? Pardon is only for criminal action. And some things that are, as we've talked about over and over again, some things comprise both criminal conduct and civil, remit, conduct and penalties and violations. And just because you got a pardon or get out of jail free card

literally from the president, it has to be specific to something that you've done in the criminal sphere. It doesn't mean you can't be prosecuted for other crimes that you're not being pardoned for looking at the specifics, as you said, of the scope of the pardon. And it doesn't mean you can't be civilly investigated and have lawsuits brought against you, even by federal entities like the IRS, like the Department of Justice, like the SEC, for the exact same bad conduct. So you can sleep better at night because you're not going to jail, I guess,

but the bad ends of the Manaforts of the world and the Flynn's who had in their back pocket a pardon does not mean that other government agencies won't go after them. This is the reason that those kind of people want to see Trump back in power in 2024 because it will completely absolve them of all of their wrongdoing if he gets back in power. That's why they're so excited.

Now, between you and me, no surprise here. I don't think Trump really runs in 2024. I think he does this now in order to raise money in order to stay politically relevant in order to pass the crown to somebody like to say at this, who we're going to talk about next. But I don't think an 80 year old Donald Trump runs for office again, even against, by the way, I'm not sure Joe Biden runs for office. I this whole discussion of Trump versus Biden 2024, I'm not sure either of those things happen. I think it could be, it's going to be a really good Democrat.

Could be the, could be the president, depending about how it's second two years in office turnout. And I think it's a surrogate for Trump, but not Trump himself. In the meantime, you got to, you got to do justice as you've outlined it. You have to take down people like, like, Manifort, take down people like, Man and take down people like Flynn and, and then reload and do it all over again. Otherwise, what kind of democracy do we have? Popak trying to angle for a position on the Midas Touch brother podcast with that political analysis, those, those teasers. How do you just leave the people with that type of teaser on the, on the legal podcast, but we'll, we'll, we'll chat. Popak, you tie it up with

your brothers during the week. We absolutely will. But you talk about DeSantis. Here's the one point I would make. Trump will never pass whatever down to DeSantis other than his hate and other than Trump gets jealous of a person like DeSantis. So there will be a few, there already is between Trump and DeSantis. Trump will try to destroy DeSantis. So there will be a few, there already is between Trump and DeSantis. Trump will try to destroy DeSantis, even if Trump is not going to run because he just can't

have someone like that who tries to position himself as the leader. So they're holding hands on a stage one day and we'll have, we'll play the salty mark, mark the tape. We will, they're holding hands because 80 year old, if he can raise his hands, it turns it over. Will you and that's where you, that's one air. We don't disagree a much. That one, I think I'm going to see in my lifetime. Very, very name of you, Popeye. So let's talk. Let's talk about DeSantis's fascist ambitions playing out in Florida through his unlawful retaliation against Disney. And when we talk about this dissantist and Disney, we should never lose track about what

the origins are here. It's because Dessantist passed into law. He promulgated this policy that he forced the legislature to enact and that he signed into law this don't say gay bill which would penalize teachers for addressing issues that if like a kid were to bring up an issue about hey well why is you know so-and-so have two moms or two dads or whatever and the teacher were to answer the question honestly under that bill that teacher could suffer serious ramifications and receive serious penalties.

And so Disney, the largest employer in Florida, said, we don't like that policy, and we're really not gonna support politicians who are discriminatory against the LGBTQ plus community. So based on Disney exercising its first amendment, and saying, we're just not going to donate to politicians who are anti-LGBTQ plus or, you know, as part of their platform who are racist, like, we're not going to support that. That's when DeSantis said, oh, no, you didn't, Disney.

How dare you oppose my discrimination against the LGBTQ plus community. That's what this is about, which makes it extra wild, and extra horrific. So then during a special legislative session in Florida, this is not like the normal session where people vote, they dissentist, introduced this legislation to revoke a special status that that Disney had to basically exist within a community in Orlando as its own municipality, we're by the way,

Disney's paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes for this status. The status was granted like in 1967, DeSantis retaliated against Disney and said we're gonna remove this status and we're going to retaliate against you directly. That was the legislative attempt, like that's built into the debate. We need to retaliate the government needs to retaliate against a private corporation because the private corporation has exercised its First Amendment rights and said we don't like when the government is being discriminatory and

Based on that we're going to retaliate against you. So there's two strains here pop up. There's one a first amendment issue of retaliating against Disney for exercising its First Amendment rights and removing a privilege We could debate the underlying privilege of whether or not a corporation like Disney or like Amazon or like Apple should be given special statuses and benefits for being an employer in a state. But I thought that's one of the things Republicans do all the time. The whole thing was I thought, hey, let's give special tax breaks and tax cuts to corporations, right? That was their thing. But anyway, I guess, I guess that's no longer their thing. And not I guess it isn't no longer their thing. But we can debate whether

that should occur, but to affirmatively retaliate against them against the company for speaking out against the government policy, which they have their right to do. That is unlawful in my view. I want to get your take take on that. The second issue, though, tourism is just a practical issue of what do you do now with the obligations owed to bondholders in the community itself now that you've revoked the status and certain interest is owed and obligations, financial obligations are owed to bond holders. And now by retaliating against Disney, are you going, is the, is the Santa's gonna pay? Are you gonna have to raise the taxes and property taxes

on the homes in the area to try to, you know, to try to have enough funds and who's gonna take care of the infrastructure now in this area, that Disney was taking care of the infrastructure now in this area that Disney was taking care of on a going forward base. So those are the main issues here that DeSantis, of course, didn't think through as again, Florida is now what the most expensive place in the United States to like rent in as well. Like it's basically become impossible to live in Florida and not for a good reason, but you know, but Popeyes, what's going on here?

Yeah, let me see if I can overcome my newfound naivete reputation on this podcast that rehabilitated. Let me talk about it in two ways because besides the Wall Street background, as you know, and listeners know I also have a municipal government background having been a partner in a firm in Florida that all they did was represent municipalities and local governments. So I kind of get this area pretty well. Let's do the first amendment first. To the question that our audience may ask, our legal a efforts may ask, doesn't the Disney who's come out now to repeal, don't say gay or what is technically called the Parental

Rights and Education Act signed by DeSantis. Now that they've come out as a corporation with their own free speech and said it should be repealed that it is wrong. Granted, they didn't do it the first day that the bill was passed or while it was being considered, although it went pretty quickly. They did it after some internal employee protests and others, including, you know, people pointing out how supportive Disney had been as an organization to the LGBTQ community, including having pride day at the park and that type of thing. They finally came around to the right place from a corporate social responsibility standpoint. Now, having said that, they have First Amendment right to express themselves.

And if they are discriminated against by a government, whether it be state, local, or federal, in this case, the state, for their viewpoint, that is called viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment and Supreme Court teachings. And that is a violation of the U.S. Constitution. And that will be struck down this attempt to remove and retaliate against Disney and have their entire, they had a contract. It's not just an agreement, they had a compact as it's called in Florida between Disney organization and the state of Florida dating back to 1967, you know, after Walt Disney know, Walt Disney flew over Orlando in the area with a plane and said, I'm going to put, or, you know, Walt Disney World there.

They entered into a compact, which allowed in exchange for bringing jobs, putting Orlando on the map and Florida on the map by having a Disney World there. There was a, there was an exchange of consideration and promises and one of them was, okay, Disney, you take care of all of your territory, the acres and acres and thousands of acres that comprise Disney World. We'll make that into a little mini city. You'll call it reedy creek improvement district, but it's a mini city, municipality that Disney takes on responsibility for.

They provide everything for that area. They provide utilities. They provide public health and safety. They provide hospitals. They provide education. They are the government. And in return, they were able, as any governmental entity, quasi-governmental entity,

to go into the marketplace and sell bonds. Usually they use the bonds to improve Walt Disney World, to build a new park, to build a new section of the park, to renovate whatever they build a hotel, whatever they were doing. And they sell bonds to the market through the bond market. And those are called municipal bonds or tax bonds or utility bonds that it's exactly what it sounds like. Or the bonds are backed by the utility proceeds, the payment of water and electric bills, or they're backed by real estate taxes

being paid by people within the district, and the agreement that the state has made that we'll have to live by, is that if they ever change the status of Disney, therefore, destroy its ability to service the bonds, pay off the bonds, and because they won't be able to pay the bonds if they're no longer in municipality, then Florida has to take over that $1 to $2 billion

of bond liability. And of course, it's something that either DeSantis didn't know about because he didn't have a plan ready to his back pocket to announce to resolve the bond financial implications of his decision, or he doesn't really care because this is all political theater because he knows that this is going to get struck down as viewpoint discrimination. You said they're public about it. They are very, it is in the legislative history that they're paying back Disney for taking a position against the governors, don't say gay law. The governor has said in public, he's not going to let Disney dictate to him

the, the, the moral aspects of his law. That is all going to be front and center one day in front of an appeals court and the Supreme Court. And even this Supreme Court faced with this amount of retaliatory conduct confirmed by the government is going to have to find viewpoint based first amendment violation for Disney. But why is the Santa's doing it back to the brothers podcast? He doesn't care about this. This is for his base. This is for his fundraising. This is to get reelected. He knows he's going to lose this law, just like he's probably going to lose on Don't Say Gay when Robbie Kaplan's law firm, who we're going to interview hopefully next week, goes

after him in Florida on the constitutionality of the underlying bill or the underlying law. So this is all political BS because he can't do what he said he's going to do against Disney. And I like Disney's position. I don't know if you saw this, Ben. Disney could have come out one of two ways. They could have come out and said, first amendment violation. You can't do that to us. We have a right to express ourselves and you're retaliating.

That's not what they came out of the box with. They came out of the box with, have came out of the box with, uh, have you thought about the implications of the two billion dollars worth of bonds that will immediately go into default, you'll have to pay for state of Florida by your decision making. That's kicking to Sanctus where he lives, which is in the, the economy of Florida. And I thought that was the right approach for, uh, for Disney to make to try to, try to get the upper hand in the public debate on this issue. Yeah, sometimes what you do as a lawyer in recommending that a client take no action or be less vocal on a certain issue is oftentimes better advice than telling the client to go

and speak out and to affirmatively do things for a variety of reasons. And here, if you basically advise Disney to really go after the first amendment, right, you'd really be feeding into DeSantis's cultural war that he wants to create. DeSantis wants it to be a DeSantis versus Disney. But if you as Disney play to the what are supposed to be Republican bonafides, which just don't exist anymore and point out, aren't you supposed to be quote unquote conservative? And we know that the right wing's not conservative anymore and go, wait a minute, you're going to cause taxes to be raised. Then lawmakers, did you think about your constituents here? They thought that was the

better approach than then actually kind of feeding into DeSantis's cultures. But back to the brothers podcast for a second. DeSantis, and this is what's so embarrassing, Popuck, he sees those problematic people who stand in front of Disney and who yell at the families driving into Disney and call the families pedophiles for showing up in Disney, disantices that as a win. Disantices, I'm getting some of those Trump supporters now to support me, which rather than saying, this is a real problematic situation

and this is not the America we should be living in. We have a lot more to discuss on legal AF. I also wanna talk briefly about the Derek Chauvin appeal and the implications there. I want to talk about the other insurrectionist who's played guilty to seditious conspiracy and two supreme court cases. So a lot of news to discuss on this edition of legal AF.

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NordPass.com slash legal a F. Interesting news, Pope, talk about Derek Chauvin appealing, which kind of had me scratching my head a little bit of like, why is Derek Chauvin appealing, which kind of had me scratching my head a little bit of like, why is Derek Chauvin appealing? And I'm trying to dig into it. I want to ask you what your thoughts are here. So of course, Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd on the murder took place on May 25th of 2020. There was a trial that took place in state court, jury convicted him, he's found guilty,

and he was sentenced to, it was about 22 and a half years which in Minnesota, that usually means you'll probably end up serving about 15 years. Shovon gave some weird cryptic statement during his sentencing in state court that I'm going to be doing something that will be giving the family additional information or that may give the family peace of mind. It was some weird statement that no one knew what that meant. But he soon thereafter pled guilty in the federal civil rights criminal charges against him. And the sentencing there for

the murder of George Floyd and the sentencing there was between 20 and 25 years. He hasn't been formally sentenced there yet. But he took a guilty plea for a range of 20 to 25 years. The reason he took that plea, in addition to the fact that he is guilty, but if you're thinking from a strategic point of view, is he wanted to serve in federal prison and not state prison, and part of the deal allowed him to serve his sentences concurrently, the federal and state at the same time, but allowed him, allowed him eventually to serve it in, to serve it in federal prison and currently where he's at in the state prison, he's basically in solitary for 23 hours a day. And if he's left out, he believes as a cop, former cop,

who should never have ever worn a badge to begin with, that he'll get killed if he's led out into general population. And so I'm trying to think though, since he's pled guilty in the federal case, since the sentences are concurrent, and since he's going to serve the sentence in federal custody. What is the point of his appealing the state court proceeding? And by the way, I've asked a lot of criminal practitioners, this question, and I haven't really gotten a lot of great answers, but there's one patent,

Popeyes, you have a great answer. So I'm interested in your answer. I have an answer that's mine. And therefore, it all works great. No, no, I didn't say although I appreciate the way you made that that logical leap. No, it's the math. Let's say he goes in first to the federal side, although as you admitted, he's as you said, he's not been admitted up. Like I'm cross examining you. As you can see it had been, he has not yet been sentenced. And he, but he will be. And it'll be up to 25 years.

But there's no guarantee that the federal judge gives him 22 and a half to be commensurate with the 22 and a half that he's already gotten at the state court level. So there could be a gap. For instance, the federal judge could say, all right, I've looked at all of court level. So there could be a gap. For instance, the federal judge could say, all right, I've looked at all of these reports. I've looked at the recommendation by the federal

sentencing commission and by the prosecutors. But I'm only going to give him for the one count of civil rights violation under 18 USC section 242. I feel that the heartland of cases for that is 15 years. Well, then he goes the federal bench, the federal penitentiary for 15 years. And then he's got to go back for the remaining six and a half or seven years of his state term. And now as you've, as you've said, he's been sitting in solitary confinement. He doesn't want to ever go back to state to the state jail ever again for even a moment, which is where exactly he should go at the end of the day.

So he's afraid, I believe, based on, it's the like logical explanation that he'll get shorted, which normally would be a good thing. If you're only facing one jail sentence in one system, like the federal government, you be shooting for the lowest possible number, but there's a 22 and a half year ceiling here. So if he, let's say the judge gives him a break that he doesn't want at the federal level and says, five, well, then it's going to be five and he's going to finish the 22 and a half and they're going to move him from federal club fed, whatever that is, oak back to where he's sitting now.

He doesn't want to go there. I read the 70, but let me ask you first, how's that for an explanation? I think that's a good explanation, Popeye. Yeah, okay. It's logical. Now, I read, I don't know if you had a chance, I read the brief. It is full of BS. It is word salad in 70 pages. It starts with the, a poor defense lawyers were abused by the public on the courthouse steps

on the way in. And there was a tooth, somebody dropped the camera and it was $2,000 pour us, which I don't know what has to do with anything. They're claiming in the motion that there should be a new trial. It should be outside of Hennepin County, which is where George Floyd was murdered. It should be in a different county, a new trial, and of course the sentence should be reduced and he'll take any one of those three things. But the grounds for it are really picky-yoon. It's, oh, there was so much Black Lives Matter publicity. Okay. I don't know how that influenced the jury, and they don't really demonstrate how it influenced

the jury. Oh, the city of Minneapolis entered into a $30 million settlement with the family of George Floyd while we were doing the trial, and that could have influenced some of the juries. Well, did it? And how did it? Let's remember and remind our legal aeifers. The 6th Amendment does not guarantee a perfect trial. It's okay if there's some jurors on there, as we have already seen with Jazein Maxwell. It is okay if some of the jurors on there, you know, aren't perfect, don't have perfect opinions, maybe influenced by outside things that they may or may not have brought into deliberations. That's not the measure of whether Sixth Amendment rights have been violated. It's not going to be for Shoveon either.

So I did not see Black Lives Matter sway, lawyers being abused on the way in, you know, they even had in there, Ben and I have you caught this, they had in there the forensic examiner who determined that the nine minute and 29 second of murderous compression on the neck of George Floyd is what killed him by Shovon, which was allowed by the three other officers that did not intervene. They said, Oh, he met that examiner met with the prosecutors at some point. Are you kidding me? This jury heard the evidence. And then the last thing they said was too many experts were allowed to testify that the nine, nine minute, 29 second chokehold neck restraint, which killed George Floyd was an unlawful use

of force. Too many. You know, they had the current police chief, the former police chief, an expert. Why so many? The problem is they had a terrible expert, if we recall, the trial who testified in that area for them. The problem is they didn't have enough experts to say that what Chauvin does did was proper. Not that the, not that the state put on too many people to, to, to use their eyes and ears and their sensibility and say that Chauvin killed George Floyd. This is going down the tubes. It, it, what do you think about the appeals on the merits of the appeal? The merits of the appeal are going down the tubes. I have one other slightly more cynical explanation for what a desperate person like Adarik Shovein believes in his mind. He's sitting there for 23 hours

a day in solitary and he's looking at his plea agreement that he's signed with the feds. And if you look through the plea agreement that he signed with the Feds. And if you look through the plea agreement that he signed with the Feds, there's section 16 which says waivers of appeal and collateral attack. And it says, the defendant also waives the right to petition under 28 USC, 2255, except based on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. So the waiving the right to petition under 28 USC,

2025 is basically, you know, trying to withdraw the plea basically and argue that it was, you know, improper, but except based on the claim of ineffective assistance of council. So possibly in his mind, he's saying, I'm gonna make an ineffective assistance of council claim. If I can get the state court dismissed or overruled, now I'm going to make an ineffective

assistance of counsel and say that my federal lawyer should have not had me plea because they based it on the state court conviction where I like that too. I think that's also reasonable. You know, and it's a it's a desperate argument, right? By a desperate, horrible person. And I don't think it's going anywhere. But that was what I saw as a possible explanation, especially, especially on the eve, we don't have time to talk about it tonight. Maybe the brothers will, especially on the eve of the Minnesota human rights

commission issuing its findings after a year long investigation that the, that indicts completely the Minnesota police department and the city of the Minneapolis police department and the city of Minneapolis as being racist in their pattern and practice as it relates to black brown and indigenous people. The evidence in there, which we don't have time to go over tonight, is damning about what it's like to be Black, Brown, or Indigenous in Minneapolis in a city, which is only 19% Black. I never really thought of until George Floyd as having systemic racial discrimination baked into its policing. But, you know,

there after 8,78 pages of the report, there's no doubt. And we're still waiting for the DOJ's report, which started on the very same next day after George Floyd about pattern and practice discrimination and constitutional violations in the city of Minneapolis. Popack, another insurrectionist has pled guilty to seditious conspiracy. We talked about how rare it was in the history of American criminal jurisprudence for a conviction on seditious conspiracy. And now Brian Ulrich, who was one of the oath keepers, he has pled guilty this past Friday, and he is preparing to cooperate with prosecutors. Again, he's one of 11 oath keepers who are facing those seditious conspiracy charges. In addition to the other charges, like obstruction

and he follows Joshua James, who was another one of these terrorist oath keepers, who also pled guilty to seditious conspiracy. And these were individuals who were communicating with people with Roger Stone, who were communicating with Donald Trump. So that's where I think this investigation is going, Pope, Pock. Anything else to add other than it is a significant milestone that another seditious conspiracy conviction

from Merrick Garland has taken place. This prosecution sure has it gone slow, but they've methodically have gone through the lower tier, the mid tier. They're working their way up. They got multiple seditious conspiracy charges. They're doing great. You know my view. It's not going slow. Let's use Alvin Bragg and Sy Vance three years to look into loan inflation by Donald Trump. This is one year to prosecute 800 people, including the innermost sanctum of the office of the office of the president. It's a great point. If you use the Alvin Bragg as an example, which is one person and crime related to appraisals.

Merrick Garland's already got like 400 convictions. I don't know why. I don't know why. He should get more credit. It's because of our lust is the wrong. I was gonna say blood lust. It because of our incredible proper desire to see justice done and justice done quickly,

we're not patient. And that's one of the things you and I have preached on this show time and time again, just to just to just to justice, lust for justice. That could have been the alternate name for this podcast, which we just hold that pin that on on what has happened with people would want to see the popok in a lust for justice show. Oh God. It sounds like a paperback novel at the super market. Okay. So what is happening besides Brian Olrich and Josh James pleading guilty and cooperating, obviously, in order to lower their sentence

as part of the oath keepers. And to remind everybody, there's 20 oath keepers who are currently being prosecuted. Two of now pled guilty, the kingpin of it all. The biggest, the big kahuna of it all is Stuart Rhodes, the eye patch wearing one eyed leader of this whole thing who has been fighting tooth and nail, not to go to jail, not to be held pretrial detention, and not to be prosecuted or convicted. Every time one of his fellow proud boys falls, That's one step closer, one notch closer to Stewart Rhodes going down in flames, which of course will be a good thing. Josh James, as you mentioned,

he protected Roger Stone, who was part of the security detail. Ryan Ulrich from Georgia, he was part of the quick reaction force that ran around on golf carts and also ferried ammunition to a hotel in order to be used at the command of Stuart Rhodes. So this is a terrible terrible, great day for justice, great day for the Republic, terrible

day for Stuart Rhodes, and as they, as they move in and, and get the others. There's 20 of them that are being prosecuted, nine for obstruction, 11 for seditious conspiracy. And now the Justice Department is two out of 11 so far, not even having to go to trial. Got guilty, please. It's a great day for the investigation and for justice. We will, of course, keep everyone updated on all the developments with the DOJ's criminal investigation, the January 6th committee work, which again, they don't have the powers to criminally indict. They're not a prosecutorial division.

They are a investigatory and they are providing information to the public preparing a report. They could make referrals to the DOJ and those hearings from January 6 will take place in June. We're less than a little bit more than a month from now. Those hearings are going to take place and there will be great fodder for legal AF no doubt. Always great fodder for legal AF no doubt, legal F no doubt is Supreme court rulings two cases. We should touch upon briefly. Um, the first case involves there's this, uh, Trump judge in Texas, a Trump appoint

to judge in Texas. This guy in Matthew Kazimark, judge Kazimark, Kazimar, Kazimar, Kazimar, Kazimaric, Kazimaric, Judge Kazimaric, Pope, up with the pronunciations, Judge Kazumeric over in Texas. And he basically struck down.

So when Biden came into office, he terminated Trump's remain in Mexico, executive order and policy and and and Trump's interpretation of the law here is just incredibly cruel through his executive order. It was basically asylum seekers who are coming in to the United States. So these are asylum seekers. These are people who are fleeing because they are arguing that if they go back to the country, they are going to get killed.

So Trump's interpretation basically is you really have two things to do with them. They remain in Mexico or you lock them up. And remaining in Mexico to be clear for an asylum seeker will mean often that the individual will die. So you're sending the person to get killed. The Biden policy is a policy of nuance and says, we need to look on a case-by-case basis. If there are asylum seekers who do not pose a threat,

they can be paroled and there could be a temporary period where they're not locked up in this country. And you can look at the rates of asylum seekers actually going to their asylum hearings to determine if they meet the qualifications for asylum that we don't need to actually lock these individuals up. And we will lock up though, but it's still said, we will lock up people who we don't believe.

When an asylum seeker crosses the border, there's investigation that's done. There's an officer who's assigned to each individual case. And if asylum seekers, they're lying. If a background check shows that they may be a violent criminal, we're not going to let them. We will have that individual remain in custody, but we're just not going to lock everybody up.

And the Biden administration also made an argument that if you strike down our ability or my ability as the executive to make this type of policy, you're allowing the United States government to be extorted in a way by Mexico, because Mexico is its own sovereign nation, and you can't just like dump human beings into other countries, and some of the people aren't Mexican. Like some of the people are from Central America too, you know, who have to cross in through the border. And you can't just like take people

and drop them into countries based on the way foreign international relations work. And it doesn't work that way. So by hamstringing the United's policy, if Mexico doesn't accept the asylum seekers back, Mexico could basically say, we don't wanna do that. We know that it's policy, if Mexico doesn't accept the asylum seekers back, Mexico could basically say, we don't want to do that. We know that it's either us taking these people back or you got to lock them up. And I think the stats are that we only have capacity for about two to five percent of

asylum seekers. If you were to lock up every asylum seeker. So Trump's policy going back to like what we talked about with DeSantis is performative. And so you can go out and you could say things, but not actually make an impact. And Biden's policy is let's systemically address the issue. Let's speak to the, you know, the countries like Mexico and Central American countries. And let's figure out a broader solution here. And we don't need to lock every single person up. And this Supreme Court, though, here seemed to be sympathetic in the oral arguments to the Biden administration. They haven't ruled yet, but they seem

to think that this judge from this Trump judge was usurping executive power. And again, this is not because the Supreme Court is trying to praise Biden here, quite the contrary. They believe in a unitary executive and they believe that, uh, you know, an executive should have the power to implement these policies, whether it's a Biden policy or a Trump policy, but it should be an executive who has the power. Popok, anything I missed there, because I want you to do the take a knee case, um,

to close out. That was a hospital pass over to me. But okay. Yeah, just just the the you're right about what the Supreme Court is hung up about. It's hung up about whether a a federal judge can you serve the power of the president, whoever the president is, whoever's sitting in that office to conduct foreign policy. We often say you only we only have one president at a time. So when a former president like Trump runs around talking about Putin or Russia or policy, which things that sitting former presidents never did before Trump. There's a reason for that because foreign policy is only conducted by under the Constitution by the president of the United States. It's not conducted by a Texas federal judge who decides that the aspects of stay in Mexico,

which require Mexico to agree. That's the problem with his interpretation, the judges interpretation. It requires Mexico to agree on their side of the border to the policy. Well, that's the conduct of foreign policy between borders. And that can only be done not by a judge, just like the other judge in Texas decided that he was suddenly the commander in chief of the armed forces. And he could decide how to deploy seals. I don't know what's in the water in Texas, in the federal, you know, water coolers there. But now this judge woke up one morning

and decided that he's in charge of foreign policy and had a negotiate with the Mexican government. That's wrong. And the whole thing, right, Popaco? They're a public, it's all such BS. When we talk about earlier in the podcast, the Santas retaliating against business and they claim to be pro business, it's like the most totalitarian, socialistic, like foreign government thinking of disease businesses and retaliate against businesses. And here you have like Republicans, oh, we don't like activist judges and all of these judges are just like the most activists

like literally making stuff up like like this judge, the judge who's like ordering Biden what to do with the military. The judge we talked about from Florida, who was not qualified on the last podcast, who was ordering the CDC that they couldn't do. They couldn't take measures to stop commutative cabal diseases. The most activist judges that exist. Yeah. It's always projection. It's these right wing radicals. That's who they are. One, one thousand percent. And so even even this Supreme Court, Roberts, uh, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Alito, even they, based on their questioning during oral argument, think this judge went too far. And the other hang up and we'll follow it because we'll get a ruling soon on this,

probably over the summer, before they wrap up their term, is the question is whether the Biden administration and the agencies that are delegated to do border control, like Homeland Security and all of that, whether they have found a significant public benefit to not allowing these people to go back to Mexico and to not overwhelm, as you said, they only have capacity

for 2% of the people that come through there, 2% to 5%. So they can't send them back, they can't put them, you know, in a detention center. So they have made the decision that they're going to, this sounds like a weird term because these people haven't been criminally prosecuted or convicted. But the term is parole because they are in federal custody to parole them to spring them from federal custody with a ticket to return like a desk ticket that you get in the police department. Come back another time, participate in the investigation process and we'll decide on your asylum, give us your address. And and then if things, you know, listen, they don't grant the asylum, they'll have to bring them out of the country and to port them. That's always the risk. But that is a decision

that they can make on this side of the border because beyond this side of the border, you got Kazmara deciding that he's the foreign minister for the United States of America. So that's a very important case. There were a whole bunch this week in the Supreme Court, but these are the two. The next one we're gonna talk about, which we think are really critical for our legal efforts to follow.

Popok used a term called hospital pass. You said me passing it to you. You said that's a hospital pass. And so for those wondering what that means, a hospital pass in America football is a pass thrown high to a receiver, generally one that is running sideways, rather than running down field,

the receivers forced to jump while running at full speed to catch the ball. So basically, it's me just kind of thrown it to you quickly and just say, hey, Pope, you take it. And then I get nailed by the tacklers and I go to the hospital, hence the term hospital pass, Hey, Pope, I'll you take it. And then I get nailed by the tacklers and I go to the hospital, hence the term hospital pass. But we're, I'm ready for this.

No, the reason is in all kidding aside. And I know, I know where we're going with this. We as you, as you outlined in that great opening, you said, we have a case of somebody who's kneeling at midfield in a football game for apparently religious purposes. And that's okay. What about the other guy? And then other guy, of course, is your client, Colin Kaepernick, who I guess because he didn't

cross himself or wear some sort of religious affiliation at the moment. He was taking a knee for racial injustice in this country. This Supreme Court or America overall at the time did not find that to be appealing. And yet people like President Trump saying, he should be thrown out of the league. The league shouldn't tolerate it. Everybody should stand. This is America. Well, we have a Supreme Court now that's looking at the case, not of a professional athlete at much risk to himself professionally, personally, and financially taking a stand against racial injustice. You have a assistant football coach in a small town who decides after every game that he's going to bring all of his players in

and do a Christian prayer public school teacher Christian prayer football game. Where have we heard this before? We've heard this before in Supreme Court precedent that this Supreme Court is going to have to run away from in order to find that what he did is okay. And it's not a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. We're going to talk about the First Amendment a lot on this particular segment, three aspects of it.

One, the establishment clause, which says that the government through government action or speech shall not promote the establishment of a religion at all, not one religion over another, any religion. And then you've got the other aspects of the first amendment in play here, which is freedom of speech. You know, he's arguing that this is his personal private speech, not government speech. And therefore he should be allowed to do it or violates his first amendment rights and his right to exercise his own religion.

I'm a Christian. This is what he's saying. I get to be a Christian wherever I am, including midfield at the end of every football game. These are the tentacles. These are the power lines that are crossing here that the Supreme Court and its most conservative right wing religious members, Amy Coney Barrett included, are now trying to do gymnastics to get around the the prior precedent of the United States Supreme Court, which starting in 1962, with Engle versus Vitaly, said it is unconstitutional for a state officer or state official to encourage school prayer. That violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

Santa Fe School District versus Dove in 2000, a football prayer before the game was found to be unconstitutional at a public school as a violation of the establishment clause. That was just in 2000 or Lee versus Weissman in 1992. Like the same exact case. It's like, it's exactly four or after. It's a timing issue apparently for the Supreme Court or Lee versus Weissman in 1992 where the Supreme Court said that prayer before a graduation at a public school, a high school graduation was an improper violation of the first amendment.

So what they had to do to get around this and they were all argument led by Alito led by Clarence Thomas who kept throwing softball after softball to the attorney general of the state of Texas in his arguments. And of course, you know, throwing razor blades and darts at the at the Solicitor General for the United States arguing, you know, against this issue. They were saying it was in his off time. He was off duty. He was, the game was over. He didn't compel everybody. He just went like this with his hands and the players, all the players just went over

there. That's not compelled forced things. And he's really doing it in his off time. He's not wearing the impromotor of being a government official. So in Amy Coney Barrett's view, based on her questions, it's not government speech. And if it's not government speech, it doesn't implicate the establishment clause. And then the other softballs that were being thrown, including by Roberts. So he's not going to be any help here was it was almost like they were arguing

it was viewpoint based discrimination. Alito said in his questioning to Elizabeth Proleker, the Supreme Court solicitor general for the United States, well, what what would this school board do if somebody took a Ukraine flag to midfield and waved it around and they said, no, you can't do that. Or you should be able to do that. So that's not religion. So I don't know why that's even an example. Clarice Tom is talking about a softball to Paul Clement, who I think I did a solicitor general back in the day, who was arguing on behalf of Texas. He said to Paul Clement, did you know from the record, this is the Supreme Court justice asking the lawyer

about the appellate record. So weird. He said, he's pulling out a little bit of a soft ball here. Did you know that the school board didn't even know about this until it was reported by a competing coach that they had no idea about this and it was done completely in his off time. And you know what Paul Clement said in the oral argument, oh, just as Thomas, that's music to my ears. Why? Because he wants to argue that when a, when a public school teacher or coach is off duty and is not during the game and he's doing it without the knowledge

of the school board, it's not government speech. It's not a violation of the establishment clause. And therefore we're just looking at it as weather, his First Amendment rights and his right to exercise, his religious freedom is being implicated and shift the entire, turn the entire argument on its head. That's where this is going and based on that oral argument, they've got the votes to do it and establish new precedent, which is going to be school teachers and principals and administrators, off hours or at a break or outside on a smoke break can do whatever they want to proselytize about their religion, and that's not going to violate the establishment clause.

That's the most important point, what I think you said right there. What is the broader implication of this? Paul Clement, a former solicitor general who's now a private practice who has an agenda, supreme court justices who have an agenda. Why are they focused on this case? Because if you look at this case, just in isolation

and you listen to just some of those facts. And you go, well, no, it's after the game and the coach just, you know, wanted to, you know, pray after the game and he wasn't really, you know, he wasn't encouraging other kids like, like it's just done his off hours. Come on, what's going on here?

You know, it does have a level of sympathy that can relate to someone because as I hear those facts, Pope, but I'm like, just let the guy pray. What's the pray after? You know, with all the students, all the, all the student athletes around him. No, no, no, no, well, well, that's where there's, that's the issue. The issue is is that he is alienating, isolating, um, create injecting religion into the school, telling the students to participate in his religious views and his religious views. And you can go, well, he's not compelling him. He's just asking, well, he's the coach and the coach has a coercive authority. So as you delve deeper into the facts, here, the case is brought this way.

Why did the Supreme Court take this case? Because it's a very sympathetic fact pattern that they could hide the medicine in what a broader agenda is, what they're trying to accomplish incrementally in this term, the next term, and a few terms thereafter, which is exactly what you said, Popok, which is that they want teachers, government officials to be able to talk about their religion and create this vague and ambiguous gray area of what is and isn't

the actual kind of school function itself or government function itself such that the gray area slowly swallows where the divisions are and the establishment clause is read in a new way and the establishment clause is read in a new way where that religion is being taught within public settings. So if you look at the establishment clause, Congress shall make no law, respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

It's kind of like when you go to the second amendment and you read out the well-regulated part of the second amendment and just say the right to bear arms, but you don't talk about that. The second amendment talks, wait a minute, what about the well-regulated and militia part about the second amendment? Here, the read out is, well, what's more important here, the separation of church and state part of this, or that Congress should prohibit the free exercise of religion, such that the free exercise of it is really what the focus is, the same way the second amendment has been perverted over time, where it's just, we got the right to guns wherever

it just guns. Like, we got the right to free exercise there of whatever. Let's look back at this case involving the co-chunil and that started setting the precedent. So that is the agenda at play. You know how I know you're right? I mean, I agree with you. It's the way back to your activist judge's comment you made earlier. It's the way that they soak cavalierly, the Alitos, the Thomas's, even the Roberts, during oral argument dispensed with the facts. The facts are very, very complicated here.

Alito at one point said, the facts are very complicated here. I really see this as an employment retaliation case. They don't want to get into the weeds on the facts, especially the ones that don't help them. They want to make new law. They want to make law that signals to the rest of the religion, religious world about their newfound freedoms expressed by the Supreme Court in their exercise of their rights. And that's why facts don't matter. Facts only matter when they're supposed to matter,

which is all the time, when you're doing legal analysis at the Supreme Court level. There has to be a series of facts that give rise to the law they're about to pronounce. Otherwise, you don't know, you know what, you don't need Ben? You don't need cases. You don't need cases or controversies coming up before the Supreme Court. We would just have a model where judges, like in Biblical times, declare what is right and wrong, like

a 10 commandments. And you and I would get a list up. Here's the new rulings. Here's the new, here's the new admonishments from that Supreme Court, and that would be our discussion, but that's not our system of government or justice. Our system of government or justice requires live cases or controversy and facts matter except to this Supreme Court when they don't. An action-packed edition of Legal AF, we covered a whole lot of law.

You may want to go back and even rewind it to see just how much we've unpacked in this episode. I mean, we talked about the Marjorie Taylor green martial law text messages. We talked about the Derek Shovan appeals. We've talked about Dysantis's fascist overreach and his war against Disney. We talked about Paul Manafort being sued by the DOJ for his tax crimes. We talked about Trump appealing his contempt order for $10,000 a day. We've talked about Trump's appraisers in hot water, Kishmin and Wakefield for not turning over docs. The judge has ruled Alvin Bragg letting the grand jury elapsed. We've talked about another insurrectionist who pled guilty to seditious conspiracy.

And we talked about these two Supreme court cases a lot to unpack there. But I think we did it in fairly short order. Michael Pope, this forum where we could do that doesn't exist anywhere else in the media or or or anywhere else in this country. It's such an honor that we get to do this each and every weekend that you get to do it mid week with Karen Friedman and Nifalo. I know you got two shout outs, Popok, that you want to talk about as well. I'll let you take it from here. All right. Thank you, Ben. And I feel exactly the same way about doing this every week

with you and with Karen and being committed to your platform that you and your brothers founded. And on that note, we have created a legal AF Twitter community, literally a Twitter community. You can find the link to it on my Twitter profile at MSPOP. You'll see a link there for Twitter community. We started with two people last Sunday, we're up to over 650 people now. It is a place that I am personally curating on behalf of Legal AF. I'm making it a troll-free environment. It's gonna be a open platform,

but a safe space for the discussions that lead into and out of all the Legal AF news and analysis that you have come to expect. So it's a place to go to get new articles about topics we've covered. Topics that we've chosen not to cover, not because they're not important, just because of time limitations, but they'll be posted there. Links to or a arguments, announcements for things like that. Please come join us and see our kind of this very special curated space for legal a efforts in those that are like minded like us. And then for those that think two helpings of Popoq is a good thing.

I'm not sure what group that is. But if there are tomorrow on the Anthony Davis has an amazing show that might have touched produces called five Minute News, and on the weekends, he does a weekend edition of that. And I'm gonna be appearing for an hour long episode tomorrow where we talk, where I talk with Anthony about, in further detail, the Minneapolis, Minnesota Police Department, and the city being found to be racists.

And what that, and what are the implications of that? We talk more about DeSantis and the city being found to be racists. And what are the implications of that? We talk more about DeSantis and the Big Mouse and what's really happening there from a governmental and First Amendment standpoint. And we talk about other issues related to that. So I think our friends and watchers are going to love seeing another hour long great conversation that I'm involved with.

I appreciate the ability to make that plug. Make sure you subscribe to the Legal AF podcast channel. As soon as you turn this off, go look up Legal AF, wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure you subscribe. Make sure you leave a five star review there. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to check out the Midas Touch or legal AF merch go to store.mitustouch.com. We will see you next time on legal AF, the

most consequential legal news of the week broken down by Michael Popak and you are truly Ben Myceles. See you next time on the next legal AF. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.