Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump CONVICTED at Trial, NOW WHAT?!

Episode Date: June 2, 2024

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back for the weekend edition of the top-rated Legal AF podcast. On this episode, the anchors discuss and debate: (1) what went wrong for Trump in the criminal trial, and his post-trial statements at odds with NY criminal and procedural law; (2) corporate media’s coverage of the Trump criminal trial and what went wrong and why; (3) the sentencing process for Trump, and the success of any future attempts to appeal; (4) what Trump can and cannot do now that he is a convicted felon, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF Thanks to our sponsors: Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to https://RocketMoney.com/legalaf Cuts Clothing: Refine your style with @CutsClothing and get 20% off with code LEGALAF at https://cutsclothing.com/LEGALAF #cutspartner Lumen: Head to https://Lumen.me and use code: LEGALAF to get $100 off your Lumen! Beam: Get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to https://shopbeam.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF at checkout! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coalition-of-the-sane/id1741663279 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's not even the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning. Winston Churchill, I thought that quote was appropriate for where we are now. A new chapter starts as Donald Trump has now been convicted on 34 felony counts, after about 12 hours or so of deliberation on Thursday, five weeks of the jury in Manhattan receiving evidence, approximately seven weeks with some off days of the trial itself, the jury returned a unanimous verdict, finding Donald Trump guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. I could keep going on, but you get the point

of 34 felony counts of falsification of business records. Sentencing will now be taking place on July 11th. What I wanna talk about here on this episode is give you our reaction to the verdict. I wanna talk about our coverage leading up to the verdict. I wanna talk about our coverage leading up to the verdict and test if what we thought was going to happen actually happened. I wanna talk about the reaction to the verdict.

I wanna talk about what we expect is going to happen during the sentencing on July 11th. And we'll give you some of our predictions there or the likely scenarios there. I wanna talk about what Donald Trump and his camp have been talking about regarding appeals. They've been mentioning going to the Supreme Court, like what are they even talking about there?

And then all of the lies and disinformation that Donald Trump and the MAGA base spew and that oftentimes corporate media kind of regurgitates as well that very quickly infects the news cycle when right now, Donald Trump is a convicted felon and that carries with it serious implications, serious implications regarding his ability to travel outside of the country, serious implications about his ability to possess firearms, serious implications regarding his ability to potentially leave Mar-a-Lago or potentially serious implications regarding him being incarcerated.

When we start to talk about the sentencing and we get to that part of this episode, you know, the judge is the one responsible for sentencing. The judge who Donald Trump and his MAGA base and the MAGA Congress members and senators who showed up would go there and attack the judge's daughter very frequently. Donald Trump would attack the judge with lies and disinformation very frequently. Donald Trump violated the gag order over 10 times. It seems Donald Trump is continuing to violate the gag order. And also let's not forget about Donald Trump's conduct, even since the

indictment was announced, even leading up to the indictment, remember that photo of Donald Trump holding the baseball bat next to Alvin Bragg's face that Donald Trump reposted and all of Donald Trump's conduct leading up to the trial even before there was a gag order, All of that will come into play in the sentencing, but, you know, it's a very historic episode here on legal AF. No, I think about this iconic photo, which kind of sums up the mood outside of the Manhattan courthouse of people celebrating in the streets. And notably when you look at this photo, the lady right there is wearing the Midas Touch shirt right there. And it's humbling,

and it's also humbling that the Midas Touch Network, Legal AF, Political Beatdown, or other down our other shows were the most watched digital coverage of the Trump criminal trial. Our coverage was led by Karen Friedman Agnifilo, the former number two at the Manhattan district attorney's office. Well before the indictment was ever even handed down, she brought Alvin Bragg on the Midas Touch Network just to talk about democracy and talk about law and order. So over those many years to see the growth of this network, to see this community grow

has been an honor. It's been humbling and I want to thank all of you. Michael Popak, I want to bring you in right now and just wanna tell you what an honor it's been to co-host all of this coverage with you. I think we pretty much called this spot on every step of the way, following the data, following the evidence, reading the trial transcripts itself, not buying into phony narratives that were being pushed.

And, you know, I think we called this one right. And I'm proud that the coverage on this network met the moment. Yeah. And I'm proud of what you and your brothers did in founding the network. By joining it early on, you and I founding Legal AF for the moment, for the purpose. We could only project, we knew there was a lot of wrong, wrongful conduct going on around Trump and with Trump or what he likes to say recently,

and we'll talk about it on this podcast, bad boy conduct, which is his euphemism for criminal conduct, felonious criminal conduct, right, all the bad boy conduct of a person who's trying to run to have his presidency restored. And so I'm fortunate to have been, you know, at ground zero with you and your brothers to do this. And then as you added on and bolted on other amazing contributors. And you're right. We're not, listen, we'd be the first people, unlike mainstream media or network

media, we'd be the first people to say that we got it wrong. That the trial obviously didn't resonate or vibrate with the jury in the way that we thought it did. Or if the prosecution wasn't doing a masterful job and had stepped in the bucket a number of times. Or if some minor cross-examination by Emil Bové on behalf of Trump sort of pulled through, and that trial team was just on it and with it, and had an amazing, coherent, internally consistent presentation to the jury. And the jury got... I'd come here with you today and look our audience in

the eye and said, we got it wrong. We got it wrong. We're doing the best we can. We're seasoned trial lawyers and following this thing very, very closely, but we got it wrong. But on the days when we don't, the days where we have, because of our judgment, our instincts honed from years of doing this. And from reading without fear or favor, without blowing smoke or sunshine, the information that we were receiving from the courtroom, we got it right. I want to do one last shout out besides all our contributors from Karen to you, to Anthony, to Rob, to everybody who contributed, all Dina, all the legal contributors. The person here that,

besides Michael Cohen, who we will talk about at length today, who should get the biggest accolades, there should be a parade down the Canyon of Heroes in Manhattan, like an astronaut with all of the ticker tape coming down, is a person that you mentioned earlier named Alvin Bragg. There is no, and I live and work in New York, there is no person who got more pilloried, more criticized, more attacked at the very beginning of his tenure as the elected Manhattan District Attorney

that Alvin Bragg. I'd never seen such a thing. From literally the first day when he issued a first day memo to say there was a new sheriff in town, and this was going to be his approach to law and order, which got totally misinterpreted and totally attacked by the right wing MAGA from the beginning, even before the indictment came, arguing that he was a woke prosecutor supported by George Soros. And he was going to let all, he was going to open the doors to Rikers Island and let everybody out. That was his first day on the job. A job that the citizens of the Manhattanites voted for him. Okay? And I supported another candidate, and so did Karen. But when that candidate didn't make it and got an amazing other job working for the governor, Alvin, we all got behind Alvin. And Alvin Bragg is the only prosecutor, he's the first prosecutor to have indicted Donald Trump, he's the first prosecutor to ever obtained

two years ago a conviction of a Trump-related affiliate for tax evasion and for business record fraud, which I think was a test run and a blueprint and a practice run for this particular case. We'll talk about that at the appropriate time. But Alvin Bragg, he had a lot of headwinds, a lot of turbulence in the beginning. His own inherited a group of special prosecutors who were appointed by his predecessor, Cy Vance. Not only did they quit because they didn't think he was indicting fast enough and wasn't bringing this indictment fast enough, they noisily quit and went to the New York Times with a letter, Mark Pomerantz and Carrie Dunn, mainly Mark Pomerantz, and attacked Alvin Bragg

and the case, which of course became its own case within a case, because MAGA jumped on that. And still Alvin Bragg remains steady. And he was going to make his own analysis, not based on recommendations by Cy Vance or by these special prosecutors, his team review of the evidence and to get right in his mind,

because the buck stops with Alvin Bragg, he should get the credit because he would have gotten the criticism with Michael Cohen. As soon as Alvin got comfortable with Michael Cohen in dozens of interviews that Michael has talked about, including on the show he does with you, Political Beatdown, as soon as Alvin got comfortable with him, his veracity, and where he fit as a puzzle piece

into all the other corroborating evidence, all of the things that bolstered Michael Cohen. He didn't go last by accident. I thought he'd be a sandwiched witness, but he ended the case for the prosecution after 22 other witnesses, not named Michael Cohen, effectively corroborated Michael Cohen's testimony, as did the documents, as did the audio. But credit should go to Alvin Bragg. He's a humble guy. You could see it in the clip that you ran right after the verdict came out with his press conference. He plays it. And one last thing I'll leave it on, because there's a lot of misinformation about Alvin Bragg. He did not run

on a campaign of going after and prosecuting Donald Trump. I know that for a fact. I attended some of the town halls. He was up there on the debate stage. He was asked a question once about it. And he basically said, wherever the facts lead me, that's where I'm going to go. Now that's in contrast to the attorney general, Letitia James, who did was a little more public about her going after the Trump world. That was not Alvin Bragg. And I think we won't do it here, but we could spend an entire show, and hopefully we'll be able through Karen to get Alvin Bragg back, just extolling the virtue of Alvin Bragg. He broke the glass ceiling. He gave permission and license to other

prosecutors to bring their indictments, including Flnie Willis and Jack Smith. And now he has under his belt 17 counts before 51 felony counts against Trump or related entities across 24-0 in two juries. And he sent Allen Weisselberg to jail twice along the way. Let me reveal our processes and procedures here at Legal AF and the Midas Touch Network. Before we make a prediction or before we report on something, what are we doing behind the scenes? Well, we have a great team of researchers, a great team of reporters here, a great editorial team by Ron Filipkowski, but Michael Popak, myself, Karen Friedman-Agnifilo, and others who do the legal commentary, we roll up our sleeves and we read and we read and we read. What are we looking at? Every day we read the trial transcripts. I don't just want to hear what

the reporters are saying. I do want to hear what they're saying also, but I want to read the trial transcripts for myself where there is evidence introduced. I want to read all of the documents, all of the exhibits that are introduced. We read and we would show those to you. We'd show you the checks. We'd show you the court filings in the past where Donald Trump actually confessed that these were reimbursements. We showed you the emails, we showed you that government ethics disclosure form in 2018 where Donald Trump referred to the payments to Michael Cohen as reimbursements. We showed you the handwritten notes on Trump letterhead from Trump's former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, and Trump's former controller, Allen Weisselberg and Trump's former controller Jeff McConney, which showed how the scheme was actually done and how they grossed up the amount to Michael Cohen.

And you add the $50,000 redfinch amount and that's how you get the $420,000. We play the audio recordings, we show you Donald Trump's statements. So the evidence, the transcripts themselves, we read the testimony, we have our own sources in the courtroom, some you know, some who remain on background, who are constantly in touch with, we're reading the reporters who are going on the record, people like Adam Klassfeld, Frank Runyon, Tyler McBrien, Katie Fang, Anna Bauer, and others. So we're reading what they're saying, all of them, not just one person, so we can get lots of different angles of this.

We have the former number two at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, who worked at that office for nearly 30 years, who's appeared before Justice Mershon, who's tried countless cases there and in other courtrooms that Karen Friedman Agnifle, who served as the acting Manhattan District Attorney at times, give us this information. And so all of that created this tapestry, put all of that inputs together, and then we do the show. And then we talk about it. And we try to make predictions, but we're not just out here pushing a narrative. And so when the corporate media was talking about out of the 21 hours where Michael Cohen testified, where Todd Blanch asked Michael Cohen about an October 26 phone

call that Michael Cohen said took place with Donald Trump, where they talked about the deal to make the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. Then Michael Cohen was provided other text messages he was sending that same day to Donald Trump's bodyguard, Keith Schiller, at the same time, which mentioned that during that phone call, Cohen had also had discussions with Keith Schiller about this 14 year old kid who was harassing Cohen and harassing the campaign. Todd Blanch cross-examined Cohen and said, well, isn't it true that your

conversation was really about the 14 year old and had nothing to do with Stormy Daniels. And first off, there was a ton of phone calls that Michael Cohen had with Keith Schiller and Donald Trump and a ton of other meetings regarding the Stormy Daniels deal. That wasn't the most significant phone call regardless, but even if there was some great significance about the phone call, Michael Cohen very confidently

said, well, it could have been about multiple topics. I very distinctly remember having this conversation with Donald Trump there. And I believe Keith Schiller passed Donald Trump the phone. And we talked about the Stormy Daniels deal. And then on the cross-examination, Todd Blanchett, but the entire phone call was 90 so seconds. You talked about that. And Cohen said, yeah, we talk about a lot of topics. And then Todd Blanchett says, you're a liar.

You lie, you're lying right now. And then there was an objection from the prosecution. The objection was sustained. And then Todd Blanchett moved on to the next topic. And I remember that day as it was being reported on all of the corporate media saying the case just fell apart. Todd Blanche had a Perry Mason moment. This is a big deal. Cohen collapsed on the witness stand.

And you now know the process. And I'm sure you knew before the diligence and meticulousness that we bring to everything that we do and we were looking at all of these things and we were talking to all of our sources inside the courtroom and everybody all of the lawyers in the courtroom who I respect and I know who have real trial experience said Ben that really wasn't a big moment sure maybe you scored a few points but Todd Blanch's cross-examination was so long and meandering that it really didn't land. And so we don't get it. So Michael Popok, you and I, and Karen and other shows,

we would say that, but I also didn't want to seem like, we're just being like, don't believe the corporate media. Like I'm just kind of whining from the top of my mountain hill saying everybody they're lying to, but I knew that they were not telling the truth. And it was such a strange thing that they were pushing this narrative that just wasn't what was happening. And then I think that's what they do with everything. Yeah. I was just going to say, I'll just stay on that point.

There's a reason you and I having gotten those details from people inside the courtroom and even hearing about it in real time, did not believe the narrative that was being pushed intentionally or unintentionally and likely intentionally at the moment, because, you know, there's an old, there's an old line in, um, in the newspaper media world. If it bleeds, it leads. The gorier the story, the more it ends up on the front page. And the same thing still infects presentation in corporate media. I knew and you knew it because having tried cases for over 30 years, having been in front

of dozens of juries, having tried cases as long or longer than this one and shorter cases as well. I knew there are good moments and bad moments, good days and bad days, white knuckled days and days where you are rolling in the roses based on your case and the case that you think you're going to present and have to defend if you're on that side and the case you end up doing are usually two different things there's no perfect trial and moments and I've said this early on I'll keep saying it and I know it from my own my own perspective. Jury science there's actually people who focus on the world of juries and how

juries as a collective make decisions. Twelve strangers lash together into something called the jury. Now, historic jury. This will be listed in each one of their once if they ever out themselves in their obituaries for having been involved in this. But we knew, we knew going into it based on all this information that juries make decisions about the case. I don't care how complicated it is and how long the case is early on in the case. We have to go through for due process standpoint. We have to go through the trial presentation and the evidence presentment and all of that and the cross-examination and the weighing of evidence.

Yes. But juries after the opening statements, which was definitely to the prosecution's advantage, that opening statement was coherent, it was authentic, it was internally consistent, it tied together the evidence that there was going to be presented, and they delivered on all of that as a golden thread through the trial. Juries after that usually wait a little bit, they want to hear from the first witness and the first witness was David Becker for two days, forget Michael Cohen Cohen for this moment. I don't mean him as a person. Just forget

Michael Cohen as a concept. David Pecker, and you and I said it along with Karen, I thought those were the beginning nails in the coffin. That if we're right, that the juries make decisions early on, and then they're just waiting for the lawyers to shut their mouths so they can start deliberating, then they made their decision six weeks ago after David Pecker. And then because the prosecution was able to continue to deliver on what they promised and cash those checks that they wrote in the opening, that just reinforced it. And then when the jury, so a moment in time, there's always a moment when your star witness or one of your star witnesses has a moment,

a momentary stumble on cross-examination. And it's fine because juries take the long view about believability, credibility of witnesses and that moment. And the moment that the, I'll leave it on this Ben, the moment that mainstream media jumped on it on this Ben, the moment that mainstream media jumped on because they were looking for something gory that day to report on. Oh tides. This is like the sports announcers who try to keep the audience interested in a blowout game. A game where the other team's up by 40 points. Oh that was an amazing run by the

quarterback. Really? At the end that's the Super Bowl was won by the team that was up by 40 points. Oh, that was an amazing run by the quarterback. Really? At the end, the Super Bowl was won by the team that was up by 40 points. And the prosecution was up by a lot of points, in my view, by the time we got to that. And it wasn't even a stumble because Michael Cohen remembering a conversation from nine years ago that lasted all of eight minutes. And then the prosecution scrambling to find that still of the video from C-SPAN showing that Donald Trump was standing next to the very bodyguard, meaning it reinforced that Michael Cohen could have had and did have a conversation about two topics with two people who happened to be next to each other and the phone was passed between them. And that is

obviously from an inference standpoint. Remember that was what the jury, there was only a few jury instructions that were read back and one of them was how do we make inferences from facts and the judge told them and within three hours, four hours of further deliberation, they were nine and a half hours in, they made their decision. And I am sure that it's inferences like that, that help them lead to the conviction. And lastly, as we predicted, and I've said it since, I don't know, when we started following this trial, this was binary for me. It wasn't going to be, you know, well, maybe it counts one, 12, 14, and 18 in the rest. No, they were either going to buy completely

the evidence presentation and the burden of proof on the prosecution and find 35-0 against or 0 and 34 and fine for Donald Trump, not nothing in between. Because those 34 counts, as we said when the indictment first came out, were journal entries, invoices, and checks. But the fundamental underlying criminal conduct, they either believed it and found it was proven by the prosecution or they didn't. And that's why it was 34-0. During the closing argument, the prosecutor,

Josh Steinglass, who just did an incredible job, reenacted the phone call. The phone call lasted, I think it was actually like 90 seconds and what Josh Steinglass did in the reenactment is showed how easy it was to do this conversation and talk about multiple topics in half that time, in 45 seconds. There was a clear theme in the closing argument by the prosecution and a focus on evidence and details. On the other hand, the defense closing argument

is none of this happened. Donald Trump never had relations with Stormy. This was all about extortion. And by the way, that MAGA lawyer Robert Costello who basically collapsed on cross examination as the only defense witness, let's pretend that he's credible, right? That may work on Fox, and that may work on propaganda media, or even corporate media regurgitating MAGA talking points,

but one of the things that's so precious about our judicial system and our court of law, and why you and I have such reverence for it and why we work so hard to protect it is because truth really matters in a court of law and you can take 12 people and it's hard to make 12 people be unanimous on anything but when you provide them with the truth they will come to that conclusion. And we saw that here.

We've got a lot more to talk about, but I want to remind everybody as well. Now is the perfect time to join the Legal AF Patreon. You and I will have some more free time on our hands to give more lectures at patreon.com slash legal AF, P A T R E O N dot com slash legal AF. If you ever wanted to know what it was like to attend a law school class from professor Popak or myself sign up now, join our legal classes at patreon.com slash legal AF. We will be right back. We've got a lot to discuss after this quick break. at patreon.com slash legal AF.

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Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Experience the perfect blend of style and comfort with Cuts Clothing. That wasn't even an ad read, Michael Popok. That was an experience. That was incredible. Great work. And if you want to support our pro-democracy sponsors, the discount codes are in the description below, you know, the Midas Touch Networks coverage was beating all of the corporate media. And of course, all of the right-wing propaganda media's coverage, not just on the Trump criminal trial coverage, but on everything and the fact that we're not funded by outside investors and we fund this thing off of emojis, those pro

by outside investors and we fund this thing off of emojis, those pro-democracy sponsors, and those ad reads that you see right there, and patreon.com slash legal AF. As I said, it's an interesting business model we have here, but it works because it is community focused, and we are so grateful for you. Let me do something my partners in law have always taught me. It's easier for me to compliment you than you to compliment yourself. Your coverage, the Midas Touch Network's coverage of the jury verdict was seen by 1.3 million people. We had 100,000 people live with us during it. You quickly, talk about business model or the virtual newsroom that we have here,

you quickly morphed what is a regularly scheduled podcast that usually stars you and Michael Cohen, but Michael Cohen had decided to stay off until the verdict and it wasn't there for the verdict. You quickly morphed a regularly scheduled podcast, live presentation that gets X amount into an immediate all hands on deck triage of half a dozen contributors and commentators

and political and legal analysts for the network, pulled together, we all dropped whatever we were doing at that moment and came in at various times for your three hour coverage and that got 1.3 million. That blew away. It's not just blowing away like we're impressed by numbers. It shows you the audience's engagement and that they come to this network for the key and core information and so that they know they're not going to be patronized. They know that they're not going to be talked down to and they know

they're going to, in a respectful way, we're going to tell them exactly what happened so that they know and they're not gonna be talked down to, and they know they're gonna, in a respectful way, we're gonna tell them exactly what happened so that they know and they can then go have those conversations around the kitchen table with their friends and family and others in their lives. Speaking about those kitchen table conversations, it was funny, Popak, because earlier this morning, I played tennis with my buddy, Jeff, and Jeff has three kids.

They go to a school nearby, and he said that, he goes, Ben, my teacher is the biggest Midas Touch fan. He has two things for you though. He wants to make sure Chiquito and Taquito got the walk that you said you were gonna take them on and he wants to make sure you get a little bit better wifi. He said, you'll know what that means. And I said, that's a funny call out

because we may not have all of the trappings of corporate media and the billion dollar budgets. But I think the most important thing that we have is the facts, the evidence, authenticity, and this means he watched that video deep into the video when you need to take a bathroom break. There's no doubt about it. I want to show this. You mentioned Michael Cohen. Cohen had the ability to speak out though after the criminal trial concluded after the jury verdict. And you know, I asked Cohen a question that the corporate media was not asking him because

I think they were probably too embarrassed to ask him. And I said, Cohen, what did you make of the coverage after you testified 21 hours and you did a great job, but the corporate media was saying that you blew it and that you collapsed on the stand because of that one question. I said, what did you make of that? I thought it was an important question that he had not been asked. I want to show you that moment. Let's play.

I would be remiss Cohen, if I didn't ask you about this moment in the 21 hours of testimony where Todd Blanch like yelled at you and he was like you lie you lie and there was a phone call in October that could have been about multiple topics and then the media ran with that and was like, oh my god There was a Perry Mason moment. Meanwhile, there was an objection the objection was sustained. And everybody who I knew in the courtroom was saying that that was not a significant moment like at all.

It didn't even make like a dent. But when you turned on CNN or MSNBC, whether it was Ellie Honig or Ari Melber on MSNBC, they were pushing this narrative. Let me just jump to those idiots for a quick second before you finish your question. There's something very wrong with Ellie Honig, to be honest with you.

There's something really fundamentally fucked up with this guy. I used to actually say, oh yeah, he's a friend of mine, to the extent that we would see, we would speak to each other. He's on my podcast like seven, eight times. He's trying to be just like Ari Melber. They're trying to be contrarians.

They're trying to show, oh, well, you know, we don't really sort of play this one side. Well, there's only one side to truth. There's only one side to being right. All right, it's not like Donald when he said, well, you know, when he was talking about the Nazis in Charlottesville marching, well, there's good people on both sides. No, there's not. All right. It's the same thing. Melba's an idiot. So is so was Ellie Honig. By the way, how do you know that Ellie Honig is an idiot? How do you know that he's wrong? Because Donald Trump was held

accountable and guilty on 34 counts. Despite all of honing, so I wouldn't be shocked if it's an acquittal. He goes, you know, I never liked this case at all. They never should have brought it. It's a weak case. And you really aren't going to be able to put the misdemeanor into the federal crime. I've never heard of anything like that. That's because he was a shit lawyer all along.

All right. And look, I think Michael Cohen has every right, I've never heard of anything like that. That's because he was a shit lawyer all along. All right? And look, I think Michael Cohen has every right, especially in light of the verdict, to comment where he was being attacked by the corporate media over and over again. Popeye, I wanna talk about this though. I think this is a very important point to make.

And this is just about criminal defense lawyers in general. When I teach law students or undergrad students or lecture, I often get asked, well, how can people represent really bad people and become criminal defense lawyers? And I always say, and let me say it again right here, that I do not fault any criminal defense lawyer for being part of our constitutional scheme and representing bad people, really bad people, really, really, really bad people accused of crimes. The Sixth Amendment provides that in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to have the assistance of competent counsel for his or her or their defense.

So I wouldn't even fault somebody, Michael Popak, for representing Donald Trump. However, however, the moment they change their role from criminal defense lawyer to destroyer of our judicial system, casting doubt on the fundamental principles that hold our constitutional system together, then that's where I start calling out the Alina Habas, the Todd Blanches, the Rudy Giuliani's and any of their ilk. Notice I'm not critical of Susan Necklis or Emil Beauvais or Trump's other lawyers who did their jobs. They're allowed to do their jobs.

They can get paid for it. They can make good money for that. I'm not upset at that. He has the right to competent counsel. But when I see people like Alina Haba out there cosplaying this fascism and saying that the reason Donald Trump lost the criminal trial was because of Obama, and it was Obama's fault, or Todd Blanch saying, no, this was not a fair trial. When it was absolutely a fair trial, that enrages me. That infuriates me. And that is what MAGA is trying to do. They want the system to look like what Jim Jordan and James Comer do on the Judiciary and Oversight Committee,

where they rely on hearsay on top of hearsay from Russian spies and Chinese spies to attack their enemies. Ironically, the MAGA Republicans call it the Subcommittee on Politicization, because they're the ones weaponizing and politicizing the federal government in the way they're doing it. They're turning it into kangaroo proceedings. But let me just show you this and I'll get your reaction to it, Popeye. First, this is Alina Haba, and her and Trump and MAGA,

their talking point now is this was all Obama's fault. Here, play this clip. So we've got a guy who literally can't walk, but is smart enough to smile and snark and make comments like I didn't realize I was that powerful. You know, he probably doesn't frankly, Laura. He probably doesn't because it's probably not him, but there are definitely puppets.

And those puppets are coming from the Biden administration and probably from prior administrations. And they are out to get Trump because they can't meet him. And that's obvious if you look at the crowds of people, if you look at the polls. Yeah, Alaina, are you saying that you believe former Obama administration officials are also somehow involved, at least in the background here?

Well, I find it a little bit odd that he never left Washington, and then when he did, he goes to beaches as well. I find it odd that him and the Clintons are flying on Air Force One with President Biden. I also find it odd that we have a president that can't speak or walk, but here we are. This is this America and we cannot survive another four years of it. Well, Elena Michael Cohen had a message for Trump. Obama goes to beaches, he goes on airplanes, and therefore he lives in DC, therefore he must be involved in it. She lies and says that President Biden doesn't know how to walk or talk, which is false, defamatory. But that right there is everything our system should

be against. And it's so sad that it's being platform. What's your reaction? Yeah, let me react to many of those things. Back to Michael Cohen, and then I'll lead into the criminal justice system. Let me start with criminal justice system. I wanna live in a society where we have public schools and where we have public justice. And public justice means we don't have a star chamber.

We don't have, as in other countries, we don't hear from a black box about the convictions of people without proper defense. I've been a defense lawyer. I've represented people not at this kind of level of treachery or accused treachery of somebody like Donald Trump, and I wouldn't because I have my own values about who I want to represent. But everyone in our criminal justice system deserves and demands a defense,

public defender if they can't afford it and qualified other people if they can. And I don't want to live in a society where these people don't have the presumption of innocence, but that's not what you're talking about. What we're talking about is there's basically been a division among the Trump lawyers, anyone that had any self-respect and didn't want to cross over the river sticks and start acting like Trump

and allowing him to be their puppet master and let them sacrifice their professional ethics and their professional duties at the altar of his greed, they left Trump and kept their judicial, their legal license intact. Tim Parlatorre, Jim Trusty, Ty Cobb, Evan Corcoran, even John Lauro, who we haven't heard from in a long, long time. The guy in Georgia, before they write, he hired a new person, all escaped the orbit of Donald Trump on purpose, had provided him with good service until then, you know, we can all differ about their legal

strategy and some of their commentary. They survived. The ones that stayed in, and I'm looking at you Boris Boris Epstein, Rudy Giuliani, who was about to lose his law license in the second place in DC, John Eastman, Ken Chesbrough, Sidney Powell, and I put Alina Hoppe in that category. The people that are trying to straddle the fence, like Susan Necklis, who had, she was the incredible shrinking defense lawyer. She was supposed to be co-first chair trial lawyer with Todd Blanch. She barely did anything except for the cross-examination

of Stormy Danvers, which I'm not saying isn't anything, but she didn't do the opening, she didn't do the closing, she didn't do the things that lead trial lawyers do. Todd Blanch seated to his associate, Emil Beauvais, who did okay, some of the major critical cross examinations. Every time there was a press conference every day behind those bicycle racks at the courthouse or at Trump Tower or at 40 Wall Street, Susan Necklis was like, she was the woman way in the back with like the clipboard.

If you didn't know who she was, you'd think she was just wandered into the picture because she's trying to hold on to her professional ethics and responsibilities and her career. And so that is the distinction that you've made properly to your law class. No one in our audience should wanna live, and I know they don't, in a world where Donald Trump, Pablo Escobar, Jeffrey Dahmer don't have defense lawyers. I want them to have it. But what we've been constantly critiquing and criticizing

is the crossing over from that and doing inappropriate things, unprofessional, unethical things, lies to the American haba. I mean, there's no, the only way you know Alina Habba is lying to the American public is her lips are moving. I mean, everything that comes out of her mouth is, is salacious, defamatory, and just plain false. And she's the human shill for Donald Trump as well as the others. And Todd Blanch doesn't get any, doesn't cover himself any glory with me. I know he gave a recent interview. You and I will talk about some of the things he said about fair trial and why Donald Trump didn't testify and all this. He comes off, he seems like a reasonable person, but he

has made his lot with the devil as well in the way that he has presented himself. Now I get the role model, and I'll leave it on this. What I'm watching, when I watch these Trump lawyers act out and attack the judge, attack and try to undermine our criminal justice system, attack jurors, attack the criminal justice system, the whole thing, is I see a version of what used to do pretty well in representing organized crime and mobsters. Roy Cohen, Roy Cohn, and Shar Gill,

and that whole crop of lawyers from the 1980s that used to come in brash, you know, with shiny three-piece suits, and they'd be yelling and screaming on the courthouse steps, and they'd been taking on the judge, and they'd be yelling at jurors, and yep, and this was successful for them, in a way. I mean, half the mob, half the organized crime went away, and they still got paid, so it was successful for the lawyers. The other half, you know, maybe this brash braggadocio that was being exhibited in the courthouse in a way that we had never really seen before. This bulldog tenacity. But this has gone into it. And that's what Donald Trump admires. That's what he wants. He always laments, where is my Roy Cohn? And Michael Cohen has talked about that at length. The dirty tricks, underhanded attacks,

and he sometimes gets these lawyers, Alina Hobbes completely, she's taken the blue or red pill. She is in the matrix. And when she talks about things like that Obama, because our former presidents have a good relationship with Joe Biden, which comes from him being in public service for over 50 years as the youngest senator and the oldest president and vice president in between, yeah, they get along just like Bush, all the Bushes and

Obama and Clinton got along. The only one that they don't invite back to the Oval Office or to the Rose Garden for any kind of commercials or meetings or blue ribbon panels is Trump. Because they don't respect him. Because he doesn't respect and never respected the office or the American people. And so I'll just leave it on this. I want to make it clear, because we're not what's going on over there on the other world of mainstream media. Our criticism is legit about what we as fellow bar members see in lawyers like Alina Haba. I rue the day that she bumped into Donald Trump on purpose at Bedminster Golf Course

to try to get him as a client for her struggling parking garage oriented client base at her law firm. She's never gotten out of that world, but she's a pretty face for him and she's willing to literally, as we just saw, say anything on television. That's where you and I draw the line and call it out on a regular basis here on Legal AF. Absolutely. I want to share some videos though with you of what Todd Blanch and what Donald Trump said at that unhinged press conference, just so you see the lies that they're spewing. And I want to call it out. It's so important that when there is a verdict like this, that there is an objective reality around it. Imagine if during Watergate, rather than the

country coming together and recognizing that a crime was committed by Nixon at the direction of him, that it was, this was rigged, it didn't really happen, this isn't true, this is a lefty conspiracy by Marxists and Communists, and that's what they're trying to do. Notably, after Watergate, someone by the name of Roger Ells created a memo about how to create a right-wing propaganda network to brainwash America that made its way into the hands over a decade or two, to Rupert Murdoch, who was building his media empire, and they created Fox together, and with the idea of pumping and injecting propaganda and disinformation and lies into the veins of America because of the Watergate experience. And they thought, had there not been an objective media, but had there been propaganda media, they would have been able to maintain power then go back,

look at it. That's how Fox started generationally. And that's why it's so important that we engage in this generational project that is Midas Touch in order to keep building what we have here. Let me just show you some clips. This is Todd Blanche. Here he's on Fox, Trump's lawyer, when he's asked if you think, did you think your client got a fair trial? Let's play this clip first.

Did your client get a fair trial? I mean, no, I don't think so. I mean, we've been saying for over a year that we couldn't get a fair trial in Manhattan. We couldn't get a fair trial with the judge and it played out in lots of ways exactly as we expected.

What about all of those rallies that you said were existing and all of these supporters outside and these purported union workers who you claim supported you and the rallies that you claimed you were holding in New York and how you claim you're going to flip New York and that there's actually all these Trump supporters who live in Manhattan and that's your beloved there. That's the other messaging that they put out there. Look, they got a fair process where they were involved in the jury selection. There was a grand jury that indicted. Donald Trump got access to ostensibly competent counsel to represent him.

Donald Trump made decisions like that he wasn't going to testify after claiming he was. They made the decision not to call witnesses and really put on any defense other than calling Robert Costello. And then they want to whine about it. They got a fair and impartial jury who rendered this verdict. Let me just show you one example. This is when Donald Trump would do those press conferences outside and you would have Todd Blanch just kind of stand there like this and, you know, look like a, like, look like a mannequin, like he didn't even move from the day before. This is Donald Trump winding that, winding that a lot of key

witnesses were not called. Let's play this clip. But a lot of key witnesses were not called. Look at your list, look at the players. And you know who I'm talking about. You can take five or six of them. Why didn't they call those witnesses? They didn't call them because they would have been on our side. And it's a shame. And in particular, one witness who's now suffering gravely because of what's happened, because of the viciousness of these thugs, the vicious people,

what they've done to that person. And you know who I'm talking about. And they didn't call them as the witnesses, they didn't call anybody as a witness. And all these people that... You could have called them. I want to show... I've got more though, Popex, before I'm going to turn... Yeah, yeah. You could have called all the witnesses, Alan Weisselberg included, if you wanted them. before I'm going to turn to. Yeah, yeah. I want to build on this. All the witnesses, Allen Weisselberg included if you wanted them. Well, and then Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanch and giving the interviews

after the guilty verdict goes on CNN. And he's asked, Hey, Trump was saying there's witnesses you could have called. Why didn't you call them? Why didn't the defense call them? Here, play this clip. When he was leaving, one thing he brought up were the witnesses who were not called. And he was saying that there could have been witnesses that

would have helped make the case. We never saw Keith Schiller, Alan Weisselberg, some key figures here who got brought up a lot. Why didn't the defense call any of these witnesses? Well, because we happen to live in America, and we don't have the burden of proof. And so that's not the point. That's a question that is a loaded question that should not

be asked of a defense attorney or a defendant. The question that we asked the jury, and they ultimately obviously got passed, is why the prosecution didn't call those witnesses. As a defense attorney, you don't go into a case saying, I'm going to fill the holes of the prosecution didn't call those witnesses, right? You, as a defense attorney, you don't go into a case saying, I'm gonna fill the holes with the prosecution, right? And Keith Schiller and some of the other witnesses that were not ultimately called, in our view,

should have been called by the prosecution. And we asked the jury to take a hard look at that. I don't know whether they did or not, but they convicted. Todd Blanchard. You could call the witnesses. look at that. I don't know whether they did or not, but they convicted. You could call the witnesses. One more clip I want to show Pope Bob, though, at Donald Trump's press conference. He wasn't even at a press conference. It was just ranting and raving like a lunatic. He also tried to explain why he said he was going to testify, but then ultimately didn't testify.

I want that one. Go ahead. Go. I wanted to testify. The theory is you never testify because as soon as you testify anybody if it were George Washington don't testify because they'll get you on something that you said slightly wrong and then they sue you for perjury. But I didn't care about that. I wanted to. But the judge allowed them to go into everything that I was ever involved in. Not this case. everything that I was ever involved in not this case Everything that I was ever involved in which is a first in other words you could go into every single thing That I ever did was he a bad boy here was he a bad boy there? And my lawyer said what do you need to go through it all you wanted to do is testify simply on this case

Because I would have loved to have testified. To this day, I would have liked to have testified. But you would have been, you would have said something out of whack, like it was a beautiful sunny day and it was actually raining out. And I very much appreciate the big crowd of people outside. That's incredible what's happening. There's a big crowd of people.

They love me in New York. I'm not gonna get a fair trial in New York, but look at everybody. I know you're chomping at the bit to respond right now, and I probably can't even hold you back. I wanna remind everybody though right now, patreon.com slash Legal AF. If you wanna take some courses and classes by professor,

Michael Popak and myself, we'll have a lot more time also now that the trial's over to post more of our lecture series. Sign up right now and help support the growth of this independent media platform and this show. We don't have outside investors, so one way you can help, and it helps out a lot, PATREON.COM slash legal a-f. I want your response, Michael Popock, to all of that,

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We showed you Donald Trump's lawyer, Donald Trump whining that the prosecution didn't call witnesses, the defense wanted to call that Trump says that he's a bad boy and they'll say that I'm a bad boy if I take the stand and that's why he didn't testify. What's your reaction? First of all, let's, let's get out of the world of fantasy and unicorns and, and uh, rainbows and let's get into reality and Todd Blanch knows better. And he basically lied to Kristen Welker, whoever who had no, not Kristen Welker.

Uh, the other, the other interviewer for a CNN. Here's the story that he is confused and therefore has confused people that watched him. We're talking about Blanche now about burden, the burden of proof and your defense and trying to inject reasonable doubt into the case. I agree with Todd Blanche that the burden is on the prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt to prove their case. You don't have to do an opening for the defense. You don't have to do, you don't have to do a closing. You don't have to do anything if you don't want to. But if you want to inject reasonable doubt into the case, there's two main ways to do it. You cross-examine your way through your defense by cross-examining each of the witnesses. There were 22 of them that are

called by the prosecution in their case in chief before it turns to your case in chief in defense. But if after you've cross examined those witnesses and had your shot and your one and only shot at David Pecker, at Jeff McConnie, the controller inside Money Man working with Alan Weisselberg, all the internal Trump people, Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, and the rest. If by that point, you as a trial lawyer, I'm speaking now as a trial lawyer, conclude that you have not yet injected enough reasonable doubt into this case, then you need, it's incumbent upon you to put your witnesses on that you believe need to be put on in order to inject reasonable doubt, not to prove the case for the prosecution. That's the red herring canard that Todd Blantz just left

the audience with in his interview. And of course, and I'm not criticizing, I like the work that she does, but she's not able to do what you and I would be able to do or Karen would be able to do which is to Cross examine and push back against that kind of comment. That's the problem I know this has become an attack on mainstream media But that is the problem in the law world that you and I sit at at the intersection of law and politics Is that when we hear something like that, we would just throw our pen down and go That's not true. And let's walk through why that's not true would just throw our pen down and go, that's not true. And let's walk through why that's not true. So all those witnesses,

including the ones that Donald Trump coyly trying, I guess, to avoid the gag order, which we'll talk about the aftermath of this case, his conditions of release are still in place, the gag order is still in place. And all of these things about him acting out will go into the sentencing on July the 11th, I assure you. But when he, when Blanche Blanche says or Todd or Trump says

You know who was not there and when that's a shame what they did that guy That's Alan Weisselberg the chief financial officer who's now twice been convicted of felonies who is back in Rikers Island But there was nothing stopping Donald Trump and the defense from calling our next witness is Alan Weisselberg. He gets brought over for Riker's Island the earlier in the day. He gets put in a cooling tank and he gets brought in. Yes, maybe they have him in an orange jumpsuit. He'll probably be in a suit.

And he could have testified. And I rechecked during the commercial break the jury instructions that were actually given. Not the fantasy instructions that Donald Trump and his minions like to talk about that never happened. The actual jury instructions that a future appellate court will review to confirm, as we will hear, that this was a fair trial and that there's no reversible error in it, especially in the jury instructions that were ultimately signed off on by the defense. There is no missing witness instruction. When you have a missing witness and you want to be able to tell the jury that the other

side didn't bring in that witness and that should be interpreted against them, you have to ask for and get a missing witness instruction. They didn't get it. They didn't ask for it. They didn't get it. But they want to be able, outside of the wood paneling of the courthouse, to tell people in these sound bites that we wanted to bring these witnesses, but we weren't allowed. That's a lie. They were allowed to do it. They made some sort of tactical and strategic decision that they were not gonna bring Allen Weisselberg in. And kudos again back to Alvin Bragg. Alvin Bragg made Allen Weisselberg radioactive, not just for the prosecution,

because you weren't sure what the heck the guy was gonna say having now been convicted of perjury, the ultimate death penalty, if you will, for a witness and his credibility. But the prosecution made him radioactive for Donald Trump to call him. That's what I said with Karen right as soon as they cut the deal with Allen Weisselberg. I said, well, this takes him off the charts for both sides. And that's what happened because they knew what the cross-examination of Allen Weisselberg

was going to look like in the cross. And you never saw Todd Blanch even promise to bring in any of these witnesses during his opening statement. He never said, you're gonna hear from Allen Weisselberg. They were never gonna do Allen Weisselberg. It's one thing to say you're not gonna hear from our witness, our Donald Trump, because you're not sure yet. And that's why defense lawyers in criminal cases never make promises to put on, unless they've already made that decision, that the guy is going to take the stand.

They leave it open, give themselves some optionality, just see how the case is going. Like, oh, we can't, it's like a, it's like boxing match. Wow. We're really behind on points. If we don't put our guy on, this is how Sam Bankman Fried ended up taking the stand and it didn't work. He's serving 30 years now in the FTX collapse

and the fraud there because they had to put him on because they realized they had no case in front of the jury for the defense. If they didn't at least put Sam on here, they were like, no, we're not gonna put him on. So I wanna disabuse everybody of the concept that there were missing witnesses, that the judge gave a missing witness instruction, which he did not, and that the defense was limited in some way, there was some barrier to them calling witnesses to inject reasonable doubt into this case if

they wanted to. And I'll give another example. They had a witness, there were witnesses listed, including by the defense. They were gonna put up an election law expert, just to remind our audience. And we'll talk about the jury instructions issue a little bit later on this podcast. But on the jury instructions, there's two crimes that had to be,

the jury was instructed about. One was a charged crime, 175.10 of the penal law of New York, business record fraud. The second is the predicate crime, which is the crime that makes this a felony. That's why, because if it's just 175.10, this would be 34 counts of a misdemeanor. In fact, I'm not even sure we have this case tried

against Donald Trump, if that's what it was. There always needed to be because they weren't going to bring a misdemeanor case against Trump. They were only going to bring felonies if they could make it out. And again, shout out to Alvin Bragg, who figured out how to do cold fusion. He figured out how to split the atom. He needed a second crime. What was it?

And the reality is that second crime never had to be charged. It's an uncharged crime. And there could be a choice that the jury could make for general criminality and intent. It would be business record fraud in furtherance of a second crime jury choice as to what the second crime uncharged would be. And the prosecution gave three choices. Federal election interference crime, state election interference crime, which again was the novelty that they came up with. They could use a federal and or state to ratchet this up to a felony. And third was tax fraud because of the way that the legal expense,

to paraphrase Donald Trump, was listed as a legal expense when it wasn't a legal expense. It was the repayment of a hush money payment through a circuitous route with sham and straw men in between used by Michael Cohen on behalf of Donald Trump. That's the problem. That's the crime. So the jury having selected from all of those things and the jury instructions had to reach their conclusion. They, the defense, wanted to put on allegedly somebody to talk about election law. Sort of makes sense, since two-thirds of the second crime that ratchets it up to a felony revolves around elections. Now, the judge limited the way this expert would have to testify, but it was the defense

that decided that they would not put that on and therefore the prosecution didn't need to put on their expert. That was a decision. One that Todd Blanch in his sort of dissembling on network television doesn't want to look the American people in the eye and admit that it was a mistake. Now, do I think it was a mistake to put Donald Trump, not to put Donald Trump on for the defense? No. That's one area that I agree with them, Ben. Donald Trump, not because his bad boy, which is also a code word for felonious criminal conduct, would have gotten him in trouble, but because every time Donald Trump has not

given speeches and not lied to the American people in front of in rallies or in press conferences, but every time he's done something in the courtroom in one of his cases, it has gone terribly awry and south. You want to take a $5 million judgment at E. Jean Carroll and turn it into an $83.5 million dollar judgment? Have Donald Trump testify. You want to lose $465 million of your money in a fraud case by the New York attorney general. Have Donald Trump testify, be found to be a liar under oath by the judge there, and

have him take over part of his own closing argument. How did that go for you, Donald? So we always said, and you and I had a little bit of a friendly bet with Karen until she came over to our side, because we're kind of defense lawyers in our mentality, there was no way that Donald Trump was ever gonna testify. That that would be a gambit and a gamble that was never gonna be worth it, even if they were way down on points.

And so they didn't, and I agreed with that decision. I agree with that decision for Donald Trump then to do what he's done, which is get up on his soap box and tell everybody, I want, as he says in every case, I wanted to testify, but I was prevented from testify. That is a lie. This case, I'm gonna leave it on this, Ben, this case, yes, he's gonna take his appeal. I am very confident based on the presentation of the evidence, the objections that were made and sustained, and the ultimate jury instructions

and the law that was provided, and the law from the indictment forward that was allowed to be presented to the jury, that the appellate department, the appellate division first department, which is the Manhattan Appellate Court, which is the first stop on the train before the Court of Appeals,

is going to affirm in all aspects and find no reversible error by Judge Mershawn, who again, we should give a shout out to Judge Mershawn, who's getting violent attacks against him once again, that the Department of Public Safety has to make sure that he is not violently or his family violently or mortally injured by Donald Trump's minions who believe that he gave some sort of false instruction which was not true. I'm going to fast forward. You and I will report

that there was an appeal, that the appeal lost, that the second appeal lost, and Donald Trump is going to get sentenced. And we'll talk maybe here some other time about what that sentence is going to be on July the 11th before he's nominated to be the Republican nominee for president. When Karen Friedman Agnifilo thought that Donald Trump was going to testify, she was thinking if the defense wanted to try to win the case, what would you do as a defense strategy? Even though I think that it would have been a disaster, that's the only option that I think would have, you know, the defense would have been if he wanted to make a reliance

of counsel defense, admit a crime was committed, but basically say it was some sort of scrivener's error, or there was just a mistake that was made as he relied on accountants and lawyers. While he was busy, he'd have to take the stand, he'd have to waive attorney-client privilege, and he would have to point the finger at the professionals who worked for him, which he did not do. And then there was really no theme, there was no defense. It was very strange. They just

acted like nothing happened in general. Like, what are we even here for? What's the crime? What's the thing? He didn't do anything with Stormy. This thing is all made up. And that was not an effective defense at all. I don't think they would win regardless, but I think that's how she was thinking. You know, what I want to talk about now though is Donald Trump is a convicted felon. Right? That carries with it implications. Those implications can even get more severe and serious and will when sentencing takes place on July 11th.

But as a convicted felon, your ability to travel outside of the country to places like Canada, UK, and numerous other countries across the world is prohibited. You quite literally are banned from countries if you are a convicted felon. Also, your ability to possess firearms is prohibited or severely restricted at the federal level and across the country in various states. And so it just wants you to think about that and potentially the ability to vote. In Florida, there's a wrinkle on that about whether felons can vote, but just in general, just think about it like this. You can't possess firearms, you can't travel to many countries outside of the

country. You're likely, I want to get your take, but I think Justice Mershon is likely either going to give a sentence where show up in prison. I think he'll definitely give house confinement or home confinement. The question is, is it serve the time in Rikers plus confinement, just serve the time in Rikers, but he's going to sentence Donald Trump. Anyone who says he's not sentencing Donald Trump or it's just going to be probation, I think they're very wrong about that. First and foremost, go read the falsification of business records cases, felonies, that these cases have sentences, and Justice Mershon has been a law and order judge.

This is the most egregious falsification of business records case in the history of New York where the other ones got prison sentences. Donald Trump's behavior, not just violating the the gag order not just being found in contempt Not one two, three, four five six seven eight nine ten times, but his conduct leading up To the trial posting photos with a baseball bat pretending to bludgeon the district attorney the lack of remorse so what will happen When you get to sentencing on July 11th, and I want you to talk

a little bit about the probation officer's evaluation of Trump, right? The prosecution is going to submit a sentencing memorandum where I think they'll request that Donald Trump be incarcerated. I think they'll request as much prison time as the law allows, and they'll cite all of Donald Trump's behavior, the way he acted during the trial, the way he's acting now, contempt, the seriousness of the crimes, the lack of remorse,

how he started acting in the beginning. And then you also look at someone's past conduct. Donald Trump's been found liable for civil fraud. The Trump Organization has been determined in a criminal case to have engaged in felony. So Trump runs a felony organization. Donald Trump has been adjudicated to have engaged in sexual abuse. Donald Trump has been adjudicated to have committed massive civil fraud. All of that is taken into

account as well. And to me when you kind of put all of those elements together, it clearly requires incarceration for a significant period of time. And Justice Mershon, I think, is someone who follows law and order. I think there are logistical issues, but you and I have talked about Rikers would be prepared for Donald Trump. The mayor of New York and others have been preparing it, so it is something that would be ready. I think the logistical stuff needs to be dealt with. So there's that coming up on July 11th, but almost regardless of that, now as a convicted felon, it carries with it a number of implications. One other thing before I turn it back over to you, Popak, to give the what comes next,

what do we expect that sentencing, the probation report, what do we expect Donald Trump's lawyers to do, you know, really led by right-wing fascist media, people like Mark Levin, who talk like that. They, Mark Levin saying, here's what you need to do. You need to file extraordinary writs. Go to the Supreme Court right now. You need to go to the Supreme Court. You have Maga Mike Johnson who went on Fox and said, look, I know these Supreme Court justices very well,

some of these right-wing justices, and I think they'll do the right thing and they'll help Donald Trump out here. It may take some time, but I think, I mean, how ridiculous is that that that even ridiculous isn't the word, how unlawful and harmful to the very fabric of our democracy that that's taking place. But then you had Donald Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanch, as part of his interviews, talk about that they were going to the Supreme Court and that they would try to

find some direct route to the Supreme Court, or that they would try to find some direct route to the Supreme Court. I wanna play this clip, but before playing it, there is no direct route to the Supreme Court right now at all. There is no direct route at all. The reality is, the reality is, is that

you have to get sentenced, then you would go to the appellate division, then you would go to the Court of Appeal in New York is their highest court. The Supreme Court's their trial court, appellate division, then Court of Appeal. And then after the highest court in New York rules, the only way you then go to federal court is if you claim that there's some federal law that supersedes the state law such that the Supreme Court is ruling under the Supremacy Clause, that there's some federal concept that supersedes the state law under basic concepts of federalism. So when they talk about going to the Supreme Court now, I mean, by the way, who knows what upside down flag hanging spouses are insurrectionist like, you know, this supreme right wing Supreme

Court's like out of control. So who knows what they ever do. But the bottom line is there is no process that exists in the law for them to go to the Supreme Court. They're just making this stuff up. Doesn't, there's no such thing. So they would be filing something that's never been filed before that isn't even doesn't even have a name for it. They'll come up with some name for it. But anyway, let me show you what Todd Blanch said, then let me get your kind of thoughts, Pope Huckabee, the where we go from here, the sentencing the appeal, what do

you expect? Let's play this clip. Well, last question, will you go to the appellate court, the Supreme Court, both? Both. Look, we're not go to the appellate court, the Supreme Court, both? Both. Look, we're not going to stop fighting. I mean, I don't. You know, everybody's talking on your show

and on other shows about going right to the Supreme Court. We're going to do whatever we can. If that means we're going to the First Department and the New York Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, that's what we're going to do. If we can go right to the Supreme Court, that's what we're going to do. There's we're going to do whatever we can.

There's no option that we're slamming the door on. Oh, he reminds me of the weatherman character in Anchorman, Steve Carell. He reminds me of the Steve Carell character from Anchorman. Like, like, yeah, we're going to the Supreme Court. What does it even mean you're going to the Supreme Court? There's no such thing. Popeyes, where do we go from here? Yeah, let me touch on that and then go to the other place. They can try a writ of habeas corpus, they can try all sorts of things, but common variety, garden variety criminals in a state who are convicted by a jury through a process, through a proper criminal justice process, starting with a grand jury indictment, all the way through a 12-0 presentation, a jury verdict, and proper instruction all along the way by the

judge is not something that you were allowed to then say there was some sort of US constitutional due process violation or everybody would try it. Sure, there might be a couple of MAGA that would, over on the Supreme Court, that may find it interesting. But I just think there is no way, there's an ice cube chance of hell in hell of a direct appeal to the United States Supreme Court or even jumping over from our state criminal prosecution system over to our federal constitutional system to pick up the senior appellate court there. Not happening. As to what happens next, as I said, Donald Trump is now felon Donald J. Trump. Interesting enough, as this is being

reported around the world, that we have a lot, you were very respectful of our audience, we have 140 or more countries that watch legal AF. The style book for the independent in the in London in UK is no longer referring to Donald Trump as Mr. Donald J. Trump, not even President Donald J. Trump, because their style book says that once a person is convicted of a felony, he loses the honorific of being a mister. And so Donald J. Trump is now a felon. And that means in the New York court system, he's going to go with no exception,

with no special dispensation through a process. He has to be interviewed by the probation department. They're going to ask him about his background, about his mental health and mental state. They're going gonna look through his social media. I mean, these New Yorkers know who Donald Trump is, so they don't have to start off with questions like, do you ever use social media to, in a negative way to attack people? They can skip that question.

They can go right to, we've looked through all of your social media, and his conduct, including that outstanding conduct about the criminal contempt, which has not yet been resolved by the judge, and he is still subject, his release, his ability to walk around and not be in jail right now, t plus two days from the conviction, is at the discretion of the Judge Mershon and the criminal justice system and the laws of the state of New York, who give credit to the prosecution. They didn't ask for bond because he's out on his own

recognizance, but all of the conditions that he originally had for his release, including the gag orders, remain in place through sentencing, at least through sentencing. He's got to go for his interview. He can't phone it in. He can't let the lawyers like Todd Blanch,encing. Gotta go for his interview. Can't phone it in. Can't let the lawyers like Todd Blanch, Mr. Weatherman, do it. He's gotta show up and talk to this bureaucrat civil servant about, and why?

Because the probation department puts together, just like in the federal system, in the pretrial services, puts together a report with background information about the felon, the convicted person, and then ultimately recommendations about sentencing. There have been in the state of New York since the laws were passed about 8,000 entities and people prosecuted under False Record Act and including a second crime. I will just, just to manage expectations, about 10% of that group got jail time.

The other 90% didn't. But I think you're right Ben, that given the extraordinary facts here, balanced even against Donald Trump's right to run for president even as a felon under our constitution, which I know is remarkable to a lot of people around the world, but he is. It doesn't disqualify him. That doesn't mean that the judge, I think he ends up in the top 10% category requiring some sort of home confinement slash incarceration. I don't know if that's four months or a year. And the timing of it will be

interesting for Judge Mershon, all in the hands of Judge Mershawn. They're not going to be able to cut it off by asking the Appellate Division First Department, not going to be sentencing Donald Trump, the Court of Appeals is not going to be sentencing Donald Trump, the Supreme Court is not going to be sentencing Donald Trump. Judge Mershawn, who's been mercilessly attacked to this moment by Donald Trump and his minions and his family and everybody else. He's the person who's also holding and keeping his powder dry about how he's gonna handle Donald Trump's past violations of the gag order, criminal contempt related to that, and future. And why that's important and to answer the

question that some people are asking, does the conviction mean that he's violated his terms of release and his conditions of release in his other criminal cases in Georgia, in DC election interference and in Florida? No, because it's new crimes. This was old crimes that he just got convicted on. If he commits new crimes, since they set those conditions, but criminal contempt would

constitute a new crime and I assure you the prosecutors are going to run to the judges if he's found guilty of committing a new crime. And that is the third rail. That is what Donald Trump dancing on this electrified third rail every time he tries to pander to his audience to quote unquote get elected or raise money. This is what could happen to him. In terms of next steps, he goes through this process. In the next couple of weeks he meets with the probation. They prepare a report. The prosecution prepares a report and recommendation about what they think the proper sentence is. So does the defense.

We know what the defense is going to say. No conviction, probation at best. And prosecution is going to say X number of years and then the timing is important. Does he make him go right in, in July, off the sentence if there is a sentence that has confinement or incarceration? Or does the judge says I'm going to suspend your sentence until after November 5 to allow you to continue to campaign? I don't know. This is going to be within the mind of the judge. He may think I can solve a problem by giving him the sentence so the American people know that he's a sentence felon, but delaying his reporting to the Bureau of Prisons version in New York until after we see

the election results. But then he's got to deal with, well, what happens if something goes awry and he's elected president about that incarceration? So these are things you and I are going to have to kind of, with Karen, kind of drill down on even more. In terms of the results, if he is sentenced in July, he will not, and it's not probation, and he has not completed his sentence. By the time of election day, he's off the voting rolls. Even New York, which restores, I'm not sure where he votes, I think he votes in Florida. Even Florida, which restores the rights of felons to vote, but only after they've completed their term, plus a number of years. So he will not have completed his term.

And that unless the Florida legislature, you know, with, with the Santas, uh, somehow makes a special exception for Donald Trump. I'm not sure we're going to see that iconic photo of Donald Trump voting for himself on election day. Well said, Popak. I want to show this though. Remember the clip I showed earlier with Alina Jaba saying that President Biden can't even walk or can't even talk.

This is part of the whole mag. The Lime Machine is so out there and they spew it so much that when people actually hear President Biden talk at the State of the union or people pay attention to like objective reality and the news, they go, what? How did that happen? Right? The same way we were saying how the media drives all these bizarre narratives out there on you know, the trial or the Trump stock or Trump's polls, like, or what's going on at the events, there's a hundred thousand people. No, there isn't. There was like less than 10,000 people.

We can utilize our own objective reality and say, that's not making up these fake numbers or when they want to say, this was an incredible speech in the Bronx. What are you talking about? Where people left in the middle of it and he called up onto the stage, two individuals, one named chef G the, the other named Sleepy Hollow, who were in a 140 count criminal indictment, alleged to be the leaders or leading the New York Crips and engaged in 12 attempted murders and one actual murder. And Donald Trump's bringing them on the stage and they're talking about giving Donald Trump

there the grill for his teeth and like, you're trying to act like that's stop that. That's not, that's not normal. If that was existing anywhere else, it would be beyond disqualifying. So stop that. But let me just show you, this was from earlier this morning. This is president Biden doing something that Donald Trump will never be able to do ride a bicycle. Let's show you this.

You see him right there, there's President Biden riding a bike. Yes, he's over the age of 80, but he's riding a bike. He looks good, he's in shape, he actually is fit. And you wanna hear President Biden speak? So for Elena Hoppe, oh, we can't get out his words, he can't even talk. You saw Donald Trump's speech earlier in the show

where Trump was saying, oh, they called me a bad boy and they're gonna go, bad boy this, a bad boy that. Here's President Biden talking about our system of justice. Play this clip. That's how the American system of justice works. And it's reckless, it's dangerous. It's irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don't like the verdict. Our justice system has endured for nearly two hundred and fifty years. And it literally is the cornerstone

of America. Our justice The justice system should be respected and we should never allow anyone to tear it down. It's as simple as that. That's America. That's who we are. And that's who we'll always be, God willing. God willing, and it's incredible that that even has to be said. And that's kind of the sad state that we're in,

that a message needs to go out to the American people because the Republican party has turned over the keys to MAGA, corporate media regurgitates what MAGA says, propaganda media funded by the billionaires spews this disinformation. So people are just getting lies and fake info and propaganda. The types of which America used to look at when that was taking place in Saddam Hussein's Iraq

or Gaddafi's Libya or Kim Jong-un's North Korea or Vladimir Putin, I could go on and on and on. It was something that was mocked in movies like the dictator, but that came to our shores. That exists now in America. And there's all of this attack on our system, attack on law and order, the lies that are spreading such that a president of the United States has to say we need to respect our jury system. That law and order means not tearing down a judicial system that has endured for 250 years. And, you know, it's been such a privilege and honor. And frankly, I've found it to be my duty to do this show.

When I've seen the direction this country was headed in with all of the lies out there, stopped doing the work that I was doing before and dedicated my time to this network and this is what I do full time right now. Our hosts like Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo, and all of our commentators who still have other jobs, have made important sacrifices from those jobs to be able to work here and deliver this news and deliver these updates. But we are all fueled by you, this legal AF community. And we know that you don't just watch these shows, but you share it. You share it with your family members,

with friends, with neighbors, with coworkers, with people that you know, and you say, hey, why don't you watch this? Give this a try. We may disagree on things, but I think you'll like the way they talk about these issues differently than what you hear on cable news because here they talk about the facts and the data and they do it in the most

objective way possible. Sure, they have opinions and they have views, which is natural and normal. We don't lead with that. We lead with the facts. We lead with the evidence. We lead with the data. And we go through an exhaustive process before we report on any of the events. And so I hope you all appreciated the type of coverage that we've done here at the Midas Touch Network, assembling real experts, bringing you the data and allowing you to find a place where you can get access to that and make these decisions ultimately for yourself, whether you ultimately end up agreeing or disagreeing with some of the perspectives and points of views we have, at least you've been able to read the core documents and see it for yourself.

So as I started this show, and you know, it's worth repeating again, that this really isn't the end, right? This is just a new beginning and a new chapter. Unfortunately, MAGA is doubling down, tripling down, becoming further entrenched, right? The conviction has only made them in a further lawless matter. Um, and they're going to be tough days ahead. There's no doubt about it, but I know that together we are going to be able

to, uh, make sure that democracy and our system of justice has prevailed. Michael Popak. Yeah, Ben, I wanted to also reinforce what you just said about this is not the end. This is the beginning. And just as our president just said in his press conference that we've entered a reckless, it's reckless, dangerous and irresponsible for what Donald Trump is doing. We need to continue to focus on now that we're T plus two days from conviction, everything else at the intersection of law and politics.

Next week, I believe, is going to be a big week for this network again and for our audience. We're waiting on four different constitutional opinions by this United States Supreme Court on fundamental issues that you and I and Karen and others on the network are going to have to follow and unpack. We're waiting. It's going to come next week. We're going to get the immunity decision about whether Donald Trump is immune in any way, shape and form from the DC election interference case. That's going to come, I believe, by next week. Fisher versus the United States is going to get decided next week. That means whether Donald Trump and other Gen 6 defendants were properly charged with obstruction of an official proceeding,

which is for them the highest count in terms of jails, the sentence possibility by the by by the prosecutor. Three, Idaho versus the United States, which is an abortion decision as to whether EMTALA or emergency procedures law, federal law, Trump's abortion, the abortion bans in places like Idaho or not, the application of it to that. And then on guns, whether there's this Supreme Court is going to find that a ban on people who abuse their wives and husbands, domestic violence ban is constitutional or not, is coming out, as is whether bump stocks, which were used in the Las Vegas massacre, are a second amendment right to have a bump stock. These are all coming next week.

As if, and you and I are going to have to, along with our other colleagues, you're going to have to report on it and unpack it. It's our duty and our privilege to do it. Now's the time to go to patreon.com slash legal AF, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash legal AF. It helps build this independent media network and helps expand the reach of this programming. P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash legal AF. We're not funded by outside investors,

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