Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump COWARDLY Behavior during ARRAIGNMENT and WHAT WENT DOWN

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok provide breaking analysis of today’s historic arrest and second indictment of Donald Trump in a Miami courthouse, following the proceedings from arrest and processing all the way through arraignment and release conditions, with co-defendant Walt Nauta’s failed arraignment thrown in for good measure. SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch 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 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm Ben Myceles from Legal AF joined by my co-host Michael Popak on this truly historic day. We are going to discuss what went down at the arrangement of Donald Trump today. We'll talk about Donald Trump leaving the Miami Doral resort, the Trump resort where he occasionally lives at, how he then left there, went to the federal courthouse, the very small crowd, about 500 to 1,000 people who were out there, we'll talk about that scene, we'll talk about what went down inside the courthouse with the magistrate judge, the conditions

that were placed very limited conditions, but nonetheless, it's possible Donald Trump's already violating one of these conditions and we'll talk and explain that because I saw him speaking to one of the witnesses, which he's not allowed to do, or he was at least in a room with his co-defendant Walton out to so I'll tease that there. And I think we also got a preview of the various defenses that Donald Trump's lawyers are going to try to put on two of Donald Trump's lawyers were seated next to him during the arraignment Todd Blanche, New York Wall Street white collar lawyer

who also represents Donald Trump in the Manhattan district attorney matter, Christopher Kice, the lawyer from Florida, who you have to have a local Florida lawyer present. So Chris Kice didn't do the speaking. It was Todd Blanch who did the speaking Donald Trump, pled not guilty. Um, special counsel Jack Smith was in the room. Uh, one of the top counterintelligence lawyers at the DOJ, Jay Bratt, that lawyer was the one who handled the proceedings for the Department of Justice,

but special counsel, Jack Smith was there, we've got videotape of him arriving in the Miami airport last night, there's Jack Smith right there, and it's being reported that the entire time Jack Smith was making and it's being reported that the entire time Jack Smith was making eye contact with Donald Trump during the arrangement until Donald Trump left special counsel Jack Smith kept eye contact on Trump, stared at him the entire time. Donald

Trump sheepishly was shrugging his shoulders, looking down and refused to look at special counsel Jack Smith. So giving that framework, let me toss it to my co-host, Michael Popak. Thanks, Ben. That's a great picture. You just painted. We start the day with the arrest booking and processing of Donald Trump for those who don't know. He was under custody, which means he was under arrest, whether he was wearing handcuffs,

almost at cufflinks, if wearing handcuffs or not, he was under arrest for that time under the under the watchful eye of the federal marshals, the probation department, and of course the secret service detail. I doubt he was handcuffed. It wasn't necessary given this context. He came in through the underground garage and processed for about an hour, hour and a half, and then came into the courtroom a few minutes before three o'clock Eastern time, joined by two of his lawyers, as you said, Ben Chris Keiss, who's already gotten five million dollars from the Save America Pack by Donald Trump to do things up in New York, related to the civil fraud case, where his

co-cancelled there as Alina Habba, but how to get pressed into action at the last minute, because despite interviewing a half a dozen well-known white collar criminal defenceless in Miami, most of which I know, all of them said no to the invitation, leaving only Chris Keiss who is a member of the Southern District of Florida he is there, is a member of the Southern District of Florida. You have to be a member of the bar of the federal bar in which you are practicing, not just the state in which you're located. And so they pressed him into action.

He actually had to move officially for Todd Blanche, a lawyer who also liked Chris Keiss, left his major law firm to go out on his own to service one client, Donald Trump. They both have that in common. Chris Geist and Todd Blanch scene here. So the first thing the Chris Geist had to do was to move Todd Blanch in as a special limited admission, what we call pro-hoc Vichet admission, so that he can appear in court. That order ultimately signed by one Eileen Cannon who approved the Proloch Beach Proloch Vichet admission. Also, Warren council that if they screw up

in her courtroom is in this ironic. If they screw up in her courtroom and don't appear and local council has to be ready to step in at a moment's time where she's gonna revoke the Proloch Vichet, that was from Eileen Cannon. But this was not Eileen Cannon. But this was not Eileen Cannon show today. This was the duty judge, the duty magistrate, magistrate Goodman, who really this fell to him because I'm not making this up. Tuesday is his day

as the duty magistrate for any business, any court business. And this was a twin arrangement or attempted arrangement. One, Walt Nauta, the body man, Valley Butler, who still works for Donald Trump and is working for him, even as we speak at events, including packet bedmins, they're still employed, still working side by side. Body man means he's as close to the president in proximity proximate, sorry, former president as possible. That remains. We'll talk about the pre-trial release conditions about not talking to witnesses and how that's really going to play out when your boss is talking to Walt Nauta. This is the body man.

You can't get any closer than him fixing a shirt collar for Donald Trump, obviously unable to fix his own shirt collar at a golf tournament or wherever they were in Jorral. That's Walt Nowda. And that's a problem. Now Walt Nowda had his own problems in finding local council. Nobody wants to touch this case that that's credible with a 10-foot pole in Miami. No one. And so Walt Nowda's attorney Stan Woodward, who's a practicing attorney up in Baltimore. He couldn't find local counsel either. In fact, they couldn't even technically do Walt now does a rainment, which was weird. The magistrate judge let him out under the same conditions as Donald

Trump, no bail, no bond and reset his arrangement for the 27th of January, telling him he can phone it in and then joke, the magistrate joked, but you won't be arraigned in front of me because it'll be whoever the duty judge is on the 27th of June. So you had that going on. And then you had Jay Bratt representing the government. As you said, Ben, Jack Smith really staring a hole into Donald Trump, if this was like the boys and a laser beam, it would have taken Donald Trump's head off there, which I thought was a very compelling physical presence to be in the room.

You know, the now, you know, he's no longer a myth or a legend. He's a legend, but he's no longer a myth. He exists. He's a legend, but he's no longer a myth. He exists He's running this show. He's in the courtroom and everybody knows it including Donald Trump who sat there as you said skulking with his arms folded What did we learn in terms of the bond and bail release? We learned that he's got a requirement now Donald Trump not to talk to witnesses, including Walt Nauta about this case. Now the, the magistrate understood how difficult that is and difficult to enforce, frankly.

He said, I know that you guys work together in effect, but you can't talk about this case. And you can't talk to other witnesses that the special counsel's office will identify to you at a later time. Those witnesses, you can't talk to either. But how the government polices this and how the any magistrate polices this, considering literally, Walt Nauta is right now shining Donald Trump shoes, is very, very difficult. And I want to hear your opinion on that. While that was going on inside the courtroom and no new date yet set that we know of for motion practice in the future. And the

certainly the trial has not been set. That will all be at a later time. This was really for a rainment, the reading of the 31 counts against Donald Trump and having him acknowledge and plead not guilty. Or as the lawyer, the lawyer Chris Kai said, or no, is a blanch. We absolutely affirmatively plead not guilty, as if that matters. And we just take that down with a check of a box. Okay, not guilty. Great. And that's, that was the end of the proceeding. What did you, what was your observations, Ben, of what we've learned so far about what transpired in a 30-minute or so, a rainment? Well, here are kind of the highlights.

He pled not guilty. The lawyers for Donald Trump waved reading of the indictment, so it was a fairly quick proceeding. Special counsel, Jack Smith, the team there on behalf of the DOJ did not make any requests about travel restrictions. And I think they did it for a specific reason. I think they realized that the limited restriction that Donald Trump has, which is for Donald Trump a big one because he violates all of the rules. Specifically, that Trump can have no contact with any of the witnesses, including his co-defendant,

and aide Walton out to who he was eating with at the BLT restaurant last night, and who, by the way, after this arrangement took place, Donald Trump, you know, I think we all saw him at a famous Cuban restaurant in Miami, and I saw Walton out to basically standing within five feet of Donald Trump Which may be a violation of this order already

To your point ultimately how is that going to be enforced? Is it gonna have to be by communication or whatever? But I think there's have to be actually you know them speaking is it they can't have any contact They can't be in the same room or in the same vicinity. They are allowed to communicate though through lawyers can have communications with the other lawyers of witnesses like Walton out does lawyer, I guess when he gets a Florida lawyer, he's got a lawyer from the other state who you mentioned could contact Donald Trump's lawyer and they could speak that way. But Trump didn't need to surrender his passport. There was no limit on international travel, no limit on firearms, but the restriction on no contact

with witnesses. And think about who the witnesses are though. Like all of the people who we've talked about, on legal Aiefinon, the other minus touch, shows who have went before the grand jury, right? We're talking about people like Alina Haba. She's a witness, right? Christina Bob, she's a witness.

She was the one who signed the attestation under penalty of perjury, telling the Department of Justice that all classified information and top secret information and sensitive and part information, sensitive compartmental information was all returned on June 3rd, when it absolutely wasn't returned.

So she's a witness, Evan Corcoran. Donald Trump's other lawyer is a witness. All the staff at Mar-a-Lago from the maintenance worker to the servers at the restaurant, right, those are types of people who went before the grand jury, the people who handle the surveillance footage all the way through the Trump organization with Colomari senior and Colomari junior. I mean, their witnesses. So ultimately, fleshing out how that is going to play itself out is something that

interests me and intrigues me. And also one of my overall observations again was a very small crowd in front of the courthouse, not the type of crowd that I think Donald Trump would have wanted, and a crowd kind of filled mostly with some of the kind of super ultra-magic crazy people. There was one person who had like a pole with a dead pig's head on it, you had a few, I guess, older women who were, I guess, Trump supporters wearing shirts that said like blacks for Trump 2020, older white women wearing that shirt. And so it was a, you know, kind of the, the kind of circus mega crowd that was there. That's the, with the backwards Trump flag. And it was that kind of crew who was there.

And that is the modern day Republican party. This photo that we're showing you right now is one of the people who wears the American flag, a guy wearing it as a dress with a stick that has a big tall stick with a pig's head, dead pig's head on it. I mean, like what in the world is going on there, but in all the Trump flag type stuff. But we're talking about a crowd of about 500 to 1000 people, not a big crowd, very kind of low energy.

I think good that it was uneventful. I think there was a few counter protesters, ultimately who were arrested. But those are my big takeaways. And of course, that special counsel, Jack Smith, was there. And the reporting that Jack Smith was staring at Donald Trump the entire time, staring at him and Donald Trump, like for all of his bravado and bluster, Trump looked frustrated throughout his arraignment. He folded his arms

and refolded his arms throughout with a constant frown on his face as how you go low or reporter from the Guardian described it. And we've always said this on legal AF, like when you confront the trader, when you confront the bully, Donald Trump actually is a very scared cowardly individual and always backs down. Those are my big observations. Michael Popuck. Yeah, I think there's two campaigns that are now going on simultaneously as Maggie Haberman and the New York Times also reported. One of them is him just Donald Trump just keeping up his his his arranged staged public appearances even after coming out of the courthouse. I've been to that restaurant on kayocho on eighth street in Miami is the epicenter of the Cuban ex-all community. I've been to Versailles the restaurant where I ended up today.

Used to be one of my favorite restaurants. It may no longer be. But that was all staged for him to have some buoyant rally like experience just on the way out before he hit the airport. This is actually quite near the airport in Miami and stopped off there with, you know, people praying for him. And if I had a pick one place in Miami where people would break into even spontaneous cheering for Donald Trump, This would probably be it. The Republican Party has done a great job over the last 10 years at convincing the Cuban exile community to haven't supported a Democrat since the Bay of Pigs and after John F. Kennedy. That all Democrats are Marxists, Socialists, and Communists. And so that is a place where you're going to get a group of people like that's spontaneously to do the things that we saw. That's campaign number one. We'll see Bedminster later today.

They've already sent up, they've already set up flag-bunting and white chairs for another rally they're going to be doing tonight. I assure you this, this prayer that you're now seeing a photograph of, I've seen it on YouTube. It was all in Spanish. Donald Trump doesn't understand, doesn't know a word this guy is saying to him until he said amen and everybody clapped and applauded. And then the second campaign is this this floating out all these nonsense defenses that will that's I guess sound good and sound bites on right wing media reporting but will not work inside of the courtroom. Just to show how that works. Alina Habba was the head clown in the circus outside of the courtroom today. The courthouse

today. She had, she wasn't anywhere near the inside the courtroom doing any real legal work. This, this, this is a perfect example of what we're talking about. There is the charade of what's going on on TV and on the street, led by people like Alina Haba and Carrie Lake. And there's the reality of the justice system that's going on inside of a courtroom. So these defenses are just made up paper defenses that won't work. First one is that, oh, here she is. Here's Alina Haba with her white outfit, obviously staged, Oh, here she is. Lena Habba with her white outfit obviously staged doing her best legal work on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse.

That's where she belongs and that's where she should stay. So the first one is that the attorney client privileged that two federal judges, chief judges of the DC Circuit Court, stripped from Donald Trump related to people like Evan Corcoran. Evan Corcoran is going to be a lead witness in front of a jury at the appropriate time, a former lawyer for Donald Trump head lawyer for all things Mar-a-Lago. It's not just his notes that he took that are now in Jackson, Smith, Sands or the audio that he recorded of himself talking about his own case. He is going to testify live against Donald Trump at the appropriate time.

And so they want to attack the attorney client privilege having been stripped. But two federal judges after a hearing found that the crime fraud exception applied because Donald Trump, at least one of them found Donald Trump was more likely than not having committed a crime and using his lawyer and misusing his lawyer in the Mar-a-Lago document retention search and secreting issue. And Donald Trump had every opportunity to take an appeal. Sometimes he took appeals on these issues and lost. Sometimes he didn't take appeals and waived.

And the Supreme Court didn't step in. So this is as far as I'm concerned, a bolder dash. This is just for people who aren't taking advantage of the followers of Donald Trump who don't take it, who don't read the indictment, who don't know anything other than what their spoon fed and what it's plugged directly into their brain. And that's all they understand. So they're taking advantage of gullible people. That's not going to work. That defense. Second one is selective prosecution. It's a fact. Second one is selective prosecution.

It's a whole bunch of what aboutism. What about Pence? What about Biden and the garage door that goes up and down? What about Obama and all the documents he took for his presidential library? This has nothing to do with the documents that are found inadvertently in somebody's garage. It has to do with hiding, obstructing, secreting, and having a conspiracy to hold your documents that don't belong to you and belong to the American people. And that is what the crime is. As I've said before, it's not about the cookie jars in your house. It's about your hand being caught in the cookie jar. And that's the difference. So that's the second one.

Selective prosecution, what about is them? That's going to fail as well. And so what's the, there's a third one, though, Ben, that I've talked about, that they're floating, left and right. Let me see if I can pull it. The prosecutorial misconduct? Oh, yeah, thank you. So this is the one I did a hot take on.

I think you were mentioned it as well. You've got this BS story that Jay Brott, who's gonna be the lead trial lawyer apparently, for areas, for the great glasses, for the government, for the prosecution, who's also the head counterintelligence lawyer for the Department of Justice. He's gonna take the lead in this case. He had a meeting, it's public. He had a meeting with the lawyer that was in

the courtroom today for Walt Nauta, Stan Woodward, a lawyer, you know, pretty well respected up in Baltimore in a small boutique shop that does criminal defense work usually on the right, on the right wing side. And he says, the lawyer says that during their initial meeting to talk about Walt now to testifying on behalf of the government against Donald Trump or get indicted yourself, which is what happened. Great work by the lawyer there, that they said, and well, listen, I don't know much about you,

but I did a little my own research before you came in totally appropriate. I see you're a local lawyer, I'm surprised. I don't know much about you, but I did a little my own research before you came in totally appropriate. I see, you know, your local lawyer, I'm surprised. I don't see as a trumper. I'm surprised you're really getting involved with this. And by the way, I also see that you're running for a municipal judge. Is that you want to be a municipal judge?

They took that to mean that J. Bratt was trying to bribe Stan Woodward, who wrote a letter and objected to this to a judge and said, I felt like I was being bribed that if I didn't play ball with the government and make my client cooperate that I wasn't, I was going to be denied a municipal judge ship. Okay. News flash prosecutors don't have any sway over who gets picked as a municipal judge and neither does Joe Biden in that regard. So I don't know what you pressure you thought you were under.

And secondly, all they wanted you to do was to have your client cooperate to avoid being indicted. And you didn't do that, and instead your client got indicted. And now that we've seen the evidence in the indictment related to your client, you should have cut that deal. This is me talking now to Stan Woodward. So this whole, oh, there's a prosecutorial misconduct.

Nothing that I have read or heard about that interaction between Jay Brott, his team, and the lawyer for Walt Nowda rises the level of prosecutorial misconduct to overcome the mountain of evidence that is all that which is just a small part that's listed chapter and verse in the indictment. Well, and here's the one final point, though, that I think is important with all of the, what we believe to be defenses that totally lack, completely, utterly lack merit. As of right now, Judge Eileen Cannon is still the judge presiding over this matter. As you mentioned earlier in this video, Judge Eileen Cannon has already made orders regarding pro-Hawk VJ applications, the ability for out-of-state lawyers to participate in state.

She's issued orders that are instructive in nature, no real kind of substantive order yet. But normally when a judge would self-requse, they would do that before they issue any orders. So the fact that she's issuing orders, I think, is a signal that she's not going to recuse herself. That's the only way you could read that with all of the available data. However, I ask you a question on that. I want to get you a view on that. When do you think the government moves to disqualify her? Do they wait for the first bad decision?

Or do they do that before the first appearance in front of her? You know, I think they would do that sooner than later. You know, you don't want to make yourself vulnerable to kind of a like a latches defense that you've kind of sat on it. So, you know, whether there's a time limit and I'd have to go into the local rules as well to see if there's local rules requirements within the local rules, there's district rules requirement. But overall, I don't think the Department of Justice would wait. That's something that they would promptly file before their first appearance before the federal judge.

I agree with you. I think they have a little time because this was just before the magistrate, but before they file any substantive motion or do anything there, that's what I'm going to be looking out for. That decision, I believe, would be appealable to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. We've talked about the case United States versus Martin, which talks about multiple disqualification, a multiple situation of disqualification where the judge was overturned multiple times

by the 11th court of appeals. But I just think special counsel, Jack Smith, is weighing whether or not filing that right now makes sense. Or do you, you know, because this involves classified records, and there's going to be a lot of decisions that are being made regarding SEPA, the classified information, Procedure's Act, uniquely in those situations, a lot of those decisions are appealable to the 11th Circuit. So there is a situation here where if she makes bad orders regarding the various SEPA-related issues about how classified information is handled, that may trigger this US versus

Martin K. Slaw as well. So I still say this, that special counsel, Jack Smith, has done everything beyond, beyond diligently. And so I still have full confidence right now in this prosecution, regardless. But we will keep everybody posted. Final words, Michael Popock, before we go. Yeah, on the count of things, I know it's very, very troubling and agitating to our audience. So I think you're right. The reason I think you're right is that you don't want to walk into that line of cases that says bad decisions that you're getting is not biased. They already have now based on the prior two bad rulings in which he interfered with the criminal ongoing criminal investigation at the search warrant level, which the 11th Circuit told her that

was you're not supposed to do that ever. And also the subsequent one about the special master that she established to look through the boxes of documents on classified as if that would give Donald Trump any relief at that moment before he was even a criminal target let alone and now an indicted arrested defendant based on as you said those those twin things they already have the grounds now I think they're just waiting for I don't think they're going to wait for hey let's see what happens when the other side files emotion for to dismiss the indictment and we get a bad ruling because I think you're right I think you want to go under the Martin line of cases not the other line of cases about oh, I just got a bad ruling

So now, you know, I'm throwing a temper tantrum trying to get rid of my judge because that's not within a department of justice Would be doing here. They have grounds now to have her recused and qualified Thank you everybody for watching this update on all that happened during the arrangement, all that we know up until this point. Of course, this is a rapidly moving, breaking news story. So as news develops, make sure you're subscribed to the Midas Touch Network. Make sure that you are subscribed to the Legal AF podcast, wherever podcasts are available. As soon as we get our hands on the transcript of the proceedings, we will make sure that we do a video on that.

We'll read the full transcript to you as much of it as we can. Thank you again for watching this. Hit subscribe on our YouTube channel right now. And again, a special shout out to the Midas Mighty. Have a great day. Lock him up in Dytman season is upon us. Celebrate with the new indictment season. T-shirt and V-neck exclusively at store.mitustouch.com.

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