Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump CRIMINAL VERDICT is IMMINENT…

Episode Date: May 19, 2024

Michael Popok and Dina Sayegh Doll sitting in for Ben Meiselas who is “on assignment” at his wedding, anchor a new episode of the weekend edition of the Legal AF podcast. On this episode, they debate/discuss: The Trump criminal election interference trial, including the cross examination of Michael Cohen, how the jury is receiving the evidence, and next week’s closing arguments; MAGA Congress’ attempt to find the Attorney General in contempt and President Biden’s proper use of the presidential Executive Privilege to stop it; whether Justice Alito should be impeached for flying the “Stop the Steal” flag at his house just following Jan6; the sentencing of the attacker of Paul Pelosi to 30 years in prison, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF Thanks to our sponsors: Nom Nom: Go Right Now for 50% off your no-risk two week trial at https://TryNom.com/LEGALAF Fum: Head to https://TryFum.com/legalaf and get a FREE GIFT with the JOURNEY PACK today when you use code LEGALAF Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to https://RocketMoney.com/legalaf 3 Day Blinds: For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to https://3DayBlinds.com/LEGALAF Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coalition-of-the-sane/id1741663279 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This NHL season, get more excitement out of every Slapshot with FanDuel, North America's number one sportsbook. You can bet on everything from the money line to over-unders to which player will net the first goal. Make your picks and assemble a same game parlay with FanDuel Sportsbook, home of the SGP. Plus with FanDuel's quick payouts, you can get paid faster than a breakaway. Make every moment more with FanDuel, official partner of the NHL. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario.

Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connexontario.ca. Listen closely. That's not just paint rolling on a wall. It's artistry. A master painter carefully applying Benjamin Moore Regal Select Egg Shell with deftly executed strokes. The roller, lightly cradled in his hands, applying just the right amount of paint. It's like hearing poetry in motion.

Benjamin Moore. See the love. To support sustainable food production, BHP is building one of the world's most sustainable potash mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. Are you leaving savings behind at the gas pump? Get up to 7 cents per liter in value every time you fill up at Petro Canada gas station.

When you link an eligible RBC card to your Petro points account, you instantly save three cents per liter at the pump, and you earn 20% bonus Petro points. That's like 1.2 cents per liter, plus 20% bonus Avion reward points. That's like 2.8 cents per liter, for a total value of seven cents per liter. Don't leave these savings behind. Find out more at rbc.com slash petro dash canada. Conditions apply. Find out more at rbc.com slash petro dash canada. Conditions apply. Spring is here and you can now get almost anything you need

for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? Well, you can't get a Wellgroom lawn delivered, but you can get a chicken Parmesan delivered. A cabana, that's a no, but a banana, that's a yes. A nice tan, sorry, nope, but a box fan, happily yes. A day of sunshine, no. A box of fine wines, yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. It's the midweek edition of Legal AF and your eyes are not deceiving you, sitting in for a marrying Ben Mycelis is Dina Dahl, our friend and colleague and favorite, a substitute guest host.

We'll be talking to Dina in a minute. On this episode, the intersection of law and politics, we just have to talk about where we are in the Trump trial, the New York election interference trial, now that Michael Cohen is about two thirds of the way through his testimony, doing exceedingly well. I don't think the prosecutors will be upset with where Michael is right now in his cross-examination. As the judge has informed, both sides be ready for closing argument on Tuesday.

We'll talk about the difference between opening statement and closing argument, and who we think is gonna be handling that for both sides as the jury likely gets the case for deliberation as early as late next week and maybe reach a verdict by the end of next week or the beginning of the following. MAGA is using and Donald Trump is using the trial as a campaign stop and a tryout for the vice president as they do some sort of perverse limbo dance to see how low they can go and how degrading they can be as they do what Donald Trump has been told he can't do, which is attack witnesses while they're testifying, and the judge's daughter and the judge.

And we'll talk about how that impacted at the intersection of law and politics, the ability to actually do anything in Congress because most of the people like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Gaetz and Andy Biggs and the rest were all busy giving press conferences down at the courthouse instead of being in Congress where they needed to be for votes.

We'll talk about that. And speaking of votes, two resolutions have been voted out of two MAGA controlled committees, the two Jims, Jim Jordan's just Judiciary Committee and Jim Comer's Oversight Committee have both voted to hold Merrick Garland in contempt because he refuses to turn over the audio recordings of the transcript of the interview of President Biden that he gave to Robert Herr, the special counsel, back in October of 2023, as the special counsel was getting to the bottom

of the handling of classified documents by Biden after he was vice president and before he was president. The transcript had already been released to the public, you and I can get it right now on the internet, but this is the audio version which is only wanted by the and only demanded by the Mag of Congress because they want to slice and dice it and use it in some sort of deep fake political ads to attack and embarrass Joe Biden, that's obvious, and to try to cut them off at the pass. And even if they vote for contempt,

of course the Department of Justice will never, will never file a case against Merrick Garland, especially now that the Office of Legal Counsel advising the president and Merrick Garland have both had Biden assert executive privilege. And now there's a proper assertion of executive privilege over the audio. And therefore there's a proper assertion of executive privilege over the audio, and therefore there will be no contempt ultimately against Merrick Garland.

This is just performative showpiece for MAGA as they try to impress their cult leader, Donald Trump. And then we will talk about what's going on with the United States Supreme Court and Justice Alito in particular. How did he not know that six days after or seven days after Jan 6th, his family was flying the universal symbol for stop the steal and SOS, you know, to save America because of the MAGA SOS, you know, to save America because of the MAGA view that there was fraud in the election that his family, he, his wife, whoever, right next to their driveway was flying a giant flag upside down at the very time that the United States Supreme Court was voting

on whether to take a voter fraud case to the Supreme Court and who of course voted for it? Sam Alito. Shouldn't we have known? Is that the kind of justices that we want? The ones that are supposed to be independent and ethical, but they're flying May Day flags in front of their house? And of course, Sam Alito is always in the middle of some sort of ethical problem. Right at the moment, we're waiting on major decisions from the United States Supreme Court on what else? Abortion, guns, and whether Donald Trump is going to face the music in a criminal case,

in the DC election interference case, or he's going to have immunity. It's always Sam Alito. It was Sam Alito when the leaked Dobbs decision came out two years ago, ripping away a woman's right to choose, and now it's Sam Alito again. We'll have to get to the bottom of why we're just finding out about that upside down flag now. I mean, it is two years ago, but that is not the kind of justice that we want. And we'll talk about what Justice Roberts with this new ethics rule that or ethics code that the Supreme Court apparently adopted, what he's going to do about it. But I don't think the end of the story is Alito telling the New York Times, my wife did it. I mean, there are now Senate committees headed by Senator Whitehouse and

other committees that are now looking at whether they should move for impeachment of Sam Alito, and we'll talk about that. And finally, justice has come, at least partially, to the Pelosi family because the attacker and tormentor, David De Pape, of Paul Pelosi, who was the victim of a break-in, really an unprecedented break-in of a federal official's home, and an attack with a hammer in which he suffered tremendous brain trauma that he's not yet recovered from, got sentenced to 30 years in prison by a federal judge. It's slightly less than what the DOJ wanted and a lot more than what the PAPEs lawyers wanted.

We'll talk about federal sentencing guidelines, the sentence and what happens next because the PAPE is still facing state crime prosecution that he'll have to pay for when he stops serving his 30 years in prison. We'll cover it all at the intersection of law and politics right here on the Midas Touch Network. Let's bring in Dina. Hi, Dina. Hi. Great to see you. You too. We had lunch yesterday. You and your husband were very lovely and hosted me when I was in LA for lunch, which I really appreciated. It's always nice. It's the second time that you

and I have met. And look, I'm thrilled. I think Ben announced when you were sitting in for Michael Cohen, who slightly tied up this last week and couldn't do political beatdown on our podcast, he was actually making history in a courtroom. And I think there was an announcement that, you know, I know that Ben, Midas and you and us, we're all considering having you on the air for your own show. And I think that's terrific. And anything I can do to support you in that, I'd love to be your first guest or something like that, whenever we're ready to announce it. But I really, you were my first thought for this.

Karen Friedman-Iknifilo, who normally does a show with me on Wednesday, is in flight, arriving the same place that I'm at. We're all here for Ben's wedding, which is later today. I got a little, we went to a little, I went to a little rehearsal dinner last night, and it was just a collision of all things Midas. Adam Parkamenko was there with his wife.

I got to meet him in person. The brothers were there and Don Lemon. And I got a great picture of Don Lemon, Ben and me. That's at Ben's rehearsal dinner last night. Don's taking the photo. He's very good at taking selfies. And I appreciated that. It was my first time meeting Don

and he's very active now with the Midas Touch Network as well. So, you know, just a really happy collision of all the worlds that I reside in and then, of course, earlier in the day meeting you and your husband. So welcome. Let's get going. Tell me. Well, thank you for that welcome. And it's been so great getting to know you too. I've known Ben for years and it's like, oh, Michael, you're just amazing. And it's been so great getting to know you too. I've known Ben for years and it's like, oh, Michael, you're just amazing. And it's been great to get to know you personally, behind the scenes. And I'm so excited to do this kind of OG Midas Touch program. I'm both a fan girl and a co-hosting at the same time. So, love our topic.

Yeah. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Well, we did a practice run for this, not knowing exactly that there would be this opening that would come up when you and I did a hot take about some Supreme Court decisions, and we've done some hot takes on reproductive rights and things that matter deeply to both you and me. And I think it all kind of came together for today. So let's jump right in. Enough of me talking. Why don't you kind of give the audience your

beginning thoughts about all things Michael Cohen. I mean, people have heard me talk about how I see his performance and it is a performance. Talk about what you've observed as your years as a lawyer in Michael, the cross-examination of course by Todd Blanch, which all his eggs are in this basket. Todd Blanch has done very little in this case other than opening that lasted 20 minutes, some fighting with the judge over gag orders, and then really sat back and let his co-counsel do everything else until this big moment. So, tell the audience what you observed. Yeah. And I talked about this a little bit on political beat down too. I mean, Michael

Cohen was this week in a Trump trial, right? I mean, that's what happened was his direct and his cross. And it was a really good week for the prosecution. I don't think the defense took any kind of shots that they really needed to do to really create reasonable doubt. I mean, there was the question at the end of the day on Thursday that a lot of noise was made in the media about this one of the phone calls, one of the conversations between Trump and Michael Cohen and whether or not it was about 14 year olds harassing him or whether or not it was about him telling him that the deal was done. And I thought Michael Cohen did a good job at that answer.

I thought the lawyer, I thought he was so odd because he started out with his cross with this personal question, right? He said, he made it about himself, like what Michael Cohen had said about him on social media, which was odd. Like you don't really ever do that as a lawyer. This case is not about you. And then he ends his cross examination on this, you know, this maybe what you could see as a win for him. but he turns it, I almost think, not into a win by getting progressively more angry at Michael Cohen because Michael Cohen kind of stays saying, like, yeah, but I think I talked to him about both subjects in the conversation.

And to me, I would have taken that as a win and said kind of like, oh, thank you, and walked away. And he telegraphed to the jury that I have just gotten a shot. But instead, he got progressively more angry. And usually, that makes it look to the jury like you're not getting what you want. So his just kind of emotional book ending, right? The book ending of making it personal in the beginning and then getting, I think, unnecessarily angry with him at the end. It's not great. I don't think the jury

really wants to see this drama play out. But what I did was I looked back at the transcripts of the opening statements for both the prosecution and the defense because that's what they told the jury they were going to prove in their cases. So that's really the most important thing. Juries are going to stick to that. If you tell me that you're going to prove something, you better prove it. And the prosecution in their opening statement, don't say anything close about this one phone call being the linchpin of their case at all. In fact, they don't even mention the phone call in their opening statements. And really when they're talking about the scheme in their opening statements, they are always talking about it in relation with Michael Cohen and David

Pecker. They start out in their opening describing the 2015 conversation, and then they talk about many conversations, and it's always with the three of them. And they do this on purpose. For one, that's the reality of the case. It was the three of them who kind of conspired to come up with this agreement. And then they also, I don't even know honestly if the prosecution thought the Michael Cohen testimony would have gone as well as they did

because it did actually go really well. And they knew that there was going to be some pushback from the defense, that there was going to be some point to the defense could win. And I think that they lessened that. So to me, I think that the David, the Michael Cohen testimony this week was, was pretty solid. And it, and it didn't, you know, based on these opening statements, the prosecution's only same, I don't think it was the prosecution was even that heavily having their case based on anything in those cross.

And so a lot of that media spin that we heard on that one question, I don't think the jury's going to see it the same way because the prosecution didn't really make that such a central point of their case. I think that's a very good synopsis. I'll tell you as a trial lawyer that's that's cross-examined you made a point that was very similar to the one I made about Todd Blantz just kind of losing his shit for no reason in the middle of a cross-examination. What you can't do, look you have a choice. You have to have multiple gears when you cross-examine somebody, or you just have one gear and you keep grinding it the whole time. If your gear is you're going to be aggressive and you're going to be, and I've been known

to do that when I need to do that in a cross-examination, then you really need to be aggressive consistently throughout. You can't be passive and play cat and mouse with Michael Cohen, who was doing exceedingly well in counter punching Todd Blanch for a day and a half. And then all of a sudden, apropos of nothing, start screaming at the person. Because that makes you look like you've lost it,

that you're frustrated. I use the analogy like, you know, we're in the middle of the NBA playoffs right now. You know, when that player got pissed off when he was losing his team, his team was losing, he took the ball and threw it at a fan twice. You know, that's just frustration. And that's the way a jury, and I've been in front of a lot of juries, that's the way a jury interprets that kind of acting out.

You have to either be on them the entire time and have tonality that's consistent. Right. Or you have to like pick your moments when it's obvious, you know, but you can't shock the jury and go like, why is this guy, what happened? And especially at that moment, the what happened was a phone call eight years ago that lasted a minute and a half

that Michael Cohen says legitimately had two subjects. One, he had a 14 year old that he was complaining about, to the security chief, the bodyguard that stood in front of Stormy Daniels room, by the way, same guy, that he was upset about that. And while he was at it, also talking to Donald Trump about him handling the Stormy Daniels matter for him. By the way, it's not the only testimony or even recording in which Donald Trump is heard or has there's been testimony that he knew about and wanted the Stormy Daniels issue resolved at the $130,000 amount, cash, checks, or otherwise. So that's why the jury's like, I'm sorry, a call eight years ago where you're fighting over, you think it was only about the 14 year old social media

attacks and Michael Cohen says it's about two subjects. Michael Cohen already built up a reservoir of goodwill with the jury by the time he got to that moment in his testimony. That's how juries operate. I know all these people and I have friends that are on the other side of the aisle. They're like, oh my God, what a, I saw Jonathan Turley, who's this paid hired gun, who I'm embarrassed to say taught me constitutional law for my bar review course. When I was taking the bar, you know, he's a hack. All right.

And so, you know, he's on television going, oh, it was a critical moment. Michael Cohen crapped the bed at that moment. And the case is over. I don't know what they're talking about. First of all, and you and I talked about this over lunch, jury science shows us, I don't care how complex the case is, that in the beginning, they start making their major decisions about the case. And that beginning was 19 witnesses ago

and two and a half weeks ago, almost three weeks ago. And so this little stock market up and down and in and out, that's not how the jury follows matters. And so I think Michael now has a weekend. I mean, he's under oath, so he can't really consult with his lawyer about what do you think about that and how do I change that? But he has time to recover

from that slight momentary part where in one round Todd Blanch scored a point and I think he's gonna do very well on Monday and as you said if I'm the prosecutors and that's the Michael Cohen that I was gonna get I would take it in a heartbeat. They have to be happy especially as compared to Michael Cohen in his New York Attorney General testimony, where I thought he did a gentleman's be. He did okay.

Here, ego checked the door. He's not trying to lawyer this thing. He's answering the questions. He's being honest, authentic, and truthful. And the jury, the reports from the room are, the jury is with Michael Cohen. That at least six out of the nine are nodding and smiling with Michael Cohen. Now look, in the back of their mind, they might be

thinking, oh, he's a liar. I'll never, I'll never believe the word he says, but I don't think so. And body language is important. When juries get in, get in and get out of the courtroom and never look at Donald Trump, which is the reporting, that's a bad sign for Donald Trump. I've had juries that I've lost, you know, I don't, I haven't won every case I've ever done. I've had juries that where I got a sinking feeling second or third day in, when they wouldn't look at my client. And I was right.

So I think that's what we're about to see. What else do you think about the future? Let's talk about the future. Closing arguments, you wanna talk a little bit about closing arguments and how do you think from the openings, the checks that were written and how they're gonna be cashed now by the prosecution and I guess by Todd Blanch or wherever is going to do the

closing talk about the closings on Tuesday and then we'll talk about deliberations before we move to our next topic. So one thing that's different with closings than opening is they're actually able to argue. Lawyers are actually able to make arguments. They're going to weave in the evidence that was presented and then try to convince the jury why it fits into their narrative of the case. When I said I went back and looked at the openings, partly it's because they're going to have to kind of fill in the evidence of what they said in the opening. And Trump's lawyer mentioned family five times in his opening argument. And then nowhere in the case did that come out,

that he was a family guy, nowhere in that case. And not only that, but as I mentioned before, there's this parade of politicians coming into the courtroom. His family did not come into the courtroom. I think Eric came for a little bit, not his wife. This is the kind of case where a wife should show up. And for people who wonder if that matters, it does matter. I mean, there's a reason why if you're on trial for murder, your family is showing up behind you every day in a courtroom. You know, I follow live trials.

That's what I've done for years. And if you don't have your family behind you in a case like that, it speaks volumes. And so he talked about family, family, family in this opening. Nowhere in there did they even try to show him to be a family guy. His family didn't really show up.

The politicians instead of showed up. And the reason why that's so important is because, you know, they're trying to show that this was a conspiracy to interfere with the election. They're trying to show that he abused his power. And the one of the most important pieces of testimony I actually thought from the Michael Cohen this week, and I don't know why that wasn't amplified more and like the regular, you know, the legacy media, was him, the fact that he wrote some of these checks in the Oval Office, and after the FBI raid of Michael Cohen, he said, Don't worry about it. You know, my attorney general,

Jeff Sessions will take care of it. That is so scary. And it shows like the the lengths he was willing to do. I mean, that person who does that and says that, do you really not believe they won't be willing to pay a hush money payment to help them win? Of course they do. And then you see all these politicians coming in the courtroom. Do you not believe this is the defendant who misuses power to his own means. Like, of course you do. That's the character of the person. You see it by his politicians and family not coming up. You see it by the testimony of Michael Cohen coming up.

And if you remember, you know, and just briefly about the fact of that phone call, they don't, the prosecution doesn't have to prove that he actually committed the crime of a violation of election laws, just that he intended to. And that kind of goes to this idea of his plan, his scheme, so much testimony around the plan and the scheme. So I think in closings, what we're going to see from the prosecution is a real emphasis on the fact that so many witnesses told the same story. That to me is like their number one strongest piece of the case. This is what I would say, right? You don't have to believe Michael Cohen.

You don't have to even believe David Pecker, but every witness that showed up told you the same thing. They all told you that there was this scheme to help them win the election. We even heard from the campaign, Hope Hicks, that he wanted how bad this Access Hollywood was and how much this was hurting him. And not Ed, you heard from the defendant himself. You heard from Trump himself willing to pay this hush money payment to Karen McDougal. And the jury will be instructed that they can use that evidence to help support the fact that he intended

to make the payment to Stormy Daniels with the intent to interfere with the election. So I think the prosecution is gonna say, every witness showed up and told you the same story. Trump told you that story in his own words and Trump told you his own words in the tweet, in the book. I would, if I were the prosecution, really emphasize all of the, I mean, Trump testified in this case.

Let's be frank about that, right, Michael? He testified. He testified in ways that a typical defendant would not have had that much of his own words in a case. But we heard his tape recording that was already played twice to the jury, the book where he talks about the micromanaging, his tweets, there are so many of his own words.

And if I were the prosecution, that's what I would be quoting to the jury is all the things that Trump said himself, and then also say, you don't even have to believe one of these witnesses alone because they all say the same thing. And when you got that kind of overwhelming nature of it, it's going to be really tough because the defense in their opening, their argument was really like, oh, there's nothing wrong with an office manager putting in a ledger. These are just documents. There's nothing wrong with it. So, of course, typically, there's nothing wrong with that. Also be a responsibility of the prosecution is to kind of help explain that the jury instructions

will help the jury understand what the law is. Like, what does it mean for Donald Trump to have caused the falsification of the documents? We know he wasn't the one who actually put the ledger in. He did sign some of those checks. He didn't actually put the ledger in. What does that mean from a legal point of view? Jury instructions are hugely important. I know you know this, Michael, with the trials that you've done. They're hugely important because that's how the jury is going to fit the facts and decide, is that causing it? And so the prosecution is going to have to walk them through that a little bit. And to your point, Donald Trump didn't physically prepare his statements of financial condition,

his personal financial condition reports that were at the heart of the New York attorney general case. That didn't stop Judge Engoran after eight weeks of trial, determining that Donald Trump fraudulently had those prepared. Causing them to be prepared is fine. I don't expect Donald Trump, even though he says he counts every paperclip in his books, to actually physically go into his general ledgers and make entries. Nobody believes that.

The problem of many problems that the defense has is that their theory of the case is presented to the jury in a 20-minute opening statement, which I was shocked by the brevity of it. I'm all about brevity, but it's the soul of wit. However, when you're fighting for your life and for your freedom, I don't think it's 20 minutes of fake laughter about the Trump Tower conspiracy, which is a compelling narrative that the prosecutors not only laid out to the jury, but delivered on time and time again with 19 witnesses, including one that happens to be named Michael Cohen and all the evidence behind it and audio

tapes, as you said, as Karen said on our Wednesday podcast, re-corroborating, re-corroborating, re-corroborating. Michael Cohen was bolstered by 19 other witnesses and documents and ledgers and entries from low-level people in the Trump organization that Donald Trump, if he tripped over them, wouldn't remember their name, who had to testify against him, to outside witnesses. The fact that almost like a sporting,

a sport, the prosecutors were so successful in going inside and outside, inside witnesses in the Trump organization currently who had to testify. Ones that used to work for Donald Trump who were his main money men, like Jeff McConney, the controller, who worked with Alan Weisselberg, who's in jail. And then outside people like David Pecker. David Pecker, if I'm right about jury science, it's not my science. It's just jury science. Then the jury, after the openings in David Pecker, were ready to convict Donald Trump because David Pecker was that bad just because it happened.

You know, juries operate under recency and primacy. Primacy is sort of the first thing they hear and recency is the last. Primacy is Pecker and recency is Cohen. And they're ready to vote. The defense case appears to be, and let me just manage expectations. As Ben and I have said in the past, Donald Trump is not taking the stand. There is, I would be shocked. I will eat this microphone if Donald Trump takes the stand in front of this jury. I really, and to your point, think about this. And I want to step back because

we don't blow smoke or sunshine here. If I were Donald Trump's lawyer, could you imagine the power of the imagery on the jury and changing the weather in the room with Melania coming into the room right before Stormy Daniels was about to testify and just laying a hand on Donald's shoulder from the back before sitting down in the courtroom? And think about what that would have done to the jury. Right, if I were Donald Trump's lawyers, I would have said, Melania's got a show, and this is when she's got a show, okay?

But Melania is not gonna be used as a prop. And she's made that clear. She's not gonna let Barron be used as a prop. She's not gonna be used as a prop. Deep down inside, she knows her husband was a floundering playboy who screwed around outside the marriage. She knows in her heart that all those things that came out in the E. Jean Carroll case about the women he attacked, about the reporters he pushed up against the wall while they were you know doing a tour of his house

when Melania left the room are all true. I mean, you know, she's angry about it, and that's why she wasn't there. And as you said, literally, if the family is not behind the defendant in the courtroom, emotionally, physically, and in reality, that's a signal to the jury they got a bad guy who even his family doesn't support, right? And that's the stuff that can come up in deliberation.

It's not a fact or a law, but they have eyes and they're allowed to use their sense and sensibility and they're told to use their intelligence that God gave them in making their deliberations. And the prosecutor, whether it's Matt Colangelo or Josh Steinglass or, I can, or the woman who just, come to me in a minute. One of the, thank you, Hoffinger, thank you, Salty. Susan Hoffinger, one of them is doing the closing. If I had to guess, it's usually, I mean, I think it's gonna be Matt Colangelo, but we'll see.

And they'll say, remember all the, the point I was trying to make that I got lost in, is that the prosecution didn't talk down to the jury and treated them with respect and told them what this case was going to be about and what the evidence would show, and delivered in that in spades. By contrast, Todd Blanch insulted the jury by being laughing and jovial and jocular. Oh, the Trump Tower conspiracy. Yes, the Trump Tower conspiracy. And you heard from two of the witnesses, and they're going to make Blanch pay and all of his little weird things and acting out and fighting and disrespect. They're going to remind the jury about that. And

they're going to ask the jury to deliver a verdict for the people of the state of New York against Donald Trump for a felony on 34 counts. And I'll just leave it on this and then we're gonna talk about some other things in the show, of course. I think it's binary. I want to hear your opinion on this. Meaning, yes, there's 34 counts, but he's either guilty of all of them or he's guilty of none of them. Could they go, we'll have to see in terms of jury instructions, whether Trump's lawyers want an exit for the jury and ask for a lesser included offense of misdemeanor, and he'll take the misdemeanor because it'll be no jail time. And he can say,

Wichita, I had to take a deal, so I took the deal. Or they go, F it, we just want to be exonerated. If they do that, the 34 counts are really like 11 entries in the books and 12 checks and this and that. He either did it or he didn't do it. I don't think they're like, well, on these five checks to Michael Cohen, that's definitely a crime, but these eight are not a crime. No way. It's either, what do you think? Light on, light off? Okay. That is a really good question because I, that's the one time, the reason why I believe so much in our jury system is because juries sometimes even are so good at really parsing

it down to the detail. So it is possible they could convict him on the checks he signed, but not the ones that Eric signed. I don't think that's going to happen because there's so much evidence of this overarching scheme and the causation of it. But that's the only wiggle room that I see a little bit is it did possibly they could say he didn't know enough to cause the ones that Eric signed. That's very good. That would be the only good one. Do you think that they, and then we'll take a break to our sponsor. Well, let me ask you after

the break. After the break, I'm going to, and you can think about it now. Do you think that Trump's lawyers flinch in this game of chicken that they're playing and ask that the jury be instructed on the lesser included offense of a misdemeanor on the books and records offense, which is only a misdemeanor unless there's a second crime, or do they just double down, triple down because their client is up their backside and just do the instruction on felony and hope that they can win it.

We'll talk about that in Dina's response to that. Then I wanna turn our podcast to the contempt resolutions coming out of MAGA Congress against Merrick Garland and the assertion of executive privilege by Joe Biden related to the audio, not the transcripts of those have all been released. The pardon me, the audio of his interview with Robert Hurl, the special counsel, related to his handling of classified documents. And then we're going to talk about Judge Alito, Justice Alito, sorry, and his upside-down flag next to his driveway that flew, and his excuse for it, and what it means for the independence of the judiciary as they consider some of the most important constitutional

issues of our time this term still to come in the next month or so. And then finally justice or at least partial justice for the Pelosi family as the attacker of Paul Pelosi gets sentenced to 30 years in jail for federal crimes. And we'll talk about what happens with the state crimes next. But first a word from our sponsors. Have you heard that the flavored air category is quickly becoming the leading alternative to vaping and smoking?

It's a whole new movement towards better habits led by the sponsor of today's video, Fume. Fume is an award-winning flavored air device and flavored air isn't like vaping. If vapor was compared to sticky soda, Fume cores are closer to herbal teas. Fume has lots of delicious flavors to choose from like crisp mint and orange vanilla.

With flavored air, you can satisfy your oral fixation through a passive diffusion system that utilizes no electronics, vapor or combustion. Instead, fume draws flavor to your mouth. Fume fills the void ditching a bad habit can leave. There's no vapor and you can use it anywhere. There's no nicotine and it's not addictive. The non-toxic flavors are a guilt-free alternative.

Fume doesn't use any batteries, so you'll never need to charge it. The design is super sleek, it looks awesome, and you can truly feel the weighted high quality design. I mean, one of the fun things about Fume is that it's made to fidget with and calms anxiety with magnet snaps and clicks. Fume continuously invests in third party studies

to ensure the safety of their products. My favorite Fume flavor is the orange vanilla. It's just as delicious as it sounds. And look, if you're trying to kick your bad habit, I couldn't recommend Fume enough. Fume has served over 300,000 customers and you can be the next success story. For a limited time, use my code LEGALAF

to get a free gift with your journey pack. Head to tryfume.com. That's T-R-Y-F-U-M.com and use code LEGALAF or scan the QR code on the screen to get a free gift with your order today. Premium proteins, vibrant veggies, tantalizing textures. What you get as a dog that's actually excited about dinner. I love my dog, Lily.

You can hear her in the background. She's a truly a member of the family and sometimes accidentally appears in my videos. That's why I serve her num-n Nom, the top quality food she deserves. Nom Nom delivers freshly made dog food personalized to your dog's taste preferences and unique caloric needs. Dogs love great tasting meals just like us, yet their nutritional needs are different than ours. That's why Nom Nom's Nutrient Pack recipes are developed by board-certified veterinary nutritionists, freshly made, and ship free to your door. Recipes are made with 100% premium ingredients,

which means 0% freaky fillers or funky stuff. NomNom has already delivered over 40 million meals. That's because the best dogs like yours deserve the best food. NomNom. Find NomNom at Chewy.com, at local PetSmart stores, or have it delivered straight to your door. Nom Nom provides your dog's favorite recipes whenever, wherever, and however you want them. Nom Nom's vet-developed recipes can be served as complete and balanced meals,

used as healthy and tasty toppers, or even offered as a treat. Say goodbye to boring dog food, and give your dog a reason to run to their bowl with every meal every day. I love my dog, Lily, which is why I'm committed to only giving her the best. If your dog doesn't fall in love with it,

you'll get your money back guaranteed. NomNom is now available at Chewy.com and your local PetSmart stores, or you can get 50% off your no risk trial box by going to trynom.com slash legal AF. Spell try N-O-M dot com slash legal AF for 50% off your first subscription order. And I'm back with Deena Dahl sitting in for a marrying

than myself. I only get to use that once. So I'm really I'm really working it. I'm proud of Ben. And I've known Ben and Sochi for a long time. And Ben's known Sochi for a long time. So I'm really glad that we're all coming together to celebrate his nuptials and a lot of Midas Touch people are going to be there. Some of which I've only known virtually are on Zooms and things. I mean, you know, it'll be a lot of fun. But we're back. And so now, while I have the luxury of having Dina with me, let's dive into Merrick Garland and what's going on with the food fight in MAGA. I mean, listen, they can't do anything right. They can't legislate. They haven't passed a darn thing that helps the American family or their pocketbook.

Any issues around the kitchen table are completely ignored. They don't care about the American people. They're a do nothing Congress. And so they kill their time with phony contempt hearings and impeachment hearings and Hunter Biden hearings and, Biden hearings and and revenge porn against Hunter Biden and stealing and profiting from the theft of Ashley Biden's diary. This is the Congress that you want. This is like an ad campaign for the Congress. Vote, vote, vote red. Vote red on November, November 5. And so it really got, you know, if you've only seen clips of it,

you may not know the context. So I wanted to give the context. Here's the context. Over a month ago, almost two months ago, the actual Robert Herr special counsel report after a year and a half of investigation, finding no crimes committed by Joe Biden for the time period interstitial between the time he was the vice president and before he was president. And what he did with some documents that he took with him after he left office,

you know, that report already came out. It was 335 pages. And in it, I didn't love everything in it, but you know, I don't blow smoke or sunshine either. And there were parts of it that I was like, did he really have to get into this particular fact at that moment in his recommendation not to prosecute? But he did. And so we talked about it at length, and sort of the waters calmed around it and we're done. Then the transcript came out. Public. You can go find it right now on Google. I'll put up a link in my

ex account. They'll take you right to the... You want to read boring two and a half days of testimony by under oath with a court reporter of Joe Biden? You can. It's all right there, but that wasn't good enough for MAGA. They want the audio. Why? Obviously, they want to use it for political purposes. They want to cut and paste it and do deep fake commercials and ads for Trump and try to a couple of times when there's a verbal gaffe, as if their guy isn't verbal gaffing enough. He can barely get a sentence out when he's at a rally. He can't read his teleprompter, but they want to try to do the same thing against Joe Biden, you know. And so that's the reason for the audio.

So the Office of Legal Counsel, which is the internal law firm for the president, whoever occupies the office, analyzed the request. All the other subpoena documents were given over and cooperation was given. Remember, we have a separation of three co-equal branches of government here. In order for Congress to do fact-finding and have investigations, there has to be a legitimate purpose. The purported legitimate purpose of asking for the audio is they're trying to get to the bottom of whether they should impeach Joe Biden, which I don't even understand. And that's why you know it's a canard, because it has to be a high crime and misdemeanor while he

was in office. Well, this is pre-president and post-vice president, so I don't get how it could be a high crime and misdemeanor that they could even bring an impeachment proceeding over, which is where they get their only power from. Putting that aside for a minute, that never stopped the twin gyms, Jim Jordan and Jim Comber, from using their oversight committee and their judiciary committee from going after the Biden family, right? Why not? So now they want the audio.

We want the audio, and we're gonna hold Merrick Garland in contempt for his refusal to turn it over, except Merrick Garland and the Office of Legal Counsel recommended to President Biden that he assert executive privilege because they're worried about the deleterious impact on future investigations if they have to turn over the audio, which has no legal purpose in the investigation, only

a political one. And Joe Biden, as the president in the office, asserted executive privilege, meaning this is all a show because there'll never be a contempt proceeding against Merrick Garland, despite it coming out of Congress. Comment on that, and then I got to show the food fight that was started by Marjorie Taylor Greene as the oversight committee, headed by James Comer, was voting on the resolution for the contempt. Both committees voted, judiciary and oversight, but the food fight broke out, led by Marjorie Taylor Greene in a disrespectful way in the oversight committee vote.

But talk about the whole contempt thing from your perspective, and then we'll end with the clip. Okay, I love your twin gyms. That's awesome. I'm gonna have to borrow that. And just really quickly to answer the question before the break is whether or not the prosecution was going to want them misdemeanor or just the felony.

Thank you for that. I screwed up. It was a great question. You didn't ask her the question. I forgot. It's only because I was so intrigued by my nom nom ad that I totally forgot about it. So I apologize. This is called live TV. Okay. Yes, I definitely wanted to hear from you on that and then pick up with the contempt hearings. Well, it was a great question because in Trump world, these are almost unanswerable, right? Because we have what we'll be doing in a typical situation and then we add in Trump and so it becomes like this big unknown. Because in any typical situation, you would definitely include the lesser offense. I would almost think it would be like malpractice, not to be quite honest, because being convicted of a misdemeanor is by far much better than a

felony. And you want to give maybe the jury that option. There's enough evidence, but not enough, and you don't want to leave them with the worst option. But in Trump world, their cross-examination of Stormy Daniels, I thought was so unstrategic. They're not being very strategic. It is more about this being a farce. So I don't know. I mean, maybe they will not include the misdemeanor because Trump doesn't want them to, but it I don't know. Maybe they will not include the misdemeanor, because Trump doesn't want them to. But it would be highly unusual not to do that.

So maybe he'll listen to his attorneys and they'll include it. So hopefully that was a good answer. And then to the Merrick Garland point, so yeah. I'm so glad, first of all, that they asserted executive privilege, because lots of times I feel like Democrats really do try to follow the law and buy the books and are overly accommodating and you can't be accommodating with MAGA. And so, you know, they have the transcript, as you said, and how you balance executive privilege is balancing because like you said, we have separation of powers, is like the

importance basically between the seeker and the holder of the information. So is the information so important to Congress to kind of override this privilege of the presidency? And the answer is no, because they have the transcript. Maybe if they didn't have the transcript, you could argue that it was essential to know the words, but they have the word. So the importance of hearing it over reading it, even according to Republicans, they really are saying like, we need to be able to assess like his state of mind to know whether or not he's capable of being president. And very easy answer to that is like, well, then just go have a meeting with him. Right? Like he's right there. He's very easy to talk to. You can go talk to him and assess his mental ability anytime you want. You don't have to

listen to this specific recording back in September. In fact, you can argue that it's maybe no longer relevant. His mental state of mind today for how he's functioning in the government is more relevant. So they don't have a strong argument at all for why it's so important to have the audio versus the writing. And I think Merrick Garlin making a good point too of like, President Biden did this voluntarily.

The last thing you want is a president who's voluntarily doing this, not to be able to have some protection of executive privilege. And to this oversight committee, I know we're gonna be looking at the tape, but they took their vote so late because so many of those MAGA members of the committee

showed up at that New York criminal trial that they had to travel back to DC and they did it so late. And if I were their constituents, I would be mad that they were spending time on this criminal trial instead of in DC, in the business. It just goes to show, I think, again, the abuse of power that's coming out in the courtroom, and here they are. They can't even show up in time to vote on what they think is so important because they were too busy showing up to his trial. Yeah, that's a very good observation, Dina, about the lesser-included defense.

I'm glad that you remembered to answer it and the connection that you made about MAGA, again, not being able to be really credible or honest about wanting to be legislators, because they're busy being political props for Donald Trump and their tryouts for the vice presidency and all of that. And the issue about the compass mentis of Joe Biden and his mental ability, first of all, that's not the grounds for... Congress doesn't assert the 25th Amendment.

The 25th Amendment to remove a president is done by his cabinet and done by people that can vote for that. You know, you can't, it's not a high crime and misdemeanor, even if you thought that Joe Biden had some sort of mental difficulty. That's not high crime and misdemeanor. So again, I don't think if that is their defense for it, it only proves the point of the White House, the Office of Legal Counsel. And for those that don't follow it as closely as we do, the office of the OLC is very respected. In fact, the United States Supreme Court, I wouldn't call it the 10th Justice, but the United States Supreme Court, when they make their rulings about things,

often refer to the OLC's position as the definitive position, at least to the executive branch, and give it a lot of merit. When we heard the debate, the oral argument on the immunity issue, there was a lot of discussion about the OLC and the Office of Legal Counsel's memos about immunity and prosecutions. And that's what we're talking about that just to educate,

we're talking about that same thing right here. So yeah, why don't we turn to Alito, unfortunately. You know, we spent the last year talking about the challenged ethics of mainly MAGA right-wing justices, whether it was Clarence Thomas in a Pulitzer Prize winning analysis by ProPublica about him being in bed with Harlan Crow and taking millions of dollars of undisclosed gifts and travel and an RV loan for that RV where he wants to roam around America

meeting average people. We got a $300,000 loan primarily from foreign sources that was forgiven and not repaid. We had all of that. That was eight months ago or nine months ago. We had the reporting about Chief Justice Roberts' wife making millions of dollars in legal head hunting fees, placing lawyers at law firms that regularly do business in front of the United States Supreme Court. We had another MAGA justice,

right-wing justice, who sold his vacation home to a lawyer and law firm that regularly appears before the United States Supreme Court. And then you always have Alito, always in the thick of an ethical dilemma. You know, he goes after the Dobbs decision gets leaked by, I don't know, Sam Alito, which concretized and made almost immovable the normal negotiations over the opinion, taking away a woman's right to choose and overturning Roe versus Wade. When that got leaked, he then went to Europe and gave speeches in front of Catholic organizations like the University of Notre Dame in which he laughed. He laughed. It wasn't a hard decision.

He laughed about it. You know, he ridiculed his critics about the Dobbs decision. So Sam Alito has always given some sort of speech. And just earlier in the week, and I did a hot take on this, he did a speech in front of another Catholic university where he talked about the First Amendment being under assault and religious freedom being under assault, but particularly First Amendment being under assault. And you see where he would vote on the campus protests that are going on now concerning Israel's response to the Hamas

terrorist group. And so I thought that was an odd timing for that. Court's still in session. Normally they wait till the summer break to go off on junkets that are paid for and give these kind of speeches, usually outside the country. But no, he's doing, this is commencement season, so he did a commencement speech while court is still in session. And we're still waiting for rulings on gun control, abortion again, and immunity for Donald Trump's criminal acts while he was president. That's not the time to be making this, so I sort of like went, I was like in a head scratch,

you're like, hmm, that's interesting, why is he doing that now? And then two days later, the New York Times reports that there was a, that there's a photo from 11 days, I think it's January 17th, 11 days after Jan 6, flying right next to his car, you can't miss it, and up a giant, and I have one of these flags at my office, a giant 22-foot flag upside down on a pole next to his driveway. And his response to that was, well, my wife, I love the chivalry here, my wife turned it upside down

and I didn't know about it, which is impossible, because she was in a feud with neighbors who had an F Trump sign on their lawn and then said nasty things to her, and that was her response. Unfortunately for Mrs. Alito, she's married to a United States Supreme Court justice, just like Ginny Thomas is married to United States Supreme Court justice. And so she's going to need to curtail her First

Amendment expression because it looks like it's coming from the justice. And that is the symbol, universal, for Stop the Steal, okay, and the Trump movement, and fraud of the election, and SOS, America under attack. Okay, wrong time, tin ear, inappropriate, and now if Alito thought that emailing the New York Times blaming his wife was gonna be the end of it, forget about it. You got Sheldon Whitehouse,

who people say is my doppelganger, although he's considerably older than I am, but it's okay, is a part, with his Senate Judiciary Committee, is going after Alito. There's calls for Chief Justice Roberts to do something about it under the new ethics code that they adopted, and maybe impeachment proceedings against Alito as a result.

I wanna hear from you now that I've kind of laid it out there. What did you think about it? What do you think it means for the United States Supreme Court and its legitimacy and its credibility with the American people? And what should Joe Biden do about it, if anything? I mean, it is very bad for the credibility and legitimacy.

The Supreme Court, like all aspects of our democracy, only has as much power as we the people give it. And so this appearance of unbiased is huge. That flag upside down was on there after the riots. So after the January 6th insurrection, after this attempt to stop the peaceful transition of power, after all that, you can't even say it was maybe in December when you didn't really understand what this movement was all about. It was after the riot that that was up there. And there's neighbors' testimony that it was up there for at least several days. And Justice Alito's argument that it was his wife that did it, I'm like, you're a lawyer, okay? And

in your home, let's say somebody comes to my house and it hurts themselves. Me and my husband are both at risk. We both are liable for that injury because both of us have our names on our home. Nevermind, if you're married, if you take on a debt, that becomes your husband's debt and vice versa. But especially your home, you are liable for whatever both of you honestly do with that home. So for him as a lawyer to say as an excuse, oh, my wife did it and tried to distance himself, I don't know, it would be laughable if it wasn't so awful because that symbol is not like honestly, like even just putting up a Trump sign would have been against the rules, but putting up a sign that's really saying that our election was fraudulent is

huge. And the Supreme Court has a memo from 2022 that says there's not supposed to be any political activity, including things like bumper stickers on their car. So if they're not supposed to put a bumper sticker on their car, they certainly wouldn't be able to fly this kind of a political statement on their house. So Justice Alito knew this. It wasn't like this was up there for an hour and he didn't see it. And so there's no excuse for it. And I think we've gotten to the point where if Chief Justice Roberts isn't willing to police his own justices, we do have to get Congress involved because otherwise we're going to lose

like any sense of credibility in the justice system, which Trump is already trying to damage our justice system and all of his MAGA people by showing up and discrediting the jury system over and over and over again in New York for the past weeks. I think they say that Fox has aired like 33 live statements of his from the courtroom, it's only been disparaging the judge and the justice system. That's causing the damage you're causing and I can't overstate it. But then you have Justice Alito doing the same thing. And if Roberts isn't willing to step in, he should be recusing himself because he has two big cases. He has one, the Trump immunity case that's coming up, but he also has the January 6 obstruction charge case,

which is like exactly the people having to deal with the Stop the Steal movement, the people who came that day in order to stop the transfer because they thought the election was fraudulent. It's that movement that believes in that upside down flag and whether or not that's a valid charge is literally in front of the Supreme Court. I cannot think of a more closely aligned issue to that political statement he put on his house and that January 6 obstruction charge, even closer to the immunity case that Trump is doing.

But that one is the same thing because that immunity case also has to do with the January 6 rally and him supporting the thing. So Chief Justice Roberts should, I think, have Justice Alito overuse himself from those two cases in order to try to regain some semblance of some unbiased of the court. Because you know, Michael, if this was a regular lower court judge that did this, forget it, right? It wouldn't happen. They would have repercussions. The more powerful you become in our country shouldn't mean that you have the ability to do more. It should mean you have more constraints on you. And if a judge I showed up in a civil case down the street, you know, won't take like sports tickets from a company because they think it looks

bad, our chief justice shouldn't be putting up this stop this deal on his home. Right, or the associate justice. But then think of it this way. Suppose I'm a litigant where justice is supposed to be blind, and the Supreme Court is especially supposed to be independent judiciary. And I'm driving by Sam Alito's house on the way to an oral argument involving one of my cases. And as I drive by, not knowing who actually ran the flag up the pole, wife or housekeeper or Sam Alito himself, I ride by the house

and my GPS says, Sam Alito house on left and I see an upside down flag on my way to argue my case. Or if I'm the client, how does that make me feel? What country have I just entered? If I had seen that and I was an advocate, I would call it out during the oral argument. Justice Alito, I don't know why, you may not know this, but you have an upside down flag in front of your house while I'm making this argument.

What would he have said then on the spot and on the fly? He didn't see it as he was pulling out of the driveway every day? And so to answer the question in the chat about impeachment, not with this Congress, vote blue in November. There's no time limit on impeachment. And I think the issues that we've talked about with Clarence Thomas, and Sam Alito, especially, should be the subject of an investigation as

to whether they should be impeached. I don't know about convicted for their misconduct, but it's gonna have to await a new Congress and hopefully one controlled by the Democrats. Because that's the other thing that goes to your point. The reason that people in high positions of power are not being held accountable is because you have MAGA Congress in control

and they're letting it fly. The same week we learned about, to put the book in these two things, the same week we learned about Sam Alito's upside down flag on his house, is the same week that Matt Gaetz used the Proud Boys vocabulary to tell President Trump that they are standing by,

what's the phrase they always use? Stand back, we're standing back and standing by, what's the phrase they always use? Stand back, we're standing back and standing by President Trump. Right, the proud boys racist white supremacist slogan is being used by Matt Gaetz as a dog whistle to his racist followers. At the same time, you got an upside down flag on Sam Alito's house.

If this was being pitched as a TV movie or the new movie Civil War, it would have been rejected by the producers. No, we can't. That couldn't pass. That wouldn't happen. It's happening. We're watching it. We're talking about it. We're calling it out. And we're going to call out a lot more things. I want to get back to the clip that I forgot about. You can tell I'm traveling. I haven't had enough coffee. I forgot about that clip. We had a little technical difficulties. I forgot about the clip of the food fight.

We're gonna get back to that. And then we're gonna talk about the David DePay finally being sentenced for the crime that he committed, which the sentencing judge referred to it as unprecedented, reminding us all that it's the first time in the American history that a federal officials house was broken into and somebody, a family member

or was harmed and almost grievously harmed. We'll talk about all of that, but first, another word from our sponsors. How much do you think you're paying in subscriptions every month? The answer is probably more than you think. Over 74% of people have subscriptions they've forgotten about. I definitely did.

Like the time I forgot about that I subscribed to Paramount Plus. But thanks to Rocket Money, I'm no longer wasting money on the ones I forgot about. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so that you can grow your savings. With Rocket Money, I have full control over my subscriptions and a clear view of my expenses. I can see all of my subscriptions in one place.

And if I see something I don't want, Rocket Money can help me cancel it with a few taps. I love how the dashboard shows me this month's spending compared to last month, so I can clearly see my spending habits. Plus, they'll help me create a custom budget and keep my spending on track. Rocket Money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you

by up to 20%. All you got to do is submit a picture of your bill and Rocket Money takes care of the rest. They'll deal with customer service for you. Rocket Money has over five million users and has saved a total of 500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to 740 bucks a year

when using all of the apps features. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. That's rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. Rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. Look at my recording studio. You don't think I worry about window treatments?

You don't think I care about privacy? Look at the windows behind me. I need window treatments. And now finally, there's a better way to buy blinds and window treatments. It's called 3Day Blinds. They're the leading manufacturer of custom window treatments in the US.

And right now, they're running a buy one, get one 50% off deal. We can shop for almost anything at home. Why not shop for blinds at home too? 3Day Blinds has local, professionally trained design consultants who have an average of 10 years or more of experience that provide expert guidance on the right blinds for you and the comfort of your home.

Just set up an appointment and you'll get a free no obligation quote the same day. Not very handy, I'm not. The expert team at 3Day Blinds handles all the heavy lifting. They design, measure, and install. So you can sit back, relax, and leave it to the pros. There's a better way to buy blinds and window treatments.

It's called 3Day Blinds. They're the leading manufacturer of custom window treatments in the US. 3Day Blinds has been in business for 45 years, and you may not hear it in the name, but they make an incredibly high quality product. That's why they are the highest rated blinds company on TrustPilot at 4.7 out of five stars.

No matter your unique need, from motorization to home automation to room darkening or child safety, with 3-Day Blinds, you choose from thousands of options that fit any budget or style, and with actual samples, you won't be guessing about what your blinds will look like. Right now, you can get 3-Day Blinds, buy one, get one 50% off deal on custom blinds,

shades, shutters, and drapery. For a free, no charge, no obligation consultation, just head to 3dayblinds.com slash Legal AF. That's buy one, get one 50% off when you head to 3dayblinds.com slash Legal AF. One last time, that's the number three, D-A-Y, blinds.com slash Legal AF. One more time. And with all the money that you're saving with all of our pro-democracy sponsors, you

can join our patreon.com slash legal AF. Want to know more about the law at the intersection of law and politics, both for lawyers and non-lawyers? Both. You've come to the right place. We break it down to the molecular level, civil versus criminal, jury trials versus bench, opening statements versus closing arguments,

constitutional laws, civil rights, class actions, mediation, arbitration, you name it, we cover it. It's like a Ted talk and a law school class have a baby. Patreon.com slash legal AF. It's the cost of about a cup and a half of coffee per month to join. You'll get exclusive content you won't find anywhere else. Patreon.com slash legal AF.

I got a funny story, Dina, about, too funny. One involves you and your husband. And one involves my, where, I like where you're podcasting from today one of us by where I like where you're podcasting from today. But I comment on that. I don't know where that is. But that's very attractive. And so I was with I was with Don Lemon yesterday. At not name dropping or somebody said lemon dropping. I'm not lemon dropping. I was with Don had never met him in person. So we were talking and

he said to me just to show you that we are a family and it's not BS. He I didn't know he watched the show where he was a fan. So he said, Hey, popok, that set that you because you know, he's a he's a media guy. He said that set that you're on the one with the blue painting. Is that a is that a is that a filter? Or is that I go, what are you talking about? Because the thing behind you I go, Don, I'm'm not like, like we don't have, we don't have a budget. That's my office or that's my home.

He was like, that's a great set. I'm like, okay. So that was, that was funny. And then meeting your husband. Reinforce something for me that at the very beginning of four years ago, founding Legal AF was not that obvious, which was what was our target audience. The reality is our target audience is not just the educated non-lawyer who wants to know more about the law. That's certainly how we gear it.

We don't talk down, we don't blow smoke or sunshine. We're not patronizing, we just talk. But there is a fair amount of lawyers that are loyal fans and followers of the show. And your husband, who is a very successful business litigator in his own right, was like, I love the show. I watch it all the time. I you know, I love what you guys do. And I really, and I've heard this before, and I get it in chats, and I get it in private comments sent to me from lawyers. And it's it's rewarding, not because we're gearing the show for lawyers, but because if we're making them happy, in terms of content, then we must

be doing something right in terms of our research, our analysis, our presentation, and that reinforces this whole thing. So, you know, it's a high praise for me when a fellow lawyer says, I really like Legal AF. I mean, that's great for us. I really appreciated your husband saying that. Yeah. I mean, I do think that what you guys do and what I'm so grateful for becoming more

part of this community is it's informative. I mean, you can listen to cable news and you'll hear one fact for seven hours. But the reason why, I mean, let's be frank, the reason why you can like this as a lawyer is because you get into the weeds, you get into the information, like, why is the motion going to fail? Or why did the judge argue this? And then the part I love is because before law school, I was a journalist. And so being a legal analyst to me is like a marriage, perfect marriage, because I don't think the law is actually complicated, right? It's the people, it's the facts and the application of it that can sometimes make it complicated. So I love what you guys do here of communicating the law

because we all should know it. It shouldn't be the thing where just cause you have a law degree, you understand that judge is ruling because that judge is ruling, the judge was there because we put the judge there and the judge's ruling may not affect you in that particular case,

but it certainly affects the society you live in. And this shouldn't be some sort of like thing that you only understand because you happen to go to law school. We all can understand it. So I do feel like that's what I love so much about this network is it gives both the information, so that's why an educated lawyer couldn't like it, and it also has this understanding of we all can have this information. It's not beyond anybody's reach. It's just frankly, nobody else has done it. Nobody else is willing to go into the weeds, the actual facts, the actual law. I don't know why you guys thought of it and there is a need for it. Well, this is the marriage episode,

Ben's marriage and you being here, your marriage and my being able to see it in action and your marriage of journalistic integrity with your law background. And that's why I think whatever, we can't ever let you leave the network, whatever show you guys cook up, and I know I've given my two cents on it is gonna be a hit And of course, we're very very supportive of it

And thank you for filling in at the last minute here on legal AF now Let's talk about something as long as we're in, California. Let's stay in California and talk about what happened to Paul Pelosi. Oh, I got to do the clip. See, I'm I've lost it. Yep. It's the beginning. This is how it starts. I promised this clip and and salty said the audience is very forgiving. They're gonna let you bring this up later. I said, Okay, great. And then I forgot it again. So they're back, back before the ads and patreon.com, we talked about the contempt proceeding and

the two resolutions coming out of the Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee, the twin gyms, against, effectively against Joe Biden. And I said at the Oversight Committee that there was a food fight that broke out totally inappropriate beneath even, as Jamie Raskin put it, beneath even you, Marjorie Taylor Green, in her attack of a fellow member before they went to the vote. And we have a nice compilation clip here that Salty put together for us that I think it's important for our audience to see. So let's play that. I'd like to know if any of the Democrats on this committee are employing Judge Marshawn's daughter. Please tell me what that has to do with

Mayor Garland. Is she a porn star? Oh Goldman, that's right, he's advising. Okay. Do you know what we're here for? You know we're here. I don't think you know what we're here for you know we're here Well, you don't want to talking about I think your fake eyelashes are messing up Order mr. Chairman I do have a point of order and I would like to move to take down Miss Green's words. That is absolutely unacceptable. How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person. Are your feelings hurt? Move her words down. Oh girl, baby, girl. Oh really? Don't even play with me. Baby, girl, I don't think so. We are going to move and we're going to take your words words down I second that motion so miss green agrees to strike her words I believe then after

mr. Perry's you'll be recognized in this I'm not apologizing. No, let's go. Come on, guys. Why don't you debate me? Mr. Chairman, the minority. I think it's pretty self-evident. Yeah, you're not. You don't have enough intelligence. Chair recognizes Mr. Perry. OK, move to strike the ladies' words. I move to strike the ladies' words as well.

That's two requests to strike. That's two requests to strike. Oh, they cannot take the words. There's another motion to strike her words again. Please get two requests to strike. That's two requests to strike. Oh they cannot take the words. There's another motion to strike your words again. All right okay here's the correct the correct apology. Ms. Green do you ask unanimous consent do you agree to unanimous consent to strike your words? I repeat again for the second time yes I'll strike my words but I'm not apologizing. Without objection. Without objection. Mr. Chair, point of order. It's me. Ms. Crockett.

I'm just curious, just to better understand your ruling, if someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleach-blonde, bad-built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct? A what now? Chairman, I make a motion to strike those words. not be engaging in personalities, correct? A what now? Chairman, I make a motion to strike those words. I don't think that's a part of it. I'm trying to find clarification on what quality.

Chairman, motion to strike those words. I had no idea what you just said. We're not going to do this. Look, you guys earlier literally just said that. You just voted to do it. God did it first, so you don't have to talk about it. You just voted to do it. Order, order. I'm trying to do it. Order, order.

I'm trying to get clarification. Lookit, calm down. No, no, no, because this is what y'all do. I would like to get through proceedings. So I'm trying to get clarification. Hey, Ms. Crockett, you're not recognized. Ms. Crockett. I can't hear you with your yelling.

Calm down. No, don't tell me to calm down. Calm down. Because y'all tugged noise and then you can't take it. You're out of control. Well, that was an ad campaign for the Republican Party vote vote red in November. If you want more of that, Jamie Raskin, I thought was biting his tongue. He's there as the Democratic

minority leader next to Comer. Yeah, next to Yeah, he can't Comer can't figure out what ranking leader Thank you. Comer can't figure out what's going on. So he's got his parliamentarians behind him talking in his ear, because he doesn't know how to run a meeting. And then you've got Marjorie Taylor Greene that decides that it's a great look

to have a white Georgia representative go after a black representative female from California in the congressional record. And so what did that lead to that led to a vote that was dominated by the majority Republicans who voted to move along the contempt matter against Merrick Garland, which will go nowhere because the Department of Justice will not take their rec. That's all they can do. The good news, and I do this on a hot take, good news is Congress can't go out to court themselves.

They are a branch of government. They can make a recommendation and they can make resolutions all day long, but then the Department of Justice or the Executive Branch has to do something about it, and they're not going to do anything about it because they already have a White House Office of Legal Counsel opinion,

and the Attorney General has said that he's not that, and the executive privilege has been asserted, and that is the end of it. It doesn't even, even if it went to a court, the courts of DC Circuit are never going to find once an assertion of executive privilege has been made that Merrick Garland is in contempt. So even if it got out to court,

it wouldn't lead to anything. But we were just watching the disgusting, I mean, I said on my hot take, sure, 150 years ago, one member of Congress used a cane to almost beat to death another member of Congress, but I thought we were beyond that. You know, and this imagery of racist comments by Matt Gaetz, stand back and stand by, upside down flags on Justice Alito.

A white member of Congress on the right side going after a black member of Congress about her appearance. I mean, when does it end? There's a simple answer to it. And I'm gonna be very frank with people, point blank. I don't care whether you like Joe Biden or not. I don't care whether you have to hold your nose to vote for him.

If you're on, if you're sort of like still hung up about, oh, maybe, oh, I hate both of them, what should I, I don't care. Is this the democracy and the government that you want? Does this represent your morals and your ethics? If it does, then you know who to vote for. If it doesn't, and you're not concerned about what happens at the United States Supreme Court,

when inevitably there's going to be more openings, either by retirement or otherwise, while the next president is in office, and you want a seven to two right wing majority, you think the rulings are bad now? On religious freedom, on reproductive rights, on immigrant rights, on criminal rights, on immigrant rights, on criminal rights, on abortion, on gun control,

wait till there's a seven to two, eight to one. So it's just, I hadn't really seen the full length of that clip, now I got all hot-bothered. What's your impression of what devolved there and what does it mean for our audience and people that are watching us that have not yet made their decision about what party they want to vote for come November. Oh, gosh. Well, yes. I mean, voting obviously makes such a big difference because if Republicans

aren't in charge, they're not going to be chair of the committees and that kind of thing doesn't happen, right? But Marjorie Taylor Greene, it's like she needs to just leave and go to Fox because she can't obviously act in the decorum that the house needs a member to act in. You know, as a female out in the media, you know, people like to comment on how women look, right? I mean, this is like a typical sexist thing. And it usually is when somebody doesn't like what you have to say, but they can't come up with an intellectual argument that's good enough. And so it will devolve instead to how you look. It's like goes back to this elementary school sexist thing.

So that's what Marjorie Taylor Greene did. She couldn't come up because the representative Crockett was right. It had nothing to do with Judge Marchand's daughter. Marjorie Taylor Greene couldn't come up with an intellectual comeback to that. So what are you going to do? You're going to fall back on some sexist thing about how a woman looks. You know, that's like, it's so bothersome to me as a female, like where we are in this country, like the rollback of abortion rights, like the rollback of this idea of whether or not women

can have access to health care. Like in Idaho, they're having to, you know, go, they're having to air vac women out of Idaho, because they might die and they're too afraid to take care of the woman in the hospital. And then we are in the house and a woman is going to attack another woman about her looks. It's like disgusting. It just it's sad. To be honest, it's really sad. Like I was really hoping for Hillary Clinton to become the first female president. Like I

obviously voted for her. I brought my daughter to the voting booth and I was just like, oh my gosh, this is where we're at. And it's certainly not where we're at. And it's gotten so much, so much worse than that. And it's really deeply disappointing as a female that Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to go there. But I have to say having somebody like AOC in my corner in a moment like that would be like a dream scenario. I love how she, you know, that Representative Crockett didn't have to come to her own defense. I mean, she chose to do it later and she chose to do it in the most elegant way. It was awesome that alliteration she came up with on the spot was awesome. But in the moment, another woman

came to her defense, and that's the Democratic Party today. Women having other women's backs. We're fighting for our right to reclaim choices of our own bodies. And there is AOC who's got a lot of political power, is becoming more and more politically powerful within the Democratic Party, jumping in, fired up, having Representative Crockett's back. And, you know, we cannot do anything about the Marjorie Taylor Greens, except for vote. But we can also support the women in our party who are doing a phenomenal job like AOC and Representative Crockett. And I think Marjorie Trelo Green took that shot at Representative Crockett because she's

been getting a lot of attention because she is so eloquent on that floor. She's actually from Texas, not California, but she is so eloquent. She's making so many good points. Marjorie Chalabreen sees a rising star and she's just jealous. So for every other woman out there who's ever been disparaged about how they look or whatever, it usually comes from some sort of jealousy. And she's jealous of her rising power because in a few years, hopefully we won't hear about Marjorie Chalabreen anymore. Her chance to vote Mike Johnson out and that failure was such a huge embarrassment. I don't know.

Hopefully we're seeing the peak and the beginning of her downfall, but Representative Crockett, we're just seeing the beginning. And I think that bothers Marjorie Tiller-Green. Yeah. I almost... I love Comber's response. Just a point of clarification. So if I made a comment about a butch body,

blonde, bad bitch, and Comber's like, oh now what, what now? Just went right over his head. He just went right over his head. And you can see Jamie Raskin, who knew what was going on, sort of like suppressing a laugh behind his thing. He's, he's, he's running right now on the network with an interview with Michael Cohen, talk about all the world's colliding on Midas Touch, finding

it right now there's he's he's running there's an interview running right now related to them. Let's move on to, to end the show with the Paul Pelosi. So Paul Pelosi had the misfortune of being home in his home While Nancy was the speaker of the house. It was in Washington and there was a late-night knock at the door and Paul Pelosi Wearing what you wear when you get disturbed in the middle of the night your underwear and an undershirt Shows up at the door in the vestibule In a San Francisco home and

he's met by somebody who broke and entered. David DePay, a 44 year old Canadian, originally from Canada guy, who's there with a plan. His plan echoing those words of the Jan 6th attackers, where's Nancy? Where's Nancy? Because they wanted a hanger. He started, he started yelling. He was looking for Nancy Pelosi because his plan was, as came out in the trial, to kidnap her, to kidnap her, to tie her up and to interview her on FaceTime Live while he wore a unicorn costume. I am not making this up. I know people are like, Popak's tired. He's been traveling. That can't really be true. It is. I don't need to make stuff up. I just report it. So he was going to wear a unicorn costume and interview her about all of the things that she did against democracy. Okay. And he had zip ties for her hands and,

you know, he was ready to go. The hammer that he used to attack Paul Pelosi I think he actually found in the house. I'm not sure he brought the hammer with him but either way the cops are late to the scene. I'm trying to set the scene myself here. Cops are late to the scene. He and you know Paul Pelosi's trying to call while David De Pape is in his house. You know like one of those bad horror movies, I'm in the house, the guy was in the house. And the dispatchers like not believe, like who?

I'm sorry, who? Like Paul Pelosi, Senator, I mean, Congress, Speaker of the House Pelosi's husband. Like how they don't know on like a red phone line that this is like the Speaker of the House is house I have no idea but he's like debating with the dispatcher cops finally show up after minutes and in full view of the cops while they're trying to talk him down and they're trying to assess the scene with this

guy in his underwear 82 years old and David to pay David to pay takes the hammer and slams it into Paul Pelosi's head a couple of times. He crumbles to the ground, almost killed him. Then they finally arrest him. MAGA right wing news media and people like Marjorie Taylor Greene jump on a disgusting, dehumanizing, anti-gay attack on Paul Pelosi, the victim, rather than say, oh that's terrible, we have to come together in America, we can't allow

elected officials or their families to be victims of crimes, we have to do something about it. They said, oh Paul Pelosi was on a gay date or he was hiring a gay prostitute and things went awry. Why was he in his underwear at 2 o'clock in the morning when he answered the door? Who was that guy? And all these other innuendos disgusting things that just show you again, again, if you're looking for a party,

make sure it aligns with your morals and your ethics. And if this one does, God love you. So the pape gets prosecuted for federal crimes and state crimes. He goes to trial. They try a defense. It fails and he gets convicted. Why don't you tell our audience about what the Department of Justice asked for under

the federal sentencing guidelines, what the defense asked for, what the judge finally did in her comments, and then we can talk at the end, wrap it up with the outstanding state proceeding when he finally comes out of jail, they'll have a federal prison, that'll have to face the music concerning. Mm-hmm. Yes, so he got the 30 years, which was pretty much the maximum.

He could have gotten like 20 for kidnapping, 30 for assault. The judge gave the full 30 because of this idea that she said that it was so, we really needed deterrent. We really want to make sure somebody doesn't go and try to basically attack the Speaker of the House's family again. So did that, the maximum sentence in order to really hold this person to account. And the defense really was that he was, especially in their sentencing arguments, was that he was taken advantage of, that this was a vulnerable person who believed in the conspiracy theories. And it does sound true, like you said, he really was trying to kidnap her entire up

to get the real truth. He really believed in that conspiracy theory of there being a democratic cabal that was really running the government. He believed it, that's why he did it. But the judge was like, kind of like, even if you did, you did the crime and we cannot let other people do the crime, so she didn't take that into lowering it.

And in the sentencing statement that, both Nancy and Paul Pelosi, neither of them actually came to court, but they both gave statements. That's a typical thing in sentencing to help inform the judge of how this affected them. And, you know, Paul Pelosi says that, well, for one, he was in the hospital for six days, you know, quite a long time. People don't really stay in the hospital very long these days, had to have surgeries around this really kind of a severe injury that he says has forever changed his life. And the blood from that incidence,

they have never been able to remove from the floor. Nancy Pelosi's saying that they're still living in the trauma, the after effects of the trauma in this house. And one of the things I really thought when this case first happened is this argument that Trump has before the Supreme Court, that he's above the law, he should have absolute immunity, I don't understand why we have so much secret service around one branch of government and so little around the others.

Because we are a co-equal branch of government. Our speaker of the house, even the Supreme court justices and the president, they're all supposed to be equal. But we have the president going in a limo with a doctor, with like vials of his blood, right? He has air support, drones, and the amount of security around the president is

unimaginable so much. And yes, because they have been tried to be shot and they have been tried to be assassinated. But here you have the Speaker of the House and her family is completely unprotected. There should be a little bit of a balance between the two. And actually, frankly, even after this attack, I haven't heard enough of like, we need to beef up the security. Because for me, how we treat them is in part how they treat themselves. I think we should be treating the Supreme Court justices, the Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority Leader and the President with much more equal security, with this understanding that they are all equal in the law, they should be all equal in the eyes, we should all want them to function in a safe and fair way.

So I think that disparity and security is ridiculous. And to your point, they're going to have a state trial that's coming up on May 22nd. I think it starts. Technically, there can be cameras in that courtroom. California allows cameras in the courtroom. I don't know if any of the media are streaming from that, but if so, I'm not really sure, but they could, they could do that. Whereas federal, you can never have cameras. So yeah.

Well, that's if he goes to trial. So just to be clear, he got convicted of federal crimes, two of them. The judge sentenced him to 20 years on the attempted kidnapping of Nancy Pelosi and 30 years on the attack on a violent attack on a family member of a federal official, served concurrently. So the higher number of controls gave him credit

for 18 months for having already, he's been sitting in jail for 18 months, but he still has state assault charges and 20, 30 years there, if not not more if he decides to take it. Now look, his lawyers, he's not really all there, but his lawyers tried their defense in front of a federal jury and that went down in flames. I don't think they try it again in front of a San Francisco. I mean this is like a beloved family in San Francisco going back to her father. I'm talking about Nancy. I don't think that he tries this again. And then I think they try to

cut a deal. I mean, this is what happened with the Black Lives Matter protests when they killed George Floyd. You know, once the federal, once the feds convicted, they cut a deal for the state, because they saw the writing on the wall. So we'll see, I mean, if he's smart, he takes a 15 or 20 year deal that would start after the end of the federal, not concurrently, after the end of the federal deal. He's 44, which means he'd start serving his state case

charge term when he's 74 for like another, he's gonna die in prison. I mean, which is, I'm term when he's 74 for like another, you know, he's gonna die in prison I mean that which is I'm not he should that's exactly what should happen here and all of that, but We did we need to report about to complete the loop, you know, we talked about the attacks We talked about the investigations the indictments the charges the prosecution and the trial We got to talk about sentencing. And I've done a lot of that on the Midas Touch Network,

especially when it comes to Jan 6th defendants. And I see him as a type of Jan 6th defendant as well. And it was remarkable, as crazy as our life and times have become, it was remarkable for the judge to say out loud during sentencing that the break-in into the home of a federal official was basically unprecedented. There's been some judges that have been attacked in their home and family members that have been attacked in their home, including recently.

But like the breaking and entering, that's like another level of violent crazy that we hadn't yet seen. It shouldn't surprise us. We just watched Jan 6th. But we've, we've, oh sorry, I stuttered. We've reached the end of another episode of the weekend edition of Legal AF. We're so thrilled to have our audience with us and to be joined by Dina Dahl. Can't ask for a better sit-in for Ben Mycelis. For those that are coming late, Ben's okay. He's just getting married today and decided that he had some things to do that weren't involving podcasting. So I really appreciate Dina.

You and I have done some work together. We're gonna do some more work together. I saw each other in California. We saw each other in New York, and we will continue to be supportive of each other and of this movement that we have here on Midas Touch. For those that wanna see more of Dina's work, she's all over Midas Touch. She's on TikTok.

She's on Instagram. She sits in for traveling people. She does hot takes with Frances Maxwell and without. And so just go over to the Midas Touch YouTube channel. Free subscribe, help them get to three million. We're almost there before the November election. We're building this network with our bare hands, with the audience as well.

We have no outside investors. And we are the network that you've been looking for. And you go slide over to contributors and playlists and you'll find me and you'll find Dina and all of our work there. It's an easy way to find the work if you like what you've heard so far. And then there's other ways, of course, to support the show.

You're already here. Go out and if you haven't subscribed, free subscribe to the network. You can leave a comment. Chats are great, but comments and thumbs up as another algorithmic metric that's important to keep us on the air. We've got a store which has gotten a lot of publicity lately

and has made the history books because it was basically promoted by Todd Blanch and Donald Trump, store.mitustouch.com where you can get the convict 45 shirt that was in part of the trial testimony. Ben Mycelis mentioned by Michael Cohen as well during the trial testimony. Talk about life imitating art

and you can get all the other Legal AF stuff there as well. And we have this as an audio podcast. We have a group that watches us exclusively on our YouTube. But then we've got another group that didn't even know about our YouTube probably until I just said it and just listened to us on audio podcast platforms and we're there.

So go ahead and go back and forth between the two, because that really helps us with sort of the numbers, a little bit of a ratings game there when it comes to ranking, and that really helps us. And then as we said, I said just a while ago, we launched just about two and a half months ago, and we already have 3,000 members, Patreon. Patreon.com slash legal AF. It's a new, it's a it's an adjunct, it's a it's an offshoot of this community. For those that want to learn

more about in more detail about the law at the intersection of law and politics, we do it there. We have Professor Ben, who's going to be doing more of them now that he's done with his law classes teaching them and getting married. We've got Popak Talks. We've got early access to Hot Takes. We've got merchandise that's special for the Patreon people all at patreon.com slash legal AF. Karen will be back with me on Wednesday and Ben will be back with me next Saturday on Legal AF. And of course, we all do hot takes at the intersection of law and politics about every hour right here on this network.

So, thanking again, Dean Adal, congratulations to Ben Mycelis and to Sochi and their marriage. By the time everybody wakes up, they will have been married, and I will be there to see it. There'll be photos that we'll be posting on Instagram so people can take a look there. And we really appreciate the Midas Mighty and the legal efforts we shout out to both of them.