Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump DESPERATE PLAYBOOK Rears its UGLY HEAD

Episode Date: March 16, 2024

Meidas Touch founder Ben Meiselas and trial lawyer Michael Popok are back with a new episode of the weekend edition of the top rated Legal AF podcast. On this episode, they debate/discuss: Judge MacAfee’s scathing order that allowed Fulton County DA Fani Willis to continue prosecuting Trump and others; Judge Merchan’s reasoned approach to keep the Trump NY criminal trial on track for the Spring; what to make of Judge Cannon’s handling of a subset of Trump motions to dismiss his Espionage Act/Obstruction indictment; the import of Special Counsel Hur getting caught in a lie about the President’s memory; and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! Betterhelp: This is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://BetterHelp.com/LEGALAF today to get 10% off your first month and get on your way to being your best self! Manukora: Head to https://manukora.com/legalaf or use code LEGALAF to automatically get a free pack of honey sticks with your order — a $15 value! Beam: Get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to https://shopbeam.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF at checkout! SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop NEW LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So we finally got an order in Fulton County Superior Court from Judge McAfee. Fulton County District Attorney Fonny Willis is not disqualified. Judge McAfee found there was not an actual conflict, but did find there was a quote, of impropriety that could be cured if Nathan Wade left the prosecution team, which he did immediately. He tendered his resignation. Fonny Willis accepted the resignation full speed ahead now on the prosecution of Donald Trump in the Georgia criminal Rico case, we will break down all of the developments and we will go through judge McAfee's order, but we thought it was full speed ahead and everyone thought it was full speed ahead in the Manhattan district attorney criminal case against Donald Trump.

Then like a thud, we got a filing from the people from the Manhattan district attorney that the department of justice had just turned over 31,000 new documents two weeks before the trial. Of course, Donald Trump's lawyer then responded, then Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg responded again, then Judge Mershawn weighed in. There will now be a hearing on March 25th to determine how this all proceeds. And Judge Mershawn has temporarily adjourned trial for about 30 days, moving the trial date now to mid April. We will break down what happened there and what we expect to happen.

Also, there was a hearing before Judge Eileen Cannon in the Southern District of Florida in the Mar-a-Lago document case regarding various motions to dismiss the indictment filed by Donald Trump, one under the Presidential Records Act, the other alleging the Espionage Act, which has been around for a pretty long time, was unconstitutionally vague. Within just a few hours of the hearing, Judge Cannon denied Donald Trump's motion to dismiss on unconstitutional vagueness, but it's quite a, we'll just say a Cannon-like order.

It is very odd and bizarre. And I think it's worth actually going through that order versus just saying, hide the ketchup, Donald Trump, because I don't think we should trust Judge Eileen Cannon at all. Also, we heard from somebody who was previously identified in the Mar-a-Lago indictment as employee number five, his name is Brian Butler, and said that he's coming forward now

because of the way judge Eileen Cannon has basically messed up the case. And he's afraid that his identity is going to be leaked by judge Cannon. So he wanted to put his identity out there first before, uh, that could happen to preempt that. He talks about through the 20 years he was at Mar-a-Lago starting as a seasonal valet, the things that he witnessed there.

I mean, and this is some of the most damaging, devastating and dangerous things that he bore witness to. We will talk about it here and we will talk about the ramifications. Two other smaller stories that we've been covering. Donald Trump finally posted that supersedious bond. The surety bond was officially accepted in the E. Jean Carroll case. And also that Republican special counsel who was investigating

Biden, Robert Herr testified before Congress this week. And when you actually read the transcript versus his politicized narrative, he actually told president Biden during the interview that you have a photographic understanding of things. I've never used that terminology, I think, to refer to anybody. Photographic understanding. And then one question, so you told Biden that his understanding was photographic, yet you put out this report that tried to attack his memory, not withstanding the point of the report was to exonerate him and say he did nothing criminal.

Like what in the world are we talking about? And that's why we need to focus on the facts, the truth, nothing but the truth. Michael Popok, we've got a lot to discuss on this weekend's Legal AF. How are you doing, sir? I'm doing fantastic. And this, this episode is going to remind me of the famous philosopher, John Lennon, who said life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. You can plan all you want, but justice moves at its own pace. And,

and in the fog of war, fog of litigation, weird things happen like the Manhattan DA pulling the emergency brake on the train and saying, we need a 30 or 40 or 60 day or more delay in the trial. But I think we're in a lot better place then than we were at midweek or even last Saturday when we did legal AF in terms of all the moving parts and spinning plates about the other prosecutions. I mean, a week ago, we were like, you know, we were on the knife's edge about whether Fonny Willis was gonna be able to survive and the indictment was gonna be able to be on solid footing

in Georgia and both of those things have been answered in a positive direction for justice and for keeping that case on track. Manhattan, sure, it'll be a 30-day delay or whatever it's going to be based on Judge Murchon's decision. We'll talk about that today, but the case is going to happen before the November 5th election and that's a good thing based on all of it. And then, you know, we've got Mar-a-Lago where, as I said in the hot take, for the first time in a long time, Judge Cannon said the J word out loud, jury trial. And in telling the people,

the assembled people in her hearing room, including Donald Trump and Jack Smith again, that many of the arguments that Donald Trump's side was raising were not appropriate to dismiss the indictment, but were appropriate when it came time to instruct the jury or a defense in front of the jury. Good to hear at least Aileen Cannon knows the word because we're gonna have to get to a jury trial in order for there to be justice in that case. So Michael Popak, let's talk about Fulton County.

Let's just get right into it with Judge Scott McAfee doing what you and I thought he was going to do here, ultimately not disqualify Fawny Willis. Although he did find an appearance of impropriety, which he said could be cured. Popock, can you break down what happened here in Fulton County? Yeah, I'd be happy to, Ben. Look, the headline is that Fonny

Willis survived the motion to disqualify against her, but I'm gonna put it right out there. I'm not saying she barely survived, but she took a number of hits to her credibility in front of Judge McAfee. There's no other way to put it. We don't blow smoke or sunshine here. She survived it. He found that having... Let's start at the beginning. He found that as you and I predicted that while there was no actual conflict, he was going to use the appearance of impropriety standard, which comes from the rules of ethics and canons of ethics and Georgia law and the law of really almost every state that you and I operate in. I knew he was going to do that because somebody

that he looks up to and he actually quoted twice in the order former Chief Judge McBurney in the Georgia same Fulton County courthouse had disqualified Fonny Willis once before. People may not have remembered that because she had an appearance of impropriety and showed poor judgment. Seems to be a theme here unfortunately with having supported the fundraiser for a opponent for somebody that she was investigating and prosecuting in former state Senator Bert Jones. So he paraphrased many aspects of what McBurney had done in handling the case with her. So yes, we were saying there's no actual conflict, there's no financial interest,

she's not so financially entangled with her relationship with Nathan Wade, who she admitted she had a relationship with and took about half a dozen vacations with, and they shared expenses and maybe $12,000 or $15,000 went back and forth between them for that. At the end, he said, this is where the appearance of impropriety is a problem for Fonny Willis. In his findings, he did say that he found her judgment to be poor, an incredibly poor sense of judgment in dating Nathan Wade at all. He also found an incredible poor sense of judgment in the way that they loosely, in his words, exchanged money between them, especially when he was on the payroll that she supervised. He didn't like that either. He also questioned her veracity. He also said that he found unbelievable certain aspects of her testimony, particularly whether she lied to the court about

when that relationship with Nathan Wade started. She was not cleared in this order by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, when the judge was talking about all the people that testified, including the district attorney, including Nathan Wade, he then has the now infamous line, there is an odor of mendacity that sits over that issue. That means an odor of lying. Part of the lying, he couldn't get to the bottom. And he said, my role as the fact finder is not to ferret out every inconsistency or lie,

but I don't like it. And you can tell he thinks he was lied to. And he just can't figure out by whom and when. And that also casts the pall over her kind of moving forward. And then he didn't like either. When I'm done describing it, people might be thinking, so she got disqualified, right? No. But he did take her to task. And I'm sure it will be a subject of appeals, the appeal. He also said, your church statement that you made from the pulpit Martin Luther King Jr. weekend at the Bethel Church in Atlanta. I don't like that either. That was improper and that was illegal. And you came close to getting disqualified as a result. In fact, the judge said, I'm going to invite a motion to effectively limit

the ability of the prosecutor to talk about this case outside the courtroom. In other words, extrajudicial statements, which would be an extraordinary remedy here that he's basically gifting and giving to the defense in this case. You know, I'm surprised it hasn't already been filed if I had gotten an invitation like that. And at the end, he said, okay, to get rid of the appearance of impropriety, to get rid of the odor of mendacity, to get rid of the problems I see with you having your former, current ex-boyfriend be the special prosecutor that you're also paying, he has to go. You have a choice. He literally put her on the horns of a dilemma. Stay in the case and fire Nathan Wade or don't fire Nathan Wade and we're replacing you.

We'll send it over to the Prosecutors' Council in Georgia and reassign the case. And so we know what happened next. I'll turn it back to you for that. But let me just leave it on this. Everything that I just said, the findings of this trier of fact, who is the judge in this case, presiding over this case,

is gonna pose a problem for Fonny Willis moving forward. She's gonna stay in this case, presiding over this case, is going to pose a problem for Fonny Willis moving forward. She's going to stay in the case, but to say that this doesn't gift wrap some aspects for the appeal, because everything I just said, and then he didn't disqualify her, the parties on appeal like Donald Trump are going to tell the appellate courts she needs to be disqualified based on all the findings that the judge made. And those findings are not going to get disturbed. Trial judges are given tremendous discretion, especially as the trier of fact. You're not going to be able to get rid of the facts here or explain them away in alternate filings. He made these facts. Question is, how does the appellate court line up these

facts? And do they end up in the same place that Judge McAfee did, which is not having to disqualify the prosecutor and does that delay the case further? I mean, I posit on a hot take, does she need to now, even though she won the battle, does she need to step aside in order for this case to continue? I don't want to leave anybody with the oppression that she was exonerated by this decision. She was not, and there's gonna be ramifications of it that you and I and Karen are gonna have to follow moving forward. Well, MAGA thinks that she's exonerated

because they're saying that Judge Scott McAfee actually works for her, or because he once worked at the district attorney's office, he was doing her a favor by this order. They're saying this was a rigged system and that Judge Scott McAfee did a big favor right here to district attorney Fonny Willis, which he did not. Truthfully, I think he acted reprehensibly. I think this order is absolutely disgusting.

I agree with the outcome, but again, he buys into this, when did you first have sex and did you hook up then? And when did you, when did this happen? Who gives a crap? He who cast the stone. I want to see any one of those Trump lawyers, by the way, who are representing an adjudicated rapist. Take the stand and have to be asked questions

that have really nothing to do with the underlying merits of their profession at all. Guess what? Newsflash. When people date each other, when people have relationships with each other, they go places together. Yeah, that happens when you're in relationships.

You don't go, oh, are you gonna give me this quid pro quo gift as a result of our relationship? Boyfriend, girlfriend, fiance, husband, wife, whatever. That's not the way we're living. What are we even talking about here? The threshold issue is, is there a conflict that permeates the prosecution such that the criminal defendants have their due process rights stripped away? Even if the relationship took place before, who gives a crap? And look, I understand then the coverup

could become the story versus what actually happened in the relationship. But that's why you need a judge to function as a gatekeeper because courts are not courts of gossip, not courts of rumor, not courts of innuendo. They are courts of law with admissible evidence. And when I read the order, even the things that he's wagging his finger about, it just feels like what you're being the morality police about when

a relationship started and what Donald Trump can go out on his social media, post photos like he did earlier this morning, AI generated photos of Fulton County District Attorney Fonny Willis in bathing suits and lingerie, which is what he was doing all morning. Well, that's cool. You can be an adjudicated rapist if you're a white male billionaire. But when it comes to Fonny Willis, you know what?

I'm gonna wag my finger at you for speaking at a black church and saying how it is so important for you to represent the people and to get justice and to make sure the truth comes out. I'm going to say that is inappropriate, but on the other hand, let Donald Trump post semi-nude AI generated images of Fawni Willis, harass her, engage in stochastic terrorism. So frankly, when I read this, when we talk about the justice system being a two tier justice system,

when you talk about the double standards that are at play, and when Donald Trump wants to whine about it and go, oh, pity me, they're coming after me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Donald Trump, you are grifting literally 60, 70, close to a hundred million dollars off of people who are funding your legal bills and you're getting every benefit of the debt.

The legal system is twisting and contorting and bending over backwards to help you. You filthy, disgusting, adjudicated rapist. Yet when Fulton County District Attorney Fawni Willis has a consensual relationship with another successful black man in her office, all of a sudden it's, oh my God, this is the most crazy thing.

We need an evidentiary hearing. We need to understand. When did you first have sex? When did you first kiss? Was there this, I mean, disgusting, filthy stuff. So look, I'm glad this sordid tale is at least it's been resolved with this hearings. Fulton County District Attorney Fawni Willis has accepted the resignation of Nathan Wade. Nathan Wade sent a letter immediately saying that he

was stepping down. You can see the letter there for those watching on video. Fonny Willis responded and thanked Nathan Wade for his work, for his effort. This was all made public. It was also kind of a jab at the judge and a jab at Trump and Trump's co-defendants for what they had kind of put them through. But more importantly, I think it was just a way

to restore kind of the reputation here because I've said this and you've said this, Popak, before on this show, the legal work in this case has not just been first class, first rate. It's some of the best legal writing I ever saw. I mean, when I was looking at some of that 11th Circuit briefing on the Mark Meadows issues, where Mark Meadows hired all of these top white collar lawyers who the ones who get paid $1,500 an hour, not

$200 an hour like Nathan Wade, $1,500 an hour, $2,000 an hour. Nathan Wade wiped the floor with them. That's what went down. So shame on this whole process. Frankly, shame on Judge Scott McAfee. Obviously Trump the adjudicated rapist and his co-defendants who try to destroy our democracy deserve the shame as well, but that is obvious right there. And frankly, shame on the media for not covering this the right way. Absolutely ridiculous. Popak, I'll give you the final word. You know what? I want to cool down on this. Let's take our first quick break of the day, and then I'll toss it back to you.

I got something to say, but we'll do the commercial first. Let's make a place, take our first ad. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. If I had just one more hour in my day, I'd spend it with the people closest to me, like my lovely wife. A lot of us spend our lives wishing we had more time. The question is time for what?

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get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to shopbeam.com slash legal AF and use legal AF as a code at checkout. That's shopbeam.com slash legal AF and use legal AF, the code, when you check out for up to 40% off. Welcome back to Legal AF. Things were getting heated there, Michael Popock.

You and I are on the same side. My purpose in kind of giving you the problems moving forward for Fonny Willis was not to suggest that I agreed with Scott McAfee, although we all saw this coming. We knew it was going to be an appearance of impropriety because that's what McBurney had done, his predecessor in the case. We knew that basically that glass ceiling, unfortunately, had already been broken in the wrong way because she had been disqualified once before. Somebody that apparently a very young, novice judge in McAfee admires McBurney, and McBurney even took her to task for judgment issues. The issue is not for McAfee, I must combine them into McBurney-fee. The issue is not the sex, although you can tell he's got a problem with it.

The issue was why she took a position at all about the start of the relationship, and if she took a position, whether it was true or not. But look, the good news for her is that, as the headline suggests, she is back on the case. She never has been taken off. She'll have to regroup now. She lost, as she noted, a person with 865 days of experience invested in the case in

Nathan Wade. Nathan Wade, as you said, Ben, we've followed all along the way, won every major hearing, minor hearing from the special purpose grand jury to the grand jury to the federal court system to up to the Supreme Court system in getting witnesses, getting the indictment on solid footing and everything else. I mean, you couldn't ask for more. People that still comment that he is under qualified or not qualified for that his position have not been watching his hall of fame numbers

during the last 865 days. It's a tremendous loss for Fonny Willis professionally in losing him. Also was a confidant of hers. She's going to have to find a way to regroup here, get off the mat and replace him. I don't think she's going to be the lead prosecutor. She's got a large office to run with thousands and thousands of cases. This isn't, despite Karen being our colleague, this is not law and order and Jack is not going to come in and try the case. So she's got to either bring in another special prosecutor, like who's going to take that job at this moment, and or she's got to find somebody

handpicked within our own office in order to be the face of this case, you know, the kind of the lead face for this case. I am troubled by the invitation for the motion to gag you and I'll have to have a lot of conversation about that. And then, and then lastly, I was just to kind of reinforce your comment. You know, Scott McAfee was so worried about his own safety. I mean, Fonny Willis has been violently attacked, doxed in rhetoric, using the N word, violent attacks on her that she has had basically had to wear a bulletproof vest along with her staff and had the sheriff's department take her to and from work for like the last two and a half years.

Scott McAfee, apparently the reporting is the judge had some sort of death threats against him and his family, maybe for the reasons that you stated that they finally figured out somewhere. All they had to do was go to Legal AF. They would have learned a long time ago that Fonny Willis used to be his boss in the Fulton County DA's office, not when she was the DA, but when she was the head

of one of the, I think the complex litigation division, and he worked under her as a young lawyer. But he had a safety concern, and until there was this, apparently he had this decision ready to go last week, but wanted the security plan in place for his family and him before he launched this order. And I'm thinking to myself, what about Fonny's security plan? I mean, now if he thinks he's getting it, what do you think is happening in her world right now or in Nathan Wade's world right now by MAGA. It's not pretty and it's violent and something bad could

happen and I'm hoping it doesn't. I hope, yeah we all hope that nothing happens but when stochastic terrorism is allowed to permeate the way it does and it's allowed to be normalized as just an alternative political viewpoint, which it's not and not universally condemned. There's some real problems there. It's why we always frame things in terms of the community of pro-democracy truth and fact versus whatever this MAGA thing is. And again, I talked about it before the break. I mean, the types of things that Trump is posting and saying, it's

humiliating to our country. It's dangerous. It's shameful. It's disgusting stuff, but a lot more to talk about including. Look, a lot has just happened over the past week, hitting with a thud in the Manhattan district attorney criminal case, right? You had earlier in the week Donald Trump filing this motion requesting an adjournment of the trial date asserting absolute presidential immunity for the conduct that took place before he was ever in office. I mean this is the Stormy

Daniels hush money case and what Trump was essentially arguing is that because a lot of his coverup and some of the comments that he made about the criminal conduct that predated the time when he was elected and disgraced our office, the coverup almost acts as like a prophylactic and it immunizes, based on the kind of transmutative properties of Trump's view of absolute presidential immunity, the crimes before he was in office, even though even those crimes, if they were in office, should not be subject to immunity. So it's doubly frivolous and absurd. And so Trump filed that.

Judge Mershon responded right away with a, what are you filing type of thing? And we all thought, look, Trump's going to make this last Hail Mary move. Maybe take a direct appeal to the Supreme court, beg them to stop this proceeding and try to argue. Look, you've got your April 25th absolute presidential immunity argument regarding me based on the Washington DC criminal case. So maybe Supreme Court come, and Trump hadn't made this move yet,

but this is where you and I thought he was going. You know, Supreme Court step in and please just stop what's happening here in the Manhattan District Attorney case. Judge Juan Marchand, the judge presiding over this criminal case, was like, what are you even filing here basically? And really kind of wagged his finger appropriately at Trump and said, if you're gonna file stuff like this, give me notice before because this is basically a bunch of crap.

And Marshawn didn't use those words, but that's basically the sentiment that was conveyed. So then you move on a few days and then you get this notice by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and he says that the SDNY, the federal prosecutors, had previously been subpoenaed about a year ago, or they had been received a request about a year ago from the Manhattan DA regarding certain types of documents, what could potentially be relevant in this Manhattan district attorney criminal case. And back over a year ago, the Department of Justice through the

SDNY division didn't turn anything over. You fast forward Donald Trump on January 18th of 2024, subpoenas the SDNY for those same records. And by the way, Trump is within his, I know it's late, you can say he waited until the last minute, but he was within his, any criminal defendant could have done what he did there. I'm not trying to be like, oh, I'm supporting Trump. I'm just giving you the procedure here.

He was allowed to subpoena it. He sent the subpoena and then I think at first the SDNY was like, it wasn't going to respond. And then the SDNY this week turned over 31,000 documents. We then learned that actually last week they turned over like an additional 71,000 documents and they were going to turn over 15,000 more documents on Friday. And so you're talking about over 100,000 documents now, two weeks before the Manhattan District Attorney criminal case is set for trial. You wonder what in the world is the SDNY doing? So of course, Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg through his main deputy who's running this case, Matthew Colangelo had to go and tell judge Juan Marchand, of course, Trump's then going to respond and say, look, this

is abuse, this is improper Passover. Trump will throw everything in and Passover is coming up. And now there's a whole big mess, so you gotta delay this case, you know, at least 90 days, if not throw out the case. Judge Juan Marchand, Michael Popak, I think did something appropriate here though and very surgical and I think it shows a complete contrast how Marchand runs his court versus how Mershan runs his court

versus how McAfee runs his court. Mershan said, look, you're all giving me a lot of new news here. We've got trial coming up. I will adjourn trial, meaning there is no trial March 25th anymore. We'll move it 30 days from the date of this letter. For now, April 15th, I think the 14th technically is 30 days, but that's a Sunday. We'll move it 30 days from the date of this letter for now. April 15th, I think the 14 technically is 30 days,

but that's a Sunday. We'll move it 30 days. We're gonna have a hearing March 25th, but this is not gonna be a Judge McAfee style hearing. I want to see the party submit timelines that give me each of the documents, every email from the DOJ, so I could understand what happened

and how this is going to impact the trial date. And Mershan said, I want to be very clear. Do not talk to me about anything else at this hearing other than this discrete issue. This is the only issue bearing upon my decision on the trial date. Michael Popak, how do you think Judge Mershon handled this? And also, I mean, what in the, I mean, seriously, SDNY? I mean, really? You know, and just so people know like what these documents are. They seem to be the documents,

and you may want to get the relating to like the grand jury and Michael Cohen and things that don't even appear to be like significantly all that relevant here, but but but Popak take it away. Yeah there was some overlapping investigation by the Department of Justice when Trump had the Department of Justice and Bill Barr involving Michael Cohen, a little bit of Allen Weisselberg. I mean I sort of get it from a defense standpoint if I were a defendant and there was testimony or investigative notes or things that I could get access to

in a new trial involving the same people with a little bit of overlapping subject matter, sure, I'd make the argument that I need to see that. I was a little surprised, you and I talked about it in the hot take that we did together when this news broke, I was a little surprised that in this turf war that sometimes exists between the Manhattan DA and the Southern District of New York, for those around the globe who are new to our justice system, state prosecutors, Manhattan DA,

federal prosecutors under the Department of Justice, the US Attorney's Office here in New York, the Department of Justice, the US Attorney's Office here in New York, they, um, usually they get along better. And I would have thought that, um, I, if you would have asked me a year ago, Ben, um, does Alvin Bragg have the entire package with the ribbon wrapped around it of everything that Southern District of New York, US Attorney's Office has related to sort of the case or Alvin Bragg, Michael Cohen, all that. I would say, yeah, I'm sure they have it. They didn't.

And they got about, you know, they first got a first gasp of about 70,000, I think pages or documents, it's unclear exactly, originally, and then Donald Trump waited till January, which is really late when you have a March trial, to go issue a subpoena to the Southern District of New York, US Attorney's Office.

Like, why didn't they produce earlier? A little bit of it is, I think somebody fell asleep at the switch over at the Manhattan DA's office. I'll say it without Karen being here. They should have had this whole thing, the whole ball of wax wrapped up six months ago, but they didn't. Then there was another, which meant there was another last gasp, actually two last gasps of documents that have come out like in the last week, like 35,000. I was like, are we done? And they're like, we shook the tree one more time. Nope, 15,000 more came out, but that's it, judge.

So there's a lot of that going on. Now, to put this in context, because I think that's why people, one of the reasons they like listening to you and me and Karen, we give you some context from practicing law, is that it's not that many documents. I mean, it sounds like a lot to the average person. I don't have 75,000 documents sitting in my house. Right. But in lawsuits and in criminal cases, that's not a lot. I'm sure you have too, Ben.

I've had the government dump on me somewhere near that number one or two days during a trial that I had to then figure out how to get through with a with a search platform in advance of witnesses taking the stand in a case. And that's just the way it is. I mean, there's a big distinction between civil cases and criminal cases. You actually, even though there are the Fifth Amendment rights and the Sixth Amendment rights and the due process rights, fair trial rights and all that. You get a lot less in criminal court than you get in a civil lawsuit involving money. In civil lawsuit involving money, I get depositions,

I get to take all the witnesses well in advance for hours at length, I get to look at every document well in advance and if I don't get them, I can argue I need a continuance. That doesn't happen in criminal court, especially in federal criminal court. I find out who the witness is going to be. If I'm the defendant against the prosecutors, I find out who the witness is going to be

like the afternoon before. Like, oh crap, who's that guy? Where's that file? That's what happens. There's no depositions generally in criminal practice. I don't get to depose anyone. Then you got the whole somebody's going to take the Fifth Amendment anyway, so you're not gonna really hear about them. So some people, we never really talked about this. This might be something that you and I will do a breakout one day about,

a teachable breakout. But there's a lot less that you're given in terms of preparation and material in a criminal case, despite the stakes, than even in a civil case. So they can, and Mershon knows that, and Mershon's like, look, I hear a lot of, like you said, I hear a lot of noise. I hear a lot like last gasp of documents, all right. Let's end that. Let's get the documents over to the defense, most of which it looks to you and I as reasonable observers, have no real connection to the heart and subject matter, the gravamen of the trial of the criminal case, and therefore are not Brady-like material or other type of material that is important

to go to the defense in order for them to put on a defense. They just are curious, or they're just nosy, like, well, what happened to Michael Cohen, or what were the comments about Alan Weisselberg's testimony or whatever? Okay, great. And the judge is like, you know what? Yeah, I got it, maybe there needs to be a delay.

I'll hear from you guys on the 25th when we were supposed to be together for trial. And I want to have a developed timeline to put this case back on with a proposed trial date. In the meantime, I'm going to temporarily, administratively stay the case for the next, I think he said 30 days. And then we'll all get together March 25, and we will resort out what we're supposed to do to put this case back in spring of 2024. When you said, this stands in stark contrast to how McAfee, I thought you were going to say your usual favorite, and I agree with you, which is Judge Cannon. If this had happened to Judge Cannon'see, I thought you were going to say your usual favorite, and I agree with you, which is Judge Cannon. If this had happened to Judge Cannon's courtroom,

we would have instantly said, Trials off, 2026 at best. This is an outrageous prosecutorial misconduct. You know, Rashan's like, this is like water off a duck's back. He's a New York criminal lawyer, a criminal lawyer first, criminal prosecutor, and then judge who's sat on some very high profile cases. This is like nothing.

And he's not going to allow Donald Trump for media purposes to make it something that it's not and make a federal case out of it, no pun intended. And so I do like, as you've noted, the sober way that is. And what we're seeing is, I think I said this in a midweek with Karen, if I'm repeating myself with you Ben, I apologize. But people who watch, who are amateur enthusiasts of our justice system and come to our show,

often question in direct messages to me or you or in chats. This is the, why don't you put your most seasoned and most experienced judges who are qualified and compatible with the, on these kind of cases? Why is it getting randomly assigned to Judge Cannon and Judge McAfee, who collectively, when you added it together, had exactly zero judicial experience at the time they were assigned these cases? Why are they getting them? That's the best you can do. Listen, we got a random assignment system and there's not something in the odor's manual for our court system that says, well, if it happens to be a former president that probably an insurrectionist tried to topple America,

then the chief judge gets to reassign the case that somebody is more qualified. So what we're watching over and over again is right, what we're watching over and over again, Ben, is that when it does, the wheel does land on a competent, qualified, sophisticated jurist, Judge Chutkin comes to mind, Judge Mershon comes to mind, Judge Angoron comes to mind, proper things happen, things that we expect, they're predictable. Nothing phases them because this

isn't their first time they've seen this thing. This is the 400th time they've seen this thing and they know how to sort it out given the guidance of the appellate courts. But when we put it in the hands of McAfee, who just to be clear, I'm not this is not hyperbolic, McAfee had never been a judge before. He's in his mid-30s. He barely practiced law. He was the Inspector General for Georgia for a short amount of time under Governor Kemp and he got that plumb position in Fulton County. He got handpicked. He's standing for election in September.

Cannon had only been on the bench for six months, and most of that, or less than a year, and most of that was during COVID, where the entire court system was shut down and there was no trials or hearings in front of her. And so these were the two judges that were picked to try the two of the four trials of the century. Now that's why, whenever I would go to a mediation, one of the things the mediator would say to the clients who were there in these civil cases, basically, especially if it was a mediation pre-filing.

They would say, look, if you have the best lawyer on this subject matter, I still would put your chances at winning somewhere around even with all the facts on your side at a little bit of 50-50 at most. To someone who had all the facts on their side who could have the best potential law firm representing them on that issue. And what the mediator judge was trying to convey is that you never know what

happens in this legal system. There's random assignments. Then within that sometimes you have a judge and sometimes you think you have a good judge and then the judge disqualifies themselves and they're off the case. Or sometimes the judge has, especially in cases that aren't this high profile, these cases are being watched. But imagine on any given day,

when I would used to show up to court in LA Superior and the judge would have to rule on it. I kid you not, like 40 motions to dismiss on the morning docket that were submitted all the previous Thursday and now we're on a Monday or Tuesday hearing and the judge has to issue 40 orders and issue tentatives on that Tuesday and so you know one of the things we can do here on Legal AF is shed light on this on the overall system and look that may not be giving you all that much comfort here, but what should give you comfort though, is that when there, once we know all the players and once we are able to know, okay, this is what the, this is what the pleadings look like. Here's the judge.

Once, once you get more of that data, it gets easier to predict here. So when it comes to judge Merson, unless it is determined that the Manhattan District Attorney's office is the party to blame here, I don't think that's going to be the case, but you and I don't know what SDNY is going to say. SDNY, for all we know, they can say, well, you may have responded with a request, but you should have responded with this form or this subpoena. So we don't know what the SDNY is going to say, but assuming the Manhattan district attorney

dotted its eyes and crossed its T's, which it claims it did. I think you and I just to kind of round out this segment, both believe this case is going to trial in 2024 come hell or high water. Now, whether that means it's, you know, April 15th, my prediction was there still is going to have to be things sorted out. So I thought it was going to be around that May. Let me pull up my count. My, my, my, I like May 6th is when I think it's, uh, when I think it's going to be, but I think it's going to be around that. I want to get more of your perspective, Michael Popak, on that, but let's take our last quick break of the show. This episode of Legal AF is brought to you by Manicura Honey.

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Welcome back to Legal AF and Michael Popak when you were also talking about those experienced jurists and you were talking about Nguyen Gohran and you were talking about Chutkin and you were talking about Mershan. I also wanna throw in there, of course, federal judge Louis Kaplan, who I thought handled the case. I mean, he's one of the most experienced judges that you got. Federal judge, I believe he was

appointed in the mid 1990s, 94, 95. As a Clinton appointee. And he was also the judge, remember remember who presided over the Sam Bankman Fried, uh, trial as well. Then Sam Bankman Fried actually testified, was convicted, and then sentenced to like hundreds of years, over like a hundred years in prison. I got something to share with you in the audience. I'm going to see Sam Bankman freed face to face in a federal prison for a deposition in another case. Really? Yes. Well, you'll have to share that with

us. One of the reasons they even brought up Sam Bankman freed though here is, you know, Donald Trump this past week also filed in the Manhattan district attorney case, noticed that he was going to be bringing a potential and Trump's characterizing it as like a semi advice of counsel defense, not a full advice of counsel defense. So Trump thinks he doesn't have to like wave attorney client privilege, but he claims that there's he's going to blame his lawyers for his criminal conduct. It's essentially an admission. Yes, lawyers for his criminal conduct. It's essentially an admission.

Yes, I committed the criminal conduct. It's my lawyer's fault why I did it. And normally in an advice of counsel, you have to testify if you're the criminal defendant because otherwise it would be pretty much hearsay. And then you would waive attorney-client privilege. And one of the interesting things is Donald Trump cited favorably, this just goes to show you how disingenuous they always are,

Judge Kaplan for allowing in the Sam Bankman Fried case, Sam Bankman Fried to testify about a very narrow issue about advice Bankman Fried received from his lawyers on data retention. Now, when you actually read what Judge Kaplan said, he actually said, I'm only going to let you talk about this very narrow issue on data retention, not open it up for more advice of counsel type stuff, but also the most obvious distinction there is Sam Bankman Fried testified. So if Donald Trump's saying that he's going to testify like Sam Bankman

Fried at this criminal trial, well, that would be a bombshell and that would be interesting. Let me ask you something. I certainly hope that the same outcome is there. You know, Trump wants to cite Sam Bankman Fried, a criminal defendant who was sentenced to over 100 years. Please cite SBF. Things always go well, don't they, Ben? When Trump decides to take the stand or make a closing

argument in his cases? They're, they're always, I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I fell asleep somewhere, but they always go well for him when he does that, don't they? Here's the question, putting aside the sarcasm, here's a question for you. Because we have a little bit of a betting pool going on, a little Deadpool going on here between you, me and Karen. And I want to see which side of you're on. Is he going to take the stand? Is Donald Trump going to take the stand in his criminal case? You and I are on the same page. No way he takes that stand. There's no way he takes that stand. But for everyone out there, you can address it on the midweek. Karen Friedman-Niffalo. And by the way, has far more experience

than you or I combined in the Manhattan District Attorney's office. And by the way, salty also for salty, who's also got more Manhattan District Attorney experience than you and I also believes. So we will keep you posted there. But I think there's no way that he's going to testify at the criminal case and what he's going to be cross examined about. His posts where he says, horse face, come on. He's not going to. Yeah. So you wrote horse face and you said no affair. So you're saying that you never had sex. There's no way he's that's the difference is you and I are

defense lawyers. That's our prism. And so that's, yeah. Michael Popok, let's go on to Judge Eileen Cannon where I don't know what her prism is other than Donald Trump. Am I helping you, sir? Donald Trump, am I making your stay here a pleasant one? I think she's, I think Judge Cannon's courtroom in Fort Pierce's hospitality for Donald Trump.

Perhaps that's what she's auditioning for, or perhaps something more nefarious. But let's talk about this hearing that went down in her courtroom this week. There were multiple motions to dismiss the indictment filed by Trump's co-defendants and Trump and his co-defendants, including one under the Presidential Records Act, where Trump claims that when he puts our classified documents and nuclear secrets into boxes and then ships them to Mar-a-Lago, all of our national defense information, our nuclear codes, our war plans, you name it, it becomes his personal documents.

And you probably hear Trump talk about the Sox case, the Sox case. What he's referring to is that back in 1999 when Bill Clinton was writing a personal autobiography before leaving the White House, Clinton had certain personal notes that one of these MAGA legal groups that are not led by lawyers tried to then sue the National Archives for back in 2011. And the judge was ultimately like, but aren't these Clintons like personal notes and his own notebooks?

Like that's not government records. So what Trump says is socks case, socks case. Clinton had personal notes that he kept a notebook in a drawer. I should get classified documents. They will not get them, not just declassifying, they belong to me, they're mine now. They're not the US governments. So that's Trump's argument there.

Trump also argues that the Espionage Act, I mean something that's been around for quite some time, is unconstitutionally vague as applied to the facts here. And Popak, that's like a tin foil argument to say that the Espionage Act is unconstitutionally vague and Trump goes, but the words unauthorized possession and unauthorized use are very confusing. No, it means you're not authorized.

Unauthorized, there's nothing vague about what the statute says. You're not authorized to take national defense information. Did you take it as a national defense information? Were you authorized? And so there was a hearing on that and Popak you want to talk about what went down but yes she used the word she used the J word which I'll let you talk about but I didn't find her order that she ultimately ruled and and rejected Donald Trump's motion to dismiss without prejudice, not with prejudice, without prejudice. I don't know. I just think

that it was a bunch of garbled word salad that shows she has no clue what she's even talking about and she's trying to find ways to help him when I read that order. You can see how low the bar is. I got excited when she used she just actually formed the word jury during an aspect of the hearing. The hearing went most of a day up in Fort Pierce and I've told people I've been up in that courthouse. It's a very small courthouse has a couple of courtrooms and she occupies one of them. Actually she's the only judge that sits up there and Donald Trump showed up. There he is in his, for a minute there, I thought that was the Penguin

from the old Batman movie, but that is actually Donald Trump in the back of a car. Not Kate Middleton. Not Kate Middleton with an AI thing. And then on top of that, Jack Smith, he's not, I love the fact he goes to support his team. He's not Jay Bratt and others, Jim Pierce and others make the arguments, but Jack's always there, flies down to Florida for these things.

Went out for most of the day. And for the reporting inside the room, and just to be clear for people that we do the best we can with what we can get our hands on. If it's a McAfee, Georgia thing, we're able to do YouTube and put it up on the Midas Touch Network when he does a hearing. But if we're talking about federal court and even state court, you either have to be in the courtroom or you have to rely on trusted

legal watchers that we do trust to report. And so the reporting in the room, that's why I say it that way, from inside the courtroom, being no audio or video feed available, is that she was, she spent most of the time after not buying, as I think it's putting it kindly, Donald Trump's lawyers argument that the over 50 year old Espionage Act, which is the number one tool of law enforcement about the mishandling of classified information is somehow vague because well as the president I had, pardon me guys, as the president I had some sort of security, ex-president security clearance, Q clearance with the energy department and if you then have the presidential records act and those two things combined and then if I read the espionage Act, come on, the words you can decipher

with a Webster's Dictionary for Children, that's all it takes. And she's not, as much as we have criticized Judge Cannon, she's not gonna go down in her own history as having declared that the Espionage Act is vague and unenforceable. Okay, even that's a bridge too far even for her in this case and then have the 11th circuit go, huh? What? Okay, so we'll put that aside for a minute. She spent

apparently most of her time though, moving the advocates, meaning Donald Trump's lawyers and, I guess it was Kyson Blanch, you'll tell me if I'm wrong, and the lawyers for the prosecution into the thing that seems to be troubling her, which is this vindictive prosecution, selective prosecution thing, which is Donald Trump's BS defense that somehow the Biden Department of Justice has co-opted the special counsel's office who is a version of election interference is prosecuting him, not because he committed crimes. She was unnaturally interested in that at a hearing that had nothing to do with that. And so that gives me pause about, hmm, that's interesting.

Why is she so interested in that? That should be, she should have gotten rid of that off the briefing without holding a hearing, let alone that she finds it interesting. That's not a great sign for where her head is at. We're still waiting. So yes, I think I took cold comfort as you did that she dismissed the most ridiculous or denied the most ridiculous of Trump motions with others left to come. He's got like six or seven other motions to dismiss that she just hasn't gotten around, she just hasn't found the time up in Fort Pierce to decide on. That's another example that you've that we've made on this on this legal AF about how an

unsophisticated, immature, professionally immature judge who doesn't really know how to handle things and or wants to throw a bone to Donald Trump as a defendant even though she used to work in the Department of Justice at some point in her career. You know, it just finds ways. She's not that busy is my point. I don't know why I'm so tongue-tied.

She's not that busy in Fort Pierce. I've been up there. She's got a bunch of drug cases that are often in the've been up there. She's got a bunch of drug cases that are often in the Southern District of Florida. She's got a couple of immigration cases. And then she's got this case called US versus Trump. And she should be, here's my rant. She should be dropping all the other stuff on her plate.

And she should be doing like Judge Chutkin and saying, okay, I got these nine motions to dismiss for Donald Trump. Four of them I decide on the papers have no merit the way Judge Chutkin did and I'm going to deny without a hearing. These five are sort of interesting and I'm going to put them all over a two-day period, back to back. Everybody come down and go to the DoubleTree Inn and go to the subway if you're Jack Smith in Fort Pierce and let's get to the bottom and I want evidence, I don't want a hearing on this and then I'm going to make a ruling. That's what an appropriate judge would do.

This ain't, this ain't Canada. And then when she denies things, I've never seen a judge, and this isn't a compliment, I never saw a judge use less words to deny something in federal court. I have a magistrate judge in a case of mine right now that on simple discovery disputes, I get six and seven pages of a written order. And on major issues like this, this is what she does. So there's still a group of people out there, former prosecutors included, who think that this is leading to a bad place. That we're still waiting on her order on the motion for reconsideration related to witness identity.

I'll turn it back to you for the witness number five who decided he's not gonna wait around to see if Judge Cannon is gonna out him. He's gonna out himself and testify against Donald Trump basically by CNN. We'll talk about that next. And we were still waiting on that decision. So we're all waiting on the things that are necessary for Jack Smith to go take that appeal to the 11th Circuit and maybe

seek some additional relief, including the replacement of the judge. But as you've always said, she's not making decisions and she's not making decisions that matter. And we're playing an elaborate, unfortunate and dangerous game of Magic 8 ball with her. It's always like, well, are we going for those that are listening to us? I'm shaking a Magic 8 ball. Like, are we going to have this trial in May? No, I don't think that's reasonable. Well, is it going to be in July? I don't know. It depends on the weather that day. I mean, make an effing decision, right, wrong, or

indifferent, let Jack Smith do the next best thing and take it up on appeal and let's get this thing going. But this watching this, as you like to say, this performative theater, this major, I was going to use an improper term for masturbation, thing that's going on in that courtroom is getting not only frustrating but dangerous because we're not going to have the American people know one way or the other whether the person they're going to vote for for the highest office in the land and the leader of the free world I I am sorry I want to know whether he committed violations the espionage act and obstructed justice as part of my decision-making before I pull the lever.

That's just me. Call me crazy. Popak, only you could bury the metaphor in the underlying statement itself, make the confession, and then move on it, and then make it look very elegant right there. When you say that these orders are short, the words that are included on her orders where she denies something without prejudice, which is for all purposes,

like a non ruling ruling because it doesn't do anything. It just like, hey, I bring it back in the future. When you read this thing, like it doesn't even make any sense. Like it goes, uh, although the motion, this is what Judge Cannon writes, although the motion referring to Trump's completely frivolous motion to dismiss, although the motion raises various arguments warranting serious consideration, the court ultimately determines

following lengthy oral argument that resolution of the overall question presented depends too greatly on contested instructional questions about still fluctuating definitions of statutory terms, phrases as charged, along with at least some disputed factual issues as raised in the motion. For that reason, rather than prematurely decide now whether application of the espionage act in these circumstances yields unsalvageable vagueness despite the asserted judicial gloss the court elects to deny the motion without prejudice and you may go hey Ben break down this legalese I can't this is a bunch of word salad she sat there

clicked her thesaurus and just started using like whatever word she thought was the big word like indubitably and just starts putting that there because that makes absolutely no sense at all. The SBN-UPSH Act is not unconstitutionally vague. It's been around for a long time. It charges, it's used to charge people who do things like steal national defense information. It's very clear and that's where we're at. But what's also very clear, and I wanna share with you just two clips right now from Brian Butler, employee number five.

What's very clear is that there's real world consequences to what Judge Cannon's doing for our national security. This is not a game. Nuclear codes, war plans, the defense capabilities of our country and our allies. This is not a game. And especially when you have Donald Trump meeting at the crime scene with Putin's buddies, right? Victor Orban was just there at Mar-a-Lago who were the first people that Donald Trump invited to our White House.

Kislyak and Lavrov, Putin's number two people. The, the, the, the Putin regime's top people went into our Oval Office in 2017. They were the first people Trump had. He kicked all of his staff out, kicked all of our people out, allowed the Russians to go in there as they smirked and mocked us in our Oval Office. And Donald Trump gave them national defense information there. And then tweeted about it before it

was X in this whole Elon Musk mess. And Trump said, yeah, I can give them whatever I want to give them. He said it. He said it. We know he transmitted national defense information there. And now we know this past week in the crime scene where he has all these documents all over the place, he's got Victor Orbán there, people could just go in and out.

And Brian Butler, whose employee number five, worked at, identified as employee number five in the indictment and superseding indictment, worked at Mar-a-Lago for over 20 years. He started as a seasonal valet. He then ended up basically building a private business that was the kind of chauffeur for all of, they would drive the people from Mar-a-Lago to the airports or to their private jets. That was all the business did.

So Butler, and Butler became best friends with Carlos de Oliveira, Donald Trump's co-defendant. Ultimately, Butler was provided with Trump lawyers and Butler said, no, no, no, I need my own lawyer. I'm not going to go along with this. These issues are serious. I'm not going to screw over my country for Donald Trump. Whereas Carlos de Oliveira did right there. You see Butler on the right. You see de Oliveira now, co-defendant, de Oliveira on the left, who's being represented by Trump lawyers. First, let me show you this clip of Brian Butler saying the reason that he's coming forward now to share what he observed and it's because of the way Judge Cannon has

behaved. Play this clip. You are Trump employee number five. You're a central witness in the classified documents investigation. Why are you speaking out publicly with your story now? Well, I mean, it's been almost a year since FBI agents showed up at my house when my wife was at home. And you know, over the course of the last year, emotionally it's been a roller coaster. You know, a couple weeks ago, Judge Cannon says she's going to release the names of the witnesses.

You know, you go from highs and lows in this. And instead of just waiting for it to just come out, I think it's better that I get to at least say what happened than it coming out in the news, people calling me crazy. I'd rather just get it out there. And you know, the hope is at least I can move on with my life and get over this. Because here are the types of things that he observed. And now I could show you a ton of clips, but I'll just show you one more. So as a driver, he would have guests from Mar-a-Lago who would be in his car.

So he would hear things. And so remember how we previously reported on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF, how this Australian billionaire named Anthony Pratt, who paid over a million dollars to be a member at Mar-a-Lago and to go to the various parties was given our nuclear secrets about submarine capabilities as they related to Australia. And then remember Anthony Pratt then told that information to a number of prime ministers in Australia,

former prime ministers in Australia, top government officials, and people in the press and some of his own staff. Now we know how that all came about. It was Brian Butler who first heard Anthony Pratt brag that Trump gave him our nuclear secrets while he was at Mar-a-Lago and then Jack Smith pursued Anthony Pratt because Butler, that's what great investigative work is, Butler told Jack Smith about Pratt and then Jack Smith went to Pratt and all the people who Pratt then told. But here's Brian Butler again, this is a Trump guy, right? This is a lifelong Trump,

someone who spent 20 years as a Trumper, who's now not a Trumper because he saw Trump giving our nuclear secrets away to people. Here's Brian Butler talking about Trump giving our nuclear secrets to Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt as a quid pro quo. Play this clip. Were there ever any instances when you were still working there that

you witnessed where Trump was, in your view, carelessly throwing around national security information? You know, this really, you this really stood out to me. But I believe it was April of 2021. There was a member, Anthony Pratt, who he was coming. He flew in the night before. He's an Australian billionaire. He finishes his meeting with the former president,

gets in the car, and his chief of staff says, how did the meeting go? Pratt without saying just says, he told me, and it would be, you know, U.S. military classified information of what he told them about Russian submarines and U.S. submarines. And that's really all I remember hearing. And I went, what? You know, I'm thinking this. I'm in the car, I'm like, did I just hear that?

So it wasn't like, oh, the meeting went well, we talked about, it was, he went straight to the point. He told me that the US subs and with the Russian subs and you know, something that would more than likely in my mind be classified. So it was clear to you that he was basically seeking access to China.? Oh absolutely, absolutely. I mean red flags went up in my mind years before that. So Anthony Pratt, this Australian billionaire that you're

talking about, he would pay a lot of money to come and have these New Year's Eve parties? So it might cost $1,000, $1,500 per person. He was giving a million dollars. And I think at the height he had 30 or 40 people there. So something that would be 50,000, let's just say max 50. Here's a guy that's just buying access. It's very easy to see. Popak.

Yeah, I mean, it's what you and I predicted when you have bad judges doing interesting things, people are gonna respond and react to their own best interest. Unfortunately, Brian Butler, I mean, as amiable as he appears in giving his quote unquote testimony to CNN, at much personal risk, he's come forward. There's a reason why people are generally listed as unindicted co-conspirators and not by name. It's to protect them. He's decided to step out

of the shadows and that means he's going to be a lot, you know, he said, I just want to move on with my life. I mean, that was a little bit of a naivety, unfortunately, by him because I'm sure after that came out and him jumping off sides, to put it mildly against his former friend and employer, Donald Trump, he will now be doxed mercilessly and attacked mercilessly by MAGA if he hasn't already been, which is the things that the prosecutors have to worry about, which is the reasons that they've wanted to have people like Brian Butler not have their names disclosed because they're not worried about the ratings. They're worried for people like Brian Butler that they won't have people like him cooperate, or in this case, the FBI showing up at his door

in the future for their own future investigations because of what Donald Trump unleashes on these people. It's not just today's criminal investigation and prosecution of Donald Trump. It is all future, it's the policies around all future ones. And so I've sort of in a way have a lot of pathos and sorrow for the fact that Brian Butler felt he had to come forward before he was outed.

He was obviously worried, as we said, with Judge Cannon was gonna do it for him. And he wanted to get out in front of the narrative and shape it. But it also, whether it impacted Aileen Cannon, because that actually clip came out before that hearing that she held, we will never know. And she'll never admit whether it did or it didn't. I mean, certain things in the atmosphere have to penetrate even the courthouse in Fort Pierce. You know, like the Espionage Act, she had to have known

that a recent national guardsman had just got sentenced to 16 years for a violation of the Espionage Act up in Massachusetts with the Department of Justice. So, you know, some things have, it's not hermetically sealed, the room. And the question is, are more people going to come out like Brian Butler? You know, there's about half, he's number five. There are others in that indictment, some of which you and I have been able, along with others, to piece together who they are. There's administrative assistance, EAs and personal assistants that used to be with Donald Trump at the White House, that went with

the Mar-a-Lago, two women in particular, they've cooperated with the government. There's housekeepers, there's, let's just talk about the Mar-a-Lago case. There's housekeepers. There's people in the kitchen. There's people that make the beds. There's landscapers. There's all sorts of eyes and ears that have been cooperating with the Department of Justice. I'm sure in one way, Jack Smith sort of smirked a bit that Butler decided to go on CNN. But on the other way, he's worried about what will happen if all these other people come forward while he's trying to preserve the sanctity of a criminal justice process against somebody who's out of control in Donald Trump, and he's getting no help from his judge. So I liked it. It was really interesting, and he's going to testify against Donald Trump.

But there's a bigger picture here that I am concerned about. Well, that's what we, the people deserve to have these trials because this evidence needs to come out. I mean, when you talk about the Mar-a-Lago case, it's not, you know, whatever the whatever the magas want to say, this is, oh, these are just lefties and Marxists and whatever. These are people who worked for Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, who observed what he did, who want, who need to, who are compelled to testify about Trump's conduct in stealing our national defense information. When you talk about the case involving Trump's attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020

election, the witnesses in that case, it's not Marxist, communist, whatever the stupid stuff they say, it's Mark Meadows. It's Donald Trump's former chief of staff. It's Donald Trump's former vice president who won't endorse him, Pence. It's Donald Trump's former lawyers. It's Bill Barr. It's Trump's inner circle are the people who are testifying against him who have observed his criminality. That's what it is there. And facts and evidence matters. And for far too long. Popak, what we see here, and this is why you and I said we have to do, you know, we came together. Why we have to do legal AF?

Because the media just pushes these narratives. They buy these narratives, they buy the spin, the spin rooms and all this. And then he pushed narratives versus just show me the facts. And I think that was on display in this committee hearing earlier this week, the Judiciary Committee hearing, where Robert Herr, the Republican, who's the special counsel

who was investigating President Biden, who found that President Biden committed no crimes at all, but then put in the report that he thought that President Biden presented as someone who's elderly with a bad memory. And that became the narrative. And there was more about this narrative about Biden's memory, Biden's memory, Biden's memory.

And, you know, when you actually see the transcript the same way, when we saw the transcript of Hunter Biden, when it turns out that the whistleblowers are actually not whistleblowers that the MAGA Republicans use, and they actually turn out to be people like Alexander Smirnoff, who are quite literally agents of Russia, or they rely on agents quite literally, exaggeration, agents of the CCP, Libyan arms dealers, to try to overthrow our democracy, and they funnel and launder this disinformation. When MAGA Republicans say, we've got 17 audio recordings of President Biden being involved in a bribe. And then the New York Post published Joe Briban.

That stuff gets out there. That stuff's defamation. And I know because he's the President of the United States, he can't sue for defamation or he's focused on our country versus being a Donald Trump who sues people for everything. And so they go, they could take any shot at him that he wants and lie and cheat and steal and do all of that. And president Biden who's focused on we, the people won't do anything. But all that stuff is just crap.

It's just 100% lies. And so when you tell a big lie, sometimes people are like, yeah, but people don't lie. Like some, there has to be some truth there. No, no, they lie. There was not one audio recording, yet alone 17 audio recordings that the MAGA Republicans claimed that existed of Biden being involved in bribes and the 1023 form is actually a Russian spy laundering the information. And the other person was the CCP. And the other things they complained about was from 2018. And now with Robert Herr, because we got Robert Herr's narrative, but we

didn't get the transcript. That was the transcripts need to come out immediately because the transcripts always show that these MAGA Republicans are lying to we the people. So when the transcript finally came out and her was testifying, we read the transcript of hers interview with President Biden. President Biden remembered all of the dates,

knew all of the stuff. I mean, look, there are some things that if you were to ask me what I had for dinner last Wednesday, I probably wouldn't be able to tell you what I had for dinner on Monday. There are things that people just don't, you know, remember I'm prioritized, but in this transcript itself, her tells Biden that you have a photographic recall of, of your house and, and praises Biden's photographic skills.

So how do you say that in a transcript and then put a report where not only do you not mention that, but you say the opposite. So let me just show you right here so you know I'm not spinning this at all. This is Robert Herb being questioned by Democratic Congress member Eric Swalwell on this issue. Play the clip. I now want to turn you to the transcript and day one, page 47. You said to President Biden, you have appeared to have a photographic understanding and recall of the House. Did you say that to President Biden? Those words do appear on page 47 of the transcript. Photographic is what you said, is that right? That word does appear on page 47 of the transcript.

Never appeared in your report though, is that correct? The word photographic? That does not appear in my report. I now- I mean, that is beyond, beyond offensive. Popak, I'll give you the final word. Yeah, and I want to have that stand in contrast to him playfully, is the only way to put it,

playfully interacting with Matt Gaetz when Matt Gaetz said to him, is that, have you heard President Biden say that he was exonerated by your report? Do you agree with that? That is not consistent with my report and what I wrote in my report. Well, we call that in the business a lie. Would you call it a lie?

Oh, then it's a lie. So instead, every time Swalwell so masterfully, surgically went after him to show the hypocrisy of the things he left out, because these are all editorial decisions as you spin the narrative, he instead of saying, no, I did not include in my report that he has a photographic memory, at least about his house in that aspect, he said, that does not appear on page 465 of my report. Right? He's not helping at all.

I mean, listen, if you're gonna be a special prosecutor, and we're back to Merrick Garland having appointed this guy, if you're gonna be an even-handed special prosecutor, and one day we'll see Jack Smith in a hearing just like this one, hopefully talking about the indictment and the conviction of Donald Trump, but putting that aside for a minute, be honest, be honest in your demeanor,

be honest in your interactions. Don't be so transparently partisan. I get it. You're a Republican. I get it. You were a Republican nominee by Donald Trump to a U.S. Attorney's office in Maryland. I got it. But you don't have to – we're talking about high stakes issues, right? The democracy and justice is teetering on the edge of a knife's edge. Do better. Do better in the way you interact with Congress. You know you're going to be there. You know your report was going to be there and that we were going to ultimately get our hands on the actual transcript itself. And just one last thing about that. What I've learned about Joe Biden from the Her Report and through the lens of the Her

Report is that he has been a methodical journalist, journal-list and note-taker his entire life from his, not just recently, people make fun of him because he has note cards before he takes the podium. He has been writing copious, like a diarist, notes about every meeting he's ever attended while—now some of that got him in trouble because he took some of those notes with him, just like Reagan took his diaries with him about Iran-Contra. But putting that aside for a minute, all that showed me is if I wanted to get a window into Joe Biden's mind and how it's organized, it's organized. And not everybody's memory is perfect at any age. I know plenty of people, including, well,

I have a pretty good memory, but I know people in the 30s and 40s that don't have the recall that Robert Hurr required of the President of the United States who was, who is, I know Robert Hurr thought he was the most important person in the room during the three hour interview, but he wasn't. The leader of the free world is, he had a couple of things on his mind, including a war that had just started on October 7th or October 8th when they did the interview in Israel that he was, that, that, that Biden was involved with. So, you know, that what I learned about the organizational principles of Joe Biden's mind, I found very comforting. He's been taking notes his whole life.

He takes things seriously. He does it not as a crutch, but as a way to organize his thoughts. When you talk to people who are diarists, who are journal makers, it is a tremendous way for logical people to sort through information and to retain information. And I like that in a president, as contrasted with Trump, who got so bored during the daily presidential briefings that they effectively stopped giving it to him because he never paid attention to it. Which would you rather have America? And the fact that like you said he can't recall I was just I'll leave it on this before the before we

recorded tonight I was reading an article about the author who wrote the the novel that the movie American fiction is based on that just won one Academy Award. Fascinating guy, by the way. The interviewer for the New Yorker magazine said that the guy who's like 68 and has a tremendous, his books fill an entire shelf of novels. He couldn't remember the date that he wrote the book that they were talking about or the date that it was published. The guy felt he had to write that. And the first thing I thought was, yeah, because some of these facts and information

are not at our, you know, we're not computers. And we're not there. We're not, you know, Joe Biden's not a trained horse who, you know, who counts with his hoof for, you know, as a circus trick for Robert, he should be ashamed of himself. The whole report as Judge Ludig during one of my interviews of him said it was an abomination, it was a disgrace, what he wrote in his report. And now finally that we see what's in those actual transcripts, we see a coherent, logical person who at times had photographic recall and memory consistent with exactly the person I thought I voted for when Joe Biden was elected. Well, we got to show you the stakes here on this and the stakes are a fact-based, evidence-based, truth-based, democracy-based system. So we talk about, you know, yes, this is the intersection of law and politics. And yes, the Midas Touch Network may be viewed as political, but I always say,

I think what I talk about more than just politics is just these enduring values of our country, of our justice system, of law and order, of our democracy. And that's what we'll keep talking about here on Legal AF. Make sure you hit subscribe to our YouTube channel right here. We're on our way to 3 million subscribers thanks to your awesome support. I think we'll be able to hit that even before this summer so hit subscribe right now. Make sure you subscribe to Legal AF on audio wherever you get your audio podcasts.

It'll take you so quick to do that. And it really goes a long way to help us. Also, you can subscribe for free to the Midas Touch newsletter at MidasTouch.com slash newsletter. MidasTouch.com slash newsletter. And Popak and I will have, I think we have a good announcement for you

on our next weekend show as we keep building out Legal AF. If you haven't seen it, check out that interview of Popok and Judge Ludig. It is a really good interview. We've broken it up into some smaller pieces as well for you to check out. Thank you everybody for watching this. I could, they say that not much is guaranteed in life, but I'll say this is next weekend's is going to be even more busy than this weekend's Legal AF.

And so make sure you follow up with all of the hot takes that we do throughout the week here on the Midas Touch Network. Thank you all for watching. Popak, always an honor and a pleasure to spend this time with you and our Legal AFers. We appreciate all of you watching and listening to this. on the Midas Touch Network. Thank you all for watching. Popak, always an honor and a pleasure to spend this time with you and our Legal.A efforts. We appreciate all of you watching and listening to this. We're so grateful for you. Get out the word about this show.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all you do. And we'll see you next time. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.