Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump facing TRIAL TSUNAMI with BRUTAL Consequences

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

The top-rated legal and political podcast Legal AF is back for another hard-hitting look at the most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this midweek’s edition, Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo, discuss: 1. Updates on the Georgia indictment against Trump and 18 others including the date and process for booking in the local jail and the DA’s proposed jury trial, the attempt to move the case to federal court, and Trump’s supporters doxing and attacking the grand jury; 2. What impact if any the sweeping Georgia indictment will have on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s new federal indictment; 3. Trump’s latest effort to get rid of the trial judge in the New York Stormy Daniels business record fraud case; 4. A federal judge suggesting that Elon Musk was puckering up to Trump when he bought the company and that’s why Twitter illegally tipped off Trump to a search warrant for his while Twitter account, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! GREEN CHEF: Head to https://GreenChef.com/LegalAF50 and use code LegalAF50 to get 50% off and Free Shipping! MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGLAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. REEL PAPER: Head to https://REELPAPER.com/LEGALAF and sign up for a subscription using code LEGALAF at checkout, and automatically get 30% off your first order and FREE SHIPPING! 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 Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 MAGA Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We have our Georgia criminal indictment of Trump and 18 others. We have our four conspiracies, including under Rico. We have our 161 over Axe. We have our 13 new felony counts against Trump. Some cooperating witnesses with the federal indictment, like Mark Roman and Mark Meadows, have been indicted in Georgia. And others that were barely cooperating like Rudy Giuliani have been indicted in Georgia and others that were barely cooperating like Rudy Giuliani have been indicted in Georgia too. We have our judge, Judge McAfee who used

to work under Fony Willis in the DA's office. We have cameras in the courtroom. We have our jail, the Rice Street jail for booking and processing. We have our arrest warrants. We have our self-surrender date to avoid being a fugitive of justice deadline of August 25th. We have Foni Willis telling people that she's ready to go in March. Look out Manhattan, DA, against all 19 defendants in one trial.

You thought federal judge, Chuck Gitt and Jack Smith's latest indictment was all business and no politics in her courtroom. Wait until you get a load of Fulton County process every day and every way treating Trump like the common criminal felony defendant that he is. Of course, Trump liked the fact that at least 12 overt acts and furtherance of the criminal conspiracy consisted of his own tweets so much that he's decided to give all prosecutors another gift of new evidence and hold a press conference and issue a report as to why Georgia election

was corrupt and he really won and he's going gonna do that before he self surrenders. Trump is just a, b, i, always be interfering with the results of the election and the peaceful transfer of power. Next, now that Fawni has obtained her sprawling, sweeping, multi-state, 19 defendant criminal Rico indictment, what if anything does Jack Smith do next and how do two prosecutors coexist when occupying the same piece of real estate? Election interference and fraud in Georgia and six other battleground states that overlap with both prosecutions. It's like a scene out of Jurassic Park election crimes unit. Does Jack move to supersede an amendous indictment? Does Jack move to supersede an amended indictment? Should and will, his case go first for justice's sake? And if so, when?

And what about the New York State case brought by the Manhattan DA? First that of the box, first to indict, but will it be the first to be tried in March? And what about Trump's efforts to disqualify the judge up in New York? Should that case be sideline for now as Fannie Willis and or Jack Smith's cases go first?

And finally, Twitter and its counsel are in hot water with a federal judge who not only find them $350,000 for producing late everything about Donald Trump's Twitter account and slid into his DMs and user information, but she lit into them for tipping off Trump and trying in her words to curry favor with Trump, who had just been re-platformed back on the Twitter after Elon Musk's purchase. All this and a whole lot of analysis we haven't even thought of yet, nor are probably prepared for, only on LegalAof Podcast on the Midest Dutch Network with your regular anchors, Karen Friedman,

Ignit Fulo and Michael Popeye. Karen, hello. Don't you love when that happens when in the middle of us talking about something you come up with another theory? Yes, but you know, why I love the fact that you and I, well, first of all, we start from a solid place, right? You have almost 30 years as a prosecutor, 32 years as a defense lawyer in courtrooms, like the ones that we talk about on this show. And then, yes, we, yes, we prepare, of course, for the things that we're going to talk about and things that may happen in a lot of real time while we're doing the show, but we're drawing and pulling from our instincts, from our gut, from our expectations

about how things work, because we've seen it done in hundreds and hundreds of cases. And so, let's kick it off, because we have a lot of prosecutor oriented inside the minds of prosecutor's stuff today. And I can't think of a better person to discuss all of that with, then the former prosecutor, lead prosecutor and number two in the Manhattan DA's office than Karen Friedman, Knifle Lo. So, let's kick it off with what's going on in Fulton County. We might have touched in a great live show, The Brothers held down the fort while you and I, I think you weren't feeling well and I had, I was tied up doing something else and

I couldn't jump on so much later. But, and I think we, we'll talk about the 98 pages and the hundreds of counts. And I know you have a very good reason to opinion about some of the work that went into the indictment and the output. But let me just give the highlights of some of the critical things that are going to go that are going to happen going forward under the assumption that everybody already sort of knows the basics, which is Donald Trump and 18 others indicted under the Georgia really expansive racketeering influence and corrupt organization act.

A set of statutes that was originally established to go after organized crime like the mob, like in the Godfather era, but has been used time and time again in other public corruption, public integrity, financial securities fraud cases. Really, you name it. There's no limitation as the body of law has been developed through the Supreme Court and otherwise to it. The person who is probably considered the no pun intended the godfather of rico is

always been uh... rudy julie any who's now on the receiving end of being indicted by the very type of statute that he used so successfully for five or six years as the u.s. attorney for new york for southern district of new york and that's what launched him to national prominence and got him the marylty uh... and now you know sweet, sweet just the sweet irony, he's on the other side of it, although he's complained about that's not what it's supposed to be used for,

although he's, look at that picture of Rudy there, that's up on the screen. What happened to that guy? Where did that guy go? He's been body snatched and replaced by somebody else that's no longer Rudy Giuliani, who flip flops constantly. We got a hot take that's no longer Rudy Giuliani, who flip flops constantly. We got a hot take that's running

about Rudy at a press conference in 2016 saying that Hillary Clinton is a criminal. She ran a criminal organized crime family that under racketeering Rico should be indicted and we shouldn't send a criminal to the White House. Okay, let's just use those same terms, but insert Trump. And the fact that Body Will is used it, which we've been telling our audience for the last eight months, nine months, that she's going to use the most powerful tool in her

arsenal. And a prosecutor's arsenal is conspiracy. And the best of conspiracy for this type of case is Rico conspiracy because you can attach and connect all of the defendants and all of the overt acts and all of the predicate acts and lump them all together and make everybody responsible for it. We have an arrangement that's now been set. It's going to be an arrangement. Oh, no, there's a proposed arrangement, September the 5th, because in Georgia they uncouple a arrangement from processing, booking and processing. Those two things are not together in one place, like in the federal court system. So, Fahni Willis and the judge presiding,

judge McAfee and the sheriff have given everybody all 19 people until the 25th of August to self-surrender and very helpfully the jellor of the Rice Street jail, Fulton County jail on Rice Street, and the sheriff has said you can come on down anytime you like we're open 24-7 I'm not making this up. You can just come on in industry clothes and we'll process you, process you, which means booking, fingerprinting, could be digital, could be the old fashioned black ink pad, put your hand down on it, roll your thumb to your pinky. I'm not sure what they do in Folk County. I can tell you that the Folk County jail is not a fun place, not the actual place for

the processing with the mug shots and all that, but above it in the jail, three people have died already in this month in Folk County. But there we have on the screen, when you're in a resty, there's all processing, an intake thing, and a checklist, and Donald Trump has to read the website like anybody else. He's not going to get any special advantage. So he'll go by the 25th, maybe he'll do this press conference on the street corner, like some strange, you know, street corner barker and three-card money guy. And he's gonna talk about why things Georgia fraud happened. Then he'll go in and get his mug shot and fingerprints and then he'll come back out.

And then we have a presiding judge. We have Judge McAfee, a Federalist Society member who is also picked to replace a departing judge by the governor who's Republican of Georgia Governor Kemp. He was the inspector general for Georgia. So he was the chief Boy Scout You can he looks like a boy scout in the photo. He's 34 years old. He's the youngest and most inexperienced judge on Fulton County's bench They got 19 judges. He's number 19 in seniority. He's been on the bench for three months. I'm not making this up.

Everybody like around the world in the country are probably thinking, hope I'm here making stuff up now. We gave Judge Cannon the least experienced judge in the Southern District of New York, the Mar-a-Lago case. We gave this, this is the best they can come up with, but this is how random wheel selection happens. He is the presiding judge.

He will be the judge here. Interesting fact. He also worked under Fony Willis before she became the DA, when she was the head of the complex litigation department or division of the Fulton County DA. She had one Scott McAfee working under her. That's not a disqualifier.

I'm just putting it out there. So you got a Federalist Society Republican Boy Scout, who's been appointed very, very inexperienced. But you know Donald Trump will find a way to attack him. And now you have finally the proposed series of dates with Fawney Willis telling the world as of just now, I mean, just now, that she's ready for trial on the 4th of March of this coming year.

So we've been very careful at looking at the calendar and trying to slot all of this checkerboard together. And we basically gave March over to New York, because that's where the Stormy Daniels Hushman cover up business record for our case is being handled by Karen Urald office. But Faudi's like, eff, effort, I'm doing March. I like March. I have a big, big, Rico case and I want to do March. So that's where we're at.

Now come in as the prosecutor. Tell us about what you thought about the quality of the indictment issues with the indictment, if there are any, and this March trial date. And where the Manhattan DA's office, and and their position because they've already sort of taken a position in July about whether they're you they'll yield to other bigger cases where do you think all this kind of slots together the indictment is 98 pages long charges 19 people 30 unindicted co-conspirators 41 substantive criminal counts, but within that there's over 160 acts that relate to either the RICO or the conspiracy, which I'll describe in one minute.

There's 22 counts related to forgery or false documents or statements. There's eight counts related to soliciting or impersonating public officers, three counts related to influencing witnesses, three counts related to election fraud or impersonating public officers, three counts related to influencing witnesses, three counts related to election fraud or defrauding the state, three counts related to computer tampering, one count of RICO, the racketeering count, and one count of perjury.

Trump and Giuliani are both charged with 13 counts each. That's the most of anybody. John Eastman is next with nine, and then you've got Ken Cheesebro and Sydney Powell each with seven, Mark Meadows, Jeff Clark, Jenna Ellis with two, and then there's some people I've never heard of that are also charged who are sort of lower level people. Now, what is Rico, what is conspiracy, why charge it?

These are all kind of these murky questions that I'm sure a lot of people are like, I've heard of it, but I don't really know what it is. What's the difference? And I will not pretend that I'm a RICO expert, but let me try and explain it the way I understand it. So conspiracy, when you charge conspiracies, two or more people agree to commit a crime together.

And conspiracies are universally available all over the country, both in state and federal court. And in there, you need an agreement, and you need an agreement to commit a crime. And you have to have committed some number of overt acts, some states only require one overt act. And an overt act is just any act. It doesn't have to be criminal. So it could be two people agree to go rob a bank together, they agree they're going to rob the bank, they mean it, and one of them rents a car, and he's going to be the getaway driver. And then they get caught before it happens. They would be charged with conspiracy to rob a bank. And the rental of the car is an overt act, right? It's not illegal in and of itself, but it's they took

a step to towards their agreement. And so you will see she's charged conspiracy here, but she charged Rico conspiracy, which is like a type of Rico, but it's still conspiracy within it. And you'll see in there some of these accounts, some of these 160 acts that she charges, she says they are overt acts and furtherance of the conspiracy. And what she's doing there is she's spelling out that that's what that relates to. Because for Rico, and Rico is very different than conspiracy. It's sort of, I think, one commentator, normize and called it conspiracy on steroids,

which is kind of what it is. RICO is much more serious, it's much more severe, and it requires more. And it stands for the Racketering Influence Corrupt Organizations Act. It was passed in the 70s, federally. It became a thing in the 70s. And it had to do with, I think, the Mafia and other gangs.

And because there weren't really statutes that encompass all of the activities, that groups that organized groups commit together. You have low-level people, high-level people, some people don't even know of each other, but they're all part of the same group, and they all share a common goal. For example, there aren't a lot of crimes that fit the conduct of a president trying to steal an election,

because no one would ever believe that that is something that would happen. However, there is this crime called RICO that talks about a group of people that has a structure and a common purpose. The common purpose here would be to steal the election and you commit crimes in the process. Again, not all the people have to even know each other. They don't have to talk to each other. They don't even have to have the same common purpose, meaning this group could be the one who's going to break into the computers, and that one's going to

be the ones to try to do the fake electors, and this one's going to be the one to pressure the Secretary of State. They don't necessarily have the same job description in this common purpose, but they do have the same common purpose, which is to steal the election. So here, you've got an enterprise or an organization. You've got this group of people, and the leader is Donald Trump. And you've got all these individuals under him, including un-charged or un-indicted co-conspirators, which means they may or may not be cooperating.

All I know is they weren't charged here. And you have to have committed to crimes in furtherance of this rico. Unlike overt acts in a conspiracy, again, remember we said that doesn't have to be a crime. You're overt act. These are overt acts that are crimes. So predicate acts that are crimes.

And so it would be, you know, my, I'm part of your group. I have the same common purpose, meaning I'm going to steal the election, and I forged documents, right? That's one crime. So this requires two crimes. And so if you go through the 160, you'll see the crimes that are listed in there, She will say that they committed this crime in that act and that this is both an overed act in the conspiracy as well as a RICO act. And so that's the distinction in there. Now, there's a couple of places where I think there's some mistakes in the indictment. And my own theory is that this indictment was intended to be, was intended to be published and voted on on Tuesday,

but the clerk of the court accidentally posted the front of the indictment on Monday, they then put a statement out saying, oh, that was just a dummy mockup that we did to try and see if the computer system worked, but I think that's a little bit of a weird excuse given the fact that I think it matches perfectly with the actual indictment. So anyway, but the point is I think that might have pushed her to rush

this and that's why they stayed late on Monday and they voted this because there are some sloppy errors. For example, you'll see number 52 of the act, you'll see number 52 is there's two number 52s and there's no number 53. So that's just a dumb error, right, clerical error. It just means no one's gone through with a fine tooth comb and then there's at least three acts where they clearly have charged a substantive crime but rather than calling it a racketeering act and a conspiracy overt act,

they only call it a conspiracy over act. And so if you look at number 23, for example, yeah, there's number 52 and 52 and then it goes to 54. But if you go to number 23, I think it is salty. If you want to put that one up, you'll see that it lists a substantive crime, but it doesn't list at the bottom that it lists a substantive crime, but it doesn't list at the bottom that it's both a racketeering act

and a over-dacted justice over-dact. And I don't know if she meant to do that or didn't mean to do that. And there's a few possibilities. See, act, see, it says in there, honor about the third day of December, Giuliani, and Eastman, and, et cetera, and Eastman, et cetera, were in violation of OCGA section 1647 to 1610-1. At the very end, it says this was an overdacked in further and so the conspiracy.

Now, if you go to now number 24, if you can pull that up salty, you'll see that number 24 will have slightly different language at the end. What does it mean though, Karen? I mean, I get the differences, but from a prosecutor's standpoint, from an elemental charging standpoint, what is the difference? Is this something she has to clean up in a super seating? I think so. Yeah. Just explain to the audience. Yeah. What? Because we're just using terms now, over, to act not over. Yeah. Well, so just see just using terms now, over at act not over at the end. Yeah, well, so if you see, if you see number 24, it says that they bought them.

This was an act of racketeering activity and an over at act and furtherance of the conspiracy. And the reason it's significant is because in order to be convicted of RICO, you have to be, each person has to also have committed two of these racketeering acts, right? you have to be, each person has to also have committed two of these racketeering acts, right? They have to have been found guilty of committing these two substantive crimes.

So, you know, it's just important to list in there that this is one of those substantive crimes, right? And so that's why it matters. Now, it might not be a mistake. I'll tell you the two reasons it might not be a mistake. I'll tell you the two reasons it might not be a mistake. Number one, Rico requires only allows certain crimes to be pattern acts or Rico acts.

And so I have to see if these are designated crimes under Rico. I did look, I did try, and Georgia is not an easy statute to understand, so I'm hoping we'll get some clarity on that. Or perhaps maybe they don't think they have those crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. Or whatever it is, there could be reasons for this that is not a mistake. It's just things that I saw were kind of different in this.

And there's a few other little typo type mistakes in there that made me think that this was slightly rushed. But other than that, I do think it's a sweeping indictment. I think it's excellent. I think it is just absolutely makes them all look like, you know, where's the Jack Smith or other ones? You can make this claim of, you know, the other side will make this claim of free speech or or first amendment, these are words. This makes them look like just regular old criminals, right? Like this, this just absolutely smacks of watergate and breaking and entering and stealing. I mean, I just can't even believe when you read some of the sections in here. You look at the Manor and Methods section.

It's actually titled Manor and Methods. And that's kind of the meat of the crime. That's the meat of the indictment. And it talks about false statements and lying during legislative hearings, right? And high ranking officials like Brad Rathensberger being contacted and pressured, or the creation and distribution of these fake documents, harassment and intimidation of the election worker,

Ruby Freeman, so she Moss is not mentioned in count 50s, in the, I think she was harassed a different way, I think. Yeah, I think that's true. I think I list contacted Ruby and tried to convince her to say the things were going awry inside the room when they weren't. In other words, have her lie. Exactly. And look, I think I'm so glad that Sheamus and Ruby Freeman, who is listed in there later, in Act 56, I am so glad they are in this indictment

because for two reasons. Number one, for them, because what they went through was so egregious and so difficult. But number two, because as a prosecutor, this at the end of the day is a paper case, right? It's not a blood and guts case, the way you don't have, you don't have a victim. The American people are the victim.

The electorates are the victim. And paper cases can get kind of boring. You got a victim like Shemos and Ruby Freeman who will get up there and testify about what it's like to have the president of the United States come after you and how you have to move from your home and how you are getting called horrible names and death threats. They are going to be the two most powerful witnesses. They are going to put a face to this horrific crime. And I think the bullying and the, you know, you can only chalk up so much to, oh, that this is political speech, right? This is politics. This is people just saying things and and and legitimately questioning

elections, et cetera. When you put Seamus and Ruby Freeman up on the stand, that is that is where it goes. It's nobody will say that that was okay. And as a prosecutor, that's gold. And so I'm so glad they're in there just from the case standpoint. Again, like I said for them too, but as a prosecutor that is so powerful and that's going to be incredible. And you know, the way she presented the acts was in chronological order. And so I think she did that because she wanted to tell a story. It's a little, and I think that's a good way to do it because you know, that's really what you have to try to figure out in a case like this when it goes to the jury. A case like this can be overwhelming for a jury and that's one of the downsides to Rico

is they've just become overwhelmed and there are different ways you can do it. She decided to do it chronologically which, you know, is good and bad. It's good because it tells a story but it's not great because then you're bearing some of your best facts. And so we'll see how she actually tries it, but that's clear. That's why she did it this way was to tell a story. And so then you asked me another question and I let's let's let's we got a lot to talk about. And we're going to talk about it all including your prosecutor view point, the judge that's been selected,

whether we're going to stay in state court or federal court for some or all of these people, the difficulty of trying 19 people or something around that number in one sprawling trial, it's one thing to indict them in one piece of paper, it's another thing to try the case. We're going to do all of that when we return, but first, a note from our sponsors. Green Chef is the number one meal kit for eating clean. Feel your best with delicious, nutritionist-to-proof recipes featuring clean ingredients with no artificial colors, sweeteners, high-fructose corn syrup, and limited added sugar and processed ingredients.

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Speaking of moving along, let's stay in the topics, stay in the moment, but I got an issue that's near and dear to your heart. In July on another issue, but interviewed, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, was asked about his trial date for Stormy Daniels being in March, and knowing that he, there was already a Mar-a-Lago indictment and an upcoming indictment, which happened that Jack Smith brought in the District of Columbia and anticipating that. Just as Latisha James, the New York Attorney General, also in an interview,

a monster too before that, said that she anticipated that her civil fraud case, even though it's $250 million against everybody named Trump, except for Ivanka, apparently, that she's expecting that she'll take a back seat or she'll have to be, she'll have to hold the ring and stay here case while these criminal cases line up in front of her. Alvin, of course, suggesting that maybe his case, which doesn't deal with Jan 6, doesn't deal with the coup that Donald Trump led in order to cling to power and overthrow democracy, he might take a backseat and maybe anticipating that, not because they made a phone call to each other, but maybe anticipating that, you know, Faudi Willis is out of the box today

going, I got a great date for this. I think I'm free on the on the 4th of March. How about everybody else to try this case? And she's put it in respect, respectfully before the federal case by Jack Smith and Mar-a-Lago, but also before there's a subtle date with Judge Chutkin in the new DC indictment because that hearing is not until I think the 28th or the 25th of August. So it's another 10 12 days away when we get the date there. The government has said January is good for us. Why don't we pick a jury right before Christmas?

Everybody loves to do that. I can tell you that as a child or Jerry's just love to be pulled in two weeks before Christmas for a jury selection. We'll try the case in January, Your Honor, and let's try that. We know the other side for the Jan 6 case is going to say, how about never? How about we never have a trial or we have a trial sometime after the election? Let's wait till after the election, Judge. We have Judge Tanya Chukkin, who's made it clear.

This is her courtroom. And she's going to administer justice the right way without respect of any political view or to paraphrase, just Chukkin in her hearing. I understand your guys got a day job, but he's just a criminal defendant in front of me. So she'll pick some date. It's not going to be January, but she'll pick some date, respectful of the other date with Judge Cannon. You got this one. And now, Foney Willis, hey, I got a sprawling indictment involving seven states and fake

electors and impersonations and all of that. Also, and I want to go and I'm ready. And I'm in Fulton County and I got an easier road to hoe because my law is easier. Let's just have a quick set of pre-trial motions and hearings and meetings and judge. I'm ready to try a case. Okay, that's one. And then the second thing to comment on Karen is

Meadows is jumped out first as one of the White House aides. He was the chief of staff at one time. We're not surprised that he was indicted. We thought he was not going to be indicted with Jack Smith but that there was no reason he couldn't be indicted with Fannie Willis and that happened. He's out saying, I'm federal officer, at least during the relevant time period,

and I did my things under the color of my office, and therefore under a provision of the federal jurisdictional statute we call removal, I get to take my case to federal court house. Doesn't mean we lose Fannie Willis's team as a prosecutor. Doesn't even mean we lose Georgia law. Nord doesn't mean a federal pardon would help. It just means different judge.

We don't like, he didn't even wait to see you with a judge would be. He was just like, I want to be a federal court. All right, he's in federal court. He got a federal judge. It's an Obama appointing an African American judge who sits in the Northern District of Georgia. I don't think that's helpful to him ultimately,

but you ask for it, you got it. So talk about, and then of course Trump will follow right behind that. Talk to me about Manhattan DA versus that case versus the March other date for Fonnie, and who do you think, what do you think happens there? And then comment on the federal removal, or whether you think what do you think happens there and then comment on the federal removal and whether you think it's ultimately be successful and whether Fani should even

fight it given the fact that the wheels spun and it landed on a really good judge for her. Look there's no way Fani Willis is going in March. It's just not happening. It's not going before the election. It's not possible. There's 19 defendants and you have this giant sweeping 100 page, 98 page indictment. You know, just to just to look at two other Rico cases that she has brought in her jurisdiction, there was one that she did against the teachers, like a teachers union, and that was 12 defendants who went to trial. So she can have she can seat a lot of people in a courtroom. I've never had or seen a 12 defendant trial in in my practice. It's a lot of people in a courtroom. I've never had or seen a 12-defendant trial in my practice. It's a lot of people in one room, but she's done it.

And so assuming a few people are gonna flip because that typically happens, or at least plead guilty because that typically happens. I don't think all 19 will go to trial. Like say, she widdles it down to around 12. You could see them going all together. But even so, that last, that teacher's case took about two years to try.

So there's no way she's going to start that and have that go for two years. Well, I mean, what happens when he runs for president, what happens, God forbid he wins, all that kind of stuff. But just to get 19 people's motion practice and all the things that will happen that take time in a trial. I just don't see this happening in March.

So there's another case too that she has been prosecuting that's going on right now, another RICO case involving a young, a rapper called Young Thug or something like that. They started jury selection seven months ago and they still are in the middle of jury selection. That's how hard it is, YSL, thanks Salty. That's how hard it is to even seat a jury in a case like this. So I just don't see this.

We got another rationale. We have breaking news, Karen. We're gonna mention here the dovetails with what you're talking about. It is gonna piss off Judge McBernie supervising the grand jury and the presiding judge, McAfee. We have reporting that Trump supporters are now targeting members of the Fulton County Grand jury that indicted Donald Trump and his 18-code defendants. They've even on a fringe,

right-wing, deep-dark website posted the home addresses addresses doxed the grand jury. And so look, there's going to have to be a lot of protection for this judicial process. And I'm sorry the judge McAfee is only three months on the bench, but he's going to have to put on his big judge pants because there's just things he never was taught in judge school that he's now going to have to handle on the fly. Along with the rest, this kind of behavior and activity could end up back in Jack Smith's cases in filings that he's going to make to get to get judge Chuckkins attention and judge Canon's attention, but really terrible, terrible things. I'm sure in your long career as a prosecutor, you never had a defendant docks the grand jury that indicted

them. No, and don't forget the E. Jean Carroll case, right? In that case, you know, the, the, there was an anonymous jury, right? You had the judge, Lewis Kaplan rule that there was a likelihood that the judge, that the jurors could be harassed or tampered with or threatened. He had some pretty strong language there. That's where there's an anonymous, so he ruled for an anonymous jury. Here, the names go out, and you see what the Trump supporters are already doing.

I think it's going to be hard to find someone who's going to be able to say, yeah, I can do this and sit and fare an impartial, you know, for fear of Trump and his supporters. So I just don't see this happening anytime soon because of that. I think the jury selection process says you're commenting on, I mean, first of all, whether the judge even considers what we call sequestration, which is used in a rarest, I mean, first of all, whether the judge even considers what we call sequestration, which is used in a rarest, I mean, you see in the movies a lot, but in reality, it doesn't happen, which is, sorry, Jerry, you're going to be living in a hotel under, you know, martial protection or bail of protection over the next three weeks or a month or six weeks, never gets grown. Oh, no, and nobody wants to do it. Or more importantly, like you said, you've

got to protect the jury. So you're going to have to have an anonymous jury. It's going to freak people out. Well, you know, this is so, so ridiculous, so sad that his supporters are doing everything they can do to undermine Donald Trump's ability to get a fair and impartial jury consistent with his constitutional rights. It's they're doing it. It's not funny willis. Funny willis's team is in doxing Donald Trump. It's the other way around and we're suffering the consequences. But you made a very good point in past podcasts, just to tie it together here, Karen. You said, by heart, if we were right, which we were, that she was going to do a much more sprawling indictment, and we didn't know exactly the amount of accounts, but we figured it was going to be a, you know, a baker's dozen of defendants and a baker's dozen or more of a criminal accounts that

that alone would take her out of the running for being one of the cases to get to trial before the election, leaving Jack Smith the last prosecutor's standing. And that's what you believe, right? All right. Defend my mute button. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So she took herself out of the running.

So she must know, despite the bravado of saying, I'm ready in March, you're on her reality, she's not really ready in March. And that leaves Jack Smith. So let's talk about that. What do you think if anything? Because I'm sure, just as we were speculating about the contours and shape of this indictment in advance, and we did a lot of really good shows and got it pretty right.

Jack Smith's doing the same thing. Well, what do you think Fawni's going to be doing? What do you think her indictment looks like? How many of the battlegrounds states do you think she's going to mention? How do you think she's going to handle Georgia? Is she going to do it like you said, Karen, chronologically, or is she going to sort it some other way? And what do I do next? Does this impact him at all in terms of his next steps having now now he's seen it what is he do with it if anything in amending superseding his indictments or actions he takes in his two criminal court houses for Donald Trump. I don't think one has anything to do with the other.

I think Jack Smith, I have always said, I don't think there's been any coordination, any communication at all, other than Bonnie Willis stating publicly to the world, without saying it, saying, oh, looks protect, news might come. So it looks protect everybody, police and law enforcement. I think that was her hat tip to Jack Smith to let him know

if you're gonna go, you know, go. I think these things are just proceeding on their own. The only overlap thing that is a head scratcher for me that I just cannot figure out is Mark Meadows. There are people who like Ty Cobb, who went on the air, you know, to CNN last night, who said absolutely 100% Mark Meadows is cooperating federally with Jack Smith. And he's just certain of that. And he's former White House counsel. He just believes that to be the case.

There are other people who say no, he's not formally cooperating, he's helping with an understanding that he will enter into a formal cooperation agreement another time. But it's just the reason that's a head scratcher for me, and the reason I don't understand it is, look, say he is cooperating. And if he is cooperating, he is absolutely part of this criminal enterprise, right? He is very much a large part of this organization and committed lots of crimes alongside of Donald Trump. But he would also be a great witness

because he was literally in the room where it all happened, right? He was the one that Cassidy Hutchinson went into and he was the one on the phone with Donald Trump and Cassidy was saying, you know, make it stop. And he was saying, you know, he won't do anything about it. You know, and he, he, as you see from this indictment too, he was all over the place, making phone calls and, and, and participating in so much of these schemes.

And so he's absolutely someone you'd want to cooperate, right? But in the federal system, in order to cooperate if you are a criminal, like he is, you would have to plead guilty to all of your crimes, which means you have to admit them all. And you have to, you know, you can't kind of half cooperate the way Alan Weiselberg did in the Trump Organization trial, where he sort of, you know, agreed to testify against the Trump organization, but refused to testify against Trump. You know, that's kind of a half cooperation that frankly I've never seen before, but in the feds that doesn't fly at all. You have to admit to all your crimes, even things that are unknown to the government, right? Even other things, like even things that have nothing to do with this. So let's say he is cooperating and he did admit to all those crimes.

How is he going to fight it in the state, right? He's now admitted to all these things. And since these, what happened in the Georgia section of Jackson Smith's indictment and Fannie Willis's Georgia section of her indictment are there's nothing inconsistent you know there's some facts and Fani willises that we didn't know about you know that wasn't in Jack Smith's and maybe vice versa because different ones will highlight different things but but there's nothing inconsistent right so Mark Meadows if he's already if he's already admitted to all that in Jack Smith's

case then he's those are all admissions for this case. So how can he fight this case? And he has a really good lawyer, right? The Terviliger is his last name. And he's a good lawyer. He would never have arranged for cooperation in one and not the other that again makes no sense. And so there's a couple of questions about what's actually happening there. And now we see Mark Meadows go to remove. He's the first out of the gate to try to remove his case, his prosecution from State Court to Federal Court under the removal doctrine, which has several components.

One of it, which you have to be a federal officer. Another is that you have to be acting under the color of your authority as a federal officer and you have to have a plausible federal defense. Now, I think there's only three people in Fannie Willis's indictment that were federal officers, Trump, Meadows, and Jeff Clark. So they're the only ones who could be removed if they choose to remove. Not sure. There's some people and you alluded to this that there's some people who believe

that Trump might not, might choose not to, not to do the removal because the judge, they, the judge Jones, who they pulled there might not be favorable to him. Certainly, it's favorable as the state court judge that he pulled. Let me mention Jones for a minute before we move on. As I mentioned earlier, Stephen Jones is an Obama appointee. He was confirmed by the Senate, just to show you how things have changed.

2011, he was confirmed 90 to zero. You don't hear those numbers anymore. Confirmations are more like 52 to 48 if that. But he's, yes, this is going to be the judge to decide for these three. And there is some speculation that maybe Fonte just lays down and says, you know what? You want to do that there with judge Jones pres presiding Georgia law Georgia prosecutors Georgia crimes let's do it let's go we'll see yeah we'll see but there's one other thing that again and I'm throwing this out there because I think I think time will tell and legal research will tell how this plays because again there it does not make sense that Terwilliger would arrange a plea deal for meadows in Jack

Smith case and not in Fanny Willis' case without having something up his sleeve. And the thing that he might have up his sleeve, and again, we need more legal research on this, but this is what I'm kind of playing with and trying to figure out, is analogous to something we've talked about many times, which is the Westfall Act that applies in civil cases, right? Where the government substitutes themself, you know, for a defendant, and then therefore you have immunity because, you know, you can't really sue, you know, for defamation, for example, sue the government for that. There's something called 28 CFR section 50.15,

which has to do with criminal prosecutions for acts that reasonably appear to have been performed within the scope of the employee's employment. And the Attorney General, or his designated determines that providing representation would otherwise be in the interest of the United States. So there's that, and that has to do with whether or not you will hire a lawyer for the person or pay for their lawyer.

But there's also under that if you do some research, there's the supremacy clause. So will he get, will Mark Meadows get immunity if it's removed to federal court under the Supremacy Chart clause because this is a state court prosecution? You know, will if it gets removed, will that then make him immune from prosecution? Maybe that's what he has up his sleeve because if you read his removal papers, you know, in footnote 2, the lawyer says, look, we're going to submit another, in another submission. We're going to, you know, give you our reasoning for why, you know, he's, this should be dismissed and why he, he's, I think it says why he's immune.

I just think that he's got something up his sleeve and I want to I want to all just kind of put your spidey sense up and and keep your ears out because there's something going on there that that we haven't figured out yet because these these no these aren't dummies right but and so there's something going on there with Mark Meadows that that we haven't figured out yet. Yeah I'll I'll I'll put my thinking cap on and we'll come back and hit it along with, we also want to talk about today, Judge Mershan, the judge who's been presiding over the Donald Trump stormy Daniels prosecution that's going to trial, at least on paper in March, at an effort by Donald Trump to disqualify him.

This sounds familiar, to qualify him and remove him. While Donald Trump is busy calling prosecutors, other families and trial and trial counsel and judges deranged against him, biased crackheads, people that are having extra marital affairs with their clients and everything else disgusting while they're doing all of that. He also tried to disqualify George Morshan. We'll talk about that in Twitter, being in hot water ever since Elon Musk took over

the reins there. And this time in front of what was then the chief judge of the district court, Barrel Howell, now that we have our hot little hands on the transcript, 300 page transcript of what happened then the chief judge of the district court, Barrel Howell, now that we have our hot little hands on the transcript, 300 page transcript of what happened in her courtroom, it's eye popping, and we'll cover it next after a word from our sponsor. Let's stop cutting down trees to make toilet paper. It's true, humans are cutting down tens of thousands

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We're real in and in ourselves. Let's high-tail it up to Manhattan. You'll like this part. Talk about the Manhattan D.A.'s. First out of the shoot, first to indict, first to, I don't know what, they have the first one to get the trial on the docket. March, the end of March of 2024, middle of March of 2024,

is the case that's at least on the paper, going to trial, one defendant, Donald Trump, many counts. I think then that one, there's 37 or 34, which one? Allerizing out of the story, me, Daniels, Hush, money, cover up a fair and the resulting business fraud, business record fraud in front of Judge Mershon, the same judge, Juan Mershon who presided over the 17 count conviction of the two major Trump subsidiaries for tax fraud last year. And that's the case that Karen just talked about related to Alan Weisselberg, the long time CFO, spent five and a half months in Rikers Island, not a fun place, while hold up there

as part of his sentence. And he also cooperated in his own way against the Trump organization and the like. Trump, not liking Judge Mershon at all, in the fact that he donated $38 or whatever it was to Joe Biden's campaign and his daughter, his adult daughter works for a political PR firm that gives strategy tips to democratic candidates, although she didn't particularly work on anyone related to Donald Trump's opponents and all the other nasty things that he said about him and says that he's not because anything he did in the courtroom because there's nothing in the courtroom that would suggest that he's biased in any way.

And that's the problem. And the way it works in every court around America, the judge themselves makes the ultimate decision whether they are going to be disqualified or not or what we call recused. And then if you don't like the decision, you can take it up on appeal. But it goes to the, and I have, I will tell you that I have filed just a small handful. This is not something you take lightly to do this. You have to really have the goods and have the facts.

And I had them and I think that we've done it twice in my entire 32 years, and it was successful both times because it was really bad things that happened. But you have to go to the same judge. And so you better have it because if he's going to deny it, if he's as bad as you thought he was, you've got to take the appeal and be prepared. So, Cara, once you jump in with Judge Mershon, having gotten an ethical ruling from the judicial panel, beforehand that gave him a lot of comfort, and then what he said and his, you know,

reproachment of Donald Trump, and then where do we go from here, and then we'll end the podcast today talking about Twitter and Judge Barrel Howell. Yeah, Judge Mershawn basically said, I searched my conscious and my heart and sought advisory opinion, and I will not recuse myself from this case. This stems from a May 31st Donald Trump filed a motion

seeking recusal with his lawyer Susan Neckless, who's the same lawyer who represented him in the Trump org case, June, and then in June, the government or the prosecution responded. And the court, as you said, had written to the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee before they even filed these motions in April April asking for a formal advisory opinion because it had come out through the various publications that you have to report who donates, it came out that he had donated these tiny, diminimous amounts of money to a, I think it was like a get out the vote for anyone anti-Trump.

It was like $15 or something like that. I mean, it was just a ridiculous amount of money that was so low, but it was absolutely in the Trump election against Trump. And so the three arguments that Trump cited for recusal had to do with his daughter, Judge Mershon had a daughter that works for an, like, an agency or a company that does grassroots advocacy, on behalf of Democratic candidates. So he says, you know, there's political financial interest of the court's adult daughter creates an actual or perceived conflict because rulings may result in money to his daughter. The second thing he said was the court's role

in the prior case, encouraging Ellen Weissselberg to cooperate against Trump showed preconceived bias against Trump. And number three, that the campaign contributions made by the judge in 2020 raise if true, at least the appearance of impartiality. I think they meant partiality, not impartiality. I think they meant a typo.

But it raises the appearance. And the judge said, look, the right tune in partial judge is a basic requirement of due process. But it's up to me whether I recuse myself and I don't have to do it. I have to make a decision. And he said, regarding my daughter, I had sought an advisory committee opinion.

And the advisory committee said, you know, the matter currently before the judge does not involve either the judge's relative or the relative's business, whether directly or indirectly. They're not parties or likely witnesses. And we see nothing in this inquiry to suggest that the outcome of the case could have any effect on the judge's relatives' business or any of their interests. So he said, number one, that's not a reason. Number two, the Weiselberg case, he said, look, Trump, you made this argument through your organization

last time trying to get me recused off the case and it didn't work then and this is even more far afield than that and so it's not going to work this time either. Also he bench slaps Susan Ecclis and says look, you gave an affirmation that says it's based on personal information but it's devoid of first-hand information in contrast with Susan Hofinger who works for Alvin Bragg which is full of first-hand knowledge in contrast with Susan Hofinger, who works for Alvin Bragg, which is full of first-hand knowledge. So I'm denying here too, for the same reason that I denied it in the Trump org case when you tried to get me off. I know, you know, he didn't say this, but the judges are on to the fact that that's what

Trump does is one of the... Should I ask you a question? You know Susan necklace by reputation. So do I. Where'd you surprise you filed that? Because it didn't have any facts. Yeah. Yeah. But she's a very, very good lawyer with a great reputation. Yeah. She's very aggressive. You know, I think I think sometimes you can't file facts that you don't have.

You know, and so. And don't file in declaration. Well, I don't think you have a choice. That's one of the reasons a lot of people won't represent Trump in addition to the fact that who he is, who he is, I don't think you have a choice. That's one of the reasons a lot of people won't represent Trump in addition to the fact that he is who he is is because he wants you to do things that you don't normally do. So, but you're saying she made a devil's bargain and she had no choice because the client wanted

her to file it. And rather than saying, I don't feel comfortable filing a declaration that's doomed to failure and undermines my own credibility with a judge I have to appear in front of, she said, okay. I think she did, I think she did the best she could. I think it's, I think, look, defendants all defendants have a right to a zealous advocacy. And she, and the one thing I will give her a lot of credit

for is she is a zealous advocate for her clients. And so I do think, you know, she believes that this is really what he wants. She's going to do it, but she's not going to lie. And so that's why it was devoid of information because she can't, she's not going to put something in there. So that was the compromise. She submitted something even though it was T-O-A. And yeah, and the judge gave the judge the opportunity to say, I don't see the facts here. And yeah, but, you know, this the thing, we won't talk about it more today, but, you know, we've talked about it throughout on legal AF. It's just the sacrificing on the altar of whatever professional ethics and professional

reputation of lawyers time and time again for Donald Trump. If you represent Donald Trump, you're either indicted, soon to be indicted, disbarred, soon to be disbarred. And at a certain point, our profession, and we are members of a proud profession, one that I've called home for 32 years, and you have two, you know, less, but you have two. And to see, there's just certain things that you shouldn't do. It took and maintain your ethics and the ability to appear before judges in the future

and have credibility with them. I tell that to my clients all the time, I'm just not comfortable in doing that or taking that position because not because, I'm worried about my own reputation, but I am because of my own ethics and professional responsibility. I always think lawyers like,

like not necklace in particular, but the lawyers that we're talking about who are now indicted, they're so far away from rules, the rules of professional responsibility or conduct that they learned about in law school and that you should really read at least once a year to remind yourself, I mean, I'm on the Ferrah Methods Committee at our own firm, so I'm dialing through that book a lot.

But other lawyers haven't looked at the actual rules of professional responsibility or conduct in probably 20 or 30 or 40 years. And that is a problem, even though we have to take continuing legal legal education courses. I think man, it should be a mandatory that you brush up on ethics every year before you go out and represent clients. That's just my own opinion. Yeah, you're right. So that's it. Yeah, good. Yes, but just to know at the end, to the end of the day, the judge, I'll just read you his conclusion. He says, the judge, you know, presiding over a case is in the best position to appreciate the implications of those matters alleged in a recusal motion and deciding whether

recuse himself, the trial judge must carefully weigh the policy of promoting public confidence in the judiciary against the possibility that those questioning his impartiality might be seeking to avoid the adverse consequences of his presiding over their case. And this court has carefully weighed the competing interest outlined in a case called Drexel Bernbaum Lambert and finds that recusal would not be in the public interest outlined in a case called Drexel-Bernbaum Lambert and finds that Rekusal would not be in the public interest further. This court has examined its conscience and is certain in its ability to be fair and impartial. Defendance motion for Rekusal and for an explanation is denied on all grounds. Yeah, no surprise. If they don't like it, they can go take it up to the first

department, Court of Appeals, Intermediary Level, Court't like it, they can go take it up to the first department, court of appeals, intermediary level, court of appeals that have been happening. If they don't like it there, they can try to take it to the court of appeals, the highest court in New York. But I don't think it's going to go anywhere. Judge Moshan is going to remain there. This is the second attempt to try to get rid of Moshan. They try to, as you know, using our lesson plan from earlier in the podcast, they tried to do a federal officer removal and take the case over to probably perhaps not a worse judge, but equally bad judge for them. Alan Hellerstein, who was who not only denied the removal, but forced them to conduct a

full evidentiary hearing in which they put on evidence that only is going to strengthen the hand of Alvin Bragg in the case and got yet another judge to say that it's more likely that not that Donald Trump committed a series of crimes in New York, common law crimes, guard variety crimes that aren't protected by any type of federal immunity privilege. Donald Trump just likes having people in black robes say that he's a criminal because it's now it's happened on at least three occasions, even without the indictments being in place. And let's talk about somebody thinking that maybe somebody is a criminal or that somebody has violated her orders

or somebody who is not playing right in the sandbox and has now been subject to a federal courts approbation and a fine, let me just set the mood, and then we can dive into it. We didn't know that in January, because it was secretly guarded under the privacy aspect of protecting grand jury activity, but we know now that the judge,

Barrel Howell, who was then the chief judge, based on evidence presented to her by Affidavit and hearing issued a search warrant to Twitter along with a non disclosure order requiring them not to breathe a word of the search warrant seeking Donald Trump's not just his Twitter account, not just his direct messages, but all the underlying metadata about the operation of the account, who used it, who had access to it, how many phones or other devices had access to it and did posting. Let's see draft tweets, let's see deleted tweets and all of that. And Twitter around that time and I've been acquired by Elon Musk, who made no secret

of the fact that he was a Trump supporter And he wanted to see Trump put back on the platform and the like and so They relate a lot late in complying with the judge's orders and the judge didn't like it and the judge held a hearing That we now have unsealed as of today a 300 page transcript and the judge was none too pleased with a number of things that are being argued. First of all, you could tell from the beginning that the judge was very annoyed with Twitter. I've been sometimes in a hot seat with a judge who doesn't like my client or doesn't like the position that I need to advocate and you can sort of sense when you're getting buffeted by headwinds and certainly Twitter, and I could tell why because every time,

at least in the cold read of the written transcript, I wasn't in the room. But you could tell that the judge was asking pretty simple questions, and was looking for pretty simple basic answers, and instead was getting a lot of, what do we call it, lawyer tap dancing. And the judge was like, can we just get past all this? When are you producing? What did you produce? What's missing?

And why haven't you produced it? And then the judge went on the record and lighting into reaming these lawyers and saying, it looks to me like your client, Elon Musk, is trying to curry favor with Donald Trump by dragging his feet and also perhaps tipping him off at, which is a violation of the non-disclosure order, about the fact that the search warrant was out there. The search warrant was issued with a non-disclosure order because the government had convinced the judge based on their evidence that it was more likely than not, or a proponderance

of the evidence, at least, standard, that Donald Trump would interfere with the investigation if he knew about the Twitter account being grabbed, that he would interfere with witnesses and intimidate witnesses. And they even, at least accidentally checked the box for, he's a flight rest, Donald Trump. And when the judge granted it, she actually put a line in about his being a potential flight rest, even though that wasn't one angle angle the government was really pushing at that time. And we learned about it because Twitter appealed. They didn't like the fact that they got fine, $350,000, and they thought their constitutional

First Amendment rights were violated. So they took it up on appeal to the DC Circuit Court. Judge Pan for the DC Circuit Court said, who was a Biden appointee said, yeah, no, she was right, you were wrong, I'm summarizing. And, you know, your first amendment rights are not implicated here, and you're at a non-disclosure order that was violated, and you have to pay the fine, the fine was well within her abilities to do that. They had seen the transcript that we've now gotten our hands on, and good day. But we got in there, judge Pan describing aspects of the transcript we now have, including the possibility that Donald Trump was a flight risk as grounds for

the non-disclosure order and denying their appeal. So what did you pick up from the judge and what did we learn? I don't really give a shit about Twitter. What did we learn about Donald Trump, both because of the order and the transcript and then what he has said afterwards, including him saying to his followers, I had no idea about the secret search warrant. It looks like that's wrong once again that he lied to his followers and that he was tipped off by Twitter. What'd you pick up from your read of the transcript? I know you're doing, I think you're doing a hot take on it too, right? Yeah. Good.

The, a couple of things. So first of all, just backing up for a minute, it's very routine for prosecutors to, to do a search warrant for social media companies. And, and you do a search warrant because you need to establish probable cause that a crime occurred and that evidence of the crime will be found in the In the thing that you're searching and so there's no difference between a search warrant for a for Mar-a-Lago or a home That there is for social media account. You have to spell out in an affidavit the probable cause that a crime occurred and you have to spell out why you think the evidence of that crime will be located in the place that you are searching. You can't just do a phishing expedition. You have to have probable cause. So and you don't the person like Twitter or the defendant or anybody will not actually see the affidavit

that spells out the probable cause. All they see is the warrant because every search warrant has two parts. There's the affidavit in the warrant and the affidavit is the probable cause and all the details and the warrant is the, you know, from the judge that says, you know, I am judge so and so,

I having read the affidavit, I find that there is probable cause to believe that this crime occurred and I am also satisfied that there is probable cause to believe that the following evidence exists in the following location. Therefore I am allowing these law enforcement officers to go search the following and that's how a warrant is basically in a nutshell. That's the summary of a warrant, and that's all that you get to see. So Twitter didn't get to see the affidavit

that was where a judge found that there was probably cause that Donald Trump committed a crime, nor did they get to see the affidavit that you know had what crime exists? All they got was the warrant that said you must turn over x, y, and z and they were stalling and they didn't want to turn it over and the other thing that the prosecutors did that's also standard is they will ask a court to order non-disclosure which means don don't tell, this is an ongoing investigation, and don't tell the defendant, the target, Donald Trump here, about the fact that I'm doing the search warrant.

Because if you do, I think he could destroy evidence, he could tamper with evidence, he could tamper with witnesses, and he could flee the jurisdiction, right? I've always said, he's this guy. I don't understand why he has no bond Why no one's taken his passport? You know, he's got a 757 at the ready that he can fly anywhere in the world any time he wants, right? So

He's definitely a flight risk and he's got some he's got some relationships with some foreign countries that we don't have extradition treaties with. You've seen how he's talked about Putin and Kim Jong Un. He talks about them as very positively. You can imagine a scenario where they could give him safe haven, but I digress. Anyway, they asked him not to disclose to Donald Trump that the existence of this. This is all standard fare for prosecutors. And why would prosecutors want his Twitter account?

Because, you know, the Twitter account is very much, we have the tweets, right? They're out in the public. So why does a prosecutor need the other data in the Twitter accounts? Well, there's a couple of reasons that we learned from reading these transcripts and all of this. There was a number one prosecutor's, you want to try and establish who's doing the tweeting, right? Who's doing the communicating? And so that's one reason to try to get the information, right? Who is it that, and Donald Trump designated somebody, some people back in 2017 to be his designees with the National Archives for all things, all records, including his social media. In February of 2021 or January of 2021, he changed it, by the way, it was January of 2021.

He wrote a letter to the National Archives revoking the 2017 letter and designating other people to act as his representatives for the archives, meaning Meadows, Speloni, and Philbin and some other names that we've heard. And so prosecutors are going to try to figure out who held the keys to the real Donald Trump account. Who is the person who's communicating? Is Donald Trump tweeting or are others? Who's doing that communication? Could it be those individuals who are the ones who, you know, we're dealing with with the archives, right? Could it have been them? Could it have been Dan Scavino, who routinely would have access to a social media account.

So it's unclear. And so that's one reason why prosecutors are trying to get that information. Another reason they want it is because there's all kinds of information in there that aren't public tweets, right? There's something called fleets that I'd never heard of until this particular story, which are these vanishing tweets, you know, fleeting tweets, right?

They put them out and they vanish. Well, were there any of those that maybe we didn't see? Or were there any deleted tweets? Were there any direct messages or DMs? And that was the thing that was so surprising that I learned by reading this, was there was quite a volume, was a term they used, the Twitter side used, to describe how many direct messages incoming, outgoing,

and some deleted. And so there's a ton of private, confidential communications that we don't know about that the government has. Now, they could all be incoming because he was famously somebody who didn't send emails and that kind of stuff, who knows what's there, but whatever is there, I guarantee he wasn't happy about it, he didn't want anyone to have it and it looks like Elon Musk was absolutely trying to cozy up to Trump according to the judge who even said, why are you doing this?

On the one hand, you say first amendment, first amendment, first amendment, and that's why I want to share it with him, but isn't this the same person who's account you suspended because you said the first amendment? So that's what I thought was sort of interesting, but apparently there's just there are millions and millions of data information that was turned over. So I thought that was sort of interesting. Yeah. And we originally reported it as, oh, they're getting the tweets.

So I can't, that's not hard to get. I could get them all the tweets. But it's this underlying metadata and structure and information about who tweeted and when and where were they located and who had access to the account because they're trying to if they're going to do as Fannie Willis did, which is there's at least 12 tweets that form some of the overt acts, the 161 overt acts or maybe she misnumbered whatever 160 plus overdax 13 of them or so 12 of them or so Or his tweets in order for to hold somebody responsible for a for a tweet being an overt act or part of a criminal conspiracy You have to be sure that it's his doing

Or maybe that's on his behalf So that's where Jack wants to be doubly sure that if he's gonna nail him for a tweet, it came from him at the White House or wherever on his behalf or from his account and not from somebody else. So he wants to know the number of phones and all that. And the direct message is just interesting. You, I mean, of all the ways for Donald Trump to communicate,

he would have communicated through DMs with other potential co-conspirators. I mean, well, listen, they have to run that to ground as prosecutors. It may not be that there are any, but they'd be remiss if they didn't ask for them. I'm not expecting there to be any in that batch, but who knows? I mean, I've seen, in my time, doing internal investigations, criminal investigations, and defending them. I've seen some crazy wacky things put in writing among people involved with potential criminal conduct that you like, wow, they really never thought this would see the light of day. They're just so open and honest about not being honest.

And, you know, human behavior is especially under the pressure of somebody like Donald Trump and a criminal conspiracy. Yeah, I'm sure there's potentially lots of things. And whatever it is, like I said, he would be remiss as a prosecutor if his team didn't go after them and had somebody, you know, takes pot shots at them, did you get the Twitter account? Oh, shit, we forgot the Twitter account. So they're just being good methodical prosecutors and investigators and tracking all of this stuff down. And we do our own methodical tracking down of information and analysis. Only one place on the Midas Touch Network on YouTube,

we do it on this show, we call it legal AF, we do it on Wednesdays, and we do it on Saturdays. And we've reached the end of the Wednesday edition, the midweek edition, and so much to talk about with your regular co-workers, Michael Popak and Karen Friedmanek, Nifolo, and to answer the questions that some of you ask us or a lot of you ask us. How can we support one of our favorite shows? Okay, it's easy. It's all free.

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Although I do like the classic shirts too. We got, I think we got coffee mugs still. But this is a fun way to support. I can't tell you how many conversations sure that what we have before, although I do like the classic shirts too. We got, I think we got coffee mugs still. But this is a fun way to support. I can't tell you how many conversations that I've gotten started because I'm wearing that shirt. Yes, I'm also one of the anchors, but people are like, oh, I know that show. I love that show.

What is that show? And it starts a dialogue and it's a fun way to support us as well. So there's a link for that. And that's it, man. Everything we're talking about is just free. Thank you to all of our all of our sponsors. They're really important to the ecosystem of Midas Touch and what we do here on legal AF. We we try all these products. We use all these products. We talk about them because we believe in them.

And they the sponsors believe in our progressive movement and in democracy and injustice. And that's why they're here with us. So thank them, support them, go on their websites, go on their links, usually go lay F discounts and and there we have it. Karen, last word then I'm off to Saturdays, you're doing hot takes, I'm doing hot takes and we'll do this all again a week from now. Look how much has changed since the last time you and I were together, a new indictment, and a new potential trial date. I'll leave you with the last word. It's exhausting. It's absolutely exhausting. I want to see you do your tap dancing, your lawyer tap dancing. Yeah, there you go. I've had a hot foot in court where you get, you know, you get a little, not flop sweat, but you get a little, you know, you know, I read that

transcript and I commend people to do that. And you can tell from the beginning, this person is on a script like there's some sort of telemarketer and they're not deviating from the script and the judge is having none of it. I don't want to point the, because I guess he kept leaning over and whispering to the IT guy. I was really surprised. And at one point the judge was like,

can we talk to him? Like, why do you keep reading? If you don't know the answer and you keep leaning over and asking him, I want to ask him questions. No, no, no, you're right about that, except you're wrong on the person. It was a woman. And at which made it look even worse,

it looked like he was mansplaining and he wasn't letting the person with the real knowledge in the room who was the woman and which made it look even worse. It looked like he was man-splaining and he wasn't letting the person with the real knowledge in the room who was the woman at the table get up and speak. And she said, if you're going to keep asking, if she seems to know all the answers to my questions, why don't you have her answer the questions? So this was not going well in that courtroom. And the other thing I'll commend, and then I'm going to let you say one more thing. So you were like, Popeye city giver the last word, but then he even giver the last word. You did. That's my last word.

We're having a conversation. Right, right. Karat's like, that's right. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. And tell this to your friends and family and people that you're debating with.

Go read the indictment. You know where you can find it? The Midas Touch website. Go read Jack Smith's indictment. Also on the Midas Touch website. And if you read it, the people that are arguing with you and are criticizing everything, reading off cards and that Donald Trump gave them have not read because if they've read it covered a cover and they've

read the 161 over at acts and the supporting evidence that's reflected there. And Jack Smith's there is no way any thinking carbon-based human could come away with the conclusion that Donald Trump isn't in trouble and it didn't potentially commit a crime. And it's fascinating to me that 70% of Republicans believe that Donald Trump did not commit a serious crime. That's the stat I just saw before I'm preparing for the show.

70% think he did not commit a serious crime. Of course, 99% of Democrats, and that's why it comes up like 57% of the country believes he did. But, you know, this is, this is not red or blue. This is, this is black and white, right? What he did. This is justice is blind. I hate to tell people. I mean, it's not, it's not entirely, but justice is blind. I hate to tell people. I mean, it's not entirely, but just this is blind. And I'm not here because, you know, as I've said before, if Joe Biden had done anything that he's accused of, I would be the first one to run him out of town on a rail. I said in a tweet recently that when when Al Franken did an off-color joke that we found distasteful when he wasn't even a senator yet and he was still a comedian about one of his co-workers, his colleagues. We ran him out of the

Senate. We canceled him in 10 minutes flat. And that was off an off-color joke, not trying to tear down democracy. And so, you know, you want to be a patriot, be a patriot. But if your guy looks like he's four time indicted, you know, you might have a problem with your guy and you might have to be ready that he committed crimes and will be convicted. And that's okay. Go pick somebody else. Just like I would pick somebody else if the Democrat did it. You know, when Bill Clinton had his problems,

you know, I thought Ken Star ran a field too far a field in beyond his special counsel or independent counsel powers, but I also thought that Bill Clinton may have committed some crimes, including lying. And so that was a problem. And so that's like on this show, on this network, we don't blow smoke or sunshine. It's not that we have an agenda.

We're just reporting based on our experience, what's happened. And you guys are here along for the ride. We couldn't do it without you. It would literally just be caring and me and been talking to each other. And so we're so happy that you're here. Audience has grown. We're getting close. In 2023, we're going to hit 2 million free subscribers to the Midest Touch YouTube channel.

And that just keeps this whole thing running. Saturday night, how many people were watching Legal AF Live Saturday night? I think we hit 19,000, almost 20,000. 19,000, well, okay, I'm very competitive. So I want Wednesday to beat Saturday. I want. We were 17,000, we had 17,000, do we?

I think we had 18, no. Yeah were 17,000. We had 17,000 to eat. I think we had 18, no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I love this side of my co-anchor. But again, we're competitive for very good reasons. We want to get the message out and we can only do it through the legal A.F.ers shout out to legal A.F.ers

and shout out to the MidasMuddy. Karen and I will see you next Wednesday, and on hot takes in between, and I'll see you on Saturday with Ben, my Salis. Good night, Karen.