Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Federal Judge GETS VERY BIZARRE with Jack Smith’s Legal Team

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Legal AF hosts Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok discuss a bizarre scene in the DC Federal Courthouse involving the Donald Trump appointed judge Trevor McFadden.  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! 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

I'm Ben Myceles joined by Michael Popak. This is a legal AF hot take. You get both of us because quite an unusual scene in the Washington DC federal courthouse today where a Trump appointed judge from 2017. Now a district court judge, federal judge Trevor McFadden summoned the lawyers from special counsel Jack Smith's team while Judge McFadden was involved in a sentencing of other January sixers.

We kind of got into the bottom of this Michael Pope, I'll break down what happened here. And Trevor McFadden seems to have just been being a total and complete jerk here just for the sake of being it. And I hope he's not going to be the judge ultimately who's assigned the case ultimately when special counsel Jack Smith and Dite. So why did he say he brought US marshals to some and Jack Smith's team to his courthouse? What happened? You know, when when young, you have a bad combination here.

You've got a very young federal judge. He's 45. He was appointed by Donald Trump. He used to work in the Department of Justice. And at one point in his life, he was a cop. Put all that together and it makes for a kind of surly temperament that Trevor McFadden has shown time and time again when he's ever up with the Department of Justice

in front of him, especially anything that relates to Jan 6th. He's the only federal judge that is completely unreliable. No, strike that. He's reliable in all of the sentencing of Jan 6th defendants. He gives them the lowest number that he possibly can give them. He chastises the department of justice regularly for seeking higher sentences than even then he wants to give them. He's let Jan six people who have been convicted of trespassing. He's let them go with probation. When he's handled trials as a bench trial where he's the judge and there's no jury. He's led a couple of them off completely. He is the only judge among those in the DC

Circuit Court who regularly is a is a is a thorn in the side of the Department of Justice. Let's put it this way. He's no Amit Mehta. He's no Amy Berman Jackson. I can, we could, we could spend all afternoon talking about the judges that'll just be perfectly fine when Donald Trump is indicted later this week, but Trevor McFadden is not one of them. And he showed his true colors just today on something completely unrelated. We didn't know getting up this morning that we were going to do a hot take together about Trevor McFadden because we didn't know he was going to try to pull rank and, you know, he already suffers from black robe disease, most, a lot of federal judges do, but he has a nasty case of it

and berates people left and right. And he didn't like the fact that the Department of Justice held up a defense lawyer and everyone's gonna say, oh my God, that guy again, Stan Woodward, who's the lawyer, the Maga PAC lawyer, the Save America PAC Trump paid lawyer for Walt Nauta in Mar-a-Lago when he's not doing that, has a cottage industry which a lot of, there's about six or eight lawyers to do this, that represent Jan 6th people. He's got like a half a dozen or a dozen Jan Sixth defendants that he defends.

One of his defendants was actually had a bench trial in front of McFadden and lost and was being sentenced today at two o'clock. Okay, well, at the same time or earlier that, earlier in the afternoon, or later in the morning before the two o'clock hearing because usually there's a lunch break. Woodward was down the hall in the hallway because he's not allowed in the grand jury room because one of his other clients was in the grand jury room with Tom Windham who's the lead prosecutor for the grand juries giving testimony.

Testimony we now understand for Stan Woodward who revealed it, even though there's supposed to be secrecy around the grand jury about executive privilege. But again, to be clear, when people read this in Politico and other places, Stan Woodward is not allowed into the grand jury room. It's the prosecutor, there's usually a supervising judge, the grand jury, court reporters and courtman personnel, but the lawyer for the witness is not

allowed in. He'll wait in the hallway, but he's not allowed in. Well, he waited in the hallway, and it took another, I don't know, it took him until 215, 218, to finish with his client in the grand jury and then run down the hallway to go, to go hook up with a waiting pissed off Trevor McFadden. Well, Judge McFadden was so pissed off that he had to wait 20 minutes, okay? And I don't know if anybody got him a note. All Stan Wordward had to do is let the bailiff know

that he's down in the grand jury room because he's got a witness there. The judges and pissed off, but for all we know, Stan Woodward who likes to poke the Department of Justice as well, didn't do that, showed up late, and the judge said, where were you? Stan Woodward said, I was down the hall of grand jury, got a witness with the Department of Justice and I had to wait in the hallway until he came out because it was important. And he said, get the, get the Department of Justice down here. Get the, the, the, the, the quarter personnel

as the reporting was, was like, sorry, Judge, like, get, get, get, stop the proceedings at the grand jury. Now, let's stop right there. This judge, okay, is not the supervisor of the, of all grand jury activity. That is Chief Judge, Jeb Bozberg. He didn't go to Jeb Bowsberg and say, I got a problem with your grand jury. I got a problem with your Department of Justice down there. They're late for 20 minutes for a sentencing. He just took it upon himself to call Tom Windham, make him stop in the middle of examination of a witness in front of a grand jury.

He had a stop what he was doing, come down the hallway and stand in front of the judge to be chastised, which they did off the record with kind of a blur, it's a machine that makes white noise so that the court reporter, the court reporter can hear it and she's taking it down, but nobody else in the courtroom can hear it. And the reporting is it was quite animated between the two of them. Ben, what the heck is going on with McFadden? He's obviously trying out to be the judge for Trump when he's indicted later this week. Let's stop cutting down trees to make toilet paper.

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And obviously, McFadden is, to your point, you know, pulling rank, acting completely narcissistic. This is not the temperament at all that you want in a judge acting very emotional. What a very bizarre display. Here's what we know was going down today. A former White House aide by the name of William Russell was the individual testifying before the grand jury. That news broke earlier in the day. So putting one and one together and getting to Stanley Woodward saying that he was representing

a former Trump White House aide who was making a claim of executive privilege, we believe that person to be William Russell and Russell. Now again, works for Trump's presidential campaign. By the way, there are no legitimate executive privilege objections to be made. So the fact that Woodward said he was standing there to make executive privilege objections. By itself is completely frivolous in my view. As you mentioned, Popeye, Woodward is not allowed into the grand jury room to begin with. So it's not like he's there making objections. That's not the way a grand jury works. He's not permitted to be in that room. But in any event, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has held over and over again, both with the new presiding

judge, Jeb Boseberg, and before that Judge Barrel Howell, that there is no legitimate executive privilege claim here that Donald Trump can assert or that his former AIDS can assert. They've all lost that now, what, three dozen times? There is no legitimate executive privilege. So the fact that that's why he was saying he was out in the hallway. No, I believe Stanley would work kind of tried to put this whole thing in motion in order to get this result and was intentionally late in my view to try to trigger this thing from happening or trigger it to happen.

Now, the DOJ, they're not before the Trump appoint a judge Trevor McFadden right now. They're in a grand jury proceeding. They are on their own schedule right now, right? Presenting evidence before a grand jury. Whether that goes 10 minutes over, 20 minutes over, I get if the DOJ is before Trevor McFadden, the judge, and they cause a delay while they're in front of him,

a judge could get mad, even if they were before him. That's an odd way to act. He sent the US marshals to go after special counsel Jackson, the team and summon them to bring them. It seems fine just to, I don't know, maybe tell the clerk, hey, can you reach out there or call somebody at the special counsel's office to let them know. So this whole thing was a stunt to begin with, but special counsel, Jack Smith, he didn't work for Judge McFadden. So Judge McFadden created this scene. He knew that media was going to be present at this sentencing. It was a high profile sentencing. It was a bench trial before Judge McFadden, who was convicted before Judge McFadden who was convicted before Judge McFadden.

To be fair, McFadden found this individual, Fred Rico Klein guilty. Fred Rico Klein worked in the State Department during the Trump administration and was a January 6th insurrectionist. Ultimately, what McFadden does with these is has very minimal sentencing for them. But that Stanley Woodward was both representing the insurrectionist, who was found guilty, who is now being sentenced. And the Trump former employee who was before the graduate, Woodward also represents the

to your point, dozens and dozens of other people in trumps orbit paid for By the pack and so this whole thing felt very contrived The the judge called ultimately Thomas Windham who's one of special counsel jacksmiths top prosecutors on the special counsels team went there Everything the proceedings were under sealed, but you know, again, just to my point that I said, like, that's not judicial temperament that you want. That is a judge acting completely erratic. And to your point, it's a it's a 45 year old Trump appointed judge who is trying to prove a point. And then, you know, he makes that horrific, he makes this horrific statement

in open court accusing, and he was saying it tongue in cheek, but it's not a funny joke, accusing special counsel Jack Smith's team of obstructing his official proceeding, because one of the things that the DOJ has been charging insurrectionist with is obstruction of an official proceeding. So Judge Trevor McFadden, a cue, you know, basically said, now they're obstructing an official proceeding. And this is also one of the things that the January 6th insurrectionists and the Maga Republicans kind of repeat frequently in Basel's A. So was that an insurrection, you know,

and make light of these very, very serious events? And so before you leave that point, he didn't say, tongue in cheek suggests he did it with humor. He didn't do it with humor. He said, now that's an example of interfering with an official proceeding, the fact that you're late in my courtroom for this. He also, by the way, that's not leave Fr. E. Colme for a minute, he's letting him out against the Department of Justice's over their objections until he is sentenced in November, despite convicting him of a series of felonies and misdemeanors. He also did not agree with the Department of Justice in the bench trial that he should be given a weapons charge.

And so wherever he can find ways to bend over backwards to help the Jan 6th defendants. And this is the same, he will. And this is the same guy who a year ago raised a lot of eyebrows when he chastised the Department of Justice for coming into his courtroom and recommending sentences that he thought and charges, that he thought were out of whack compared to what they did for Black Lives Matter or what they did for other non-violent protesters. He tried to compare it to, well, for the guy that stood up behind the Kavanaugh and the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, holding a sign and putting tape on his mouth, you only

recommended X in here for the guy that broke into the Capitol and trespassed and did other nasty things. You're recommending more. Yeah, because they're not comparable, but to Trevor McFadden, it's all comparable, right? Because the Black Lives Matter, this is back to your point, Ben, about the MAGA, Black Lives Matter was riots and burning down cities all around America, which is basically untrue.

There was looting that was going on behind peaceful protests, having one not having anything to do with the other, but to make fattening his world view. So look That's what happened today. I'm sure there's more detail we can provide the things that worries me It's me make two things clear one He's not the judge yet for the once Trump is indicted later this week early next week There will be a judge assigned. He is one of many most most of which we're fine with. He is the canon like a truck trial judge. And we are, you know, biting our fingernails, hoping that that

wheel doesn't spin and land on Trevor McFadden because yes, that would be a pro Trump move. Would be not great. But, you know, let's, we'll follow that. That's why it's important that you follow these breaking news updates because they all build on top of each other. There's a lot of pro-democracy judges in Washington, D.C. There's Trump appointees who are like Trevor McFadden. So that's the importance of elections, folks, and you know, we're never going to sugar code here.

We're going to tell you how it is. And the way judge McFadden acted today is certainly not the judicial temperament we support here at the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. Thanks everybody for watching. Hit subscribe. Make sure you subscribe to Legal AF wherever you get podcasts, search Legal AF, hit subscribe, tell your friends, family, co-workers, colleagues, neighbors, anybody you know about the show. See you next time. Hey, Midas Mighty, love this report. Continue the conversation by following us on

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