Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Files EMERGENCY COURT APPEAL on Certification Day

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

Will the NY Appellate Court bail out Trump and prevent him from being criminally sentenced on Jan10 for his 34 count criminal conviction? Michael Popok takes a close look at Trump’s new filing today to try to get the trial judge to give him an “automatic stay” wile he files later today his appeal with the state court, and predicts what will happen next and that the sentencing is likely to go forward as planned. Levels: Levels is offering my listeners an additional 2 free months of the Levels annual Membership when you use my link, https://levels.link/LEGALAF Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Will Donald Trump be sentenced on the 10th of January, as Judge Mershon has outlined? Or will an appellate court bail him out? We're going to know sooner rather than later, because Donald Trump and his lawyers, soon to be part of the Department of Justice, Emil Bové and Todd Blanche, have just filed a notice of automatic stay, a motion to stay the sentencing while they pursue their appeal, claiming that they have automatic rights, a motion to stay the sentencing while they pursue their appeal, claiming that they have automatic rights to a stay because they've raised the I-word, immunity, even though they've raised it incorrectly, post-conviction and pre-sentencing. I'm Michael Popock. I'll break it all down for you. By the time you're done with this hot take on the Midas Touch Network,

you will understand what's going on and my honest opinion about what should happen next. Let's pick it up with the filing. We just got the filing today and they're claiming I'm sure they're working round the clock on some sort of appellate brief as we anticipated. Last week, Judge Mershon shocked many of us because in the one hand, he properly denied a motion to dismiss on immunity grounds or on justice grounds that they had filed. Trump's side, we call that a Clayton motion in New York. There's nine or 10 factors of the Clayton motion and they didn't satisfy any of them and the judge rejected it. At the same time, the judge announced to the world that he would go forward with sentencing, as I had hoped before the inauguration, on the 10th of January and forward with sentencing, as I had hoped, before the inauguration

on the 10th of January and that he was inclined as of right now not to impose any jail sentence. And we did a lot of hot takes about whether he should or he shouldn't and what the Manhattan DA should or shouldn't do on appeal to try to get an appellate court to sentence him to jail. Now, as expected, he's appealed. He's about to appeal. This is sort of a pre-appeal paperwork that's been now filed with the trial judge, Judge Mershon. And I'll read to you from certain aspects of it, but let me summarize it for you.

They're basically saying that under two different court precedents at the United States Supreme Court, including the Trump v. United States immunity decision from last summer, that they have the automatic entitlement to a stay, but while they pursue an argument that some sort of presidential immunity prevented the conviction and hence the sentencing, even though 99.9% of the facts or the narrative and timeline about the 34-count felony conviction in New York against Donald Trump in the Stormy Daniels conspiracy had to do with him not being president

of the United States at all. In fact, it was a conspiracy as proven to the jury of 12 people to interfere with him, the election process against Hillary Clinton, which ultimately got him the presidency. There was a very small amount of evidence that was presented to the jury about what happened to the conspiracy petering out, being paid out by Donald Trump when he already obtained the object of the conspiracy. He became president. You know, some checks he wrote to Michael Cohen, a couple of meetings he scheduled with

his staff, a couple of comments made by the press secretary at the time. But that's not the heart of the conspiracy or the evidence against Donald Trump, and therefore it shouldn't be found to violate the Supreme Court's position about immunity about a sitting president, because he wasn't a sitting president during the heart of the conspiracy. But to Donald Trump's lawyers, he enjoys president-elect immunity. There's really no such thing. He enjoys presidential immunity from any criminal process. Well,

we're only at the point of the criminal process where it's now the sentencing part and the judge has already said he's not going to put him in jail. So how does that impair or impede the office of the presidency? That's all that matters in the separation of powers argument by the United States Supreme Court. In their first argument, they say, let me just read to you from their opening here, and then I'll read to you from some, of course, some attacks by Stephen Chung, the incoming communications director for Donald Trump. It says, President Trump hereby provides notice to the court and to the prosecutors that he will be filing and initiating an appellate proceeding on January 6, 2025 to challenge the ruling about immunity and the like.

They then go on to say that as discussed herein, the commencement of appellate proceedings, which should result in a dismissal of this politically motivated prosecution that was flawed from the very beginning, centered on around the wrongful actions and false claims of disgraced, disbarred, serial liar former attorney, that would be Michael Cohen, violated President Trump's due process rights and has no merit seeking interlocutory review, it's a long-winded sentence here, of these claims of presidential immunity immediately results in an automatic stay of proceedings in this court under Trump versus the United States.

They also go on to cite, listen to this, they cite to a decision by the DC Court of Appeals concerning Judge Chutkin's case in which the DC Court of Appeals ruled that they should have an automatic, that he was entitled to an automatic stay once immunity was raised. But that was immunity from the very prosecution, not this period of time that we've never had before in our history where a candidate for president is convicted of actions about him being a candidate for president, not president. But then after that and before he is sentenced

after conviction when he's not president, he was convicted before he was president again, but now before sentencing, he's a president again or president-elect. This is unique in troubling times we're under here. There's no case law that addresses a criminal president, presidential candidate, and this thing gets stretched out so that the conviction is before he's president, but the sentencing is after he's president-elect.

That's never happened. And they don't really cite a lot of case law in this area because we've never had a criminal president or presidential candidate before, and so we're in unchartered waters here. They then go and misapply the Trump versus the Trump versus US immunity decision. That did not address what happens in this weirdo period where a candidate is then convicted while he's still a candidate, but the sentencing is gonna be after he's elected again.

It dealt with what happens and what you can do about presidential conduct, official conduct, unofficial conduct, private conduct for the guy that's the president, and whether you can prosecute that while he's in office or not, or whether he enjoys some sort of temporary immunity or absolute immunity. That's what that case was about. Not what happens to whether you can sentence him on the 10th of January after the jury convicted him while he wasn't president yet.

See, Donald Trump wants the world to believe under our constitutional concepts that because he was lucky enough, fortunate enough to somehow win the presidency again, that that is like some sort of giant Etch-a-Sketch and you just shake it and it erases all of his culpability and all of his misconduct, all of his convictions, and all of the charges against him. It doesn't. One of the single biggest predictors of how long you live and how good you feel while living is your metabolic health.

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conviction has spoken. Now we're just down to the sentencing, and the judge has already tipped his hand and says he's not going to send him to jail anyway. I may disagree with that, which I do, but that doesn't have anything to do with here. Now, they go through about 12 or 14 pages, and they're fun, but it's the same argument over and over again, that the presidential immunity enjoyed by Donald Trump nullifies the power of this trial court to act.

That's it in a nutshell. I mean, it's repeated 17 different ways on 17 different pages, but that is the summary of it. And that the stay is appropriate because it gives time for the appellate process. Now, that's a different argument. Whether the appellate court, because they's a different argument. Whether the appellate court, because they're going to have to file it not at the Court of Appeals, the highest court in New York, but they're going to have to file it at the Appellate Division First Department in Manhattan,

and whether that court believes that they should stay the sentence, not for immunity grounds, so that they can be fully briefed, so that it can be fully briefed before them on all of the issues about the trial judge and the facts and the case and all of that, whether they want time to review and evaluate that on full briefing, so they want to put a pin and hold the ring in the sentencing schedule for the tenth. That's a different story. That could happen. That could happen. We could have a stay. We've seen it before. Maybe a temporary stay. Or

they may say, go through with the sentencing. That concludes. You're not even president yet in the 10th. That concludes the entire criminal process. You will have the sentence and then from there with the sentence and the judgment of conviction, then you can take your full appeal so it's not piecemeal. Donald Trump's trying to argue for what's called an interlocutory appeal when it's not quite done yet, but before it's even concluded, I get the right to appeal. And in certain circumstances you do, but not these. If I'm the first department, which is that intermediary appellate court, I deny the stay. I put the appeal on a full

panel, on a full schedule, tell them to do the appeal after he is sentenced so that the appellate court can address all of the issues all at one time, that they don't find immunity is really the thing that's driving the appeal here because of the timeline of when it happened and what happened and Donald Trump's status at any given moment in that timeline. And they go, yeah, we'll take a full appeal from you at that time and maybe, and they'll say there's nothing to stay

because if the judge, by the way, they may wanna say, let's wait to see as an appellate court, let's wait to see what the trial judge does. Because if the trial judge does what he says he's going to do, which he's not going to impose a jail sentence, he's going to do an unconditional discharge. Felony stays on the books, but unconditional discharge, we've got plenty of time to do the appeal. Because we're not looking at Donald Trump's liberty interest being compromised.

That's where I think they end up with this. But this will get a lot of press. Of course, you've got, here's the quote from Stephen Chung just to show you they're continuing of course to politicize all this. Today, President Trump's legal team, these are the same guys who are going to be the number two and number three in the Department of Justice in about a month's time. He's going to have to find a new legal team to continue with these matters because they're going to be in the Department of Justice. Donald Trump's legal team

moved to stop the unlawful sentencing in the Manhattan DA's witch hunt. I mean, don't do the crime if you can't do the time, as the famous philosopher Barretta once said. The Supreme Court's historic decision on immunity, he's talking about the trial level court. Oh no, there I'm sorry, he's talking about the US Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court's historic decision on immunity, the state constitution of New York, okay, I know that better than Stephen Chung, and other established legal precedents mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed. Not happening.

Here's what I think is going to happen. Let me end the hot take this way. Here's what I think is going to happen. Let me end the hot take this way. Here's what I think is going to happen. You're going to have the Appellate Division First Department get the papers on appeal. I think they're going to not interlocutorily stay the sentencing on the 10th. They're going to let the 10th go forward. They may even just sit on their hands and just let it happen. They don't have to rule on these papers. They can just let another four or five days burn off. Now the sentencing has happened. Donald Trump doesn't like it. He can go try to run to the US Supreme Court for some sort of stay, but he's got to get on an emergency application. He's going to have to go through Sonia Sotomayor

and I don't see it happening. So I think the 10th is going to happen. I've been wrong before, I just don't think so here. They sit on their hands, if I'm the Appellate Division First Department, they let the 10th happen, then they let him take a full appeal now that he's got sentenced to no jail time on a normal schedule. He goes into the presidency on the 20th, he gets new lawyers because he's going to lose these guys, Beauvais and Blanche and all that. And they prosecute the appeal. Win or lose, thumbs up or thumbs down.

It may take six months, may take five months. They don't like the results. They can try to do something with the US Supreme Court. I'm not sure the US Supreme Court necessarily bails them out on immunity grounds for this particular thing. They didn't bail them out. Let me just tell you where I'm coming from. They did not bail out Donald Trump, and it doesn't look like they're

going to, on the E. Jean Carroll $100 million of judgments where he had a claim, even though I think that was phony too, of immunity for having sexually assaulted her and then defamed her when he was in at inside office, inside the office, and outside the office of the presidency. They've been sitting on the sidelines and they have not intervened in that civil case. Now this has criminal implications and justice and all of that, but frankly, liberty is not at stake if Mershan goes forward with his plan to discharge him unconditionally without a jail sentence. So that takes away the whole impairment and impeding of the presidency,

because it's just papers now being shuffled around by lawyers, you know, like me and oral, well, not me, and oral arguments. I'll continue to follow it. You're on Legal AF and the Midas Touch Network. We do this here at the intersection of law and politics about every hour, and it's going to get hot and heavy come the inauguration and all the executive orders. Tune in here, That hot corner of law and politics, you're gonna wanna come back to us time and time again on Legal AF, new channel on YouTube, help us get to half a million free subscribers in less than six months of our existence.

That's all on you. We appreciate you. I curate that channel. And then of course, Legal AF, the podcast. So until my next reporting, I'm Michael Popak. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. podcast. So until my next reporting, I'm Michael Popock.