Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump FREAKS OUT over DOJ REPORT on HIS CRIMES

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

Trump’s lawyers have seen Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 2 volume stinging report against Trump laying out his criminal conduct and are so scared by it, that they have launched a 2 prong attack to try to block Attorney General Merrick Garland from publishing it to the American People before Jan20. Michael Popok examines the emergency motion filed by Trump’s coconspirators with Judge Cannon and the Trump letter to Garland, as this fast moving story moves to a constitutional crisis this week. 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

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Will the Jack Smith two-volume report concerning his prosecution decisions and conclusions concerning Mar-a-Lago and the D.C. election interference criminal cases against Donald Trump? Will they be published to the American people? Or will Donald Trump succeed in having them blocked? We now have some brand new developments. We have a motion that's been filed by Donald Trump's two co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case in front of what they I assume believe is a friendly judge cannon to try to block the release of the two volumes over 400 or 500 pages of documents that

Jack Smith has delivered to Merrick Garland. And then we have separately, we have Donald Trump having reviewed that information over the last several days, sending a letter demanding that Merrick Garland not publish the report. And you can imagine why. I'm on Midas Touch Network and Legal AF.

This is Michael Popak. Let's get right down to it. Roll up our shirt sleeves on this fast Touch Network and Legal AF. This is Michael Popak. Let's get right down to it. Roll up our shirt sleeves on this fast-breaking and developing story. On Monday, we learned from Carlos de Oliveira and Walty Nauta's filing in Mar-a-Lago before Judge Cannon, that there was a, we're on the precipice of having this two-volume report,

which the special counsel is obligated under federal law to prepare at the conclusion of his investigation to deliver to the attorney general. And then the attorney general is obligated to publish it if he believes it's in the public interest. That is the law. A series of laws that is completely ignored

by Walt Nauta, Carlos de Olvera, and even Donald Trump's and his lawyers, who will be in the Department of Justice in about a month or so. So you have these twin issues all coming together. They obviously feel they're working to whipsaw the Department of Justice. I'm sure Donald Trump and his lawyers are behind Walt Nauta's filing before Judge Cannon. They've always seen Judge Cannon as a friendly forum for them. She's been willing to interfere with federal law, constitutional law, and the Department of Justice in the past,

even though she's been reprimanded by the 11th circuit on two separate occasions. So they know that she's sort of a weak gatekeeper and she's a good target for them. And so they have filed their motion there and then they've cross referenced this letter, this 15 page letter or so, which they've attached as an exhibit, which is Donald Trump's lawyers' letters to Merrick Garland. Now the premise is a couple of big things to take away from this, this boil down right away. There is no requirement under the Department of Justice statutes that regulate them and regulate the special counsel position that he show a draft before he provides it to Merrick Garland. It's

just part of policy and procedure within the Department of Justice that they have done that. For instance, Robert Herr, when he did his big 400-page report against Joe Biden's handling or mishandling of classified documents while he was post-vice president, gave his lawyers a copy. They were able to prepare a counter letter that

got published as well. So that's what they sort of do. And so somewhere between the 3rd of January and the 6th of January, Jack Smith in Washington allowed Todd Blanch and Emil Bové and I guess John Sauer, the lawyers for Donald Trump, who will also be in his administration to take a look at in a closed lock room without any electronic devices, the two volumes of material. They didn't like that, of course.

They wanted to have it electronically and be able to search through it, but that, of course, was not part of the deal. In it, we know from other sources and reporting, it is, of course, a stinging rebuke of Donald Trump, his handling of documents in Mar-a-Lago, the role of the co-conspirators, his role in the election interference campaign, spearheading that in Jan 6th of four years ago, and all of that. We've seen a lot of this material in the filing that Jack Smith made a couple of months ago to Judge Chutkin in which he laid out all the reasons why immunity should not dismiss the indictment that he had, the new indictment that he had filed.

But, you know, listen, every special prosecutor, every special counsel has issued a report. They're usually three to four hundred pages in length. This one's probably double that given there were two prosecutions. And it is part and parcel with the job. It goes with the job. You're going to do a closeout memo and you're going to deliver it to the attorney general and the attorney general is going to make it public if he finds it's in the public interest. Now, their argument in the letter that I've just read is sort of their argument before Judge Cannon, which is Jack Smith is unconstitutionally appointed, illegally appointed because the Constitution precludes an attorney general appointing a special counsel. It has to

go through a Senate confirmation process. That's news to anyone who's followed 200 years of federal jurisprudence, including the United States Supreme Court. Judge Cannon came up with that great idea, and that's up at the 11th Circuit still on appeal involving Oliveira and Walt Nowda. And we'll get an answer to that hopefully before the inauguration. That's the first thing. And then they attack the funding. They say that the funding was illegal.

He spent $20 million over a three-year period, half of which I think was for security because of Donald Trump's frequent attacks on the special counsel, his family, his office, the FBI, and the like. But they're saying the whole funding is illegal because the apportionment and the appointment and the apportionment provision of the Constitution means that you have to keep going back to the Congress for funding and they didn't approve this particular funding. Well, they just don't like that

the funding was already approved back in the 1990s. And it's still been on the books since then, never been rescinded by Congress. But because they had MAGA Congress control, they were like, well, no, Congress has to reapportion and re-approve funding. That's wrong as well. Those are the two thrusts of the main argument.

And then it's because of the immunity that arose after Donald Trump's election, which led the special counsel under the Office of Legal Counsel guidelines, which is sort of their in-house Supreme Court that tells the Department of Justice what they can and can't do. And because of guidelines and memos there, the special counsel, as we know, dismissed the case against Donald Trump in Morillago, DC election interference case in Washington, and withdrew the Trump

involvement in the 11th Circuit brief. Now, that doesn't mean he was, as they said in their letter, exonerated. I'm going to read to you from the certain, the most incredible parts of the letter in a minute. But that doesn't mean that Donald Trump was exonerated. Immunity doesn't clear you of, doesn't make you innocent. Immunity is a defense. It basically says you committed the crimes,

but you have immunity from prosecution because of your unique status of being, in this case, the President of the United States under the Supreme Court's immunity decision. It's not an exoneration mechanism as they have alleged it. But of course, the entirety of this letter, which is the basis for trying to get Judge Cannon to step out of bounds again and interfere with federal law,

which she should not do, and hopefully the 11th circuit will have to deal with that issue, or they may have to deal with that issue in the future. But the whole thing is just a stitch together of Donald Trump's best of, worst of social media posts, lawfare, political hacks, completely exonerated, lawless, politically out of control, out of control, special counsel. It's just a complete sane washing of everything bad that Donald Trump has done to attack Jack Smith and his team. There's no law here.

They completely ignore the law that requires the production of this report by the special counsel. It's his delivery of it to the attorney general and the attorney general's review of it to determine whether it should be published in the public interest. Now there's this emergency motion which we'll be following, which was just filed on Monday before Judge Cannon. The special counsel has responded and said to Judge Cannon, we're not publishing it any minute. It's not going to be done before Friday.

There's plenty of time. We want time to argue it if you're inclined to do anything about this. And I'm not sure that the special counsel, that the judge here, Judge Cannon, has any power or jurisdiction over this particular issue. She may think she has, and that's going to be the problem. Now, if she tries to block it as it relates to those two,

Olaviera and Waltine Nauda, then there's going to have to be a whole emergency appeal to the 11th Circuit to try to undo that while Jack Smith continues to urge the attorney general to release it before the inauguration. And that's going to be the fight. Now what I, you know, Merrick Garland is a tricky person to anticipate what he's going to do. What he should do is, you know, what the lawyers for Donald Trump have said is if you're going to release it, then release this letter and our criticism at the same time.

It's effectively been released because it was filed along with, you know, as all of a sham here, it was filed in the Florida case before Judge Cannon. So that's already out there. Now the report's gotta come out. I mean, they have their one-sided version here. We need to see the actual report. So what Merrick Garland should do is release the report.

A little redaction here and there, sure. But he should release the report. All of the arguments that this interferes with presidential election, president-elect transition immunity is ridiculous. There is no president-elect immunity. That he somehow has immunity from having the report published.

No, he has immunity from prosecution and conviction. That's what the Supreme Court said. Not immunity from having the final closeout report. They say, well, he'll be impaired and he'll suffer public censure and public attack because of it. That's already done. He's already a 34 count felony convicted person in New York. People knew what they voted for,

at least the ones that voted large enough numbers to get him elected. And they know that he was indicted. And the only reason the indictments were dismissed were not because he was exonerated, but because he got immunity, an immunity gift from the United States Supreme Court. So we've got these two wheels that are spinning here

that we're following here on Might Have Touched at Legal AF. One is what is Judge Cannon gonna do with the emergency motion followed by his co-conspirators about the release of the report? Can she do anything? And what's the 11th Circuit gonna do on an emergency application by Jack Smith? And what is Merrick Garland gonna do, right?

Because they can't sue to stop it. I mean, they could try to take an emergency application to the United States Supreme Court before Friday, and John Roberts would be the first stop on that train. But I don't see them doing that. I think they're trying to embarrass Merrick Garland, undermine the report. They were able to get their critique out

before the report was published. And I have another criticism. You didn't have to give them access to the report. You could have just published the report. There's nothing in the statute that says you got to give the other side ability to comment, file lawsuits, and file self-serving letters. But this is the one problem Democrats have.

We're civil. We're polite. We're honorable and we bend over backwards to do things that we probably shouldn't do. And now we're stuck with competing motion, emergency motions and demands and they got their letter out first and all of that. So I think in the next 48 to 72 hours, there's going to be a lot to report on here on Legal AF and the Midas Touch Network. Follow me, Michael Popak. I got a show called Popak Live and I'll cover this tonight as I know more information.

8 p.m. Eastern time on the Midas Touch YouTube channel. Wednesdays and Saturdays Legal AF of the podcast and then we got a whole new Legal AF, the YouTube channel, just for moments like this to cover this kind of fast-breaking story at the intersection of law and politics. Come over there, hit the blue subscribe button and help us build to our 500,000 goal. So until my next reporting, I'm Michael Popuk. Love this video? Make sure you stay up to date on the latest breaking news and all things Midas by signing up to the Midas Touch newsletter at MidasTouch.com slash newsletter.