Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump GAGGED and ORDERED to Trial, NOT Taking it Well

Episode Date: March 31, 2024

Meidas Touch founder Ben Meiselas and trial lawyer Michael Popok are back with a new episode of the weekend edition of the top rated Legal AF podcast. On this episode, they debate/discuss: NY State Court Judge Merchan’s criticism of Trump’s criminal legal team and forcing Trump to trial in the business records criminal case beginning on April 15th; Trump’s violation of Judge Merchan’s gag order by attacking his daughter and the Manhattan DA’s and Trump’s lawyers’ court filings to the Court related to it; the reasons why the NY appellate court lowered Trump’s bond requirement in the $465 million civil fraud judgment by more than 60% and why Trump has posted the reduced bond yet; more lawyers for Trump losing their bar licenses; the new attempted appeal by Trump in Georgia to get rid of Fulton County DA Fani Willis, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Beam: Get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to shopbeam.com/legalaf and use code LEGALAF at checkout! Henson Shaving: Visit hensonshaving.com/legalaf to pick the razor for you and use code ‘LEGALAF’ for two years worth of free blades! Fast Growing Trees: Head to FastGrowingTrees.com right now and use code LEGALAF to get 15% off your entire order! Join us on Patreon: patreon.com/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 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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To be or not to be, that was the question on Monday. Would there be trial scheduled anytime soon in the Manhattan district attorney criminal case against Donald Trump and whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer and have no trial or for a trial date to be set? Judge Mershon set trial April 15th, rejecting all of Donald Trump and Trump lawyers frivolous arguments. And it was quite the hearing, Michael Popak. Donald Trump's lawyers were essentially excoriated by Judge Mershon for bringing

this ridiculous motion to try to delay trial in the first place. You and I will break down everything that happened. We're also going to break down that Judge Mershon then fairly quickly entered a gag order against Donald Trump, precluding Donald Trump from threatening witnesses, court staff and others. Donald Trump tried to test that gag order or just behaved like the way Donald Trump behaves by attacking Judge Mershan's daughter and claiming that a

Twitter account that no longer belongs to Judge Mershan's daughter and had not belonged to her for over a year actually still belongs to Judge Mershan's daughter and lying and claiming that she's posting things about Donald Trump, which is not actually happening. You and I, Michael Popak, will break that down. The Manhattan district attorney's office has went directly to Judge Mershon. So that's a violation of the gag order, Judge. And also we don't want our family members and witness family members being threatened. Clearly family members should be included in the protective order.

Donald Trump's lawyers responded and said, no, we have a first amendment right, Judge Mershon, to be able to attack family members. Donald Trump intended to do that. He wants to attack your family members. He's going to attack the family members of the district attorney's office. members, he's going to attack the family members of the district attorney's office. And if you enter a further gag order limiting Trump's ability to attack family members, we are going to need a, we're going to need delay, we're going to need more briefing, it's the same old story, right?

Michael Popak will break that down. Also from coast to coast, Donald Trump's lawyers proving again the old adage, MAGA stands for make attorneys get attorneys. In the West Coast, Donald Trump's lawyer, John Eastman was formally recommended for disbarment by a California state bar judge. And now his license is suspended. He's on involuntary suspension pending kind of a rubber stamp by the California Supreme Court

of the lower court judge's recommendation. We'll break that down. You go from the West Coast to the East Coast in Washington, DC, where Jeff Clark, who worked within the Department of Justice, who Donald Trump tried to make attorney general for a day. And we've heard from testimony in a state bar proceeding or a district bar proceeding against Jeff Clark that he indeed was made attorney general, acting

attorney general for a few hours before that was kind of revoked after members of the Department of Justice said they would all have a mass resignation and humiliate Donald Trump. But what was interesting about these state bar proceedings to revoke Jeff Clark's license for what he did within the Department of Justice to try to overthrow the results of a free and fair election, send that memo out to states telling states to throw out the results of the election there on official Department of Justice letter.

Jeff Clark not only invoked the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination, Jeff Clark tried to also invoke attorney-client privilege with Donald Trump essentially saying while he was at the Department of Justice, he was also functioning as Donald Trump's lawyer, not sure that that's helpful for either of them, proceedings there have ended and I think it's going to end in my opinion, the same way as John Eastman's proceeding with a disbarment, although we will have to see and that's only my opinion. As of this live recording, Donald Trump still hasn't posted a $175 million bond

yet, let's not forget at the beginning of this week, in addition to the Manhattan District Attorney hearing where Justice Mershon set the trial date in that matter for April 15th, the New York attorney general case had that major update where the appellate division really out of nowhere, there wasn't like a hearing or anything, they just issued an order after all of the briefing reducing Donald Trump's bond obligations from 464 million to 175 million. I think you and I will give our takes

about why they did that, but it is notable that Trump still hasn't posted the $175 million bond. And if you had the cash, you would post it right away. You don't wait until the last minute. So I think that's notable. You and I will break it down. Then let's get some updates in Fulton County, Georgia

as well where Donald Trump has filed an official appeal of the ruling by Judge McAfee not to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney, Fawni Willis.ify Fulton County District Attorney Fonny Willis. Also Fulton County District Attorney Fonny Willis wants a trial date in August. We'll see about that. I think that that's probably overly optimistic, although I think that that would be great.

You and I will break all of this down and more. This is Weekend Legal AF. Michael Popak, how are you? I love, I love it. I love the Shakespearean intro. I'll add my own from Macbeth, Lady Macbeth out damn spot out with bloody hands and we know that Donald Trump has bloody hands. We're going to talk about it in a number of places. Um, the, uh, the, uh, the endorsement of attack on the president.

We can talk about it at a certain point, was broken by the Midas Touch network. It was completely inappropriate. Donald Trump's attack on the soft underbelly of the criminal justice system, going after the daughters and wives of judges that are presiding on his cases and what that could mean for putting a chill down the spine of prospective jurors and witnesses in the cases against him as he tries to destabilize the criminal justice system on one hand and on the other hand in Georgia. He argues to the court of appeals, which is the

first stop on the train for the appellate process in Georgia, that he is the protector and defender and the vanguard of the criminal justice system. And only Donald Trump can protect the criminal justice system, the very criminal justice system we are watching in real time and reporting on here on Legal AF, that he tries to undermine and destabilize every day at every moment.

Well, we'll break it all down. Let's start with what happened in the Manhattan District Attorney case. You go back to the last Legal AF, we were talking it all down. Let's start with what happened in the Manhattan District Attorney case. If you go back to the last Legal AF, we were talking about that big hearing, which was technically scheduled for two days, Monday and Tuesday. But as you and I predicted, Justice Mershon made it very quick and had the parties come in. Mershon basically read out loud the motion that was filed by Trump and Trump's lawyers and said, you've made very serious accusations here against

the district attorney's office, against this court. Let me know what you are trying to argue here. And immediately Trump's lawyers tried to pivot to another issue and said, well, actually, we just requested additional documents from the Department of Justice about Stormy Daniels. And you see that those documents are now going to take additional time. And Justice Mershon controlled his courtroom. We're not here for that. Why didn't you raise that in your prior motion?

If that was your intent, if that's what you were going to do there. And it seems to me that the record reflects what Justice Mershon said that the Manhattan district attorney's office did everything that they were supposed to do. And then it got scathing where Justice Mershon was looking at Trump's lawyers and saying, basically you've made very serious accusations, not just against the Manhattan district attorney's office, accusing them of colluding with the department of justice to try to harm Donald Trump when the record reflects actually the exact opposite

by your own terms, referring to Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanch, you're making accusations that this court is involved somehow in a conspiracy with the Department of Justice and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Those are very serious accusations. You don't cite any cases. You don't provide a scintilla of evidence and that's very inappropriate and will not be tolerated in my courtroom. Do you understand? Trump's lawyers were very frazzled. Trump was described there also as kind of being pissed that his lawyers really weren't able to handle kind of justice, Mershons, you know, real kind of scathing,

surgical cross exam. You had Todd Blanche as the one who was really out there kind of taking, you know, the, the, the taking the brunt of it. Susan Necklis, Donald Trump's other lawyer who really practices in that courtroom and is known to have a pretty decent to good reputation there. She doesn't usually involve herself

in these kind of PR stunts. Blanche was willing to take that on and it did not go well for them. So let me pass it off to you, Michael Popok, with that kind of setup right there. Yeah, I think it's perfectly set up. Susan Necklis, and I did a hot take on this recently. Yeah, she, I will assure you, and we never had to defend a criminal client of hers who has attacked the family members of judges before.

And I would like to see when, if Judge Mershon even holds a hearing about whether the gag order is gonna be expanded or not, we'll get there in a minute, I'd like him to pose that question directly to Susan Necklis and to Todd Blanchard and say, Ms. Necklis, you've got a good reputation here in the court. You've appeared in front of me before. You tried a case involving the Trump Organization two years ago. Name for me one client that you think was appropriate and you've defended who's attacked the family members of a judge. I'm waiting. And that's not going to take that long because

she's never done it in her entire career and nor would she ever thought to have done it before she got into the world and the ambit of Donald Trump. A dangerous place to be as a lawyer who wants, who with a bar license that we're going to continue to talk about here as we talk about Jeff Clark later. The hearing went very, how do I put this, it was very turbulent for Mr. Blanche, we're going to talk about Mr. Blanche as well in his recent filing about the gag order. You can't, you cannot make accusations without any evidence, without any supporting affidavits, without any proof that a judge is committing judicial misconduct and a prosecutor is committing prosecutorial misconduct in the handling of documents. If you don't have the goods, all that's going to do is get you in the crosshairs and in the line

of fire, rightly so, by the judge. And the judge used the opportunity. When you and I first reported on it, we're like, oh, what should have been the trial day, March 25th is going to be this hearing day about some of these arguments. And I think Donald Trump and his lawyers, because Trump was there, came in there thinking sort of full of themselves, oh, we got the hearing we wanted and the trial is delayed 30 days and we'll just have this civil debate about documents and maybe we can get a more extension of time, more extension of time, which is of course their ultimate goal. And that is not what was on the agenda for the judge. And for those courtroom observers that we observe, because we have to report it that

way because it's not televised and we don't have audio, it came away with that Blanche was caught flat-footed and that he was not prepared to take on the fire of the judge, should have been, wasn't, thought he could get away with, you know, they're making these salacious or other accusations about the these two parts of the criminal justice system and get some benefit out of it. And the judge was like, you're not doing that. All you've identified, Mr. Blanch, is kind of run of the mill discovery and documents issues in a case happens all the time. It doesn't mean it's the product of misconduct by anybody. And I don't like it and I don't like to hear it here. In fact, the judge reinforced a rule that he has that future motions that are going to be filed before

they're even filed are going to have to go through him to decide at the outset whether they have any merit or not or they're in good faith. And this is another example of Judge Mershon having to warn and chastise Donald Trump's lawyers about their potential lack of good faith as being advocates in the courtroom. Zealous advocates, yes. Make robust arguments, yes, but you can't cross the line and start attacking. And so the judge is not going, did not take the bait, is not going to extend the trial and set the trial date for the 15th of April. In April, that's going to be very busy for Donald Trump, because he's going to be on one hand picking a jury in the courtroom. Unless he gets excused, we'll have to attend every day of that trial.

And getting excused is not that easy, but he could try. But he's going to have to be there for the criminal trial on the 15th of April. And on the 25th of April, another set of lawyers for Donald Trump, his appellate lawyers, are going to be arguing oral argument, which we will be able to hear and comment on on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF before the United States Supreme Court on whether he has immunity or not, whether the DC Court of Appeals got it right that he does not have immunity from criminal prosecution. On the federal side, a very busy April, that trial that we're talking about in the Stormy Daniels hush money business record fraud cover-up matter, it's a mouthful, but that's what the case is about.

That's the one, of course, that's going to have Michael Cohen testify, Allen Weisselberg, the disgraced soon-to-be-twice felon of a chief financial officer for Donald Trump, David Pecker, who was the head of the National Enquirer and editor of the National Enquirer, and editor in chief of that, and a bunch of other people all against Donald Trump. That's going to start, it's going to last six to seven to eight weeks according to all the parties that are concerned. And Donald Trump has had now to inform,

we're not gonna talk much about Mar-a-Lago today, but he did have to inform Judge Murchon, a judge, a candidate in Mar-a-Lago, that but he did have to inform Judge Murchon, a judge, a candidate in Mar-a-Lago, that he's starting a trial with Judge Murchon on the 15th of April. She should take that into consideration as to when she's going to set her trial if ever before the election. Ben, you want to talk about the gag order? Yeah, because it's really right out of Donald Trump's playbook

right here. And if it feels like deja vu, it's really right out of Donald Trump's playbook right here. And if it feels like deja vu, it's because Donald Trump does the exact same things. We can see the moves, we can call them out, and you could spot each and every one of them. So here's what happens. Donald Trump surrounds himself with these conspiracy theorists who are kind of the leaders of his MAGA movement, the inner circle of the cult. These are people like Laura Loomer, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who interestingly both kind of hate each other, but each kind of serve the same purpose in different ways. Marjorie Taylor Greene on the political side,

Laura Loomer on the kind of court side. So Laura Loomer will under the guise of being a journalist post things and say that she's uncovered these things. And so remember with the New York Attorney General civil fraud case, she said that she uncovered that Justice Ngoran's wife, you see it right here, I've uncovered screenshots from the ex, which is Twitter, formerly Twitter, of Dawn Marie Ingoron, the wife of leftist New York City judge Arthur Ingoron,

who's overseeing the civil fraud case against Trump, shows that she's been posting attacks on Trump from her account and then Donald Trump starts making posts shortly thereafter on his social media platform attacking Justice and Goran's wife and then spreading the lie that Justice and Goran's wife is posting these things about Trump and how it's all unfair. And there's never any retraction, right-wing media picks it up. This is kind of the anatomy of the conspiracy. So she does the exact same thing here

for Justice Mershon's daughter. Laura Loomer goes breaking. Judge Mershon's daughter, Lauren, just blocked me on X, which is Twitter, locked her account after I exposed her profile picture that has Trump behind bars. Her father is overseeing the hush money trial in New York. Lauren works for Biden Harris. Don't worry, Lauren, I archived your entire account

and screenshots are forever. You evil. She uses the B word and there are also posts of her calling Justice N'Goran's wife by attacking an account that doesn't belong to N'Goran's wife. The B word as well. I mean, so unhinged and then the court staff has to respond through their PR agent and say these accounts do not belong to them. Like with

Lauren Mershon the account had been inactive and not used for like a year and shut down and somebody we don't know who it is, took over that same account that went stale, and it's just somebody else who had been posting things, and for all we know, it could be someone close to Trump, who we don't know. But it follows this pattern over and over again, and then Donald Trump does a post where Trump starts attacking,

as he attacked Justice and Goran's wife, now he's attacking Justice Mershan's daughter and basic, and then using the daughter's name in the post directly, you know, and then, and then, you know, that results in lots of threats and lots of problems, uh, that are now directed at Justice Mershon's family and Justice Mershon. So you see Donald Trump's posts right there. I mean, he's been repeatedly posting about Justice Mershon's daughter over and over again. This is part of the tactics of Donald Trump.

And I want to talk about what the district attorney did. I want to talk about what the district attorney did. I want to talk about what Trump's lawyer's response was. Let's just first look at the gag order though. Brett, maybe just pull up the gag order right here. This was entered earlier in the week. It's order that the people's motion for a restriction on extra judicial statements by the defendant is granted to the extent that defendant is directed to refrain from the following. Just pause right here. The fact that you even have to say these things in a court of law is so completely utterly bizarre. Making or

directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in the criminal proceeding, making or directing others to make public statements about counsel in the case, other than the district attorney, members of the court staff, and district attorney staff, or the family members of any counsel or staff member, if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with or to cause others to materially interfere with counsel or staff's work in the criminal case and C, making or directing others to make public statements about any prospective juror or any juror in the

criminal proceeding. What Trump and Trump's lawyers are trying to take advantage of here is that where it refers to family members, it refers to family members of counsel to which Trump's lawyer is gonna try to argue, oh, well, that doesn't mean the district attorney's family. That doesn't mean the judge's family. That just means what? According to Trump's lawyers, their own family members were

they're the ones doing the threats, which makes absolutely no sense. I want to talk about the response from the Manhattan district attorney, the response from Trump's lawyers, the likely response from the court, and then how Donald Trump is also escalating this violent rhetoric. MidasTouch.com was able to capture and post one of the things that Donald Trump had posted on his social media, MidasTouch.com had posted it first. One of our writers, J.D. Wolf, put it up where it's a video Trump posted of a car, a pickup truck showing image of

President Biden kidnapped and bound with a rope. Really despicable stuff right there. Wanna remind everybody about our new Patreon, Patreon.com slash legal AF. I gotta be honest, I was a little worried it was gonna get a little bit too academic, too granular. I knew that everybody really wanted that legal AF law school type experience

as opposed to the hot takes. So I know you all said that's what you wanted, but I still wasn't sure, you know, if we got really academic and really geeky, is that what everybody would want? And it was obvious that it was a hit. We've got almost a thousand people subscribed in the first week.

Let's keep growing that. Patreon.com slash legal AF Pope Oxman doing some incredible Academic takes and it's like an informal legal AF law school right there when we come back Pope I want to get your take on the response from the Manhattan DA Trump as lawyers and where we go from here Let's take our first break. What's more important than sleep? It's the foundation of our mental and physical health. And when you're sleeping well, you can perform at your best in every way.

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Terms and conditions may apply. Michael Popok, first off, great ad reads. Second off, thank you for everyone who joined patreon.com legal slash LEGALAF during the ad reads. Second off, thank you for everyone who joined patreon.com legal, uh, slash legal AF during the ad break. Also, you know, those pro democracy sponsors go a long way to help building this network as well. And so I want to give another special shout out to them.

The, uh, discount codes are in the description below. And so Popeach, here we are at yet another trial. We've gone through these civil cases against Donald Trump where gag orders have need to be imposed, anonymous juries, Donald Trump's behavior, unlike anything you or I have ever seen ever practicing law against some of the most, I mean, we're talking about some, the spectrum of despicable criminal defendants to white collar to

I've never seen anything the behavior you know both the dangerousness but also just the kind of immaturity and the baby I've never seen anything like this ever in fact as you go through law school and you were at Duke, I was at Georgetown, not at the same time, in case people were wondering. But just an unfathomable thing to me as a student of the law, as a practitioner, this could be the case, break it down for us.

Yeah, the fact that we have to talk about it, as you said earlier, is really unsavory, but we have to. That's why we founded Legal AF to do just that. Look, I said on a hot take, and I might have said it midweek with Karen, who's of course formerly of that office, the Manhattan DA, that as soon as Donald Trump gets the gag order, he's been gagged a number of times. He got gagged by Judge Angoran twice. He got gagged by Judge Mershon, this very judge at the beginning, at the arraignment stage. He's been gagged by Judge McAfee in Georgia. He was gagged by Judge

Chutkin in the DC election interference case. The only case he really hasn't been gagged, of course, is Judge Cannon down in Mar-a-Lago. So he knows what to do, right? It's like he has a toolbox. He pulls out the gag order. He sits down with his lawyers. He has a little huddle session, probably, at Mar-a-Lago, where they're doing round the clock apparently day and night fundraisers for himself and for MAGA

that's all that Mar-a-Lago apparently is doing right now and there he's oh let's let's see the order okay now can I bash the daughter and then you know his lawyers sheepishly or not say yes you can you can bash the daughter can I bash the wife yes you can bash the daughter. Can I bash the wife? Yes, you can bash the wife. Can I bash the grandmother? Yeah, you can bash the grand. Can I go after the judge himself? Well, technically the way this gag order is currently written, the gag, the judge is fair game. Okay. And can I gag? Can I go after Alvin Bragg, the prosecutor? You know, another minority person who hates white people.

Can I do that? Yes, you can do that as well. Okay, great, I know what to do. That's what happens. And then the judges struggle because they are legitimate participants in the criminal justice system that care about the criminal justice system

and ethics in their job. And that's the mismatch here. We have an out of control, rogue former president, current criminal defendant, who is not concerned with the administration of criminal justice and doesn't care until he's stopped. And so they have to come up with a surgical gag order that meets the contours of our First Amendment, whether he's a political candidate or not, and because he's a political candidate, meets the contours of that, meets the contours of the precedent that it's already been established about the scope of gag orders

in a case against a criminal defendant who's, yes, doesn't have the obligation, actually has the right not to take the stand, and yet some people curiously might be thinking, well, this is counterintuitive. He gets to say whatever he darn pleases extra judicially outside the courtroom, but he doesn't have to actually stand and deliver under oath inside the courtroom. And the answer to that is, yes, it's an anomaly, but it's an anomaly of

our constitutional systems making. So the judges are really concerned with creating, with clear boundaries and margins, this defensible constitutional gag order on him, which is why he doesn't go to the unlimited extremes. And even Judge Chutkin, for instance, when she had a very similar gag order to the one that Judge Mershon just issued that we're talking a lot about here, in fact, Mershon, of course, had the benefit of seeing the gag order that Judge Chutkin issued.

Hers was even paired back just slightly on the edges by her bosses at the court of appeals, the DC Court of Appeals, and Judge Mers bosses at the court of appeals, the DC court of appeals. And Judge Rashawn had that, the benefit of that teaching and learning in fashioning his, his gag order as well. And so it's not a mistake. It wasn't a typo that the judge left out and family members. He, he purposely carved himself out of the gag order.

In other words, he can go after the judge. He carved out Alvin Bragg, VDA, but not the staff, not the attorneys that work for him like Josh Steinglass and the other attorneys that are going to be prosecuting the case on a day-to-day basis. They're not fair game. He didn't get into sort of, he did say staff, he said witnesses, he said, as you read, Ben, he said, don't go after prospective jurors or do things. There's a little bit of a catchall, do things that will undermine the justice system. But he's got a tough skin. And he's a judge. And he felt the

guy has the right to bash me and he has the right to bash Alvin Bragg, if he wants to the elected district attorney that's gone after him. But now we've seen how Donald Trump has tested the limits by going after what I refer to as the soft underbelly. Even the mafia doesn't go after civilians. Even the mafia doesn't go after the family members. Donald Trump would be thrown out of the mafia. Let me just put it that way. I know Michael Cohen likes to talk about him as being an organized crime boss. But he goes even beyond what they would be willing to do in order to get his in order to get his way into to mercilessly bash the this poor adult daughter of Judge Joe Biden. Okay. She's working for a PR firm in the political space that does mainly Democratic clients, not including Joe Biden. And she works on some of those accounts. But that's

it. And that's why when I really gave a lot of credit, and you called it out first, you did a hot take on it very, very early on that you thought that the Donald Trump's bashing of, and I don't want to mention her name again, bashing of the judge's daughter, just the way he bashed the principal law clerk for Judge Angoran and others. It's always women. It's always this misogynist attack on women who he hopes then won't fire back at him with a defamation case, but I think she has a case for that. You called it out and said, why isn't this a violation? It may not be a technical violation,

but it's in the spirit of the violation of the gag order. And Alvin Bragg thought the same thing and filed this emergency application on a letter brief on Thursday night that got documented on Friday, in which he said, look, you gotta make a clarification here, Judge, because by leaving out family members expressly, Donald Trump has gone after them, and that's going to have a chilling effect on jurors and witnesses who are going to have to worry. My family

didn't sign up for this. I don't want to testify. I don't want to be a juror. I don't want my grandmother attacked by Donald Trump because of something she put on social media or my wife or my child. And so they want the judge to address that. They've also gone as far as to say that Donald Trump's conduct does violate the gag order, is contumacious, term of meeting, it's in contempt, and he should be given a cease and desist by the judge. The response, which came in a one and a half pages from Todd Blanch's office with Susan Necklace, who you mentioned earlier, and I mentioned earlier listed there as well, basically defended Donald Trump's bashing the daughter, not because it's right, but because it's not technically part of the gag order.

Yep, yep, we look, Judge, he can go after your daughter. The fact that they're even able to put that print to paper and write that in a way they've never done in the history of their careers as defense lawyers to defend a person's depraved attack of a judge's daughter. In order to do what? They say, well, a First Amendment core political campaign speech. How could attacking the daughter

who's not involved in the criminal justice system, who's not the judge, how is that core political campaign speech? Because she happens to work in the world of politics and some of her firm's clients happen to be Democrats. That then makes it, he needs to go after them in order to run for office and for reelection. I can't even get it out with a straight face because it doesn't pass the straight face test and they can't even pass the straight face test. And then they argue Ben in their two pages that not only is attacking Judge Mershon's daughter protected campaign speech, but they can't even say

that she's supporting Joe Biden. At the best, they say she's a family member referenced in the letter is actively supporting adversarial campaign speech by President Trump's political opponents. Okay, that's word salad and nonsense and gobbledygook, that's the legal term, for nothing. She does not campaign. And even if she did, who cares? Ever since after the 18th century, women are no longer considered chattel owned by their husbands or by their fathers. Okay? Women can have a career. So can children. And they can have a career that has nothing to do with what's going on inside the wood paneling of the courtroom, presided over by their father in this case,

even if it were true. Adding onto the fact, of course, that everything he said about Murchand's daughter is a lie, that somebody had co-opted her social media account and did the same thing to her, which somebody had done, and he keeps falling. I don't wanna say he falls for the bait, because I think he knows that it's not true,

but he doesn't care. That thing, as you said, Judge, and Goran's wife, somebody got into her social media account or created a fake one, and he's like, oh, they want me in prison. Look at all this great stuff. So Blanche then ends the letter with, we need more time to brief this, Your Honor. We have. And then again, here we go with the word salad. Just random phrases out loud that they think apply. Prior restraint constitutional concept. First of all, prior restraint doesn't apply as a constitutional doctrine here. It has to do with when a government stops speech in writing or otherwise. That's not what's happening here.

This is a gag order that's imposed by a criminal judge who is administrating the criminal court justice system. And then First Amendment speech, you don't have a First Amendment right. He's been told this over and over again by courts of appeal and the United States Supreme Court. He does not have a First Amendment right to violate and undermine the integrity of the criminal justice system in the name of the First Amendment, just as he doesn't have a First Amendment right to commit crimes, even though part of the crimes involve speech that doesn't render it a First Amendment defense.

So I think, let me just wrap it up this way. I thought the letter brief written by the Josh Stein glass for the DA's office was very well taken. I think the opposition letter is not and really demonstrates that they have no ability to defend Donald Trump on this issue. I'm not sure. I don't think that, I want to hear your opinion, I don't think that, I wanna hear your opinion, I don't think that Mershon is gonna issue an order requiring further full briefing. I think he rejects this out.

I think he issues either through a hearing that he calls quickly, or he amends his order on his own to include the family members. But I gotta tell you, and I wanna hear your opinion, it was not an accident that the judge left out family members, and it was not an accident that he left himself out. But what do you think he does now, having now have it been briefed by the two parties? which we can be like, well, then Trump's gonna get away with it. I think Justice Murchon recognizes that Donald Trump is doing this to delay the trial date. That's what Trump is trying to do. And so if you look at, first take a look at the DA's letter where the DA goes, the people believe that the March 26th order is properly read to protect family members of the court.

I mean, that's just what it says. And then you look at what Todd Blanche Trump's lawyers letter in responses and says, the express terms of the gag order do not apply in the matter claimed by the people, which they seem to acknowledge by suggesting the need to avoid any doubt. So there they are just like justifying the right to attack the judge's daughter. But when you go deeper, that second portion that's highlighted there, pull that back up. It talks about, well, if we want to deal with the issue that's now being raised about attacking your daughter, we need to brief it.

And such briefing would address, let's throw in a random Latin word to sound smart, inter alia, among other things, unnecessary word, the constitutional problem attendant with any additional improper restrictions on protected campaign speech, which would implicate first amendment rights that belong to not only president Trump, but also the public. So what they're basically daring justice Mershon to do here is, look, if you do this, if you want to amend it, we want to go to briefing

and then we're going to try to go to the appellate division and then we may take it to the highest court in New York, which is called the Court of Appeals. Then we may try to do this or that to try to delay this case. That's where, that's what Trump's trying to do here. I think Justice Mershon realizes that, and I think that's why Mershon's just gonna be careful

in what he does so as not to have any delays here of the April 15th trial date, come hell or high water, that's locked in. And the final point I wanna talk about on this topic before moving on to the next topic about Trump's lawyers being disbarred on the West Coast and likely going to have some serious ramifications, at least on the East Coast with Jeff Clark, who's technically not Trump's lawyer, but who's claiming he is Trump's lawyer and attorney-client privilege is like, what are we even talking about here? Like, it shocks me that this even has to be a conversation.

I guess perhaps if we were dealing with like a, you know, a real kind of unadjusted kind of petulant bully, like third grade person and no offense to them, but what are we talking about here? We're adults. There is this numbing of the judiciary, numbing of the media, numbing of our systems that Donald Trump has kind of ripped the fabric.

What are we talking, who behaves like this? At a most basic level, this behavior, it's not a Democratic or a Republican thing, this behavior, attacking family members of judges, there's never a time where that should be justified, period, full stop, by anyone. You could use the word inter alia and all of these things. We're the United States of America.

When President Biden says that, that's what he's telling. This is the United States of America. You know, when President Biden says that, that's what he's telling. This is the United States of America. What are we talking about here anyway? You know, who's not in the United States of America, though, Michael Popak, Alina Habba, who's out there in St. Bart's partying and celebrating, staying at a five-star villa, bringing all of her friends out there,

like Siggy Flicker and others, giving people personalized Dior and Chanel bags with all of these goodies. Alina Haber's made between three and $5 million losing multiple cases. One of the biggest losing lawyers, one of the worst lawyers in the world, but this is the type of caliber people

who are representing Donald Trump. She lost the New York attorney general, $464 million verdict against Trump. She lost E. Jean Carroll, 83.3 million. Lost the previous one, but when Ta-Kapena was the lead lawyer, it was not 83.3, it was $5 million. And now she's out there celebrating.

And the way we get these photos is her friend like Siggy Flicker, posting the selfies and photos of them, having lunches and dinners and gifts that, uh, Mr. And Mrs. Magadonia, you know, the Trump supporters are the ones who are basically funding this lifestyle of one of the worst lawyers, perhaps the worst lawyer ever to exist, like period full stop and living this lavish lifestyle, you know, in,

in St. Barts and she's been paid close to over three and a half, probably now my estimate would be closer to 5 million from the PAC. I want you to touch on that. Then I want to, I think it's a good way to segue into John Eastman, Jeff Clark, the reduction of the bond, why Trump hasn't still posted with the reduction of the bond. And then a little bit, we'll talk about Fulton County. Wanna remind everybody about our new Patreon.

If you wanted that legal AF law school experience, if you ever wanted to know what it would like to be in a Professor Popok or Professor Mycelis class, step up to the plate and join patreon.com slash Legal AF. That's the academic experience you've been asking for and we've curated it at patreon.com slash Legal AF. Let's take our last quick break of the show. Here's the thing.

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Just make sure to add them to your cart. That's 100 free blades when you head to h-e-n-s-o-n-s-h-a-v-i-n-g dot com slash legal af and use code legal af. Michael Popok, those ad reads are just as the kids would say, fleek man, great stuff. Maybe. One comment on Henson shaving for those that don't, I have a beard, yes, but I shave around the beard. I have to clean up around the beard and I use Henson shaving to do it. Really appreciate that point of clarification, Michael. Let's get right into where we left off with Alina Habba, her lavish vacation, comment on it, then pivot and let's talk about the California.

I mean, how much do we really talk about that? Then the California State Bar recommendation to disbar John Eastman. Then in the East Coast, you had Jeff Clark's disbarment proceedings right there. The State Bar in D.C. closed their case, and now that panel, that tribunal will deliberate the outcome there. The state bar in DC closed their case and now that panel, that tribunal will deliberate the outcome there. Well, let's continue with your historical and literary references. You kicked the podcast off with watching Alina Habba is like watching neurofiddle while Rome burned. Things are going terribly in her world professionally. You've outlined all of her losses. The reason we haven't interstitched it with her wins is because we can't think of any.

She had a couple of early on for Donald Trump where she bamboozled and browbeat some women into taking settlements that they shouldn't have taken. One in particular may lead to her losing her bar license, or at least the New Jersey bar should be investigating her based on allegations made in a new, uh, filing against her. And so she's got a big problem and all she has to do is look over her shoulder at the trail of tears of broken law licenses that trail behind her. I mean, every lawyer, and I mean every lawyer that has represented Donald Trump,

who were the varsity, right? We're now onto the, now we're onto the JV and the bench. But on the varsity, the ones that he hired in the originally, that first round, every one of them are disbarred, discredited, convicted of a felony or a misdemeanor, or are up on charges related to that. I mean, this is not hyperbolic. Sometimes they could accuse you and I of being a little bit hyperbolic, but not on this one. Every one. You've got Ken Chesbro, convicted felon, Sidney Powell, convicted, Jenna Ellis, convicted,

Chesbro hasn't lost his law license yet, but will likely will, especially based on new reporting that he lied to investigators in Michigan and Arizona related to the fake elector scheme. Sidney Powell, only because she lives in Texas, the Texas bar protected her, didn't lose her law license. Rudy Giuliani, not only bankrupt, and can't believe, according to him and comments he made in Mar-a-Lago, can't believe the nightmare that he's living, but he lost his law license in two places, the District of Columbia and in New York. You've got John Eastman, who we'll talk about here, who just lost his law license. You've got John Eastman, who we'll talk about here, who just lost his law license. You've got Jeff Clark, who's about to lose his law license.

Do we see a trend here? Lin Wood agreed to leave the practice of law voluntarily, or he was going to be the spart. Every lawyer, except for the ones that ended up properly cooperating with the prosecutors like Evan Corcoran and others who have touched him have done so at their own peril and forfeiture of their right to practice the livelihood and be a member of our honorable profession. Why this current group, Susan Necklis, Todd Blanch, Chris Kise, and Alina Habba, think they're going to avoid the fate that befell the rest of them? And I left out a bunch of other lawyers who got sanctioned related to the election fraud

lawsuits that were brought. And while all this is going on, you know, we got jet setter Alina Haba, who has quadrupled or made 10 times her income working for Donald Trump and failing efforts. And then as you said, goes on a junket to St. Bart's. I think she's, when she comes home, she's going to have to pay the piper and face the music. So we've got that going on.

Then you've got the, what I thought was most interesting, I'll do Jeff Clark first, I thought was most interesting about Jeff Clark is that it's a preview of many of the same witnesses that we are gonna hear at the DC election interference case primarily but also potentially in Georgia against Donald Trump, a raid against him because they have been brought in by the DC bar in putting on their case against Jeff Clark. Jeff Clark, for those that are joining the attempted overthrow of our democracy late, Jeff Clark was a very lower level, not in the upper echelon leadership of

the Department of Justice at the time of the insurrection, time of Jan 6th. He was at best the head of the civil division, civil environmental division, if you will, of the Department of Justice. However, he got under the radar of Donald Trump because he's a right-wing nut, Federalist Society nut, and MAGA extremist, and he whispered into, he was like the Trump whisperer, he whispered into, he was like the Trump whisperer, he whispered into Donald Trump's ear that the Department of Justice could serve a role in trying to overthrow democracy by arguing that there were fraud in the election, outcome-determinative fraud when there wasn't.

And Donald Trump said, tell me more. And he said, great, I have an idea. We can put it on letterhead, Department of Justice and send it to the various states to make them, to have them stop certifying the election results in Biden's favor. It sounds great. Let's do it. I'll make you attorney general. And when Donald Trump raised that issue, the entirety of his lawyers in the White House

Counsel's Office, Pat Philbin and Pat Cipollone, and the entire leadership of the Department of Justice, the real leadership, the acting attorney general and the acting deputy attorney general said we're gonna resign along with everybody else. Now we're talking about, some people might be scratching their head, you change attorney generals with like eight days to go on your administration?

If you're Donald Trump, yes. So he wanted to insert Jeff Clark at the end of December before Jan 6th. When everybody said they'd resigned, he backed off. But then when Jan 6th happened, or right around that same time, according to the Jan 6th committee, and even references in special counsel's indictment about Jeff Clark, Jeff Clark was the acting attorney general for a nanosecond. Jeff Clark. Jeff Clark was the acting attorney general for a nanosecond. I've seen him referred to that way even in the federal filing in Georgia when he was trying to get removal.

And so Trump elevates this guy who then puts on Department of Justice letterhead a fake story about that there's fraud in the election that he's about to send to Georgia. When everything, you know, of course, everything, he gets canned, everybody gets canned, and the thing is over. But that doesn't mean he wasn't a participant in the conspiracy. And this is what is the basis of the argument in the disbarment proceeding. So they brought in Patrick Philbin, Deputy White House Counsel. We knew Patrick Philbin was going to testify against Donald Trump. We just didn't know exactly how. He's mentioned in the indictment that Jack Smith brought, but it's always unindicted co-conspirator number four, who's Jeff Clark, and a unnamed White House counsel, Pat Philbin. And their conversation was where Philbin, this is what he testified to this week against

Jeff Clark. He said, yeah, I reached out to Jeff Clark because I used to practice law with him in the 90s and I thought maybe I could get through to him. So as soon as I heard Trump was thinking about making him attorney general again, he was going to write this crazy letter, I picked up the phone and said, Jeff, what are you doing? And he says, oh, there's fraud. And he even said, there's smart thermostats that are being used through Bluetooth and wifi

to flip votes for Donald Trump against Trump to Biden. He's like, I don't know what you're talking about. We looked at this. There is no outcome to terminating fraud. If you're gonna do this, if you're gonna come up with a way for Trump to somehow stay in power beyond the election and the inauguration, there's gonna be rioting in the street. And that's when Jeff Clark

now infamously said in a chilling way, well that's why there's an insurrection act. Meaning that's how the president can suppress using the US military against Americans. He can suppress riots in the street. And so that came out in testimony. Richard Donahue testified who was the acting Deputy Attorney General. A few other people testified. Jeff Clark did not testify. He's taking the Fifth Amendment, as you said, claiming that he was some sort of private lawyer for Donald Trump with an attorney-client privilege, which as you said, I agree with,

doesn't help either of them. But what I got to see, what the American people got to see is a preview of what the trial is going to look like. We talk so much on Legal AF, rightly, about the procedural posture of all this pre-trial motion practice that's going on, much of it fake and deletory, purpose of delay by Donald Trump. But we haven't been able to talk about, except in the trials related to the Colorado

ballot initiative and some civil trials, the big one for fraud and all, we haven't been able to talk about a criminal trial involving Donald Trump and what that would look like on a day-to-day basis in front of a jury. The parade of witnesses, you know, a week of just nothing but lawyers for Trump testifying for Donald Trump.

A week, another week of nothing but just witnesses who were private lawyers for Donald Trump testifying against the now convicted criminals. A week of Vice President Pence and elected officials around the battleground states just testifying against Donald Trump and then Donald Trump may or may not take the stand to say what? I have first amendment right to say all these things? I mean, the overwhelming amount of evidence, and we get a glimpse of it in hearings like this one, involving a bar licensure, is really overwhelming. I know that the prosecutors have to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, but the sheer amount of evidence is just mind-boggling and has to keep at least Donald Trump's criminal

lawyers up at night. Now, I'll end it this way. Clark's going to get this part. John Eastman, you can pick it up. John Eastman got this part. Again, this is why we contrast it with the current crop of Donald Trump's lawyers, like Alina. And if I had to pick one that's going to lose their bar license, it's going to be Alina Haba. But we'll leave that aside for a minute. You've got all of that going on. And then we have

to overlay that onto how you and I are tracking, along with Karen, the Trump cases and what these things mean in that world. And that's what we're trying to do here. Look, about two years ago, federal district court judge David Carter in the central district of California Southern division famously said that John Eastman was not providing legitimate legal services for a lot of the work. Instead, he was involved in a coup with Donald Trump in search of a legal theory. Go back to some legal AFs we did two years ago, and you'll remember when that order came out relating to the January 6th committee where Eastman was trying

to withhold turning over text messages and emails from his Chapman University, a law school out in Southern California, account. And that's how a lot of this stuff finally came out through the great work of the January 6th committee. And that's now kind of permeated the zeitgeist and also permeated the coffers, if you will, of federal prosecutors, state bar prosecutors, and state prosecutors as well across the country. The way it works in California is that there is a state bar prosecutor. There is the office of the state bar prosecutors who prosecute on behalf of the bar. You go before a special court, a state bar court, and that's what took place.

It was a state bar court judge, Roland, who I'm familiar with her being out here in California and the work that she's done. She's got a very good reputation. The way it works too is that when there's a disbarment, the judge makes a recommendation for disbarment that usually then gets rubber stamped by the California Supreme Court. Not always, but I would say almost always. That's where this now goes

to the California Supreme Court. They put a stamp on it. They don't have to, but they often do, and they probably will. Then the disbarment officially happens. In the meantime, Eastman's license has been placed on an involuntary inactive status, basically meaning he's suspended from practicing law for the time being in California. Eastman tried to play all of the games. He, like Jeff Clark, would go on all the right wing media, then try to invoke the fifth,

but then selectively invoke the fifth here, but not invoke the fifth in other places, which that gambit didn't work. And again, you had all of just the evidence come out. And you know, look, the bottom line is that, like in all of these cases, the key witnesses against Donald Trump are Trump's own people as well.

I mean, you had this kind of team crazy, team chaos, team treason, whatever you want to call them. And then there was another group of people who consider themselves in Donald Trump's orbit to be quote unquote, team normal, who think we're still lying to the American public. And we're, um, you know, at, at the time period while they viewed themselves as team normal and they've, but they've all kind of since come out and this group of former Trump

lawyers and you know, whether it was, uh, you know, the white house lawyers, people like Patrick Philbin and, uh, or former top DOJ, you know, Bill Barr coming out and saying that there was no fraud to overturn the results of a free and fair election, whether it's people like Mark Meadows or courageous people like Cassidy Hutchinson who testified before the January 6th committee, as did Philman and some others. But those are the witnesses in these cases. Eastman can kiss his bar license, bye-bye. Clark will likely have the same fate. this isn't because of you know deep status deep thing you try to oh well it goes back to what we said before

Popak like like what are we talking about this is this is the United States of America what we got Donald Trump threatening judges daughters we got people trying to overturn free and fair elections Trump you got wiped out in the last election this was not Florida in 20 and 2000. You lost by over seven million votes in multiple states where the margins in many of those states were not close. What are we even talking about? At the most basic level, what are we talking about here?

And you've got an entire political apparatus right now that's in the Republican party that just doesn't support democracy anymore. I mean, those are the stakes. That's what's at issue right now and this is where the intersection meets law and politics together and it's where this is the intersection of law and politics right here is a better way of saying it. Two topics I want to get your take on though, Popak, right here. The bond, the appellate division ruling on Monday that the bond would be reduced from $464 million to $175 million. I think I want to address some comments that I saw where people were like, some comments that I saw where people were like, Ben and or Popak, like, why aren't you expressing

so much rage in the outcome of that? And why aren't you showing how angry and corrupt, like why aren't you criticizing the appellate division? Look, I think we were both very critical of the appellate division for doing that. There wasn't like a special hearing that took place on Monday that we could tell you, oh there was going to be a hearing on Monday. But this is not the Yale show. This is the show where we provide you the data. We can try to

explain to you why we think the Appellate Division did or did not do. We can say we disagree with what the Appellate Division did. But I think there's a difference between the Appellate division in a business-oriented New York kind of court system that's known to kind of have a pro-business bent that makes a bad ruling versus MAGA stuff in trying to overthrow free and fair elections and take down our democracy and shred apart our Constitution. So I give different nuance in the analysis to both. What I think happened with the bond is whether this was, I think this is what was implied in the order, and again I disagree with it. I think you had, by the way, the makeup of

that appellate panel also was a fairly diverse panel that ultimately made the ruling. I think it was more the pro business bent of New York and that the appellate division did not want to see something in New York where you would quite literally have an attorney general seizing assets in the state and what that can mean for kind of the business community, not in this specific case, but in other cases where there's businesses in New York and the body of law that's been developed the same way if you were to go to say Delaware, where there is a body of case law that has certain precedent

about business. And again, this is where Donald Trump can kind of manipulate that system. I think the appellate division was trying to protect a business-friendly environment, but also creating a corpus of funds that if Donald Trump could not pay the 175, which was reduced to, you know, you put them on the spot to have to do that.

That's still not an insignificant amount of money. The appellate division comes off in their own mind looking fair, which again, I disagree with. Then it puts a large amount of money in an account so that when New York attorney general, Letitia James prevails, you can very easily get that first 175. Popak, you've gone through the creditor's rights issues. Even the seizure takes a lot of time. It wouldn't be like on Monday, you know, this property's mine or that property's mine

and you sell it. There's a whole process, especially with large assets that would take time. Now it would be as simple as if Trump were to put the money in the account, taking the money from the account where the money's just in, so it would be super easy. That's what I think the appellate division was, do I agree with their decision?

No, why help this guy out? He didn't put any evidence. In fact, in my view, things got worse for Donald Trump. In my view, I think in everybody's view. I mean, the key witness for him pled guilty to felony perjury in the case. So why give any advantage? I totally disagree with what the appellate division was doing. But in this show too, I try to give you the data points to explain why the rulings happen that way. So that's that.

And then Popak, touch on that. And then you can also touch briefly on Donald Trump filing this appeal after Judge Scott McAfee's ruling in Georgia. Take those two if you can. Yeah, the first one I agree with you, it's slightly different angle though. I think it's one of two things for the appellate, the appellate division, first

department run by presiding judge Renwick. I think it is the pro-business court. I practiced there regularly. I think they, because of the uniqueness of this defendant, having so many visible real estate assets that are subject to a monitorship that they did not disturb with a former federal judge who's babysitting all of his assets who also has new robust superpowers over his assets and money transfers. I think the uniqueness of that gave the appellate court more confidence that they needed to take in

less money as a bond to secure the people's judgment. That's what this is, the people's judgment of the state of New York. That's where the money goes. It goes back to the people of the state of New York and the treasury, the general treasury of New York state for ill-gotten gains that were obtained by Donald Trump and everybody around him and all of his companies in their business operations to which he was not entitled. That's what the judgment is all about. I think if this was a different defendant that didn't have so many visible assets with his name on it, that didn't have a monitorship already over him, which of course the Appellate Division knows well all about it because

they're the bosses for judging Quran and they've been monitoring him and his decision-making and they kept the monitorship undisturbed. They kept the appointment of the monitor, the monitors, at least the original powers, the superpowers that just came out two weeks ago have not been tested through appeal yet, but you kind of see where they're going. They disturbed a couple of aspects of the judgment related to Donald Trump's ability to stay running the business in the meantime along with his children. They're going to allow that for now. They're going to allow them to go out and get bank loans and transact business in New York for now, but under the guys, look they know everything, so they know, and that in this way the appellate court is omniscient, right, they know there's a monitorship. Having said that, that's one

theory. The other theory is they took a look at some of the earlier decision making, think that Judge Angoran made some fundamental math errors in how he calculated the disgorgement amounts around a certain of the transactions, whether it be Mar-a-Lago, what he attributed to Mar-a-Lago in terms of value, or the old post office, or the seven bridges property, whatever. And because Donald Trump has alleged that that Angoran's off by 258 million dollars, which is almost the amount of money that they have lowered the bond amount to. So either it is a signal that this is the that at the end of the day they're

probably gonna be on the hundred and seventy five million dollar end of the field, the playing field for us for affirming the judgment and verdict by Judge Angoron, or it's what you and I just said which is this is enough of cash given the other real estate and the monitorship that's involved and then and the fact that recognition as Karen Freeman-Ignifilou said and I agreed with it on our midweek edition, recognition that the judgment creditor, you know, I say it's the people of New York, but it's the attorney general of New York with all of her limitless powers, her unlimited budget effectively, she could throw thousands of people at this. It's not your typical creditor that's got to go like, well,

I wonder how I'm going to get this money. It's so difficult typical creditor that's gotta go like, well, I wonder how I'm gonna get this money. It's so difficult. Think of all the money I'm gonna have to spend. Yes, it's more taxpayer dollars but you know, it's a leviathan in the form of the attorney general as the creditor against Donald Trump and I think all of those things went into the mix. The only question is whether it indicates that they think there was error made and they've lowered the number down to the end of the spectrum where they think they're

going to ultimately affirm. I'm not sure it got that complicated in their analysis, but it is a theory that I have posited on one of the hot takes. In terms of the new attempted appeal, it's not yet an appeal. In Georgia, switching to Georgia without giving anybody a whiplash as we move out of New York. In Georgia, Judge McAfee on the 15th of March, when he ruled in favor of Fonny Willis in a way and kept her in place as long as she cleared the appearance of impropriety conduct that he identified by firing Nathan Wade, the person that she was in a relationship with, he knew that this was going to be something that the other side was not going to be happy

with and he did something different than a prior judge in that same court, the chief judge at the time, Judge McBurney did about his handling of a conflict of interest and Fonny Willis. He disqualified her in that case when she was up against, when the issue was whether she was appropriately supporting a competitor, a adversary for an office for a person that she was also prosecuting. Like she was supporting the Democratic challenger to Bert Jones. There McBurney, and we covered it here on Legal AF, disqualified her and her office

from going after Bert Jones and it had to be reassigned to a new prosecutor, but did not certify the question for appeal to allow the Trumpers to take that issue up on appeal. Because it has to start with the judge in the way interlocutory, and this is where Patreon comes in, we'll talk at length about interlocutory versus final appeals and why interlocutory appeals are generally disfavored. That means they're happening during the case

before it's over, sometime in the middle or so, that's the interlocutory. For that, you generally have to ask for the appellate court to give you the permission, and you got to start asking by having the trial judge certify the question for appeal. The trial judge can kill it right there and go, no, I'm not doing that. I don't think you have a right to do it. And if you're going to go ask for the appeal, you're going to have to ask for it without my certification, which is almost never heard of. Here, McAfee certified the question and put enough in his order that gave the defense a lot to argue about the grounds to get the interlocutory appeal granted. There's two, in Georgia, unlike other states, there is

an intermediary court, but it's really one big intermediary court called the Court of Appeals that sits under the Georgia Supreme Court. The Court of Appeals level is 15 judges. There's a chief judge, Judge Mercier, who got appointed in 2023. She actually, not the clerk, picks the panel, the three judge panel, from the 15 that's going to hear this case and she can put herself on the panel. They then evaluate what's been filed by Trump's lawyers and the other seven co-defendants, which is an application for interlocutory appeal, which is a long-winded way of saying they have to ask permission to have the appeal granted. Now they cited there's three major ways to get an appeal, an interlocutory appeal,

granted. You have to argue that there is a lack of precedence that guided the trial judge and he needs instruction. That's one of their arguments in the area of these are all unique Georgia terms. What is forensic misconduct by a prosecutor? What is a structural error? These are all again unique to Georgia but they're similar to other states. So they argued that there is a lack of precedent and that this trial judge needs more guidance in the area of what is a forensic misconduct as he applies the facts to the law. And then they also argued that he's just wrong, clear error, reversible error,

structural error, whatever you want to call it, because he, in his fact finding, which they're not generally challenging because it's hard for them to challenge fact finding by a judge on appeal, they're saying the fact finding is fine, he just got to the wrong result. On the law, he should have disqualified her for appearance of impoverished or for actually finding that she had a financial stake, meaning actual conflict. And so that was their challenge that they have now put before. And it's going to be up to this Judge Mercier, the chief judge, to assign a panel, the panel to review the appellate application. But of course there's going to be the opportunity for the Fulton County District Attorney Appeal

lawyers to file their opposition brief. So this will all be fully brief. First issue that the appellate court's got to decide is whether we're going to hear this appeal now. My gut, to be frank, is that they're going to, knowing what I know about the right-wing leaning aspects of the Georgia court system and the appellate court in particular, Judge Mercier being a Federalist Society member,

I think this interlocutory appeal is getting granted and that it will get fully briefed on the issue of whether Fonny Willis will be disqualified. Let me just end it with this on this part of the segment. The case is not stayed at all pending appeal. I haven't even really, I've read through the 51 pages. It's not even something that I think is up for grabs at the moment, although at the appropriate time, we can expect Donald Trump's lawyers to ask for a stay. McAfee has made it clear he's not staying the case. So if you're going to get a stay,

it's not for me. I'm going to continue to rule on these motions to dismiss the indictment, which got argued last week by Donald Trump's lawyers that he has a First Amendment right to be a criminal. I mean, I'm boiling it down to its essence, but that is their argument, which of course is nonsense. But there have been successful motions for demur and dismissal of certain aspects of Fonny Willis' indictment already.

The judge three weeks ago, two weeks ago dismissing six of the counts. So now we're down to 35 or so counts. The main one's still there. The engine driver of the indictment is the criminal racketeering influence and corrupt organization or RICO count, which ensnares all of the co-conspirators with Donald Trump at the hub of the center of this wheel, right? So that's still there. So he may peel away a couple of more counts, but the fundamental argument by Steve Sadow on behalf of Donald Trump that the whole indictment should go bye-bye, because he's got a First Amendment right to commit these crimes. I don't think even

McAfee is going to side with that. So we'll have, let's say by the middle of April, we'll have a indictment, a standing indictment that's maybe 33, 35 counts plus, including Rico against Donald Trump, but he still hasn't set the trial date despite phony Willis asking for July. He may be waiting to get some guidance from the appellate court, so it's not a stay, but he hasn't set the trial date either. But and I'll give my final with the other moving parts of the trials that you and I are following so intently.

With the April 15th start of the six or eight week trial of Stormy Daniels' hush money case against Donald Trump taking us into June, end of June, and then waiting to see what the Supreme Court does that we will be able to follow with audio with at the April 25th oral argument and them ruling about immunity and the DC election interference case before the end of their term in June and they go away on their summer vacations the same parts or wherever they're gonna go. If that goes against Donald Trump, which everybody expects that it will, even with this right-wing court,

then that trial with Judge Chutkin gets done in probably August with maybe a month gap between Stormy Daniels' case, the Hushmoney case, and this case I'm talking about. So there's no other time, frankly, for a Georgia election interference case before the November election because he'd already be now in his second trial in August which would take six to eight weeks which will take us till October before the November election. That is the optimistic trial calendar that we now have and why Georgia which we first thought was in the front and was the lead horse that was going to cross that finish line first has ended up being now falling well back. You can tell it's Kentucky Derby season. It's falling well back in the pack as the first to indict, first to try case of the New York Manhattan D.A.

case is starting on the 15th of April and these other cases slot behind it. Well, by optimistic, I think with respect to the Washington DC federal case getting back on track for an August trial, it feels a little bit like winning the Powerball optimistic to me because the math just doesn't math to me when you go back and you look at the fact that that case has been stayed since December and you just do the fact that this, that case has been stayed since December

and you just do the math, December to January, January to February, February to March, March to April, April 25th is gonna be when the oral argument is, you're not gonna get a ruling from that Supreme Court on April 26th, you'll probably get one in June, April to May, May to June, that's a sixth month. She's not doing that. She said she's only going to add 90 days.

Judge Chuck and I said she's going to add 89 days to whenever she gets the case back. Michael Popak, very optimistic, very optimistic. Look, we'll see what the supreme court does in and of itself with this dynamic, but I think it's a very optimistic projection. But I don't think it is in any way Hopium to look at what's happening in the Manhattan District attorney case. That case is set for trial in April, and I think you'll have a conviction of Donald Trump by June, by early summer.

You'll have a conviction of Donald Trump by June, by early summer, you know, you'll have a conviction of Donald Trump. And so for everybody who's been watching this for many years, and I've saw in the comments, there's no chance Donald Trump will ever be indicted, ever. I remember those comments. There's no chance that Donald Trump will ever lose any of these civil cases. I remember all of those comments. By mid-June, you'll have a situation where, or you could have a situation where, Trump is a convicted felon, the Trump Organization's a convicted felon,

the Trump Organization and Donald Trump are liable for, when you tack on post-judgment interest, over $500 million in the various civil cases. And if I gave you that hypothetical scenario two years ago, you would definitely say that I'm smoking some Popokian style hopium right there. And I'm only teasing, but law school is in session, sort of, patreon.com.

Legal AF is where you can get some of the kind of real, deep academic backgrounds. If you ever wanted to know what it would be like to be in a Professor Popok or Professor Mycelis Law School class. And that's what I do when I'm not doing hot takes for my other profession. Check it out at Legal AF's Patreon.

Patreon.com slash Legal AF. You just search on your web browser, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Legal AF. You just search on your web browser, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Legal AF. The feedback has been incredible. As I said, I was a little worried and maybe too academic. I know people said they wanted that, but it's clear that that is something that people really wanted and it's growing rapidly.

So Patreon.com slash legal AF. And I do want to remind everybody as well that the Midas Touch Network has produced a new film that's out right now. It's an award-winning documentary called Against All Enemies, which is now available on streaming platforms. You could download it on YouTube also,

if you search against all enemies, YouTube does a great job with it. And it's also on some other streaming platforms, but I would try to get it on YouTube. Againstallenemiesfilm.com, you can get more information about it. Again, it's called Against All Enemies. It's actually number one right now

on the top documentary charts right now. Not bad, not bad for a little foray into Docs. And we did it with Ken Harbaugh and his great team. And I know y'all love Ken Harbaugh. So shout out to him and his crew right there. Number one, number one Doc Popokian. Thank you everybody. It's all because of you, Lig AF. We're so grateful for you.

Let's keep on, you know, learning the law together. We'll be here with you every step of the way. I'm feeling good. I loved the chat tonight. It was so great seeing everybody here. We'll see you next time on Legal AF, signing off. I'm Ben Mycelis. Of course, you know, Michael Popak, shout out to the

Legal AFers and shout out to the minus mining.