Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Gets BURIED in Court, Jack SMACKS BACK

Episode Date: November 12, 2023

In this Special Edition of Legal AF celebrating Michael Popok’s wedding, Ben Meiselas and Popok discuss the latest criminal and civil cases that are progressing and leading to Donald Trump and his family being held accountable. Meiselas and Popok cover the updates in the New York AG fraud case with Donald Trump’s and Ivanka’s testimony, Judge Cannon’s trial order, updates the DC federal criminal case, and more.  DEALS FROM OUR SPONSOR! BETTER HELP: This is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://BetterHelp.com/LEGALAF today to get 10% off your first month and get on your way to being your best self! PRIZE PICKS: Go to https://PrizePicks.com/legalaf and use code legalaf for a first deposit match up to $100! MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGLAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. RHONE: Head to https://rhone.com/legalaf and use code LEGALAF to save 20% off your entire order! HENSON SHAVING: Visit https://HensonShaving.com/LEGALAF to pick the razor for you and use code LEGALAF for 2 years worth of free blades! SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop NEW LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the 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

Welcome to legal AF from the outset. Let me just say this one is not live. Michael Popak is getting married. So this basically is the bachelor party. This is how Popak and I are spending the night before he gets married pre recording this legal AF. So welcome to the bachelor party folks. Things may get crazy as we break down judge and goarons orders judge and goarons admonitions to Donald Trump and Trump's lawyers. going on with Judge Eileen Cannon in the Southern District of Florida and her scheduling order today, which as Popok and I predicted, is basically trying to block any of the other cases from being set from that time period, from May to about July. We'll break down what Judge Eileen Cannon did. Also, you know this is gonna be a crazy bachelor party that we're all sharing together here on Legal AF. When we talk about not one, not two, not three, but four motions, mostly oppositions that were filed by special counsel, Jack Smith,

you know how crazy it's gonna get opposition to Donald Trump's motion to dismiss on constitutional and statutory grounds, opposition to Donald Trump's motion to dismiss on constitutional and statutory grounds, opposition to Donald Trump's motion to dismiss for the indicative prosecution, opposition to Donald Trump's motion to strike inflammatory allegations or special counsel, Jack Smith, Sites, Donald Trump,

singing the January 6th anthem at his speeches and says, wait a minute, Donald Trump wants to act like it's inflammatory in these proceedings to talk about what went down in the January 6th insurrection and relating his conduct to the insurrection is very interesting that Donald Trump wants to distance himself from insurrection is here, but he just gave a rally where he does this January 6th choir song where he sings with the most violent insurrection as we should talk about that judge. Chuck, and let's talk a little bit about Steve Bannon's appeal, the oral argument before three judges, one Obama, one Biden, one Trump appointee. All three didn't seem to be buying

what Steve Bannon was selling. So buckle up folks, things are going crazy here in Michael Popeyes, legal AF bachelor party, pull out the espresso folks, shot to Michael Popeyes of the espresso. shot to Michael Popeye of the espresso. First of all, thank you to my beloved partner and crime here, no pun intended, Ben Micellas, who's joining me for the wedding ceremony down in Miami, although we're in different hotels at the present time. And those are scratching their heads saying, I thought Popeye got married in September. I had a civil ceremony in September. This is the celebration in Miami with lots of close friends

that have come in including who else, but my colleague Ben, my salis, but let's get into all things legal, political, and justice Ben, where do you wanna go? Where do you wanna go Ben? Spin the wheel. I wanna go go with Miami. Look right here, Popeyes.

I have as I spin the wheel, let's talk about what went down in New York first. Then let's go to Florida where you and I are at. And then let's go to Washington, DC. And then we'll be there for both the Trump case and the ban and appeal. So starting with New York, let's talk about Donald Trump's testimony feels like a year ago, but Donald Trump testified earlier this week, Ivanka testified this week and then we got motions that took place on Thursday. Another directed verdict motion brought by Donald

Trump's lawyer, Christopher Kice in the ultimate projection and confession as Chris Kice was trying to get the case dismissed, which although Judge and Goron did not rule yet, he's going to reject it. Christopher Kice called out the New York Attorney General lawyer and said that his tactics are like Vladimir Putin and Putin's associates to which Judge and Goron was like, what are you talking about? These ad homin and attacks have no place in my court. And then Judge and Goron went over the facts and the undisputed facts. And so I want to hear from you, Popak about Trump, Ivanka, but here's a part, Lisa Rubin,

who's been there. She has been live tweeting, and this is what Angora said about the undisputed facts as one of the issues that came up was Trump's lawyers like, we want to have an expert on this, and we want to have an expert on this. And judging Gora's like, you know what, I'll let you make your record. So you can bring in these experts. That's fine. And the prosecutors, you know, we're trying to get the experts, you know, stricken because they're not relevant. And Goran's like, I'm going to give you a very short leash here, you know, but I'm going to let the experts testify.

But he's like, look, let me just remind everybody what the undisputed facts are. And why I'm not sure why your experts are going to even be useful at all. Number one, as I stated in my summary judgment order, this is what Angora said, the triplex valuation in New York was fraudulent. You said it was 30,000 square feet and came up with a valuation based on that. It is undisputed based on all of the testimony that we've received that it is 10,000 square feet. Next up, the seven springs property, that valuation was fraudulent in 2014 because it concealed the existence of an appraisal.

They got an appraisal, Eric Trump received it, Don Jr. was aware about it, and they just deep-six the appraisal and made up a fake appraisal based on their own thing. They came up with their own valuation and ignored the appraisal. The value of the apartments at Trump Park Avenue were fraudulent because they disregarded rent control restrictions in coming up with the valuation there. The value of Mar-a-Lago was fraudulent between 2014 and 2021 because it disregarded the restrictions on its use and development where there was a deed which said it was a commercial property.

So for these reasons, then they went through the various other, they went through all the various other things right there that all the other properties, the golf courses and other things like that for all of those reasons, they said that Trump, it was all about. So when Donald Trump was trying to go on his speeches and the judge had managed him, it's like let's not forget what the undisputed facts are here. Yeah, you got it exactly right. And it is odd and it is odd procedurally, but we have to keep reminding our audience and obviously we have to keep reminding the Trump world because they don't get it. The judge six weeks ago made a ruling. That ruling, which is law of the case now, and travels with the case throughout the case, yes, judges sometimes change their mind

on summary judgment, but this judge is not going to because of just the wealth of evidence that was undisputed, that was submitted to him on the motion for a summary judgment, which means a judgment without the need for a trial because the undisputed factual record means that the Attorney General was entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.

That's what all summary judgments mean. I kind of laughed out loud when I was doing a hot take today that's going to come up soon about at least the phonic, the Republican from New York there there are a couple of Republican Congress people from New York and she She wrote a letter to the judicial committee that's responsible for Ethics of judges and complained about judge and Goron and one of the things she actually said was um, and could you believe this he granted summary judgment without even a trial. Okay, well that's all summary judgment is without a trial

because the basis is you don't need a trial. So the judge already found what's called standalone fraud and all the things that you just outlined Ben, all of the book cooking, all the cooking of the books, all the inflating of the numbers, all the artificial, artificial inflation and deflation of his assets. That's already been found on an undisputed factual record. In fact, it's so undisputed that the judge, just to remind everybody, the judge turned to Chris Kice and to the office of Attorney General six weeks ago,

after he granted the summary judgment, and they met the next day to talk about what the shape of this trial that we've been covering for the last six weeks would look like the judge said to the attorney general. You want to just drop the other counts and we do why do we need a trial and days and the attorney general said judge we think you need to hear all of the evidence and all the 25 witnesses for our side because of the remedies that we're seeking, which is all of these issues at law or equity that a judge can award in order to address the fraud that's happened, right, to emigrate it, to mitigate it. And so, Judge says, he's struck his shoulders there, and he said, all right, well, let's do the trial then. But the summary judgment ruling travels with the rest of the case, something that Chris Keiss and company never seemed to want to acknowledge. They instead want to focus on Michael Cohen

did something at one point that we didn't like and we should throw the whole case out on directed verdict judge of that. Their whole case is Michael Cohen and the judge already dispatched that argument two weeks ago when he said you could fill this courtroom. And I'm for those that are listening to us and don't watch us. I'm spreading my hands wide to fill a room. You can fill this courtroom with the evidence has been presented by the attorney general about the fraud and the persistent fraud.

And the remaining counts, there are still counts left. The only difference between the counts that are left and the counts that are already adjudicated by the judge on the record is that these counts require what's called intent. The other count that he ruled on, which is really the entire case, you don't need intent. You can do an accidental fraud in New York. If you actually commit fraud even though you didn't intend to do it, it's okay. It's fraud.

This is the day I want to shut down fraudulent business operations or enterprises. And so he's listening, listening to the evidence as the trial of facts, this is no jury, to try to determine whether he can find that element of intent. The intent of Donald Trump to intentionally use, it cooked the books on his personal financial statements,

intentionally mislead and committed and fraud related to insurance, intentionally make record entry in his books and records that's fraudulent. And if he finds that intent, then Donald Trump is liable for the other, and the rest of them are liable for the other five counts or six counts that are left, then they'll go to remedy. But he's not gonna let Chris Kice kind of,

we're all starting from a clean slate judge, we get to argue now about valuation, and we think we have an argument that we didn't undervalue or overvalue. That's done. And that's why today it was interesting because two things happen as you outlined, and then we'll kind of go back and you can talk about Donald Trump and a little bit about Abhaka. But today, to bring it current, you've got the battle between, oh, time for directed

verdict. It's now the third time we've heard the Trump team somewhere in some court argue to a judge, directed verdict. You don't even have to go any further. We don't have to put our case on. They never made out their case. And everybody generally says to them, all the judges sit down, sit down.

We're not doing directed verdict. I need to hear all the evidence. They've certainly made out their case to date. Now it's up to you to do your defense during that fight about directed verdict where Chris Keiss came in with a slide show, which really focused on Michael Cohen. Well, it's all over.

Michael Cohen said he lied once. Well, we already knew about that. We knew about that. That is part of the baggage of Michael Cohen, but the rest of what he said sort of is corroborated by other independent witnesses, which gives it a tremendous amount of credibility. On the issue of witnesses, because Monday, the case rate is now turning to the defense, the whole time we've been talking about the case in chief for the New York Attorney General. Monday starts the defense of the case and they're going to recall Don Jr.,

apparently Don Jr. is going to come back on Monday and now they're trying to outline their other witnesses. So the Attorney General stood up and said, why do we need experts on real estate valuation, on insurance practices, on how real estate works in New York, which is really what the four witnesses that are that Donald Trump is fighting over. Why do we need those at all? Judge, you already ruled that there's fraud in the evaluation and the evaluation. And you're not going to change your mind on that. You already ruled on it. Why are we doing it? And the judge was very candid and said, I don't want to get reversed. And I don't want to do this trial again.

So I'm going to let him, with limits, as you said, been earlier, on a leash, on a short leash, for things that are relevant, whatever that could be, I'll hear from these experts. Now look, let's look at the experts. One of the experts, it's a former lawyer of Donald Trump's, when he was a lawyer and not a real estate developer. So it's a buddy of Donald Trump's that's going to come in. He's a, he's a, you think Donald Trump's a small time developer? This guy's even smaller.

And he's going to, he's got like, I don't know, 30 pieces of property that he owns. And he's going to come in and talk about, I don't know, the world of New York real estate as if the judge needs to hear that. That's not really an expert opinion. And he's not going to be able to go to the one issue that's left on the case, intent. He can't talk about the intent of Donald Trump. He can only talk about numbers and valuation

and this building and that building. But the judge has already decided all of that. So even though this guy is ready to give a lot of testimony, I think the judge already cut the knees out from under him, and they're going to have a hard time. Chris Geist trying to figure out what that guy's going to be able to testify to. Then they got a numbers guy used to be a former accountant for the SEC who's going to testify about, I don't know, the financial statements.

Then they got another guy who's a real estate evaluation guy. Then they got a guy who's going to teach the judge about how the insurance industry works Even though I don't think he needs that at all, so But I think the judge is right when you don't have a jury I keep reminding people in our hot tics when you don't have a jury Judges bend over backwards to like let it all in I can't tell you how many times that I'm sure you're the same care and the same I've made the argument at a bench trial or an arbitration where there is no jury. Judge, don't let that expert in.

Don't let that piece of evidence in. Judge, there's bias, there's this, there's that. And the judge says, yeah, I understand Mr. Popuck, but there's no jury here. I'll hear it. I'll give it the way that it deserves. You make your arguments, but I'm going to let it in. And, you know, arbitrators bend over completely backwards and upside down in order to let everything in.

And then judges on bench trials usually do the same thing. So I'm not shocked that the judge says, listen, there's no, now there was a jury, I'd be surprised. I think there was a jury, the judge would be much more methodical about Amigay Keeper. I can't let everything go to the jury that has no relevancy to the case. But as the trial fact, the judge himself, you know, he can, he can do that. And I think he gave a little bit of a bone for today. Next week, I'll change my mind.

When I watch him cut down these experts' size and say, listen, I'll tell you straight, there's another judge in that court. I won't mention it, who it is. I was in the middle of putting on an expert in one of my cases in this same courthouse in court room. In fact, it was the business division, the commercial division, and the judge stopped me halfway through. It was a bench trial.

He jumped in and did the cross examination of the expert, figured out he didn't need anything that the expert was about to tell him. And he dismissed the expert from the stand. We ended up winning the case, but this is what happens in a bench trial. So I think that was really, really good. But you want to talk about Trump and Ivanka? Well, let's talk about this with Don Jr. testifying next week. What's Don Jr. going to testify to? He's already stated that he hasn't reviewed the statement of financial conditions and wasn't even aware that his name was on the document that made him a co-trustee. There's no foundation

for anything and that's by design. So when you recall Don Jr. who's already now been questioned and says he doesn't know anything, what is he possibly going to testify to where he won't land himself in a perjury trap. So I am intrigued about that. And here's the thing. Let me ask you a question. You think he's disqualified himself as a confident witness on behalf of the defense? In this case, I mean, unless he's going to go up there and just talk about his love of the Trump organization, in terms of the numbers, the data that is at issue when

he was shown. Remember when in Goron, we talked about this on, you know, on the other legal AF, we've talked about this on the hot takes. And Goron asked Don Jr. the perfect question. I mean, it's a basic one. Did you have anything to do with any of this statement of financial conditions and have you reviewed them? Are you aware of them?

And Don Jr. said no. So what could he possibly be talking about in this case? And here's the thing too, when it comes to Donald Trump's valuations relative to the objective data. And the objective data is that there are documents not where in Goron valued the property because in Gorons like, I'm going to play real estate developer today. No. In Goron just looked at what Trump's organization valued things that and the summary judgment order just said, here's what the Trump organization says. We've heard testimony from the former

VP of the Trump organization, Anthony Flores, who stated that the valuation of Mar-a-Lago was about $27 million, because that's what the Trump organization said it was. And here's the thing that I'm willing to do, Popoq, is to have an intellectually honest conversation with people because in a vacuum, if you told me, hey, Ben, a judge went and said that Mar-a-Lago, this beautiful piece of property, objectively, it's a nice piece of property, the judge went rogue and said that Mar-a-Lago's value at $27 million. And if you just go on zillow.com, this is what at least DeFonic says in her letter to the Judicial Committee complaining about Judge and Goran.

The judge just on his own said, that's $18 million or $27 million. How do you feel about that, man? If that was only the data that I had, I'd be like, that's corrupt. That pisses me off about the judge. That's to me what's so frustrating about the propaganda that comes from mega Republicans, because those aren't the full set of facts. And it's like, if you're so confident in your position, at least the phonic Donald Trump Trump's lawyers, just don't end with the period there, continue and give me the full set of data.

So we truly understand what happened here. And what happened is that Donald Trump executed a deed that put in cumberances on the Mar-a-Lago property that made it a commercial property that says that the Trump organization, and they're revocable trust, which runs the Trump organization, which runs Mar-a-Lago, intends to forever use the Mar-a-Lago intends to forever use the Mar-a-Lago property for a commercial purpose as a club and not a residential property. So when Donald Trump was confronted with that on cross examination by the New York Attorney General's Office, Trump's responses, well, my intent could change. When I said that, my intent, I didn't actually mean I intended it forever.

Well, okay, but it's binding on your statement of financial conditions at that point in time where you made the representations to third parties to rely on your intention then and you got the benefit of not paying the taxes on a higher valuation that you were telling the lenders. And then your organization was the one who valued it at less, so you can pay less taxes. That's why it's valued at that amount. Not because a judge randomly decided it. And then when you give me the full picture,

then I go, oh, I get it. I understand what's going on now. And then you know you've been lied to, you know you've been played. you know you've been played and That example what I said before when you talk about the triplex valuation It undoubtedly it's a nice it's a nice apartment. It's a nice triplex But when you say it's 30,000 square feet and it's 10,000 square feet and you base the valuation on square footage Right times the dollar amount per square footage and you come the valuation on square footage, right, times the dollar amount

per square footage, and you come up with an inflated amount, well, then that's fraud. And when you do the same scheme on all of your properties, that is undisputed fraud. But a lot of them are nice properties, like that's not, you can just stop there and then be honest. But when you then commit the fraud and then you cover it up, that's to me, a very problematic approach. And I'll just talk briefly about Trump's testimony. It was unhinged. He started off kind of mumbling and very quiet where Judge Engorne had to actually say, can you speak up please? But then Donald Trump in the rambling way after being admonished and basically threatened that his testimony, you

know, would there would be a negative inference based on the fact that he was not following any instructions. At some point, the New York Attorney General on the judge just let him blabber because he ended up not only just demonstrating the elements of intent that were necessary as he tried to brag about everything and boast about everything. But he also said a bunch of kind of very incriminating things, including what I just said about Mar-a-Lago. And he admitted the key part here that he was aware that banks were going to rely on

the statement of financial conditions and making their decision. Like, that's the key moment there as well that obviously we knew was the case, but that Donald Trump just admitted to when he was bragging and boasting. And then you had Ivanka come in with very selective memory. There was hundreds of times where she didn't recall things, but it was obvious that she recall things. But they just basically used Ivanka to go through the documents and authenticate documents

that she received. And there was just, you know, some obvious things where she was like, I wasn't aware that if I was part of the private wealth group with Deutsche Bank, that I would get this type of treatment or that type of treatment. And I'm not really sure about this or that. And it was just obvious that she was lying about everything. But they showed her the emails that's where she said, look at the, what could you get when you're a part of private wealth management at Deutsche Bank?

You get great rates. Or the email between her and one of the Trump organization lawyers when there was the two billion dollar covenant as part of the load of the personal guarantee the email was titled, this is going to be a problem. That's not really a good document. It's not really a good document. And then you had, of course, Thursday and Friday or Thursday, you were dealing with motions that were taking place, the directed verdict motion that I discussed earlier. But we'll see what Don Jr. is going to testify to. My thought, Pope, is that Don Jr. anyone else they're going to call is going to step right into it at this point and it's going to backfire, but we will keep everybody posted.

I don't want to other thing too. Donald Trump's like posting photographs of like ingorant with his shirt off, like just some real weird vile stuff, right? Well, you know where that's coming from, at least a loomer, whatever her name is. She's a right wing mag. She's like in the inner circle now with Donald Trump. She'll probably get some, if he ever got the restoration of his presidency, he loves this woman.

She's busy attacking Angoran and Goran's wife in social media, a law clerk. A law clerk. I mean, she does everything disgusting and despicable that Trump or his lawyers are now gagged from doing. But when at least the phonic and the Maga leadership isn't doing it, his betting, they're all become muppets with Donald Trump's hand up there, whatever, manipulating their mouth and their fingers. And it's really, it's about the Chris Keiss before, before I know what you're going to

do next, but on Chris Keiss, I practice law in Florida since 1995. Chris Geys practices law in Florida or had. There is no way having been trained there. He would ever try anything that he's doing, any of this acting out, any of this stick, any of this disrespect for the judiciary and for the process that he's doing in New York. There is no way he would ever do that in Florida.

I don't know if it's just because he's just emulating and has just become Donald Trump or because it's just obvious that that is their strategy because when you can't win on the facts of the law, you just attack everybody, but it's embarrassing to watch a fellow Florida bar member act in a way that he knows he would never be able to get away with it. He would never even think to do on his home, on his home turf. Yeah. I mean, what a fall from being known as a somewhat respectable lawyer to, you know,

being no different than Alina Haban, you know, Alina Haba would stand up during Trump's testimony. And she would be like, well, you must let him speak. And what Judge and Goran said is, I'm not here to hear him just speak. I'm here to listen. I'm here to listen to his answers to the examination that's taking place. And of course, Trump and Trump's lawyers, Alina Habba, all say, you see what he said? He said, I'm not here to listen to him speak. But then they don't say that what he actually said was, I'm here to listen to his answers.

And again, that's the thing where it's like, if you want to give the full context of that sentence, and you were to say, judge and go on said, I'm not here to listen to you speak. I'm here to listen to your answers. And you were to argue that that's not what a judge should say, which I would disagree with. At least you're presenting me and an audience with the facts to observe objective data. But when a leastaphonic, Trump, Alina, Habba, they then go out and they go, you see the judge said this. And then they chop off the other words, legal AF, what we do here on the Midas Touch Network, frankly, is a reaction to that crap. It's a

response to that saying, no, just give the people the full context, give people the full answers, and then let people decide with the full set of data, we are the United States of America to use Chris Keiss with the ultimate projection when he tries to compare the New York attorney general prosecutor to Putin and those tactics. He's telling on himself and how he and Alina Haba and others are behaving. I want to talk about what's going on with Judge Eileen Cannon, but let's take our first quick break of the day. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Seasonal blues are real. I know in my own life, I've experienced the ups and downs around this time. See, this time of year can be a lot and it's natural to feel some sadness or anxiety about it. can be a lot, and it's natural to feel some sadness or anxiety about it. But adding something new and positive to your life can counteract some of those feelings. Therapy can be a bright spot amid all of the stress and change, something to look forward to to make you feel grounded and to give you the tools to manage everything going on. Therapy has helped me in my own life become the best version of myself. It's also helpful for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help a try.

It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists any time for no additional charge. Find your bright spot this season with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash legalaif today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelphLP.com slash legal af. Prize picks is the most fun I've had winning up to 25 times my money this football season

and now I can play during basketball season 2. You just select two or more players, pick more or less on their projected stats and place your entry. With the basketball season here, you can now pick combo projections across football and basketball from the specials league. A league created specifically for combo projections that includes two or more players from different sports or leagues. For example, LeBron James plus Travis Kelsey at a 10.5 combo of three points made and receptions.

Price picks even offers a reboot policy so that your entries stay in play, even if one of your players gets injured. For football and basketball games, if you have a player who exits the game in the first half and does not return in the second, that player is rebooted. PricePix is the only daily fantasy sports platform with an injury insurance policy. Testing my skills on PricePix this season is the most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. If you have the skills, you can turn $10 in a $250 with just a few taps.

Price picks is really simple to play. I can make my picks and submit my entry in less than 60 seconds. Quick withdrawals, easy gameplay, and an enormous selection of players and stat types are what make price picks the number one daily fantasy sports app. balls, easy gameplay and an enormous selection of players and stat types are what make prize picks the number one daily fantasy sports app. Each week since the start of the football season, I've had an absolute blast putting my skills to the test and competing in not just football, but all the daily fantasy sports prize picks has to offer.

It truly is such a blast putting my skills to the test. Go to prizepicks.com, slash legal AF AF and use code legal AF for a first deposit match up to $100. That's pricepix.com slash legal AF and use code legal AF for a first deposit match up to $100. Price picks, daily fantasy sports made easy. Did you know that your temperature at night can have one of the greatest impacts on your sleep quality? If you wake up too hot or too cold, I highly recommend you check out Miracle Mades

bed sheets. Inspired by NASA, Miracle Mades uses silver infused fabrics and makes temperature regulating bedding so you can sleep at the perfect temperature all night long. Using silver infused fabrics inspired by NASA, Miracle miracle made sheets are thermoregulating and designed to keep you at the perfect temperature all night long. So you get better sleep every night. These sheets are infused with silver that prevent up to 99.7% of bacterial growth,

leaving them to stay cleaner and fresh three times longer than other sheets. No more gross odors. Miracle sheets are luxuriously comfortable without the high price tag of other luxury brands, and feel as nice if not nicer than sheets used by some five-star hotels. Miracle sheets are the perfect gift for your spouse, friends, or family who doesn't want better sleep, and luxurious feeling bed sheets. And since these come with three free towels, you get two gifts in one just in time for the

holidays. Stop sleeping on bacteria. Bacteria can clog your pores, causing breakouts and acne. Sleep clean with miracle. Go to trymiracle.com slash legal AF. To try it today or gift it to someone special this holiday season. And we've got a special deal for our listeners, save over 40%. And if you use our promo Legal AF at checkout, you'll get 3 free towels and save an extra

20%. Miracle is so confident in their product, it's back to the 30 day money back guarantee. So if you aren't 100% satisfied, you'll get a full refund. Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made. Go to trymiracle.com, slash legal AF, and use the code legal AF to claim your free three-piece towel set, and save over 40% off. Again, that's trymiracle.com slash legal AF to treat yourself a friend or loved one this holiday season. Welcome back to legal AF. You are joining a really wild bachelor party right now with Michael Popok and myself. I'm wearing my Miami outfit. This night's

getting really wild folks. Okay. If you're just tuning in right now, you don't know what's going to happen next. We may be talking about Jack Smith. We may be talking about Judge Cannon. We may be talking about Steve Bannon. Who knows wild bachelor party taking place right now as Popeyes is getting, as Popebox getting married, Pope Bach, Judge Eileen Cannon right here in Florida with us in the Fort Pierce division. She issued an order on Friday where she the headline technically is she's keeping the May 20th, 2024 trial date and she's moving some of the other dates. But I think we all know better than that and what her real intention is here.

Can you break it down what this order said and what she's doing? Yeah, I agree with you. I think ultimately the takeaway should not be, she's currently holding the trial date. We've always been worried, for those are just tuning in. always been worried for those who are just tuning in. We've always been worried that the loose wheel here on this on this cart of justice, this this wheels of justice has been alien cannon and that even though we were a little bit boyid and a little bit happy when she set as the judge Chutkin a pre November 2024 election day trial for Donald Trump. She's done everything since to indicate that she will, you just have to blow on, you're just like blow like, and she's going to move that trial day. It's very unstable. Whereas Chutkin's like come hell or high water. This is the paraphrase judge Angkoran up in New York a year ago.

We're going to trial in March. And the same thing happened in New York with Stormy Daniels. There's also another March 24th trial that's still on the books in New York. I remind people as what we like to call the backup trial for Donald Trump in a criminal setting related to Stormy Daniels. But the other one out there is the Mar-a-Lago, very simple case.

And it's not more complicated because the maintenance worker and the butler valet are also indicted. It's a relatively straightforward case. And either Donald Trump did or did not mishandle and or steal confidential classified national defense information documents to violate the SB and Ajax and and and obstruct justice or he did or he did or he didn't. Not that hard, the trial to put on. And we still got a lot of time left on the clock to get this case prepared for trial.

I mean, cases go to trial quickly. You know, Senator Menden Des is going to trial in four months after he was indicted. I mean, and that, you know, his potential fraud is not that much more complicated. So we're always a little bit encouraged. But every since then, especially using the classified information procedures, ACIPA, as her wedge, as her fulcrum, she's tried to f up the schedule, you know, whenever took, and we compare her unfavorably to Judge Chutkin and how she runs her courtroom on similar issues.

So it is a fair comparison. Whereas Judge Chutkin's like, I want fast briefing so I can make a quick and efficient decision to keep the case on track. That's Judge Chutkin. I mean, sometimes we get rulings. We're like, we're recording the motion practice as she's ruling behind us. And we have to redo the hot take because we have to. But Canon, Canon's like,

this is really hard. Let me take everything off the docket, throw over, she's like the kid that throws over the game board when she's not doing well. Like, well, there it goes. Backgammon over. We'll come back to you later and tell you, I'm not going to play or not. So she'll just say, we'll just get this weirdo order

on her docket that says, all briefings off. We'll revisit this and show it another time. And then a week goes by burning down the candle. And then we'll brief it. And then Donald Trump says, I need another month. Okay, another month. We'll get around to it someday. And then you just brief it. And then Donald Trump says, I need another month. Okay, another month, we'll get around to it someday and then you just see the difference.

And then suddenly when you have a seven months or six and a half months to a trial, which seemed like a lot before, almost then that candle starts burning from both ends with judge, a judge, Canon. And then she of course was like, oh, at a time, just don't have time to try that case. So right now she's postponed temporarily and kicked the can down the road until a few,

when's that hearing March? When does she want to do the hearing about May? She wants to do the scheduling conference now on March 1. And so your deadlines, Popax, she went from like October 6th or 9th to the 19th to November 1st. It took her three months to even sign the protective order. And then she's now holding a March 1 hearing where she's now saying she's keeping the May date, but she's going to revisit it. But when you look through her scheduling order, she's moved everything now back three

and four months. It's actually impossible now for her to have it, but it's a charade now that she's got this May 20 billion. It's like the old joke. What idiot is delaying this trial? Fill in the blank. This one. And it's so obvious, but I love your analysis, and I think it's right. There's a little bit of cat and mouse going on here. It's obvious between Judge Cannon and Fawni Willis and Judge McAfee up in Georgia, because I thought,

and I was wrong, I thought Fawni was gonna like right after the, she got all the trials resolved with Chessbro and Powell, and her dance card opened for the first quarter of 2024, but she would go into the judge and say, well, we got an opening. Let's do Donald Trump. But she's waiting now to see because everybody, everybody looks at everybody else and says, what is going on with Canon? I want a slide in there, but I got to see if she'll just get out of the way.

It's like when you're trapped behind a car on a road, like, are they going to move over or not? And she's waiting because she doesn't, I mean, she has plenty of time to try her case. So as soon as, and Canon knows that other people are waiting on her, so she's, you know, boxing them out, you know, like in the NBA, like a rebound, she's like, trying to box them out. So she gives Donald Trump what he wants, which is she makes a last minute decision. This is, I know, your point in a very good on take. She makes a last minute decision, like in April for May, and that doesn't leave Fawni Willis or other people time to slide in behind her. So she thinks. So she thinks. So give me give your point. I like your point

on that. Make your point. I like your point on that. Make your point. Yeah. I think that in Judge Cannon's very short-sighted lacking judicial temperament, a mindset. I've always said I thought her corruption is matched by her incompetence. I think her strategy is let me protect this time period from May, June, July, August, really, Judge Cannon thinks that there is a possibility. And we'll talk about the judge Chuck in Washington DC case in a little bit, that the Washington DC case could potentially get kicked, even though it's scheduled for March 4th of 2024. And we'll talk about some of the motions and Donald Trump strategy there, of filing multiple motions to dismiss,

to try to get multiple bites at the Apple, to try to draw a DC Circuit Court of Appeal 3 judge panel that may stay the case and delay that March deadline, right? So Judge Cannon is thinking, there's a chance, even though I screwed this up by setting the trial date in May, allowing Judge Chukkin to get the March date. If some DC circuit court of appeal panel steps in, I may then be the next trial. There is the Manhattan District Attorney case, but you may say, I may be the next federal

trial. I want to preserve and protect these dates for now that no one else encroaches in my territory so that Fulton County District Attorney, Fony Willis tries to set the trial date now in that May, June period. Trump can argue, look, Judge McAfee in Georgia, look at what Judge Cannon said, her trial then, there's no way McAfee you can set your trial, you're a state court judge, you've got to respect that a federal judge has said a trial date in this period of time. That's why Cannon is keeping the trial date when she knows that based on her scheduling order that isn't the trial date that could possibly take place and Trump's lawyers know that as

well and Jack Smith knows that as well. But Popoq, I think one of the things that we'll see in the next week or two though is Fony Willis, I think, was patiently waiting to see what happened there. And Fony Willis has been aggressive, appropriately aggressive. I can see Fony Willis next week, Fulton County District Attorney, now asking for a trial date in, let's say, mid June, right? And say, this is a simple case. Number one, we were waiting for the certainty.

Judge Cannon says that's the date. Set this trial date for June June or maybe even July, Popok, right, and set it for July. And then I think Fony Willis is going to argue, well, not only do we think that even if Judge Cannon's case is not heard on, you know, even if Judge Cannon's case goes, and we could hear this case in June or July, but even if it's the opposite way, there's no way Judge Cannon's case could even really be heard in 2024. So we think that this date should be safe anyway.

And Judge McAfee just do what the judge in the Manhattan District Attorney case against Donald Trump for the Hush Money Payments is doing set the trial date, and then let's see what happens. And if there truly is a conflict, we could deal with the conflict when that happens, but set the trial date for some time this summer. Yeah, I think you're, let me see.

Yeah, let me, let me cut you off, go ahead. No, no, I was saying that's, I think what the next response is going to be by Fony Willis. They have a blueprint for this. And that's Judge Mershawn. We talked a lot about Judge Chutkin coordinating as she's allowed to do under the judicial cannons of ethics and her staff coordinating with Mershon, staff, it's been reported, the staff in New York already reported. There was a phone call and Judge Mershon graciously yielded but did not take that trial date for stormy Daniels and Donald Trump of the Hush and Donald Trump off the books.

And so there's your model for it. It's only a conflict when it becomes a conflict. And until it's a conflict, it's just a date on a calendar. And so I think I like where you're going with this. I don't think there's any other really slot if she's going to respect Judd's shotgun, which everybody's, I said Judd's she's going to respect the Chutkin which everybody is I said Chutkin was gonna bigfoot everybody in a good way and just box them out and say this is my March March April May is mine Which always overlapped a little bit potentially with Mar-a-Lago, but not a point that anybody that the judges even cared about you could tell Chutkin didn't care about the cannon

That's why she that's why she set the date in March. I'll take March. And so, yeah, I think McAfee, cognizant of giving Donald Trump, whatever due process he deems appropriate under Georgia constitutional law is gonna have to find a date for him. And then Fonney's gonna have to decide decide. Fonnie's going to have to decide whether she's going to try anybody else to pick up your point. And before Donald Trump, because I don't think she's going to burn three quarters of 2024 and not do another case,

well, I know she's continuing to flip people, but there is a group of people she's never going to flip. Like Julie and Annie, she's never going to flip, you know, probably Jeff Clark, she's never going to flip. And I could, you know, meadows, I don't know at this particular moment, but there's at least three that I don't think she's ever going to flip. So she's she's going to try them first and then put more pressure on Donald Trump because they're going to lose or she just going to, I don't think you don't think she burns a whole year not doing anything until June, do you know? I don't think you don't think she burns a whole year not doing anything until June, do you? No, I think that funny, Melissa, is going to now re now that she understands Canon's game. Yeah.

She's going to come in and she's going to make a request. And I think it's going to be an aggressive request. One of the ways that also though that you see judge canons feelings towards the special counsel's office and the Department of Justice,, she doesn't refer to them as the government. Really, she refers to them always as the office of special counsel. And then she blames the office of special counsel for the fact that there wasn't a skiff in the Fort Pierce division where she sits. A sensitive compartment in information facility to review classified documents, which is now being built. First off, it took her about three months to sign the CEPA classified information procedures act protective order. Second, given the magnitude of this case, what she should do is hold

the case in Miami where there is a skip, which is all kind of relatively, it wouldn't be that inconvenient if you did it in Miami. And also, she seems to constantly act like the government is doing something wrong when the government says this document is so highly sensitive that it needs to be looked at in Washington, DC. We can't transport this government, this document out of DC. It needs to stay where it is based for now, based on the guidance of the sensitive classified information officer who's on the case, who's within the intelligence

communities handling it. And she's like, well, I won't deem that served by the government until you get it here to Fort Pierce. And it's like what she is eating and abetting is this concept called graymail, where she's basically trying to taunt and say to the Department of Justice, not just taunt, but in with her action, say, well, you know, maybe you basically dismissed the case. We won't have to deal with this discovery violation that I may find you in. So that's what Judge Cannon is doing there. But I want to go from Cannon right now to what's going on in Judge Tanya Chutkins Court in Washington, DC. You'll recall Southern District of Florida, Mar-a-Lago

document case, willful retention of national defense information obstruction of justice, making false statements. the Washington DC cases, Trump's efforts to overthrow the results of the 2020 election and Trump filed a flurry of motions there, motions to dismiss, there's motions relating to the gag order. All of these motions by Donald Trump are frivolous, but the overall intent is one thing. And special counsel, Jack Smith, repeats it over and over again, which is delay, delay, delay. And so let me walk you through Trump's strategy here.

Normally, if you were going to bring a motion to dismiss, you would have kind of the various subject matters within your motion to dismiss, would be different kind of subheadings or topics within your motion to dismiss. So you would say motion to dismiss the case and then you would say based on constitutional and statutory grounds. If that's what you argued based on vindictive prosecution, meaning you are being specifically targeted where nobody else is being targeted this way. On the basis of double jeopard, on the basis of double jeopardy, on the basis of presidential immunity. You know, there are all of these grounds, but rather than bring them as one motion, Donald Trump brought them as four or five different motions to dismiss, and then Trump also

filed a motion to strike inflammatory allegations in the complaint by basically saying his association with these other insurrectionists would otherwise inflame a jury. I'll talk more about that in a bit. And so Trump's the strategy is file all of these motions, you know, where a pellet gun kind of goes everywhere. And hopefully you draw, you know, one of them hits, you get a DC circuit court, they know they're not gonna win before Judge Chuck. But maybe you get a DC circuit court of appeals panel that does something that it shouldn't do

and it stays the case. Or maybe you have multiple chances now to go to the Supreme Court and maybe you get them to try to stay the case until after the election. That's Trump's sole strategy. Do everything you can to derail that case and special counsel Jack Smith filed at least one of them as an omnibus opposition, the way Trump tries to spread them out, the counter strategy is you put them back together as an omnibus opposition. When I think Judge Chutkin's going to do realizing that Trump is spreading out these

motions is to try to consolidate the order that she ultimately makes as one order or maybe two, but dealing with multiple motions. So when Donald Trump tries to make them multiple motions, she tries to pack it together again. So it's one appealable order ultimately when he does that. We'll see if that's what Judge Chutkins is ultimately going to do. But I want to go through with you what Jack Smith's response was to each because this was some of the best legal writing that I've seen just objectively, like just really, really, really powerful oppositions. And the one word, special counsel, Jackson mitts, even saying, look, Donald Trump singing

songs with these insurrectionists. And he's saying it's inflammatory that we mention insurrectionists and his relationship to them in the indictment. I mean, he's doing one thing outside and then he's acting like in this court that he's You know an entirely different person and going back to what we said earlier in this episode to me It's like look Trump if you're singing songs with the insurrectionist if you're no longer even saying stand back and stand by for the proud Boys if you're saying hey, let's make a song together and let's collect royalties by releasing our track about a terrorist attack on the Capitol. If you're a big tough guy and that's your stick, then say it in court, then stand by it.

But there's such weak losers also that they don't do that. And that's how you know ultimately there is an intent to deceive. Just have a consistent voice in all of the locations that you're an outside of court, inside of court. We'll talk about that in Morales' take our last quick break of the day. This is Michael Popok from Legal AF. If you like me, you understand the pains of choosing what to wear. Let's face it, most clothes are uncomfortable or too tight or are never actually the size

you really are. Not to mention the annoyance of trying to put a good outfit together. And when you do have a good fit, you can only wear it for a few hours before you have an important meeting or dinner. And then you got to change all over again. Everyone wants to dress the best and look good at all times because frankly it's a confidence booster. So here's the deal. Men's closets were due for a radical reinvention and Ron stepped up to the challenge. Ron's commuter collection is the most comfortable, breathable, and flexible set of products known to men.

And here's why. Ron helps you get ready for any occasion with the commuter collection, which offers the world's most comfortable pants, dress shirts, one quarter zips and polos. You never have to worry about what to wear when you have the Ron commuter collection.. Rhone's comfortable for-way stretch fabric provides breathability and flexibility that leaves you free to enjoy whatever life throws your way, from your commute to work

to your 18 holes of golf. It's time to feel confident without the hassle. With Rhone's Rakell release technology, Rakell's disappear as you stretch and wear the products, it's that easy. And with its gold fusion anti-odor technology, you'll be smelling fresh and clean all day long. And on top of that, Ron is 100% machine washable, so you can ditch the dry cleaner altogether. I absolutely love Ron. As you can see, this has truly become my go-to commuter fit and on the legal AF podcast recordings.

We're on the move a lot, whether it's jumping for meeting to meeting or catching a flight or an important dinner, the Rone Commuter collection has never let me down. The versatility and comfort of the collection is undefeated. Even after I wear it all day, I still feel super fresh because of that gold fusion anti-order technology. The Commuter collection you can get you through any workday and straight into whatever comes next. Head to roon.com slash legal a f and use promo code legal a f to save 20% on your entire order. That's 20% on your entire order when you head to our h o and e slash legal a f promo code legal a f. Find your corner office. Oh, hey, I didn't see you there. Look, everyone knows how annoying cheap razors are,

the cuts, the irritation, the frustration, and don't get me started with subscription razor services, the headaches that those can cause. That's why you gotta meet Hansen shaving. Hansen shaving is a family-owned aerospace parts manufacturer that has made parts for the ISS. That's the International Space Station, and Mars Rover, and now they're bringing precision engineering to your shaving experience.

Razer blades, they're like diving boards. The longer the board, the more wobble, the more wobble, the more nicks, cuts, and scrapes. A bad shave, it isn't a blade problem, it's an extension problem. By using aerospace grade CNC machines, Henson makes metal razors that extend just 0.0013 inches, which is less than the thickness of human hair. That means a secure and stable blade with a vibration-free shave. It gets better. The razor has built-in channels to evacuate hair and cream, which makes

clogging virtually impossible. Seriously, Henson shaving wants the best Razer. Not the best Razer business. That means no plastic, no subscriptions, no proprietary blades, and no planned obsolescence. The Henson Razer works with standard dual-edge blades to give you that old-school shave with the benefits of new school tech. Once you own a Henson Razor, it's only about $3-5 per year to replace the blades. My first shave with the Henson Razor was incredibly refreshing. The design is sleek and the durability is top-notch. The Henson Razor is truly so much better than your run of the mill quote unquote traditional

Razer brand. And the affordability factor is absolutely game changing. No more wasting your money on expensive blades. With Henson shaving, you can get a year of blades for just $5. Okay, so this is what you have to do. It's time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that will last you a lifetime. Visit hensonshaving.com slash legal a f to pick up the razor for you and use our code legal a f and you'll get two years worth of blades free with your razor. That's 100 free blades when you head to HEN, S-O-N, S-H-A, V-I-N-G,

.com slash legal AF and use code legal AF. And now back to the video. Welcome back to legal AF, Ben and Popo here. This is the bachelor party for Michael Popak. Things are getting wild, not really. I had my espresso. So, that's how legal nerds do a bachelor party. This is how legal nerds. We're in Florida. This is our wild party before Popak gets married. Thank you all for sharing this bachelor party with us.

So here are the motions that Trump filed. Here are the oppositions, a special counsel Jackson of the Jack Smith brought it was an opposition to Trump's motion to dismiss on constitutional and statutory grounds Opposition to Trump's motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution Jack Smith also filed an opposition to Donald Trump's motion to strike in filed an opposition to Donald Trump's motion to strike inflammatory allegations in the indictment. And then, Jack Smith also brought a opposition to, or Jack Smith filed a motion, basically indicating to the court that because Trump is citing presidential immunity as an interlocutory, appealable issue, meaning that it's immediately appealable, as is the issue of double jeopardy

through Donald Trump's statutory and constitutional argument, claiming that the Senate not convicting him serves as immunity where he now can't be tried again through a criminal case, which by the way was the exact opposite thing that Mitch McConnell and Republican senators used as a justification, not to convict him in the Senate impeachment hearing. Those are Trump's arguments, but then Jack Smith saying, hey, Judge Chutkin, what you should be aware about is that Donald Trump's going to file an interlocutory appeal to the DC Circuit Court,

the same way he did on the gag order, and the DC Circuit Court of Appeal is likely going to issue a temporary administrative stay, the same way they did on the gag order, regardless of who the panel is, and even though the DC Circuit Court of Appeals will hear this in an expedited way, you should rule quickly on these things and prioritize the ones that are subject to interlocutory appeal, the double jeopardy, motion to dismiss by Donald Trump, and the presidential immunity one, so that he can file to the Court of Appeals already, and we can deal with the interlocutory issue so that the March 4th, 2024 trial date is not moved.

You see, there's a very complex game taking place, but that's how we unpack it here on legal AF. And it's also worth noting that the DC circuit court of appeals is now accepting the briefing on Trump's appeal regarding the gag order that was imposed upon him. Where Trump basically reiterated the same arguments that he did in requesting the state before Judge Chutkin, which she rejected, where Donald Trump cites, this is the classic hecklers dilemma. Their argument is that he's a heckler and that he should be able to say things and not be held accountable for people doing things based on his heckling. I mean, just think about that argument.

That's one of the arguments. He also just says it's discrimination. The same argument he always makes. You know, he's made an argument before Judge Ingoron, not just even on the gag order, but he's made the argument and why he shouldn't be deposed two years ago. He made that order before Ingoronan and they said, this is discrimination. I remember two years ago when we cover this in Goran's like discrimination on the basis of what like committing crimes like doing what what's the discrimination here? And then Trump argues in his appeal on the gag order,

you're going to deprive all of Trump's followers of hearing these threats and these messages. And then they also argue, there's nothing extraordinary about the statements that Donald Trump's making to which special counsel Jackson Smith previously briefed and will brief again when his appeal brief is ultimately filed. What do you mean it's not extraordinary? Donald Trump threatened to execute a witness, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Donald Trump is attacking Mark Meadows Donald Trump is attacking the judge and there has been direct consequences and threats

That have taken place so that's a lot of filings taking place But ultimately what Donald Trump's trying to do here and we're seeing it now in a very Surgical way, but this is what he's done his whole life, where people out, even if it's frivolous. And this is the way fascism operates also, which is just flood people with so much crap that in the past, could you imagine if this wasn't Jack Smith? Could you imagine if it wasn't the Fulton County District Attorney or the New York Attorney General or the Manhattan District Attorney?

Imagine it's just like regular citizens or it's like other people he's just doing business deals with, right? People just got enough. I'm done. Whatever. And that's what they count on writ large for our democracy. Whatever. I just give up. It's fine. Just annoying. You can't have that mentality. So those are the oppositions, Jack Smith file. He cites the insurrectionist anthem that Donald Trump has. Let me jump in on this a little bit. Let me jump in on my view of some of these filings. I just in two minutes.

Two things that I thought were really important about the filings. One is the new approach to the Jan 6th insurrection, which changed a bit from the indictment. And the second is what keeps prosecutors up at night, which is to prove intent. And I think we finally see how Jack Smith is going to cut the legs out from under Donald Trump in that attempted defense that I had a reasonable belief that I had won the election. And so therefore, everything air go that I did after that is somehow covered by either

the First Amendment or destroys my intent. And so on that, Jack Smith said, you may be able to maybe put on some evidence at trial that at one point in time, you believe that you were the winner of the election and not Joe Biden, but the specific fraud, the specific comments that you made about the election, which you know or should have known were all untrue, dead people voting in Georgia, dead people voting in Arizona, dead people voting in Pennsylvania, you know, software that was flipping votes from Trump to Biden. All of that that was debunked long ago by people around you, though that the use of those lies at that particular time is a crime in part of the criminal conspiracy

that you've been charged with. And the fact that you may have had some other time along the continuum thought, thought differently or thought that you were been charged with. And the fact that you may have had some other time along the continuum thought differently or thought that you were the winner does not absolve the criminal culpability. It is the crime that we're talking about. And he can't deny, Donald Trump can't ultimately deny that at various times he used these lies to pressure Mike Pence, election officials

and elected officials in order to try to cling to power. So I love that. That was the first time we ever saw that express. We haven't seen these guys in court, except for the rare time that we have arguments. So we have to rely on their briefing. And their briefing is just the tip of the iceberg of what we're going to see when it's hand-to-hand combat in the trial setting. But we're starting to see now how they have developed

the argument to cut the legs out from under Donald Trump in terms of a defense. On the Gen 6 side, the thing that I love the most about the filing was that in the indictment, a lot of a scratch star head, although I think now about double jeopardy in the issue of the Gen 6 committee, we thought they're definitely going to do follow follow the track of the JAN-6 committee to argue that the final tool, in the toolbox for Donald Trump's cling to power, was fomenting discontent, weaponizing the JAN-6 insurrectionist, pointing them towards the Capitol, and that was, you know, when all else failed, burn the capital down. In the way the indictment came out, they did not lay at the feet of Donald Trump as an element of one of his crimes that he caused the Gen 6 insurrection.

We were like, shucks, that one was, we love that one, and it's true. Why didn't they do that? And then, now we see probably because there was an argument to be made that because Donald Trump was impeached and had a trial in the Senate related to that particular issue. There might have been a double jeopardy issue or an issue related to bringing that indictment. Now in the papers about Gen 6, in response to Donald Trump's saying, take a big pen judge and just write off everything about Gen 6 because that shouldn't be in there. It's inflammatory. And the jury shouldn't

hear about Gen 6 at all. And then that opened the door. Thank God for for Jack Smith to do a couple things. One that you talked about at the top of the hot, this particular segment, which is, yeah, let's talk about all the conduct to which Donald Trump has not only embraced the Gen 6 insurrectionist, but like hugged him close to his bosom. And basically it's important contextually that the jury hear about that. But also the way they wrote it in their papers, they now really lay, they're like, we didn't say he wasn't responsible for the Gen 6 insurrection. We just did say that's not exactly part of the conspiracy, but it is part of the

other elements and the context. And he certainly used it to his advantage, got behind it in order to continue to delay at the peaceful transfer of power. So for me, out of all those, that raft of papers at 75 pages and more, excuse me, of filings, those were the two that I liked the best.

And I love Judge Chuck in recently saying about the appeal and other things. Yeah, I don't think there's a lot of merit in most of the motion practice. You want some more time to like do, yeah, you can do that, but I'm telling you now from what I've read just on the initial briefs. This doesn't hold a lot of water for me.

So she's already signaled that she's going to deny the lion share of what Donald Trump has filed, meaning he'll have to take it up in some sort of appeal to some sort of a pellet panel, another pellet panel from the one that's currently considering the gag order, which I let's say at the end of the day, it's a parlor game about whether the gag order is going to get back in place. I happen to think this panel is going to reimpose the reasonable gag order that Judge Chutkin, who's who's often affirmed by a pellet, the appellate court, who respect her a lot.

Some of them, I'm sure, can expect her to be elevated by Joe Biden or somebody else to their court, to the appellate court, if not all the way to the US Supreme Court. I'm still part of the betting pool that believes that Chuck will be elevated at some point to one of the two appellate courts that are left on her on her dance card. Well, Pope, we said things were getting wild in here. It is getting wild in here, Pope, you never know when the lights are gonna go out like that. The one final topic it stays in the pop. The one final topic I wanna talk about,

though very briefly is Steve Bannon, because I know a lot of people want an update. And that oral argument was held before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. This week it was a panel made up of an Obama judge, a Biden judge, and a Trump judge. And we seem pretty unified amongst all three based on the question that Steve Bannon's appeal is without merit.

Steve Bannon was asserting that he had a right based on executive privilege and the advice of counsel that he received, even if it was improper and wrong, not to respond to the January 6th committee, and that's why he was held in contempt of Congress. He was not allowed to make an advice of counsel defense because an advice of counsel, in intent type of men's ray of mindset is not an element of the crime for contempt of Congress.

There was a DC circuit court of Appeals case directly on point involving a mobster from about 20 or 30 or so years ago that was cited by the federal judge who was trying the case. And, you know, I guess one of the things that Bannon was trying to do was overturn that authority and to basically say that case is not good law. But what was so smart, I thought about what the three judge panel did is, yes, they said that case was very important and binding pressing and why wouldn't their hands be tied, but they didn't just limit themself and all three were basically on that. And they were all like, what are you even talking about with this executive privilege? Like we get that there's a possible claim that maybe someone who used to work can cite executive privilege, but that's for the time they were at the White

House. You're asserting it during a period of time where you were a podcaster. You were two years out of the White House. So they were asking his lawyer, like, how do you even square this together with any potential advice of counsel? Because it's so utterly frivolous to even claim that there was executive privilege here, right, to which Bannon's lawyer on the appeal does what Maga lawyers do. They threw the other lawyer under the bus, right?

And so, well, that's the advice that Bannon got. And then the judges were like, and all three of them were like, okay, well, you can't just say that a prior lawyer, even if you're making an advice of counsel, can just say anything. And you could just blame any possible thing that is so beyond any reasonable situation. He was a podcaster. He wasn't working for the executive. There is no conceivable decision where that advice could even potentially be an advice that you were given. And so I think I want to hear you as we close this episode, Pope Ackin, you and I go out to, you know, you're wedding, a real parting here in my... But I think this could be a 3-0 decision. Yeah, yeah. But, but I think this could be a three-o decision. Yeah. And it's been based on.

Here's the interesting part about this, because it just shows you how incestuous you got to keep track of all this stuff. David Shone, who was the lawyer for Bannon and the appeal, and just to remind everybody, Bannon's got sentenced to four months in jail, found after four hours by a jury last July to have convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress,

one for not testifying in front of them and the other for ignoring their requests for documents. The judge went through an entire trial with a jury, jury convicted very, very quickly, judge sentenced, judge Nichols, a Trump appointee in DC, but suspended the sentence while it was out on appeal arguing, at least he mentioned it as order. Yeah, I guess there's some argument. I didn't allow that the advice of counsel to fence to be argued because my reading of that 40, 50-year-old precedent in DC is that that has been you outlined. It's not an element of the crime.

You either willfully disregard it and thumbed your nose at Congress or you didn't. It doesn't matter who told you to do it, whether it was your lawyer or not. And so that is how we got here, you know, 14 months later in an actual, that's how long things take usually, in an appellate argument. David Shown, who was the lawyer for Bannon, who was fired by Bannon and then rehired by Bannon. You might remember his name everybody in our audience because he was one of the impeachment defense lawyers for Donald Trump back in the day. And the lawyer that Bannon claims gave him the bum advice that he relied on about executive

privilege. That's the nestling of the two privileges here was Bob Castello, which people might remember was Rudy Giuliani's law partner that Rudy Giuliani is getting sued by because Rudy didn't pay Bob Castello over a million dollars in fees related to the defamation case down in Washington. Just to show you how crazy this whole incestuous world is world is, Trump sold lawyer, ban and relying on the lawyer that represented Rudy Giuliani was his law partner, who once represented Michael Cohen, by the way, Bob Castell, this all kind of came to a head with this particular hearing.

And the initial draw was judge, Garcillo is a Biden appointee, Justice Polard, who's an Obama appointee, and Justice Walker, who who you know, we haven't really loved Walker in the past But even Walker as you said Ben who's the Trump appointee was like Well, how do you know if you were able to assert executive privilege if you don't know the questions Question by question that that that the Congress was gonna ask your client because he never showed up So I don't really understand how you even assert the privilege, having ignored the subpoena completely. And that we're right back to that circle

of you ignored the subpoena. And so I agree with you. I think this is going to be 3-0. And so people are like, well, what's the result? Well, the result is if this panel rules 2-1 or 3-0, that Bannon's appeal is shot, that they're, whether because they're bound to follow the 1960s precedent from the DC they reaffirm that precedent or they make new

precedent, you know, that people will be able to cite us versus ban and will be the case that people will be able to cite. Then he has lost and unless the US Supreme Court decides to take up his appeal, which I don't really see it. He's going to jail for four months, and he will not be able to podcast from the pay phone, you know, for that one hour a day that he's in the break room. So at least we'll get him out of our hair for four months while he serves time in a federal penitentiary. Well, you won't be able to podcast at least for the next 48 hours because

it is your wedding, Michael Popak, on behalf of all the Michael Popok on behalf of all the legal aephers on behalf of all the Midas Mighty. Congratulations, I can't wait to spend this day with you and your family and our extended family right here on legal aeph and all the Midas Mighty. I hope you enjoyed this bachelor party edition. I know it got wild everybody I was having my little cappuccino right here so things got a

little out of hand thank you all so much for watching this and if you want to make sure you continue to support this independent media channel best way to do it is just by subscribing right here to the YouTube channel it's free to subscribe subscribe to the legal a f audio podcast that helps so and it's free to subscribe, subscribe to the Legal AF audio podcast that helps so much. It's free to do that. Just search Legal AF, subscribe there, go to store.mitustouch.com for all the Legal AF gear and all of the new Midas Touch gear 100% union made 100% made in the USA. And if you're able to support the Midas Touch Network, go to patreon.com slash MidasTouch P-A-T-R-E-O-N. .com slash MidasTouch.

We don't have outside investors here. We build this network through emojis patreon.com or pro democracy sponsors, and that's how we do it. Thank you all so much for watching. This bachelor party legal AF, something I will remember forever. We love you, Midas Mighty. We love you legal AFers. Shout out to the Midas Mighty Congrats Pope Mighty.