Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Gets CRUSHED by Jack Smith and TOO SCARED for Trial

Episode Date: April 30, 2023

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast Legal AF is back for another hard-hitting look at the most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this week’s edition, the anchors discuss: The historic testimony against Trump and others of Former Vice President Mike Pence before Jack Smith’s grand jury as the DOJ wraps up its investigations and moves to an indictment phase; updates in the NY Attorney General civil fraud case against Trump, his children and executives, and whether Ivanka changing her counsel (again) means anything significant; Days 1 and 2 of the E Jean Carroll case against Trump, including whether the jury has made up its mind already; corruption and lack of ethics among the right wing of the Supreme Court coming to a head, with the Senate Democrats demanding that Chief Justice John Roberts appear, and him sending in a “note” instead, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! RHONE: Head to https://rhone.com/legalaf and use code LEGALAF to save 20% off your entire order! SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Major developments in Special Counsel, Jack Smith's Criminal Investigation of Donald Trump as former Vice President Mike Pence testifies before the criminal grand jury. But there's more. A second firm hired by the Trump campaign to investigate Trump's 2020 election conspiracies comes out and says all of Donald Trump's allegations were 100% absolutely false. Also, Jack Smith homes in on wire fraud charges against Donald Trump. We will discuss all of that on this episode of Legal AF. Donald Trump, we will discuss all of that on this episode of Legal AF. Donald Trump, the defendant will be hearing a lot more of that, but right now in E. Jean Carroll versus Donald Trump, Donald Trump is an absentee civil defendant.

The first week of E. Jean Carroll's federal trial against Donald Trump has wrapped up two days of court proceedings are in the books Donald Trump likely coward. He is did not appear at trial so far and will likely not appear at all This as E. Jean Carroll displayed incredible heroism undirect and cross examination. Let's discuss what went down, turning to the New York Attorney General's civil fraud case against Donald Trump, the Trump organization, and his adult children. Has Ivanka Trump flipped? Well, she hired a new lawyer and law firm, and has made some filings that at a bear minimum suggests that her position

is that she had no part in the conduct that her other family members were engaged and we'll discuss what that means and Chief Justice John Roberts the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court that has been disgraced by right wing corruption justice scandal after right wing corrupt justice scandal has refused to voluntarily speak with the Senate Judiciary Committee. This as even more scandals emerge about the right wing Supreme Court justices on the Supreme Court. I'm Ben Myselist joined by Michael Pope

Bach. This is legal AF. We have a lot to talk about Pope Bach, but you know, it's all coming from one side when it comes to the corruption on the Supreme Court. You can't pull sides that issue. It's been like every day of the week there's been a new story of one of these right wing justices getting a home purchased by some law firm that goes in front of them or having other things covered up. It's, you know, it started with Clarence Thomas a few weeks back, but now it's just one thing after the other.

It's time for the Popock Porter Board of Supreme Court Corruption. You've got Thomas sells his house To a Nazi collector Gorsuch sells his cabin that nobody wanted to the head of a law firm that regularly appears in front of him Robert so I didn't even have time to write before the app where we started Robert's wife makes ten million dollars as a legal recruiter placing people at from firms that practice before the Supreme Court and placing people from firms that practiced before the Supreme Court. And Cavanaugh thought he was out of the woods. He's not because the person that identified him as the sexual harasser, molester, her story's just getting stronger, not weaker, with some new evidence

that came out about him. And that's just this week. That is just this week. You know, one of the things that came out as well, though, which is just in a side on the story about Harlan Crowe who gave Clarence Thomas these millions of dollars in lavish trips and gifts. He's an avid collector of Adolf Hitler artwork, but as the stories have come out about him, a lot of those paintings that he displays in his house have come under

scrutiny of art collectors who have looked at it and have put forth credible information that even some of those paintings are phony and that they're not actually authentic Adolf Hitler artwork. So not only, I mean, can you get any more mega than that? If you're going to buy Adolf Hitler artwork, you should at least make sure it's okay. You don't get any mega than getting fake Adolf Hitler artwork, but I digress, let's get right into it

with the major developments in special counsel, Jack Smith's ongoing criminal investigation into Donald Trump. It's not every week that a former vice president testifies against the president. I know there's a lot of news that's going on right now so that it kind of feels like maybe just a footnote in all of the other criminal conduct that Donald Trump has engaged in and is being investigated for. But in any normal time, the fact that the former vice president of the United States is testifying before a criminal grand jury against the president who he served under about very,

very serious crimes, including sedition. That would normally be blockbuster news. But I guess the media is on your point. On your point, I was reading, you know what, page of the New York Times, vice president, Pence, testifying against his former president in a criminal proceeding. You know what, page that's on? 16.

16. That's, that's where we are now with Trump. Pence testifying in his story, which will be first page of his history book, but is page 16 of the New York Times. Well, you know, I think it is equally an indictment of all of the crimes Trump has engaged in, but also an indictment, I think, on the state of the media because I'm pretty confident in that same edition of New York Times pages one through 15 were not covering the stuff that we're talking about on

legal AF. It was probably covering both sides issues like maybe the Biden should not have been talking about freedom so much or you know, just like ridiculous ways of trying to like both sides of the issues and try to undermine our democracy. But again, I digress, but like a lot happened on this front when it comes to former vice president, Penn's testifying, right? I mean, you have a court of appeals, the DC sort of appeals makes an order, right? And then like less than 12 hours later, Penn's testifies. So you get the order and then boom, you get the

testimony like right away. So I want to hear from you, Pope, just about what went down. And also, there was clearly a desire by both Pence and special counsel Jack Smith to make sure, as soon as the DC circuit rejected this frivolous appeal by Donald Trump, where he tried to assert executive privilege to block pens from testifying, which Donald Trump's lost that executive privilege argument with everybody else. He's lost that argument like 12 times. So you and I discussed he was going to lose that, but like they got pens in quickly and he spent a full day nine to four thirty testifying

in Washington DC before the federal grand jury. So what went down Popeyes? Yeah, that's a great lead. And so regardless of what page in the New York Times, this is an historic event. And in my view, and I want to hear from you, Ben, I think this is the just as Evan Corcoran testifying in the Mara logo, perloined documents, grand jury, I think was the last witness necessary to bring that charging decision or close to it. I think Mike Pence is the final thing to fall into place before the charging decision is made on at least two of the grand juries. One of them, of course, is the pressure that was placed on Mike Pence, the Janssicks Committee did a great job outlining

this the first day of their hearings. The pressure campaign on Mike Pence led by Trump and John Eastman to participate in this fraudulent fake elector scandal where fake elector certificates from the battleground states would be sent into the Senate chamber where the president of the Senate, the vice president, would reject the certification of the legitimate electors from those states and acknowledge or accept the fake elector certificates or or at least throw it off the certification for a week or two to let Trump and the people around them like Giuliani, Powell, and others in Eastman wreak havoc by trying to get the state legislator,

legislation or legislators in the states where they control to try to appoint somebody other than Joe Biden meeting Donald Trump. That's one area that he's going to testify to in the grand jury. We are sure. The other area, of course, is the things related to Donald Trump on the back of the lie, defrauding his donors, $250 million or more, which is mail fraud and wire fraud saying something that is false in order to separate someone from their money with willfulness and a criminal intent.

Mike Pence talking to Donald Trump about Trump's awareness that he lost the election. And also perhaps awareness of these, we'll talk about them later in the segment, these forensic firms, these consultancies that were hired in order to report back to meadows and Trump and the campaign that none of their working theories of stolen election were true. And so Mike Pence is a key to that. And of course, we know from the Jan 6th Committee that Mike Pence is going to be asked about, we'll have to testify about a series of phone calls, one in particular, that Donald Trump had with him, that both Ivanka, who we're going to talk about on this

podcast, Ivanka and her chief of staff, Julie Radford, testified that that Mike Pence, this is, this is the conversation, according to their side of hearing the phone call, Trump called Mike Pence and bludgeoned him. And this is also conversation according to their side of hearing the phone call. Trump called Mike Pence and bludgeoned him. And this is also outlined in Mike Pence's own memoir. So help me God. That's the name of the memoir, not not what he said before he before he testified at the Criminal Grand jury on Thursday. But according to their version of the story and and Pence's own, he said the Trump called him and said, you'll go down as a wimp. Julie Radford says he said, you'll go down as a P word, a pussy.

If you don't stop the certification for Joe Biden, you don't accept these fake electors. And I made a mistake in picking you five years ago, if that happens, right? You'll either go down. this is according to the people that listen to the phone call, you'll either go down in history as a patriot, Mike Pence, or you will go down as a P word, right? And when I report these things with you, I forget which case I'm even talking about,

his use of these words in genitalia are so common in all of the cases, you know it's Donald Trump when you hear it because he said it. Now, that's what he's going to be asked about at the grand jury. We know because it's in the memoirs and two other witnesses have already said that this happened. This was the pressure campaign by Donald Trump along with Eastman. Pence is going to also have to testify about him going out and hiring his own independent consultants, including former federal judge

Mike Ludic, who's who told him, you cannot do anything but certify the properly submitted electoral ballots. Period. You cannot do anything else. You can't stop. You can't delay. And that's it. And the only thing that he can't be asked about, according to the ruling by Chief Judge Bozberg that went up on appeal on Wednesday, is anything that happened just at the podium while he's holding the gavel as the president of the Senate, who cares. That is so ministerial at that moment. That doesn't, but he's going to testify about all the things that Trump ever told him about before the election, after the election, during Jan 6th and these phone calls. And he was there, as you

said, Ben, for almost seven hours of testimony. I assume he's done, but who knows? He could go back for, he could go back for day two. So that's, that is the Pence testimony. I think that's it. After Pence on a couple of these issues, that was just about making the charging decision. What do you think, Ben? Disagree only slightly with you there because there is still one other witness who Mark Meadows. And Mark Meadows hasn't even gone in yet. That's crazy.

So you'll recall that Mark Meadows asserted based on Donald Trump's request, executive privilege. The Court of Appeals and the lower court also said that no executive privilege applies there. This was actually even before the ruling that the Court of Appeals just made regarding pens. The issue with Mark Meadows that I think we'll be talking about on future legal aps that everybody should pay attention to

is he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in Georgia, in Fony Willis's Fulton County investigation, where he was before the special purpose grand jury there. I suspect he's going to invoke the fifth amendment again, which is why he hasn't testified before Pence and why they wanted to go for Pence before Meadows strategically. It's why Jack Smith took Pence first. So you take Pence first, you get all of the information, and then why is Meadows the last witness in my

opinion, because he was the central organizing force on the January 6th day of the insurrection and leading up to it. Everybody was text messaging Mark Meadows and special counsel Jack Smith likely has all of those messages now. Remember, the January 6th committee got a subset of that and then Meadows objected after turning over a few thousand of the emails and those are pretty damning ones, but he didn't actually turn over the most damning ones. He stopped cooperating and then he joined various Trump-related foundations and organizations

that again took money from the various political action organizations that Trump raised money for. And then voila, he just stopped cooperating. He ran out the clock on the January 6th committee. He's not able to run out the clock on Jack Smith. So, Jack Smith will get all of those messages, and those won't be subject to any fifth amendment in vocation in my view. The issue is, is the actual testimony.

And then, what I think we'll be talking about next week and or at least in a few weekends from now is whether or not the Department of Justice will be giving Mark Meadows what's called derivative use immunity, giving him immunity purely for what could be derived from his testimony. If he commits perjury, derivative use immunity does imply you can prosecute someone for committing perjury. But if you give somebody derivative use immunity and you learn something new during their testimony, you can't use that against them for a future criminal prosecution. But to me, there's no harm in giving meadows derivative use immunity. It's like a no brainer because all of the crimes that Meadows likely has committed, you pretty

much know already. So all that you're really going to need Meadows for is to talk through all of the messages that he's going to produce regarding all the other co-conspirators. And so I think you finally, you set that up with Meadows and then Meadows is your last witness. Yeah, you're right. I actually forgot because that happened so early in April, him losing his privilege and having to go in.

I actually, for some reason, had thought he had already tested it. You're so right. And that is the exact right order because Meadows would be the last one you'd want to give Queen for a day or use immunity too. And I want you to think about this too You know because all the legal a f watchers know this now and what's great is that you get to tell your family and friends and co-workers and colleagues why the process went down the way it did but you go back several months ago on legal a f when we were talking about

People like Mark Short former vice president penss is former chief of about people like Mark Short, former vice president, Pence's former chief of staff, people like Greg Jacob, former vice president, Pence's former chief counsel, and the fight to get them to testify where Donald Trump asserted executive privilege there to try to block their testimony.

So they would show up before the grand jury, then they would say, we can grand jury. Then they would say, hey, we can't testify. We'd like to, but we can't. Donald Trump's asserting executive privilege. So then Jack Smith or the DOJ would have to go into federal court, file a motion, beat Trump, get them to come back for another day of testimony. And then they worked their way to the top. And they have to do that over and over and over again with all of these other witnesses and people are like, how could Donald Trump assert executive privilege at such BS as a former president you can assert it. I mean that's

all I can tell you. You can't, I can't assert it, Popo can't assert it, none of you watching this or listening can assert it. I've tried. You can't assert it. It doesn't make it less frivolous, but someone who wants to torture the Constitution is able to, you know, and is a former president can at least make the claim that then has to be litigated. But what has happened over time and now all of you legal a efforts know this, it went from normal briefing schedules before the court of appeals that would take months to now the court of appeals is hearing these things in days and in some instances, even hours, rejecting Donald Trump. But that didn't happen overnight.

That happened with win after win after win. And if you just charged Donald Trump nine months ago, you wouldn't have gotten any of this testimony. So all the legal A.F.ers at home ask yourself, you'd really want to go through this case and not get the testimony of a grand jury of pence or anybody, and you wouldn't get the ability to so quickly secure key testimony if you didn't climb the ladder. So that's my one.

And one last thing, and just the way you're building your case, you're building your ladder there, we are creating now in real time a body of precedent, a body of case law that will be used in the future. Just as a body of case law was developed off the Nixon, the Nixon of presidency, and all of the bad things that he did in his time. That's why there's so many cases that we cite to, even then, even now, about Nixon versus this, or US versus Nixon. There's now a new body of law, dozens and dozens,

a dozens of decisions, state and mainly federal, and even up to the US Supreme Court that will be used against the future Donald Trump and other bad actors in the future. So this is also a good thing from a body of law development standpoint, two years, five years, ten years from now. There'll be a lot of cases cited with Trump or Pence or Meadows or others in the title. Berkeley Research Group $600,000 from the Trump campaign. Sympatico $750,000 paid from the Trump campaign. Special counsel, Jack Smith says, I'd like a word to learn who these groups

are, why they were getting a lot of money. And guess what? Some smoking gun stuff here. We're learning this week about Sympathico and its founder who gave a lot of great information in this Washington Post article, but basically he said, told the Washington Post what he had told special counsel, Jack Smith recently, which we'll talk about. And this is after, of course, another group,

which you're gonna talk about, Popeyes, this Berkeley research, kind of same thing, where Trump, I won't bury the lead here. Let me toss it to you, Pope, and break it down. Okay. So it's really simple. And that's what makes the prosecution of Donald Trump in the area of election fraud and donor fraud. So so easy to to present. They hired the kid Trump campaign and Donald Trump himself hired not one, but two different

consultancies to evaluate all of their crackpot voter fraud, stolen election theories, all of them. Dead people voting, Chinese interference, Venezuela interference, software flipping votes from Biden to Trump. You name it. You know, ballots being brought in for Biden and being dumped into machines for counting all those crazy theories that we've heard about that Donald Trump has grifted and fundraised on the back of. He hired not one but two different consulting firms paid them the amount of money that you just outlined then over 1.3 or 1.4 million

dollars. And both of them came back and reported to either the Trump campaign or to Trump and Meadows directly in the White House that none of those claims were true, that there was no voter fraud that would have turned the election for Donald Trump at all and that the election was legitimately on the election for Donald Trump at all, and that the election was legitimately, legitimately for Joe Biden at the end. The big difference between the two groups, because I had reported with you on the earlier one, Berkeley Research Group about two months ago, Berkeley Research Group gave the results of their analysis where they found no voter fraud in the battleground states, especially in Nevada and in one other state, directly to Trump and Meadows. And Jack Smith and his team of investigators have now spoken to Berkeley Research Group, BRG, to find out, well, what did you tell Trump?

Well, what did Trump tell you? Well, what did you tell Meadows? Well, what it Meadows tell you? So that is a big interest because it helps create criminal intent and criminal mind for Donald Trump knowing at the time or knowing or should have knowing or being what's called willfully blind, putting your hand over your ears and your eyes and bearing your head in the sand because you don't want to hear bad facts even from your own firm that you hired to give you that information. That's Berkeley Research Group, Sympathico Software, which is also a legitimate company based in Rhode Island, run by a gentleman who ran for Rhode Island governor, who is apparently

a moderate Republican banana Trumper. He got paid $750,000 to find voter fraud in the battleground states. And he reported back to the Trump campaign this time, not directly to Trump in matters, but to the Trump campaign. And told them, sorry, there are no examples of voter fraud at all to support your theories. And I've looked at not only the ones that the campaign has given me to track down, but a bunch of other working theories from outside groups, and there is no voter fraud. In fact, that guy Ken Block, who runs Sympathico,

has put up on his own LinkedIn, on his own Twitter, that the election was basically safe and secure. There was no voter fraud. He's trying to pitch his services as he reframes his company now, now that he's been caught up in the malstrom of Jack Smith's investigation and he still wants to have a going concern. So now he's pitched it as, it's just really confusing with all the different laws out there at the state level, different machines that are used. You know, why don't we simplify it and I'll help with that.

But there's no fraud. I assure you there was no fraud. So that's Ken Block. He's been talking to the Jack Smith, not a grand jury. He was subpoenaed, and his company was subpoenaed. One day he may go into the grand jury before right now, they're at the investigative level. And it just toughtails so perfectly with the earlier reporting on the Berkeley Research Group, which is also gone in front of Jack Smith to tell that tell. And why is this really important? Comes down to criminal intent. We got to show

willfulness and criminal intent by Donald Trump while he's out raising $250 million, knowing that everything is a lie because the law doesn't allow you to go out in higher consultants to tell you the truth, which is what you're saying is a lie and then go out and do it anyway and then do emails to raise money or send out mailers by post office to raise money because that's called and we'll talk about it later, wire fraud and mail fraud, which is the easiest thing in the DOJ toolbox to use. That's why it's in almost every major indictment has one element or more of mail fraud and wire fraud because all you got to do is show that the person

said something that was false, that led the other person to give them money and it was done with willfulness or with an intent. And this is where the Berkeley Research Group and Sympathico evidence, nails, Donald Trump, Mark Meadows and others in that conspiracy. So let's get into the wire fraud investigation. What wire fraud is, what male fraud is,

why special counsel Jack Smith is focusing there. And actually, if you've been watching Legal AF, you know that we've always felt here, that's actually been the strongest part of special counsel jacksmith's case. I think it's all very strong, but what prosecutors are great at is finding the money in a case where there's documented fraud, where you can show records and data and show where the money is going and trace the money. And frankly, there is nobody better at that than special counsel Jack Smith.

And when Jack Smith was originally appointed, you know, you, me, Karen Friedman, Agnifalo, you know, we had all said, there's definitely gonna be a wire fraud component of this because that's really what you focus on in the public integrity section at the Department of Justice. And that's what special counsel Jack Smith led starting in 2010. That's the team of people special counsel, Jack Smith has surrounded himself with in this investigation

are former heads of the public integrity section. So let's talk about these wire fraud charges. He's investigating. But first, let's take a quick break. This is Michael Popuck 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've 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.

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legal AF, we are live and where Popok and I last left off. We talked about Sympatico and Berkeley research. We talked about special counsel, Jack Smith's criminal investigation. And before the break, I said, let's talk about these wire fraud charges and these malphrod charges. Basically put very simply, when Donald Trump through, you know, in the old days, it was through

the wire, right? That's why it's called wire fraud. But now through emails and through other social media and other modalities of modern communication, lies to people and says, hey, we're raising money for the election defense fund. Please donate to the election defense fund where your money will go to do x, y and z Well, one when you know that Where you're telling people's money that it's going to go to is patently frivolous from the outset. That's a crime But more significantly when an election defense fund doesn't even exist. Yeah, that's a crime too. Trump didn't have an election defense fund yet he sent emails and messages to people saying that their money was going to go to one. But where did it go? Well, their money went to things like hiring

the lawyers to defend Donald Trump in the EG Carol case or hiring lawyers to defend Donald Trump in Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg's prosecution, things having nothing to do with the election fund that didn't actually exist. And, you know, you may have heard some of these audio tapes thanks to the, you know, important and important whistleblower work of Abby Grossberg who used to be an executive producer at Fox from Maria Barteroma and Tucker. But like, there's a tape for example of Peter Navarro where one of the criticisms that

he has is that the money is being diverted away from his green Bay, you know, sweep plan where he wanted to accrime by the way to overthrow the election, but he was like, they're not even using the money for that plan. It's just going to line the pockets of Donald Trump's inner circle. And there's a reason special counsel. Jack Smith also wanted those tapes from Abby Grossberg. And Grossberg's lawyer, Jerry Filipados confirmed this week as well that those tapes have gone to special counsel Jack Smith and he said there's over 90 tapes that Abby Grossberg took from these pre interviews that never were actually aired on

Fox so great work there by Abby Grossberg, but yeah, these wire fraud charges You know, you know, you got to dig in him. You got to dig through the facts, you know, and it's very kind of very work intensive to get all the information. But once you got the facts there and you say, hey, from November 2020, through the insurrection, Trump raised about $250 million, where did it go? And then you follow the money and you find out that the shell groups are being created by Trump. And it's basically going to places that Trump's lying about and saying they're going to other places. Let's remember that the feds charge Steve Vanan with wire, with wire fraud in connection with the we build the wall scam Donald Trump pardon Steve Bannon for that remember

By the way, Bannon's co-conspirator and that thrown under the bus thrown under the bus like four-year sentence after Guilty plea, but Bannon got fully pardoned for lying to people on go fund me saying if you give money We will build the wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for and then Ben and was spending his time on yachts with your money living the high life. Does anything say Maga like that? So I like that theme of the episode. Does anything say Maga like fake Nazi portraits being displayed in billionaires homes?

Does anything say Maga like grifting off of GoFundMe to build a wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for and then using it to hang out on private yachts? That's pretty magony. What else do we know about these wire fraud investigations? Well, to your point then, we reported back in January when it happened. Jack Smith brought in two senior prosecutors and deputized them, a special prosecutor's right out of public integrity and public corruption, right out of follow the money. Ray Holster, who took over for Jack in the public integrity unit after Jack left, he brought Ray Holzer in, is working on Jack's team. And David Harbatch, currently, or was currently at a large national law firm

based in California, but had also represented Komi at one point, FBI director Komi. But between the two of them, they had prosecuted some of the most highest profile public integrity and corruption cases of elected officials before Donald Trump. So that included Senator Menendez of New Jersey, the Virginia governor, Bob McDermott and Senator John Edwards. And those were the two Lee prosecutors for that. So he's dusted off this elite team of public corruption prosecutors to work on his team

and to do what you said, which is follow the money. And it will put it up on the screen. We've done it already. That statute has been on the books forever. So it's so old that it, as you said, it went back to the days of telegram and telegraphs, calling it wire fraud, but now has been interpreted by the courts to include emails and email blasts

and each one of those emails, not just like, well, on October, let's just do the dates. On January 8th, they sent out a blast that was based on a series of lies that Trump knew or should have known about in order to collect up money. It's not just one blast under the 18 USC section 1343, individual email. Each individual letter, mailer, is considered a violation, a criminal violation of the statute, and it's grouped together at the time of sentencing by the federal judge in trying to decide how many

years to give the person who's been convicted of it. It is having been on the other side as a defense lawyer representing clients who have had mail and wire fraud. I will tell you, it is the scariest of charges to defend against, because it is so elegant and it's simplicity for the prosecutor to have to make out and what we're watching and what we're reporting on in real time on legal AF are the components of each of the elements of crimes like male and wire fraud. But now we get to see it. I think that's why people like to show, I assume,

is because they get to see not just the cold recitation of the law, like we just put up a minute ago, but we get to show you how the case is built, how the evidence is obtained, how the witness testimony is brought forward, how every link in the chain is developed so that the prosecutor in going into a grand jury or ultimately to a regular grand jury can put that back up on its easel

in front of his electronic presentation and say to the jury, there are three elements to this crime. You'll be charged by the judge at the end of this case about it. It's this and this. And we will show you, the evidence will show, as to the first element. We have the testimony of the next element. We have this document, this document, this document. And this is how you build an airtight case that survives a motion to dismiss

that'll inevitably be brought by Donald Trump at some point. So you can get past the motion practice and you can get to a jury deciding on an indicted president, which is what the ultimate goal is. All the rest of this stuff all falls apart. If you don't have an airtight indictment properly presented to the jury, returning an indictment, that then you can then take in with supported evidence with your burden, which of course, as we've always said, as Karen says, almost every time we're on the show, is at the highest level, the burden on the government is the highest level of burden that is allowed in a courtroom

beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's what keeps prosecutors up at night, being able to present their case without reasonable doubt being injected. So they don't lose a juror because these things have to be unanimous. And that's why people say it's time. It's wasted. It's not. It's methodical building.

We just get to report on it on an hourly or weekly basis. And exactly because the indictment against Donald Trump when it's brought by special counsel, Jack Smith, it's not going to be like a five-count indictment against Donald Trump when it's brought by special counsel, Jack Smith, it's not going to be like a five-count indictment. It possibly will be like a hundred, maybe even a thousand plus count indictment, thousands of talking about thousands of counts of indictment for thousands of specific individual crimes. And I want you to think about it as well because there's really four main inquiries of special counsel Jack Smith right now, the day of January 6, like Donald Trump

encouraging and aiding and abetting the violence of the insurrectionists that day itself, the fake electors scheme, Donald Trump's conspiracy to have these Republicans falsely certify their names in states that Biden won to claim that Trump won those states. The wire fraud that we just talked about and then the pressuring and the threatening of state and local legislatures. Those are kind of the four main topics. There's sub topics within them. Frankly, because of all of the immunities that Donald Trump could potentially have, or defenses you could make or conjure contrive, bad defenses, but nonetheless things you can

contrive as a former president. The wire fraud claims are actually by far the ones that are least vulnerable to collateral attack by any of these BS communities. And there are BS claims. Like Donald Trump will lose them, but the wire frauds the clearest path with the least delay. But I think special counsel, Jack Smith's going to bring charges on all of them. Let's talk about though, Ivanka Trump for a moment.

Then we'll talk about the E. Jean Carroll trial and what went down there. But briefly, let's talk about Ivanka Trump hiring new lawyers, new law firm, Bennett Mosquitz has been hired by Ivanka. She got rid of her old firms. She had two firms before. She had a local firm from New York. This firm called Roberts and Roberts. And then she had a DC firm.

The local Roberts firm was also representing her brothers. It was representing Don Jr. and Eric. That firm was representing all of them. But we started to see, I think, cracks in that joint representation, even dating back in 2022, even dating back in 2022 where Ivanka cut a deal with New York attorney general Leticia James in connection with and I should just rewind briefly for a moment that what's this case about that Ivanka switching lawyers? It's the New York Attorney General Leticia James civil fraud case against Donald Trump, his adult children, and the Trump organization seeking at least $250 million, likely billions of dollars, by the time it goes to trial on October 2nd, 2023.

It's before a New York Supreme Court judge, New York, the Supreme courts, their trial level judge. So their lower court called Justice Arthur and Goron. And and Goron said, come hell or high water. This case is going to trial October 2nd, 2023. So it's a firm date. There's also injunctive relief being sought by the New York Attorney General's office to stop the Trump organization from doing further business in the state of New York, effectively stopping the Trump organization from functioning if they prevail. So that case was filed September of 2022 in December of 2022 after Judge Arthur and

Gauron granted an injunction to have a financial monitor oversee Trump's kids and Donald Trump and the Trump organization's finances, Ivanka cut a deal to be treated differently than her brothers and her dad with New York Attorney General ETC. James and New York Attorney General ETC was okay with that deal, which she wouldn't give for nothing, right, Pope Mark? There was obviously some discussions, and we had to go back to our episode in December because we talked about how it seems like Ivanka is going to be

pursuing this alternative path then Popeyes want to take us current because there was a filing in March by Ivanka Trump Where she or a letter brief to the court where she wanted to be treated differently and she was like Yeah, it's my dad and my brother's engaged in that conduct, treat me differently. I didn't do that. I wasn't there since 2017. And then that brings us to this switch of lawyers. Yeah, so when the attorney general is one of her powers

was able to get the financial monitor in place several months ago, with you and I did some brilliant depth reporting on it at the time, placing the Trump organization and Don Jr. Donald Trump under a monitor for a federal judge to keep an eye on the money for the, because it's a going concern, we keep talking about the, you know, the 17 count, criminally indicted and convicted

Trump organization and it's supporting subsidiaries. They're still running businesses and they're still bringing in money and spending money. There's money in and money out. And so because it's a fraudulent entity, as far as Latisha James is concerned, it is convinced Judge Angoran of that and that they could perpetuating a continuing frauds, which the attorney general has the power to stop, the judge gave her the monitor, except about a month or two later, maybe a month later, Ivanka came back

with her then existing lawyers and said, hey, treat me differently. I have, like you said, Ben, I haven't been there since 2017. I don't want to be monitored. I moved to Florida. I don't barely know what's going on. My brother's run the business, which is not consistent, which is inconsistent with what is in the hundreds of page complaint filed by Latisha James, which tells us really everything

about the case. Ivanka is in the crosshairs. She is listed as participating in insurance fraud, involving Zurich insurance company and Chicago properties for the trumps. She's involved with appraisal fraud, according to the filing. She's involved with her own fraud, involving her own apartment,

because like Daddy like daughter, Daddy overinflated by many magnitudes, the value of his giant mega apartment on on Fifth Avenue directly across from the department store. We're going to talk about with E. Jean Carroll matter in Trump Tower. And she did the same thing because she had an apartment that was valued at 25 million, but she had an eight million dollar option to purchase it. And that's all spelled out in the attorney general's claim. Speaking of new lawyers, Ben, we got two people with new lawyers in the last 30 to 60 days. Alan Weiselberg, who is now out of Rikers Island, the former CFO of the Trump organization,

who testified, you know, basically testified against the Trump organization and Donald Trump leading to the 17 felony convictions by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. He's out. He's five and a half months is over and he left a free man subject to future prosecution by the Manhattan DA's office. And he got a new lawyer while he was still in jail. So the lawyer that had been representing him

and paid for it by the Trump organization, and Donald Trump is gone. We're not sure exactly who's paying for the new lawyer, but he felt he needed a new lawyer to interact with him and hat in DA's office and anybody else. He's also on the hook in the New York Attorney General's suit you're talking about, and we're talking about, he got a new lawyer.

Now, Ivanka, consistent with her convincing somehow, we don't know yet, it'll be in somebody's memoir or when it's finally in the case of the prosecution and the presentation of the civil case to the jury if you will something happened because latissia james james we know is A pitful and she's not letting go of the trumps and the fact that she let her out from being financially monitored, we thought signaled a level of cooperation that she wasn't getting from Eric Jr. Don Jr. and certainly from Donald Trump. Because what was the trade? What was the quid pro quo? We don't know what it is now, but the fact that she's now brought in Bennett Mosquits, who's claimed the fame recently is not great. He's been representing the jeffery Epstein estate against claims against it by various people

who were molested and raped by Jeffrey Epstein. The disgraced now dead financier with close connections to people like Donald Trump and others. But he's a legitimate guy in the world of white collar defense. He's at a legitimate firm that we, you and I both know. So I get it. She needed to change horses. She wants somebody else interacting with the New York Attorney General's office and maybe cutting a deal. She's also one of the few Trumpers that didn't take the fifth hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times in response to the original

set of depositions. We know now Donald Trump has decided it's in his best interest to waive the Fifth Amendment and not assert the Fifth Amendment privilege and has gave a recent deposition. And I assume Ivanka is either we're going to see a new deposition of Ivanka or something else that's going to come out of because I can't believe then the combination of her being let out voluntarily by the attorney general from being covered by the monitor and now having a new attorney isn't for some good reason. What do you think that good reason is?

You know, I think that especially with her dad testifying and I think she intuitively knows how that went down and knows that it went down bad. I think she also wants to separate herself, not just from the case from the civil standpoint but also from an optics view, from potential criminal charges, because let's not forget as well, while the New York Attorney Generals pursuing the civil case, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, is still investigating Donald Trump's criminal conduct for the fraudulent financial valuations. Just because he brought the falsification of business records first, relating to the hush money payments to store me Daniels, doesn't

mean Alvin Bragg is done. Alvin Braggs just said, I'm doing a process where first, Trump organization, second, falsifying business records, third, we're still investigating falsification and fraudulent financial valuations, we just need more evidence. What was the more evidence? The deposition, the deposition of Donald Trump. Alvin Bragg knew that if he jumped the New York attorney general and charged Trump with financial fraudulent valuation crimes before the New York attorney general's case went to trial or before the deposition of Donald

Trump, it would have derailed Donald Trump's deposition. And Donald Trump would never have given the deposition. It would have stopped New York Attorney General, it is James Case, from going forward. So that's what's going on there. You know, we kept free move on. We talked about, because there was so much initial resistance to Alvin Bragg as a as a prosecutor mainly of his own making you and I talked about you if you want to we like to talk we're talking about the annals of legal AF now if you go back

to the annals of our hot takes and our analysis on legal AF you and I and I did a hot take six months ago about the close working relationship between Alvin Bragg's office and Latisha James's office, that they're not at odds, that they have people deputized for each other, working in each other's offices, investigators that are cross deputized, and that they know what's civil and what's best to go first, and you know what's criminal and what's best to go in a different direction. And they have been together pulling this wagon, not at cross purposes. Of course, when we said it then, it was like, oh, sure, Popeye, that sounds interesting.

But why is an Alvin Bragg doing more? Great glasses. What is it? He's a great glasses, Popeye. But be quiet. But be quiet. I mean, we want to get that out of the way. But that's the way it's been from day one.

They have worked together. In fact, as you and I reported earlier, a month earlier, Donald Trump argued that the civil prosecution, the civil, I keep saying the civil prosecution, the civil case is really a criminal prosecution. And he should be, they should be forced to give him immunity on the criminal side because he's being tested. He's testifying on the civil side. And every court said, no, civil and criminal can work parallel to each other and it doesn't create a criminal jeopardy problem for you. Masterful work by Latisha James, New York Attorney General and Alvin Bragman, Hatton D.A. working together within their

powers, within their separate unique toolbox to bring justice to the Trump family. I couldn't agree more with you there, but I'm sure we'll be hearing more from Ivanka, but at the last point I'll make an Ivanka. The complaint brought by the New York Attorney General alleges a decades-long scheme. And what Ivanka basically says is, I haven't been there since 2017 at the Trump organization, which I don't fully buy. But the whole scheme and the crime that was committed, if you're aware of it and you're not doing

anything to stop it and you are the person who put it into motion and the damage is still being felt today, you could still be on the hook there. So I don't think Ivanka has any good arguments when she goes, but I left in 2017 and then they did all the statement of financial conditions since then, but we will keep you posted as there are more developments there. Let's go to the E. Jean Carroll case,

the trial in the federal courthouse in Manhattan. Wow. Judge Lewis Kaplan runs a very efficient court jury selection took place on Wednesday. They had a full jury that was selected pretty much by lunch. You had nine jurors and Popeyes. Is it three alternates? I think it's three alternates.

So it's nine in the box, as we say, in the business, and three, and usually the three don't know they are alternates, because the judge wants them to pay attention, and then they're told at the end when the jury, it goes to deliberate, the poor three people that have been there for six or eight days, thinking they're gonna be one of the jurors

They're told they're they're an alternate, but so yes, it's nine and three So jury selection completed by Lunch opening statements on Wednesday took place right after lunch E. Jean Carroll's lawyers first Joe Takapina for Donald Trump next And then pretty quickly they got through two witnesses. They got through witness number one was Bergedorff Goodman employee. That was the department store at issue where the incident took place.

And the witness talked about how what the layout was, what it looked like, how there was privacy, how Donald Trump could engage in the conduct without it being seen by other people or heard by other people, how they dealt with celebrity. So really painting a picture of the department store before E. Jean Carroll testified, then E. Jean Carroll testified on direct. She completed her direct. Then Joe Takapina did the cross-exam. I thought E. Jean Carroll

did good during direct, by the way. The most high-risk plan putting your witness on. I mean, there's really no other plan that you could have. I mean, arguably you could put E. Jean Carroll towards the end of the case, but I think right fully so, Roberta Kaplan, who's E. Jean Carroll's lawyer, recognized, you got to, you know, the jury's going to be wondering, we got to hear from, we got to hear from the victim, you know, right away. But you think about it, this was a moment that E. Jean Carroll's been waiting for for years to tell her story. It is very hard to testify in a courtroom. The nerves are beyond anything.

There's no real prep. You can prep, but you really can't prep for that moment in real time, what that's like to be cross-examined in a federal court while the entire world is watching or giving direct testimony. And I thought she did good on direct and then got more comfortable in towards the end of the direct started doing really good, but where I think her heroism and bravery and courage and just this moment that I think was, you know, should leave an impression, her heroism for everybody, was on cross-exam when Joe Takapina started saying some really offensive things and bullying

her and she stood up to Takapina. I don't want to jump you, Popoca, and give your description of what took place. But I want to leave this one final point before tossing it to you, not about what took place in court though. But early on, Donald Trump started posting on his social media platform, calling the whole thing a scam and, you know, the normal stuff that Donald Trump does to try to threaten and harass proceedings and the judge was not having it. And E. Jean Carroll's lawyers would bring it to the attention of the court right away. Eric Trump tried to pull the same thing and posted something. They brought it to Judge Kaplan. And Judge Kaplan had managed Donald Trump and said to his lawyer, Joe Takapina,

you may want to start investigating some other United States codes. I think you know what I'm talking about, referring to criminal codes, obstruction of justice. Eric Trump immediately put down his posts. We haven't seen any other posts from Donald Trump, but Donald Trump's been absent. So, Popok, the heroism of E. Jean Carol on the stand versus the absence and the cowardice of Donald Trump. Yeah. Yeah, let's dive in a bit from the trial lawyer perspective that you and I are.

I thought E. Jean Carroll both in direct and in cross did a, um, you know, gave harrowing and riveting testimony because it's obviously true about what happened to her at Berkdorf Goodman's. Um, you and I talked about what she'd be first, what she'd be second. We were both right. She wasn't first. She was second after Berkdorf Goodman employee painted the picture of the scene for the fact that there are night hours and late evening hours at Berkdorf Goodman at least one night

a week. Now, Eugene Carroll believes it's a Thursday that this happened. And Thursday night, we're late night hours in the 90s at Berkdorf Goodman's meaning that one of the major legs of the stool of defense for Donald Trump is that how could this have happened in a crowded department store? And nobody here or see me do this thing that I've been accused of. He even said it in social media during this period that you just identified during the trial rather than attending it. And they have an answer for that. The answer is it was a late night Thursday

and late night Thursday. There's very few people in there and these dressing rooms are very large and lingerie is not the number one spot in any department store. I mean, if you're talking about it happened in the handbag section or in the jewelry section or perfume, okay, then he may have an argument. But lingerie is always sort of a secluded area in a department store, a private area. And that's where she claims that it happened. So that's that's one leg out from him on that. He doesn't have an alibi because his case has always been about, it never happened that I don't know her. So he can't say because she doesn't have a date for this.

She knows it happens in 95 or 96 because there's two witnesses that will be taking the stand next who she told contemporaneously in real time what had happened to her. So that answers the other defense, which is why didn't you report it to anybody? It can't be true. She has two supremely credible witnesses. We have not heard from yet.

One of them, Carol Martin is another well-known famous newscaster on local news in New York on WCBS. She was the first African-American female anchor in New York on WCBS. She was the first African American female anchor in New York. I remember E. Jean Carol was married to a very well-known anchor on a competing station on WABC. She told Carol Martin and she's going to testify to this jury, again with the credibility of the public knowing her. They're all going to know Carol Martin. She was on the air for 25 years in New York. And she's going to look this jury in the eye and said, and says, I remember a call, a series of calls

with E. Jean Carol in 1995 or 1996, in which she reported to me that she was attacked by Donald Trump in the dressing room of Berger Turf Grydman. That's another witness that takes away an argument for Donald Trump that A, it didn't happen, and B, she didn't contemporaneously tell anybody. Because Joe Takapina made a big deal out of, well, you're a writer, right? You keep a diary, right? Did you write this down in your diary? And she says, no, because I only write happy thoughts in my diary.

I don't put bad things in my diary, and that's why it's not in the diary. But so she has a witness. The second witness is Lisa Bernbaum. Lisa Bernbaum is a little bit of a celebrity because she wrote a famous book in the diary, but so she has a witness. The second witness is Lisa Burnbound. Lisa Burnbound is a little bit of a celebrity because she wrote a famous book in the 80s called The The Guide, The Preppy Guide to Something, whatever, it was like a book about preppy dress and preppy lifestyle. But she's a relatively well-known person

and she'll come off as very credible. And she's gonna testify that she had a conversation with Eugene Carroll and I think with Carol Martin she'll come off as very credible. And she's gonna testify that she had a conversation with E. Jean Carroll. And I think with Carol Martin, in which they talked about what had happened to her. Carol Martin's gonna testify that she said, if you go after Donald Trump, he's gonna bring hundreds of lawyers against you

and destroy your life. And Burnbound is gonna testify that when the events were described to her as a third party listener, she said to E. Jean Carol, E. Jean Carol, Jean, you were sexually assaulted because she was still in a state of shock from having been attacked by Donald Trump. So those are two powerful, powerful supporting, corroborating witnesses that Donald Trump can't say, oh, the date 95, I was, I wasn't even in the country at that time because his whole defense is, I didn't know her.

The I didn't know her was taken away in opening argument, opening statement when they show the photo of them all meeting and laughing, you know, E. Jean Carroll, her then husband, John Johnson, a news reporter here it is there, Donald Trump and his first wife Ivanka. And that's not just as Donald Trump said, oh, I met him at the coat room. And that's laughing and giggling. Look at Ivanka's face. Look at John Johnson's face.

Look at, look at, look at E. Jean Carol. Is that somebody who doesn't know Donald Trump? Is that somebody that you're just meeting for the first time and you're in awe, like, are you trying to get an autograph? No, these are people that operate at the same socioeconomic celebrity scale and they're interacting with each other. So that took that entire thing away from them. And then you've got the Axis Hollywood tape that's going to be played that shows that Donald

Trump routinely uses his celebrity to attack women against their will. And then you've got two women that are going to testify that it, me too. It happened to me too. A reporter for the People magazine and a woman, unfortunately, who got moved up to first class and she says got groped by Donald Trump in and around, you know, these kind of same times. E.G. and Carol as a witness because you and I were kind of holding our breath and a little bit white knuckled as you would identify.

That testimony is so important. In fact, a jury science and sexual predator prosecutors will tell you, juries make up their mind about the case, opening and first witness, if the first witness is the victim. And yes, there's other witnesses that go on after that and the trial can go on for weeks or days, but they have probably already made up their mind after watching E. Jean Carroll, even before the cross examination by Joe Takapina. That's what jury science says, the study of Jerry's and how they make decisions. If that's true, she did, she proved her case. She came off incredibly well authentic, honest, courageous. And then she was ready for the

counter-punching when Jack, when Takapino, who has decided to be a my new phrase the pit bull in the in the China closet in the in the China store Not just the bull in the China shop He goes after her in every way you and I identify would be inappropriate and would turn a jury off Especially a jury who's already turned off to Donald Trump because there's an empty chair And he hasn't bothered to arrive. He man mansplained her. He turned his back on her while she was trying to complete a thought. When she got emotional, he didn't react as a human being. He reacted like it was an act. He told the jury in the beginning that you're going to have,

you're being asked to believe the unbelievable, but she's not unbelievable. And everything she has said in doing exact, when Mike Ferrara, who's the lawyer, former federal prosecutor that's working with, that's in Robbie Kaplan's office, the law firm for E. Jean Carroll, that's who they chose to put her on. I'm sure her, him and a whole bunch of other former federal prosecutors were preparing her night and day for this testimony.

She's done incredibly well because the truth is easy to deliver, right? Because it's true. She's not making it up. She's been very, very honest, but they did that thing that you and I have talked about, which is bringing out the bad stuff, Bob's. She brought out all of the things that they know that Takapena and Trump were going to go after in her story. All the, quote unquote, weak points in her story. She couldn't remember the date. It wasn't in her diary. She didn't scream when it happened or didn't alert people.

She didn't go get medical treatment. She didn't report it to the police, right? All of those things. And by the way, Popok, I'll just mention right there. All of the things that are wrongly and horrifically used to attack victims in that situation, I think E. Jean Carroll's lawyers knew that that's where Donald Trump was going to go. That's how you attack victims. So just prepare the jury for those attacks and explain why those are

baseless attacks in situations like that. And she had the best counter punch of this trial. I don't care what happens after it. And if she wins the trial, which she should, this will be the thing that did it. When he said to her, callously, because he's using like an old playbook that I guess works in a criminal courthouse when you got to make one juror have reasonable doubt,

but doesn't work here. He said to her you didn't you didn't yell out or scream did you and she said two things She said one. I'm a fighter not a screamer because she fought back. That was her lack of consent Of course, that's necessary for the for the for the charge that she need him that she pushed him off him off her But she said at the end need him, that she pushed him off him, off her, but she said, at the end, whether I did or didn't scream, doesn't change the fact that your client sexually assaulted me. And she said it so. I mean, I wasn't in the room, but the reporting is, right, there's the quote. So that and the jury who is who the court watchers have reported are riveted by E. Jean Carroll's testimony.

They ignore, they never watch Joe Takapina, which is a bad sign. If they're not following the lawyer who's doing the cross-examination, right? Because in the direct examination, it's all about the spotlight on the witness. So you as the lawyer, if you and I are putting on E. Jean Carol, we step back and we step back at the podium and we let all the light go on properly on the plaintiff on the witness on E. Jean Carol. When you're the cross examiner, you want it on you. It's about you. Yes, it's her. It's that person's answers. None of them are watching Joachim Tchapeena. They're all watching her, which is a body language bad sign for the defense if they needed it. But they went down this road. You and I said, who on that trial team is going to deathly and properly cross examine

this witness. And we said, can't be Takapina. He doesn't have any. He's like, you know, he's there with a bludgeoning like a hammer. And that's not going to work in front of this jury. We're going to see the only, the jury has to be unanimous, but the burden of proof is much lower than in a criminal case. Yes, there's a criminal sexual assault component to this, but it's a civil standard. And that's advantage, E. Jean Carroll. She only has to show that it's more likely than not that it happened.

So we talk about the scales of justice being equal at the beginning of a trial. It just means there's a feather now on one side that tips it ever so slightly in favor of the plaintiff. And that's all they have to say. I believe me in the closing. I don't know who's doing the closing, whether it's gonna be Sean Crowley who did the opening or Mike Ferraro, from the law firm, who did the

the direct examination and they'll soon be doing the redirective of E. Jean Carroll, or it's going to be Robbie Kaplan doing closing. We'll see. Robbie may not make it appearance. At the rate her colleagues are successfully trying this case, I'm not sure you have Robbie Kaplan pop up. What do you think, Ben? I think that her entire team has done an incredible, incredible job.

I think she may take a witness or two, but I think that- She's just closing, she has to, right? If she does closing, she's gonna have to take a witness beforehand. Yeah, but I think her entire team has just been, it's been A plus, a taquerine, and you've seen, you know, when she has these former federal prosecutors who are just doing the direct, and by the way, building a foundation and doing a direct

exam is not an easy task because you have to set the foundation, set the stage, not bore the jury in doing it. Walk the witness through, make sure that you don't lead the witness because there's an objection to leading. You got to make sure that the witness doesn't ramble and you got to be engaging to the jury. It is a real skill. Following that direct so far and the opening has been a plus.

That's one point I want to make. Second point I want to make in terms of I think if you're E. Jean Carroll's lawyers, the riskiest part of your case and it's not unique to this case, it's in every case when you put your witness on and when you decide to put your plaintiff or your client on the witness stand. It's always is always one of the most difficult parts. Everything else after E. Jean Carroll though, it gets way worse for Donald Trump. To your point, other victims who Donald Trump did the same thing to, you've got other contemporaneous witnesses who back up with E. what Eugene says then you put the Donald Trump deposition on and then you rest and then you say The plaintiffs are at rest their case and the judge goes defense. You may present your witness and then when Donald Trump's too big of a coward to show up

He hasn't showed up already the jury's taken notice that. And then after all of that's out there and then Takapena goes, we rest as well and they go to closing, which I think is what's going to happen. With way, way, one alteration. She has an XPS2 experts that she's gonna put on, including one about damages to her reputation for defamation. He has one expert left.

He, I don't know, I don't exactly know the testimony. The only live expert, the only live witness that they're gonna put on on the Trump side is a psychiatric psychological expert of some type. I don't know what, maybe to talk, I mean, this will be terrible. If it's another man, I'm gonna say it out loud as a man. If it's another man that's gonna tell this jury

about her behavior or conduct while she was the victim of what happened to her in that dressing room, this is going to, I mean, this is, this is going terribly so far for Donald Trump, at least in my view. I couldn't agree more with you. And then finally, Alina Haba for all of the bluster, for all of the media appearances, we haven't even heard her name in trial. And as I said here in legal AF, Alina Habat likely doesn't even know how to do

a direct examination. She likely doesn't know how to do a cross examination. Like when I say that she is a bad lawyer, she's not only a bad person, but she is a horrible lawyer. Like, and by the way, here's the thing. only a bad person, but she is a horrible lawyer. And by the way, here's the thing. There may be other skills that she has, but she presents herself in all of her interviews

that she is a bad-ass trial lawyer, and she is coming for you. And you better, it's like the WWE style. You better get ready. Hop is coming for you and you better, you know, it's like the WWE style. You better get ready. Hobba's coming for you. And then you show up and it's like, all right, take a witness. And Hobba's like, let's let Takapena do it. Let's let Takapena do it. And I don't think we'll hear from Melina Habba at all. And if we do, we'll see what a bad lawyer she is. To your point, to your point, if if she was skilled they would never have replaced her

With with Joe Takapina just to remind everyone there was a moment in time that even E. Jean Carroll's lawyer Robbie Kaplan believed based on a Conversation that she had with Ha Haaba and reported to the judge in a letter about two months ago three months ago She believed that Ha Haaba was gone and Takapina was in completely, that she had been fired from the case, then because of the bad publicity and press, including on legal AF and on the Midas Dutch network, about that replacement. Suddenly, Hava, the next day, and in her filing with Joe Takapina in the letter, no, no, no, I'm not out.

Robby, we know Robby Kaplan. She's been on the show. There is no way that Rob Robbie Kaplan had a conversation with Alina Habba and falsely believed or was mistaken that a lawyer was departing the case. You and I have had this conversation with lawyers about departing a case. It's not like, it's not a mystery.

They say those magic words or they don't. And she said it to Robbie Kaplan because I believe her, not Alina Habba. So she was going to get canned and fired. So she was not going to have a role. Then Takapina came in, realized what a crappy job Alina Habba had done in the pretrial preparation process, which we've reported on, due to the screw up and the DNA evidence, to screw up on other documents and evidence that came out with Takapena trying to save the

bacon, you know, with late last minute, late night filings with the judge before trial. And the trial said, and the judge saying, we did that already, Mr. Takapena, that was your co-counsel. I already ruled against that. Get the trial. Let's go to trial. So it's not surprising to me, but it shows you if she was half as good as she reports herself to be when she's on television, she'd be doing the opening statement.

She would be doing the cross examination of E. Jean Carroll, but she can't because she's not capable. That's what we're watching. So people that watch her on Newsmax and Fox News or wherever else she's popping up who think, oh, this is an expert who's a really good lawyer and counter-balancing. All the, you want to know what the really good lawyers are? It's the Jack Smith team. It's the E. Jean Carroll team. It's the people that won 70 cases against Donald Trump about election fraud around the country. Those are the good, the unsung hero that we talk about all the time

on legal AF, not this group of people that lose, that are just losers that Donald Trump surrounds himself with. I couldn't agree more with you. And finally, let's talk about corruption in the United States Supreme Court. And it's not a both sides issue. It seems that essentially every single right wing member of this court. And it's a six to three court right now with right wing members of the court led by Chief Justice John Roberts and John Roberts in his own scandal this week as well, which we'll talk briefly about. But it seems like

every one of them is in a corruption scandal. So you have Senator Dick Durbin from Illinois, just sends a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts and says, hey, why don't we have a chat with the judiciary committee in the Senate? Let's just figure out what's going on here. We could do a voluntary chat. And then Chief Justice John Roberts wrote this letter back saying nope, it is extraordinary request.

You know, we have dare you try to impune the Supreme Court. It's the subtext. He wrote it nicer than that. But the Supreme Court, we're doing fine here. We're doing just good. It's okay that Clarence Thomas is getting millions of dollars of gifts and buy, you know, billion, billionaire Republican donors, lavishing them with yacht trips and Bambardi A5000 private jets that cost $200,000 to

shuttle him around wherever he goes. Per trip, yeah, that's cool on the Supreme Court. It's okay that Justice Alito's whining and dining with the group called faith in action, which he's like revealing opinions about what the Supreme Court's going to rule on cases like the Hobby Lobby case, removing corporate obligations to provide contraception before the rulings come out. It's okay that the leader of faith in actions testifying before the House committee, when the House committee actually did hearings,

when the Democrats controlled it, and exposed what was going on with the leader. And then we learned more about other people, like Gorsik this week, and Kavanaugh more covered up in the investigations into Kavanaugh's despicable conduct, like in the Kavanaugh investigation, we're learning this week, that the person they blamed for

like revealing his genitals You know was this was someone in high school who wasn't even in Yale at the time They claimed the woman had mistaken identity when she clearly said that it was justice Kavanaugh who did it like just as Kavanaugh Apparently in addition to all of the other allegations that came out They covered up all of these other allegations where he would like pull down his pants and show his genitals to people And then they blamed it on kids in high school that came out this week But you don't hear about that a lot another media networks, right?

You don't hear about that But that's actually what's going on and it's all coming from the right wing and then and then Neil Gorsik what's going on. And it's all coming from the right wing. And then, and then Neil Gorsik, again, another Trump appointee got his log cabin paid for millions of dollars by the Greenberg Trawarig managing partner, a firm that appears to be that has a robust Supreme Court practice that appears before Gorsik all the time. Pope, what's going on? Oh, I don't even know you and I before that, I left her ring some of those all true, by the way, everything you just said was true. There's not a there's not a right wing member of the Supreme Court that isn't currently embroiled or recently embroiled in a scandal of their own making because

they believe that they are they are immune to any they are they are they are they can act with impunity and not with any ethical considerations because there's never been a judicial code of conduct or canon of conduct that applies to them. And they take full advantage of it. And so, so then what do you, you and I, joke before that we started, you know, a little bit of a pre show. I said, what is there like in the lunch room at the Supreme Court? Is there a bulletin board where Supreme Court justices can post things like, hey, I've got a lot cabin for sale. Hey, I've got my family house for sale and people that do business in front

of the Supreme Court grab a cup of coffee go, hey, that'd be cool. I could buy corsages house that nobody wants in the middle of nowhere in Colorado for a million dollars. I could buy any other cabin, but wouldn't it be great to own the cabin for the justice that I'm appearing in front of or my law firm regularly appears in front of? Let's do that. And, you know, we never had just as before whose wives made 10 million or spouses made 10 million dollars. Yeah. Robert White made go go into that. Robert White. Robert White. Robert White. Now, now I want to be clear because I want to be I want to be consistent We've always said that in most circumstances It's we don't look at what the spouse does and we don't visit that on the person that's an elected office or in or the judgeship

Clarence Thomas and his wife Jenny. I think it's a whole different special case because of their relationship and all that she's doing as a mega right-winger to change policy at the Supreme Court level. That crosses the line. But generally, I'm not here to say, oh, your husband or wife can't do something, and that impacts what you do. And actually, the judicial can and say, what your wife or husband do doesn't matter. But let's get it out there. Let's use sunshine as the best antiseptic as we like to say. John Roberts' wife is a very successful legal recruiter.

She places partners in groups and law firms together. She gets paid a commission or a cut for doing that. And she's made $10.3 million over the course of a short amount of time, not just doing her regular placements, but placing people at firms that have business in front of her husband and the court. And that's where she should have said, you know, why? That's not the fee that I want to take today. I want to take another fee where I place the environmental group of one law firm into another

major law firm. And I make, you know, $150,000 or $500,000, but not the one that appears in front of my husband. And the fact that they just act like this without regard to any guardrails at all is pissing off the Senate judiciary and the Senate Democrats. And Dick Durbin said, as you mentioned, why don't you come before us, John Roberts, and talk to us about all of what appears to be these ethical breaches with, with, uh, that started with Clarence Thomas reporting and now the Neil Gorsuch reporting and now the John Roberts reporting

and let's go back to Kavanaugh and talk about all of the improper vetting that went on at the center judiciary when it was controlled by the GOP to slam his nomination through. Let's all talk about that. And John Roberts wrote a very first first of all, he pointed to the separation of powers in the cover. This is the second letter. The first letter he wrote, he said, oh, separation of powers means that there's only been two other times that a sitting Chief Justice has ever appeared before a Senate Judiciary Committee. And what was in Howard Tafstays, and I'm not coming in because I think it's

improper for you to be asking me questions because I'm at a co-equal branch of government. Okay. And then to kind of anticipate, you know, we talked about bringing out the bad stuff first in the E. Jean Carroll segment to anticipate that there's a big clamor and furor for the Supreme Court to adopt a code of conduct, judicial conduct, or say that they're going to comply with the regular judicial code of conduct, which is, which binds and applies to every other federal judge other than the US Supreme Court. And steady did a two-page letter that somehow we got all of the Supreme Court justices, including the ones, you know, left of center to sign off on, that basically said, we don't need an ethical canon applied to us. We know ethical dilemmas when we see them. We are allowed to decide whether we

are ethical, we alone, not even self-policing, individual policing by each justice. We alone can decide what's ethical and what we say is ethical is ethical and trust us. Now, I was a little surprised, Ben, we'll put the letter back up, that this is their response and it's signed ultimately by all nine justices, including the ones that you and I know and love. What do you think about that? Why did the others go along with this? They could have quote unquote, dissented from submitting the letter, but Roberts was able to go door to door, twist arms and get them to say, do you want a coat of conduct against you? If you don't sign here because I'm sending this in a dick Durban. Why do you think the others went along with this? Because they have to, given that it's a six to three court,

what they need to do is unfortunately, they have to bargain for things where they could kind of keep certain amounts of power, very minimal power that they have. And I think one of the ongoing deals that that currently exists, which the three Democratic appointees are worried about, is that when there's an emergency application that goes before one of the circuit courts, what they've all seem to have decided to do is, so there's a Supreme Court justice assigned to a specific circuit court of appeals to hear emergency applications. Technically, that justice who's assigned to that circuit can make a ruling on their own to reject or accept emergency applications on the shadow docket. But what seems to have taken place is

that they've all agreed that they will allow that to be sent to the entire Supreme Court rather than the supervising justice of the Circuit Court making a ruling. And I'll give you an example where that deal has actually proven very helpful for pro-democracy. So Justice Alito, who wrote the DOBS decision overturning Roe v Wade, who is all about using the government to control a woman's body. He's a misogynist and frankly a real, real, real despicable justice. He went to Italy and he bragged about what he did in the Dobs decision and laughed and mocked women.

It was really disgusting. Anyway, he's the supervising judge of the fifth circuit, Court of Appeals, which incorporates Texas. So remember when Judge Kasmaric made the ruling on Mifapristin, banning Mifapristin and the FDA's approval of it, that went to the fifth circuit. The fifth circuit made a ruling that, well, it allowed the 2000 approval to stay in effect, it blocked the 2016 and 2021 kind of extension of the approvals but created a ton of confusion, the Department of Justice

then appealed that the emergency circuit court judge was Alito and based on the deal that seems to exist, although it's not in front of the public, but obviously the deal exists, because normally Alito would reject the Department of Justice's emergency application there and shut it down and basically allowed the Trump appointee Cosmerex ruling to stay in effect. But based on this deal, Alito sent it to the full court to make a ruling and the full court then ultimately stayed or paused. What the fifth circuit did, the effect of it, is that Mifapristone remains on the market

at safe, efficient. So the point that I am making is that there's other deals that we don't know of that take place behind the scenes where the three have to preserve what little power that they have. And if they don't go along with it and embarrass the chief, it then can have implications on other rights that people have. I think you're totally right. I like that analysis a lot. It's the secret dealings and the back room dealings in order for the three to survive. And so that that really explains if that's what they care about, then they've got to pick their battles.

And that's your analysis. I think it's right. And because we've talked about it before, let me spend one minute as we end the segment on what are the circuit assignments so that we know it's relatively quick. And it are all made by the chief judge. The current circuit assignments are the first circuit is Contangie Brown Jackson, main Massachusetts, the Hampshire Puerto Rico and Rhode Island.

So anything that comes up from those states. Second circuit, which is also a liberal circuit, is Sonia Sautamier, that's Connecticut, New York, and Vermont. The third circuit and the fifth circuit is Alito. That's Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Virgin Islands, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. They're all under him. John Roberts has the DC circuit for things

that come out of Washington and the Federal circuit, which is a special circuit that deals with certain types of special federal federal issues. He also has the fourth circuit, which is the states around DC, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Virginia. The sixth circuit is Kavanaugh. He's got Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, the seventh Amy Coney Barrett, where she's from, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Kavanaugh also has the eighth, which is Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Alena Kagan has the ninth, which is Arkansas Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Alena Kagan has the ninth, which is out in your neck of the

woods, Ben. That's Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Guam, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Nevada, Northern Mariana, islands where we're very big on legal AF at Washington, Washington state. The 10th circuit is Gorsuch, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming, and Clarence Thomas has the 11th Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. So every time there's an emergency appeal

that comes out of one of those states and one of those circuits, that's the judge that would have the right to make the decision except for the deal that Ben just described. There you have it folks, a action-packed data-filled episode of Legal AF. Make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you're not subscribed to this YouTube channel, what are you doing? Also, a favorite to ask of Legal AFers, don't leave yet if you're watching on YouTube This is how you could help legal a f big time and it's super simple All you got to do is subscribe not just to this YouTube channel But subscribe wherever you listen to audio podcast so if you are a legal a f

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