Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Gets DENIED, DENIED, & DENIED AGAIN Ahead of Trial

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

Defense attorney Michael Popok & former prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo on the Legal AF pod, discuss/debate: (1) developments in the Manhattan DA prosecution of Trump, including Trump’s failed attempts to delay the start of the trial next week, and the jury selection process; (2) the impact of Trump former Chief Financial Office Allen Weisselberg being sentenced to jail today for 5 months on next week’s criminal trial and the NYAG civil fraud case; (3) the public feud between Judge Cannon and Special Counsel Jack Smith in the Mar a Lago Trump prosecution; (4) what else can happen in Arizona now that its Supreme Court has completely banned abortion enforcing a 1864 law that was on the books before women had the right to vote, and so much more at the intersection of law, politics, and justice. Fast Growing Trees: Head to https://www.fast-growing-trees.com/collections/sale?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=legalaf right now to get 15% off your entire order with code LegalAF! Mack Weldon: Go to https://MackWeldon.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code LEGALAF Fum: Head to https://TryFum.com/legalaf and use code LEGALAF to save 10% off when you get the journey pack today! Lumen: Go to https://Lumen.me and use promo code LEGALAF at checkout to get $50 off your Lumen Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/legalaf Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This NBA season, make every three-pointer alley-oop and buzzer-beater even more exciting with FanDuel. Download the app today to see why we're North America's number one sportsbook. 19-plus and physically located in Ontario. Gamling.com, call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal AF. These are the stories you need to know at the intersection of law and politics. Next week starts the first criminal trial against Donald Trump, despite no less than

10 efforts in the last week for Donald Trump to try to obtain some sort of stay from some court somewhere to stop the trial. Looks like we're still full steam ahead. He's tried multiple times to stop the trial. It looks like we're still full steam ahead. He's tried multiple times to stop the case. He filed the Article 78 lawsuit against the judge. He's argued that the case should be moved from Manhattan and asked for a stay. And a assigned judge, justice of the Appellate division, first department said no on the stay. Then they filed related to the gag order and they asked for a stay and the appellate court judge on duty that day said no on the stay.

Now they're going to move on some sort of immunity argument or some argument that they don't like. They have to get permission from the judge before they file motions. This is all, you know, sand in the gears by Donald Trump to try to avoid the inevitable trial that starts. Everything that he wants to do, it's just about bashing witnesses in social media

or bashing the judge's daughter, has nothing to do with justice being done inside of a courtroom or his entitlement to a fair and impartial trial. And that's why he keeps losing the stays. Now these appeals will go on during the course of the trial, but, you know, if he's got any real trial issues on the merits of the case, he can bring it up at the end of the trial, depending upon the outcome of the trial, but there's going to be 12 jurors who are going to sit in judgment if Donald Trump picked in

Manhattan next week or so, um, it's going to sit in judgment if Donald Trump picked in Manhattan next week or so. It's going to be based on a jury selection process that the judge has already approved the process of it. We'll talk about it with Karen Friedman at Nifilo, my colleague and friend who spent a lot of time with Judge Mershon and prosecuted cases like this one in particular. We'll talk about how the jury is going to be picked, the type of jury it's going to be, and then what we think we'll try to handicap all of these attempts by Donald Trump,

these 10 or so attempts to try to delay the inevitable. Then right before we went on the air, we got reporting that Allen Weisselberg, who pled guilty to perjury, at least two counts of perjury back in the beginning of March. He the disgraced former chief financial officer for both Donald Trump and Donald Trump's father who already went to jail once for tax fraud and his role in the Trump organization's tax fraud. Spent a hundred days in Rikers Island, not a very nice place, a terrible jail in New York. He's gone back. He's gone back today for five more months because he lied at least twice, if not three times, to the New York Attorney General in their civil fraud investigation and ultimate trial of Donald Trump that led to the $465 million civil fraud judgment. Or as I said,

in a hot take recently, here's an example of somebody who's going to jail for doing bad things in a civil case. You can go to trial, you can go to jail for that and see example of Allen Weisselberg. And then what is Allen Weisselberg's being now convicted of perjury? He said almost nothing during the sentencing hearing. The judge said to him, do you have anything to say? He said, no, and he went away. The reporting on the plea deal, although I haven't gotten my hot little hands on it yet, says that the Manhattan DA agreed to do two things to sort of cut Allen Weisselberg a break, not that he's entitled to one. The first thing they did is they allowed him to plead guilty to crimes that he committed before he was sentenced for the tax fraud

and therefore on probation because if they sentenced him for lying under oath during the trial, if that's what he pled guilty to, then he would have violated his probation which would have led to a world of hurt for him including enhanced sentencing, longer than five months and all of that. So they said, well, we're going to cut you a break. Since you lied both in the investigation period and deposition and sworn testimony and at trial, you can plead guilty to the ones before you were on probation, not after. We'll help you out there.

And we'll also agree not to call you as a witness in the trial of Donald Trump. The key factor in Allen Weisselberg, key involvement, of course, is that he was the person responsible for the books and records entry. All right, you'll clean that up, Karen. Karen's noting me while I'm doing my intro. That's a great place for you to clean up when I turn it over to you. Allen Weisselberg is a key witness in the, had been a key witness because of his involvement in the coverup, the hush money payments to

Stormy Daniels, how they were recorded on the books and records in payments to Michael Cohen as legal services rendered instead of what they were, which were direct payments to Stormy Daniels so she wouldn't go to the press on bad sexual acts of Donald Trump while he was running for office against and campaigning against Hillary Clinton. And so he would have naturally been a witness. And Michael Cohen is apparently going to be a witness. Michael Cohen, of course, has his own issues having served time in jail, but he's a new man and rehabilitated and has served his debt to society and he will have to testify.

And I guess the Manhattan DA just decided, well, you know, a person who's been convicted of fraudulent and dishonest conduct and now perjury is probably not a great witness for us. And we've got Michael Cohen already testifying and he's got his own issues. So let's just have him. That doesn't mean that Donald Trump can't try to call Allen Weisselberg, although he's been made completely radioactive by the Manhattan DA and their obligation to prosecute him once they learned that he had committed perjury.

The other people that are interested in the perjury of Allen Weisselberg is, and we'll talk about it in the segment that follows, is the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, and Judge Angoran ultimately, who still presides over and has jurisdiction over the civil fraud case and all things that happened in his courtroom. And now they're going to get to the bottom because Letitia James has raised it and Judge Angoran is interested in how did it come to be that Alan Weisselberg committed perjury in his courtroom? So as I said at the top, he's not being convicted or sentenced related to what he did in the courtroom in the New

York Attorney General case. That doesn't mean he's out of the woods. And neither are the lawyers. And he was represented by the same lawyers as Donald Trump during that trial, which is Alina Hava and Chris Kise, along with Cliff Robert. And they have a problem about what they knew and when they knew it about Alan Weisselberg's lies, which center around how big was the Trump penthouse in Trump Tower? Was it 10,000 square feet, which is what it turned out to be, which is still a very large apartment, probably worth, I don't know, $50 million? Or was it three times that? Who created the lie and made it $150 million on Donald Trump's balance sheet? Well, when Alan Weisselberg testified all those times, including a trial, he said, I don't know. I don't know where that number came. I was mistaken. I don't know where

that number came from. And in real times, Forbes Magazine, while he was testifying, ran on their website. Alan Weisselberg just committed perjury because he told us in an interview in Trump Tower, he's the one that told us it was 30,000 square feet, we have the notes to prove it. And so that was a problem. And the judge wanted to get to the bottom of that problem and asked the lawyers right before he entered his judgment about that issue because the issue of Allen Weisselberg pleading guilty came up before the judgment was entered. The lawyers, Kais and Hobbes, oh, we don't know, or Cliff Robber, oh, we don't know. We can't tell you.

We don't know how that happened. Well, that's not good enough because if they suborn perjury allowing perjurious comments to be made in that courtroom or documents to be used, they've got a big problem. It's called a bar referral to the grievance committee or to the Appellate Division First Department for investigation. We're going to have to talk about all of that and how all those things mesh together. The criminal case prosecuted by the Manhattan DA's office, the attorney general's case, and then we got more in the attorney general's case to talk about because we've got the whole issue of the bond. Is it a bond? Is it just a piece of paper that Donald Trump was able to obtain from a crony of his? Mr. Hankey, we like to call him, Don Hankey, whose company, Knight Specialty Insurance Company,

looks on paper to have put up a $175 million bond, but did they really? Because their finances don't seem to support their ability to back that bond. And now that the attorney general haven't looked at all the papers is calling the bond, she's asking them to prove the bond up in court. And then Donald Trump has the other added new problem that we hadn't anticipated, which is Don Hanke loves talking and he talks to, gives interviews all over the place in which he says, I don't know where the cash came from to back the bond, which is a problem from a money laundering standpoint. And also revealing that he was in discussions and willing to post the full $465 million bond

right at the moment that the same group, Kais and Habba, was telling the appellate division, first department, that they looked everywhere and they couldn't find a bonding company for the $465 million and won't they pretty please reduce it to $100 million? And the Appellate Division ultimately reduced it to $175 million. And the lawyers never corrected the record because according to Don Henke, he was willing to step forward with the $465 million, making the representations a lie. So they got big problems there as well. And we'll talk about that also.

And then we got to go back to Mar-a-Lago because Judge Cannon keeps like shooting out all sorts of orders that on their face look like they're in support of Jack Smith or finally wins for Jack Smith. But when you dig a little deeper, they're never really what they appear to be. And there's still this foot dragging delaying of all of the events leading to what was supposed to be

a May, June, July, who knows when trial. The problem is, Judge isn't doing anything to prepare the case for trial. She's just getting around now to holding mandatory hearings under the Classified Information Procedures Act, SIPA. She's just getting there now, which she should have been doing it like eight months ago. The one thing I thought Jacksbit definitely had a great appeal on was if she screwed up and didn't reconsider her decision to make the prosecutors reveal their witnesses now on the public docket, including ones that are secretly protected through grand jury secrecy. I mean, that was just like, as Jack Smith told Judge Cannon and ultimately the appellate court, that was clear error and manifest injustice. Like, give me, that's my ticket to the 11th circuit. Well, after a bunch

of briefing and some hearings, Judge Cannon finally said, all right, I'm going to reconsider my order, but you should have raised these issues earlier in some of this case law. She's always blaming the government. I mean, it's one thing to put the prosecutor's feet to the fire and make them because they have all the power and all of the, they have the downside of having a very high burden of proof. But the government, usually the David versus Goliath thing isn't like now. I'm not sure who's the David and who's the Goliath and Trump versus prosecutors. But in normal situations, the government is really big, has lots of resources, and the defendant doesn't. So I'm fine with putting the prosecutors back on their heels

on occasion when it's required and when the facts support it, but every time she makes, Kannon makes a wrong step, it's always against the government and in favor of Donald Trump, and that just can't be right. So we have new reporting down there. Then lastly, because it's just, we've done hot takes on it, I've talked about it a lot. I do a lot of different analysis about abortion rights. And last week we had Donald Trump taking the position on abortion that, although I can't really understand his position, but it's, I don't support a national ban,

but I think 15 weeks sounds about right. I think it should be a 15 week and maybe national ban, but I don't think there should be a national ban and all of that. In the meantime, his main argument is leave it to the states. Well, we just saw yesterday and today what leave it to the states means. Arizona's Supreme Court decided to go back to a pre-statehood 1864 decision when Arizona was a territory, not state, which they decided to ban abortion. And because that law was suspended in 1973, when Roe versus Wade established at that time for 50 years, a constitutional right for a woman to choose, they suspended that law, but it still

sort of remained on the books, but it suspended.. And then as soon as Roe vs. Wade got eviscerated and ripped from the books by this Supreme Court in the Dobbs decision two years ago, March, a case has been winding its way through Arizona, making its way to its highest court, you know, right-wing Republican dominated, in which they argued that the pro-life movement argued, oh, we should go back to the 1864 pre-Civil War and no abortion. It's on our books. That's what the people in Arizona wanted, to which I say, really? The people in the Arizona territory where women were probably not considered, I know

they weren't considered full and equal members of society, didn't have the right to vote. That's the group that we're now going to use their law from, that's a guide, modern Arizona and the women there really. And so Chris Mays, the attorney general for the state has taken a very strong stance. And she said, I'm not going to enforce it at the current time, even though the Arizona Supreme Court has made its ruling that even they mentioned doctors are now on notice that they could be prosecuted if they commit this crime of abortion. Meaning it's a total ban. It's not like six weeks like in other states that just popped up like in Alabama.

This is a total ban except for the life of the mother, which effectively is a total ban. And so she says she's not as the chief law enforcement officer of the state, she's not gonna enforce it pending the attempt to get the Arizona State House, the legislators in the State House, who by the way are Republican dominated by plus two. The majority is so slim, but it is a two seat majority for the Arizona Republicans to fix this

on the books with a new law and take that law off the books. And if they don't do it, we're at the intersection of law and politics. Because what's going to happen in Arizona or what should happen to Arizona when the women and people who support women's rights go to the ballot box in November and hopefully punish the people that are responsible for this law? In the meantime, thank God Chris Mays has said she's not going to prosecute people under it to allow the legislature to do the right thing. And if they do the wrong thing, it is on the ballot as far as I'm concerned, along with Alabama and in Florida and in other places starting in November.

We'll cover this all on Legal AF with Michael Popak and Karen Friedman-Echnifilo. Karen, how are you? I'm good, how are you? This is our second edition of Legal AF. There was an earlier edition, you and Ben launched Countdown to the Trial of the Century against Donald Trump. You and Ben are gonna do- Trump on Trial.

You're gonna do Trump on Trial. I think that's actually a registered trademark by somebody, but Trump on Trial, I like it. And that's gonna be leading into it. And then every day you guys will do that. And then I'll do my own sort of analysis and hot takes alongside of it. But that's great.

I really like that new addition. But this is our regular, this is our midweek where we do it all. So you had some, let's launch right into Manhattan DA. And I know you did a little corrective remediation with me, which is good about some of the procedure that I talked about. So why don't you take it from the stay issues and then we'll kind of, you and I'll morph into the case, get ready for trial issues. So what's happening is for the 10th time,

Donald Trump's lawyers have been requesting that the trial be delayed. Think about it, 10 times, right? That's just incredible. They are absolutely so desperate to attempt to not have this case go, that they are making every possible motion. They are appealing every possible motion. They are appealing every possible

motion, whether it's the gag order, whether it's recusal of the judge because of who his daughter is, whether it's the presidential immunity issue. And what they're trying to do is they ask first Judge Mershon and then they appeal it and they are trying to go up and up and up. They keep losing at every turn. But really what everybody is waiting for, or bracing for is, is he going to try to go to the Supreme Court, which obviously leans very heavily toward Republican and towards the conservative majority. The question will be, will they stay the case?

And the argument that I think he's setting us, or himself up for for is as follows, which is that in 10 days after my trial starts, presidential immunity is getting teed up to be argued at that time, right? It's right now they're filing motions or actually they're briefs to the Supreme Court. And the oral argument is scheduled for 10 days

after the trial is starting April 15th. So it's April 25th. And that's on an expedited basis. And I've argued presidential immunity in this case, and it was denied. But since this very issue is teed up for the Supreme Court, why can't we just wait? And he's then going to, I think, morph into the reason we can't wait is because there's a biased judge. Here are all the reasons the judge is biased.

He issued a gag order against me, then he expanded the gag order against me. And he also has a daughter who worked for, is a democratic operative, etc. So all of the arguments he's going to weave potentially into one and argue to the Supreme Court for a stay and say, look, what's the rush? Why can't we wait a few more weeks or a month? The only reason is because they're trying to make me lose the election. So that I think is what he's doing. Ben pointed out, which I thought was a really good

point, that on, I think it was on Monday, when he issued his, his statement about abortion, that he actually, you know, saying that he believes in leave it up to the states, and 15 weeks sounds okay, like you just talked about, Popak, that he named each of the Supreme Court justices that he appointed. Now, why would he do that? It felt, when I heard it, I was like, God, that feels very strange. It feels almost like he's kind of talking to them, like, remember who put you here. And it just, it felt very weird. And when Ben pointed that out, I thought that that could make a lot of sense. That's why he's doing it. He's teeing it up like I'm coming and I expect you to perform for me. And so let's see. But you know, there's only a couple, there are only two work days left before the trial. So he doesn't have

a lot of time if that is his play, but for the 10th time in a row, he's desperately, desperately trying not to go to trial. He does not want this trial. He does not want to face this jury. And he does want to be held accountable. He just wants to delay. So that's where he is right now. And interestingly, I've been getting a lot of calls. And the reason we decided to do this Trump on trial legal AF special edition is I'm getting flooded and inundated

with requests to Speak about this case mostly to explain. What does this mean? What does that mean? How many jurors are they gonna pick do they have to be unanimous? How many challenges do they have each side etc because I come from the Manhattan DA's office I obviously worked there for 30 years and I was the chief assistant DA under Cy Vance. I never worked for Alvin Bragg. And so I have insight that not everybody in the world has. And so that's why I think people are making a lot of requests. And Ben

and I were talking about it and saying, I said, I really like to do this for Midas Touch and I'd like to provide this insight on a daily basis. And so that's hopefully what I will be able to do and answer all the questions and sort of do the reveal codes for everybody about what everything means. And we can go from there if the trial actually starts. So jury selection is supposed to start Monday. It's gonna go, I think, the whole week. And the question about what kind of jurors they're looking for are

very, very tricky, right? The judge issued a questionnaire. One part of the questionnaire that I like to point out to everybody that the judge issued is one where he talked about the case in general, because when the way jury selection is going to work starting Monday is he's going to call a group of people into the courtroom and he's going to read them some preliminary instructions and those preliminary instructions he's then going to ask anybody if based on these questions and these instructions, is there anybody who who feels they can't sit for this case or feels they can't be fair

and impartial for this particular case? Or do you have a hardship that makes it so that you can't serve? Or are you not a resident of Manhattan? Can you not hear? Things like that that would actually prevent people from being a juror. He's just going to excuse all of those jurors without questioning them further, anyone who self identifies that they can't serve. He's doing that to expedite things because in New York State, a defendant has a right

to be present at all of those, with all of those discussions. Most of the time, those types of discussions are done privately. The judge was talking about how difficult it would be to have all the parties and the Secret Service and Trump and everybody to have to go and talk to each individual juror. Let's just get rid of all the ones that are self-identified that they can't serve. And then we'll start with the questioning.

And again, this is very standard and very routine, especially in a case like this. And what the judge said, and I thought this was really key, and I just want to point it out to everybody, because some people in the media talk about it as a hush money case, as the porn star case, as Stormy Daniels, right? That's how it's talked about in shorthand. The problem with talking about it like that is it really doesn't characterize what the case actually is about or the gravity of the case. The judge really gets it because Alvin Bragg, when he indicted Donald Trump, filed a statement of facts. I think it was the same day or the next day. It was over a year ago, March. In it, he talked about

it as an election interference case. Interestingly, again, the media has been saying, oh, it's a hush money case that's only recently been called a election interference case by Alton Bragg. So again, I went back and I reread that statement of facts. No, and it's not recent. That's what it's been characterized as. It's the media has been calling it that, which really diminishes the importance of it, right? Compared to the insurrection Jan 6 case, compared to the stealing our nuclear codes Mar-a-Lago case, and of course, Fonny Willis is similar companion case to the Jan 6 case federally. This felt very not important, right? Why this case? It's not a big deal. And there was a lot of people who talked about it

very negatively. So I want to just go back to this case summary that Judge Juan Marchand issued this last week, saying this is what I'm going to tell the jurors that this case is about, because he has to ask questions and explain things to him. He says, the defendant Donald Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records

in the first degree. The allegations are in substance that Donald Trump falsified business records to conceal an agreement with others to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election. Okay? That's how the judge is characterizing this case. The more I think about this case, Popak, and the more I really think about what this is about, the more I think in some ways, this case is equally as serious, if not just as serious as his other cases. It doesn't sound like it when you hear about it because of course the other cases are so incredibly

shockingly serious, right? Stealing our nation's most coveted and must, our secrets, right? Are the keys to the kingdom and doesn't give them back and doesn't protect them and has them in bathrooms. I mean, it doesn't get more serious than that, right? It's just that that's that is something that is just absolutely treasonous. And the same with the the Jan six cases, right? The those cases were absolutely just stunning, right? With the people who lost lives and breaking into the Capitol and the fact that he tried to get Mike Pence to to not certify the election. But when you think about this case, okay,

this particular case is a case where he only won by 80,000 votes in the swing states. That's a stunningly, stunningly small number. In 2016, he won by the slimmest, slimmest margin. And the question we have to ask ourselves is, if this information had come out on the heels of the Access Hollywood tape, along with the suppressing the Karen McDougall story,

paying off the doorman story, and now this having an affair with a porn star story, would he have gotten those votes? Obviously, that calls for speculation and we don't know. But what if this, the fact that he did this, is the reason he won the 2016 election? And our democracy has forever changed, at least currently, as a result of that election. So I want to challenge anyone who says

this is not an incredibly serious case and that this case that's going forward starting next week is one of the most important cases of our lifetime. All right. So I agree with that. Let's talk about the getting ready. I don't think the stay is going to happen. I think it's 10 ways to Sunday is going to all fail. I don't think the appellate court at the full level of the five justices that will be assigned to any of these appeals are going to stop the trial from happening.

They may think that some of those issues need to be better addressed at the end of a trial, but they're not going to find it to be grounds for interlocutory appeal. But it's not going to stop Donald Trump, as you said, with two business days remaining to try to get some sort of attention. The latest one is an argument that's being raised today with Judge Murchon about immunity

and what… Tell people why he was scratching their hair. What immunity? I mean, he has no immunity for when he was running for office against Hillary Clinton prior to being elected president. This argument that, well, why don't we just wait to see what the Supreme Court does on the 25th of April and beyond about whether I have structural immunity or immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president for official acts.

What does it have to do with the issues that are being presented in this election interference case that had to do with Donald Trump trying to interfere with his own being elected in his own way. In much the way that we don't blow smoke or sunshine. Bill Clinton had a series of sexual misconduct issues that erupted. They used to call it the eruptions on the campaign trail when he was running for office, but it was a different time. It was the 90s.

It wasn't social media. And a lot of those stories were made to go away or the women were discredited rightly or wrongly and Bill Clinton got elected. But this was a horse of a different color, right? You've got, as you said, the Access Hollywood tape, hot mic moment from several years earlier, which he admits to sexually assaulting women

against their will, of course, and then trying to chalk it off to, well will, of course, and then trying to chalk it off to, well, I'm a celebrity and I get to get away with it. And yeah, I think you're right. I think when you have so few amount of people in the swing states, he won Pennsylvania by so little votes, that alone could have had a swung. And although I'm starting to question some of the electorate and their continued support for Donald Trump, but certainly it should have been an issue or a fact that would have

been important if it was known by the electorate. Meantime, the trial judge and rejecting, as he is, want to do all of these ridiculous last minute motions is ready to pick a trial, ready to pick a jury. It's going to be 12 members. There's going to be some alternates that are going to be selected as well. It has to be a unanimous jury. And there's a questionnaire, as you touched on, that's going to be used. They're not going to get to the heart of who's a Democrat, who's a Republican. But they are going to ask who knows the three percenters, who knows Proud Boys, who knows QAnon, who's been to a Trump rally, who's been to an anti-Trump rally.

They're going to get to it that way, people's sort of politics. But only if they can't find a group of fair-minded Manhattan people, Manhattan citizens, residents that can't be fair and impartial. I mean, Democrats can be fair and impartial, Republicans, the right ones, can be fair and impartial, and independents and the like. And so, you know, they'll find it. And you're like, you know, the perfect juror for Donald Trump is like, I don't know,

policemen, firemen, fire rescue, I don't know, people like that, I assume, based on some reporting, that that's what his trial team is interested in. And the Manhattan DA wants educated people who I'm sure they would like it to skew a little bit more female. But as long as they have educated people that are willing to listen to the evidence presented, I think the Manhattan DA is going to be fine, ultimately, with that. And then you've got this Allen Weisselberg issue, which we'll touch on here and then follow up on the other side of our sponsors.

We got Allen Weisselberg who, if he wasn't a twice convicted felon and now literally sitting at Rikers Island, would have been a good witness for the Manhattan DA if he could ever tell the truth because his fingerprints are all over the books and records fraud of this election interference component. It's a two-step crime, right? And that's how it gets to be a Class C felony. It's the business record fraud, which is a misdemeanor, but if you couple it in order to obtain the objective of another crime, which is the election interference part, even if it's federal in the way that the Manhattan DAs framed it, that ratchets it up and bootstraps it up to a felony and then an E-class felony. That's how we got to this. I know Donald Trump's calling it today like it's a

hoax, the hoax trial, because he got a lot of mileage out of that with the Russia hoax. He always likes to use all that kind of vocabulary. But we'll talk about why Allen Weisselberg is not going to be called by the Manhattan DA, at least, in the trial coming up that we just talked about. And we'll talk about, but he's not out of the woods yet, as we also have to return to the New York attorney general matter because of a bond problem for Donald Trump and an Allen Weisselberg problem for Donald Trump again. And Judge Angoran trying to get to the bottom of all of it

and the New York attorney general, hot on Donald Trump and Allen Weisselberg's trail. We'll talk about that and then we got to talk about Mar-a-Lago and what's going on with Judge Cannon and why she's slow footing everything and this constant battle much to the chagrin of Jack Smith with the Department of Justice and Special Counsel's Office that's being waged in real time by Judge Cannon. We'll talk about that. Then of course, we'll talk about why in Arizona the Supreme Court has decided we need to take a time machine and all go back to 1864 when it comes to what the people of the territory of Arizona thought was appropriate for women who did not have full rights under the law, did not have the right to vote and the rest. Why we should go back to look to those Civil

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that keeps on giving even after judgment of the New York attorney general civil fraud, $465 million plus running with 9% compounded interest annually against Donald Trump. Allen Weisselberg finds himself in a sticky wicket once again, notwithstanding the fact he's now sitting in Rikers Island, having been convicted a second time for perjury. While the Manhattan DA did him a solid and let him plead guilty to counts not related to him

lying under oath in the courtroom of Judge Angoran, he did lie under oath in the courtroom of Judge Angoran. He did lie under oath in the courtroom of Judge Angoran because he said the exact same thing there that he told the Manhattan DA, sorry, the New York Attorney General during their investigation and deposition of him. And now the judge wants to get to the bottom with the New York Attorney General fast on their trail about how did that happen that he testified falsely in front of this bench trial, the judge presiding over the trial with no jury on these key issues where he threw up his hands and said, I really don't know where they came up with that wrong estimate of the square footage of the triplex apartment Trump Tower.

I really have no idea to which Forbes magazine, and we'll try to find the clip, Forbes magazine ran in real time while he testified. Alan Weisberg just committed perjury because he gave an interview in the apartment and he waved his arms around. He said, look, 10,000 square foot of floor, three floors, triplex, 30,000, except it was 3,300 square feet of floor for three floors for 10,000. And that made the valuation of Trump Tower instead of 50 million on the books and records of Donald Trump and on its financial statements, 150 million. And that's a problem. And it's a problem for the lawyers too, because Chris Kise, Alina Haba, Cliff Robert, all represented both

Alan Weisselberg and Donald Trump. I mean, that's another example of why a bad lawyering, Cliff Robert, all represented both Allen Weisselberg and Donald Trump. I mean, that's another example of why a bad lawyering, you know, get your lawyer, get your clients different lawyers for this kind of same reason and then you won't be facing questions like, did you know that your client had committed perjury when he did and the documents that he used and all of that and why weren't those documents produced and then now they have to ask answer all of These questions so we got that going on and then before I turn it over to KFA got the bond issue Which is we know we thought oh, okay

Yeah, you know he got a you got a break from the first appellate the first department appellate division They lowered his bond to 175 million because he told him he couldn't find a bond for hire Which is not true and his bond to 175 million because he told him he couldn't find a bond for hire, which is not true. And we said, oh crap, they lowered it. Now he's going to post it. He's got enough cash. He went bragging around town, I got the cash, I'll post it.

And we thought, well, maybe he'll just post the cash and he won't have to deal with bonding companies. But no, he was already in discussions with Don Hanke, who is a Trump supporter, Trump donor, and he's the king of the subprime auto loan. He's the guy you go to and you have no or low credit. Hence Donald Trump finding Don Hanke. And Don Hanke, unlike a publicly traded charity company that is usually what you use for bonds at this level, he just, you know, he does his own due diligence, his own underwriting, which means no underwriting.

He said, well, Donald Trump seems like a good credit risk. I'll give him the $175 million bond, as long as he backs it with stuff, you know, real estate or cash or whatever it was. Although he doesn't know now where the cash came from or who it came from, which is a problem under anti-money laundering and bank secrecy act laws and patriot act laws. You're supposed to know your customer and know where you get your money from. And then

he filed this piece of paper that people that practice in New York were like, hmm, there seems to be a problem with this. Where is the financials that they're supposed to post along with it and tell the court that they have the wherewithal to back the $175 million. Then they posted the financials a day later and that was no better because the financials showed they were underwater. They didn't have enough surplus in order to make good on the bond should there be a problem. While they keep screwing around with the bond, the attorney general said, I have a right as the person you're trying to post the bond against. I can call the bond or have the bond proven. We'll prove the bond or have the bond proven.

We'll prove the bond in a proceeding, in an evidentiary hearing, and everybody can come in. Don Hanke can come in and his president can come in and they can talk about the assets that are backing the bond and why Don Hanke didn't find out where the cash is coming from. So this is going to be like blown up. We'll be able to cover it on Legal AF and on the Midas Dutch Network, which will be great, that particular hearing.

So the judge is very concerned. So the bond has currently not been accepted. Now in the meantime, Letitia James can't yet, yet, go and collect yet. But if that bond gets rejected at that hearing, which will be in the next week or so, I think it's a week after next, then she can start

collecting. She can go with the sheriff and levy against bank accounts of Donald Trump. She knows where they are through the Barbara Jones, the monitor, who's a former federal judge who sits over all of Donald Trump's assets with these superpowers. She can go start sucking money out of bank accounts, like all the cash that he has that he brags about. She can do lots of other things. If that bond fails, and Donald Trump's people, and I don't think they are, if they don't have a Plan B, which is like post the cash, $175 million plus in cash, she's going to start just going to the bank and not on the $175. That was the bond amount. Start collecting on her 465 plus running

interest. So, Karen, you followed also what happened with the Weisselberg perjury and now the bond amount. And what's your takeaway about what's going to happen next in those proceedings? So, the Weisselberg, look, that was just a sentencing today. It was a few seconds long. It was an agreed upon sentence. That's why he didn't say anything. And he came to court dressed to go back to Rikers in his sweats. He didn't come in a suit. And that's the way these agreed upon sentences are. They're just very pro forma. You literally show up and bring your toothbrush as they say. And the judge says, you know, are you ready to be sentenced? He says, yes, is there anything you have to say?

He says, no, and he goes to serve his time. And this is the second time he's done it, right? So he's a pro at this. He knows what it's like to be at Rikers. And he has clearly made the calculation in his mind that he can do that. And it's not that big of a deal for him. Certainly not worth having to testify against his old boss Donald Trump and that's clearly the calculation. He'd rather do time for Trump than not.

And so as a result, the prosecution is never going to call him as a witness. Look, they threw him a break, as you pointed out, and they didn't make him plead guilty to the perjury in court that he did, because that would have impacted the fact that he was on what's now called post-release supervision, which is the newer term for parole, which is an older term in New York. And it's this post-release, it's a supervision period that happens after you are released from prison. And they monitor you and you have to check in and drug test and those sorts of things. And if you violate it by committing another crime,

you can be put back in and have to serve much more time. And I guess they didn't want to make him do that. He's elderly. And they, I think, made the calculation that, look, he committed perjury. And so we're going to let him plead guilty to the time that he lied during the deposition, which was predated his sentencing in the tax case. So that way it doesn't trigger this violation of post-release supervision because you didn't commit a crime while you were out. Certainly, you weren't convicted of a crime while you were out. So it's very common to let a defendant who's charged with multiple counts to plead guilty to some and not all of the counts as part of a plea

deal. They probably decided to do it because they obviously have bigger fish to fry right now than go after Allen Weisselberg yet again for what, for more time. So they just, they entered into this agreement and they're not going to call him as a witness. He's useless as a witness. This is a trial against Donald Trump. He's not going to talk about Donald Trump. He's not going to say anything that hurts Donald Trump. And now he's lied under oath. Once you've committed perjury now, right, now that you are currently here, I think that's a tricky, you know, if this isn't like in your past or a long time ago or before you've

changed, you know, there's no kind of way of coming to grips with the fact that just a few short months ago you committed perjury. That makes you kind of tricky and not worth that much as a witness for the Manhattan DA's office. So I think that's why they're not gonna call him. Plus what's he gonna say

if he's not gonna talk about Trump, right? There's just no reason to call him as a witness. So he's going into Rikers. Of course, they could call him as a witness and so could Donald Trump, but he'll be coming in from the back to testify, not through the front. What they would do if Donald Trump or the government or the prosecution called him as a witness, he'd be woken up at three o'clock in the morning, put on a bus in Rikers Island, he'd be driven to court, he'd be given a suit by somebody would bring it to for him, he'd probably change into a suit in the back and then he'd come out the back door, he'd come through the back door into the straight into the courtroom

and he would testify and then he'd go back the same way as opposed to coming in through the front where witnesses who are at liberty come from. So that's the Weisselberg thing that I think they were hoping that he would flip on Trump and tell all, but he didn't. And instead he decided to take another bullet for Trump and the Trump organization and go back to Rikers Island. This Judge and Goran hearing that's going to happen that you just talked about, what I thought was interesting is that Judge and Goran and the Attorney General's office allowed the Manhattan DA's office to handle the perjury and not them. They really just sort of deferred to them because on the one hand, when you look at the fact that he committed perjury and he's a born perjury on the stand, you know, there's a couple of things to consider. It's not just Alina Habba and Chris Keiss, who I think knew that he changed his testimony, right? I mean, the Attorney General's office did too, right? They knew when he was testifying that he testified differently.

So, you know, it's just the question is, you know, it happened in that courtroom and, but they allowed the Manhattan DA's office to just deal with it. And I think again, with Judge Angoron, that he just wants to keep his eye on the ball, which is Trump and the Trump case and this hearing that's coming up

that we're gonna be having. Yeah, so we'll follow it. You'll follow it with Ben, I'll follow it. And we'll do it on the Midas Touch Network where I think people have come to trust that we don't blow smoke or sunshine. We try to give you our experience from operating in the courtrooms that we talk about. Karen and I practice primarily in New York. We both have

national trial practices. And, you know, listen, we do it through that lens, me primarily as defense lawyer and of course, Karen. Freeman Ignifilo served a long time, almost 30 years in the Manhattan DA's office. He was a very prosecuting agency that's putting on the trial. So who better to hear from? So now we've got the Manhattan, we covered the all things sort of Trump's trying to stop the trial from starting, this election interference trial. We've talked about the remnants in the wake of

Allen Weisselberg's new conviction and going to jail, but how it impacts the New York Attorney General case and all of that, and of course the bond hearing. And then coming up next, we're going to talk about the Mar-a-Lago case and what's going on with Judge Cannon. What is the locking of horns that's continuing between Jack Smith's team and Judge Cannon. Why? And is that really giving the appearance of justice being done in that particular courtroom?

And then we got to take that time machine back and find out why the Arizona Supreme Court thinks 1864 law should guide a woman's right to choose today. We'll do all of that. But first, another word from our sponsors. Ever tried to break a bad habit and felt like you're climbing Mount Everest in flip flops? Yeah, we've been there too. But here's a breath of fresh air, fume.

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on our editorial decision-making, what we do in terms of our content. They of course trust us to put on our content and we trust them to make good products and for our people we recommend them and that's how we got there. So let's kind of get into the home stretch of our episode today and talk about Mara Lago. You've been a prosecutor. You ever battle it out with a judge the way that this prosecutor is battling it out, pulling teeth every moment on every issue, trying to just get justice served. What do you think, Karen? Yes, I've had some pretty big battles

with some judges for sure. Nothing like this though. This is just utterly surprising to me how really lawless, frankly, Judge Eileen Cannon is being. She just really makes the most bizarre, unlawful, something nobody recognizes types of decisions and statements, etc., and just isn't really being kind of a good judge, if you will. And what really surprises me is I recently went back to see what was her background, because I can't figure it out. It's so elementary things that she's doing and not doing.

It's not even, it's like she still has the case on for trial next month when there's no way the case can go to trial next month because half a dozen or more pre-trial rulings that have to be made haven't been made. I mean, so there's no way that trial's going, but yet she doesn't change the date. It's just one small example. But the other thing about Judge Eileen Cannon that is just so strange, is I went back and looked at her background because I thought, it makes no sense.

Is she afraid of Trump? Is she not very smart? Is she inexperienced? Is it more sinister than that? And she's doing Trump's bidding, you know, and she's trying to to throw the case. I can't figure it out because that's how incredibly strange and and not good she's, you know, she's being. And so I I looked and Popak, she comes from the appellate

unit of the U.S US Attorney's Office in Miami. That's one of the most prestigious, really smart appellate divisions in this country. You can't have worked there for as long as she worked there and not have some brains. She would not have survived there. And so it really was just shocking, shocking to me that, you know, that that she's behaving this way. And it makes me think she's either, you know, trying to throw the case for Trump, or she's somehow afraid of Trump and needs to

kind of entertain so many of his arguments that make no sense. What do you think of this whole cannon, what she's doing on behalf of Donald Trump for Jack Smith? Well, I practice in the Southern District of New York. I'm a member of Southern District of Florida. I'm a member there. I didn't know Aileen Cannon per se, but I did early versions of analysis of her background. I didn't try to defend her. I just wanted to be sort of fair about the analysis. And I know people that know her. And I know where she went to school

in Coral Gables, Florida. I know other people that went there, private school down there. She went to a good university. She was a member of the Federalist Society when she was in law school. But as you said, she worked in the Appellate Division of the Department of Justice.

And frankly, not a lot of people, getting a federal judge position is pretty plump, is a pretty plump thing, but not a lot of people were beaten down the door of Marco Rubio, who is the senior senator from Florida in order to fill the position that was open in the Fort Pierce division of Florida, which is like the hinterlands as far as I'm concerned. Sorry, Fort Pierce people, above West Palm Beach.

It's a small courthouse, got like one judge in it. And they were looking for a type. They were looking for a young, inexperienced judge who was a Federalist society, Hispanic American, preferably a woman to fill a job. And somebody recommended Aileen Cannon and she got the job. She lived up there. Her husband has a job up there. We've done some hot takes about some issues

her husband has with some companies that he's worked for. But there weren't that many takers for that particular job. I know people that sort of line up. If it was a Miami position or Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach, there would have been a lot more. And then unfortunately, when the wheels spun and they filed the case at West Palm Beach, they were shooting for her, I think. And because of senior status of some judges and some judges that aren't taking cases and other things, it landed on her, even though she's in Fort Pierce, not in West Palm Beach, which isn't really convenient for anybody.

But I can't make heads or tails of it. And the only way you can explain it is to state the obvious, which is she seems to be biased against the Department of Justice. She has from the very beginning when she tried to interfere with the prosecution of the case, the investigation of the case, even before it became an indicted, Donald Trump became indicted, which is really odd and so odd that the 11th Circuit, her bosses slapped her back twice and admonished her about doing that.

And then I thought, well, maybe she's chased from, maybe she's chasing from that. Maybe she's, her wings are singed and she'll make better decisions. No, that hasn't happened. She's, wherever she can help Donald Trump, either through delay or rulings, she has, and that has put the government at a tremendous disadvantage more so than the one they already have, which is they're burdened with a higher level of burden to prove at trial. But they don't need to be, you know, it's enough to have the defense on the other side and the law that they have to comply with. But now they got a judge who's got her finger on the scales, it looks

like. And he's just biding his time waiting for the right moment to take it to the 11th, to the 11th circuit. And I'm sure it's been frustrating and to much consternation of Jack Smith that he hasn't yet found that moment. Because if he had, you would have already done it to get her back before the 11th circuit and seek potentially her reassignment. He's waiting for her to make that big wrong decision. And the problem is she doesn't make decisions on purpose. She finds ways to make half decisions and sort of decisions or when she grants something,

it looks like a win for the prosecutor. When you read it deeply, it's really not a win. It could create a double jeopardy problem at the trial, which is devastating to the defense if that were to happen, allowing him, allowing the jury to be improperly instructed ultimately, and he gets acquitted is a bad thing for the prosecution and he's worried about that. And so we're going to, you know, he's focused on it.

Look, let's be honest. Right now, Jack Smith has two major cases against Donald Trump. Same office, office of the Independent Council. One of them is on pins and needles and has stayed subject to whatever he can convince the United States Supreme Court to do on April 25th. He just filed his brief, which I thought was as always masterful, and gave them an exit ramp in the brief to masterful and gave them an exit ramp in the brief to even if they find that there's something about Donald Trump that was part of his official duties and they want to give former presidents official duty immunity, the things in the indictment that have been alleged are not part of his official

duty. They're private acts for a private purpose and private means, to which Donald Trump has basically conceded because he keeps saying First Amendment, which is a private right. So they say, even if you want to go there, here's the exit ramp for you to make a small decision to keep this indictment on track. So one of his cases is hanging in the balance in the twilight with its existential existence held in the hands of the right wing of the Supreme Court. And we'll get a ruling, sure, before they go on summer vacation in June, but maybe not before that, which gives very little time for Judge Chutkin if she adds on the 90 days, 89 days that she said she was going to add on to allow for prep. Then you're talking about late summer trial starting before November.

His other trial, he had two, right? If you subscribe to the portfolio method, you get a lot of cases up and running and hope that you can get one or two of them up and running. His other case is in front of Judge Cannon, and he can't seem to get her out of first gear when it comes to setting this trial or doing the things necessary to get this trial prepared for trial. And so he's got to be pulling out his hair or his beard hair or whatever it is, because he's got these two really strong cases. Putting aside all the crap with Cannon, who doesn't think that the evidence against Donald Trump, when it's finally presented to a jury in the Southern District of Florida, with the witnesses that will be testifying against him, including

executive assistants, housekeepers, and maintenance workers, and IT workers, who are all involved with this conspiracy, wittingly or unwittingly, and lawyers for Donald Trump, when they all put on that evidence and what's in the box, who doesn't think he's going to get convicted there? At least, I mean, I think he is. But we have to get to that. We got to get to the merits of the case in a courtroom with a jury. And so, and then you got his other strong case with the four counts that are listed there. And he's got all the witnesses in the war. He's got enough witnesses for five trials. The department, Trump's Department of Justice

testifying against him. Trump's White House counsel testifying against him. Trump's personal lawyers testifying against him. Elected officials testifying against him, including ultimately Lindsey Graham and Mike Pence. Election officials testifying against him, including, you know, ultimately, Lindsey Graham and Mike Pence, election officials testifying against him. People that are cooperating, people that aren't cooperating. I mean, you know, there's more than enough evidence here to prove the case, but he's got to get to the merits and to a jury and back to Judge Chutkin.

So it's very, what we're watching is like the frustration of justice at the current moment and Jack Smith's reactions to it. So we'll continue to keep a close eye on it along with our colleague, Ben Misalas, whose special personal jam is anything related to Classified Information and Procedures Act. I'm begging him to do a Patreon exclusive video on that. I'll get him to do it. But let's talk about frustrating maddening and just morally and just disheartening is what's going on in Arizona. I thought we were gonna be talking about Florida in which Florida sprung back to life a six week ban

in Florida against the woman's right to choose. I thought that was bad. that's going to be on the book starting May 1st based on their Florida Supreme Court ruling, subject to a ballot initiative to amend the Florida Constitution in November. So abortion on the ballot again in a battleground state of Florida. I thought that we're going to talk about that. And then Arizona came in with Arizona Supreme Court against the advocacy of the Attorney General of the state, Chris Mays, ruled that a pre-statehood law on the books in the territory of Arizona in 1864, which bans outright a woman's ability to obtain an abortion at any period of time, even pre-viability, unless the life of the mother is at stake,

which as you pointed out at prior, legal AF is basically no exception. And we've now gone back to Civil War, pre-Civil War, as Chris Mays, the Attorney General, takes a courageous moral position and legal position as that she's not going to prosecute under it. Even though the attorney, even though the Arizona Supreme Court has said that a warning to doctors, if you violate this this ban from 1864 you could be prosecuted. Chris May says I'm not prosecuting and I'm gonna I'm gonna call on the state house to do the right thing and take that law off the books. But the problem in the Arizona state house is it's controlled even with a narrow majority by Republicans, by MAGA. And now you got Donald Trump bringing back politics

at the intersection of law. He's out there, you know, flip-flopping and waffling about, oh, national ban, but I really would like 15 weeks, but states should decide. Well, a state just decided. Arizona on the heels of Florida. This is what happens when Donald Trump,

who takes credit, give credit where credit is due, he overturned Roe vs. Wade by getting the ability to appoint his three justices, including Amy Coney Barrett, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh. They got the numbers and they ripped away for the first time in the history of our Constitution Republic. A right that had been given to a group was taken away in the Dobbs decision two years ago in March. And this is the real world impact of that state by state. 21 states now ban abortion. Most of them

outright are at the six-week level and the other 29 states don't. And so now you have a civil war again, right? You have culture war and moral war going on and women are not treated equally across our 50 states because in 21 states, they have no right to choose and they are second class citizens. So Karen, why don't you pick up Arizona, Florida, and from your perspective. It's just so depressing to read this decision. You know, it was the fact that we're going back to 1864, truly. And I just can't I can't even fathom this decision. And then the things that they said in there and the way they talked about it. And it's just it's so upsetting in so many ways.

I actually skimmed through the decision and went to the dissent first, because I was hoping I wanted to get the real perspective that I could then use as a lens to read this through. And that wasn't much better either, because frankly, you know, what the dissent argues is no, no, let the newer law stand, which bans it at 15 weeks. Now, somehow the 15 week ban is the gold standard in Arizona, not the all-out ban, right? And so I'm thinking they're both bad. This whole thing misses the point. There shouldn't be any law governing abortion. Because this whole decision is about which law controls. Is this 1864 law that is still on the books or is it this the new law that went into effect as soon as

Dobbs came out in 2002 giving it a 15-week ban and so the dissent is like no no let the 15-week one stand and really the point is neither one should stand this is just an outrageous situation that we're in and so it's just upsetting, and it needs to be fixed. It needs to change. And the other thing that really upset me too is the thing that the governor said about, I'm not, sorry, not the governor, the state attorney general said she's not going to prosecute it. It's courageous. Those are nice words, but they are meaningless. And I'll tell you why they're meaningless number one No doctor is gonna risk it is the law that went into effect

Actually punishes the doctors who perform the abortion or anybody who assists in an abortion There's only an exception for For saving a woman's life Not rape or incest or anything else like that. And no doctor is going to risk criminal prosecution. So it effectively bans all abortion, even even though she says that. And the other thing, too, is just like in New York, you have an attorney general, but you also have local prosecutors. So even though she says she's not going to prosecute it, there are local prosecutors. So even though she says she's not going to prosecute it, there are local prosecutors.

If you have extreme right wing prosecutors, they could bring a case too. So unfortunately, until this is voted on and I guess put in the constitution and repealed, you have to actually explicitly repeal one of these statutes if you want this to go into effect. But again, even if they repeal the 1864 law, you're still going to be left with this 15-week abortion ban. So something's got to change in a really big way. Otherwise, there will be no access to reproductive rights in Arizona like in so many other states. And that's just the direction that we're heading in. That's, you know, the effectively the entire south when you look at a map of the states that are now, you can't have any access to abortion. It's the almost the entire south. And it's really only,

just start is really stunning just how it is shaken out. I think November is going to be more important than ever when when people go out to vote and they're going to have to really vote. This is going to be one where where women have to come out and force and vote with their heels because it's just outrageous what's happening and the rights that are being taken away from women, right? It's all about that. That's what's so shocking is that we're actually going backwards. It's one thing for people to argue, oh, we're going too far, you know, but to go backwards is outrageous. And, and this is just fundamentally, fundamentally something that I think that that the only way out of this is through voting. So it can't it's it hopefully, there's a silver lining to this and hopefully

decisions like this will actually cause more people and more women to come out and vote and vote against the right wing MAGA extremists, even if the, the politician that's on the ballot, the option that's on the ballot, even if you don't love them, even if you think Joe Biden is too old, which I have heard some people say, even if you don't love all his policies, you have to, you know, somebody explained it to me once that I thought was just such a great, a great way of looking at it when you're thinking of who to vote for. It's not, don't think of it more like a marriage. Think of it, you

know, like, oh, who's the one, you know, that I want to fall in love with. And I love everything about them. Like, don't think of it like a marriage. Think of it like, oh, who's the one that I want to fall in love with and I love everything about them? Don't think of it like a marriage. Think of it like public transportation. You're looking for the one that goes the closest to where you want to go at the closest time you want to go. And that's who you vote for. And there's no way, there's no way that people in this country want this to be the way it is, that they want it to be where a doctor is talking to a woman and she has found out that, and this is something personal, not my story, but someone close to me who was pregnant and the child had hydrocephaly pregnant and the child had hydrocephaly and the child would have been, you know, which is water on the brain and there was no way that that child was going to either was going

to live and certainly not live for a very long time. And that's what, you know, that's what the diagnosis was. And it was the hardest decision in the world for this close person to me to make, to have to have an abortion, but it was a personal decision that she and her doctor made. Another person I know who was pregnant with a child, and they felt like it was a child, but they felt they had, but her, she was having severe health issues. Her life wasn't imminently in danger, but if they let it proceed, it would have, and it would have been in danger. The idea that you have to let someone's health deteriorate to the point where their life is actually

at risk as opposed to it's going to happen and to have to carry you know who they felt was a child longer knowing that it was a choice, a binary choice, right? She was gonna die if she kept carrying it. It's just it's just not right. You know these are painful really difficult decisions that people make even in the best of circumstances and you know every person I know who's had to make the decision, no one uses it as a form of birth control. No one does this because they want to.

This is just a very difficult decision that they make with their healthcare provider. Unfortunately, states like Arizona have just wound back the clock to the point where now, I think, if this continues to be the case, places like Planned Parenthood in those places are going to have to change their business model where when you walk into an abortion clinic, rather than getting an abortion, you get a ride to the airport and a plane ticket, and you're going to have to come in a hotel, and you're going to have to come to another state to get it. That's got to be the new business model because otherwise,

how are people going to have access to this important medical need? So anyway, that's- Well, the problem with the last one is you've got states like Texas that are trying to criminalize people going across the state. Then you're going to be back at the Supreme Court, or you're going to try to have to decide whether the Interstate Commerce Clause protects them on this non-constitutional right. Yeah, they're saying they're going to say states want to pass laws that say that a fetus conceived in their state is a citizen of that state and to have an abortion anywhere, it's murder. No worse, an embryo conceived in their state, not even a fetus. Yeah. They're doing it from heartbeat or below. No worse, an embryo conceived in their state, not even a fetus.

They're doing it from heartbeat or below. But we'll continue to follow it. I do a lot of hot takes on it. Karen, of course, has a unique perspective on it. On the keeping us updated, we got an O for three. Donald Trump, every time he goes to the Appellate Division First Department, which is the intermediary court in New York that sits in Manhattan over Judge Mershon in the trial that starts next week, every time he goes there to try to get an emergency stay from another of a series

of justices that happened to be the duty judge that day for emergency applications, he loses. And he just lost again, this one in front of a third justice this week. I think he's still trying to get Justice Friedman, who gave him two stays in the past, but he's not getting Justice Friedman. He's getting different justices that happen to be on duty. You should check the duty roster when you go down there. And instead, we have the order. This is actually the Article 78 proceeding that Karen and I talked about, and I talked about in a hot take. This is the suit against the judge in lieu of an appeal, try to argue that he's doing quote unquote, unconstitutional things that

undermine voters and due process and whatever all that means. And in that case, talk about strange bedfellows, the judge is defended by the New York Attorney General's office who represents all judges in matters like that. And so you can see from what Salty just put up, there's an appearance by the New York Attorney General who's representing Judge Mershon. In that matter, they held a hearing. It's one of these little small chamber hearings that happens down at the courthouse on Madison Avenue. And the judge

listened to argument and there was some reporting about that argument. And they said, no, she's not granting a stay at this time related to the trial, to stop the trial based on the arguments that were made in that courtroom. So he's 0 for 3 this week. Doesn't mean he won't continue to try. Each of these appeals or Article 78 ultimately have a merits panel of five justices. I don't think they've been assigned yet and they're certainly not moving quickly. To do anything on an emergency basis, just because the duty judge doesn't do it doesn't mean the full panel can't, but they have it. And it's like you said, it's two business days. You know, we're picking a jury next week.

So I think that they are by not doing anything about this at the big merits panel level or signaling that they're not interested in anything that they're not buying anything that Donald Trump and his lawyers are selling at the current moment. And, you know, but he gets an A for effort. that they're not buying anything that Donald Trump and his lawyers are selling at the current moment. But he gets an A for effort. I mean, Donald Trump, he will, as you've said earlier, he's squealing, and he will try every which way to try to avoid. He'll try every trick in the book. He'll throw every sand in the gear he can. I have a question. Yeah, sure. Can he push them to rule so that he can then appeal further? Or is he stuck with this kind of They're just slow, you know, not not interested push push the court to rule a full panel

I mean he's filed I thought emergency applications in article 78 second He could send it enough. You could stand in a like a little nudging letter that says Ken Can you do something about this? But like the appellate courts, you know, they move on their own. But does he need to wait for the full ruling, I guess, in order to then take it further? Or can he just take this? Is it still pending? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. The merits of this appeal or the Article 78 haven't been ruled upon. You can't take it any higher. You can't take it to the Court of Appeals of New York because it's

in, it's where it's supposed to be. It's at the intermediary court level. He can't take it to the Court of Appeals of New York because it's where it's supposed to be. It's at the intermediary court level. I don't think he has a right to a direct appeal to the Court of Appeals in New York at all. And he certainly doesn't have the right, although we've speculated in some text chains among the Legal AF personnel. Will he try to jump tracks, jump the track and go to federal court? I mean, he could try. I mean, he's tried everything else, but I think he's not going to be able to do it over the weekend. And I don't think he's going to get a federal judge in the Southern District of New York

to pay attention to this or to think he has the right, some merit and some emergency application to a federal judge. And he has no direct appeal to the United States Supreme Court because while he was candidate Trump, he's alleged to have done all sorts of criminal and wrong things. I don't think even this Supreme Court's not interested in that. So I don't see that happening. I mean, I've been shocked before, but I don't see that happening. And I think it's going to be what happened last time when he tried everything to stop the tax fraud case.

Let's just remind everybody, he did this already. And the result was 12 people in a jury box two years ago found against two major entities of Donald Trump for 17 counts of tax fraud and convicted those entities. Donald Trump wasn't technically on trial, but wasn't he? And Al Weisselberg certainly was. We talked about him a lot today. And so just to give a little, a moment of optimism, every juror or grand juror that's ever taken a look at anything involving Donald Trump has voted against him 12 0 in The case I just talked about the tax fraud case. That's that then you have

9-0 in the EGene Carroll first case. So now we're at 21-0 and 9-0 again in the federal civil rape and punitive damage case E. Jean Carroll 2. So 30 different Manhattan jurors having heard evidence, sometimes hearing from Donald Trump in testimony and sometimes not, have all ruled overwhelmingly against him. And now we're starting trial number four, criminal trial number two, as far as I'm concerned, even though it's the first one against Donald Trump by name. And then all the, how about all the jurors, I mean the grand jurors that indicted him four times and special purpose grand juries that recommended his indictment. So Donald Trump does well in delay, but when we finally get to the merits and the rubber meets

the road, he generally loses. But we'll continue to track it. We only do it in one place. If you're confused, you've come to the right place. It's Legal AF. It's on the Midas Touch Network. Help them get the 3 million free subscribers before the November election. We are the network you've been looking for because you're building it with us. We don't have outside advisors. We're completely grassroots. And this is it, man. So the way to contribute or the way you can help keep us on the air, keep the content coming to you like this, Legal AF, on Wednesdays and Saturdays is there's a number of ways to do it. Most of them are free. You can do a thumbs up and leave actual comments. You can

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And then lastly, each of the leaders on legal AF, whether it's Ben Mycelis, Karen Freeman, Ignifilo or me, we do regular hot takes. And if you go over to the Midas Touch YouTube channel and you search under contributor or under playlist, you'll find all of Karen's hot takes, all of my hot takes, all Ben's hot takes. And there's a body of work there. So if you want to catch up or see what we did in the past, or you want to make sure you see the latest of one of

ours, that's where you would go. So until our next Legal AF, which is going to be this weekend on Saturday with Ben and myself, we'll pick up from here about everything that happened that's important at the intersection of law and politics. Karen had a run, so we are practicing lawyers and things happen, and she's asked me to close out the show and that's what I'm doing, as she has for me in the past when I've had to make a ferry or whatever I've had to do. So until our next Legal AF midweek, until our hot takes, until our Patreon exclusives, this is Michael Popok along with Karen Friedman, Ignifilow signing off. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.