Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Gets THROWN UNDER THE BUS by Co-Defendant in KEY Motion

Episode Date: February 24, 2024

Trumps henchman and co-conspirator in the Mar a Lago obstruction case just filed a motion to dismiss his indictment that actually hurts Trump’s case. Michael Popok of Legal AF explains why Carlos ��the Maintenance Director” De Olivera’s motion concedes that Trump asked him to move 30 boxes and delete video footage, but claims it wasn’t a crime since he didn’t know exactly what was in the boxes. Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Call 1866 5-1-2600 or visit connexontario.ca. Please play responsibly. So Michael Popak, legal AF, would you believe we're just getting to the motion to dismiss phase of the Mar-a-Lago case in Florida against Donald Trump and two of his henchmen because of obstruction and espionage act?

We're just getting there now in almost the beginning of March because of Judge Aileen Catton's foot dragging and slow playing of this case. Well, all the motions to dismiss are now in. Just to show you how unusual this is. This case is scheduled for trial in May. Issues like the motion to dismiss the indictment, which has to do with the four corners of an indictment from over a year ago, should have been brought six months to eight months ago. And then if there's appellate issues, you bring them up earlier in the case. Now you have a motion to dismiss coming in March, even if they're denied against Donald Trump or granted, there's going to have to be an appellate process through the 11th Circuit and there goes and blows the May trial date. Now we got a new filing by Carlos

de Vieira, who is the maintenance worker, head of maintenance, who along with the valet bodyman butler, Walt Nauta, two of the henchmen, as alleged to the indictment, not only worked to obstruct justice by hiding boxes, by moving boxes away from lawyers for Donald Trump, like Evan Corcoran, away from the Department of Justice, away from the FBI, but also conspired to try to delete the video surveillance footage that Mar-a-Lago had showing the box movements and the Carlos, in this case of Carlos D. Olviera, that he, in his interaction with Evan Corcoran, who has cooperated with the government, indicated that Evan Corcoran, as the lawyer reviewing the documents, should avoid finding those documents that would be

harmful to Donald Trump and turning them over to the government. So all in the indictment. The indictment doesn't have to be a full presentation of all the evidence. And so now we have to contrast the four corners of the indictment against the motion to dismiss that Carlos just filed in the case,

along with four different motions to dismiss filed by Donald Trump at the same time. We'll do separate hot takes on those. Donald Trump is seeking to have the indictment against him dismissed under an application of the Presidential Records Act, under immunity, under an argument that Jack Smith was appointed improperly, that he's being funded by the Department of Justice

improperly violations of the Appropriations Act. I mean, any spaghetti that can throw against the wall to make it stick, they've tried, just like they did with Judge Chutkin. But now we've got, of course, Judge Aileen Cannon, who's sort of, let's just put it this way, unreliable when it comes to her decision-making in the case.

So ultimately, we're all going to end up at the 11th Circuit one way or the other, the Court of Appeals for this particular area. Let me break down Carlos de Alvierra's motion and tell you why that's a loser and why it actually bites Donald Trump in the backside. His major argument in his 19-page motion to dismiss is that even if everything is true in the indictment, there's no allegations that he knew or should have known what was in the 30 boxes that he moved. He basically has to concede because you have to take the indictment at face value and assume that everything in there as alleged is true. But then he has to argue, even if all of that is true, there's no crime.

So he argues for the counts related to obstruction, which he's been charged with. And there's three of those, including his role in participation in trying to get the cooperating witness, uh, you seal Tavares, who was the IT director for Mar-a-Lago, or IT worker, to delete the server footage, the security footage. Let's just break it down, we'll stay with boxes and then we'll go with video. The argument of the motion to dismiss on boxes is, he didn't know what was inside.

Yes, there's plenty of photos that I'm sure Jack Smith will point out to the judge that show boxes broken open and spilling open in Mar-a-Lago before the execution of the search warrant when they were stored in the ballroom and in bathrooms and in storage clouds. It's in his office with classified folders falling out. But he had no idea. He just thought he worked at a like a storage unit, like a, like a storage place, helping a friend move. Right?

I just was moving 30 boxes because the, the former president of the United States told me to now look, there is plenty of cooperating witnesses with the government who I'm sure will be revealed in the opposition papers in the motion to dismiss who have told the government something along these lines. The Walt Nauta was the number one henchman for Donald Trump as his butler. He enlisted Carlos de Olviera to help him that they both knew implicitly, tacitly what they were doing and why they were doing it. It wasn't a maintenance job. It was hiding boxes first from Donald Trump's main lawyer

who was interfacing with the government, Evan Corcoran, who's also cooperating with the Department of Justice and turned over 50 pages of single space handwritten notes about his interactions with Carlos and Donald Trump. And then you've got all the other people around it like the executive assistants. There's at least two of them that are cooperating with the government, along with

other workers and housekeepers and things, because this is a hotel. And so there's lots of people that have testified already to the government. And so it is, it is, it does not pass the straight face test or the reasonable person test that, that to believe that Carlos didn't know why he was moving the boxes and that he wasn't told why and why these particular 30 boxes, nor that he didn't know what was inside of it, that he didn't ask and he couldn't see with his own two eyes, classified folders falling out of these boxes.

So you have that. Then you have the interaction between him, Carlos, and the lawyer for Donald Trump who was responsible for interfacing with the Department of Justice when we were just at the subpoena phase. Because for those that are just new to this, this didn't start with the execution of a search warrant and a knock on the door by the FBI. This started with a series of voluntary requests for the return of the material from the, from the National Archive to Donald Trump's first set of lawyers, then his second set of lawyers. And when they, he, he sent back, and when Donald

Trump sent back a slow dribble of documents and the National Archives said, Oh crap, there's classified documents in here. What else does he have and kept making more demands? That's when Donald Trump as a legend of the indictment started telling his lawyers around him, I don't want to turn these boxes over. They're mine. They have no right to them. Can't we just tell them we complied?

And of course he was counseled all along the way that that's a crime. When cooperating, witnesses started to cooperate with the FBI and with the Department of Justice and then the special counsel, they knew that Donald Trump had lots of boxes that were moving around in a giant shell game of which Carlos, the persons that's moved

to dismiss this indictment was a major part, including the video surveillance footage, which I'll get to next, being deleted to obstruct justice. And then that's when the subpoena got issued, ultimately by the grand jury in the District of Columbia. And then we have all the testimony about how Donald Trump did not want to and obstructed complying with the subpoena. And again, when the cooperating witnesses told the Department of Justice, that ain't all

there is that folder of 38 documents that Evan Corcoran sealed and had Christina Bob, another lawyer's sign, that was a classic hospital pass to Christina Bob. Here, sign here, you say you looked at them. And she signed under penalty of perjury that everything in the folder was complete when they knew or should have known there were dozens and dozens of other boxes that they didn't get access to

Because Donald Trump moved that's the miss in the motion to dismiss They argue that all he did was move the boxes into the room to let the lawyer look at them. That's not true He also moved with Walt Nauta and others boxes out of the room out of the watchful gaze of the lawyer for Donald Trump. So he wouldn't even know what, you know, he didn't even know the known unknowns. He didn't know what he wasn't looking at because those boxes had already been removed. And Carlos de Olviera was involved with that. Did you know that your temperature at night can have one of the greatest impacts on your sleep quality?

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Again, that's trymiracle.com slash legalaf to treat yourself. Thank you Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. So it's a whole bunch of convoluted arguments that basically boil down to, Thank you Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. which includes his interactions, trying to obstruct justice with a lawyer for Donald Trump in the room, Evan Corcoran, his discussions with Walt Nauta, the butler, and then his involvement with trying to delete the video footage.

Well, if you're just moving boxes, well, then why do you think the boss, as alleged in the indictment, wanted the surveillance video of you moving those boxes around, deleted. And you participated in that conversation as alleged in the indictment. So these are all means and methods of a conspiracy as alleged properly in the indictment, which he's trying to parse and trying to argue his way out of it. But I think he's really just biting Donald Trump in the backside. Because the takeaway from my read of the motion to dismisses,

he almost has to concede that he moved the boxes around, but he's sort of blaming Donald Trump for not telling him what was inside of it. But any reasonable person in his position, and that's what the law requires, would have suspected that this is not him just moving dead letters and that this is not him just moving dead letters and things that aren't of consequence. Donald Trump's just moving around like his old files from his real estate development days in New York. No one believes that. You don't delete video footage. At some point, your brain alarm has to go off, Carlos, thinking maybe those boxes weren't ordinary boxes now that I'm being asked to delete the video footage. But now it's all in the hands of alien cannon, the judge.

And if it was Judge Chutkin when she got motions like this, on behalf of Donald Trump, I think, all right, well, this is gonna be easily dispatched and denied. And then Donald Trump can go take his inevitable appeal to the 11th Circuit. But I'm not so sure with her. And that's why they pressurized her on the defense to try to leverage against her these five different motions that are dismissed for by Donald Trump and won by Carlos de Oliveira.

And I'm sure we're gonna get something by Walton now to. And because the more you throw at her, the more potentially confused over her skis, underprepared, she will be trying to get a bad decision out of her, but at least puts Trump in a positive light before he takes the, before the appeal goes to the 11th circuit. They just want any win at all from her. That's a little throw five at her thinking maybe we'll win too. And the Department of Justice is increase increasingly frustrated by Aileen Cannon because they got to fight off these cockamamie motions and then take it up to the 11th

Circuit. Now look, let me leave the hot take on this. The 11th Circuit is waiting patiently to make another ruling, I believe, against Aileen Cannon. They already reprimanded her before the case even led to an indictment. pre indictment when she tried to interfere with the search warrant issue and did all sorts of things by setting up special masters and monitors and all this stuff. The 11 circuit, two separate panels, including one, including, that included the chief justice of the 11 circuit William Pryor both told her, what are you doing? You're violating the cardinal rules of a trial judge. You stay out of the prosecution's investigation process

and you only deal with things once an indictment comes out. Now, a year later, here we go, motions to dismiss the indictment. Here's your chance, but it's also the chance for the 11th Circuit to not only reverse her again, but of course that could take another month or two off the clock, but also remove her. And they can remove her, the appellate court can remove Aileen Cannon right now if they wanted to,

or when the next round of appeals come up. And without a motion by Jack Smith, although I've argued in prior hot takes, that there will likely be a motion or relief asked for by Jack Smith to remove alien kind of from the case based on her continued fumbling of the law and making reversible error decisions in an important matter and just get her off the case. Now would be the time where two months from a potential trial. But look, if this motion practice related to these motion, Donald Trump's and Carlos de Olviera, if they go their normal course with her and she stretches out the motion practice, we're not going to have her rulings until the end of March or beginning of April, meaning then we take an

appeal up to the 11th circuit, which has shown in the past, they'll, they'll move quickly. They may move quickly, but the May date for trial is taken off the board against Donald Trump, which is exactly what he wanted. So now he's got the March 25th trial in New York for the criminal prosecution case. And we're gonna see probably this upcoming week, what the United States Supreme Court is gonna do

with the immunity appeal. I have a hot take up right now that speculates my reasoned opinion that they're going to deny the absolute immunity. We're just waiting. The delay for the last week has been waiting on like somebody like Alito and Thomas Supreme Court justices to write their dissent. And that's what they're waiting for to deliver the whole thing in one package. At any event, the upshot of all

of this is it is almost a 0% chance. There is a 0% chance that the case for Mar-a-Lago against Donald Trump is going in May. Maybe it could be rescheduled for September, but look how close we're getting to the November election on a federal trial. And it won't be completed then. It won't be completed in time before the November election, which means at the time that people vote, the only data point they're going to have, not only, but as part of the data points that they have, I should say, is going to be a likely conviction of Donald Trump in New York for a class E low-level felony for business record fraud. That's important. I think to the electorate's decision-making, they already know that he lost a $500 million fraud finding against him, that he committed

persistent fraud over the last 10 years in the operation of his business in New York, which is a major hit to his successful businessman, you know, Titan of the industry, real estate industry mythology about him. Do you have that? You've got the sex assault rape defamation punitive damage case twice by E. Jean Carroll. You've got the other indictments that have gone on. And you may have, and I believe you will, by July, a trial led by Judge Chutkin in the DC election interference case against him. These are the data points people are going to have to use against President Joe Biden's body of work in 50 years in the public eye and what his

administration has done domestically and foreign over the last, you know, by the time we roll around the election, well, over the last three and a half years. That's it. That's the choice. We don't blow smoke or sunshine here on the Midas Touch Network. I don't do it on my hot takes. And then we co, Ianchor a show called Legal AF on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8pm Eastern time. The name means exactly what you think. We do five or so stories at the intersection of law and politics, legal analysis that we

think you need to know. And we do it right here on the Midas Touch YouTube channel and then an audio podcast platforms of your choice. So until my next hot take, until my next legal AF, this is Michael Popak reporting.