Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Gets UTTERLY DEVASTATED in ALL Cases

Episode Date: January 14, 2024

Trial attorneys Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back with a new episode of the weekend edition of the LegalAF podcast. On this end of 2023 episode, they debate/discuss: the upcoming E Jean Carroll ...PUNITIVE damages case against Trump that starts this week, with the Judge taking steps to protect the anonymous jury from Trump sowing chaos at the trial; the closing arguments in the NY Civil Fraud case against Trump, with Trump violating all rules and jumping up to attack the judge and attorney general again; the DC Court of Appeals grilling Trump’s lawyer and turning his arguments to ashes over whether Trump has immunity from any criminal prosecution; and whether Judge Cannon is about to dismiss the Mar a Lago indictment; and so much more from the intersection of law, politics and justice. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! Miracle Made: 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. Beam: Get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to https://shopbeam.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF at checkout! Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to https://RocketMoney.com/legalaf Earth Breeze: Subscribe to Earth Breeze today and save 40% at https://EarthBreeze.com/LEGALAF SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop NEW LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Bet on the NFL with Bandual, official sports put partner of the NFL. Download the app today to see why we're North America's number one sports book. 19-plus and physically located in Ontario, gambling problem called 1865-3126-100 to visit connectsontario.ca. Tuesday, January 16th, 2024 at 9.30am, Donald Trump's next trial begins. This is in the E. Jean Carroll, other defamation trial. This for statements, Donald Trump made in 2019 while he was disgracing his office, Donald Trump, was already found liable by a jury in a previous E. Jean Carroll case for sexual
Starting point is 00:00:41 abuse and defamation back in May, a5 million dollar judgment was entered against Trump then and in this upcoming trial it is all about damages against Donald Trump for those 2019 defamatory statements and lots of damages indeed per usual Donald Trump tried desperately to delay trial including invoking the death of his mother-in-law, despite the fact that that ain't stopping him from going around the country and attacking prosecutors and doing all the other things that he's doing. But Donald Trump unable to delay trial.
Starting point is 00:01:16 It starts this week. Trump is now onto the wine and threatened stage of the predictable behavior we've seen. Closing arguments were held in the New York Civil broadcast last week after 11 weeks and 44 days of trial. Donald Trump wanted to give part of the closing argument himself, but originally would not agree to follow the rules that every other lawyer and litigant must follow. Despite being told if you're not going to follow the rules, then you can't give a closing statement.
Starting point is 00:01:52 That didn't stop Donald Trump from jumping in during the closing statements and giving one of the most unhinged and bizarre performances ever. And then storming out of the courtroom and running to one of the properties he has an interest in at Forty Wall Street which is also the site of the fraud that's being alleged in that civil fraud lawsuit. Justice Arthur Engoran said he expects to deliver a ruling by January 31st. Then we're going to go to Washington, D.C. where oral arguments were held earlier in the week in the federal criminal case involving Trump's attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. Donald Trump's lawyers argued that absolute immunity means that Donald Trump could directly order the SEAL team six to kill political opponents. And there would be no criminal consequences
Starting point is 00:02:46 unless he was impeached by the House, convicted by the Senate, and he would be granted absolute total immunity for engaging in conduct like that. Later in the week, including at this bizarre press conference Donald Trump held after closing arguments concluded in the New York Attorney General Civil for on-case, Donald Trump reiterated that yes, indeed, he believes that he has the power to order seal team six to kill political operative political opponents.
Starting point is 00:03:13 And he would receive absolute immunity for that. Finally, we're going to go to Florida, the Southern district Florida district court where judge Eileen Cannon in the Mar-a-Lago document case where Trump's being charged with willful retention of national defense information, Judge Cannon continues to just butcher her docket and the law. She's invented her own procedures at this point under the classified information procedure act rather than following what the statute makes very clear she's supposed to do. She's also denied without prejudice the government's fairly standard request that Donald Trump or any criminal defendant in that position disclosed if they
Starting point is 00:03:55 will be making an advice of counsel defense which just means a blame your lawyer defense before trial. Judge Cannon says requiring Donald Trump to do this at this stage is premature. Well, she uses the term premature trials for months away based on her nonsensical schedule in order set to start on May 20 of 2024. I F I'm Ben Myceles of course joined by my co-host Michael Popak a very Eventful week indeed Michael Popak and I just want to start off by just showing you the stakes right here And this is why you and I do this show and why it's so important that we promote a literacy in our legal system because this is exactly What Donald Trump is trying to create. And this is what Trump posted this morning. He goes, thank you to Sammy the Bull. I hope judges and Goran and Kaplan see this.
Starting point is 00:04:57 We need fairness, strength and honesty in our New York courts. We don't have it now. Donald Trump citing Sammy the rat grovano, a murdering psychopath, former under boss for the Gambino crime family, who admitted to killing in cold blood at least 19 people, including his closest friend and brother-in-law, Trump is citing him as a character witness in his court cases that we are talking about, and using it as a way to threaten no doubt the judges and our judicial system. This is what we are dealing with, not from a both sides perspective.
Starting point is 00:05:43 It's coming just from one side, and it is a shameful thing to see. But I want to get into that because it's why evidence, admissible evidence, our judicial system, following the rules is so important. Popak, how are you, sir? I'm doing great. It's a great lead. Yeah, at any time you're citing a mob boss who was in witness protection and killed 20 people as your character reference, it's probably, I don't know, what a constituency of your base you're appealing to there, those that are in witness protection or wannabe. And I went back and there's a hot take, well, I'll do, I won't do it here, there's a hot take that I've done. I went back to the clip of Sammy, the bull gravado,
Starting point is 00:06:25 who has a podcast, not on our network, thank God. Commenting about Donald Trump. And even there, it's not a favorable comment about Donald Trump. He didn't say that he's incorruptible, which is what Donald Trump wants that to say. What he said was that Donald Trump has a mafia organized crime like cocoon around him in the 1980s and 1990s because
Starting point is 00:06:46 of his father's money combined with X FBI agents that were protecting him and he couldn't get to him. That's different than I got to him. He wouldn't take a bribe. That's much different. So if you're going to cite Sammy the Bull Gravano for some sort of moral character reference, at least get it right. Look, the leading candidate for the Republican party on at least 48 state ballots, this last week alone is facing a $400 million or more verdict or judgment by a judge who's going to finally lay waste to the lie that Donald Trump is a successful real estate mogul without having perpetrated persistent fraud in all of his operations over the last 10 years as he comes up on a trial not the trial that we all want here on legal
Starting point is 00:07:35 AF not the criminal trial, but another civil trial very important, especially to the victim and to justice about him raping and then defaming and it's not another the victim into justice about him raping and then defaming. And it's not another defamation case as the press has reported it. It is a punitive damage case only. Liability has already been established in E. Jean Carroll. So he faces that this week with his lawyers as the DC court of appeals basically performed,
Starting point is 00:07:59 especially led by Judge Pan, and we'll talk about later, performed basically on the air live autopsy of John Sauer, the lawyer for Donald Trump ripping out his heart and showing it to him based on questioning that went searingly right to the heart of the illogic of their multiple arguments strung together to try to argue that Donald Trump had immunity from criminal prosecution and should have his indictment dismissed. All that and so much more on this episode of Legal AF. Love the imagery, Michael Popak.
Starting point is 00:08:33 And here's a simple way to think about who's winning or losing in these various Donald Trump cases. Donald Trump's always losing, okay? Other than before Judge Eileen Cannon, but there has not been a final resolution, obviously, of that matter yet. And later in this episode, I'll tell you what I think is going to be happening there. I mean, he's prevailed in these procedural skirmishes where Judge Eileen Cannon is desperately trying to avoid making any order and trying to delay the proceedings, because she knows she's
Starting point is 00:09:05 going to get immediately reversed by the 11 circuit court appeals as soon as she makes her first substantive order. Think about this, Michael Pope, we're recording this on January 13th Saturday and Judge Eileen Cannon in that case on a very simple case. Did Donald Trump steal the documents? Did he willfully possess these documents? Did he fail to return them? That's simple case. Did Donald Trump steal the documents? Did he willfully possess these documents? Did he fail to return them? That's the case. She's failed to make a substantive order, just issuing these paperless scheduling orders because she's learned all the wrong lessons
Starting point is 00:09:37 from when she was previously overturned by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals because she issued an order there too soon. And the 11th Circuit said, no, you are doing something here that no judge in the history of America has ever done one of the most scathing reversals I have ever read. So her lesson is, nah, should I do the right thing? No, let me just do the wrong thing, but let me just delay the inevitable. But that is one of the mo's of Trumpism, right? Delay, delay, delay the inevitable. Compound and make matters worse.
Starting point is 00:10:12 And that's what Donald Trump has always tried to do. But your simple chart is if Donald Trump is the one doing the suing, if he's the plaintiff, he will lose. Donald Trump suing Michael Cohen, loser. And Donald Trump dismissed his own case because he was afraid to have his defosition taken. The case this week that we talked about in one of the hot takes,
Starting point is 00:10:32 where Donald Trump previously sued New York Times and tried to get around New York's anti-slap statute by not pleading defamation, but trying to call it torsious interference with contractual relations. Another Alina Haba specialty, Donald Trump hit with $400,000 in attorney fees. Donald Trump sues Hillary Clinton, Alina Haba Donald Trump sanctioned nearly $1 million for filing a merit list lawsuit.
Starting point is 00:10:59 And then on the defense side, whether it's civil or criminal, the Trump organization, Donald Trump continuing to lose and lose and lose. And that brings us to the E. Jean Carroll case, which you previewed Michael Popak because Donald Trump's already lost. He lost in the May trial. He was already found to have sexually abused, which Judge Kaplan, the federal judge, makes clear is the same thing in New
Starting point is 00:11:25 York as rape. It's a technical difference in the statute, but in a recent order and in previous orders, Judge Kaplan says, no, you were found to have raped E. Jean Carroll by a jury and defamed her back in May. There's a doctrine called collateral, a stop, which says that the jury findings basically Transfer to a new trial. So already the same there's the same claim same types of statements Not a sexual abuse claim in this new trial coming up But these are based on statements that Trump made in 2019 the other case involved statements made in 2022 and the underlying Sexual abuse based on the adult survivors act
Starting point is 00:12:06 But this case got delayed a little bit per Donald Trump's delay because Bill Barr tried to substitute the United States in place to Donald Trump And that ended up backfiring so that it went ultimately to this trial So that's why this one even though it was filed first then it's technically technically Carol one is going to trial second next week. But here we are now at a trial purely about damages. And Popok, Donald Trump wants to make this case about anything but damages. So he's trying to introduce all this other stuff, E. Jean Carroll's brilliant lawyers, led by Roberta Kaplan, know exactly what he's trying to do.
Starting point is 00:12:47 Trump says he's going to show up, and E. Jean Carroll's lawyers have been filing all of these documents, making sure it's very clear the rules of what this trial is, the limitations of this trial. Donald Trump continuing to try to delay this. Again, he cites that his mother-in-law's death is a reason. But tell us, where are we right now, Michael Popock,
Starting point is 00:13:12 with what Donald Trump can and can say, because of the prior rulings and what this case is about, how impactful is that gonna be as Trump going to show up? What can we expect from this trial, Michael Popak? Yeah, it's Robbie Kaplan and her letter briefing that we've been really following very closely. We've had Robbie on the show before to talk about matters.
Starting point is 00:13:38 They're really concerned and they're getting the judges attention with what Trump is going in as lawyers, I'll talk about those lawyers in a minute who they are, who they aren't. I'm going to try to do it the trial. The trial is only about the amount of damages punitive that E. Jean Carroll suffered just to prove that. Based on the defamation that the jury will be told to assume, they'll be instructed by the judge, that the judge has already determined that there's been defamation, malice against E. Jean Carroll by Donald Trump while he was president in a statements that he made which were and they are to, they will be instructed to assume for the purposes of all of their deliberation,
Starting point is 00:14:24 that the defamation happened. Now, and they're only there, the sole purpose of them being there is on the punitive damages. That's why I called it a punitive damage case. That's the headline. It's not a, and tens of millions of dollars are at risk against Donald Trump. Donald Trump and his lawyers, Alina Habba, again, we'll talk about her throughout today's podcast and not for good reasons. And Medio, who had been Donald Trump's original lawyers in the first EG in Carol case, but it's so screwed the pooch and screwed that case up time and time again, including failing to raise presidential immunity as a possible defense, having that ultimately waived, failing on basic issues
Starting point is 00:15:06 of evidence in that case, involving the DNA of the coat dress that Ms. Carol was wearing on the day of the attack. Elina Habba screwed that up, and no DNA evidence was ever allowed to be introduced into evidence at the case. She screwed up her other experts and experts were barred and banned from testifying in the first case. This is all the scripts of Alina Haba and she did it so often and so spectacularly that
Starting point is 00:15:32 even Donald Trump broke up with her. It's paraphrase Karen Friedman, Knifalo, one of our colleagues and fired her effectively from being lead trial counsel 90 days before the first trial that started and ended in May over the summer. It replaced her with Joe Takapina. Joe Takapina did no better, did probably a lot worse, especially how he crossed exam and so ham fiscedently and terribly, roughly in front of a jury, E. Jean Carroll herself, the victim, and there was a big loss for Donald Trump there. But now, Alina Hobbes back, and in conversations that she's had with the lawyer for E. Jean Carroll, it's become clear that they think they're able to retry the entire case again. This is a case of Donald Trump the first time didn't bother to appear in, never showed
Starting point is 00:16:20 up at all. That's what I call Trump 1.0. He's learned since then, he shouldn't stay away. He should come and do maximum collateral damage whether inside the court room or just outside the court room rather than not show up at all, but he didn't show up. He didn't testify despite threats that he was going to. And now they've dropped the lawyers for E. Jean Carol. Now, Haba and Mediah back have told Robbie Kaplan, the lawyer for E. Jean Carol now, Haba and Mediah back have told Robbie Capel and the lawyer for E. Jean Carol that Donald Trump is likely to testify.
Starting point is 00:16:50 In fact, he only had two witnesses that he thought were gonna testify. Carol Martin, formerly a CBS news reporter, local for New York that I used to, she's very beloved, people loved Carol Martin, who was an outcry witness in the first trial, a special status type of witness that is used when you have a hearsay statement, even of the victim, but it's said almost spontaneously or contemporaneously with a terrible event.
Starting point is 00:17:18 And that witness is given sort of special class in our evidence, our evidence presentation because it's said if somebody cries out and somebody hears it, then there's a special quality of credibility that goes along with that. And Carol Martin was one of the two people that E. Jean Carol called the Night of the Attack in spring of 1996 in the Berkdorf Goodman department store dressing room when she was as the jury determined technically raped under New York law or sexually abused but effectively raped as the judge has said time and time again in his orders. So Donald Trump had her on the list
Starting point is 00:17:57 and also he's gonna testify and then through commentary that they had in the meet and confer process that lawyers have to have in advance of filing motions It became clear that they thought they were gonna the Trump side thought they can try the meat and confer process that lawyers have to have in advance of filing motions, it became clear that they thought they were gonna, the Trump side thought they could try the whole case again. Let's put her E. Jean Carroll through the mill again on her sexual background and her conduct and her relationship with her husband and statements that she made here, they are in the other place.
Starting point is 00:18:19 And let's just try that case again. And the judge said, you're not trying that case again. That case is over, This is about damages. Nothing that you're telling me about the things that you want to say about E. Jean Carroll and her credibility or her DNA or her code or who she spoke to or how many CNN episodes she went on doesn't matter in terms of the damage of the jury
Starting point is 00:18:39 will have to assess. It's not probative, meaning it doesn't tend to prove or disprove a fact that's relevant to the case. And so the E. Jean Carroll's lawyers bring it to the attention of the judge in a series of motions, two of which we'll talk about here. One is, judge, don't let them in front of a jury. We saw the acting out already, and it's detailed, specifically in a recent motion that was just filed by Eugene
Starting point is 00:19:06 Carol's lawyers. Donald Trump just made a shambles and chaos of the civil fraud case doing exactly what we fear with good reason. He'll do here. He's going to ignore your orders, Judge Kaplow, where you've already ruled on summary judgment that defamation has been established, just like he ignored the orders of judge and go around right next door in New York State court. He's going to stand up and start attacking and violating your rules about what can it can't be said. And you have to do something about it because we have a jury that needs
Starting point is 00:19:38 to be protected. That motion about Donald Trump's appearance either sitting in the courtroom and blurting out things or doing it out in the hallway near the jury or taking the stand. He needs to be disciplined and guardrails have to be put up according to and I agree with it, E. Jean-Karles lawyers. Before this jury even comes into the room and before evidence is even presented to them in opening statement, and if you don't do it, look what just happened across the street judge just recently. That's still pending. I expect that there's going to be a ruling very, very soon, maybe right off the podcast where the judge is going to grant that. He's already granted a order, a motion, an issued an order that details exactly what
Starting point is 00:20:21 can and cannot be argued or said in the courtroom. Anything that goes to liability, whether she's her credibility and who's paying the freight for her lawsuit, whether any of the costs are being defraided by a political action group or some of her litigation funding group, the DNA of her dress, any of her statements that have nothing to do with damages, all are not coming in. That's just a judge reminding Alina Habba what this case is about. Now the problem with that, and I'll turn it over to you, the problem with that is Alina
Starting point is 00:20:56 Habba, I don't know why I put this nicely, it's not a tremendous, it doesn't have a tremendous ability to properly both take in information and transmit it properly. What I mean by that is let's take her recent performance in her close part of the closing argument of the New York Attorney General case. She spent a fair amount of time in front of the judge talking about Latisha James, the New York Attorney General, having a Starbucks cup of coffee in the room and potentially taking off her shoes at a certain point to rubber foot. This seems to be where Alina Hobb is out thinking she's scoring some sort of points for
Starting point is 00:21:33 I don't know what audience in trying to attack Latisha James. That is the same person that this very delicate case of a rape victim already established by jury and judge in front of a new jury federal jury to decide punitive damages. I mean, talk about a bull in a china shop. So this judge is going to have to be on high alert about what this, this unscrupulous, I'll just call it for what it is legal team on the other side that knows no boundaries and is not tethered to the rules of ethics or conduct or laws and what they do in front of a jury.
Starting point is 00:22:09 The number one thing here, Ben, is that this jury be protected, not just because we need that, that E. Jean Carroll's entitled to have a jury that's properly not afraid of making decisions and isn't nullified, their decision making isn't nullified. But Donald Trump too, I mean, this is for the justice system. This is for the, even though it's civil, the entire court system being protected and this jury, what he does in acting out and telling Judge Engoron the New York civil fraud judge off to his face and laughing. And that's one thing.
Starting point is 00:22:43 That's bad enough. I would refer them to the bar if I were the judge. But in front of a jury, things have to be taken seriously and judge-caplains the judge to do it based on his prior rulings. You ask which audience, somewhat rhetorically, which is the audience of right-wing media that does not want to consume the evidence or maybe they do want to consume it, but they are used to being fed a diet of complete and absolute crap where Alina
Starting point is 00:23:13 Haba goes on these shows and they talk to her about, you know, how great is it to be so pretty and attractive and how do you think that works with your legal skills or the lack thereof? And she talks about that guy like being attractive? I was asked you know if you'd rather be pretty or smart and I've said I rather be pretty because you can fake smart I mean that's what she's saying on these right wing media channels when she goes and and speaks to them But that's why evidence and facts matter, you know But that's why evidence and facts matter, you know, for example, Donald Trump will win and say, and he has when he did that so-called CNN, back when he did the CNN town hall, when he did the recent so-called Fox Town Hall, when he's giving his
Starting point is 00:23:58 speeches and talking about E. Jean Carroll, when Donald Trump on his own brings up and they won't let me talk about the dress, the dress, the dress, well, in a very detailed order, the judge explained that for basically two to three years, you could have turned over your DNA sample and there could have been a test that was done. You chose to wave that by not turning over your DNA sample. And then on the eve of the last trial, you wanted to make some deal and have some negotiation. Hey, I'll agree to turn over a DNA sample. If you agree to turn over some of the DNA test swabs that you've previously done on the dress.
Starting point is 00:24:40 And that's not the way it works. You had ample time to turn over the sample and you've refused to do that and you've waved the opportunity That's a hoppa screw up Similarly, you've waved putting an expert in because you didn't disclose it You've waved the deadline of challenging eging carols expert because you didn't you didn't do it on time and Going into the judge's order. I mean, this is such a powerful statement right here, where the judge says that this, the jury in Carol 2 found by a preponderance of evidence
Starting point is 00:25:13 that Mr. Trump sexually abused Miss Carol and injured her in doing so, too. His conduct was willfully negligent or reckless in doing so or he acted with a conscious disregard for Miss Carol's rights and three Miss Carol was entitled to compensatory and punitive damages for sexual abuse of 2.2 million dollars Consequently the fact that Mr. Trump was sexually abused in the fact that Mr. Trump sexually abused abused in the fact that Mr. Trump sexually abused, indeed raped miscarrel has been conclusively established and is binding in this case. I mean, think about that line. Consequently, the fact that Mr. Trump sexually abused, indeed, raped miscarrel has been conclusively established and is binding in this case.
Starting point is 00:26:02 And so I know we're talking about a lot of cases and what do you think's gonna happen at the next E. Jean Carroll case? What do you think's gonna happen at the New York Attorney General Civil Fraud case where New York Attorney General Patricia James is asking for at least $370 million plus 9% compounding interest, which can take that up to the $500 million range.
Starting point is 00:26:21 But we're seeing a federal judge say the leader of the Republican party has been conclusively found to have raped somebody. Like, I don't want to lose track of what that statement is. And now we have a trial that is taking place next week that starts on this issue right here about the damages that are being caused by Donald Trump's defamation and from the punitive damages perspective, his continuing to torment his victim and that he needs to be punished for doing it, that is what is happening now. And as you and I have said before February 1, before February 1, there will likely be somewhere in the range of 250,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
Starting point is 00:27:10 maybe even more in damages, in judgments, hard judgments against Donald Trump with these two cases. And we'll talk in a moment how Justice Engoron has said that he expects his order to issue on honor before January 31st. I pulled back. I want to get one last comment on that. The same expert who testified for damages for Ruby, Ruby freman and Che Moss leading to $148 million against Rudy Giuliani is the same expert that will be testifying alone without
Starting point is 00:27:45 any counter expert by Donald Trump because of another Lena Hombas grew up in the trial this coming week. And so the new number for me is reset. Whereas the jury in May gave a Eugene Carroll for what happened then $5 million, $5.5 million including punitive damages. Those numbers are way off. Based on how you said, relentlessly continues to go after the punitive damage number here, will be tens of millions of dollars maybe approaching 100 million.
Starting point is 00:28:14 It's Professor Humphries over at Northwestern University, a reputational damages expert who will be testifying and we will be covering that here on legal a f and the mightest touch network when we come back we'll talk about what's happened at the closing argument in the New York Attorney General's civil fraud case. We'll talk about oral arguments in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and what in the world is Judge Eileen Cannon doing well, she's just pulling a cannon. We'll be back after this quick break. Did you know that your temperature at night
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Starting point is 00:32:57 the code when you checkout for up to 40% off. Well, that was a treat right there. We got Karen Friedman Agnifalo, even though she's not host in the weekend edition to see the KFA ad right there. It was great to see her on the show KFA. We see it in the chat as well as as always. And she's being dream. What did you say? She's being dreaming during the chat. beam beam dream and who was not beam dream in but may have been beam in a bunch of Nonsense nice little smooth transition there defeated by calling out the transition is Alina Habag Donald Trump during their closing arguments before the New York Attorney General and the New York Attorney General
Starting point is 00:33:45 Civil Broadcast, Justice and Goran, of course, is the judge presiding over this matter. It was an 11 week, 44 days of trial, but really, three years when you include the investigation itself that led to the lawsuit that was filed back in late September of 2022 that brought us to this moment. And that's why covering this every step of the way Michael Popak to get to that closing argument and then to get to that judgment that Justice and Goron has promised that we'll likely take place before January 31st. I think it shows everybody out there how the law works. If you've been following legal AF in this network from the outset, we've been going through every single step of this proceeding. And the last step, of course, is this closing argument. So first
Starting point is 00:34:35 up in the closing arguments was the defense, then the New York Attorney General gave their closing argument. Before closing argument took place, Donald Trump again tried to delay these proceedings, the same way you tried to delay the eging carol case, and he said that his mother-in-law's passing was one of the reasons why he wanted a delay, but that hasn't stopped him from holding so-called town halls on Fox and doing a bunch of other things. Donald Trump, through his lawyer, Christopher Keiss
Starting point is 00:35:04 said Trump wanted to give the closing argument or part of it, wrote an email to Judge Engoron requesting that in New York. You can send emails to the judges, but they get docketed eventually on the docket as formal correspondence. Judge Engoron basically to kind of shorten it was like yeah, okay, I have the discretion not to allow it It's against the law under New York if you are represented by counsel to give your own closing argument You could fire your lawyers proceed what's called pro-pror and then give your own closing argument that's fine But otherwise here, you know, I have the discretion to decide whether or not you're going to give the closing argument because it's prohibited conduct. But in my discretion, I'll allow Donald Trump to give the closing argument. Just here's the thing. Trump has to just state that he will agree to follow the rules.
Starting point is 00:35:58 That he will follow the same rules, that you, the lawyers have to follow, that any litigant in this court, he can't go on random rants attacking the prosecutors, personalities or saying things about my law clerk. If he sticks to the facts and evidence and gives a normal closing, I'm okay with that happening in my courtroom. Then Donald Trump's lawyers said, that's unfair. I don't know why that would be unfair. That's unfair to Donald Trump. He wants to go by his own set of rules. So Judge Goren said, then no. I don't know why that would be unfair. That's unfair. To Donald Trump, he wants to go by his own set of rules. So Judge Goren said, then no,
Starting point is 00:36:28 I'm not allowing it. And then Trump and everybody on his legal team wind, they're stopping him from speaking, they're gagging him again. They're not letting him speak. You know, and it's just like, come on, he said you can do it. Just just follow the rules that every other American has to follow when they're in a court of law. then you had the closing arguments take place. Popoca, I want to get your thoughts of what went down. But before getting to the Trump part, which I'll throw to you and your overall take, I mean, Alina Habba's argument was in addition to trying to mock New York attorney general attisha James for holding a Starbucks coffee and for the way she was sitting on her chair,
Starting point is 00:37:04 which the judge cut off. Hoppa said, we're all just human beings here. And Donald Trump did his best. Any of the things that the New York Attorney General's office are saying is fraud, that's human error. And he was just trying as hard as he can. That was one of Alina Abba's main argument. She said, explain to me, if you're trying to commit fraud, why would you put the fraud
Starting point is 00:37:28 in writing? Why would you send it to other real estate agents, as though people don't commit fraud in writing? And then her other point was, why would they hire one? Why would the Trump organization hire one of the largest accounting firms in the state of New York, Mazeers, which I don't even think they're one of the largest accounting firms, but they're a big accounting firm. Why would they hire one of the largest accounting firms if they were going to commit fraud? Like, okay, and run hired every big accounting firm. So did Bernie Madoff, people who hire accounting firm still commit fraud.
Starting point is 00:38:04 Those were her arguments. And then the New York Attorney General's office was like, you did not hear anything there to rebut the fact that their numbers were wrong. They did not argue ever that they provided correct valuations. What they argued is that based on their own subjective valuation methodology that they think that they that their numbers which are completely off are correct but your honor as we've said time and time again what they neglect is not the valuation methodology the fraud is the writing. It is the inputs that go into the valuation methodology. So when you lie and commit fraud and say Mara Lago, which is a commercial club, is a residential property and value it as a residential property with no incumbenances on it, that's fraud. When you say your triplex is 30,000 square feet and it's 10,000 square feet, that is a fraud.
Starting point is 00:39:10 When you say your buildings are fully leased out, fully occupied at the highest price per square foot, but they are actually rent controlled and they're not fully leased. The input, the data that you put into the valuation model and methodology, no matter which model you use, will be false because it has fraudulent data in it. And when Alina Habba says we're human beings and they just did their best, that is not a defense. And Popoq, those are just the cold, hard facts
Starting point is 00:39:45 that we have to stick to, right? Then you're being so unreasonable that your case against Donald Trump is based on facts and evidence and not on Starbucks coffee cups and whether the Latisha James kicked off or heels at some point. How dare you?
Starting point is 00:40:02 There's a salty put back the clip of when the report the cameras allowed to be in the courtroom for the very beginning. Look at the facial expressions on the lawyers Chris Keiss to Donald Trump's right on our left. Alina Haba that's Cliff Robert on the far end of the table. Chris Keiss looks like he's got a secret. He looks like he's a Cheshire cat, a little Cheshire cat smile. What he does, what he knows is at the end of his, when, end of his version of the closing, because they split the closing up and Chris Kice was the main lawyer, Elena Hoppe did another part of it, that he was going to, at the end, he was going to ask the judge once again if he could allow Donald Trump to speak. Now, as you noted, and at one point of clarification, you don't normally email your judge in New York.
Starting point is 00:40:50 What happened is that the principal law clerk, Alison Greenberg, doing her job back to what she does actually does for a living, she wrote to the parties right off the holiday and said, okay, let's get back to the scheduling issues. Our courtroom is being used by another case by the New York Attorney General because she can walk in Chukum at the same time, unlike Alina Habba. She's trying the case of the National Rifle Association, a fraud case in that same courtroom.
Starting point is 00:41:18 I don't think it's with Judge Angora, but in the same courtroom. So she's just doing some logistics, hey, everybody, we're gonna, the courtroom is gonna be a little differently arranged, how much time does everybody need? And somebody asks, are we gonna do it the old fashioned way where the defendant goes first and the plaintiff goes second, we flip it for closing and who's gonna be arguing and that kind of thing? To which the lawyers for the attorney general,
Starting point is 00:41:44 properly responded, we need an hour. It's gonna be a split between me and another, you know, special prosecutor counsel for this. And then Chris Keiss goes completely, you know, Kuku Krazy down another rabbit hole. He leads, I love when he leads in the email to the principal law clerks before the judge jumps on and says, happy New Year, Allison.
Starting point is 00:42:05 Allison, this is the woman, the person who has been mercilessly misogynistically bashed by Donald Trump, Alina Habin, and Chris Geiss from day one, arguing that she's a co-judge, that she's a hack, a Democratic hack, she's partisan, leading to threat levels going up against her exponentially, people wanting to kill, mutilate her and the worse.
Starting point is 00:42:29 Happy New Year. Sure, you know, we're gonna, that's fine. And this and that. And by the way, we want Donald Trump. He literally writes this in his email. And we think Donald Trump is gonna, he's gonna get part of the closing. Like, sorry.
Starting point is 00:42:41 Without any citation to any case law that allows that or supports that that because it doesn't. That people think, is that unusual? Yeah, that's really unusual. That doesn't happen. He had his chance to speak twice. He only took one of those two opportunities. He got subpoenaed to testify against his interests
Starting point is 00:42:59 cross examination style in the case in chief for the New York Attorney General. But then when he had his chance to just get softballs thrown to him by I would imagine Alina Habba To talk about what a great sexy real estate mogul you are He passed as we you and I predicted that he did not show up despite threatening on the campaign trail I'm gonna testify. No, you're not and you didn't and that was your opportunity in your case in chief to say what you wanted to say, you know, within, within limits, under oath.
Starting point is 00:43:28 Now when the issue of Donald Trump came up, then the New York Attorney General jumped in with case law that said you can't do that. Yes, this is in the court's discretion, but the discretion should be not exercised in favor of it. Don't do it, judge. And if you do it, it's got to be like on very strict orders about what he can and can't do in this courtroom. And the judge also mindful that it's just him. There's no jury president. I think did some things that are unusual that I he probably regrets having done.
Starting point is 00:43:55 He gave he jumped on to the chain. And he said, I have discretion. I think it's important. If he wants to speak and he can do it the right way. This is what I liked about the judge. It just shows he's no bias. He just wants everything and he said, I think he can be helpful to try or affect, which is me, to hear from the person who's most impacted by my ultimate ruling.
Starting point is 00:44:16 So sure, it's unusual, but I'll allow it. As long as he plays nice in the sandbox and colors inside the lines. And acts like a lawyer. The acts like a lawyer, maybe not his lawyer, but if he acts like a lawyer, normal lawyer, we can speak. Now what I would have done,
Starting point is 00:44:30 and I said this on a hot deck is, I would have said, and he's under oath, and he needs to be sworn in under oath. A lawyer gets the benefit as an officer of the court to give argument that's considered argument without having to be sworn, but not this guy. So this guy should be under oath. I would have done that.
Starting point is 00:44:48 He didn't do that. And it said they went back and forth in minutes apart about the issue. And Chris Kiesitz unfair. My guy needs to freely speak. Yeah, the opportunity freely speak about anything wide ranging. You're gagging him and all the rest. And the judge said, take it or leave it if you want to speak This is it and I said on the Wednesday podcast with with Karen Friedman Knifalo that that was the final word
Starting point is 00:45:12 There was no way he was gonna let Donald Trump at the last minute try to get the closing again But it came up again because at the end when Chris Keiss was done with his kind of walking through why there was no evidence They're they're major argument which I've seen five times now, because they filed four or five different motions to, to dismiss the case as a directed verdict, directed judgment. You know, Michael Cohen helped us. We win. Yeah, you know, they kept jumping up and down. We've seen these arguments before. They've been rejected time and time again by the judge. The major argument is as the as mocking part of me as mockingly presented by the New York Attorney General in their
Starting point is 00:45:52 office, they said, their entire defense boils down to Donald Trump's So Rich Guy and Banks like Rich Guys. And they gave him a lot of money, and they didn't look at any documentation or any representations that he made under oath in lending and money. He just went into a bank and they just sent him to the vault and let him take out all the money that he wanted. That's basically their argument. Ignore that banks at his level of borrowing don't look at statements of financial condition or audited financial statements that were manipulated and cooked by Donald Trump using the outside auditor, but not giving them all the information.
Starting point is 00:46:32 I mean, you can, you can cook your books with an auditor, Alina Habba, by not providing the auditor with full and complete access. I mean, every public company that's ever gone down for fraud had an outside auditor, many of which are no longer around anymore, like Mazerssoon, because they got into bed with their client and didn't do their proper control duty to the public. So that whole argument just shows you how juvenile and how they don't understand how business works in America. The fact that, well, he needed outside auditors because banks would not have accepted Alan Weisselberg, who admitted he's not a certified
Starting point is 00:47:13 public accountant, but was serving in the role as the chief financial officer just to provide him whatever on the back of an envelope and say, here, banks are funny that way. Underwriting departments and banks making loans are funny that way. Underwriting departments and banks making loans are funny that way. They have a little concept called due diligence and somebody is going to get fired if when they open the file on the audit committee or the loan committee and all they see is a napkin filled out by Alan Weisselberg. There's got to be like, where is your statement of financial condition? Where is your audit of financials? Obviously, they relied on it. There was testimony as they pointed out in the closing
Starting point is 00:47:48 that Deutsche Bank, the main lender for Donald Trump, required a certain amount of liquidity cash on hand by Donald Trump as part of his assets, not just all the real estate. Money he could actually, without having a fire sale, everything, he could actually stroke a check for if he defaulted. And his net worth hadn't be at a certain certain level.
Starting point is 00:48:07 And that's where the cooking of the books and the pumping up of the numbers came in. And that's the focus. Talk about, you know, to paraphrase in Lena Habba, they're not in the real world. They're the truck, they talk like gaslighting. The truck people are not in the real world. They're not in a business world. They're not in a commercial world. They're not in a banking world. And they not in a commercial world. They're not in a banking world.
Starting point is 00:48:25 And they're not in a world where evidence and facts matter. And so when the New York Attorney General was putting on their closing, it was reference to all of the testimony both inside the Trump organization, not just Michael Cohen, others. Alan Weisselberg statements against his own interest. Trump's own statements against his own interest
Starting point is 00:48:43 where he said, I looked at the statement of financial conditions. I would make comments on them. Meaning he put his hands on them, the ones that were used and relied on by the banks with the cook numbers. Statements made by people at different levels of the organization, the flies on the wall
Starting point is 00:49:01 in the finance department and the control department, that Donald Trump couldn't even remember their names during deposition. They killed him in terms of their testimony about conversations they had with Alan Weisselberg and Michael Cohen about pumping up the numbers and cooking the books and pieces of evidence, thousands of pieces of evidence and documents and handwritten notes by, you know, the controller of the company Jeff McConnie, you know McConnie, you know in which he said DJT told me to do this pump up this number Should we be putting this on our financial statements? These are deals that haven't happened yet
Starting point is 00:49:43 Yes or no in writing the Marginalia we like to call it on the side of the document right right? That's the evidence. So when people hear the Donald Trump lost $500 million people on our audience I don't want you to think it's because the judge liked Latisha James or something It's because he has been the fact finder for the 11 weeks of trial with Donald Trump having ample opportunity to defend himself and he came up with nothing more, frankly, than four experts who were completely rejected by the judge rightly because they had no information that would help the judge determine whether fraud had been committed or the level of damage or discouragement that was in place. They were all hired guns and I'm being polite.
Starting point is 00:50:26 Judge went further and said, you can pay a person anything to say anything in dismissing one of the experts. And that left Donald Trump with what? A Don Jr. giving a tour of the family history starting with, you know, the Grand Pappy Trump running brothels, which apparently is what happened, all the way to Fred Trump,
Starting point is 00:50:47 leaving a half a billion dollars to his son in 1999 to start off his career. So that wasn't helpful to the issues that are at stake, did Donald Trump use cooked statements of financial condition and use that with counter parties to in order to get loans approved, deals approved, transactions approved, tax breaks, insurance breaks, diddy or diddy, it's
Starting point is 00:51:12 binary. And we know where the judge is at because he's already found twice that there's been persistent fraud in the company. Now, we're just down to like, you know, the a dust settling, and how big of a number for discordment, and to correct Chris Keiss. It's not damages. He keeps talking about damages of the closing. He drove me nuts. It's discordment.
Starting point is 00:51:33 It is the ill-gotten money that somebody obtains from doing something fraudulent, where they take the playing field, and they tilt it to their advantage, and all that money that comes in their direction, that's what gets ripped away from them and clawed back in a discouragement proceeding. And that money doesn't go to the Tisha James.
Starting point is 00:51:52 It goes to the people of the state of New York who have been defrauded by Donald Trump and his ilk in a crime spree, a fraudulent crime spree over the last decade or more. Think about what Donald Trump's defenses are across all of his cases. So you heard Alina Habasey, if you write it down, it can't be fraud. What was their other argument here? That they had a worthless clause, that you could commit all of this fraud, but if you had
Starting point is 00:52:22 a worthless clause, it makes all of your agreements. It makes your word, right? I grew up and my pops said to me, Ben, be a man of your word. That's what I was taught growing up. Be a person of your word. Well, Donald Trump views it. If I have a worthless clause, then my word doesn't matter.
Starting point is 00:52:40 I could defraud you, which is, of course, not what the law allows law allows nor does his disclaimer which he refers to as a worthless Clause allow any of that conduct so it can't be in writing what about if it's oral what about if you speak it well Then he has a first amendment right he argues to say anything and he can't commit crimes if you Engage in speech according to Donald Trump because he has an absolute first amendment right to say anything he argues Donald Trump because he has an absolute first amendment right to say anything he argues. And then when it comes to the 14th Amendment section three case, disqualification, what is Donald Trump argue? I never even took the oath. I never took the oath to support the United States Constitution.
Starting point is 00:53:17 And what is Donald Trump argue about trying to overthrow the results of a free and fair election? I have absolute presidential immunity. I can do whatever I want. So going back to the first thing we talked about, the E. Jean Carroll case, when Donald Trump talked about his proclivity for sexually abusing women, he said that when you're rich and famous, you can do whatever you want to do. And they just let you do it. And you get away with it. Donald Trump has trans-immuted his abusive behavior as a
Starting point is 00:53:47 defense across everything that he does. And as we talk about the cases, these are not arguments that I didn't do it. And that's what the New York Attorney General Lawyer said. You didn't hear any evidence that these numbers were accurate. You never heard any evidence that these numbers were the correct numbers. All you heard about was worthless clause or come on, he just made a mistake. He didn't mean to do it. Or so what? This is what goes down all the time. This is just how rich men do business, which is not the case.
Starting point is 00:54:18 And so I think it's important that we frame in and talk about it. How Donald Trump is making excuse after excuse after excuse, and what we talk about on the show and what these prosecutors stand for and what our system stands for is law and order. We're going to get to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals argument right now where Donald Trump's lawyers literally argued that Donald Trump should be able to use the Navy SEALs SEAL Team 6 to kill political opponents and then receive absolute immunity.
Starting point is 00:54:47 And Donald Trump, when he gave a press conference later in the week, agreed with that statement. Of course, he did. He was the one who told his lawyer to argue that and his lawyers fell right into a trap that was set by the three judge panel in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals because they went right to the heart of, so are you really arguing that he can do this? Right away the judges went there and Trump's lawyer, because this is what Trump believes, had no argument other than to, he tried to weasel out of it, but basically he said, yeah, yeah, that's kind of what we believe.
Starting point is 00:55:22 We'll talk about that and more. Let's take our last quick break of the day Dear, I feel like money is just flying out of your account. You have no idea where it's going. I know that feeling It's all the subscriptions think about it between streaming services fitness apps delivery services parenting apps. It's endless I'm guilty of it. So I use rocket money to help me find out what subscriptions I've actually spending money on and I had them cancel the ones I didn't want anymore. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills.
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Starting point is 00:58:46 Earth breeze dot com slash legal a f. Here back live on legal a f check out all those pro democracy sponsors. Jordy here at the Midas touch network goes and does the vetting for these sponsors. We do not allow anybody to advertise on our show. We're very proud of our pro-democracy sponsors. So check it out. The discount codes are in the descriptions. You can see the links below.
Starting point is 00:59:15 And so check out those sponsors. And we appreciate them for helping to support the pro-democracy content we put on here. Let me set the stage for this DC Circuit Court of Appeals, oral argument for you, Popok, and I'll let you take the lion share of this one. As you know, I'm a geek when it comes to the classified information procedures.
Starting point is 00:59:36 I'm angling for a very dorky finale on some SEPA analysis that I know everybody's gonna be just waiting for that my cell is SEPA analysis that I know everybody's gonna be just waiting, just waiting for that micella CEPA analysis. But, but Popoq, we had Donald Trump's motion to dismiss the indictment before Judge Tanya Chutkin was denied by Judge Tanya Chutkin. Donald Trump argued for absolute presidential immunity as to claiming that all of his conduct that's alleged in special counsel Jack Smith's criminal indictment about Trump's attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election constitute official acts that Trump says fall within the outer perimeter of his official
Starting point is 01:00:18 responsibilities under Article 2 of the Constitution when he was in office, even to try to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. Judge Chutkin rejected the very notion that this concept of absolute presidential immunity exists to immunize crimes committed by former presidents while they were in office. Donald Trump filed an appeal to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. They expedited the briefing. At the same time, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a direct request with the United States Supreme Court that it skipped the appeals court.
Starting point is 01:00:59 It goes past the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and goes directly to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court rejected that, I think, in large part because there was an expedited briefing schedule before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals where oral argument took place on January 9th. It was a three-judge panel. One-judge was Judge Henderson, who was appointed by Reagan and then George W. Bush and then you had Judge Pan and Judge Childs appointed by Democratic administrations and Judge Pan and Childs elevated to the positions right now in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
Starting point is 01:01:36 I believe both by President Biden. And so you had a three-judge panel right there. Donald Trump's lawyers arguing for absolute presidential immunity and the judges got into it right away. I think on two issues, Popok first, the issue of jurisdiction. And we've been talking about this amicus brief that was submitted by a group called American Oversight. And amicus brief is a third party friends of the court brief that is submitted by parties, the courts of appeals and Supreme Court, they don't have to accept these outside
Starting point is 01:02:11 briefs and when they accept it, it doesn't mean they have to rely on it, but it means they're gonna read it and it could help inform them on issues that the parties did in brief. So there was an issue about whether there was even jurisdiction in the first place. A lot of time was spent on this jurisdiction issue about whether Donald Trump even had
Starting point is 01:02:30 the right to bring this appeal on the issue of absolute presidential immunity at the stage. And then it got to the issue of merits and absolute presidential immunity. So Popeyes, take it away. As I thought, Judge Pan was the leader of this panel. Florence Pan, remarkable credentials as they all do. But she in particular, remarkable credentials. I made a mistake. I said she was Filipino American.
Starting point is 01:02:53 She's Taiwanese American. I had a friend of the show reach out to me who's also Taiwanese American, say they're very proud of Judge Pan. And we all should be started out working. She worked in Goldman Sachs as an analyst. She worked in the Department of the Treasury. She's worked as a US attorney. She was the head of the Appellate Division
Starting point is 01:03:10 for the US Attorney's Office in the District of Columbia. She was elevated from Superior Court Judge. In the District of Columbia, she then became a DC Circuit Court Judge under Biden and quickly elevated to the DC Court of Appeals. That's a, we're talking about a rocket, a rocket, that is a rocket career trajectory. And I wouldn't be surprised if Biden gets,
Starting point is 01:03:29 and when he gets another opportunity to put somebody on the Supreme Court, if she's not on the short list, Judge Childs is another person who was on the short list for the United States Supreme Court. She was pushed by Lindsey Graham. She came out of South Carolina originally. And she lost out, if're going to call it that to Katanjee Brown-Jaxson, Judge Henderson, as you said, was appointed by GW Bush, but they all are
Starting point is 01:03:52 aligned in how they grilled the lawyer John Sauer for Donald Trump who did not do a very good job because he couldn't answer or refuse to answer, the most basic questions that are implicated by his legal arguments. The problem they had from the very beginning is they threw everything against the wall in their briefing, hoping something would stick, but many of the things they threw against the wall are internally inconsistent with each other. And so if you're going to argue, for instance, and you're going to spend a considerable amount of time in your argument and in your briefing.
Starting point is 01:04:25 In order for there to be a criminal prosecution at all of a former now former president, there needed to be an impeachment process in the House. First, a complete misreading of the impeachment clause in the Constitution about what is required. In fact, you have to just ignore basic principles of reasonable reading and comprehension in order to come away with the conclusion that if a person is impeached, which Donald Trump was, for elements of Gen 6, not the entire focus of the Gen 6 prosecution in the District of Columbia, but elements of it, but was not convicted, obviously, by the Senate, because A, there was no time. And B, people like Lindsey Graham, I'm sorry, people like Mitch McConnell is on record
Starting point is 01:05:09 as saying, we're not going to have a lot of time here because he's already not no longer a president, but there's a criminal justice system out there that will take care of the rest. And people voted accordingly and said, yeah, we don't want to convict the guy. He's an ex-president. Let the court system handle it. And then when the court system tried to handle it, Donald Trump says, aha, I needed to be convicted by the Senate.
Starting point is 01:05:30 And if I wasn't convicted by the Senate, you can't take me out in a indictment in real world criminal justice land, wrong. But that right, the fact that they doubled down on that instead of focusing on some, like all their arguments are weak, but some were weaker than others. That was, I thought, the weakest of all of their ludicrous arguments. If I were them, well, if I were them, I wouldn't have brought this case, but if I were them, I would have leaned in on some of the other arguments having to do with just constitutional analysis of why public policy, you don't want presidents, who are now ex presidents, to be criminally indicted and just stretch the scope
Starting point is 01:06:13 of the job description and powers of the presidency. Just stretch it out as far as you can to say that everything that Donald Trump is being indicted for falls within one of the categories of something that's legitimate and therefore He shouldn't be indicted chilling effect on the presidency, whatever By the way, none of that got bought by any of the panelists it led by judge man But it would have been a better place to be than where he ended up Right out of the get go. It was led by I think each of them had each of the three judges had concerns And they kind of led on
Starting point is 01:06:45 different topics. Henderson was concerned about kind of the scope of the presidential, off of the official office and the powers of it. What was ministerial and what was official and, you know, maybe we should send it back to Judge Chuck and to figure it out. Going back to Marbury versus Madison from 1803 and which is a leading preeminent case that we all a foundational case about the role of the United States Supreme Court as a co-equal branch of government. But so she that was interesting,
Starting point is 01:07:17 but that really didn't drive. That wasn't the driver for the hour and a half roasting of John Sauer. driver for the hour and a half roasting of John Sauer. It was really child's out of the box about the jurisdictional brief, as you said, filed by friends of the court. In other words, the parties didn't brief this issue about whether the court had jurisdiction or not. This was raised by an outside group that was allowed to submit a brief
Starting point is 01:07:40 and the judge has found it interesting and asked the parties to be ready to be prepared. So nobody was caught flat-footed about this argument. And the argument is follows. There are certain things, there are certain limited things that you're allowed to appeal during the course of a case. Everything else, virtually everything else has to be done at the end of the case. Things that are allowed on discretion or otherwise are called interlocatory appeals. So those are appeals that happen before the end of the case. So there's an argument that this type of immunity is found nowhere in the expressed language of
Starting point is 01:08:13 the Constitution. I defy anybody on the other side of the aisle to go through the United States Constitution and tell me where there is language literally written in with the Quill on the parchment by the drafters of that particular provision or those provisions that say the president of the United States has immunity from criminal prosecution for anything he did while he was in office, but it's relatively easy to write. I just wrote it. It's not there. There is by contrast when the drafters and the framers wanted to include immunity, they knew how to do it because they wrote it in for certain types of, certain classes of people within the government. Speech and debate immunity, if you're a member of Congress, and you do things within the core sense scope of what you're been paid to do in Washington, which is the legislative fact-fine investigating, you know, reporting around that and actions that are consistent with your role as a legislator, you're not gonna get criminally prosecuted
Starting point is 01:09:10 or have to respond to criminal process as a result. They wanted to do that. It's self-preservation provision, if you will. People that wrote it were all legislator, so they wanted to protect themselves. The second one is double jeopardy. And this is how they try to get in there. And she whorne it in with Donald Trump's people.
Starting point is 01:09:31 That's another type of immunity that if you've already been tried for the exact same crime, you're not to be tried again. And you don't have to wait till the end of the trial to find out what happens. We'll allow an interlocutory appeal. But that's really it. And it has to be written in the Constitution.
Starting point is 01:09:47 That's their problem. It's not written in the Constitution for the Trump side. It was created through case law. We know it happens to case law on the hands of this particular Supreme Court, and precedent. We know what happens there. Coming down a long line for 237 years, and the the problem with John Sauer also in his arguments for Trump So they ignore the leading cases that even have Trump's name on it from 2020 that kind of get to the water's edge of the issue of Criminal process and prosecution of a sitting president in that case is the Vance side Vance the Manhattan district attorney at the time versus Donald Trump about his tax returns
Starting point is 01:10:24 side-vants, the Manhattan District Attorney at the time versus Donald Trump, about his tax returns. So there is some precedent that stacks on other precedent about civil liability and immunity that you could argue from, but they just throw that out completely. That's not the toolbox that John Sauer wants to use in making his argument. So the jurisdictional argument is we have no jurisdiction to hear this matter because this is interlocutory about an issue that's not immune by way of the written word of the Constitution. Goodbye, there's the door. And so Judge Childs led on that. Why are we here?
Starting point is 01:10:54 Which I've always told my colleagues who I trained for trial practice that judges have two questions in their head and they're tapping their foot waiting for a response as soon as you enter the courtroom, which is why are you here and what do you want? And here is the existential, why are we here? And so I gave a lot of credit to the Department of Justice lawyer, James Pierce, who argued for Jack Smith. He said, we understand the jurisdictional argument. We didn't make it on purpose. It's not like we missed it.
Starting point is 01:11:26 We just think for justice, given the President being the stakes of the issue having to be resolved, that you should assert at least what we call artificial or temporary or substitute jurisdiction now and make the ruling on the merits. We don't want a technical win. In other words, we understand if you find no jurisdiction, we'll get this case maybe restarted relatively quickly, which is what, of course, the accusation is across the aisle, which is he, they're rushing a judgment. They just want to tear him down Trump before the election. And here was an opportunity where he could have just said, that's a great idea.
Starting point is 01:12:03 No jurisdiction. Why are we here? Let's go back to Judge Chutkin in the draw court. But Pierce being a man of honor and a lawyer, an officer of the courts, and we don't think that's the right way. And we think you have the ability to issue a ruling on the merits in Judge Pant sort of jumped in with that and said, yeah, I understand that we could as long as it's not a fundamental article three jurisdictional issue, we can do that.
Starting point is 01:12:27 And so then the entire focus was on judgepan. And so once we were doing jurisdiction, it was judgepan. And judgepan wanted to, as all, and when you and I talked about this, all appellate judges, trial judges do it too, but appellate judges are notorious for taking an example to stretch the limits of your position to see, a, to test it, to give it an acid bath, see if it works, and to see how you will navigate around an obvious implication of what you're arguing. And the obvious implication of what John Sauer was arguing is, let me give you, let me give you an example. I hear you. You agree with me that there may be certain conduct, for instance,
Starting point is 01:13:10 that may be official. He's allowed to do it technically. He's a commander in chief, but assume this for a moment. Commander in chief president, orders team six while he's president to give the order, he gives the order to take out a political rival. But there's no time or there's procedural you understand it takes a while to do an impeachment process and an a Senate conviction or maybe it's in the leaning days of an administration where there's no time, last five minutes of a presidency where there's no time, and you're saying that what, that immunity, you want absolute immunity because there wasn't enough time to do the impeachment and the Senate conviction. What are you saying? And he said, yes, there had, well, first of all, that kind of president would be immediately
Starting point is 01:13:59 impeached and convicted by the Senate. But what if he wasn't, Judge Pansett? What if there wasn't enough time to do that, or for some reason political or otherwise, the Senate didn't convict him. Are you saying that that type of president that just gave that order would be able to go Scott free? Yes or no?
Starting point is 01:14:16 And he said, conditional yes, and Judge Pan said, no, no, not conditional yes, yes or no, under your absolute immunity theory, does that type of president get avoid criminal prosecution in the justice system? He said, yeah, I'll put you down for yes, maybe you might know, basically, it was the answer to that. And so, when that was going on, all of us on the LA effort texting each other because we
Starting point is 01:14:39 were listening to the oral argument and you and I jumped to the hot take on it. And we all said, oh, that was it. That was the moment where John Sauer didn't just shoot himself in the foot. He shot himself at the argument in the head, no pun intended. And she was a sniper. She took him out on that question and he never recovered. And I would, so that went on for a while, the limits of that argument. And she even reminded him as Jack Smith had pointed out in the brief,
Starting point is 01:15:05 for instance, Judge Pan also took him the task and said, well, if you go to the congressional record, I can see where he's probably his heart was sinking at that moment. There was a position that Donald Trump took at that time. And his lawyers took at that time that the criminal justice system can handle a president like that, even if they even even he doesn't get impeached and convicted. And that was a position that your client took then that's now inconsistent with the position he's taking now. And senators and other people relied on that position
Starting point is 01:15:34 in order not to vote to convict him, didn't they? And so, okay, that was the hour to half. James Pierce did great in terms of his arguments and now we're just waiting literally, I mean, it could come out any moment now. We're waiting for the order from the DC Court of Appeals, which is going to find, I'm sure, I want to hear your view on it, Ben, that any president like Donald Trump who's been indicted for the allegations and the crimes that he's been indicted for are going to stand for, stand for justice and trial in the regular criminal court system. All the rest of the arguments that were in the briefs that we heard about, first amendment, it was a first amendment right, all went by the wayside.
Starting point is 01:16:15 It all came down to jurisdiction and his impeachment clause thing and then that's going to fail and they're going to rule quickly. And then we're going to see what happens next with the Supreme Court. One last point. We talked about the E. Jean Carroll case earlier in the podcast and as you and I had said earlier, he did not, this case is going to trial on Tuesday because Donald Trump elected not to take an appeal to the United States Supreme Court on an emergency basis
Starting point is 01:16:41 to find that he had presidential immunity to defame E. Jean Carawal, he was in office. We said it was unlikely he was going to try to push that onto the Supreme Court while they're trying to figure out whether he belongs on the ballot, whether his indictment charges against him or valid, and whether he has ultimately immunity from criminal prosecution. He wasn't going to, I don't think he was going to like go to the well that often. And he didn't, and that trial starts out to say because if he went to the well and
Starting point is 01:17:08 had the Supreme Court and said, I need you Supreme Court to rule on an emergency basis on the issue of absolute presidential immunity, it cuts directly against what he argued when special counsel Jack Smith went to the Supreme Court and asked for absolute and said that you should be ruling on this issue of absolute presidential immunity on an expedited basis. And it does give you some more insight though into Donald Trump, though, in terms of what he is ultimately fearing in the calculation that he is making, that in the E. Jean Carroll case, which is about money, I think Donald Trump in his mind has probably earmarked a judgment against him from somewhere in the range of $10 million
Starting point is 01:17:53 on the low end to $150 million for a runaway jury on the high end right there, which I think Trump in his own mind says, well, then I'll try to appeal that. And then I'll try to appeal that. And then I'll try to delay that. But what I can't do is let this DC case go first. And if I make a blunder, and I think this is, you know, with some of his other lawyers instructing, and this is not an Alina Habawon right here, his other lawyer is basically saying, you know,
Starting point is 01:18:19 you need to do anything you could try to do to delay this DC case from going to trial and that should be your priority because you're going to lose this DC case and that's going to put you in jail for the rest of your life. So that's kind of the chess moves taking place behind the scenes and he doesn't have judge Eileen Cannon in Washington, DC or judge Eileen Cannon's on the panel that we talked about. And like, you know, there's such a big distinction between a judge Henderson, right? A judge appointed by a Republican administration from Reagan to George H. W. Bush, whose law
Starting point is 01:18:57 and order to what a Trump-magged judge looks like in Judge Eileen Cannon. And even if people didn't think initially that she was going to be a Maga judge and some very wise and brilliant legal scholars thought that judge Eileen Cannon was going to exercise some modicum of rationality. She's not, she's not. And as I always say about Judge Cannon, her incompetence is matched and sometimes exceeded by her corruption. And by the way, that's a similar line I give to Maga, which equals fascism plus idiocracy.
Starting point is 01:19:36 And fortunately, the idiocracy far exceeds the ability to implement the fascism at this stage. And there's a mix of this with judge canon as well like it seems that her goals and objectives are to try to help Donald Trump delay delay delay and at the same time she's trying to figure out how to do that in a way that positions her case to try to block the other cases, the Washington DC criminal case and maybe even the Manhattan District Attorney case, which is scheduled in March, but she doesn't really know how to go about do it.
Starting point is 01:20:14 So Canon keeps on like trying to delay. She knows that if she makes an order that is not the appropriate order on any of these issues related to SEPA, the classified information procedure act, because the statute allows for interlocutory appeal, unlike the Midland asphalt decision where if there is no statute or direct text in the constitution, like there is none on the issue of absolute presidential immunity. That's why the American oversight argues there's no interlocutory appeal allowed for Donald Trump. An absolute presidential immunity. Jack Smith can appeal on an interlocutory basis from what's called a collateral order and order that's taken in the middle of the case before trial,
Starting point is 01:21:04 before final judgment to the 11 circuit court of appeal. So what we see with judge can in over and over is she doesn't make substantive orders. She masks the substantive orders as scheduling orders because trial judges have almost complete discretion to move dates and that stuff isn't appealable. So when she messes with the calendar and makes rulings that are without prejudice about scheduling, they're not viewed as interlocutory appeal issues. So for example, here's what Judge Cannon did with respect to SEPA this
Starting point is 01:21:45 past week. She goes in advance of this upcoming SEPA section 4 hearing and to assist in the courts evaluation of defendant's motion for access to SEPA section 4 filings. The court hereby schedule a hearing with the special counsel on January 31st, 2024 at 10 a.m. this hearing shall be conducted on a sealed, ex-part a basism. This hearing shall be conducted on a sealed X part A basis and a facility suitable for the disclosure of classified information contained in the special counsel's section for filings. The court resolve reserves ruling on the defendant's motion for access to CPISection
Starting point is 01:22:19 for filings pending the February 2024 CPISection for hearings and review of defendant's forthcoming CPISection for hearings and review of defendants forthcoming CPISection for challenges. When I look at this, I'm just like, what in the world are you doing, Judge Eileen Cannon? The answer is very simple, where she says the court reserves ruling on defendants motions for access to CPISection for filings. In the CPIS World, that's basically elementary school stuff of what's one plus one. And Eileen Cannon here is saying, I reserve the right to determine of one plus one equals
Starting point is 01:22:51 four. I'm trying to sort that out. So I want to have a hearing to determine if one plus one equals four. Okay, it doesn't. It equals two. And SEPA section four specifically states that the defendant, Donald Trump, doesn't have access to section 4 material at the section 4x part day in camera hearing, which takes place just with the judge and just with the prosecutor in a secure facility without the defendant
Starting point is 01:23:21 being present, that happens in every SEAPA case. It says it in SE seepacase. It says in in seepacection for this is not a complicated, difficult issue, but notice here, what judge Cannon doesn't do, she doesn't say that she is actually allowing Trump's lawyers to show up. Instead, she's saying, I want to hold this pre-hearing, this seepup pre-hearing. Like, no, just follow the rules, Canon, seepa section four says, you hold the hearing, it's you and the prosecutor. Then you look at the documents, the prosecutor says,
Starting point is 01:23:56 these documents are so highly classified that we want to withhold producing these documents and do some sort of substitution or summary and say these documents involve nuclear codes these documents involve war plans but not actually turn over the war plans and then judge cannon if you think the war plans are nuclear codes or whatever the material the government wants to hold should be turned over you order that they be turned over and then that order gets stayed while Jack Smith or whoever the prosecutor and whatever the case where this statute is evoked, they file an interlocutory appeal to challenge your decision. That's section four in a nutshell. You don't get to say, I want to hold a presection for hearing to determine whether or not the defense can participate in the CPISection Four here, but they're not allowed to participate period end of story. So what is she doing here?
Starting point is 01:24:49 She's just trying to screw around with the prosecution. Like it's obvious that what she's doing is she doesn't even know what she's doing. So she's trying to learn on the job because she's never had a CEPA case before in her entire career. And she wants to hear what the prosecution is gonna say, so then she can figure out what she's going to try to do. It's exactly what she did back in 2022 when she tried to exercise and did a cert
Starting point is 01:25:14 equitable jurisdiction over a search warrant that was signed by a magistrate judge. And she asserted jurisdiction over this case to try to block the search warrant from being executed in the 11th Circuit. It was like no court ever has exercised equitable jurisdiction in anything like this. You can create some new standards
Starting point is 01:25:36 and she's creating a new, extra statutory standard right here that doesn't exist. So that's on that one. And then on Friday, she issued this other notice paperless order and that's why I want you to focus on the subtleties here of what she's doing notice paperless order paperless order Every word has meaning and that's why I want to focus on this that other legal shows don't paperless order denying without prejudice on this that other legal shows don't. Paperless order, denying without prejudice, special counsel's motion to compel disclosure regarding advice of counsel defense.
Starting point is 01:26:10 The court has reviewed the motion, defendants opposition. The special counsel's reply and is fully advised in the premises, assuming the facts and circumstances in this case warrant and order compelling disclosure of an advice of counsel trial defense. The court determines that such a request is not amenable to proper consideration at this juncture prior to at least partial resolution of pre-trial motions, transmission to defendants of special counsels exhibit and witness list, and other disclosures as may become necessary. The special counsel's motion is therefore denied
Starting point is 01:26:45 without prejudice. So focus on paperless order denying this motion without prejudice. So she tries to cast this order in a way that can't be appealed on an interlocutory basis. Would you now know what that means? My special counsel, Jack Smith, all Jack Smith is saying is, look,
Starting point is 01:27:04 if Trump's gonna blame his lawyers, which he claims he may and throw the lawyers under the bus, that waves Trump's attorney-client privilege. If he's gonna say, there are the reasons why he willfully retain national defense information that he shouldn't have. And my dogs are upset about that, too. My dogs are very frustrated that that would be the request that Donald Trump would throw. His lawyer is under the bus, but Jack Smith very reasonably,
Starting point is 01:27:31 Jack Smith very rationally wants to say, hey, if you're gonna make that defense, don't do it at the time of trial because then your waiver of attorney client privilege and you're gonna have to turn over all of these documents and records is gonna cause chaos in the trial. So Judge Cannon just do what every other judge does in this situation. Make them disclose an advice of counsel defense right now or start the process where at least 60 days or so before the
Starting point is 01:28:01 trial they disclose the advice of counsel defense. And then we can all be prepared. Like you should have an orderly scheduling order. And judge can goes, that's premature. Your trial date according to your trial schedules in four months, it's May 20th, 2024. So why would it be premature to go through the normal steps that we go through, and also it should be noted that Judge Cannon similarly rejected in a paperless order, Jackson Smith's request under SEPA to set a section five hearing,
Starting point is 01:28:34 which is for Trump to disclose the classified information that he wants to inject that trial, so the government can protect against blackmailing or graymailing, which is the whole point and purpose of SEPA which is to protect against criminal defendants accessing national defense information and extorting the government to dismiss the criminal case against them or else they will make these classified documents public and under my national security.
Starting point is 01:29:03 That's why you have the SEPA statue to protect against that. That's why it's so important. That's why courts just follow it per what the statute says. And by the way, these issues were before Judge Chutkin also because there are classified information in the Washington DC case. You don't hear this even being discussed or debated because Judge Chuck and made one order to Donald Trump's lawyers and said, if you have case law that directly rebuts what SEPA says and what every court has done in this country, please present it to me by date X. They did not and she said, denied. We're moving on. I'm not dealing with
Starting point is 01:29:41 this stuff. Popo,, that just shows you though. Judge Eileen Cannon, why judges are so important, why elections matter? Because Donald Trump appointed Judge Cannon, and you see the difference between a canon type of judge, and even a George H.W. Bush judge in a Henderson. It's night and day, what it it means now if you're a judge appointed by MAGA versus a judge appointed by a conservative like a judge
Starting point is 01:30:13 Luddling who I agree with on a lot of issues versus this new breed of MAGA judge. Yeah, Judge Lutig we're gonna have on a legal AF special. You and I have a corresponding with him to join us and he's looking forward to that. She's been over her skis since day one on the Southern District of Florida regular practitioner. That's a sleepy backwater branch of the division of the Southern District of Florida, other than drug cases and some other immigration type matters.
Starting point is 01:30:44 It doesn't get. Things of the magnitude of trying the first president, former president of the United States in a criminal matter related to espionage and obstruction of justice that goes without saying. But a more seasoned, more experienced, more sober judge would resign to it, even one that was as new to the bench as Judge Cano would be doing a much better job regardless of the party that appointed them. It's really not, to be frank, it's not the right judge in the right court to be handling this. We know why Jack Smith picked Southern District of Florida.
Starting point is 01:31:26 He was concerned that even though there were plenty of allegations that tied back to Washington, DC, the Sixth Amendment requires that the suit be brought and that the jury be picked of appears in the community in which the crimes were committed. And well, it could have been an argument that some of the crimes dealing with the National Archive, the interaction with the White House, coming out of the White House with the confidential documents, see the documents were done in DC. It was a stronger case to have it located, the site of it in Florida and in Southern District of Florida, which runs up and down the East Coast.
Starting point is 01:32:00 Probably that is once you eliminate the senior status judges and the judges that weren't taking any new cases You were only left with a couple of judges from which to choose it would have been middle Brooks who would have been great So you know 25 years on the bench Sophisticated commercial litigator in his own right before that and has stood up to Donald Trump in cases like Finding a key in Alina Haba a million bucks for that fraudulent merit list case against Hillary Clinton and the DNC and others for fraud that Donald Trump brought as a campaign piece of literature instead of a lawsuit over a year ago. But then I left
Starting point is 01:32:40 Aline Cannon and I have to believe that Jack Smith knew the risk he was taking and took the risk. I read for you or I recited a bit of judge pan who was Karen free many the flow said we have a girl crush on her. I have a boy crush on her and we listen to her background background is just the people that you're buying this picking the put on just the people that Joe Biden is picking to put on on different panels and filling these openings, Treasury Department, Goldman Sachs analyst, US Attorney, Judge, just as Alian Cannon, Federalist Society, short time in a sleepy backwater office of the US Attorney's office doing appeals. All she did, now you think she'd reach out. There's senior judges on the Southern District that are very, very good that I know well and I practice in front of.
Starting point is 01:33:32 She's just not one of them. And then she compounds it as you outlined with being over her skis with what appears to be a bias or putting her thumb on the scales of justice in favor of Donald Trump, which even the appearance of it is unsettling and just wrong. I'll do a separate hot take on the second part of your breakdown, if everything is going on, the breakdown is the right word in the Southern District with Judge Cannon on the lawyers. This is much to do about nothing. There is no way on God's green earth that Donald Trump is going to be able to use any argument that he relied on the advice of counsel to obstruct justice, to hide the documents, to not provide them to the National Archives, and not properly respond to the
Starting point is 01:34:16 subpoena, and to try to burn drown or otherwise get rid of and erase the video recordings of him telling his henchmen to move the boxes away from his own lawyers and ultimately from and hide them from federal judges the Department of Justice. He's not going to be able to rely on that. I'm going to do the hot take where I'm going to go over very carefully Evan Corcoran in his cooperation with the US Attorney and what he has told Jack Smith and the US attorney about his advice and what happened during the logistics of him searching and what Donald Trump told him about pulling out documents and just losing them conveniently at the hotel
Starting point is 01:34:55 that he was staying in before he met with the lead lawyers for the Department of Justice. Christina Bob, no better, and Alex Cannon, who will ultimately testify that Donald Trump told him to tell the National Archive that he had completed and fully produced everything that was responsive to the request when that was not true. And then finally, Jennifer Littel, who's going to testify because she's already told the Department of Justice that she told Donald Trump to stop screwing around with the subpoena. Now that the subpoena had been issued, this was his moment to turn over all the documents or face criminal conviction.
Starting point is 01:35:32 These are not the kind of lawyers that you'll be able to rely on for a defensive counsel defense, which is very difficult to do anyway. You have to thread a tremendous needle, a tremendously small needle in order to get it. You have to have asked for certain advice that's completely consistent with the conduct that you're being charged with. You have to have obtained that advice,
Starting point is 01:35:57 having given full and complete information to the lawyers. The lawyer's advice has to be followed to a T and then upon that, you may have a common law defense to an indictment. None of that's going to be relevant here. So we're just playing, this is just a referee of the first degree because he's never going to be able to rely on that. And I don't know why she's not allowing Jack Smith to call it out now the way he called
Starting point is 01:36:23 it out in the District of Columbia with Judge Chuck in early and often. You know, he's just responding, the Jack Smith side of the equation, is just responding to the comments that are made outside the court, or the extra traditional comments made by Donald Trump and his lawyers on talk shows and at rallies that they're going to rely on the advice of counsel. So he equally wanted that called out now. If that's true, let's get to the bottom of it and let's brief it. And I want to know about it now because
Starting point is 01:36:52 she's not really ready to try her case in May and all indications are that any going to happen to put despite the fact that it's still on the docket because she's not doing any of the things that are required preliminarily to get the case lined up for May. Trials don't, I'm in the trial, I just finished a trial yesterday. Trials don't just happen. Like you don't just show up on trial day,
Starting point is 01:37:13 and hi everybody, I'm here for the trial. It's not how trials work. There's preliminary pre-trial activity, civil cases and criminal cases, and deadlines that have to be met, and discovery that has to be obtained in exchange, and depositions if you're in civil case. And all of these things have to happen in an order
Starting point is 01:37:34 without delay and on a set schedule that's been enforced by a judge. We have none of that here, which is why I'm back to your original position that I fought for a while, because remember the bar down there, is that she's doing it on purpose as opposed to just being incompetent. And it just at this point, her, she has to know about the criticism that's been lodged at her. I'm sure she's talked to, or if not, she's, Dumber than we think, talk to senior or if not, she's dumb or they were, they were think, talk to senior people in
Starting point is 01:38:06 her kitchen cabinet, senior judges, including Judge Ungaro, who's the senior judge for the Southern District of Florida, down in Miami, about how to handle things. Judges reach out to other judges, or they're supposed to, and have that conversation over a tuna fish sandwich. And I don't think she's doing that, because if she's doing it, who's giving you this terrible, terrible advice? So if she's not doing it, she's not doing it on purpose because she wants to be the one judge that seems to be on in favor of Donald Trump against all other odds, courts
Starting point is 01:38:41 of appeals, federal judges, state judges, not one of them thinks that Donald Trump is a credible, trustworthy, participant in either of the court systems federal or state criminal or civil, except apparently Aileen Cannon who bends over backwards to credit Donald Trump's lawyers and give them the benefit of every doubt and tie to every runner on every issue, which only is going to result in, sorry folks can't do may, we're not really prepared are we? No, because you didn't allow us to be prepared. And Popoq, I think it's even worse than that. I mean, I think what her plan is is that she's going to try to, I think, dismiss the case, which actually may end
Starting point is 01:39:25 up being a good thing because it'll be immediately appealable to the 11 circuit court of appeals that's going to reverse her. I expect her to make the worst rulings. And when she does, then that's when the 11 circuit can step in and potentially remove her at that time and reverse her. And there is case law in the 11th circuit that there's like a three strikes rule in some of the other cases
Starting point is 01:39:50 where they previously have removed a judge. But if I look at the schedule coming up and I impute the worst motives to judge Canon, which I don't know why I wouldn't at this stage, we have defense motions to compel discovery coming up on January 16th. We got defense challenges to section 4 motions on January 23rd. We have a hearing on the section 4 motions mid-February. Then you have the pretrial motions scheduled on February 22nd.
Starting point is 01:40:26 You have a scheduling conference on March 1 with that May trial date remaining in place. I expect Judge Cannon to rule, I mean, she's going to have to rule on these motions. And look, she's been dealing with the SEPA issues, Pope, for what, nine months now, it seems, eight months, dealing with very basic SEPA issues that could probably have been dealt with in less than a week. It's taken her. So what is she gonna do when she gets
Starting point is 01:40:55 the absolute presidential immunity argument that Trump claims that because he was a classifying and declassifying source while he was in office. Those powers impute to him even when he leaves the office. You know he's going to make an argument like that. What does she do when he makes the argument of prosecutorial misconduct and says that Jack Smith breached attorney client privilege and seized all of these documents despite the fact that that's not what took place
Starting point is 01:41:25 and you actually had a Washington DC grand jury that was empaneled and you had a Washington DC federal judge make the orders and judge barrel howl and bozeburg, who are the ones who were involved in making kind of important orders in this. And other cases, what do you think she does? Let me ask you this, in other cases, what do you think she does? Let me ask you this, Popok. What do you think she does if she was sitting
Starting point is 01:41:48 where Judge Chutkin was, and she got Donald Trump's absolute presidential immunity argument? Do you have any doubt that she would have granted absolute presidential immunity? Do you have any doubt that she would, when she would be given the arguments about SEAL Team Six? I can tell you why she would, when she would be given the arguments about seal team six, I can tell you why she would grant absolute immunity because she exercised equitable jurisdiction over the search warrant and she
Starting point is 01:42:13 said that special rules apply to Donald Trump that don't apply to anybody else. So she's already applying that standard, but why I want to tell everybody one that will be bad, but why I actually think it's actually a good thing that that's going to happen. I want to both create a sense of the reality of what's going to happen, but then let you all know why I actually think that that's not a horrible thing to happen for real, is because she's going to have to make ruling soon. This paperless order crap can't go on forever. Let me interrupt.
Starting point is 01:42:49 She asked me a question. I didn't get a chance to answer. Let me ask you a question that I want you to answer. You said she's going to dismiss it. What's the grounds to dismiss the indictment based on the espionage act and the obstruction of justice based on the facts allegedly indictment under what grounds which he'd dismiss it? You're thinking like a logical lawyer and I think that's where you missed the mark on
Starting point is 01:43:13 the question. Although, it's a fair one. She will find, I believe, whether it's absolute presidential immunity, some claim that because Trump was a declassifying authority while he was in office, that that imputes to something in the future, she'll try to find that there was prosecutorial misconduct here and an overreach. I just have a hard time believing that this judge who has made the exact wrong rulings every time she's been confronted with a ruling will now make the correct ruling so when she is when she is present.
Starting point is 01:43:56 So if you're right, if you're right, let's just play it out, play out the thought, the thought game here. Why hasn't the lawyers for, or when will the lawyers for Donald Trump file such a motion to require her to have it ruled upon? They did it late in the game for Chutkin to maximize collateral damage and try to take out the trial date. They could have filed that same set of motions early on in the indictment because nothing in it was based on new information that they obtained in discovery process. They just wanted to wait until the last possible moment in order to f with the trial date. So why haven't they done it here?
Starting point is 01:44:35 Same exact reason. They're waiting. They're waiting. And the more they can delay it, it's a two-fer for the Trump team. Delay it as long as possible. And then finally, when Judge Cannon does whatever she's going to do with it, it'll either be delayed so much that it won't happen before the election, or she'll grant a dismissal.
Starting point is 01:45:03 But here's the thing I want to let everybody know. This is not double jeopardy. Trump doesn't just get off if that's what happens. That would get appealed to the 11th circuit, which would very swiftly and immediately reverse what Judge Cannon does. And again, I just, you're right, Popoq, all of the law suggests everything that she says
Starting point is 01:45:23 there is no basis to dismiss this case. So I hope that I'm wrong when it comes to judge, Canon, but everything, every data point that I have about her tells me that whether it's granting a motion to dismiss or finding that the prosecution engaged in some discovery abuse that will allow her to do something. I think that we will have one of those things take place. And I think the headline will be initially kind of bad. And everyone's going to react a certain way. But ultimately, Jack Smith will take very soon an expedited appeal to the 11th Circuit Court. They're going to reverse her. The question is, is on what order is
Starting point is 01:46:06 that? When does she make the order? Is it a seep a section for order that maybe Jack Smith goes first before any of that stuff can happen and then gets her reversed? Is it another discovery order that she makes and then Jack Smith can finally go to the 11th Circuit? Jack Smith has diligently filed all these things. She hasn't ruled on anything, but to everybody wondering, well, you know, this is not great with Judge Cannon. I actually think that if you play it out, the repercussions will happen to Judge Cannon in due course, I do.
Starting point is 01:46:40 And where I'm still not worried at all is I think your Washington DC case, which is on an expedited basis is, you know, is on track for that trial to take place still in 2024. You have the Manhattan District Attorney case that will occur in 2024. You will have Donald Trump as a convicted felon because he's committed felonies in 2024. You have Donald Trump by February one. He's going to be hit with somewhere in the range of $250 million to $500 million in judgments, not just in 2024, but in the month of February that will be taking place. In the next week or two, we will learn that Donald Trump lost before the DC
Starting point is 01:47:27 Circuit Court of Appeals and he will continue to lose these cases. So I just want to paint an accurate picture for everybody here on everything that's going on and where I Have concerns where I don't have concerns where Popeyes, don't, but where I think this nets out as we know justice moves the way it does, and that's why as we started the show, talking about what was going on in the New York Attorney General Civil Fraud Case, how that investigation reached a closing argument, and now there will be justice served there.
Starting point is 01:48:02 So in a look, a lot going on, Michael Popeyes appreciates spending this weekend with you. will be justice served there. So it'll look a lot going on. Michael Popak appreciate spending this weekend with you. It's always a pleasure. I want to give a special thanks to Salty, of course, for all of the great work he does behind the scenes and our entire team here. And thank you all to the Midas Mighty. We appreciate all of you so much. We're grateful for you and we will talk with you soon. We'll see you soon. Legal A. F.R. is your the best. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

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