Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Gets VERY BAD NEWS in BRUTAL Criminal Court RULING

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

On a downward spiral, Trump loses again in his effort to disqualify AND MINDLESSLY ATTACK the VERY same NY criminal judge that holds Trump’s “liberty” in his hands, and is about to 1) rule on whether SCOTUS’ “immunity” decision should vacate Trump’s 34 felony convictions and 2) SENTENCE Trump in mid-September. Michael Popok analyzes Trump’s efforts at self-sabotage to gain a campaign advantage, as he faces years in prison. Head to https://Smalls.com/LEGALAF and use promo code: LEGALAF at checkout for 50% off your first order PLUS free shipping! Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial 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 Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. This is Michael Popak. It's turning out to be a terrible week for Donald Trump and the court systems, and we're only halfway there. First, he's got sued by the United Auto Workers fresh off of his interview, or whatever that was, with Elon Musk, and now Judge Mershon, the judge who's about to sentence

him in the middle of September for the 34 counts of felonies that a New York jury convicted him of, has also decided for the third time that he's not going to disqualify himself from the case, he's not going to recuse himself for the case just because Donald Trump wants him to. Just because Donald Trump has brought up what the judge has referred to as unsubstantiated and stale allegations masquerading as proper grounds to accuse a judge of being biased or prejudiced to get him disqualified. This is the third time over the last year and a half that Donald Trump has raised the exact same arguments

against the exact same judge and it's gotten the exact same result. You know the old definition of insanity, don't you? Well, we've reached insanity here with Donald Trump because he keeps filing the same motion on the same grounds, hoping the outcome will be different. Judge Juan Marchand, let me make a newsflash here, has a daughter, she's an adult, she works.

She doesn't work for the court system. She works for Democratic causes, she's a fundraiser for Democratic causes and sits in Chicago. She's the head of a firm there, one of the leaders of the firm there. She makes money from helping Democrats and Democratic causes fundraise. Okay, we are now living in 2024. We don't live in the dark ages. We don't live in the 18 or 1700s where women were owned by

their husbands or their families. And she has a career. There's no link between Judge Mershon and his daughter other than familial, other than he gave, you know, he raised her. I almost said he gave birth to her, but that would show a fundamental misunderstanding of how that works. So that's the connection. But no, no, here we go again.

Judge Mershon donated $15, I'm not making that number up, to the Biden campaign and Act Blue about three years ago. He's got a daughter who's worked for Democratic causes. So what? You have to show more than that. And there's no new evidence since the other two times that the disqualification was rejected. Now, Donald Trump already has an appeal. Once he's sentenced, and we'll turn to that in a minute, in the middle of September by this judge to some prison sentence, I'm sure, maybe suspended while he or continued while he appeals. But once he brings his appeal, then he can bring up to the intermediary appellate court in New York, sits in Manhattan, the

appellate division, first department. He can argue that Judge Roshan should have recused himself and all of that. But to continue to file the motion, the same motion ad nauseam against the judge just to get the same result is ridiculous. The issue has been preserved for appeal. Let me repeat that. You only have to raise the issue issue has been preserved for appeal. Let me repeat that. You only have to raise the issue once to preserve it for appeal. Then you have the right to bring it up on appeal. If you don't raise the issue, you can't

raise it on appeal. He's already done it. So this is just another attempt to grab the news cycle, to step on the news cycle, to try to break up the bad news week, a bad news political cycle for Donald Trump. I mean, just look at this week and think of how maddening it must be. Kamala Harris surges ahead with whistle-stop tours in nine battleground states with tens of thousands, up to a million people in total, including on the tarmac when Air Force Two showed up, not AI, real enthusiasm, not artificial intelligence. Her intelligence isn't artificial, it's real. So is the intelligence of all the voters that are showing up for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz,

including in a new campaign rally that's going to take place in the same Detroit convention center that Donald Trump held his Republican National Convention. I love that. So he's got that bad news. Then he goes and has an interview with Elon Musk. I don't know who's interviewing who there. It was like a battle of boredom. It was like a narcoleptic interview.

I said it on a prior hot take, if you needed to have some sort of surgery and couldn't afford anesthesia, watch that two hours of dribble. But it did get Donald Trump and Musk in trouble because the United Auto Workers were listening and decided that they were threatening to retaliate against workers who wanted to unionize by threatening to fire them, which is a no-no under the National Labor Relations Board and the National Labor Relations Act. And so now Donald Trump finds himself in a new lawsuit. It looks like he's gonna be sued also by that female boxer in the Olympics who won the gold medal because Donald Trump called her out, said she was transgender, and said she was a man. So she, along with the person who wrote all of the Harry Potter books and some others,

are all going to be sued in France for that type of abuse. So you've got that going on. Then, so Donald Trump decides, I'm going to threaten to sue the Department of Justice down in Mar-a-Lago for malicious prosecution, and that's going to go badly for Donald Trump, and that's going to end up getting everybody sanctioned and so now as he comes into the moment when he's about to be sentenced he needs to have another diversionary tactic let's threaten and actually file a motion to recuse Judge Mershon for the third time on the exact same grounds. Here's what let me read to

you what and I gotta tell you, Judge Mershon, I've appeared in his court house, in his courtroom, but not before him before, but he's really a saint. They should put him up, they should canonize him. Seriously, they should build a, well, this is all said and done, they should build a bronze statue of Juan Mershon in front of the criminal courthouse in New York.

This is, look at the patience of this man. It's the patience of a saint. He says in his order, stated plainly, defendants arguments are nothing more than a repetition of stale and unsubstantiated claims. A judge should participate in establishing, maintaining and enforcing high standards of conduct and must personally observe those standards so that the integrity and independence

of the judiciary will be preserved and so that public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary will be promoted. This court, this is the judge continuing in his order, has been consistent that it welcomes zealous advocacy and creative lawyering. However, counsel has been warned repeatedly that such advocacy must not come at the expense of professional responsibility in one's role as an officer of the court. That is a not-so-subtle warning of the lawyers, Todd Blanch, Alina Habba, and also Emil Bové, that they could get sanctioned.

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your cat will love their product that you can try it risk-free. That means they will refund you if your cat won't eat their food. Now is the time to make the switch to Smalls. Head to Smalls.com slash Legal AF and use promo code Legal AF at checkout for 50% off your first order plus free shipping. That's the best offer you'll find, but you have to use my code LegalAF for 50% off your first order. One last time, that's promo code LegalAF for 50% off your first order plus free shipping. You know, I mean, frankly, I could file a bar grievance against them for doing this,

because I'm a member of the first department in New York, but let's leave that for another hot take. So you've got that little subtle warning where the judge could make a referral to the grievance committees related to this conduct, because now it's crossed the line from being creative lawyering to violating their oath of office related to this conduct because now it's crossed the line from being creative lawyering to

violating their oath of office as officers of the court. So the court went on, Judge Brichard went on to say, with these fundamental principles in mind, this court now reiterates for the third time that which should already be clear, Innuendo and mischaracterizations do not a conflict create. Recusal is therefore not necessary, much less required. On the facts before us, quote, we conclude the judge's impartiality cannot reasonably be questioned

based on the judge's relative business, judge's relative's business, that's the daughter, and or political activities, and the judge is not ethically required to disclose them. That's the judge citing to the Advisory Commission on Judicial Ethics back in 2023 that issued an opinion based on this very set of facts that was sought out by the judge himself.

He asked for the advisory opinion to guide his conduct. That's what lawyers and judges do. If I have a question about my ethical conduct, I can call an ethics hotline related to my bar admissions. Wherever I'm admitted to practice, I can call and ask for guidance. An ethics lawyer will get on the phone with me, I'll walk through the scenario and they will give me guidance. And if I want a more formal opinion, an advisory opinion that I can rely on, that I can take to the bank, you ask for one. And that's exactly what the judge did back in 2023 on the exact same grounds here. What's going to happen?

Let me just summarize it this way. If Donald Trump had an issue with Judge Man and his relationship with his own daughter and had anything else to accuse the judge of, he's already preserved that issue for appeal. When he finally gets around after he's been sentenced to appeal the case below, whether immunity applied or not, the decision on immunity that we're still waiting for, we are still waiting for the judge to issue his immunity decision. It's going to come any day now. Any day now, I think in the next two days, we're going to get the immunity decision where

I believe the judge, this same Judge Brachon, is going to reject Donald Trump's efforts to apply the July immunity decision to his pre-presidential conduct, primarily pre-presidential conduct, and to any of the evidence that was presented about what he did or what the people around him did after he was president, that was harmless error going to the jury. I think this is going to be the finding. Not case dispositive. The jury did not rely on it to convict Donald Trump of 34 felony counts. They had legions of other evidence, mountains of evidence and testimony,

including of Michael Cohen, including of the National Enquirer publisher, including of his own internal people and his internal controller, internal chief financial officer, and others around him to convict him of the 34 counts. You know, the couple of stray pieces of testimony by Hope Hicks or a Madeleine Westerhoek who scheduled for Donald Trump

kept his diary of meetings while he was in the White House did not lead to the conviction of Donald Trump. And therefore that is not reversible error. That's gonna be the judge's ruling the next couple of days. Then this same judge that Donald Trump and therefore that is not reversible error. That's going to be the judge's ruling the next couple of days. Then this same judge that Donald Trump has now taken a shot at three times, no pun intended, is gonna rule and sentence him come hell or high water on the 18th of September. Why Donald Trump wants to continue to pick a fight with somebody who holds his, what's the word

I'm looking for, his liberty, that's it, in the palm of his hands and is squeezing, I have no idea. But this has always been Donald Trump's tactic. Go after Judge Angoron, the judge presiding over his $500 million judgment, attack him mercilessly, attack his law secretary, law clerk mercilessly, attack his wife mercilessly, attack everybody in the courtroom mercilessly for the person that's going to rule about whether Donald Trump owes a half a billion dollars or not. Go after judge. This is the crazy upside down thinking of dementia, demented thinking of Donald Trump.

He's got another federal judge, right? Judge Louis Kaplan, who's got the decision to make about how the case proceeds against them for being a sex abuser and on defamation and on punitive damages. So he attacks Louis Kaplan and indirectly attacks the jury. What happens there? Another over a hundred, you know, another several hundred million dollar verdict comes out against Donald Trump. I mean, I gotta just tell you, if I was ever, you know, sort of, if I had ever, you know, turned dark and gone to the dark side and decided to give up everything

in my life and my law career and my bar license and my oath and become a criminal, and I was waiting around for sentencing or judgment by a judge, the last person I would attack is that person. But candidate Donald Trump can't help himself. It doesn't help criminal convict Donald Trump. It doesn't help business person Donald Trump. But candidate Donald Trump will say and do anything, even if it tanks his stock, right? Even

if he undermines the very business premise of his stock, he'll do it. Even if whatever he can do to try to win the election, he'll do it. Even if a criminal convicted felon Trump is harmed by it. That's what we're watching. Unhinged, untethered to reality, Donald Trump and Judge Marchand has finally had enough and is calling him out. Just as a final note here on Legal AF on this hot take, some people might be wondering, why does that kind of motion go to the judge that's being disqualified? And that's just a peculiar little quirk of American jurisprudence. Whenever you wanted to disqualify a judge, you have to go to that judge, prove to the judge that they should be disqualified. They take an oath that they're going to be impartial, that they're

not going to be biased, that they're going to keep up even the appearance of propriety and ethics. And so that the public has public confidence in the integrity of the system. So we trust judges wearing the black robe to make the right decision at the first instinct. If they don't make the right decision, you're on the losing end of the decision, and I've been there before, you can then go to the appellate court and argue. Donald Trump could have gone and has tried to go to the appellate court of these issues and he gets rejected every time because there's a once again there is no merit to it. It is stale, unsubstantiated, innuendo, masquerading as proper grounds to disqualify Judge Murchon and give

Donald Trump or candidate Donald Trump another talking point to try to grab the news cycle during a week or the last several weeks that have been terrible for him in the campaign. That's all we're watching. We'll continue to follow it at the intersection of law and politics right here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF, the podcast we invented four years ago at the intersection of law and politics. And if you don't know why we called it Legal AF, well, now you do. Every Wednesday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, join us for a live recording of Might As Touch Legal AF, where we curate the top four or five stories, just like this.

On Wednesdays, my co-anchor is Karen Friedman-Cnifilo. On Saturdays, Ben Mycelis. And then on hot takes like this, I update you along the way. So until my next hot take, until my next Legal AF, this is Michael Popak reporting. Heary, heary, Legal AF Law Breakdown is now in session. Go beyond the headlines and get a deep dive

into the important legal concepts you need to know and we discuss every day on Legal AF. Exclusive content you won't find anywhere else, all for the price of a couple of cups of coffee. Join us at patreon.com slash legal AF that's patreon.com slash legal AF.