Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump GIVES UP Bond Fight AND KEEPS LOSING

Episode Date: March 10, 2024

Meidas Touch co-founder Ben Meiselas and trial attorney Michael Popok are back with a new episode of the weekend edition of the top rated Legal AF podcast. On this episode, they debate/discuss: who Trump has gotten into bed with to post his $91 million dollar E Jean Carroll appellate bond and how he will raise the $600 million more needed to stop the NYAG’s enforcement of its judgment against him; whether Alina Habba has been permanently sidelined by Trump and others because of her consistent track record of losing his cases; whether a Trump co-conspirator’s lawyer in Georgia has her own ethics problem for agreeing to testify to the Georgia Senate about the pending Fulton County DA Fani Willis disqualification matter and criminal case; the Supreme Court’s upcoming oral arguments on two cases that impact Trump’s continued prosecution; Judge Cannon’s peculiar rulings in the Mar a Lago criminal prosecution against Trump leading up to next week’s motion to dismiss the indictment hearing, and so much more from the intersection of law, politics and justice. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! Aura Frames: Visit https://Auraframes.com/LegalAF and get $30 off their best-selling frames with promo code LEGALAF Beam: Get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to https://shopbeam.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF at checkout! Moink: Sign up at https://MoinkBox.com/LEGALAF and get FREE ground beef for a YEAR Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to https://RocketMoney.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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defamation case in the amount of about $91.6 million. Donald Trump did not use his own cash. He got a bond from an organization that we will talk about and we'll explain the implications of this, how it went down, and will Donald Trump be able to now post another bond in the amount in excess of $464 million in the New York Attorney General's civil fraud case. The clock is ticking there as well. And Eugene Carroll and her lawyer Roberta Kaplan truly showing that if you stare down Donald Trump, he will back down. Speaking of backing down, whether intentionally or whether it's being done by outside forces, Alina Habba is being replaced as Alan Weisselberg's lawyer in connection with various matters, but specifically the New York Attorney General, civil fraud case and other matters as well. The issue here of course is that Alina Habba was not exactly forthcoming with Justice Arthur Ingoron about whether or not she was aware that Weisselberg was negotiating a perjury

plea back in early February. And New York rules a professional conduct 3.3 sub A sub 3 makes it very clear that a lawyer is duty bound to bring that to the attention of the court. Could that be? What's that play? Is there something deeper? And we know that Alina Habba is also looks to be quietly being demoted as well in the Eugene Carroll appeal where Donald Trump has brought in other lawyers to handle the appeal. It's unclear what role Alina Habba will play there, but she's certainly not an appellate lawyer, although she likes to pretend to play one on TV.

But talking about playing something on TV, let me tell you who doesn't play anything on TV and who doesn't play around. That's special counsel Jack Smith who has filed opposition after opposition to the various frivolous motions to dismiss the indictment by Donald Trump before Judge Eileen Cannon in the Southern District of Florida. Among Donald Trump's claims is that he can telepathically declassify records and then wave his magic Donald Trump wand and declare classified records, nuclear secrets, war plans and other sensitive defense information, his own personal property, Special Counsel Jack Smith delivered a smackdown of that unlawful

proposition. We'll get into that. I do want to touch upon Ashley Merchant, the lawyer for one of Donald Trump's co-defendants in the Georgia RICO case against Donald Trump in Fulton County. She had to testify or she seemed that she wanted to testify before a Republican-led Georgia State Senate panel investigating Fulton County District Attorney, Fawney Willis. There was some actually very good questioning

by the Democratic member who was on that panel who basically showed what a farce this conflict of interest claim by Ashley Merchant is all about. And she seemed to fold under cross examination, unlike what we saw with Fulton County District Attorney, Foni Willis, when she went up and said, I'm testifying and telling the truth.

We'll talk about that. Finally, Donald Trump is an international loser as well. He has the rare ability to turn being into, from turning being a plaintiff into becoming a defendant, essentially, and getting judgments entered against him when he's the one doing the actual suing, just as Donald Trump has to pay judgments in cases where he sued the New York Times and Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump sued in a UK court Christopher Steele, as well as Christopher Steele's company, Orbis, for the Steele dossier, not only did Trump lose in UK, but he's now required to pay almost

$400,000 for losing there. So add that to Trump losing and add that to Trump's legal debt. It's great to be here with Michael Popak, not just my co-host on Legal AF, but my co-counsel. And as I've been phasing out and almost have entirely phased out my legal practice, you and I had one case remaining together as in the litigation area outside of what we've been doing and building might as touch a case that I'll let you talk about. But we got a verdict you and I on Friday from the jury that I'm very proud to announce, and we'll touch upon it briefly, but let me pass it to you.

Yeah. Ben, thanks. For people that don't know the origin story, you and I met opposing each other in a case when I worked in a Wall Street firm and you were representing a plaintiff in that case against them. But we had a lot of professional and personal, not only rapport but respect for each other. And then that led to when I went back to private practice, you and I deciding along with one of your partners that we wanted to try to do things together. And my very first case when I opened the office in Ponto Patricius and Pope Puck in New York

was our case together representing Ricky Garcia, formerly a Disney talent who also was in a boy band, if they're still called that, called Forever in Your Mind. It was put together by Simon Cowell. But Ricky, unfortunately, suffered years of abuse at the hands of his manager, Joby Hart. And we filed that case in 2019 under various California laws related to sexual predators and sexual attacks, assault, tension, and fliction of emotional distress. And it was a very arduous process. The lawyers, it was what we have to do in order to defend somebody's rights.

For the client, it was very emotionally taxing, as you can imagine. And he's waited over four years, really 10 if you start with when he was first abused, to get justice. And we finally, after some delay, some caused by COVID, some caused by just normal delays that we've talked about on legal AF, to our trial team, which consisted of you and I and another senior partner advising in the background, but allowing some young partners of ours to step forward. Dan Tepeteo for your firm, Garagos and Amanda Brookhizer, who runs my Las Vegas office to let them have their jury trial experience and one that was tremendously successful. A California jury returned to verdict 7-1, 7-1, 7 in favor, $6.5

million in total, including punitive damages. It sent the message, as I said recently in an interview, it sent the message that the American justice system still can be used effectively to redress wrong, to give somebody a measure of relief, a measure of justice for what happened to them. We can never give Ricky back what he lost in his innocence in psychologically and otherwise. But the jury stood up for what was the first hashtag me to for what was the first hashtag me to a boy plaintiff. And you and I took that case early on. I'm so proud of our trial team. I'm so proud of being involved with the case and of Ricky and of the jury's result.

Well, I'm glad that we could be representing someone as courageous as that. And as we talk about the E. Gene Carroll case where she was awarded $5 million back in May of 2023 for being sexually assaulted by Donald Trump and then defamed. And then as she prevailed in the more recent case, the defamation case where she was awarded $83.3 million by the jury, when Michael Popak and I talk about these cases, you know, it is rooted in our experience handling these types of cases. And Michael Popak, more on a day-to-day basis, continuing to litigate as he does the hot

takes I've since phased my practice out so I could work full time and build the Midas Touch network, but that was our remaining case that we had together. And so I wanted to share that with everybody here. And I think it is a transition point into talking about what's going on in the updates with E. Gene Carroll. Because as I mentioned, the E. Gene Carroll case originated with a verdict back in May, a sexual assault verdict where Donald Trump has now been found, just like Jobe Hart, who we sued to be an adjudicated sexual assaulter.

That was a determination by a jury against Donald Trump, and that was a jury determination in our case as well. Then you get on to this next phase, and Poe It's a phase that we're gonna have to deal with. I won't get into our case, but when we talk about posting bonds and having to collect on the judgment that is an entirely kind of new but inextricably intertwined phase and Donald Trump waited until the very last

minute like literally hours away from E. Jean Carroll and her lawyer Roberta Kaplan seizing the property and Ultimately Donald Trump came up with what's called a super seediest bond. He didn't post it himself He had to he got the bond from an outside entity, Federal Insurance Company, which is the parent company for Chubb. You probably know it by the name of Chubb. By posting it, it stays the enforcement of the judgment so Donald Trump can then appeal and interest will no longer continue to accrue because you post more than the underlying amount. It's an $83.3 million judgment. You had to post about $91.6 million. And let me just pull up E. Jean Carroll's

statement, which she had. And then let me toss it to you, Popak, for your analysis as we move into kind of the next chapter now, which is the appeal that Donald Trump filed before the Second Circuit. E. Jean Carroll said, though the illustrious Robbie Kaplit, referring to her lawyer, is strong enough to yank a golden toilet out of the floor at Trump Tower and toss it through the window, this bond saves Robbie the trouble of showing up with U.S. Marshals on Monday to do so. So take us through what went down, Michael Popak.

Thanks Ben. So we speculated that he was going to have a lot of difficulty in getting either a cash bond, which is you got to post what amounts to $91.6 million for Eugene Carroll's $83.5 million judgment because there's compound at 9% interest and you have to prepay interest on top of that and you have to update your bond, cash or otherwise, to keep the interest in place in favor of the judgment creditor. And that's what Eugene Carroll is. She's a judgment creditor.

The judgment debtor is Donald Trump. And you either put up the cash, which he has effectively done. I'm going to tell you why, based on the reporting about the bond, in order to get the bond, if you're going to use a bond instead of a cash deposit, because for the $5.5 million judgment that Donald Trump put up when he lost the last time to Eugene Carroll, he just put up the cash plus interest rather than go through the effort of a bonding company and pay a premium because you have to pay the bonding company about 12% to 15% of the bond amount in order if you can even find a bonding company or what's called a surety to put up the bond.

You either have to have the assets that the bonding company is willing to accept or you have to go get a irrevocable letter of credit from a bank that will back the bond. In this case, they were able to find from a company that's controlled by Evan Greenberg, who's the son of Hank Greenberg, who's very famous in the insurance industry. Evan had been famous for a couple of things, being supremely critical of Donald Trump, about his COVID policy, about his immigration policy, about Jan 6th. But yet, when it came down to, do we want to make $15 million on a posting a bond for Donald Trump? The answer seems

to be, yeah, I'm going to take my ethics and my morals and put it in the back and let my company earn that premium. Because that Evan Greenberg, who also served for a time, even though he was a critic of Donald Trump on one of Donald Trump's trade panels and COVID recovery panels, like an advisory committee, he obviously gave the green light to allow this charity company that's owned by Chubb to post the money. Now, it's not a free ride for Donald Trump, even though people might think so. He has to pledge, meaning he can't move assets that back the bond. And he had to back the bond up to the $93.1 million, meaning, and a lot of it had to be cash, which was a requirement of the bonding company.

So he had to put up 70 to 80 million cash, which we know he had from his $400 million stash of cash that he had admitted to under a deposition cross-examination a year or so ago in the New York Attorney General case, and which he offered in the New York Attorney General case recently when he was trying to bargain with the appellate court about I don't have the whole to have to put up the whole 465 how about a hundred like no, we're not this isn't deal or no deal. This is an apprentice You know, they're not business people. You got to put up the money So he knew we knew we had the hundred so he's obviously pledged and which means he has to keep in a bank account

100. So he's obviously pledged, which means he has to keep in a bank account, not in his pocket, not on IOU to the bonding company, these assets, which I assume we're going to see some reporting about in Barbara Jones, the monitor's report, because she sits over all of his assets by way of the New York Attorney General case, including the cash. So she doesn't have to technically approve it as of yet, but she does need to know about it. So we're gonna so she doesn't have to technically approve it as of yet, but she does need to know about it. So we're gonna see in reporting soon, Ben, and you and I love diving into that Barbara Jones report when it comes out about all the money movement. So now that he's done that, and I did a hot take, we'll be going up soon, where Alina Habba, another thematic on this on this podcast, misled the judge again because at

the last minute she was begging the judge to rule in her favor in favor of Donald Trump to allow a stay of the judgment which starts being enforceable on Monday without having to post a bond at all. And the judge was like, or lower no bond. And he was like, well, I'm not ready to rule on that yet. But in the meantime, you got to get your financial affairs in order, and your bad planning is not my emergency. So I'm not going to move any faster than I have to to rule on whether you're not going to have to pledge any assets cut to the chase. He's not going to rule in favor of that. But he's not ready to rule either. He's not going to be pushed around by Donald Trump. At the time she

made that filing, they already had the bond in their back pocket because I saw the date on the bond. And the date on the bond is a day before she filed her brief. So again, she didn't even drop a footnote that says, even though he has the bond, we'd rather not post the bond because, no, you misled a federal judge again,

and then you'll pick up later with Alina Habba getting booted out and maybe this is part of the reason the way she operates in this world. But his bigger problem, Ben, and I'll toss it back to you, is having scrambled and gotten chub insurance subsidiary to post that bond and pledged all of those assets, meaning they're locked in place and can't be moved. He now has to do a similar thing, but with a much larger number, well in excess of $600 million with interest running, pay a premium on top of it, which will run him another $10

or $12 million. Where is he getting that from? Does he already have a deal with Chubb to do the exact same thing, just pledging more real estate assets in support of that. I mean, it'd be odd that they went to Chubb for one and Chubb's not already sort of pre-approved because Chubb would have to know about the second bond because they want assets free and clear, right? So he can't pledge the same assets twice.

So I wanna get your view about how he's gonna come up with and if Chubb's already, you know, the cake is baked, that Chubb's going to be the one posting the now $600 million bond in the next two weeks. Which would mean that Donald Trump would have to basically say bye-bye, no matter what happens to $60 million and then secure it, you know, in terms terms of what the non-refundable premium would probably be at least, and then secure it by showing that that cash is in an account that could then be seized by Chubb or that they would have some stake in assets. That's the process that would happen there. And look, do I think it's possible that Donald Trump has $100 million

in cash? I think that's possibly likely. But again, this is somebody whose entire remaining thesis to the extent there even is one is, I'm such a great billionaire, I'm a billionaire and I've got all this money and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's struggling to do what any billionaire would very easily be able to do. You remember Alina Habba's statement where she said, of course he's going to post. This is so easy for him to do and clearly it isn't. As I've always said, I think this just is a learning lesson when you and I try to extrapolate data and look in other cases just about how Donald Trump operates. Donald Trump, you have to confront him and confront him and he will throw up every type

of roadblock and go through every possible excuse the same way he did to try to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. He'll do every tactic of the biggest sociopath in history, even filing motions, hey judge, please help me out, I really need your help right now. You know I'm good. Oh by the way, E. Jean Carroll's cool with this. She says it's fine. She says that I don't need to post the box. It doesn't matter what it is

He went through each one of those iterations before finally folding and that's ultimately what he does And what I want to talk about with you popa as well though is Alina Habba's future here as well Because we've seen documents now being filed where she's been removed as Weisselberg's lawyer We've seen documents filed that Trump spread in a new appellate team in the E. Jean Carroll matter. I think her refusal to respond to Justice Arthur and Goron's request back on February 5th when he sent an email saying, anybody you know about Weisselberg potentially

committing perjury in my courtroom and her response was the opposite of what the ethics opinions actually require in New York. I want to talk about all of that and more, but let's take our first quick break up the show. Oh, I think we all know someone who loves taking photos, but their hundreds of pictures are just wasting away on their phone. Start putting them to good use with a unique stylish digital picture frame from Aura Frames. It was named the number one digital picture frame by Wirecutter and for good reason. It's so easy to set up and they have different frame options. This is truly the perfect gift for the ones closest in your life.

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That's one year of the best bacon you'll ever taste, but for a limited time. Spelled M-O-I-N-K box.com slash legalaf. That's moinkbox.com slash legal AF. Welcome back to Legal AF where we last left off Popak. Talking about Alina Habba seems to be quietly demoted from the appeal in the E. Gene Carroll case, which she previously said she was going to be the one handling. A notice of appearance was filed by another lawyer in the E. Jean Carroll case. And then Weisselberg replaced Alina Habba with a lawyer after pleading guilty to perjury.

Usually, Popak, when you start off as a civil defendant and end up pleading guilty to felony perjury, and when you're a criminal defendant in the civil case and you lose the case monetarily, there's no other way to say that's the worst possible outcome for you in a civil case. And that seems to be the Alina Habba specialty. And as we talk about the Alina Habba outcome when she sued the New York Times for Donald Trump, New York Times was awarded nearly half a million dollars when Alina Habba sued Hillary Clinton and dozens of others for Donald Trump. And Hillary Clinton and those other individuals were awarded nearly one million dollars in sanctions by the judge.

It's kind of the Alina Habba specialty. But I guess she's taking it to the next level, Popak, by now turning her civil clients into criminal defendants who then go to jail. Pretty impressive accomplishment there for Alina Habba. But I think this ethics violation, this is my opinion, others can disagree, but New York rule of professional responsibility, and you know the rule of popaki practice in New York, 3.3 sub A sub 3 requires a lawyer to tell the tribunal even if it would potentially violate attorney client privilege and attorney client confidences if you become aware that your client was engaged in perjury and lying. Justice Ngora put her on notice and he said, I'm on inquiry notice. I'm not saying I'm adopting this New York Times reporting in my ruling. I'm just saying I'm on inquiry notice that this could potentially have taken place.

What do you know about it? Habba refused to answer and Goran issued his 92-page opinion, devoid of any response from Habba, which has implications. I just wonder if we will be seeing more implications there, which I think we will be. And I think we'll see that you referenced this before the ad break in the independent monitors report as well as she talks about the developments since the last order. We'd love to get your take on that, Popak. Yeah, for sure. And we can tie it to Ashley Merchant, too, who we're going to talk about later, because I believe she violated ethics rules in giving her testimony about a current pending criminal

investigation under a very similar set of laws there. You have an obligation as a lawyer, Ben and I and others, Karen and others that are members of the Bar and swear an oath to uphold the Constitution and to be ethical. And one of them is ethics and candor to a tribunal. Candor to a tribunal is in every state's ethics rules. And you and I have pointed out a number of places where Alina Habba has crossed the line, come close the line and or crossed it in what she has said. Now, look, I thought

that when she lost horribly the first Eugene Carroll case last May and the jury returned a verdict of $5.5 million and after that, and Donald Trump effectively kicked her upstairs to be the head of MAGA Inc. PAC or legal whatever, and spokesperson. I thought, oh, all right, well, he's taken the reins away from her. He's kicked her, like George Steinbrenner used to do. He kicked the manager off the playing field to put him upstairs in the general manager's office. But no, she came back. She's like a bad penny. She keeps coming back, and he keeps having renewed confidence in her until, She keeps coming back and he keeps having renewed confidence in her until, I mean, any thinking client, and I know that's a stretch when we're talking about the Republican candidate for

president, but any thinking client with the track record that Alina Habba has accomplished for him would have replaced her and anybody who's also represented by her would have replaced her a long time ago. You're being kind. I'm doing a hot take right now where I go through the nine different losses for Donald Trump's civil and criminally, nationally and internationally over the last 14 months.

And she's on almost every one of those, including, you know, at least 21 jurors unanimously coming back against Donald Trump in civil cases as they're about to start a criminal trial, which hopefully she's nowhere to be around. Allen Weisselberg switched his lawyers in criminal side after he lost or was sentenced to 100 days in Rikers Island for his role in the 17 count criminal conviction of the Trump organization entities for tax evasion and his own tax evasion.

He fired the lawyer that was being paid for by Donald Trump and he switched gears and he hired Seth Rosenberg, who's a well-known, not MAGA, white-collar defense lawyer in New York. It's kind of person you would go to when you wanna have the prosecutors and the judge kind of respect Your position may not agree with it all the time, but at least have some goodwill there And so he hired Seth so but he did not use the south is really a white color in his firm is really criminal

They don't really have a civil side or at least he and so he allowed Alina Because Trump was print paying the freight to represent him in the New York Attorney General case. And we know how that went. Not only did he get, did he have to repay and discourage pensions and settlement payments and severance payments that were paid to him and other monies by way of Judge Angoran's order, but he committed perjury and the lawyers there suborned and permitted perjury to happen, which is your point, Ben, about the ethics issues, while at the same time, his lawyers, which are Seth Rosenberg, were in negotiations

as publicly reported in the New York Times to have Allen Weisselberg, the CFO, plead guilty to perjury charges for what he did and testified to in the Manhattan DA's office and other places. And she knew or should have known at the time she was asked, and when the reporting hit the New York Times, that her client was in talks to have committed perjury and plead guilty to that and should have answered as under her obligation of candor to the tribunal should have answered that question accurately to the judge and she did not. Now, the fact that he fired her for the subsequent appeal doesn't, I assume Seth Rosenberg is guiding now Alan Weisselberg, who's got

his own problems because he hasn't been sentenced yet. He's going to be in front of, get this, get this Ben. Judge Mershan, who's the judge that is presiding over the March 25th start of the criminal trial against Donald Trump for business record fraud, is going to be the person who's going to be sentencing again, Alan Weisselberg, for his perjury charge. So he's got more problems than he, and he doesn't need a Lena Habba handling his case any longer. And we're just going to see her get canned and fired all along the way because she's

a walking malpractice case for the defense. You know, the Manhattan District Attorney case that you mentioned is marching forward in March, March 25th. You know, it's just one of those things too, Popak. The media doesn't really, they talk about it at the key dates and deadlines, but like, then it just seems like, whoa, where did this come from? You know, and it just kind of reminds me of, you know, and I

won't get fully political here because that's not the point of this show. You know, President Biden's State of the Union, where because their coverage is so lazy of what's happening, when you see the President Biden that we all know and we've seen, and then it's like, whoa, he's so fiery, he's not sleepy, what, yeah, just follow the facts and follow the data about what's going on. When you follow what's going on, for example, in the Manhattan District Attorney case, you see that one, it's right around the corner, too, that Donald Trump is desperately trying to hide from the jury through motions and lemonade, all of the key evidence. He doesn't want Cohen to testify.

He doesn't want Stormy Daniels to testify. He doesn't want Karen McDougal to testify. He doesn't want his doorman to testify. He doesn't want Rudy Giuliani's interview with Sean Hannity. Trump doesn't want his own statements to be shown before the jury unless there's a proffer. Like he filed basically, I don't want any of the things that I did that are known publicly to go before the jury. And ultimately, the response by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was like, okay, are you doing the press release or are you actually filing a legal document? Of course, these things should go before the jury. And ultimately, if you want to try to attack the credibility of Michael Cohen or Stormy Daniels or Karen McDougal or yourself with your own statements, there's a jury for that.

Go ahead and cross-examine or present that to the jury. But all of this stuff is clearly relevant and admissible stuff. So it's a brief update on the Manhattan District Attorney case. But Popak, because you mentioned Ashley Merchant, the lawyer for Donald Trump's co-defendant Michael Roman in the Georgia criminal RICO case, who really kind of put all of this in motion, she is a bit of a fixture in the Fulton County political and lawyer scene. And so she now is testifying before a Georgia Senate committee led by Republicans.

And I think they're trying to also embarrass, I don't think I know, they're trying to embarrass Fulton County District Attorney, Fawney Willis. They don't really have any power beyond trying to use their pulpit to embarrass her because that whole ethics commission that they tried to create to remove district attorneys was basically found by the Georgia Supreme Court to really be kind of unconstitutional in some of the mechanisms and they really don't have power to remove district attorneys.

So there's really nothing the Senate committee can do. But I don't, I want to get your take, Pope. I think this backfired when Ashley Merchant thought that she was going to go there, get this kind of heroes welcome. I think she forgot that there were Democrats or at least one Democrat on this committee, Democratic State Senator Emanuel Jones, who was asking, you know, the real questions that I think we all needed to know about the issue of the conflict of interest, which is what this is supposed to be about. This reminds me of the congressional hearings that we've been covering at the federal level in Washington, D.C., where these hearings by Republicans backfire.

And I think we saw that here as well. It also is an interesting point because Fox tried to cut to this committee at the exact wrong moment for them. This is the moment when Fox cut into it and then they were like, crap, this was not the part we wanted to show our viewers. Let's take a look at Democratic State Senator Emanuel Jones questioning Ashley Merchant about what she claims this conflict was to try to initiate these proceedings with Trump and Trump's co-defendants to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney,

Foney Willis, play this clip. Ubers on each of these trips, there was a hotel at the beginning of the Royal Bahamas. I didn't include that. I didn't want to do the math. And I also did not want to include- And how much this was Willis May? 200 and something thousand a year. I didn't want to do the math. And I also did not want to include. How much assistance will this make? Um, 200 and something thousand a year? Two thousand.

So your argument is that a person who makes $200,000 a year is actually setting up prosecutions to go on a trip that costs $3,500. That's your argument. No, no, no, not in isolation. I mean, you're talking about in isolation. No, I'm not talking about isolation. I'm talking about what's in briefs. I don't know what else you may be speculating about.

I'm just talking about what's in briefs. I don't know what else you may be speculating about. I'm just talking about what's in briefs that says, this is the benefit that she got. And all I'm saying is that I got a person who's making $200,000, and the benefit that you're putting into the briefs, not what you may say that you may find elsewhere,

but the benefit in the briefs is, I go on the trip with 3300 dollars, $44,100 dollars, and they have made up all these prosecutions to go on a three day cruise for 3300 dollars. I mean, that's your argument. That's your argument. That's your argument. That's not.

That's in the brief. That's not our argument. So, you know, we did argue for about three hours. What else is in the brief? What else is in the brief? What else is in the brief? Yes. A lot of facts, a lot of law. No, no, as far as actual financial benefit. Oh, so, so the financial benefit that I put in the brief was what I could prove.

I did not want to have any, as you call it, speculation. I did not want to speculate about anything else. So I did not know if Mr. Wade paid for an Uber that Miss Willis was literally sitting in at the same time. You can kind of... By the way, what you saw there from Georgia State Senator Emanuel Jones, I'll get your take, Pope. That's when you and I talk about Judge Scott McAfee, what he should have done in having a proffer. That should have been his gatekeeping function before you start getting into when someone had sex with someone and this and that. If you get past hurdle one through a proffer like

you saw there, then I understand maybe you get to the next layer. But to me, this whole made-up contrived aspect of conflict under Georgia law folds when you actually just go to the facts that Emanuel Jones was pointing out there to Ashley Merchant. So you're saying that this whole prosecution against Donald Trump was arranged so that they could go on a vacation and go on a three day cruise for 3,500 bucks.

Like that's what you're claiming is a conflict of interest, that a constitutional officer, the district attorney can't do our job. I thought that was brilliant. And that I wanted to show, because that's what you and I had been saying, that should have been the threshold of what a judge should have done.

Pope Buck. Yeah. Yeah, the whole thing was a circus. You and I agree totally that there should have been a different way for the judge to handle this. Katie Fang was a friend of the show, a friend of mine, she put it well. I don't know if this senator had seen Katie's posting, but about two weeks ago, Katie said, let me get this straight. Fonnie Willis, a constitutional officer, went to Roy Barnes, the governor of the state of Georgia, former governor of the state of Georgia, knowing that he would turn down the request for him to be the special counsel so that she could quickly turn to her boyfriend to

give him the job after the indictment so that he could make less than he was making in private practice so that she could take a trip to go to the Double Tree Inn in Sonoma Valley at, you know, $200 a night. That's the case. And I have, I think Ashley Merchant, you know, all kind of kidding aside, Ashley Merchant has a bigger problem. Ashley Merchant is not doing the postmortem commentary about a matter that is over. She is talking about a matter that in real time is still up for consideration with Judge McAfee and a criminal prosecution that hasn't even

yet got off the ground completely, at least towards that. There is a rule in every state's Code of Ethics professional responsibility for lawyers about trial publicity. You chapter-inversed an earlier rule that you think Alina Habba violated, and I agree. Rule 3.6, trial publicity, says that a lawyer who is participating or has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter, this is similar criminal, shall not make any extra judicial statement that a person would reasonably believe to be disseminated by means

of public communication, i.e. the clip we just saw, if the lawyer knows or reasonably should know that it will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing and adjudicated proceeding in the matter. Ashley Merchant didn't like the fact that most of her quote unquote evidence or argument she wasn't able to get out during the formal proper hearing so she's using this extrajudicial process to try to influence and corrupt the result while we're waiting on Judge McAfee to issue his ruling based on the evidence that was presented in the courtroom Where she here she gets free run at all this kind of non-nonsense and not and not only is she Influencing McAfee improperly under the trial publicity rule. She's influencing the future jury and their

confidence, if you will, in Fawney Willis should she survive this witch hunt? And so I think she's got her own ethics problems. And I know that, you know, Elise Stefanik and all these people in the House love to file ethics charges against federal judges that they don't agree with, or New York state judges they don't agree with, or prosecutors they don't agree with, are we know what? The Democrats should file an ethics charge, especially the ones in Georgia, against actually merchant and what she should have done.

And what you and I would have done in the middle of this proceeding to avoid violating that rule is we would have declined the request to appear in front of that body. And if it was a subpoena, we would have moved to quash the subpoena, citing that rule and saying, our hands are tied. We'd love to talk to you, but we can't do it now during the penance of this proceeding. But that's not what they wanted. What they wanted was this public smearing and electronic lynching that continues against Fawni Willis, who by the way, speaking of the intersection of law and politics, is not only up for reelection at the very same time, down ballot from Donald Trump, but so is Scott McAfee, the judge. He's up for a retention vote at the very

same time. And of course, she's drawn an opponent, a Republican opponent that is using the same talking points that Ashley Merchant did. One last comment. It might have been just me, but every time I see Ashley Merchant or some other person that's like a white lawyer responding to her peer or somebody superior to her in the case of the senator,

who happens to be black, there always seems to be a smirk or a level of disrespect that would never come out if it was if the person was not of color or a minority. And I'm sensitive to it, but you can just see, we're not going to play it again, but you can just go back and watch it in the audience. There's just this smirk. There's just this smugness that comes from this sort of white privilege position, which is what we're seeing over and over and over again in the attacks on Foddy Wells. Worth also mentioning, I think, some of the additional details that came out in that hearing with the questioning of Immanuel Jones. So, the sequence of events, as it seems turned out, that it was Terence Bradley, the ex-business partner of Nathan Wade, who had communications

from the outset with Ashley Merchant. A lot of gossiping, a lot of, you know, seemed to have been very bitter about how the business relationship and friendship may have broken down with Nathan Wade. And so Terence Bradley seemed to really kind of enjoy this role as kind of feeding this gossip, but then it got very real for Terence Bradley right away, where Merchant was then sharing it with the other code defendants, and they were going to make this into a major issue. Then Terrence Bradley was caught with, well, now we need you to sign declarations, and we need to out you as a source.

Then he never had the underlying data to truly be the source when he was just trying to kind of screw over an ex-business partner and then he got caught up in something that he never has actual evidence about and missable evidence based on all the gossip and innuendo that he was trying to hurl at his ex-business partner. One of the things that we also learned as well through the questioning of Immanuel Jones is that Nathan Wade and Fulton County District Attorney Fawney Willis and their prosecutorial team actually offered a misdemeanor plea agreement very early on to Michael Roman.

So one of the questions by Immanuel Jones is if your whole theory is that this conflict of interest was trying to drag the case on, they offered your client a plea agreement right away that would have been no jail time. Why would they do that if ultimately you claim that there was this conflict of interest that they wanted to use the prosecution to keep going on vacations. That would be internally inconsistent and absolutely make no sense.

And she didn't have any good answers for that. Turning very quickly though to another update. Today's kind of, this week's news pop-up, I would say as we're heading into the Manhattan District Attorney case post some of these big verdicts, it's like kind of short bursts of a lot of information that sets the stage for things. So we also now know the date of the Supreme Court's

oral arguments. And of course, everybody's focused right here, if you look at this, at the Trump v. United States argument with Trump asserting absolute presidential immunity in the Washington DC criminal case. That is what the Supreme Court agreed to hear Serti Ararion recently, so we'll of course be covering that oral argument on that date. I think people should be even more concerned about what's going down on April 16th right there in Fisher, the United States, which we will be broadcasting live here on the Midas

Touch Network. That is a consolidated matter at this point where a lot of the January 6th insurrectionists are appealing their convictions under the obstruction of official proceeding statute saying that the obstruction of official proceedings, 18 USC, section 1512C, does not apply to insurrectionists. They claim it's an N-RUN error statute that deals with destruction of physical documents as opposed to obstruction of a proceeding itself like the January 6th counting of the confirming of the electoral vote.

That's before the United States Supreme Court. Two of the charges against Donald Trump are brought under that 18 USC 1512 sub-C. And we'll see what the United States Supreme Court does there. There would still be two remaining criminal charges against Donald Trump. But we see this Supreme Court over and over again acting in ways that I think are fairly lawless. Again, I don't want to turn this into the political Midas Touch Brothers show, but this is at the intersection of law and politics. One of my favorite moments from the State of the Union speech was when President Biden looked at these Supreme Court justices and frankly, some of the right-wing justices were

too cowardly to even show up there. I mean, think about the lack of respect there where you have Justice Alito and Clarence Thomas not even being present. So you had three of the justices appointed by Democratic administrations there, but President Biden making, you know, looking at the Supreme Court for their taking away a woman's reproductive rights and quoting from their decision saying, yeah, we're going to take away your reproductive rights. But women are not without electoral power. And President Biden said, well, the country, you will, not the country, you members of

the Supreme Court will learn about that power in November. I thought that was a powerful moment. Pope, when we get back, I want to talk about special counsel Jack Smith and what's going on in the Mar-a-Lago document case. A lot of filings there. Judge Cannon set a hearing date, which is such a cannon move in and of itself. And then I want to talk about Donald Trump being an international loser,

losing in the UK High Court in his lawsuit against Christopher Steele and Steele's company, Orbus. But not only losing, because the loss happened a few months ago, but now having to pay attorney's fees there for losing. Donald Trump and his lawyers have the rare ability to take cases that they file and not just lose them, but essentially flip the script and become defendants in the cases and then owe judgments to the people they were.

So we'll talk about that and more, but let's take our last quick break of the show. With a grown family, I've been trying to save even more money, but it seemed like my bank account was stuck. Thankfully, I heard about trying to save even more money, but it seemed like my bank account was stuck. Thankfully, I heard about Rocket Money and gave it a try. It turns out I had a number of subscriptions I was paying for that I'd forgotten about. Rocket Money helped me cancel some of them, and now I have more money than before. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so that you can grow your savings.

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If you want to try Beam's best-selling dream powder, get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to shopbeam.com slash legal AF and use legal AF as a code at checkout. That's shopbeam.com slash legal AF and use legal AF, the code when you check out for up to 40% off. Welcome back to Legal AF, Michael Popak. So Judge Eileen Cannon set a hearing for next week. March 14th is or March 15th, but end of next week she set a hearing date where she wants to hear these motions that are brought by Donald Trump. Very frivolous motions to dismiss the indictment in the Mar-a-Lago document case.

Judge Cannon also accepted amicus briefs from literally the Citizen United Group itself and from Stephen Miller. And Stephen Miller's entity is the group that goes around suing corporations for discriminating against white males. And Stephen Miller submitted a brief saying that there is no jurisdiction under the Presidential Records Act for Judge Eileen Cannon or any judge to even render a decision and thus the case needs to be dismissed. There's also a vague for

constitutional vagueness motion to dismiss completely frivolous argument. Trump's essential claim for trying to dismiss the Mar-a-Lago document case where Trump willfully retain national defense information including nuclear secrets, war plans, and some of our nation's most sensitive documents, Trump's filings say that these records belong to him, that they're his personal records. So he's not only arguing that he telepathically declassified the records. He's also saying that he converted the records into his own personal property. So he says that simply by packing up our nuclear codes and classified information, putting it in a box and then shipping it to Mar-a-Lago, that then makes these documents personal records and it belongs to him such that he claims, and this is what Stephen Miller's

amicus brief touches upon, and this is what Judge Eileen Cannon said could be helpful for her rendering her decision and then there will be oral argument on this at the end of next week that Trump claims that it now belongs to him and there's no there's therefore not jurisdiction. Special counsel Jack Smith filed a fiery response saying that is just so utterly absurd. Let me just pull up one of Jack Smith's comments here as well. By the way, that hearing is March 14, 2024, that Judge Eileen Cannon has set. And this is basically what Jack Smith writes. He goes, Defended Donald Trump moves to dismiss the superseding indictment based on the Presidential Records Act. Trump's claims rest on three fundamental errors, all

of which reflect his view that as a former president the nation's laws and principles of accountability that govern every other citizen do not apply to him. First, the Presidential Records Act does not affect the scope of the statute that Trump is being charged with that underlies those counts. The section prohibits the unauthorized possession and willful retention of national defense information, even if the raft of highly classified documents that Trump took from the White House tomorrow, a long ago, were somehow categorized as personal under the PRA that would not render his retention of those documents authorized.

Secondly, charged documents are indisputably presidential, not personal, and Trump offers no basis to conclude otherwise. Instead, he contends that because he transferred documents to Mar-a-Lago rather than to the National Archives Records Administration, the court must conclusively presume that he designated the documents as personal despite contrary allegations in the superseding indictment, the presidential nature of the records, and his own public statements saying the opposite. He further contends that an implied decision to treat records as personal lies beyond the scope of judicial review.

I just wanted to read that, Popak, because I don't want you to think that, oh, this is like Ben and Popak's spin on what Donald Trump is arguing. Trump is actually arguing that our nuclear secrets are his own personal records now because he shipped them to Mar-a-Lago. The fact that Judge Cannon's not just rejecting this on the papers and that she set a hearing on this

and invited Stephen Miller's brief saying that this should not be within the province of her. I mean, just it's so typical judge canon. Let me hear from you there and then let's just talk about like her docket is a total mess now. She hasn't set the trial date. She hasn't ruled on SIPA issues. This is, I've never seen a messier docket yet alone a more corrupt docket, but just a freaking messy document in my legal career.

Michael Popak, what say you? And you're not even talking about the things that aren't on the docket that should be. She's created a secret shadow docket where she's made Jack Smith have to cross a hurdle that I've never seen in my years of practice in federal criminal law and defense. She requires him to serve her, email her the document and Trump's side before it goes on the docket. This from a judge who says that she is the protector of all things transparency related to a criminal process. She's created her own secret docket, and that's why you and I are always a little

bit late in revealing what filings look like because they're not hitting the public docket even in redacted form. I'm going to have an interview that's going to be going up, I think, this weekend or early next week. We're having Judge Ludwig back with us, conservative, Federalist Society, Republican, a constitutional scholar and patriot who has his own issues, including with Judge Cannon, and he'll comment on that. He'll give you his opinion about what is happening with the United States Supreme Court with their late decision to hear immunity and whether that's going to impact the ability to even have a trial with Judge Chutkin in the DC election interference case. Judge Cannon, it's odd, and I invited Judge, you'll hear it in the interview, I invited Judge Ludick, who's been the author of a number of very powerful and persuasive

a very powerful and persuasive amicus briefs to the United States Supreme Court, the DC Court of Appeals to start filing amicus briefs and flooding the court with his amicus briefs in Cannon's case. Because Cannon, to have her say, not just approved on the amicus, but she thinks it would be helpful to hear from MAGA right-wing non-lawyer Stephen Miller and a right-wing MAGA podcaster in their positions on the proper application of the rules related to the National Archive and whether Jack Smith was properly appointed and properly budgeted by under the

and properly budgeted by under the appointment clause of the Constitution. I started reeling that out to Judge Ludwig and he was like, what? I'm hoping he'll take us up on our proposal that he starts sending an abacus to her as well. And I see Jack Smith's, one of his responses is, he's beefing up his team. He's adding people from the DC election interference case, which may not be happening in any time soon like Jim Pierce Who's his trusted right hand prosecutor adding him to the team as they gear up for the 11th Circuit? Appeal the inevitable appeal to the 11th Circuit on one or more a reversible error moves by cannon You said I think you call it a cannon mistake or another cannon move. I heard cannon ball. It's another cannon ball. You know, like when you were kids jumping into the pool and she just does it over and over again. She's about, I'm pretty sure, to make a reversible error fundamental injustice ruling related to the disclosure of witnesses on the public docket.

That motion for reconsideration has reported that she held to let Jack Smith have one more chance to convince her not to make reversible error, not to do that. For the reporting inside the courtroom, didn't go well for Jack Smith. And if she comes down and says, no, I'm going to double down as she's, when you put, the problem with her is when you put her into, she gets her backup, which is exactly what you're not supposed to do. And that's, that is grounds to remove a judge when they're starting to defend their own position, not because it's reasonable, not because it's well thought through, but just

because. And she's getting into that just because world, where it's OE, the prosecutors are always wrong, Trump is always right, and she doesn't like being challenged, which is the problem with a not confident, immature federal judge who hasn't been around the block enough and has a temperament issue. The more I see of her in this proceeding, the more rather than sit back and say, I don't really know this area well, let me learn, let me read briefs, let me listen to the government's

position in a sober fashion, let me have my law clerks do their job and go do some great research. Her natural instincts in this area, as you outlined, are terrible. She doesn't have the natural instincts that come in this area. And she went in doubt. She bends over backwards apparently to help Donald Trump, including that you and I are even talking in March, in March of 2024 about indictment dismissals that should have been filed nine, 10 months ago to allow for a proper briefing and appeal. She's screwed herself as well. In her setting the order, her order

setting the briefing schedule, she's having the reply briefs, which is the final word on the issue, these three motions to dismiss. She she's gonna hear on the 14th of March. She's having the reply brief come in at 8 a.m. in the morning and she's holding the hearing at 10 a.m. How is she gonna possibly sift through a 20 page reply paper and all the new case law and then hit the bench to have a meaningful hearing? It's as if she doesn't care any longer.

Look, the quicker she makes some fundamental ruling and the quicker Jack Smith can get up to the 11th Circuit, the better. The question is gonna be, will he ask for her removal and will they grant it? And Judge Ludig in my interview has an opinion having been a fourth circuit court of appeals judge about both of those issues.

Well, I'm glad that we have Judge Lennon coming in and consistently giving commentary now here on the Midas Touch Network. I'm excited to watch that interview. When I was talking about the possible, the date of this hearing, it was the 14th, but if you go back and look, I was saying, I'm like, the 14th or the 15th,

because I saw it was the 14th, but I was like, I'm like, the 14th or the 15th, because I saw it was the 14th, but I was like, aren't the reply papers due the same day? And I'm like, how's she having the reply papers due on the hearing? And it is the same date as you clarified. But here's the thing. This should not be a political issue when it comes to Donald Trump claiming or anyone claiming that the nuclear codes and classified information that belongs to we the people that should be held in the highest of

secretive silos and gifts and all of that Donald Trump claims that it is his. Trump's argument in this case now, after 20 different iterations of lies starting with the FBI planted the documents. Y'all remember, that's how they started this stuff was planted. And then it evolved, it didn't evolve, didn't evolve. To now, his argument is, I did it. I took it. But they're mine. They're mine. I had the right to take it because when I put things in a box and I send it to Mar-a-Lago, they become my own personal property and you have no right to question the fact that I've claimed all of these American

documents as personal. Now, if you take that by extension, that means that he could basically say the capital building belongs to him. That's his personal property, right? He can say Washington, D.C. belongs to him. He would say that's his personal him. That's, he would say, that's his personal property. It's the dumbest and most dangerous possible line of inquiry when you break it down in that way. You know, and then they want to talk about, well, Clinton did it, Bill Clinton, it's the Clinton socks case.

So it's like the socks. And it's like, no, it's nothing like the socks. You're saying that a case that was filed, again, by a non-lawyer who runs the right-wing MAGA judicial thing, not Stephen Miller, Tom Fitfitin or whatever the guy's name who wears the really tight shirts like that, he sued the National Archives and lost when he sued them in 2011 and 2012 to basically force the archives to go back in time to 1999 and get Bill Clinton's personal handwritten notes that Clinton prepared for Clinton's personal autobiography. It was a district court case that the MAGA lawyers lost.

It's not a circuit court case. It's not a Supreme Court case. It's not precedent. And that's what their citing and claiming is a justification for this idea that classified records belong to Donald Trump. And then they go out and go Clinton socks Clinton socks Clinton socks Clinton socks. And then the media they want to both sides it the info doesn't get out and it's like what is very pretty talking. It's like the stupidest freaking argument in the world. Speaking about the world,

we should talk about Donald Trump being a worldwide loser right now. And we've been talking about it throughout much of the episode, but Trump sued Christopher Steele in the UK in their high court there in London for his preparation of the dossier and its publication on Buzzfeed, he filed this

lawsuit like eight years too late. So the first question that I had, I didn't know the law at a high level. I'm like, first off, seems like there must be some sort of statute of limitations argument to get this thing dismissed, which there was, and that was one of the grounds for the dismissal. Also that Christopher Steele is not responsible for third-party publications of his documents. He's not responsible for BuzzFeed publishing it. And the court basically ruled on those grounds around that this was almost reached a level of frivolousness to throw it out before he'd been getting into it. I think the court's language was has no chance for any possible success.

And then Trump was hit with a, uh, with a judgment this past week for $400,000. So when you add up, I mean, you got Trump, Sue's Michael Cohen, Michael Cohen sets Donald Trump's deposition. Trump runs away and dismisses the case. Donald Trump sues New York Attorney General Leticia James both in New York federal court in Syracuse and the Southern district of Florida before Dodd Middlebrooks.

New York Attorney General Leticia James files a very strongly worded opposition. Donald Trump dismisses the case on his own. He's a loser there. Donald Trump sues Hillary Clinton and dozens of others, also in federal court in the Southern District of Florida, Trump loses there as the plaintiff. Donald Trump sues New York Times

and says that they torsiously interfered with his contractual relations with Mary Trump and not only does Donald Trump lose there, again, the common theme as we saw in the UK, Trump has to pay New York Times about $400,000. I can keep going on, but at some point, Trump consistently loses as the defendant when these cases go before juries and He consistently loses when he's the plaintiff and then you want to go back to all of the frivolous election cases Donald Trump filed where he lost basically 70 times before

Including the Supreme Court before judges who he appointed times before including the Supreme Court, before judges who he appointed, as well as Republican judges and other federal judges and state court judges. In general, not only that, but many of Trump's lawyers for filing false declarations have been sanctioned where they have lost their legal license. They've had to pay massive fines and sanctions, but he's lost over and over and over again. He's a perennial loser and you go back in his history. He's not a builder. He's a perennial destroyer also of things. You go back and you look through the disclosure that he's made recently in the S4 filings for this SPAC, which I'm not going to get fully into here because we've done so many hot takes and have

talked about it at Nausium, but it lists all of the bankruptcies that he's had. It's a thick paragraph of bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy. Then it goes through all of the products from the stakes to the waters, to the planes, to the universities, to all this stuff that he's affiliated with it. Also, out of business, out of business, out of business, out of business, out of business, out of business, out of business. I've never seen someone such a loser. And he set his sights finally to be his last act of trying to destroy this great American experiment, to destroy our justice system, to destroy this beautiful thing, this Constitution, everything that I love so much about this country.

He's destroyed the Republican Party. They're done. Larry Trump runs the RNC now. So the Republican Party is done. Now we're talking about our beautiful American Constitution, our great country. That's what he set his eyes on. Popak, I'll give you the final word before we go. That's a lot. I grew up with Donald Trump. I was a child in New Jersey when he owned all the casinos. I followed him in New York when I was in college and I practiced there. I was a child in New Jersey when he owned all the casinos I followed him in New York when I was in college and I practiced there I was always shocked that he found a way to. Find enough suckers to believe that he was a successful business person when he never was.

For bankruptcies plus as you've outlined say that those as a pension for losing. outline say that. He also has a pension for losing. I know that he's called the Teflon Don, but I just don't see it. 91 felony counts against him. A criminal trial about to start on the heels of 30 total jurors across three cases, state and criminal and civil state and federal, all unanimously finding against a person named Donald Trump. And then he has another penchant. He is either, he's allergic to rules and understanding them that when you file a lawsuit that has no merit or is frivolous in federal court,

you can be sanctioned under rule 11, including millions of dollars. That when you file a case internationally in the High Court of London, that if you're on the losing side of dollars, that when you file a case internationally in the High Court of London, that if you're on the losing side of that, that they shift fees and costs to you, that when you file something against a media entity like the New York Times, there's a little thing called the Anti-Slap Act, which was actually amended because of you. And yet you filed the suit anyway,

and now you owe a half a million dollars in attorney's fees to the New York Times. And so why people think that he is somehow gonna outrun his streak of, instead of a bad luck, his streak of losses at the time he picks yet another, a third New York jury in the last 14 months, this time in 12 jurors that he needs for the Manhattan DA's office stormy Daniel's case that gets picked at the end of March and that he's

going to be able to run the table and put on, I don't even know what you, you touched on that case earlier, what witnesses are even going to be put on in favor or in defense of Donald Trump. Let's assume he's not stupid enough, and again, a big assumption, to put himself on the stand again in a case involving his liberty, meaning going to jail. If he doesn't testify, it takes the Fifth Amendment, which is likely. And Allen Weisselberg is already a convicted perjurer, so he can't really go on for Donald Trump. He could only go on for the Manhattan DA's office under a very tight leash on a couple of small facts. Then you're left with Michael Cohen, the principles for the National Enquirer, that rag sheet that was involved in the Catch and Kill program, and a bunch of low-level vice presidents

at the Trump Organization, none of which Donald Trump knows the name of, because he didn't know the name of them when they testified against him in the New York Attorney General's case, who will similarly testify here, right, about the business record fraud, and then the prosecution rests,

and the defense has what? Who? Well, Lena Hobbit doesn't appear as a witness to give her half bird brain ideas and talking points. Who is a precipitant witness with knowledge who can testify under, with facts in the state of New York in front of a jury? So, the past is prologue and everything that's happened to Donald Trump to this moment the seven major losses that you and I have outlined over The course of this episode civil criminal state federal domestic Nash internationally

Doesn't mean well, you know, it's like if you're you're betting at the horse track Well, I don't know the horse has come in dead last seven times, but you know here we go one more Let's pull our money one more on Trump Trump to win not going to happen I mean I did a hot take recently been in which I had a kind of a mythical discussion between the underwriter for Chubb the Federal insurance company that that that just bonded Trump out for the $100 million and Donald Trump's people. All right, well, I don't know really much about you.

Let's just go through the list of things here. So have you ever been bankrupt? Anybody there bankrupt? Yes, a number of times, including at least four. Okay, I'll put you down for four bankruptcies. But you haven't ever been actually a judge to be having committed fraud in the operation of your businesses, right? Or anything related to your business records. Oh, no, that's happened as also and we have a 500 million dollar judgment That's what we're here about the 500 million dollar judgment. All right, we'll just write that off there

How about criminal convictions related to to financial matters? Oh, yeah We have 17 counts of tax fraud and our former CFO who went to jail 17 counts of tax fraud and our former CFO who went to jail Okay, and recently we had a monitor who sits over all of our assets Okay, and in addition to that we don't have proper controls in place and there has to be an independent control officer Who have has to be installed? Uh-huh. I mean how did they get past the due diligence? I mean, there still is this, well, it is Donald Trump with maybe $3 billion

in assets somewhere and we can make 20 or 30 million in fees, so let's do it. But just listen to the things that I, in a humorous way, recited that he'd have to admit to and has admitted to in his security filings related to his company. And yet there is a group of Americans back to the politics of the show that continues to bet on Trump,

despite all of these independent, truthful factual data points that indicate that this is a sucker's bet and you should never put your money on Trump. And that's why we created this show, and that's why we do it every week in segments just like this one. Let's focus on the facts. Let's focus on the law. That's how you and Judge Ludig are able to, you know, may have initially thought, well, you know, in a normal world, well, we think a little bit differently here or there, but when it comes to these fundamental truths that we're talking

about, we're able to bring people together. It's one of the reasons I love that interview. It's one of the reasons why those who watch Might As Touch Network, you know, not the outsiders who want to, you know, say what they want to say, but those who watch the network know the importance for us of talking about fundamental enduring principles and values and focusing on the facts and evidence. That's the most important thing here that we talk about throughout our show. And I hope that's why you've also appreciated the coverage that we did for the State of the Union. And we got some great guests

on there as well. So thanks for everybody who tuned into that live as well. Keep letting people know about this network. Let's keep expanding the Midas Touch community here. Let's keep expanding our footprint. You may have noticed that the Midas Touch network is now helping build out other YouTube channels as well. Tennessee Brando's channel is one of the channels we've been building out. You can search Tennessee Brando

and subscribe there. Adam Mockler for Gen Z. We've been working with Adam Mockler to build out his YouTube channel. Subscribe there. Tennessee Brando Adam Mochler, the Talking Feds podcast. We've been working with Harry Littman building out that podcast, building out the footprint there as well. We're going to continue to do that as part of our expansion efforts here to ensure that we are trying to reach as many people as possible. That's why it'll be so great. You subscribe to all of those channels and of course subscribe here on the MinusTouch Network. Hit subscribe below. Let's get to three million subscribers here as well. I want to one more time thank

our trial teams, Michael Popak. You can reach out to Michael Popak's firm, Zupano, Patricia and Popak, reach out to them. If you have, you know, Popak's a practicing lawyer every day, although he's still disabled to do a lot of hot takes and spend a lot of time with us here. And Popak and I will work together on those and I'll make sure we have good lawyers at my firm as well working with Popak as well at Garagos and Garagos. So if you want to reach out to Michael Popak, he'll let me know if there are any kind of cases that are like the Garcia case

or whatever. We can find ways to work on those together. I'm not going to be the one handling that anymore, but we could try to place it with the right people. Thank you everybody for watching this. We're grateful for you. And we'll see you next time on Legal AF. Hit subscribe right now. We'll see you next time and have a great one.