Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Has MAJOR LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS before DAY 1

Episode Date: December 8, 2024

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back for a new update at the intersection of law and politics on the Legal AF Podcast. On tonight's show, Ben and Popok cover 1) whether President Biden should go even further with his pardon power and issue blanket pardons of other patriots (elected officials, judges, prosecutors etc.) who stood up for democracy; 2) developments with Trump's inner circle and their continued civil and criminal problems; 3) Trump's continued efforts to avoid criminal liability for his actions, and so much more. Subscribe to the new Legal AF channel: https://youtube.com/@LegalAFMTN Subscribe to Meidas+ at https://meidasplus.com Thanks to our sponsors: Levels: Levels is offering my listeners an additional 2 free months of the Levels annual Membership when you use my link, https://levels.link/LEGALAF Fum: Fum: Head to https://TryFum.com/legalaf or scan the QR code on screen and get a FREE GIFT with the JOURNEY PACK today when you use code LEGALAF VIIA: Try VIIA Hemp! https://bit.ly/viialegalaf and use code LEGALAF! SimpliSafe: Protect your home with 50% off a new SimpliSafe system, plus a free indoor security camera, when you sign up for Fast Protect Monitoring. Just visit https://SIMPLISAFE.COM/LEGALAF Qualia: Head to https://qualialife.com/LEGALAF and use promo code: LEGALAF at checkout for 15% off your purchase! 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 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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Visit a dealer today to learn more about federal and provincial purchase incentives on eligible models. Or go to hundaevleader.ca to learn how war keeps you going. The calls came fast and furious to Michael Popak and myself. Have you guys seen Donald Trump's new motion to dismiss filed in New York Court to try to overturn his criminal convictions? I haven't read it yet, but I'm about to. I said, they said, you're mentioned in this. What do you mean? They go, Donald Trump is blaming the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF for his criminal convictions.

I said, what are you talking about? And there it was on page 15 and 16 under a section called Prejudice to Donald Trump. It said that our coverage was responsible for pushing the jury to convict him. And on that basis, among others, he wanted his criminal conviction overturned. I mean, it's patently frivolous, but I guess it's a badge of honor that we're living rent free in his head like that. I guess sometimes you report on the news. Sometimes you're in the news, Michael Bopak.

I guess we'll talk about both right there. We should also talk about Rudy Giuliani facing very severe sanctions, eviction, prison, rule 37. I don't know. I want to hear your take on it, Michael Popock. We got to talk about the pardon of Hunter Biden, which I'll just not bury the lead. I agree with Hunter Biden being pardoned. Sorry if you disagree with that.

I want to get Popat's opinion on that, but I want to not just give you my opinion. I want to explain to you the pardon process and why I think it actually fits the criteria for something where a pardon actually should be given. Unlike the January 6th insurrectionist who Donald Trump previously said that he was going to give blanket pardons to as well, that was part of his campaign. So I don't want to hear, Oh, now that president Biden pardoned Hunter, now Donald Trump gets to pardon the J six, then sir, what are you even talking about? Not even a linkage there.

Donald Trump previously said he was going to do it anyway. And there's a big difference between people trying to overthrow our democracy and Hunter Biden checking a box saying that he was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs in 2018 when he purchased a firearm that literally no other American ever has been criminally prosecuted for. We'll talk about that and more. This is Legal AF. Michael Popock, I guess the target is on our heads right there. But as people have said,

it's a badge of honor that you are living rent-free in his head, even during a presidential transition. His big focus is on the Midas Touch Network. You know, we've, we've, we've tried to, um, think hard about our programming and point of view coming off of the election. We knew there was a chance that it wasn't going to go the way that we wanted. And our audience wanted, and we needed to be sort of ready for it. And we knew there was going to be other filings about the existing cases against Donald Trump,

both made by the prosecutors and made by Donald Trump. I guess what we didn't anticipate was that we were gonna become part of the story and that Donald Trump would waste valuable ink in an 80 page motion directed to Judge Mershon in New York, as we're going to talk about next, to complain about Michael Cohen having a podcast on the Midas Touch Network in one particular episode, in which it was Pol Potkin Cohen talking about something, and this was going to be the way, there it is, this was going to be the way to tear down Michael Cohen as a main witness

against Donald Trump in the case where a jury already, already convicted him. And so I think that the corporate media is making our job easier to find our angle of attack here on the network and what they've done and what they've been continuing to do and what we're watching them do. The lunches that we're watching with Caitlin Collins and Todd Blanch, the meetings in Mar-a-Lago with lead MSNBC talking heads, they're making it easy. Donald Trump and his overplaying his hand along with the not ready for prime time players

that he is appointing or this Russian roulette, cabinet thing that's going on only gives me hope, actually a lot of hope. I did a hot take on this where I said I got a pep in my step and a whistle on my lips watching them bumble their way through this election process. I was told that we should worry that he's had four years Donald Trump to prepare for coming back to office, that all of his people have been baking in think tanks and shadow government institutes like Heritage and American First Policy Institute and all the Koch brothers. They were ready to lead on day one. We were told by the transition team, Suzy Wiles and Tulsi

Gabbard and RFK Jr. We're ready to lead. We don't need the FBI. We don't need the FBI to do any of our background checks. We don't need moles from the FBI. We're ready to lead on day one. Just watch us. Okay, we're watching. Okay, every hour, every hour it seems another one gets picked off because they did a lame job, no job in doing background checks. And Hegseth, if he makes it to Sunday when Donald Trump is on Meet the Press, I'd be shocked, but we'll see. For defense secretary, Gates gone. And then we got to turn our attention to, and Joni Ernst, as we said, and you and I talked about this in different hot takes, is leading the way. She got rid of Gates. She's gonna get rid

of Hegseth. She may actually replace Hegseth as the head of the Department of Defense, but the confidence it gives me is that they don't seem to be able, whether it's Elon Musk's stupidity about deleting organizations in his improperly delegated to Department of Government efficiency. I don't think they know how to run the levers of power. I think it's going to provide an opening for the Democrats and for free thinking people to oppose them successfully in courts because they're going to get it wrong. The executive orders aren't going to match the law or it's going to be improper delegation

from the executive branch to some other entity or it's going to be improper delegation from the executive branch to some other entity, or it's going to be the emoluments clause, like Donald Trump making $22 million by a guy who eats a $6 million banana from China in a cryptocurrency investment. These people are so worried, are so interested and focused on the griff, the billionaires that are coming in with Donald Trump, that they're not focused on how to run the government, opening an opportunity for us to make him as lame duck as possible, as early as possible.

So I'm reading these leaves, right? Like the way somebody that is like a stock picker, a day trader does, and I'm getting a lot more confidence about our ability to oppose them. I don't know about you, Ben. Well, look, when Donald Trump's out there, you'd mention emoluments, right? You mentioned conflicts of interest, right? What about just sheer and utter humiliation for our nation, right? As you have President Xi of China going around to countries like Mexico and speaking

to the Bahamas and going to Peru and Panama and all these nations and saying, what can we do to invest? What can China do to help? How do we build bridges? How do we build together? Even if it's propaganda and BS, with that message, on the other hand, you have Donald Trump bullying, threatening, attacking, making jokes or mockery or maybe not jokes about annexing countries, like literally stealing countries, and then posting things like this. Here are my new Trump perfumes and colognes. I call them Fight Fight Fight because they represent us winning great Christmas gifts for the family.

Go to GetTrumpFragrances.com. Merry Christmas and happy new year. This is real. It's not AI. The photos of the perfume that Trump posts or the cologne may actually be AI images, but Trump's actually selling these things right now as a president elect of the United States of America. And yes, it speaks to this grift, but to your point, Michael Popock, why is the

media not talking about that? How did that get normalized? We're going to use our microphone and our lens to talk about that. That's why Donald Trump is clearly pissed at us and trying to threaten and intimidate us. He doesn't like that we're an independent media network. He doesn't like that MidasPlus.com is thriving, that your legal AF YouTube channel is thriving, that this YouTube channel frequently beats Fox

because we're putting our lens on these issues. I mean, what to you is more important? I mean, honestly, I mean, Hunter Biden getting pardoned or the fact that a president elect is selling perfume and cologne and using the platform to do that, which is utterly humiliating. Well, what, let me, let me make it more clear.

What is more significant you think to the nation that essentially all Republicans are covering up child sex trafficking or the pardon or hunter binding. Ben, that's a harsh allegation you're making. What do you mean Republicans are covering up child sex trafficking allegations? Well, there was a vote in the House of Representatives at the end of last week

whether to release Matt Gaetz ethics report. The Democrats said, Hey, you know, your former speaker of the house, Kevin McCarthy, he's been saying that there are credible child sex trafficking allegations. You know, the former Republican speaker of the house, you know, the ethics committee did not agree to release it, not because the Democrats

didn't want to release it because the Republicans on the ethics committee blocked it from being released. So Democrats were saying, hey, this is a serious issue. It's also a serious issue if some politicians like all the Republicans were saying that child sex trafficking allegations

should not be released. In other words, there may be, we should read what's actually in the report. And let me be very clear, Pope, I don't care about people's private sex lives. I don't care about what porno people watch or don't watch or what relationships or if they're gay or what bath, I don't care.

If you are engaged in child sex trafficking, however, if you're engaged in criminal activity, I think that should be known if there's a predator on the loose right now who could be harming people and you all know about it. I mean in the law right Popak there's something called a mandatory reporter that you you are obligated to report if you are aware of child sex trafficking allegations if you're like a teacher if you're a therapist child sex trafficking allegations. If you're like a teacher, if you're a therapist, despite any privileges, you have to report these things. So the MAGA Republicans know what's in this report. Obviously, if the report was good to Matt Gaetz, they would release the report, right?

But they're covering it up and they voted at the end of last week to block the release of the report to the public. All of them, all the Republicans, but maybe one, block the release of child sex trafficking report to the public. All of them, all the Republicans, but maybe one, block the release of child sex trafficking allegations to the public. And Michael Popok, it's like the same thing with the election. When these corporate media entities were covering the campaign,

I'm like, okay, where's the front page story? You would think child sex trafficking, I put that probably on page one of my editorial, which we do here at the Midas Touch Network, but that's not, that's not a story anymore for corporate media. It's not, not a big time story that Republicans are involved in covering that up. And also, and I'll throw it to you,

then we'll talk about what I said we were going to talk about, but I can help myself. This is better. This is a lot better. Then we'll talk about Midas being attacked were going to talk about, but I can help myself. This is better. This is a lot better. We'll talk about Midas being attacked by Donald Trump. But for real, why also are Democrats biting the bait by the media and existing in the framework of a Hunter Biden news cycle,

which is a right wing generated framework versus saying, okay, I don't want to talk about that. I'm going to come on and I'm going to talk about this or I'm not going to come on. That's all you have to do, Micropopa. Yeah, I agree with you. And that's the framing I was talking about where we,

we thought long and hard about our angle and our approach and to recalibrate and to, you know, to give ourselves a pressure test as a network, as a channel, as content providers that, because we care. And it's relatively easy because the lesson corporate media has learned is basically more of the same. And we'll just, we don't want to be on the out of the Trump administration.

So we want to go in, but so we're not going to cover him as hard as before. We're going to genuflect to him. And our position is we have to be more critical. We have to bring up things that are important, maybe even immoral, like you're talking about the the switching to the pardon just for a minute, my position is consistent with yours, is that I understand when we get to the segment, we'll talk about it more, I understand exactly why, and it was right for Joe Biden to change his election campaign position

that he wasn't going to pardon after watching Donald Trump weaponize the Department of Justice with Pam Bondi and or Matt Gaetz and or Cash Patel for FBI. And if Donald Trump is going to weaponize and go after the Biden crime family and Jack Smith and Hunter Biden, of course, he couldn't leave his child or Hunter Biden to the dogs. I've said on an unprecedented episode of our Supreme Court show on Legal AF, the YouTube channel, I said the Supreme Court, and this applies to Joe Biden too, there is when there is someone at the

door that's being chased by the angry mob, right, who's going to tear them apart, the pack of wolves. You're supposed to open the door and let them in and give them sanctuary and protection. I'm talking to the Supreme court now. You're not supposed to close the door, lock it and say, Oh, well, just leave it to the States and a state vote. Like they just did in the transgender case on oral argument this week. Same thing for Hunter Biden. You can't ignore if you're Joe Biden what Donald Trump's position is about going after not only the Biden crime family, but everybody else. So I'm not only in favor of what Joe Biden did for his son, who owned a gun for 12 days after he lied on an application about his drug use and paid back his couple of million dollars in taxes and had a plea deal fall apart because of MAGA oversight committee

pressure on Dan Weiss the special prosecutor and he was willing to go to jail for a year or two by the way if they were willing to take that deal something that MAGA and even Democrats forget that he was willing to do that in all of that. However, having said all that, I want more. I've said I want more. And then after I said it, not because I said it, but after I said it, now there's reporting that the Biden administration is considering blanket pardons for people like Liz Cheney and Schiff and all of the prosecutors in the Department of Justice and Merrick Garland and others. I know people are saying, no, that makes us look bad. I don't care.

When you know that the person about to come into power is going to abuse that power. It would be professional constitutional negligence for you not to use your last remaining superpower to protect those people. And the hand ringing about it has to stop now. Lots of hang ringing about it right there. We kind of cover that topic here. Do we cover that topic again? Let's talk briefly about Donald Trump attacking the Midas Touch Network, you Michael Popak, Michael Cohen, myself in

his motion to dismiss the criminal conviction to be, you know, interesting facts about it, right? He requested in addition to the immunity arguments that he made, right, to specially file this other kind of dismissal document here to add other arguments as well right now into it. And he was granted permission. So one of the things we were thinking, okay, we knew what his other arguments were, so what else is he trying to now say

why his criminal conviction in New York should be overturned? Might as touch. That's one of the things he wanted. It wasn't the only thing to be clear. The whole motion wasn't an anti Midas touch motion, but pages 15 and 16 and footnotes five through eight or five through nine were that. But he was basically arguing, I got a very, the whole point of this was in addition to the prior arguments that he's made where he claims that the Supreme Court's immunity ruling

gives him carte blanche authority even before he's in office to commit whatever crimes he wants to commit. He basically says this was all unfair. The jury was persuaded by media like Midas Touch and all these other people's voices who are more powerful than my voice. And even though there was a voir dire process where the jury was picked and ostensibly could have been asked any of these questions, he says it's very, very unfair. Look, Pope Pock, I don't believe Trump's going, look, he's not going to be criminally sentenced while he's in office.

So let me lead with the bad. Um, he's not going to prison while he's in office. So let me lead with the bad news. He's not going to prison while he's in office. He would have been to, he would have gone in my view, had he lost, he would have been sentenced for a very long time. But that's not what happened. So the question ultimately is in terms of the sentencing is, is it stayed to some indefinite time in the future, you know, afterwards? And then we're having this conversation in four years or whatever,

or is it somehow addressed the sentencing piece of it now, and then the actual sentencing gets stayed? But to me, this motion to dismiss is frivolous. I get that it's a badge of honor that he attacks us, but it's a frivolous one. When people told us about it, I was like, what? And if you remember, Ben, I'll share a little inside baseball. We were pissed off, mock pissed off internally when, when they were doing jury selection for this very case that ended up being the 34 count felony

conviction to pick the 12 fair minded jurors to do so when they were asking them where they get their news from. Even Trump's lawyers during that voir dire questionnaire process did not list Midas Touch. They listed MSNBC and CNN. We're like, where are we? Why aren't they asking them that? And now that they don't want it to be sentenced,

now they're citing Midas Touch. Oh, Michael Cohen, Midas Touch, Popok and Ben. Oh, my God. You know, lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my. And the entire 88 pages. You know, he filed two things almost simultaneously. I give more credit to Steve Sadow in Georgia. We'll get to Georgia later because his was six pages, six pages of telling the Georgia court why they don't have jurisdiction anymore. This was 80 pages of dribble and dribble. It was all stuff that we've heard, oh my God, ad nauseam before.

It's been rejected time and time again. If they think they've got a good faith, we know what their appellate brief, their appeal brief is gonna look like. It's gonna look like this. You judge your daughter has a job, okay? And she works for democratic causes, okay? And therefore you're dis job, okay, and she works for Democratic causes, okay, and therefore you're disqualified. Okay, we've done that four times already and it's

been rejected every time, including by the Judicial Ethics Board that took a look at the conduct of the of the daughter and the donation for five dollars to the Act Blue for the judge and said no that's not gonna do it. So that's one. The other one was Michael Cohen, Michael Cohen, Michael Cohen, right? It was, he's a perjurer. Well, you had an opportunity to prove that in a court of law and the jury, obviously,

after three days of listening to Michael Cohen and all the other witnesses against Donald Trump convicted him. So we have the attack on Michael Cohen. Then we've got the Stormy Daniels. Oh, here we go, Stormy Daniels line. Okay, well you had an opportunity to cross examine her on her lying and then she's trying to make a buck.

Okay, you mean like selling cologne and fragrances like you're an off-brand Target right before you entered the White House? You mean like that? All right, so that's all this was. And then it was this whole Supremacy Clause, Presidential Transition Act, and all this was. And then it was this whole supremacy clause, presidential transition act, and all this other stuff. Now look, we're gonna get one more piece of paper because the judge said there's gonna be two pieces of paper. This and then an opposition and that's it. It's not gonna

be a reply paper. And we know that Alvin Brang is working on his opposition and it's relatively simple. It's what he said in the hearing with the judge when they filed their motion to postpone the judge's immunity decision. Remember, for our audience, the judge already wrote an order about whether immunity and the decision from July from the Supreme Court applies to 2016 pre-presidential conduct or not. A crime, the entirety of the crime effectively, right, was done

before the guy was president. The payback to Michael Cohen was after he was president, but the crime was already committed beforehand, right? So he's already got his written Judge Marchand and they asked him not to release it. He's like, okay, I was about to release it today. Don't release it. Let them file one more piece of paper so we have a proper appellate record. That's really what the office of the Manhattan DA is saying. They're going to say what they said then, which is, Judge, time heals all wounds. Time heals all temporary immunity. He's only temporarily immune. He's only temporarily has the powers of the presidency. We're not trying to impair or impede his powers of

the presidency while he occupies the office. Well, just wait when he comes out. So the only open question for me is, I think the judge denies the immunity, does not find that it applies. He denies this 80 pages and finds that none of it, none of it, raises new arguments that would be proper for him to delay the sentencing or to what they want to do is vacate the conviction. That is the weirdest thing. They don't cite a law that allows that. Other than justice. We want justice. There's no law that allows post-conviction pre-sentencing because the guy got elected president, you kick the conviction of 12, of pre-sentencing because the guy got elected president, you kick the conviction of 12 angry or moderately angry people who were the jurors. That doesn't

exist. They call it vacatur, which is vacating or throwing out, tossing out the conviction. And so what I think the judge says is, he has two choices. I think the fork in the road is this. He sentences him now before Jan 20, which is gonna be kind of difficult, or he says even after Jan 20, the sentencing process is not gonna overly impair or impede you. You can send your lawyers to go handle that part.

And I'll sentence you now, but I'll suspend it for four years. Or I'm not gonna do the sentencing at all. I'll see in four years when you come come out you return to the mass of normal people who don't have any Superpowers like immunity or supremacy and I'll see you then which one do you think he does Ben? I don't know but I'll let you know after our first quick break by the way everybody check out Michael Popak's YouTube channel at it it's the at Legal AF channel, just search Legal AF on YouTube.

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Michael Popok, why don't you reframe the question so all of our viewers who are just joining know what the question was that was posed? I will. Judge Mershon has, I think he'll do the following in the next two weeks. He's already written the order. He's gonna deny the previously filed motion

to dismiss the indictment and vacate the conviction in the New York 34 count felony conviction against Donald Trump on immunity grounds, meaning the Supreme Court's decision on immunity, he's gonna find it's not applicable to this. He's gonna issue a new order after we get one more piece of paper that you and I and others will talk about on the network from the Manhattan DA's office about this injustice or in the interest of justice dismissal, which is just a, it's just, it's just week old

leftovers in the refrigerator of arguments that didn't make sense or were rejected in the past that they just stitched together like a Frankenstein piece of paper and filed it. None of it is going to work. I think the judge is going to deny this latest attempt to kick the conviction out at the trial court level. They want to try it at the appeal level. I guess that's a different story. And then the last issue is what's he going to do about sentencing? And there's two choices for me. He either sentences now maybe just before just after the inauguration, but suspends the sentence because he's not going to send them into jail while he's while he's there and says I'll see you in 2029. Thank you. Or he doesn't sentence and says I'll see you

in 2029. the sentencing. My gut is he's gonna do the latter because there's gonna be the argument that even though it's Donald Trump, you shouldn't put a cloud or a shadow and impair and impede the office of the presidency with world leaders knowing they're negotiating with somebody who on January 21st of 2029

is gonna be going to prison, maybe that should be delayed until after that. That's sort of what I think. What do you think is going to happen? I unfortunately agree with you there in the sense that I think he'll definitely deny the Midas Touch motion. It's a stupid motion. I think the immunity one he'll grapple with a little more. I think that the ultimate issue is that was there a degree of error that was injected into the trial based on the Supreme Court's ruling that no evidence at all regarding someone's time in office can become part of a criminal proceeding. The Supreme Court's immunity ruling went beyond simply when the person's in office. That's what people are saying.

How could there even be a question? All of Trump's conduct took place before he was in office as it relates to the New York criminal conviction, right? All that Stormy Daniel stuff, all of the checks that were written, all of that. That's when he was businessman or bad businessman, Donald Trump. The issue was in the trial, there was evidence that was introduced about Donald Trump's state of mind and his intent to cover up. That's why they had Donald Trump's secretaries and there was evidence

about what went down at the White House and you know parties were that were thrown to celebrate covering this stuff up and how Donald Trump sent mail you know and how he received mail why this mail didn't go through the proper channels so the Supreme Court when they gave Trump immunity they went above what Trump even asked for and gave evidentiary immunity from any evidence of when he was in office. So that's why it's even a question and an issue if you are wondering, because conduct before he's in office is not immune, but even evidence that was entered.

And there was evidence entered about what happened when he was in office. So I think the judge will say it's a close call. I think the judge will ultimately deny Donald Trump's motion to dismiss. He's gonna immediately stay his ruling. It'll go to the appellate division, the court of appeal in New York, which is basically their supreme court,

to make things confusing. They call their supreme court the court of appeal and their trial court the supreme court. Then ultimately I think it goes to the United States supreme court or what, he's unfortunately, he's not getting sentenced. But Michael Popak, sanction, sanctions everywhere with Rudy Giuliani, sanctions are not going away anytime soon.

Two courts, two judges. That's really a good nursery rhyme. So tell there's lots of sanctions, there's different cases. There was what happened in DC with Beryl Howell. There was a federal court in New York. It just seems every day I wake up and you're doing the hot take on Giuliani sanctions.

So explain all the different sanctions and all the different courts. I'm going to do a Ben Mycelis weave, um, registered trademark on those two issues right now, here we go. You got two pissed off judges. You heard of rock and a hard place, this is between two pissed off federal judges. That's where Rudy Giuliani finds himself because of his own conduct or misconduct.

He's never played by the rules when it relates to this Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss case, which he, two mother daughter team, just doing their civic duty, counting ballots. 2020 in Fulton County, Georgia, not passing a hard drive. This is Rudy Giuliani between them. I don't know he's ever seen a hard drive, not passing a hard drive between each other filled with Biden votes. They were just counting votes. They've been cleared by everyone that's

looked at it from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to the Secretary of State of Georgia, everybody else including the videos but not in the addled mind of Rudy Giuliani and others who continues as recently as the 12th and 14th of November on his podcast and nobody watches except when I have to do research about him where he said that they were fraudulently passing hard drives again and committing voter fraud. It's just, it's just ghastly what he continues to do. He's staring down the barrel of $150 million judgment that resulted from a default and then a jury awarding the damages

because he refused and violated at least nine different court orders in the D.C. defamation case before Barrel Howell. Hold that point, because we're going case before Beryl Howell. Hold that point because we're going to talk about Beryl Howell. Then they got the judgment and delay, delay, delay. Rudy Giuliani filed bankruptcy. It was found to be a fraudulent bankruptcy in bad faith and it was thrown out. So there goes that. Then they started circling and getting to his assets. He doesn't have a hundred. Let me just spoil the spoiler alert. He doesn't have a hundred, let me just spoiler alert, he doesn't have a hundred fifty million dollars, okay? He's got some maybe ten million dollars in stuff, an apartment in New York worth

about five million, an apartment in a condo near Mar-a-Lago in Florida worth about three to five million, maybe more the way that Florida's heating up these days again in real estate. He's got Yankee rings from when he was the mayor. He's got an old gold watch his grandfather gave him. I thought I was listening to Pulp Fiction when I heard about this gold watch and some assorted other things that he owns and bank accounts and all. And then he's got income from his podcast. He's got income from a pension when he was U.S.'s hard to believe he was US attorney and mayor and all of that. So you got all that going on. He's been trying to hide the assets,

an old car and all of this from Ruby Freeman and Shae Moss' lawyers and them. And he's pissing off the judge in New York. This is Judge Lyman in another federal court who's overseeing the enforcement of the judgment against Rudy Giuliani's assets. We're out of bankruptcy court. We're in a regular federal court to enforce it. And the only remaining issue, he's already gotten the keys of his New York apartment has finally been turned over

to Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss and they have that. The last, and some other items as well, the car finally got turned over. Originally, and he's gone through a series of lawyers who have all quit him for failure to pay or because he's acting crazy and they don't want him to be their client anymore, he finally landed on a former cop from 9-11 who was friends with the mayor at the time who's now a personal injury lawyer in Staten Island, Joe Camerata to like be his current lawyer in New York.

In Washington, he's gotta go back to Washington because he's in contempt of court or he's gonna be found to be in contempt of court before Judge Barrell Howell because he violated a consent decree, a consent agreement, which he agreed not to continue to bash Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss, or they would continue to litigate against him. He said,

no, where do I sign? I won't do it anymore. I'm sorry. And he signed it, but he keeps doing it. And so the judge saw the videos of the podcast and called him in for the 12th of December into a contempt hearing in person in Washington DC. In the meantime he had to file a piece of paper to oppose their motion for contempt. Same lawyers just different courtrooms. He filed some piece of crap, he didn't sign his name to it and in apparently in DC he's by himself, he's got no lawyer and he's what we call pro se. And the judge looked at this piece of paper and said I know you're pro se and I usually bend over backwards to to let

people kind of get away with not knowing our rules and procedures but you were the US Attorney for the federal for the Southern District of New York I mean you don't have a bar license anymore but you once had them and this is a first-year lawyer wouldn't send this into me so So she rejected it and said, try it again and I'll see you on the 12th of December. Judge Lyman, who's in New York, has got a major, has two major issues. He's gotta decide on the 15th of January,

just before the inauguration, whether the Florida condo is going over to Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss or not. And the issue there is I lived in Florida, kind of kind of get this, there's something called Homestead Protection in Florida. It's why every deadbeat goes to Florida and buys a big house, because they can hide their money in their house. And the house will not go off to the judgment creditor, because it's got Homestead Protection. But

there's a there's a critical date. When you establish the homestead protection has to be before the judgment got recorded against you. That date is August 8th for Giuliani. So he has to show that by August 8th he was a resident and had a homestead in Florida in that Mar-a-Lago adjacent condo. Problem is it looks like as late as the 6th of August he was trying to establish residency in New Hampshire. So and he hasn't turned over a document or information that sounds familiar to Ruby Freeman and Sey Moss about the issue of his homestead and they have a deposition coming up in a week so they filed a motion for contempt against him there.

And what they're arguing there is, if he hasn't turned it over, it's because he either doesn't have it or it's against him. So judge, forget financial hitting him with fines because he has no money. We're getting all of his money. Hit him with an adverse inference that he's obviously hiding bad documents and assume that he doesn't have any good documents when you make the decision about whether he is or is not a Florida resident on a certain date and give us the condo. That's what they're asking for.

It's a pretty compelling argument, and we're gonna hear from Judge Lyman on that soon, because there's a response that has to be applied. So you got Lyman who's just itching, Judge Lyman, to issue a contempt sanction against Rudy for screwing around about the condo in Florida while Judge Barrell Howell wants to know why he continues to bash Ruby Freeman and Shae Moss and then she's gonna have to fashion some sort of sanction that doesn't involve money and that's where jail comes in. And, you know, and so that's, that's the two, uh, the two concentric circles that are kind of

colliding here that are bringing Rudy Giuliani down. And in meantime, he's crying to both judges about, I want to be in the inauguration. I'm going to be up there on the stage and all of that. That's where we are. You know, the funny one too, um, Ken Chesbrough in Georgia, which we can talk about a little bit as well, one of Donald Trump's other lawyers, right? He thought he was going to get the sweetheart deal by being the first to take a guilty plea in the Georgia Rico case, right?

So he pled guilty. Uh, but then shortly thereafter, the, the, the Georgia court of Appeals basically you know derailed and delayed the entire case because remember then it got into all of the attacks on Fulton County District Attorney Fonny Willis and now it doesn't seem like there's gonna be accountability not just for Donald Trump in Georgia but also the co-conspirators there as well also everything, everything's kind of related here and we don't, and the intersection of law and politics, we don't really cover like the young thug trial. It's covered on the true crime MTN where Dave Arenberg talks about it.

Um, but you know, uh, Fonny Willis and the Fulton County district attorney's office was handed a really bad loss in their other big Rico case, like a really bad loss. That young thug case was their big case, lasted like a year, that trial. And then it resulted in basically no guilty convictions. I mean, there was one charge for firearm possession, but otherwise everybody was not guilty. There was a number of really embarrassing missteps as well throughout the case about hiding evidence. And it was just a bad look for a bad look for Fulton County where. All of the kind of appellate divisions and the Georgia Supreme

Court are looking for ways to kind of smack down the Fulton County prosecutors. And same thing with the Republican-led legislature in Georgia. So it's like when you've got a high profile case like that, you can't lose it in that kind of embarrassing fashion. It has a ripple effect. And Popak, maybe talk about that ripple effect in Georgia with kind of some of the other developments there because there's a lot going on there. You see it in Judge McBurney's ruling, um, being a little more aggressive now with Fonny Willis in terms of, Hey, you know, we, we want you to produce records. It's just a default judgment. Some sloppy say, you know,

I want you to talk about it all. I wanna take our last quick break though of the show, but remind everybody to make sure you subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. Look at Michael Popat's photo right there. I mean, if you haven't seen my stuff, I don't think I even need to, I don't think I even need to pitch it.

I think all the different glasses and all of the, anyway, make sure you subscribe to Legal AF. You've done such a good job there. Let's take our last quick break of, is that a Legal AF business card right there? I love it. I love it, I love it. All right, let's take our last quick break of the show.

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Thank you to our pro-democracy sponsors. Independent Media Company, we have zero outside investors. Fund this thing with those pro-democracy sponsors. Not bad, not bad. Also through MidasPlus.com, check MidasPlus.com. Make sure you subscribe, just share this word of mouth. Helps a lot. It's like, you know, our competitors,

they do like $14.92 billion in revenue like Fox and others. It's about $14.92 billion more than us. But you know, we've got Patreon. We got Patreon. I don't know, Popak you're going to be doing some more Patreon meetings as well. Patreon.com slash legal AFP, A T R E O N.com slash legal AF. All right. I'll stop. Uh, I'll stop plugging things and I'll plug in Michael Popok here to break down some developments in Georgia.

Then I want to talk about though, quickly on Georgia, because what I really want to talk about is what's going on with these January 6th insurrectionists. Trump says he's going to pardon them. We're seeing even Trump appointed judges though warning Trump, don't do that. These are bad people, Donald. These are bad people. And we're even seeing Trump judges who are now resentencing these insurrectionists since the Supreme Court basically struck down the ability to charge some of these

insurrectionists with that obstruction of official proceeding. But the new sentences look pretty similar to the old sentences as well. So you can take, you could take that whole sandwich. You can treat one as an appetizer, one as dinner. How do you want to approach this meal? That's so funny. So you'll do Georgia quick. So Georgia, a lot of stuff going on, Mick and I, you and I both reported on it. McBurney who was the judge presided over the special purpose grand jury.

He had a weird lawsuit that was filed in front of him by Tom Fitton's judicial watch. That's the non-lawyer lawyer who wears overly tight polo shirts, who's a Trumper. And he's always filing, you know, to get Bill Clinton's audio cassettes about his memoirs. It's in his sock drawer and another weird public records request.

And he made a public records request as Fonny Willis, give me all the communications you've had with the Jan 6 committee, you know, or Jack Smith, okay? The records custodian there said none. By the way, I'd like for her to have coordinated, and there's no law against coordinating your prosecutions or the evidence or timing or things like that or witness taking. I've been in plenty of rooms defending witnesses and clients where multiple agencies are in the room coordinating with each other. You know, I've been involved with cases

where the attorney general for New York is sitting there, the SEC is sitting there, the office of OFAC is sitting there, they're all sitting there and they're all kind of coordinating, so who cares? But they said none, because none existed. Well, Tom Fitton without any any counter knowledge I mean it's not like he had an email that he obtained somehow and said aha

you didn't tell us about this email he filed a lawsuit I don't know what happened with what he will is his office somebody's getting fired because at least two or three different times they blew the deadline to respond to the lawsuit which is weird. I don't really, I haven't figured it out yet. We will because she's gonna have to file something. Judge McBurney gave them a number of opportunities to avoid a default, but they've been in default

since April, not responding. And if they have no documents, it's a relatively easy answer. You just say none, and then that's it. And maybe there's an evidentiary hearing, but probably not. But they didn't. And so like Bernie got a little annoyed and said, I know what's going on with your office, Fonny. But I'm now gonna give you five days and that's about up. We'll see what happens on Monday, Ben. To file your response or to turn over documents. Now they're gonna have to search for documents that likely don't exist. Now to answer the question

of the chat is no, she doesn't have to create documents. I mean, if they don't exist, they don't exist. But now she's gonna have to pay attorney's fees, her office anyway, to Tom Fitton, like for 20 grand or whatever it's gonna be, over this issue. It's just an unforced error, it's just an own goal. I don't know what happened there.

That's one. Donald Trump, as I teased a little earlier, his lawyer Steve Sadow, in the Georgia appeals case that's pending, that's where the Trump prosecution has been stuck in the mud. It's up in the intermediary appellate court, the Court of Appeals in Georgia, off of the Trump side taking issue with Judge McAfee, the trial court judge, having found that Fonny Willis, even though he chastised her and excoriated her

and called her basically unethical and a liar, he said he's gonna keep her in as the prosecutor because of her questionable judgment about having a relationship with somebody on the prosecution team. Who cares who she went to Napa Valley with, as long as it didn't impact any chain of custody or evidence or the prosecution. And so he let her stay, but he did it, the trial judge did it so noisily,

that of course it invited an appeal by Donald Trump, and that's where it's been staying up there. So the prosecution, even against the others, there's 14 others that have been prosecuted, including, you know, John Eastman and Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani and it's just sort of stuck. Even before the election, the Georgia court just said, yeah, we're gonna hold oral argument, but yeah, we're not. And they just canceled it. We're like, oh god, this is never never gonna how are we gonna make this thing move and Now they filed a motion the Trump side six pages telling the Georgia Appellate Court You don't have jurisdiction because the person that's the subject of the prosecution is now going to be the president of the United States again

And so you have to look at your jurisdiction There's arguments there on supremacy and separation of powers and impairing and impeding the presidency, citing some constitutional case law on that. So now they're gonna have that to chew on. My God is they're gonna bite on it and they're gonna find a way to dismiss this indictment, maybe not permanently, but certainly for the next four years. Donald Trump, just a spoiler alert,

is not going to be the subject of the prosecution in Georgia. Now the other 12 or 13 different story. So Ken Chesbrough jumping up and down, because like you said, he took that felony plea deal. I think he was the number two. I think the first one in got the misdemeanor. And that was, I think, Jenna Ellis or Sidney Powell, I forget which of the two, I think he was the second. And he took a felony and he's got his own problems, including in Arizona being prosecuted in different places as one of the architects of the fake elector scheme. One of the other architects of the fake elector scheme, Peter Navarro, is being welcomed back with open arms to Donald Trump. He's gonna be a trade

representative of some sort after leaving four months in jail, five months in jail for contempt of Congress. But this is state court stuff. And you're not getting out of the state court action, just to remind people. The Supreme Court could have allowed the Mark Meadows and Chesbrows and others to take their cases over to the federal court, let a federal court decide these, but they said, no, stay in state court. So I think this is just going to the 14 are going to get prosecuted. Chesbrough is not going to be able to get out from under his plea deal where he took a conviction. Uh, and, uh, but, but the one against Trump is going to go on ice, if not permanently,

at least for four years while we watch all that play out. You know, you think about the people who Donald Trump pardoned, Charles Kushner, a member of his family convicted of tax evasion, witness retaliation, making false statements. Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chair, guilty of tax fraud, bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy against the U S Flynn Bannon, former white house advisor, defrauding donors through the, we build a wall scam. Elliot Brody, Republican fundraiser guilty of, uh,

acting as an unregistered foreign agent, Kenneth Kersen, friend of Kushner charged with cyber stalking, Duncan Hunter, former Congressman, Republican misusing campaign funds, Rick Renzi, Republican congressman convicted of extortion and bribery, Little Wayne and Kodak, black rappers convicted on weapons charges. They publicly came out supporting Trump and then got the pardon. Um, Albert Pirro, Judge Jeanine Piro's wife. Um, I could go, I could go on and on and on here, you know, with, with,

with all of these people, and then to Bartolo, San Francisco 49ers, Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff, um, Republican who like just did the most terrific thing to people. Um, in there. So you have all of that. But when it comes to Trump, the way it's covered is, look, this guy's a corrupt guy. This is Trump, corrupt, authoritarian dictator.

It's all good. And then when it comes to President Biden, it's purity, 100%. And if Donald Trump then appoints Kash Patel to the FBI, who says he's going to spend his time attacking Hunter, how dare you, President Biden, in a nuanced way, change your position and now say, well, I'm going to. Circumstances change. You're not bringing in normal people.

I'm going to now have to protect my son because you're threatening to almost kill him. Like you're threatening to attack him. You're saying the most horrific things. And we all know that the, that the prosecution against Hunter has, was absolutely politicized. So there's no context. There's no context of Trump's pardons. There's no context on the fact. context of Trump's pardons. There's no context on the fact.

I just listed who was pardoned. You go watch the Midas Touch videos where I detail all of the sweetheart deals that Ivanka and Jared got while they were working for the White House, unelected bureaucrats who with Jared couldn't get through a security clearance and he's cutting deals for billions of dollars, not a few thousand bucks or a hundred thousand bucks. You know, there's a broad, when it comes to like Hunter Biden, there's a, I do a broader hot take on Hunter when it comes to why he was even sitting on the board

in Burisma. Hunter sat on boards before he was appointed. He went to Yale law school. He was a partner at a top law firm. He was appointed to be on the Amtrak board and then the UN Food Aid Board by George W. Bush. He had a history of sitting on boards. He was asked to sit on the Burisma board

after Biden was the vice president. And before Biden ever decided to run, Hunter needed a job and that was the type of job that he did before when he was on the board of, when he sat on the board of Burisma. And the reason he was on that board is part of the fact that Burisma's board used to be controlled by Russian oligarchs and the pro-democracy former leader of Poland wanted someone who would be a pro-democracy voice on the board of a company that used to be run by Russian oligarchs to be a check against it, which is why Hunter did. There's a whole story that I could probably spend episodes talking about, but Hunter wasn't even charged with that. He was charged with paying his taxes late, which is normally a civil penalty. And he was charged with going to buy a gun or buying a gun while, and he checked

the box that he wasn't under the influence of alcohol. And he owned it for 12 days. And the, and the evidence for it came from Hunter's autobiography, where Hunter explained what it was like to be in recovery. He explained a low point of his life when he was suicidal and he was thinking about buying guns and he was paranoid and it was the lowest point of his life in a redemption book written many years later. That's what they used to ultimately prosecute him with. So look, you and I did the Hunter chat. We can, I don't, I don't want to go and necessarily repeat it.

I want to give your perspective from my perspective, Hunter, the pardons fine, but that's the easy answer. Of course he should pardon us. That's not even a hard question for me. It's not a difficult question. The, the, the difficult question for me is why do we get trapped the collective we in Republican frameworks versus talking about what Donald Trump's been saying, which is he's always going to

part of the insurrectionist. You know, he's been a massive supporter of insurrectionists. Trump's appointed all of these billionaires to be on his cabinet. People right now who are in positions where their businesses will be directly impacted, where he's not filling out ethics reforms, but that gets, if it's written about at all, it's like buried in page 16 in the corner, if at all, it's not being talked about on networks and don't get me wrong. You know, just like Ben, it's not being talked about on networks. And don't get me wrong, you know, just like Ben, there's dumb people at list.

Lawrence O'Donnell talks about it, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, I can count on three fingers the people who actually bring this stuff up. And by the way, there are still good reporters at CNN. There are good reporters at Washington Post. There are good reporters at the New York Times who want to cover this stuff,

who do great original reporting. So you're right. I shouldn't do this broad brush and be like, all the media, all the media, all the media. But overwhelmingly, the oligarchical controlled media is you can't leave this week and go, oh my God, they just spent the whole week on freaking Hunter. That's all they talked about. And then we're like, well, and then this is what even Democrats like. They're like, this could have been the week where we were talking about this, this and this, but now because what you did, President Biden,

they're talking about Hunter. No, it's what you're letting the media craft as the narrative and what you've let the media become an oligarchical agent of Donald Trump. You can push back. You can reframe it. You can tell people to watch networks like this and other independent media, but you can be like, look, child sex trafficking party over there.

Why don't you hold big signs and walk around Capitol Hill and say, they're the party of child sex trafficking. Why are you normalizing these people as normal colleagues after they vote to support child sex trafficking allegations? Like this is a fight and MAGA Republicans are out with knives and guns in this fight. And it seems that, you know, Democrats and others are out with, I don't know, they're out with the Parmesan cheese for, you know, and

they're going to, they're the waiters out with the parmesan cheese topping off the mega Republicans, you know, appetizers. It's ridiculous. Are we hungry? We might be hungry during this record. We're managing food a lot, but I agree with you. Let me not carry my... What are my food references? I don't know, I like it, but I'm hungry, so it's okay. I don't want to bury my lead. of my food references. I don't know. I like it, but I'm hungry, so it's okay. I don't want to bury my lead. I want more pardons, not less. It's exactly the right thing at the right moment to use the last remaining super power for lame duck Joe Biden to protect our constitutional republic against what will be the abuse of power that we will see on a daily basis and cover here on Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF the channel on a daily basis after Donald Trump gets in.

You can't ignore what Donald Trump has said he is going to do and is in the process of doing with destroying the independence of the Department of Justice and the FBI and act like it doesn't matter and maybe he won't and not use the pardon power. I've said this at a hot take. You know, we got to start throwing some elbows here. We got to start playing as, I'm not saying be immoral, I'm not saying be unconstitutional, but we have to start playing rough to protect our democracy. And yes, ideally, in an ideal world, does Joe Biden have to give out blanket pardons to protect Liz Cheney or Adam Schiff or Jack Smith or Letitia James or, and the list goes on, all you got to do is just listen to Cash Patel and write down every name, listen to Trump on the campaign trail and write down every name. Listen to Trump on the campaign trail and write down every name. Listen to his proxies and lackeys around him

and write down every name. Right now, I want the Biden administration, I want some clerk, some law clerk or whatever's working in there to be creating an Excel spreadsheet of every one of these names. And I want a blanket pardon to protect them on the way out. That is what we can do. And I don't want to hear about hand wringing or bemoaning. I

almost I'm not making this up. I almost vomited when I read Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker, right that it's sullied and stained all the entirety of Joe Biden's record of public service has now been stained with an indelible mark because are you effing kidding me? And by the way, I thought we I mean not to be rude, but you know, two years ago, three years ago, Jeffrey Toobin was masturbating. I'm sorry, this is public during a zoom call with his New Yorker colleagues and got canned. So I really, you know, it but forget that. Let's just talk about Joe Biden, Joe Biden's proper use of the pardon power. And I wanted to go further. And I'm glad to

see the New York Times reported yesterday, that at least at the mid level of the Biden administration, they are seriously considering and escalating it up to Joe about blanket pardons. This is his last opportunity. He has until 1159 on the 20th of January to protect democracy and he's got to do it. I mean, there's an old, speaking of food, there's an old joke that it reminds me of that Seinfeld used to tell on his standup.

He said, I understand, you know, the Chinese when they eat, they like chopsticks, but they've seen the fork since then. We know what Donald Trump is going to do. For us to ignore it in the operation of the remaining days of the of the Biden administration would be mal, I think, constitutional malpractice. And they would do it to us. And we have to protect our own. There's no other way to put this. To make to on the last point about this Ben, you're so right. The incoming administration and the incoming cabinet, whatever's left of it after it's shredded by the firings, the quitdings, they can't get through the Senate confirmation process part, whatever's left of this cabinet. Many of them are billionaires and more that are so blinded by their own greed and

their own ethical problems that they're not solving. This is the thing the media dropped because it didn't fit neatly into their new cycle. Donald Trump signs agreement to have FBI do background checks. Okay, what about the fact that he hasn't signed the ethics code nor a plan that he's supposed to put in place by law to show how the ethical dilemmas of his cabinet members are going to be solved? Why is that ignored? We already know Donald Trump is not subject to any, unfortunately as a president, is not subject to any ethics

code or to conflict of interest, criminal or civil, unfortunately as a president, is not subject to any ethics code or to conflicts of interest, criminal or civil. And he is now, the lesson he learned is that in his Trump organization led by Eric Trump, at least at the front, is they're just going to make as much money as possible. No blind trusts. They're just, he's selling perfume days before he enters office.

They signed, the Trump Times reported that Eric Trump signed, this is the week leading into the election, signed deals with Saudi Arabia and their go-to construction company controlled by the Sovereign Wealth Fund there, meaning the prince. Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates all got signed leading in to the election.

Now after the election, I'm not talking about a war room, I'm not talking about a situation room map, I'm talking about where Trump Organization is gonna do business around the world for people who want to buy a president. And there's two ways to buy this president that we have to focus on. One, cryptocurrency, which Donald Trump has opened up to buy this president that that we we have to focus on one cryptocurrency

which Donald Trump has opened up this cryptocurrency platform that you can buy a president through it we just had a guy who's a young cryptocurrency mogul was being investigated and prosecuted by the Securities and Exchange Commission invest 30 million dollars into Trump's organization, immediately putting $20 million into the Trump family's pants, all right, into their line, their pockets, while he's getting ready to move into the White House. Okay, cryptocurrency, the dark money web area

of drug dealers and organized crime is now the business that Donald Trump is primarily focused on. Okay. And everybody around him is got a vested interest in cryptocurrency from his commerce secretary to his Elon Musk, to Donald Trump himself. And the second way is true social. You can't make a direct investment in a donation for a campaign, but he doesn't need campaign funds anymore.

If you're a foreigner and you want to influence Donald Trump, buy his stock. There's no limitation on foreigners doing that. And they're so blinded by all this, Ben, that the only thing I'm hoping, and I'm watching already, is that they're not able to effectively do their jobs, and we can beat them in the courthouses and in America in federal courts every time they screw up. Right now we're like in a weird little period where we're doing a lot of shadow boxing about the work about the Trump administration but as soon as he signs those hundreds and thousands of executive orders, not the pardons, the pardons we can't do a thing about,

but the executive orders we have to be ready as a independent media organization to support it. And the public interest groups and attorney generals around the country, we got to be ready, and we are, to get into court on a moment's notice for emergency relief. Now, the last thing I want to talk about briefly though, is you still see some of these Trump appointed judges now having to go through, not just Trump appointed judges, but this to me is an angle that is still some reason to hope that I think is worth

talking about very briefly at the end of this episode, which is you've got some Trump appointed judges who had previously presided over the criminal trials of some of these very violent insurrectionists, like that guy, Guy Refett, hope I'm saying his last name correctly. And he was someone who was previously sentenced to, what was it, Popak, 87 months, and now it's 82 months.

Someone who was charged with multiple crimes, and one of them was obstruction of official proceeding. So now some of these people who were charged with that 1512 C2 claim that the Supreme Court said, you can't have obstruction of official proceeding unless you're actually like ripping up actual paper because that's what the statute literally meant when it was passed because it related to Enron

and paper shredding and you can't just take the plain meeting. You have to butcher the words and say that some other intent was meant because it was passed after Enron. It must've been just purely about document shredding, even though you read the documents and it says, or otherwise obstruct an official proceeding, but whatever. Um, the point is these people are still getting sentenced.

They're not being let off the hook. And the judges are doing a little bit of finger wagging to Donald Trump saying, do not let these insurrectionists get out. Like you should not be giving, these are not the types of people who deserve pardons at all. These were people who engaged

in very, very, very heinous behavior. Popak, I'll let you take it there and then give us kind of your final words. Yeah, yeah, I think that we're hoping that these federal judges, who are the ones that heard the evidence, see, Donald Trump likes to make it a talking point. Jan 6th, they're hostages, they're political prisoners,

they are coming out with a Christmas album, they're fun to be around, they're political prisoners, they are coming out with a Christmas album, they're fun to be around, they're not. There are the misdemeanor ones, we can debate what they're responsible or reliable for. But the ones that have been retained pre-trial, pre-sentencing, and put in the jail in DC, it's because they're some of the most violent defendants that these judges have ever seen. I mean, it's a big deal for a federal judge to keep you in jail before, with the presumption of innocence, before you go on the stand. And these judges have seen the footage, the raw footage, the social media posts, the GoPros that these idiots were, these insurrectionists

were wearing to record their attack on the Capitol, try to assassinate elected officials. They've seen all of that. They've seen, they've read all of the emails, the text, the direct messages, the signal and whatever other platforms they were using at the time as to coordinate their efforts like a military operation. There's a reason that these people were kept in jail cooling their heels all of this time to protect the rest of the public fundamentally. So Donald Trump's got two choices. He either ignores all of that and just says let out the jails, open the jails, let them all out. Whether they were they might be violent but they're violent, I love them, let them all out. Whether they might be violent, but they're violent,

I love them, let them out. Or somebody with half a brain, which I've yet to see, surrounding Donald Trump's transition team and beyond, sits down with him and shows him a little dossier and summary of each of these people's bad acts. If you just go to the Department of Justice website, you can find it there. Fortunately, the federal judges, primarily the ones that are handling the felonies,

not the misdemeanors, are not losing their nerve and they are sentencing and resentencing these people to appropriate sentences. Just for our audience, a little bit of inside nerdy baseball, the Department of Justice and Jack Smith, no, it's really Department of Justice on this one, Department of Justice built in a mechanism in their deals that if, because they knew that obstruction of an official proceeding count was sort of, they thought it was properly charged, but they knew there was going to be an issue. A lot of them was because it was already up at the DC Court of Appeals or with judges, They were getting some pushback on its application.

So they built in a mechanism that said, all right, well if that one gets dropped, your plea deal is over. We have the right to bring you back into court and prosecute you to the fullest extent. And if we recommended a certain sentence based on this, we have the right to go back and recommend resentencing on the other charges that remain. Very few, I think it's like three or four, only had obstruction of an official proceeding as their account. The belt and suspenders approach by the main justice was very, very smart here.

So the good news is that when judges on felonies, even Trump-appointed judges, are being asked to do their job, they're doing it. Where we're still getting pushback is on the pardon issue, but at least on the sentencing, they're like, all right, well, if he's gonna pardon, at least he knows what he's pardoning, and so does the American people. I'm sentenced to see you to 88 months or 82 months

or whatever it's going to be. And that is the right thing to do. The misdemeanors, you're seeing some little bit timid federal judges, I never thought I'd say that, who are saying well I was gonna get pardoned anyway, why am I wasting time? I'm gonna postpone the trial until after we see what happens with the pardon. And the new reporting is that the Jan six families and the Jan sixers are getting a little bit antsy because Donald Trump hasn't

mentioned pardons in a while and they're like well how come, you know, why isn't he tweeting about it or social media posting about it? And, how come, you know, why isn't he tweeting about it or social media posting about it? And he's not, you know, he's not doing that about a lot of his things. I don't know if he's having second thoughts or they're looking closely at some of these people thinking, hmm, maybe, you know, we shouldn't be pardoning people that broke through with Ashley Babbitt to try to assassinate Nancy Pelosi. Maybe that's not a good thing.

And so we're going gonna watch all this, but let me just end my piece on this. Just as we had it with Joe Biden, we have it with Trump. A pardon power, especially with this United States Supreme Court, is you can't do anything about it. He can pardon whoever he wants,

whenever he wants, for whatever he wants. The question of self-parton is going to be tested during this administration. He's going to be pardoning people that used to be in his cabinet, people that are coming into his cabinet, people that were in MAGA, who were in Congress like Marjorie Taylor Greene and others, people that were Jan Sixers. I predict 1,500 pardons by Donald Trump in the in the first 90 days. really do and and and it's not going to be with the memo that Joe Biden used to explain his changed position to the American people because he's a decent person

Because there's no requirement under the Constitution that you attach a memo with your pardon. It's just gonna be the part it's just gonna be a pardon and without explanation and you can you can and that's it and That's why back to be a pardon without explanation. And you can, you can, and that's it. And that's why, back to our original point, we have to use our last remaining pardon power to stop the worst abuse of process that we may see in our history in terms of going after, quote-unquote, the enemies of Donald Trump, which means United States citizens that are not of his party and some even of his party. Look, it is important that

we channel this energy in the right directions. You know, there is clearly right now a feeling and this to me is one of the reasons the election went the way it did of people who are not necessarily looking forward. They're pissed. Who did this to me? How do we get here? What happened? How is this possible? And I think that one of the things that needs to be made very clear is, you know, the people who are out there blaming it on gay people and blaming it on trans people and blaming it on migrants and blaming it on communists and Marxists and saying all of these things to you or blaming it on unions, right, I saw Elon Musk saying, you know, unions they create a lords versus peasant dynamic and so I don't like that really Elon Musk, you're saying unions create a

lords of a peasant dynamic. It's always projection, right? And you have to be able to message what's really going on here. I mean, there are a group of billionaires more in the United States than in any other country that are wealthier than they've ever been more in the United States than in any other country that are wealthier than they've ever been before in the history of humankind, who have decided that being that wealthy is just not enough. Not enough. It's got to be all of it. It's got to be everything. And what I think they often neglect in that calculus though, is that you can't

have a business without consumers. You know, you can't have a business without consumers. You know, you can't have a business without customers. And when you grind people to the ground like that, people are pissed. And I just don't think Democrats are speaking to how, look, I get that you're pissed. I get how angry you are. And now here are the legal vehicles that we can do to channel that anger in the right way and at the right people. As opposed to literally giving the keys to the wrong people to further dismantle and harm the people. The corporate media is the corporate media, the corporations, they're gonna, they're run by billionaires.

They haven't, it's hard for them not to be the way they are because ultimately they have a corporate agenda. They're subsidiaries of big conglomerates. And so it's December as we approach the new year, it's critical that we all build these structures together. And we channel our energy, we channel that anger and frustration through processes that are the right ones, that are peaceful ones, but are powerful ones,

and achieve the goal that we all want to see over the next few years. Gotta roll up our sleeves, we gotta fight, but no one I'd rather be fighting with than Michael Popok, the team here at Midas Touch and Legal AF and everybody out there. Michael Popok, thank you so much. Thank you to all our hard work and staff, from Salty to Jeremy to Sydney to all of our contributors to Hayden and everyone who's working really, really hard

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