Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump hit with CRUSHING LOSSES, Judge Readies FINAL BLOW

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

Trump keeps losing… motion for a directed verdict denied!!!! Those will be the words of judge Engoron when Trump asks him to dismiss the case at the end of the government’s case. He’s lost his motion for summary judgement, he’s lost his many mistrial motions, and he will soon lose his motion for a directed verdict. Former Prosecutor and Legal AF Host, Karen Friedman Agnifilo reports. Get up to 50% off for a limited time when you go to https://shopbeam.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF at checkout! Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. The people rest. Those were the three magic words that were said by the government when they finished putting in their case in chief their entire case against Donald Trump his adult children and others in the civil fraud case that's going on right now in New York state, which is the people of the state of New York versus Donald Trump and others. And this is a case, even though it's civil,

it's being brought by the people of the state of New York by their duly elected Attorney General, with Tisha James, having nothing to do with Joe Biden or the federal government. This is an independently elected Attorney General, highly respected in New York, and she has civil enforcement powers as well as some limited criminal enforcement powers. But she has civil enforcement powers, including executive law section 6312, which allows the

attorney general to bring a case against individuals or businesses who conduct business in New York and engage in persistent or repeated fraud. That's essentially what has happened. And as a litigator, as a prosecutor myself, doing criminal work, I remember it was so monumental to say that people rest because it just means you've put in your case. You feel that you have met each and every element of each and every offense and that you can prove it for a prosecutor. It was beyond a reasonable doubt, but in a civil case, it's by propensity of the evidence,

which means it's more likely than not. So, it's 51%, however you want to look at it, but a much easier standard. And what happens at the end of the government's case or the people's case is you, the defense will and here they signaled as much that the next thing they're going to do is move for a directed verdict. Now what is a directed verdict? And we've also heard them say that they move for a mistrial. What's a mistrial? And we've also heard motion for summary judgment. There's been lots of dispositive, conclusive motion type requests in this case. And it can be complicated and hard to understand

for people who aren't lawyers or people who are lawyers who don't necessarily practice in this field. What's the difference? What's the difference between a mistrial or a directed verdict or a motion for summary judgment? So let's talk about what each of those are. But first, let me just give a little context of where we are. Okay. So let's talk about what each of those are. But first let me just give a little context of where we are. Okay. So the government presented their case, they're going to move for a

directed verdict, then the defense will present their case, if any, and then the prosecution will, or the attorney general will determine whether they want to put on any rebuttal case. So anything to rebut what the defense put on. Now, the Attorney General brought seven charges in this matter, and one was for executive law 6312, the persistent fraud statute, and then six more charges that are different sections of that same statute, that same executive law, that requires the persistent fraud, but also requires something else. So it's persistent fraud plus. And what it requires, there are different charges.

One has to do with falsification of business records plus persistent fraud. Another has to do with false financial statements, plus persistent fraud, and another has to do with insurance fraud, plus persistent fraud, and if those things sound familiar, it's because they're also under the New York State Penal Law crimes, and so it's like you had to have committed persistent fraud, plus one of these crimes. And so it's like you had to have committed persistent fraud plus one of these crimes. And the question then is, okay, that makes no sense. Why are they putting criminal statutes

in a civil case? And if that's confusing to you, that is understandable because it's confusing to a lot of people. And the reason is because it's a completely different standard of proof. And it's an offense that they can bring, by the way, civilly. So if, so for example, these individuals, Trump and his kids, et cetera, we're going to be prosecuted criminally for things like falsification of business records or insurance fraud, et cetera, that would be the same elements of those crimes. However, a higher burden, it would have to be proved that beyond a reasonable doubt, whereas, like I said here, it's a lower standard of proof. And Alvin Bragg,

the Manhattan DA, does have an investigation going into the Trump organization for this exact conduct with these exact statutes, same evidence, et cetera. But I think Alvin Bragg's office is waiting to see how this case shakes out and see, get all this other information, the witnesses testimony, see how they do, and reassess, right? Re-evaluate when Alvin Bragg was handed this case by Sivance, the prior DA, who I used to work for as an investigation. He felt, you know, he comes from the Attorney General's Office. He comes from the world of civil, the civil, the civil actions being brought by the government. And so he knew that by allowing the civil case to go first, there'd be depositions, which

there were, and there'd be trial testimony, not just of the defendants like Donald Trump and others, and Ivanka, who just testified, but also all the other witnesses, and to see how they do, and to see if the government's able to meet that lower burden. If they do, and the witnesses do well, I am certain Alvin Bragg will at least reevaluate whether he feels there's enough evidence to bring the case and whether there's enough to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. So in order though, so what happened was

when the case, so this gets us to our first thing which is emotion for summary judgment. And what is emotion for summary judgment and what is emotion for summary judgment? emotion for summary judgment is emotion that is brought when one side or another asks the court to decide the case based on any arguments that are made in the court papers so one side or the other or both can say there's no facts in dispute or at least look at the facts that are not in dispute. And I'm asking you because based on these facts that aren't in dispute here,

I want you to layer the law on top of those facts and I think my case deserves a judgment in my favor without having to go to trial. And so that's the first thing that was done in this case, like many cases, and that happened at the end of discovery because in a civil case, you not only have the complaint and the pleadings that are brought and the answers and the response, you also have things like interrogatories and depositions and you have discovery that comes in the form of subpoenas and evidence that

comes in. And eventually that all gets dumped into a giant pile of what your case is and that gets presented to a court. And what ends up happening is one side or the other can make a motion for summary judgment. Well that in fact did happen in this case. The defendant however is the one who made a motion for summary judgment on the whole case saying with all the facts that you have judge we don't think the government has met their burden in any of the charges.

And so we are asking for a motion for summary judgment. Well, the Office of Attorney General also moved for summary judgment, but only a partial one on count one, the first cause of action. Because in that count, all they had to prove was that the statements of financial condition were false in this leading, and the defendants repeatedly or persistently used these statements of financial condition to transact business. Essentially, this is a documents case. And I think this backfired on the part of Donald Trump because Judge Arthur and Goron issued a scathing very long opinion and order granting in part and denying in part these motions.

So he denied all of the defendant's motion for summary judgments that I disagree with you as to all the charges, and I'm not dismissing them. But as to the government's motion for a partial summary judgment on the first count, I agree with them. And I think there's enough here to find that there is a persistent fraud just based on the papers, just based on the documents, right? Just based on what we have here. These are your financial statements of financial condition and they were false and they were repeatedly used. And there's plenty of evidence showing that they were false. Did you know that poor sleep can

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Well, these require this conduct to be intentional going to hit the most, but what do they have to prove for these other six counts? Well, these require this conduct to be intentional and to be material. And what that basically means is they intended to defraud people with these fall statements of financial condition and the people on the other side. So the lenders, for example, relied on them, that these false statements that were made in here, these fake numbers that were made up were relied upon because they thought they were accurate. And they made a difference to them. They weren't going to loan them the money, had it not been accurate, had these not been the case. And so that's what the government still has with the attorney general's office

still has to prove in these cases, in these charges in this case. It's intent and materiality. That's essentially what happened. Now, the other motion that has been made a lot is mistrial. You hear that all the time, I'm moving for a mistrial. So what's a mistrial? That can be done at any time. You do that at any time during the trial whenever you see something or you have something that you think triggers a mistrial. And you do it as soon as possible so you don't wave it. And also if you do it as soon as possible if there was an error, the court can try to correct the error or grant the mistrial. But it's very rare because it's kind of an

extreme, it's an extreme remedy, right? It means that we're stopping the trial and we're dismissing the jury or if it's not a jury-abentch trial and we're either going to start over or if it's a mistrial with prejudice, you don't get to try it again. So it's very rare. Some examples of a mistrial are if you have a hung jury and they can't reach a verdict, that's synonymous with a mistrial. It means that the trial ended without conclusion, but this kind is without prejudice, and you'll try it again potentially. But in a criminal case, if there's a mistrial, it doesn't automatically get you out of jail either.

So, a mistrial can be done at any time, and for many, many reasons. If there's someone's ill or someone died, or there's an error in the court proceedings, et cetera. So, that's basically what Trump has been doing over and over again, trying to ask for a mistrile saying there was an error in the proceedings, and he cites all kinds of things. That he thinks are errors in the proceedings, that, you know, Latisha James is a hack that, I don't know, prosecutors were laughing at some point, or whatever, or they wouldn't let Donald Trump

talk, but he was not answering questions, he was making speeches, or the judges biased, you name it, whatever they complain about, and the judge denies it because it's not grounds for a mistrial, but that's what they've been asking for. And so now we know what emotion for mistrial is, an emotion for summary judgment. But that that exists to where we are this week after the government has rested and before the defense puts on their case, they are going to likely make a motion for a directed verdict. Now what is that motion? That's a motion by a party that asking the trial judge to issue a ruling after determining that there's no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury or judge to reach a different conclusion than the one that the

party is asking for. So in this case, it would be Donald Trump's lawyers and the other defendant saying, now that you've heard all the evidence, the government has not proven the elements beyond, or I should say, by a preponderance of the evidence, sorry, old habits die hard. And so we don't think they've met their burden and we're asking you for a directed verdict and to find us all not liable. Well, I think we all know where that's going to go

and it's probably not going to be persuasive because why I think that if you were to look at the evidence in this case and see how it's gone in, it's a white collar case. And white collar cases are very, very different than, then, you know, say a violent crime case with, with, that is portrayed on TV with a Perry Mason moment, you know, someone breaks down crying. It was him. He did it. You're on her and everybody, the whole courtroom gasps. And, you know, that doesn't really happen in real life. And real life trials can be very boring, especially if it's a paper case and a white collar case. I find them extremely boring because it's this methodical, just, you know, what is a, and what what is an officer of a company?

What are their duties and responsibilities? What are their fiduciary duties? Do they prepare these documents? Why? What does this mean? What's a statement of financial condition? What's a valuation? I mean, it's literally, it makes your eyes glaze over.

It's so boring. And that's what you put. That's how you have to methodically prove what are the elements here and what happened and show that it's so boring. And that's what you, but that's how you have to methodically kind of prove what are the elements here and what happened and show that it's frothed. And if you take little nuggets of information from the trial, you will see that the reason that I think, for example, Ivanka Trump's testimony was actually critical in this case. And I'm reading a lot of commentary that she was neutral,

that she didn't help in any way, that all of her, I don't recall, I don't recall, I don't recall, that that somehow hurts the case. I just view it very differently. I think her, I think her, I don't recalls, just, she recalled a lot, by the way. She recalled a lot of detail about things that I guess she didn't view as problematic and just coincidentally, the only thing she didn't

recall happened to be the things that are materially important for this particular case. So I think the judge is not going to credit that. But more importantly, she talked about the fact that, you know, she was very proud that she's the one who negotiated these incredibly favorable loan deals that allowed them to purchase and finance and renovate the derail golf course, as well as the old post office in Washington DC. And at first she didn't recall whether they utilized any statements of financial condition, but when shown emails between her and the head of wealth management at Deutsche

Bank, for example, negotiating the terms based on the statements of financial condition and saying unless Donald Trump it has a net worth of $3 billion, we're not going to keep you the loan and Ivanka successfully negotiated that down to 2.5 billion, sorry, I meant billion, not million. And so she was deep in that and to me that proves a that these statements of financial condition were intentionally misleading because they wouldn't have gotten this money, In that, and to me, that proves a, that these statements of financial condition were intentionally misleading because they wouldn't have gotten this money,

had they not done it, and b, it was material because the loans would not have been done, had they not provided this false fraudulent information. So I think she helped the case. I think the judge is gonna deny the motion for a directed verdict, and like see if the defense puts on a case, they said they are. They said they're going to recall many of the witnesses like Don Jr. and Eric.

They said, promise they're going to put on bankers who will say we didn't rely on these numbers. And we'll see if they can, if they can refute what seems like a crushingly strong case so far that the government has put in, and then we'll have the judge will render a verdict in the end. One of the things, when the judge renders the verdict, will be what the damages are. That's a big part of this case is how much money will be discouraged if, because they've already found liable as to count one.

So there will be some damages and how much will it be and will he dissolve their business licenses like the LLCs and will we make them sell their properties that they have in New York. So there's a lot to lose here and a lot at stake. So thanks for joining me. I'm Karen Friedman Agniful with Legal AF. Join us everyone's day and Saturday. Hey, Midas Mighty. Love this report. Continue the conversation by following us on Instagram. app.midas.touch to keep up with the most important news of the day. What are you waiting for? Follow us now.