Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Insurrection Texts Exposed and New Supreme Court Justice

Episode Date: April 10, 2022

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF x MeidasTouch is back for another hard-hitting look in “real time” at this week’s most important developments. This week Ben and Popok discuss and analyze: 1. The confirmation of now Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and what it means for the next SCOTUS term and beyond. 2. The FBI’s new investigation of Trump and his taking of 15 boxes of classified and top secret documents with him to Mar a Lago. 3. A federal judge denying Bannon a major defense in his criminal trial for Contempt of Congress set to start in July. 4. Ali Alexander’s testifying before DOJ’s DC grand jury concerning the insurrection and links to the White House and members of Congress. 5. The guilty plea and cooperation of another Proud Boy leader and what it may mean for the criminal prosecutions. 6. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s efforts to rehabilitate his reputation and push on with the Trump prosecution. 7. NY Attorney General seeking to hold Trump in civil contempt and fined $10k a day for failure to produce any documents despite court order. Support the Show! Smith.AI -- Work uninterrupted, run your business with less stress, and get more leads from your marketing efforts. Save $100 when you sign up using promo code "LegalAF" at https://www.smith.ai Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A proud boy pleads guilty for the January 6th insurrection. Are more guilty please to come? Is the DOJ investigating Trump for taking top secret documents tomorrow, and eating them and flushing them down the toilet? Steve Bannon's defense for contempt of Congress is obliterated by a federal judge. Don Jr.'s text messages from November 5th, just two days after the election, we see him plotting to overturn Democratic elections, what's to come next. New York Attorney General Tish James Moves for a $10,000-a-day monetary sanction against Donald Trump in her civil fraud case. The Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg says, not so fast, I'm still investigating Trump

is he full of shit, Katanji, Brown, Jackson, becomes justice, Katanji, Brown, Jackson. The most consequential news of the week, broken down in ways that you can understand if it's the weekend, it is legal. A F Ben Micellis joined by my co-host Michael Popak, the Popokian leader. Popak, how are you doing? I've been elevated to leader. I feel great. Thanks Ben. I'm really looking forward to tonight. That, that was a rousing lineup. But we're

going to do it all. Let's get right into it, Pope, and of course you would be the popokian leader. You are the popokian. Let's talk about non-popokins. Let's talk about the proud boys. It's a ridiculous name, number one. But let's talk about this guilty plea by one of their leaders, a leader of their North Carolina chapter. It's weird when you read about this too, just the way they have these various like chapters and just their organizational. Based on the, it's based on the KKK KK had all of those types of grand wizards and chapters and they stole a page from another racist, you know, historical racist group. And so you have Charles Donahoe.

He entered his plea at a virtual hearing in federal court this week. He was one of six senior proud boys who have been charged with conspiring to obstruct Congress's certification of Biden's election victory. He pled guilty to obstruction and a number of other counts. He was also among one of the first individuals to enter the Capitol building. Now, guilt E plea, though, we've talked about it before on this podcast because people have been very down on Merrick Garland. It's taking too much time. But, you know, he taught, you know, he started off with, you know, some of the lower level people he's been working his way up. Now the interactions

between these radical right extremist groups and radical right politicians is really what seems to be being probed here. Also this guilty plea by Charles Donojo also starts getting the DOJ really focused on a lot of these other top level proud boy leaders, not just at the kind of local North Carolina level, but some of their, you know, chair members who are running their national chapter. So, Popoq, what do you think the import of this is? I think it's another example that you and I talked about of this pressure of the Department of Justice over the last 14 months, finally, beginning to bear fruit at the upper

upper levels as they continue to, you know, bring the news in into the tightest segment, which is going to be the Trump administration, the Trump campaign, and those that assisted the insurrection. And the only way you do that is you take down and you get cooperation from people like participants and leaders for the proud boys, the first amendment, Praetorians, the oath keepers, and all the rest. Once they go, it's a house of cards. Then the whole thing falls and you're able to start prosecuting, inditing and prosecuting the top of the chain. Let's keep faith. 800, almost 800 arrests.

We have 300 people that are facing trial, convictions, and are participating. And now we have this one, and we're gonna talk a little bit later tonight in the pot about Ali Alexander, who is one of the main leaders of stop the steel and worked closely with elected officials. But when you have this is good for two primary reasons. You've got a leader who is involved with the proud boys and cooperating and coordinating in the obstruction, who is now going to cooperate willingly facing criminal jail time with the Department of Justice. That's one and two, he's going to be convicted of an obstruction charge. So

that answers the question that some of these Trump appointed federal judges have been asking, is obstruction really the right count here? We've already had three or four who have gotten convicted by juries, or have pled guilty to that very obstruction charge. So again, I want people, here's the patient's aspect. Every day, the Department of Justice is working this case with its thousands of people involved from the frontline prosecutors to the investigators. They just asked Congress for enough budget to bring in 130 new lawyers as you talked about last week that'll be assigned to the Jan 6 issues. Every day this pressure, 24, 7, 365 is pressure on someone

who's not sleeping well at night and it's gonna have to make a decision whether to try a case and lose as we've just seen in the last three weeks where cooperated with the Department of Justice and hope for a lenient sentence. And those are good things and prosecutions and will lead ultimately on the apex to the top.

You know, and as that pressure is applied, you mentioned Ali Alexander, you know, we're maybe gonna talk about him later, but now is as good of a time as ever, you know, who was a leader of the stop the steel rally, which, yeah, I don't like even embracing their names. He was a leader of the insurrection, one of the leaders of the insurrection. But he said that he is cooperating with the Department of Justice, that he is cooperating with all the inquiries. But what he basically says, and this is where these radical right wingers, though, to me also just show how weak they are, you know, in the fact that he basically said, I wasn't involved

in any of the unlawful and illegal activity. All I did was wanting to, you know, throw this rally. I got the permits. I was trying to actually have a legitimate rally, but all these other people, they were the ones who acted out of control. I just set up a bake sale. It was, I got the permits. I get the lemonade. I didn't do anything that led to the insurrection. And I didn't announce the resurrection. But that's what the insurrection and I didn't announce the resurrection. But that's what the applying of the pressure ultimately does because if you are one of these proud boys, if you're one of the people who spoke to Ali Alexander, if you're somebody

like, you know, a Don Jr., someone in Trump's inner circle who are having these conversations and he's essentially throwing you under the bus, you know, for his own self preservation and saying, I had nothing to do with any of this. All I thought we were doing was we were going to have the simple rally, you know, on stage, people were going to give these great speeches. And whoa, all of a sudden an insurrection happened. This would lead them to say, you know, I got to flip on Ali Alexander. So that's what these DOJ tactics are designed to do. They're designed to put pressure on people.

Here's my problem with Ali Alexander, but I want to get your opinion, because you often have a certain different angle that makes this conversation that you and I have every week, really, really interesting, even for me. I read the press release that Ali Alexander came out with that he gave to Politico, in which he said, I'm cooperating.

I'm not a target. Now, what is he cooperating with? Let me just remind our listeners and followers. There is a department of justice led grand jury and paneled in Washington, DC that witnesses are going before and giving testimony. So for that answers once and for all the question, what is Merrick Garland's department of justice doing about the leaders and getting close to the leaders of the insurrection, not just the 800 people

that attacked the Capitol, which are also important. And the answer is he's got a grand jury in panel. They're looking at the fake electors issue submitted to the battleground states. They're looking at the planning and organizing and communication between the Trump campaign, the Trump inner circle, the White House, the meadows of the world, the banns and others sitting in the Willard hotel and what finally happened at the insurrection.

People like Ali Adams are in Ali Alexander are important because they're not in that inner circle and they're trying to save their own bacon here, as you said. Now here's my question for you. And as press release, he says, I really did not coordinate with the proud boys. I really didn't coordinate with any elected officials. Although we know for a fact that he was in communication with Mo Brooks, Paul Gossar, and Andy Briggs, all Congress people.

That was his press release. What is that? Is that true? Is that really what is testimony behind the the confidential secret door of the grand jury is going to be? And why would he put that press release out in events? Because they're liars, Popeye. I like that angle. That's your angle. These people are the biggest liars in the world and they can't tell the truth to save themselves. These are like just loser people, you know, who have risen to the highest levels of government because there was a biggest loser in the world and the White House in Donald Trump, who surround it himself with losers like Ali Alexander. Do you think of the grand jury though? He, he, he, notwithstanding his official press release, you know, the signal to the rest

of his cooperators. Don't worry. I'm not going to throw you under the bus, but what he's in that hot seat being cross-examined by a US attorney. Do you think more information comes out? I do. I do think more information will probably come out when he does that, but he'll also probably be, you know, very obstructing in his conduct. And, you know, we're going to be

talking later about the sanctions that Tish James is seeking against Trump, you know, who basically treat all of our processes and procedures, the Trumps and his ilk as a joke. And they basically put their middle finger towards our legal system in every way. And so in that case, we're going to talk about the Trumps agreed that they were going to turn over documents and they were going to turn over records in connection with her subpoena. That remember, that's the civil case that's taking place. It's a civil fraud case that's being brought by the AG for him

inflating and deflating, you know, different tax liabilities where it suited him, either to get dejections or to get loans in various areas. But then he turns over no records and says, I have no records. And so if you do a document request like, please turn over your tax records or please turn over and you say, I have no records. You know, obviously, I have no records whatsoever after agreeing to turn them over. I mean, you're just putting your middle finger up in the process. But we'll talk more about that. But I do think Popuck, he's lying, they always lie in general. But when they're there in court, one of the things that we've always seen, thankfully,

and this is one of the reasons that Republicans have wanted to destroy our court system. This is why the, you know, the Trumpers particularly want to attack judges because it is this one location where truth still doesn't always win, but at least the process that's created there exerts a level of pressure where the truth can come out. And so when we've seen the Trump big lie lawsuits, those were just laughed out of the courtroom. When you see the Trump judges basically trying to throw their conspiracies in these federal courtrooms, pretty much on a bipartisan basis. Still, they've been laughed out of it. Now, that's the wildest of the conspiracies. Now, as you get to other issues that are seeking to undermine

our election, you know, very sadly, we've talked about this illegal AF, after legal AF, it's found a very sympathetic ear and radical right justices. But at least some of the real QAnon stuff, and it's really hard to even say this as a lawyer, at least the QAnon stuff hasn't made its way into the courts yet. But nonetheless, there's been a lot of radical right stuff that's made it. But to your point, which is well made, the pressure, it's easy to be a tough guy, or a tough person, on the courthouse steps,

giving a press conference, middle finger press releases, interviews and all that. But when you're sitting in the courtroom for three weeks being prosecuted and they bring your children in to testify against you. You become a blubbering idiot in front of a jury. So it's easy for Ali Adams to say, oh, I don't know anything. And I'm not a target.

As soon as they put the screws to him and he's looking at liberty or no liberty if he doesn't tell the truth or if they prosecute him worse worse worse for him and best a gift to the FBI and to the Justice Department is he lies under oath which is a whole another count of a criminal indictment against him for lying under oath in the cranjury or otherwise. So, you know, he's he's playing with fire here. If he thinks his press release is going to get a many mileage with the line prosecutor, who's prosecuting the case, he's going to be like, oh, what's the press release say? All right, sit in the box, swear yourself in. That look over there. That's the grand jury. Now, give your testimony. And, and, and have, remember, it's not just

the, just to remind people what this process is like, any kind of cross-examination. It's not like you just sit there and listen to them blabber for an hour of a narrative. It's cross-examination. Let me read for you this statement you made. Let me show you this video of you. Let me show you this recorded phone call of you. And then you can, then you can then you can explain

to my questions. So, you know, like I said, all these ridiculous press conferences by the husbands and wives about how innocent their their their their maid is all falls by the way side when they're under they're facing the the barrel of the of the full weight of the US Department of Justice. You talked about facing the barrel. the full weight of the US Department of Justice. You talked about facing the barrel. So I guess that's an easy layup to talk about Donald Trump's barrel, his toilet bowl, in Mar-a-Lago where, I mean, this is true, Popok, though, a lot of people at Mar-a-Lago were reporting that the drains were getting clogged.

And people in the White House were saying this too, that the drains would get clogged. And when the plumbers would come, they would find all of this paper. And it turns out that it seems a lot of this paper that was in the drains and in the pipes was confidential top secret documents that Trump would either eat, he would eat the documents. I mean, you can't make, I mean, like no one reports this. Like it's a, could you imagine Maggie Haberman for the New York Times did? It's coming out in her book. It's a couple of, oh, yeah, I think it's coming out in her book. Congrats. It's kind of, it's a very sarcastic pop. I think that she saved that for her book. But could you imagine if like President Bill Clinton or Obama or George W. Bush,

would literally just eat their documents, or when Bush would go to his ranch, or Clinton would go, where would Clinton go again? What was the, what was the, Clinton went to, I mean, where did he, where did he, where did he take his, where breaks that? What was the, where, Camp David? Did he go back to a little rock?

He'd go to Camp David all the time. So if he could go to Camp David, the time so if I go to can't David You know and Obama would go to Martha's vineyard whatever you know, we just eat documents and It's really wild But we've learned and we've talked about this on legal AF as part of the presidential Records act to the presidents are supposed to take their Documents and turn them over to the archivist, who we now know all about the archivist, like a position that really we shouldn't have to know unless

you're taking them. We should never know. Never really never know who that is about the archivist because the process is supposed to be very mechanic. You turn over these records. But here, Trump brought the top secret records to Marlago. Apparently, was ripping them up and eating them and flushing them down the toilet. So the House Oversight Committee, in addition to the work of the January 6th Committee, though,

are probing, I guess these words are maybe not be the best for this, but are doing an investigation into what's going on with these 15 boxes of White House records that Trump took to Mar-a-Lago. And so Representative Carolyn Maloney, the chairwoman of the Oversight Committee, she reached out to the archivist to get answers. And the archivist responded to her and said, we can't answer you at this point because of guidance that we've received from the Department of Justice and Representative Caramelone, a Democrat from New York. She represents a district in Eastern Manhattan. You know, she was upset about that. The House committee was upset about that and they said, well, you know, you know, we don't want the DOJ to be obstructing our investigation, you know, but

ultimately the DOJ is the one who are doing a criminal investigation. The House Oversight Committee can conduct its oversight functions, but basically at the end of the day, they just issue reports. And so this led many people to believe, and rightfully so that the DOJ is investigating, and they're asserting an investigation objection that we see take place a lot in cases, not just at the DOJ level, but there are sometimes in cases that I have popo that may involve law enforcement to where I'm representing a victim of police brutality

or I may be representing a whistleblower and we're subpoenaing records. And then I get an objection back from the DOJ saying, well, hold up, we're looking into this or we, you know, we can't respond because of a current DOJ investigation. Now, the letterback doesn't say it was a DOJ investigation, but it leads many people to believe it. Let me ask your first popok, representative Carolyn Maloney and the oversight committee, you know, led by Democrats, though, the language they use by almost accusing the Department of Justice of obstructing them. Do you think that was kind of a poor choice of words there in the sense that the media, you know, in today's day and age, you know, the media headline is house panel, justice department obstructing Trump records probe. And that's not what they're doing, but I'll say this.

And the media's screwed up in general. We always talk about how horrible the media is and how the media, but I think as a politician today, you have to be a little savvier with the letters. Like the DOJ, what they're doing is in your interest as well of getting and seeking the ends of justice. And you have to know if you send a letter like that, the dumb shit media today is gonna write the dumb shit headlines

that are gonna accuse you of accusing the Department of Justice of Abstraction. I think the reporting is pretty clear. The FBI has started an investigation, which means reports up the Department of Justice about 15 boxes of classified moral documents that went to Mar-a-Lago. The FBI got really into it, so the reporting has been because of reports that the National Archivist in recovering the 15 boxes. And we hope all of the 15 boxes. How does the Archivist really know what's sitting in drawers or drains at Mar-a-Lago? That wasn't turned over to them.

I mean, again, you're relying on small intestines, right? You're relying on good faith, which doesn't exist and shouldn't be given to the counterparty that you're dealing with as the national archivist, but assuming they feel that they were able to recover all 15 that went out, I don't know how they knew exactly what went out and got them all back in inventory, the national archive is reported. There's been reporting that top secret, the highest level of classified documents are in the boxes. That kind of peak the interest of the FBI in the Department of Justice, and it's been reported that they are doing an investigation. I get the Carolyn Maloney and the oversight committee are doing something also,

but wouldn't we rather the Department of Justice look into it not, probably not to prosecute Trump, although it could, but to look in just as they looked into the emails for Hillary Clinton and what happened with those servers to look into this issue and determine whether there should be a criminal referral of anyone involved with the Trump administration

in the decision to take the boxes to Mar-a-Lago and maybe up to Trump, who really knows. I rather have that than another report out of some oversight committee in Congress. But as you said, this is not unusual. In every civil matter or congressional investigation takes a back seat to criminal investigations by and large. They go first.

That's not unusual. I don't know why Carolyn Maloney was so surprised by that. But, and I'm not sure, but of course, there's no inventory of what's inside the 15 boxes. But remember, if the oversight committee is one thing, that's to do with presidential records. Gen 6 has to do with, you know, is there anything in the 15 boxes that's going to help the Gen 6 committee? I don't know. Maybe there's stuff in there about the conspiracy that Trump had with all the others to obstruct and to stop the peaceful

transfer of power. Maybe they'll get them eventually. I'm sure the Department of Justice and the FBI is not going to keep them forever from them, but they are evidence now in an ongoing criminal investigation. So it stays there first. I think the word choice to answer your earlier question was poor. Yeah. And I think the, well, I think the taking those boxes was its own independent criminal conduct as well that I'm hopeful the Department of Justice is looking into.

But I would again pause to reflect on what the Department of Justice has done. This is in the history of the Department of Justice, probably the most complex, time consuming, and voluminous amount of cases that exist. Now, for all of the people who say, well, why does Marigarlin not going after Trump right away? Now, you have a right to a speedy trial under the Constitution. And so imagine though, if you brought the case immediately, immediately against

Trump, without having built the case that is being built now from the lowest levels to the mid levels to the kind of higher extremists in the Proud Boys organizations, the illegal, the illegality is a multi-pronged plan. Shockingly, and we'll talk about it shortly, that plan was set forth in the text messages by Don Jr. on November 5, three days after the election, two days after the election. We knew or Don Jr. likely knew that means that they were going to lose the election. And in fact, the plan for January 6 probably began months in advance. I think a lot of people actually, me months before people, but people aren't even looking at the conduct where when Trump had COVID, remember when Trump had COVID,

he hid that he had COVID and he did the debate with Biden and was literally trying to kill Joe Biden at a debate. Like no one talks about that. No one even talks about that as a thing. But Trump and his lackeys did everything, including trying to infect his political opponent with COVID at the time. And we'll go talk about these Trump text messages, though, where they set out the multifaceted plan. The plan involved these, you know, phantom and unfaithful electors. The plan involved January six style insurrection. The plan involved all of the wacky John Eastman things about having the state legislators rule. All of the things that were being discussed, as Judge Carter said, when he said that it is more likely

than not, this is the federal judge in California Central District, Southern Division, when said it was more likely than not that Trump engaged in criminal liability, engaged in criminal conduct, engaged in obstruction, that this was a coup in search of a legal theory. And we see that in Don Jr's text message. You know, if you go back to the research,

you take the way back machine, the hashtag stop the steel and that approach was over a year before the election led by people like Roger Stone and others. Why? A, they knew that because of COVID, certain state legislatures were allowing a lot of mail-in voting, which they know favors the Democrats, that there were changes in the absentee ballot laws close to the election to account for COVID. And worried about that and the impact on the Republican electorate. A year before the election, they were talking about,

and you guys can look it all up. They were talking about stop the steel, a steel that hadn't even happened yet, an election that hadn't even happened yet. So Don Jr.'s reveal text messages, which I guess have now gone right then to the Jans X committee. Yeah, that's how it got revealed the sea in him and him. It's a matter of yeah, right between him and meadows is is

unfortunately a later link in a longer chain that started a year before the election when because they were never going to leave office except over their cold dead fingers and hands. And I guess for people who wanted, you know, the criminal prosecution of Trump earlier, would you have wanted him to be prosecuted before those text messages were on earth? No, I mean, is that what you have wanted? Like, so you get to cross examine someone and you'd want to do it without those text messages and without all of the voluminous documents that we have.

And that's why discovery and litigation is so critical. We're going to talk later in the pot about discovery in litigation and Trump's obstruction of discovery in civil litigation. But you need to get your documents. You need to take the depositions. You need to get the testimony. And it isn't a surprise that Trump is in a circle and his lackeys don't want to give this testimony.

They don't want to give this test the money. They don't want to appear before bodies like the January 6th committee, where if they had nothing to hide, you would think they would want to speak in front of them. And so the podcaster, Steve Bannon, I don't like the framing former Trump advisor, just because you may have worked for him for a little bit, doesn't give you executive privilege despite the argument that Steve Bannon and others tried to advance that his executive privilege just simply being a friend of the president gives you executive privilege.

That's basically the argument. But the federal judge in DC, this judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, right, Popeyes? Judge Carl Nichols. He's a Trump appointee, but just, you know, he does come from a very well established. I think he was a Wilmer Cutler, a very well established white shoe firm in Washington. He was known by his peers to be somebody that called balls and strikes pretty much down the middle

even as an attorney. So yes, he was picked by Trump, but he was never seen as an overtly political choice, as opposed to just somebody who was a, who was a Republican. And now we're starting to see it because he's making very untrumped like decisions about keep people like Steve Bannon. And Steve Bannon's argument, one of his central defenses in the contempt of Congress prosecution, the DOJ is pursuing against him. Remember, he wouldn't appear before the January 6th committee. There was a referral to hold them in contempt.

When there's a referral, the department of justice still has to act on the referral. They have not acted on the referral of Mark Meadows yet. It is slightly more complicated legally with Mark Meadows, because Mark Meadows was actually the chief of staff of Trump. And there is kind of a separation of powers question that I think the DOJ strategically is saying, let's focus on ban and first, and then we can focus on Meadows and some of the people. I think it's just a timing thing. I truly do. And I think, and I think, Scavino and Navarro have now been referred to the Department of, you might have said it, to the Department of Justice as well. So now you got three that are in the hopper,

but the ban and trial is going to be in July. Well, let me give you, I mean, we've talked about this before. So for people who are saying, well, why aren't the DOJ acting on meadows? Why aren't they acting on Skavino? Well, the people who actually work in the executive branch, at least have the ability, whether it's valid or not, to assert executive privilege. All privileges have exceptions, if it's not in furtherance of like the executive, like leading a coup should not be subject to an executive privilege, but our constitution and article two places a lot of power, invest a lot of power in the executive.

And there are these norms and traditions and strong traditions of executive privilege. So if I'm the DOJ, I think the strategic thing you don't want ban and to get off the hook with though, is lumping himself with people who actually have potential claims of executive privilege so that they're not being kind of confused and merged and melded into one argument. You know, you focus on ban and you still have, it's well within the statute of limitations to prosecute these other individuals. Um, Merrick Garland, the DOJ, you know, as long as Biden remains in present, as the president or a Democrat in president, this DOJ is going to continue to do its job. So it has more than enough time.

I just think they don't want to lump those issues when you can break us right now on better. So five, yeah. I'm just one last thing. Just one last thing on that. And to remind or to tell our listeners and followers, these will go to different judges. It's not going to go to Nichols because he has the ban in case the the the wheel is going to spin and the clerk's going to assign the case to whoever is up on the wheel that week, that day for the case. So now the department justice not only has the trained fire on one case with one judge and picked their way through all of these complicated issues and and and White House legal counsel memos from the 1968 and all of this, but then it have to do it on three different fronts with three different

judges, some of which may be less friendly than what Carl Nichols has been so far. No, absolutely. And so what Bannon's defense was going to be was I was following the advice of my lawyer who told me that I have executive privilege, who told me that I don't have to respond. And so that is why I don't have the intent. I don't have the men's reya, which is the mental state, to have been guilty of the crime of contempt of Congress, if I'm just following the advice

of council. And US district judge Carl Nichols said, no, that's not the case. And that is not an appropriate defense to a contempt of Congress charge. It's interesting because it is in certain jurisdictions and in certain federal circuits, but Judge Nichol said from a 1961 precedent in the DC circuit, which is binding precedent on him because he sits in the DC circuit. And there since there has not been a US Supreme Court decision that overrides it, just because another circuit like the Southern District of New York or Northern District of California might take a different position, he said, my district has spoken. And it's 60 year old precedent. And it is not a defense. And the only thing that the government has to prove is improper intent that there was a deliberate

intention not to comply with the order of Congress. And you're not going to be able to offload that and delegate that to your attorneys and say, it wasn't me, I would have done it. I would have done it. The weirdest thing is that you see shine one of his lawyers at the time. I don't think it's his lead lawyer any longer, but you see one of his lawyers at the time in an interview about this, had said, of course, he followed our advice. He's willing to comply as soon as he was ordered by a court to do so.

Well, there's no court order that's going to come out. There's going to be a contempt finding in July and a jail term, but this guy's even understanding of the process, like, sure, as soon as a federal judge tells me to send the documents over, Nichols isn't going to tell him to do that. Nichols is going to tell him whether he goes to jail for a year or not. One little area of concern that I have here, knowing that Nichols is a Trump appointee, and his analysis of citing this 1961 case is to basically, though, I think, signal, hey, my hands were tied here. I'm following the precedent as I have to follow it here. That said, if precedent changes, he doesn't say this, but,

you know, if precedent changes, I may not have to follow it. And so the DC circuit court is not going to interrupt their own precedent that they've set. We will have to see what the super, you know, if this makes its way to the Supreme Court after trial, after trial, after trial. And that's an important point, Pope, back to the timing of it. If you want to explain that to our viewers, yeah, it's not there. There are things that Ben and I work with every day, which are called interlocatory appeals, which is sort of what it sounds like. It's in the middle of a proceeding. You get to step away from the proceeding,

the trial proceeding for a moment and go to an appellate court to get some sort of ruling. It happens more than people might might think, but it's not going to happen on a defense decision about whether someone has a defense or not. That is up to the trial judge. It may be an appealable issue, an error that could be reversed on appeal, but only after the trial is completed. So after a jury comes back,

I think this is a jury trial. After a jury comes back and let's say convict Spanon after they're charged and given a jury instruction about this is the law and this is this is what intent means. This is what willfulness means. And he's not going to be able to put on a defense. Now I've, I've, and that's it. The jury then returns a verdict. If they don't like the verdict, they can, they can move to appeal to, you know, first to the DC Circuit, which will probably comply with its precedent. And then to the US Supreme Court,

he'll ask to stay out of jail while that's going on. It'll be up to Nichols, maybe that's where the Trump connection comes in to decide whether he stays out on bond or not or if he has to go right in while he's waiting on a bill. He'll probably be, he'll probably won't have to go to jail. And then once you go through all of that, he's gonna get sentenced to something up to a year.

So we're gonna have to really follow this. It'll be one of our summer events around our holidays or vacations. We'll be talking about the banan trail. I'm excited to talk more about the banan trial and excited to talk about Don Jr's text messages. Popaka, there's a lot of news that comes out, but I think these text messages are really one of the most damning piece of evidence in the case that's being built. But before talking about the Don Jr. text message, I want to talk about one of our partners. It's Smith AI.

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certify the election results in favor of Donald Trump when Donald Trump would lose the state and then submit those to Congress to try to have those certified. And we see the plan of trying to have the members of Congress object to the certification process so it could get thrown to the legislators. And there's one thing that he writes in these texts of message. That's like just so eerie, but so true. We're done, Junior basically says, we control them all. We control them all. You know, and I think he's referring to the legislators, he's referring to the Republican members of the Senate and the House of Representatives. He's referring to the electors. He's referring to the proud boys, but that message, the time it took place.

We talked the last time about the guilty conscious jury instruction. And we talked about whether the gap in the phone log of Trump's phone log, which was missing, seems like years ago, last week we find out that there's missing, just think about, if your pop-ok, just think about if you're giving this opening statement or the closing argument, and you're trying to talk about a guilty conscious, just in the past two weeks.

Talk about the act itself, we talk about. So they are deleting and we have missing phone logs from the time of the insurrection. In addition, two days after the election, when there was still counting taking place, you had Don Trump, Jr. go through all of the illegal efforts that they were going to take because they knew from the outset, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that the only way they could get Trump elected was by overthrowing a democratically elected president in Joe Biden. Why else on the fifth before the results were even counted?

Would you start talking about all these illegal machinations? Wouldn't you just be talking about, hey, we're gonna go through the process that's in the constitution? If you really we're gonna actually do follow the law. So that's why Popock from just a, from that jury instruction that we talked about, about guilty conscience, about the conspiracy,

the tie, not just what what said in the messages where they lay out all the illegal things. I just said that they were going to do and we know they're illegal. But two days after before the results were even called for Biden, wow. Yeah, this is all there must be a fight in the Department of Justice and main justice to be like who's going to be the prosecutor for Donald Trump and the family in that next wave of prosecutions. Because as you just laid out, it is a target rich environment of evidence that's coming out

like on a daily basis through the Gen 6 committee and through other through the subpoenaing process and the grand jury process in the Department of Justice justice and through all the other places that we've talked about. These are all feeder, feeder pipelines, you know, the Latisha James pipeline, the Alvin Bragg pipeline, the Fannie Willis and Georgia pipeline, the new FBI investigation about the 15 mixing boxes and then the Gen 6th committee with this one. Yeah, it's very hard, you're very hard pressed to say, I don't have criminal intent when your own son named after you, who's in your innermost inner sanctum, before the election is even over

and certified, is already laying out the plot. Now, no one thinks Don Jr., who's basically the fratow of the Trump crime family, came up with all of these ideas. So obviously people like Eastman, John Eastman, and Banan and others, and Sidney Powell's of the world and Julie Annie's of the world had already created a blueprint for how they were going to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power and try to keep daddy Trump in power. And this is just Trump Jr. tweeting it out, texting it out. He's not the architect of it. He's not bright enough to do that. I've seen his YouTube videos. He's not bright enough to do that.

I've seen his YouTube videos. He's, you know, he's not bright enough for this, but he is dumb enough to have disclosed it in a text message, not on a burner phone to a member of the inner circle of the White House staff and Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows. These people acted with impunity, Ben, as if they never none of this was ever going to see the light of day. And maybe it's what you started this segment with, which is their belief. The coronation of Donald Trump had been complete. And then he had complete control over the entire Republican party, basically a fear based control over the entire Republican party, basically a fear-based control, over the entire Republican party, and that they would do his bidding. And this was just Donald, Don Jr.

You know what they, you know what they call a Freudian slip in Washington, right, Ben? It's accidentally telling the truth. And so accidentally revealing, or intentionally revealing the entire plot that was given to him by some other smarter people, you know, at the very, very inception. And on the timeline that this prosecutor that you've laid out this hypothetical prosecutor, this is going to be like item number one. And let's think and push it back even further. Well, to see every day is a new, as a new bountiful crop of potential evidence against the most senior people here.

And this is going exactly in the order that you and I talked about 20 episodes ago, 30 episodes ago. You don't start with Mark Meadows and work your way back to the guy with the fire extinguisher. You start with the guy with the fire extinguisher, then you go to the security forces of Proudboy and the First Amendment Praetorians and the Oathkeepers,

and then you get the elected officials who held the door open and gave the Oathkeepers and then you get the elected officials who held the door open and gave them the blueprint and then you get to the Meadows and then you get to Scipino and then you get the Trump and the entire family. That's the way a prosecution works. That's what we're seeing. And that's the way kind of life works, I mean, I mean, think about it. Like, would you want to do the most complicated aspect of your job the first day you were hired? I mean, just think about it in the, like think about it in those terms.

Like, if I were to go take the bar exam without taking a class in law school, I'm going to fail the bar exam. Why would it be any different if I was going to prosecute Trump without having the records? You know what, you know what? My boss told me when I took that job

with the Wall Street firm and I was the global head of litigation on the third or fourth day, he came into my office and he pointed to somebody who was in the office services janitor department of the company and he said, see that guy? I said, yeah, he said, that guy knows more about this organization right now than you do. I said, that's true.

That is true. So I wasn't ready at that particular moment, although I did have to make some big decisions relatively early on there. But yes, you, you, you don't want, you're not ready. And we're going to talk about like McIntagee Brown Jackson, our new Supreme Court Justice takes her seat after this term is over at the end of June or July and gets ready for the start in October of the new term. Look, we, we, we love her. We think she's going to be great. It's going to take her a little bit of time to get acclimated to the workings of the Supreme Court and build relationships. Even Stephen Breyer said it took him three full years to figure out what the F.E. was doing my, my paraphrase before he could really start having an

impact on the Supreme Court. It's not going to be day one for Katanji Brown Jackson to prove your point. See, but that with Katanji Brown Jackson, she's going to have to like unlearn good habits. It's kind of a different type of learning. You know, I mean, she has all of the qualifications which we're going to go over. I mean, like, she's literally the most qualified person to ever take that position. But when you take that position at the Supreme Court, what I mean about having to unlearn great habits and great things is that when you have colleagues like Alito and Clarence Thomas, who's like literally an insurrectionist, like when you have people like Kavanaugh, you have people like Amy Coney Barrett,

and you're trying to persuade them in the small ways that you can. You have to kind of, you have to, your qualifications are being a great person, you almost have to think about how you deal with these wackos, these radical right extremists who have been put on the court. But let's, we'll get there in a second. Let's talk about this New York AG Tish story, which is a, you know, an interesting one, I suppose. But I want to approach it from a different angle.

So Tish, James, I guess I'm on a first name basis that is called Tisch now, which, you know, if Tisch James ever comes on, I'm like, what are you doing calling me Tisch? New York Attorney General, Tisch James, they'll request to the Trumpi find $10,000 a day for not turning over records in connection with the civil investigation and civil case that they have. This is not the criminal case that is hopefully being investigated by Alvin Bragg. We'll talk about that a bit more, but in connection with this civil case that was initiated by the New York Attorney General, Tisch James, his office, this is where there was a fight over the depositions, but there was no fight. It appeared over the turning over the documents and turning over the records.

They didn't appeal the document side of the case. They only appealed, you know, in their brilliance, they only appealed the deposition side of the case, Trump's lawyers, which is now sitting at the first department court of appeals for the state of New York, which still justice delayed is justice denied there. And that's Trump's whole strategy to stretch out these cases to avoid, you know, taking, you know, and try to avoid sitting for depositions. By the way, we've talked about in past legal apps, though, as he files these ridiculous and absurd lawsuits, which are going to subject him to depositions. But that's why to me in another federal case, all you got to do with Trump is the moment

you get a lawsuit like that is just put out a document request, ask for discovery, you know, with if he's not going to turn it over and you'll get the case to just right away. Yes, for a deposition a month after 60 days after you start. Yeah. Time for demos. Yeah, take a deposition and I'm sure I'm right away. But for you're right, for whatever reason, they did not appeal. They may just be idiots and didn't appeal

this because they forgot to appeal the document. Or, you know, this was, or this was part of their plan that they were going to say, yes, we agreed to turn over documents and then not turn over documents, but they're deadline to turn over the documents has passed. So now the one of the tools in the lawyers toolkit when someone doesn't participate in the discovery. And we've seen this again on the Alex Jones case was a case we talked about a while ago where he was getting hit with sanctions for not showing up for his deposition, but you ask for monetary sanctions. And so he or she's asking for $10,000 a day until he complies with the judicial ruling to turn over records. So, Popak, I want to hear your thoughts on this, but then I have a question for you. It is $10,000 even enough. But let's start

with your analysis. No, so yeah, you've, you've laid it all out. Well, we've got a judge and Garon in New York, who's really is getting fed up with Trump and all of his antics. You know, this is Trump having previously tried to dismiss the case because Latisha James was biased. And so the whole prosecution should be thrown out and that was rejected. And then he shouldn't sit for a deposition. And of course, that was rejected. It is now upon appeal. But the documents were always going to be turned over.

And I'm sure the judges are going to say, let me get this straight. You and your lawyers were in my courtroom. We had long conversations about documents. I ordered them to be produced. In fact, I even ordered that you use an independent third party electronic discovery vendor to go directly onto your servers

and go onto documents, download all these things, report to the court, how that process has gone. And now after the time has expired, I gave you an extension from the big, this is the judge talking now. From the beginning of the, the beginning of March till the end of March, I gave you an extension from the big, this is the judge talking now from the beginning of the, the beginning of March till the end of March, I gave you an extension. And now your answer is none. You don't have any of the documents, including the tax returns and other things because you the last time you were at the Trump organization,

was 2017 and the Trump organization already turned over whatever they had. That's not going to fly with this judge. I'm just guessing here and that and you're right. I don't know why Latisha James' office has only asked for a $10,000 a day fine. That's sort of on the low end. I've been involved with cases, you know, what I just because I can talk about it, it's like 30 years later. I was involved in a case as a young lawyer at a firm, I will not name that was representing a healthcare company.

I will not name where I was put on a plane to California to spend the entire summer, Ben, you were probably in high school, but I was in the summer of 95. I was in LA because a federal judge had ordered that if this healthcare company didn't get its act together and start producing documents in this fraud case, she was finding them and it was then $5,000 a day. That company freaked out because that's a lot of money and got me on a plane and I fixed it. And we got all the documents produced in short order.

That was one of my early, my early Popaki and victories. Here, $10,000 to this guy is nothing. This is like rounding error. This is like his Uber bill for the month for the organization. So he deals for people. Yeah, it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been, it's been, yeah. So the inter-rhythm effect, the, the, the, the scary effect of this is not going to be enough. The judge has more power at their disposal to find them in contempt, the first effect of this is not going to be enough. The judge has more power at their disposal to find them in contempt,

the first level of contempt, a civil contempt. Do it, I'm giving you one more week at 10,000 debt or I don't think 10,000 is enough, it's $25,000 a day. And you pay the extra time and the attorney's fees related to the Latisha James' office bringing this motion. If you don't do that, the next thing that goes down, the next tool in the toolbox for a judge is criminal contempt. And people are like, well, I thought this is a civil case. Yes. But if you violate and flout the orders of a court

in a contemptuous way, a contumacious way, as we like to say, you can then get ratcheted up to criminal contempt. And criminal contempt is do it, or you're going to jail, not going to jail for the underlying issue that Latisha James is investigating. You're going to jail because you have, you have flouted and violated orders of this court. Now I don't think he gets that far to you, Ben. You can only play this game so long before a federal judge says, grab your toothbrush and go with the bail if you're going to jail. Yeah. You know, the part here that bugged me actually was

at $10,000 a day with a little over $3 million a year. And Trump's view of things, you know, and his mind, well, you know, the worst case scenario for me, if I wanna hide my documents and avoid this is, you know, a three and a half million plus a year, I'll just do two rallies, steal from my people, you know,

and then throw it over, I'll rack up a bill for whatever, $15 million over a number of years, and I'll appeal that, and I'll appeal that, and I'll appeal that, and I'll just throw it on my kids when I'm gone. So, but I think we need to follow it, but if ultimately at the end of the day,

remember, this is the civil case, though, which has different kind of consequences. As you mentioned, there is potential criminal contempt referrals. But in the civil case, you're still talking about monetary fines, monetary sanctions. But here's what I do like. I like that Tish James, though, is steadfastly pursuing this. She's tenacious about it. And it's kind of constantly on him, you know, to, you know, to produce

records. Well, that's why some people, and I've read some of this reporting, some people are suggesting that the prosecutor who could take over the case from Alvin Bragg, if Alvin Bragg's current PR campaign that he launched on Thursday. We're going to talk about next with press releases and interviews with the New York Times editorial board to try to save his career. It doesn't, it isn't effective. Tisch James, even though she's on,

she's the attorney general and generally has only civil powers. She does have criminal powers in two distinct areas that implicate Donald Trump. One, she can bring criminal tax prosecutions in the state of New York. That her office can do and anything related to organized crime. So if she wants to bring an organized crime, slash criminal tax case against Trump. Her office isn't power to do that under the executive law of the state of New York. It's not talked about she's trying to stay in her lane

as the civil side, letting Alvin Bragg to do his job, but if Alvin's not doing his job, and Tish has it out for Trump, which we know she does in a good way, and a muscular prosecutor way, she could take over. Let's talk about Alvin Bragg for a second, or maybe a few seconds. The Alvin Bragg PR tours,

probably what you'd wanna call it, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, after his top private prosecutors who were hired in his office, special prosecutors who were very qualified individuals left, at least one of their resignation letters, Pomeranc's resignation letter was leaked. And so he had claimed that Alvin Bragg was not going to be prosecuting Trump, was not going to be following SIEVANCE's more aggressive approach, we'll say, of having the grand jury return an indictment,

which is what Ivance had told Pomerance to do and to get. And Alvin Bragg though initially denied that he was shutting down the investigation. And this week he went on basically at PRTOR. He gave interviews on this past Thursday with media and issued a press release in addition to speaking to the media and basically saying that it's not the case that the investigation has been shut down. And no matter what the outcome is, he will make sure that there is a transparent explanation to

the public about the decisions that were being made. Do you think Alvin Bragg's press conference pop-ok was meaningful here? And is it going to, in any way, change the narrative or did it kind of sound like what someone would say to buy time before? Dropping fire tested me for the people fired or dropping or being fired This got circulated the press release got circulated to you and me and you know what I what I wrote you back and the other person back I just wrote oh Alvin You know this is There's also reporting

that the Daily Beast was about to drop a very unfavorable investigative piece. And on the eve of the article, he came out with the press release. And their article was going to focus on something that we haven't spoken about, which is not only that Kerry Dun and Mark Pomeran's resigned, but that he, Alvin Bragg, seems to have reassigned Solomon Shindrock, who was the lead prosecutor.

That's the person doing the dirty work every day. It doesn't get all the glory of the pomeranesses and the dunes, but it's really the important person to the investigation. Apparently that person, Solomon Shindrock, a lawyer in their own right, has been reassigned and is not on the case any longer. So that's not a good sign. Now Alvin tried to say in this media tour on Thursday, well, there's new witnesses that have been interviewed and new evidence has been reviewed.

And some people have said that's just a continuation of the original subpoenas. And it's not a new a new dive by the new prosecutors into new evidence and new witnesses. But you know, and he did a lot of spent a lot of time trying to reestablish rehabilitate his career, his credibility as a prosecutor, his bolstering his own credentials. It's been a fair amount of time talking about his prior prosecutions of public officials that he was the lead prosecutor against the Trump organization or the Trump foundation in the past when he worked in the Attorney General's office.

So he kind of gets it and nobody should doubt his ability, his credentials, his rigor, but everybody's doubting his credentials, his ability and his rigor, including the governor of the state of New York. So I think the audience for that was the governor and others that are calling for the head of Alvin Bragg and to be removed as the prosecutor for Trump and trying to buy some more time. And you're right.

He did see prosecutors are not obligated to announce the public why they are or are not prosecuting. If they're prosecuting, it's an indictment. If they're not prosecuting, they don't have to say why they're not prosecuting. He has said, I will tell people, you know, of course, if he's prosecuting, it's an indictment, I will tell them if I'm not prosecuting. I don't know. I think he's buying more time here for himself politically is all I read there. I'm not taking any cold, I take very cold comfort from believing that the case against Donald Trump has gotten any better with Alvin Bragg now firmly in charge of it than it was before with Mark Pomerancin carried on. And the one last thing I'll leave before I turn it back to you, Ben, is that career prosecutors and really educated followers of that

office and of prosecutions in general. And I want to get Karen's opinion about this when I have her on the, when we call Icaran Wednesday, is that the lack after almost two years of a cooperating witness from within the Trump organization has really hampered the prosecution. You know, early on, side-vants, Alvin Bragg's predecessor indicted the Trump organization. We shouldn't forget this. Trump organization is indicted. They're going to be tried for a crime related to tax fraud. Weiselberg, Alan Weiselberg, the longtime CFO indicted, but that did not lead to anyone else in the

organization. Because of the reasons you've outlined in the past, Ben, this is not a real organization. This is a bunch of people with Trump's last name. Sorry, sorry, my mother decided to call during our pod. It stays in the pod. On this day in the pod, that's aggressive. I stay in touch with my mother. I'm gonna stay in the pod. Keep it in the pod. Five to five. Mom's keep keeping in the pod. Sorry, mom. I'll call you right after the pod. So the lack of cooperating witness that has come out of the woodwork,

because as you've said, the Trump organization is not a real organization. It's a bunch of people that look like Trump and have his last name. None of none of them are going to flip. And that has been a real hamper to the to the prosecution for Alvin Bragg. It's the only credit I'm going to give him is that he's got a tough road to hoe. It's got to be done with all kind of documentary evidence. But measures, that was the one I asked you about. Mazers totally dumped on their client on the way out and said all of our financial reporting for the last 10 years is completely unreliable. Basically in the face of the Latisha James investigation, I mean, that's an incredible.

So you do have the auditor who has churned on them. It's not like there's no cooperating witness. Mazers will, but it's, yes, it is a difficult prosecution. But you know, you're taking down a president of the United States, it was always going to be hard. It was always going to be hard. As I've always said, the Trump organization is not a real organization. I mean, if you really think about it, you know, the ultimate character of like a bad guy of a bad person, like you couldn't make it more character of like what Trump

is, you know, someone who literally is a trust fund kid who inherited all of this money, who created a fake organization that they call the Trump organization, which in most of its endeavors that it actually did, where it tried to do more than just put money into real estate in Manhattan, which has always been going up. They've actually tried to engage in any other business. They've lost. they've gone bankrupt. They're the only family in America that lost money running a casino. Yeah.

And, I mean, look, to me, we'll keep following up with what Alvin Bragg is doing. But it was always going to be a tough prosecution. And it's a important and necessary prosecution that people like Trump, these megalomaniacs out there who are scurrying the law, even if they don't have true organizational structures, like they deserve a need to be held accountable. But let's leave our legal aifers with a positive note. Kintangi, brown, Jackson is confirmed as a Supreme Court justice now, Justice Katanji, Brown Jackson a historic, historic day.

In terms of qualifications, we've talked about this over and over again, the most qualified individual on the Supreme Court. And I'll have our graphics guy, Salty, pull up the graphic for those watching, but I'll just explain the graphic for those listening. It's this graphic that shows all the other Supreme Court justices who are on the bench. And it shows, you know, did the person go to public high school?

Check Ivy League Law School, check, Supreme Court clerk, check, public defender, check, sent law school, check Supreme Court clerk, check public defender, check sentencing commission, check district court judge, check court of appeals judge, check. And that doesn't even go into the fact that, you know, she did trials. She worked at a big law firm. You know, she literally did everything that you can do and had a untainted record. And you said, incredibly intelligent, you mean a graceful individual that alone should put her on the Supreme Court.

You know, yet you only had three Republicans. You had, you had Romney, Morkowski, and you had and Collins, were the only three Republicans who voted in favor of Katanji Brown Jackson, which just goes to show you that for those who voted against Katanji Brown Jackson, I think we all know, you know, what it is, what it is that they care about and where it is that they are signing for. When you vote for someone like Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, who have like very little qualifications. Look, I'm going to give some other stats. We're doing stats here, which are fascinating.

That's fascinating. We're all about stats today. Out of the 50 US senators, only three are African are black, are African American. Only one sat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and that's Cory Booker. In the history of the Senate, this is crazy. There's only been 11 and 233 years. There's only been 11 African Americans out of 2000 Senate seats, which is 0.05%. The current makeup is 0.6% of senators. Of the U.S. Supreme Court, 108 out of 115 U.S. Supreme Court justices have been white men. That's 93%. This is the first time

we'll ever have four women on the US Supreme Court all Democrat but Democratic appointees So if these things matter to you The stats that I just outlined with Ben These things matter to you The elections matter to you and that making sure the Democratic Slate of candidates is elected matters slate of candidates is elected matters winning the Senate matters the war it's not just warlock and our us off winning in Georgia although without them we would not have good don't you brown Jackson um they were as as important as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris the first black

vice president or black any president presiding over the Senate and confirming her being voted in as Supreme Court justice. But these are all really important things that start with getting the right people elected in the office at the Senate level so that the judiciary, which is controlled by the Senate, is firmly in the hands of adults and progressives. That's really, really important. Now, the one thing I wanna mention, and I wanna get your opinion on this,

one thing of all the crazy things that Ted Cruz and the others did, and there were a lot of crazy things. In fact, you know, he held up that baby as a racist book. That was now number one. And there was this baby, yeah. Yeah, that's number one on Amazon right now. Because of that, they bought that book. That's great.

Thank you Ted Cruz. But the one thing I thought that she should not have fallen into the trap of is that he got Katanji Brown Jackson to say that she would recuse herself from the Harvard affirmative action admissions case that's coming before her when she's seated in October. There's also a related case dealing with the University of North Carolina, which is actually a little more of an expansive case.

But I don't think she should have agreed to accuse herself from anything. Why? Because she's black and went to Harvard. I mean, what did you think about? She took the bait on that one and I was surprised. What did you think about that? I think she had to have known that she was going to get asked the question. And I think the thinking behind it, though, was with unclear what mansion would do and unclear what cinema would do. I think there was a worry there that not answering the question in that way could him, you know, could change a morkowski,

could change a Romney or could change a Collins, even though I don't think that would be the case. But I think they huddled up behind the scenes and played the question safe and said, look, on that question, what it appears anyway is that the vote, the Supreme Court is going to dismantle any type of affirmative action, any semblance of how it's even calculated. We've talked about this on prior legal AFs. They seem poised to do that. And so it's more important that we get you in as a Supreme Court justice now, then that potentially become an issue. And so I think they gameplay, I think they, they were all played it and ultimately came to that conclusion.

I think you're right. I don't think she should have done it, but I think that's what happened. I agree with you. I think you're right. I'll write on the, right on the money. And just to remind everybody that that follows the show closely, Briar, not Katangi Brown Jackson is still in his seat. It will remain there for the remainder of the term

through June or early July. It is Breyer who will vote on it, who will be involved with the writing of opinions or dissents about Jackson versus Mississippi, the abortion case, the Second Amendment case about concealed carry and expanding those rights under a New York a New York case and whether things like the environment matter, whether the EPA has the right to

do rulemaking related to climate change. That's all going to be still within the basket of briar and his participation. He'll probably be on the losing side of all of those issues and maybe writing his last a sense there. It will then be for her with a clean slate of cases that start in the new term, including what we just talked about, the affirmative action cases, which unfortunately look like there's probably enough, but just to preview it. There's probably enough votes to dismantle colleges using race as a consideration in balancing their incoming class.

20 years ago, seems like 100 years ago, Sandra Day O'Connor in writing one of the last, you know, earlier affirmative action cases predicted, I hope that in 25 years, we won't need affirmative action in place in higher education and race blind admissions will prevail. Well, the Republicans get their way. She'll be wrong by five years. It'll be 20 years since she wrote those prophetic words in her opinion. And now with the first black woman justice that will be on the Supreme Court, I can't think of a more epic decision that she's going to have to be involved with, hopefully turning a voter to, to preserve the ability for universities to, let's be honest, not have like 100% white people sitting in the seats.

We talk about this on the beginning of each legal AF that we are breaking down the most consequential legal news of the week in ways you can understand because these consequential legal issues ultimately will become and are the most consequential political issues. These legal issues, the government's intervention and intrusion into your right to choose, into the ability of couples and their private lights to have contraception into the composition and making sure that we have diverse universities focused on all on climate and all of these issues. We need our law to uphold what America's values truly are, which is decency, which is love,

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where Michael Popak and I will break down next week's legal issues. We've got a ton, a ton of huge, huge, huge, consequential legal cases coming up and we're excited to share our breakdowns with you then. Michael Popak, any final words? No, another amazing, I learned so much in our podcasting. I do, and I learn a lot with Karen too. And it's been my pleasure and my honor

to be here every Saturday with you, your brothers, and with the Midas Mighty and Legal AF first. See you next time on Legal AF. Shout out to the Midas Mighty. this mighty.