Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump is getting CRUSHED by the PRESSURE of JACK and Prosecutors

Starting point is 00:00:00 On this episode of Legal AF, so it turns out not surprisingly that the so-called whistle blowers involved in FBI weaponization that the mega-Republicans led by Jim Jordan keep on talking about are not whistle blowers at all. They are fake whistleblowers. They're basically three or so former FBI agents who were suspended or who lost security clearances because they were either at the insurrection, supported insurrectionists, refused to arrest white supremacists and domestic terrorists like the three percenters who were involved in the insurrection. And these fake whistleblowers, a lot of them are even being funded by groups affiliated with Donald Trump.

Starting point is 00:00:53 We will discuss this new bombshell report that was prepared by the Democrats that exposes this. I love that these Democrats and pro-democracy people are just punching back. Meanwhile, Trump's former top campaign advisor and former top Trump administration officials, she served in both Rose Kelly and Conway, was seen meeting with the Manhattan district attorney in New York and connection with the district attorney's ongoing criminal investigation into Donald Trump. We know that a grand jury is also empaneled in Manhattan. So the question is are indictments looming?

Starting point is 00:01:34 We will break it down here on legal AF. Let's not forget also how this week began. A lot of legal news. So let's not forget the week began with the unsealing of another filing in Dominion's $1.6 billion with the B defamation lawsuit against Fox. The new filing, which is Dominion's opposition to the summary judgment filed by Fox has more text messages, more emails, more under oath deposition transcripts, including a lot of messages and under oath deposition testimony directly from Rupert Murdoch. Remember, he sat for two days of depositions and Dominion got the

Starting point is 00:02:18 goods. Murdoch plainly admitting that Fox hosts were spreading election disinformation and doing more than just hosting various breaking news updates. And then finally, the Department of Justice filed a legal brief with the Washington DC Circuit Court of Appeals in a civil case that was filed by Capitol police officers and members of Congress against Donald Trump directly and others for injuries caused to them on January 6th. And the Department of Justice in its legal filing said that Donald Trump in his capacity when he was serving as the president does not have absolute immunity when it comes to inciting political violence during the January 6th insurrection. It seems like a relatively simple premise and it kind of begets the question, why does Donald Trump even claim he needs immunity?

Starting point is 00:03:19 If he's done nothing wrong at all. This is legal AF. I've been my sellers joined by Michael Popak rockin the thick black glasses rims today. So you know, Michael Popak's going to go hard. It's the Tony Stark Ironman look. That's what I've decided to go with today. Ben, I'm glad to be back. You got it. But I did watch you in Karen. I was traveling at that time. I watch you in Karen handle Wednesday. So elegantly, which is our word of the day. So efficiently. And I'm really happy. We were looking at our list today.

Starting point is 00:03:53 We were thinking, it's amazing how things have developed and how, in a very, very short amount of time, some of these major cases like the Dominion Fox thing we're going to be talking about, the weaponization of the federal government subcommittee thing, which we're going to talk about headed by chief inmate and charge Jim Jordan. And, you know, rounding it out with where are we going and who's going to be first that of the box with prosecuting Donald Trump and how close is the Manhattan DA now in bringing in Kelly and Conway to confirm Michael Cohen's testimony about her role to who's going to prosecute first, who's coming out of that, who's coming out of the shoot first.

Starting point is 00:04:30 We're going to talk about it today. You know, the wheels of justice aren't just turning in the right direction in our judicial system. The truth itself is surfacing in the political processes taking place. When you watch these committee hearings, when you watch what's happening on the House floor, a lot of Democrats have legal backgrounds, legal degrees, and they are bringing that skill set to provide a very fact-based, evidence-based approach to debunking all of these MAGA right-wing conspiracies.

Starting point is 00:05:09 And there really is a tie-in and a theme, if you will, in the episode, from this first topic we're going to talk about to the third topic we're going to talk about, which the third topic is the unceiling of Fox deposition testimony and text messages and emails because, you know, when you go on Fox and Fox platforms all of the lies and doesn't push back, the mega Republicans get away with it, right? But now that the mega Republicans are actually in charge of something in the house of representatives, they like don't know what to do when they are just being completely outflank by facts and evidence and truth

Starting point is 00:05:51 and naturally great orators and very skilled Democrats, a lot of skilled Democrats, just pushing back. And it's kind of this rapid fire, right? And Democrats anticipating the moves as well that these Maga Republicans are making. So one of the things that's been going on is Jim

Starting point is 00:06:09 Jordan and the Maga Republicans, they've been saying, we've got all of these FBI whistleblowers who are going to confirm that the FBI has been weaponized against conservatives. As you all know, from watching, I don't call Maga Republicans conservatives. There's nothing conservative about them They don't even want to conserve our Constitution and our institutions But the point they're making is that the FBI Led by somebody who Donald Trump appointed Christopher Ray is going after the MAGA Republicans and so Rather than have transparent hearings where the public can see what's

Starting point is 00:06:47 going on, the Maggar Republicans are like, damn, we're just getting embarrassed on all fronts when we do it. So before we make these witnesses go public, if we do at all, let's just spread the rumor that there are these, that there are these whistleblowers out there. And let's not actually tell the public what's really going on. Then we can go into our Fox bubble. Well, Democrats got their hands on these closed door interview sessions and Democrats prepared a report. And they're like, look, normally we would respect the fact that these closed sessions are confidential. However,

Starting point is 00:07:26 Magger Republicans are out there talking to Fox and OIN and Newsmax and all they're right, we're going to echo chambers about it. So we're not just going to sit back. We're going to let the public know what happened. So Democrats prepared this report. It's called GOP witnesses, what their disclosures indicate about the state of the Republican investigations is a 315 page report. But when you go to the forward, it basically talks about what went down and it says, look, the partisan investigation, such as at rest in large part, on what Chairman Jim Jordan has described as dozens and dozens of whistleblowers coming to us,

Starting point is 00:08:01 talking about what is going on, the political nature at the Justice Department to date the House Judiciary Committee has held transcribed interviews with three of these individuals. Chairman Jordan has, of course, refused to name any of the other dozens and dozens who may have spoken with him. He has also refused to share any of the documents, which these individuals may have provided to the committee. And then this report goes on to say, first off, these people do not qualify for whistleblower protection, second off, all of these people seem to be asking, they all buy into these

Starting point is 00:08:36 right wing conspiracy theories and they want to defund the FBI. A lot of these individuals were at the insurrection themselves or support insurrectionists themselves, and it seems that a lot of them are actually being funded by right wing groups that are linked to Donald Trump as well, and what they cite as well is groups for a network of organizations led by former Trump administration officials like Cash Pat Patel, and Russell vote appear to have been identified as these witnesses and these witnesses are being funded by them. And so Pope the importance of whistleblowers in our system seems to be another thing that Maga Republicans want to attack, right?

Starting point is 00:09:21 They want to attack the courts. They want to attack our Constitution. They want to attack the very political body and whistleblowers, a group of people who we need to truly protect. It's another perversion of this right by Magga Republicans. What do you think? Well, there's two things that are totally wrong with Jim Jordan chairing the Judiciary Committee and the subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government committee. You've got literally the inmate running the asylum. Jim Jordan is an insurrectionist in his own right. He made the first phone call to Donald Trump at 730 in the morning on Jan 6,

Starting point is 00:09:57 urging him to have Mike Pence execute the plan to stop the peaceful transfer of power. That was his first phone call. So I don't want anybody to forget who Jim Jordan is and the reason that McCarthy put him in charge of these committees. It was to try to do maximum destruction. They are destroyers. And that's why they set up these committees

Starting point is 00:10:20 under the guise of oversight. I can't tell you how many times Jim Jordan in writing his letters to Christopher Ray, the FBI director, asking to speak to dozens of potential FBI current and foreign employees. He used the word oversight. I'm doing this for oversight. It's oversight.

Starting point is 00:10:37 It's oversight. It's not. And the Democrats, the ranking Democrats that are on the committee, this again, is the genius of Hakeem Jeffries. Hakeem Jeffries said, we're not going to do what the Republicans did on the committee. This again is the genius of how Kim Jeffries how Kim Jeffries said we're not going to do with the Republicans did on the JAN six committee, which was take the practice ball and go home. While the real game went on without them,

Starting point is 00:10:54 we're going to we're going to put our people on there. And those people where they can are going to do really great disclosures and counterpunching to the public, like the Democrats, the two ranking Democrats, Gerald Dadler and a congresswoman from Rhode Island or Vermont, they were issued, as you said, a 316 page report. So while Jim Jordan was tying his shoes, the House Democrats were issuing a 316 page report, which of course they said, well, they, they were given license to do because Jordan's talking to the press about all of his, all of his things.

Starting point is 00:11:31 I also like the fact that in the title of their report, maybe we can put it back up on the screen, they say it's the Republican investigation, not bipartisan. It's the, because it is the Republican investigation. Democrats, they're just there holding up their end of the bargain and letting the American people know through transparency that this co-option of the vocabulary, as you referred to it, of whistleblower and oversight in this or well-earned way, is insane. And I mentioned it earlier in our pre-show that, you know, Adam Kisic-Kinsinger, former Jan Six committee member, former representative, he sent in earlier this week a group of

Starting point is 00:12:13 performance artists dressed as asylum inmates at a mental hospital in straight jackets to demonstrate to the world what we all know, which is the inmates are running the asylum and the chief inmate is Jordan. Now, let me talk about these three witnesses. Okay. They're Jordan keeps talking about that are referenced in the report. You got George Hill, you got Steven Friend and you got Garrett O'Boyle, two of them are already suspended by the FBI. And one of them is retired. They are deep, QAnon conspiracy theorists because they've given testimony and the Democrats have seen it and revealed it in their report. They believe that the Jan 6 was a democratic, produced event, you know, a false flag event. That's, that's George Hill.

Starting point is 00:13:00 They believe they're all anti-vaxxers. They all believe that Trump won the election. So their election deniers. Yes, they exist in the FBI. I mean, let's be honest. And the thing that they were quote unquote whistle blowing allegedly about, for instance, was they're really upset that the Department of Justice and Biden administration is making the FBI go after domesticastik extreme terrorist, domestic extreme terrorist.

Starting point is 00:13:28 We shouldn't have to do that. Why is there so much emphasis on that or that they're going after people that attack abortion rights activists? Oh, we don't want to do that. That's not our policy. That's what that's not what the FBI is doing. And for Jim Jordan, that is some sort of federal weaponization to take the title from the subcommittee.

Starting point is 00:13:48 But this is the point that's always missed, and this is why the counter-punching that you identified by the Democrats is so effective because they lead with their chin, the Republicans. The FBI isn't a rogue agency that just gets up one morning. It decides what to investigate. The policy is set by the Biden administration at the very top. It's then implemented by the Department of Justice and the FBI working in conjunction, along with other agencies such as Homeland Security, go after the priorities of the administration. How do I know the priority of the administration led by Joe Biden, led by Lisa Monaco, the deputy attorney general, and by Merrick Garland, that it is going after

Starting point is 00:14:33 enrooting out domestic extremists, violent extremists, is because they've given policy statements to this effect that have gone back almost two years. On Mer uh, on, uh, Mara Garland, Mara Garland gave a speech two years ago in which he cited as examples things that these FBI agents obviously want to ignore, like the nine black church goers that were executed in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, the 11 Jewish worshipers that were killed in Pittsburgh in 2018, the 23 Latinos and Latinos that were killed in a Walmart in 2020, 2021. This is the violent extremism that, yes, we saw them crawling all over the Capitol and trying to kill elected officials, but that's not the only example of these terrorist

Starting point is 00:15:23 cells. In fact, you know, history repeating itself and closing the loop, Merrick Garland, who made his bones as the prosecutor, one of them lead prosecutors for the Oklahoma City bombing under Janet Reno, then Attorney General. In 1995, Janet Reno set up a executive counsel executive committee across all agencies to fight des domestic extremism and terrorism. And now Marik Garland has reactivated that executive committee and brought it all together. But this starts with the Biden administration. This isn't the FBI being rogue. This is by administration issuing its national security for countering domestic terrorism policy back in 2021.

Starting point is 00:16:09 It was one of the first things that Joe Biden said when he took office, he ran on this. Jan 6 has taken up so much of the oxygen of the discussion that we forget that there are thousands and thousands and thousands of domestic extremists that need to be rooted out, including some in the military. They're being addressed by Lloyd Austin. So, you got three crackpot FBI agents or former FBI agents who are all QAnon and Trumpers and Maga who got identified originally by Kash Patel and Mr. Vought that you talked about.

Starting point is 00:16:42 And thank God for the Democrats who then sat through and sifted through all their interviews and said, there's no evidence. I'll give you one more example, Ben, that I thought was interesting. George Hill complained that there was some financial services bank, some bank that had some information about Jan 6th that wasn't pursued. They said, okay, what is it? He's, I don't know. Well, if you've seen the document that you're referring to, I haven't seen it.

Starting point is 00:17:07 Well, where have you heard it from around? This is the level of quote unquote credible evidence that Jim Jordan is using to try to as just an excuse to go after the Biden administration as a payback for what the Biden, for what the Democrats did to their illustrious leader, Donald Trump, it impeaching him and going after him now criminally. And for them to try to cast doubt on Jan six investigations led by the FBI at a moment in time when they are all on trial or having been convicted, to me is the ultimate in anti-patriot conduct once again by the Republican party. It's the same as releasing the videos and 16,000 more, whatever

Starting point is 00:17:55 it is more of hours of footage to try to to the insurrectionist to the insurrectionist to try to over to upset the apple cart to have insurrectionist now file motions for new trial and motions to overturn their sentencing and and file in the proud boys case right now motions to stay. Thank God judges are seeing through this. And I'll talk about it later on a hot take. Uh, Jeb Bozberg who's about to take over from, um, as the chief judge of all grand jury proceedings in the District of Columbia. Um, he's handling a case right now where one of the insurrection has said, Oh, I want to, I want to time out too.

Starting point is 00:18:34 I want to take a look at all the video. And he said to her, you got 34 hours of video showing exactly what you did on Jan 6th. That is a crime. I don't think sifting through more footage is going to help you tonight. So, but this is what this is what the Marjorie Taylor Greens and the Jim Jordan's and the Matt Gaetz's want. They want to help the Jan 6th Patriots look at the language that are sitting rotting in jail because the mean Democrats have gone after them for attacking or capital trying to burn it to the ground.

Starting point is 00:19:08 And this is the, I'll leave it on this pen for this point. This is the choice that has to be made in 2024. The Republicans are performing right now. You like to call it performative art. They are performing right now for the American people. This is what Republicans and maggot in charge looks like. If you like what it looks like, vote red. If you don't reelect Joe Biden. And I call it a performative fascism or fascist signaling. They use the

Starting point is 00:19:40 term virtue signaling. I use the term fascist signaling to other fascists. Do you mention the thousands and thousands of hours of footage, about 41,000 hours of footage? We talked about this on prior legal afs and hot takes being turned over first to Tucker Carlson, then to the insurrectionists, to those listening on audio. You obviously made the quotes around patriots. They're not actually patriots at all, but the reason that the Department of the reason that the members of Congress, the Maga Republicans, that has turned this over to the insurrectionists,

Starting point is 00:20:15 is likely, is for the reason that you said, basically now the Department of Justice is gonna get inundated with thousands of motions for new trials and to set aside their plea agreements and things like that. So all this new evidence just came to us. So it's actually an effort to try to cripple the Department of Justice. That's why it's being done. As you were talking about domestic terrorism and mega-Republicans giving aid and comfort to it, I want to read you this quote and I want you to try to tell me,

Starting point is 00:20:45 Pope, who you think said this quote, ready? The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to, because they have to control the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people. You give them an inch and they take a mile. I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control. Do you know who said that?

Starting point is 00:21:14 I'll just get right to the point. But would you think that's true? It's not Marjorie Taylor Green because the set and structure is too complex. And I don't think that I don't think Donald Trump could get the set and sound either. Who is it? It's Timothy McVeigh. Right up point. And the Oklahoma City bomber said that, but that

Starting point is 00:21:30 statement could be word for word almost verbatim. Any statement being made by a modern member of the Maga Republican Party. And there was once a time in our country where objectively we would all look at that, whether you were a Democrat or whether you were a Republican, and you would say that type of statement right there is bad and scary, and we need to stop domestic terror. Can I make a comment on that? As I like that quote a lot, that is the subcommittee or committee that should exist under either Republican or Democratic houses. The committee to investigate and root out domestic, violent, extremist terrorism in America.

Starting point is 00:22:13 Why? Every party and every color of party can't get behind that and instead politicize it in order to help a group of 900 anarchists and insurrectionists and the opposite of patriots. I have no idea. They think, because you can hear it in the campaign rhetoric of somebody like, you know, any of the candidates that are running on the Republican side, I was trying to think exactly who it was, but they, they, they adopt all of this because they, they think this is going to be their ticket

Starting point is 00:22:46 back to the White House and into control of Congress. And I have more faith in the American people that they don't want to hear about three crackpot FBI agents and their conspiracy theories. They want to hear about how do we get rid of terror cells that could blow up shopping malls and government buildings all across America. And now with this former president running around blowing the dog whistle, I think they have permission to do that. Oklahoma City bombing took place 27 years ago, April 19, 1995. And when statements being made by Timothy McVeigh like that came out, people were asking

Starting point is 00:23:28 how come we didn't see the warning signs, weren't those red flags? Well, now that's just day-to-day discourse. That's of the Maga Republicans. That is how they talk. Look at the May 6, 2022 letter before the Magga Republicans took power in the House of Representatives and before Jim Jordan took over as chairman. This is what, this is the letter Jim Jordan wrote to the FBI director, Christopher A. He goes, we have been alerted that the FBI appears to be attempting to terminate the employment of FBI employees who were engaged in protected first amendment activity on January 6, 2021.

Starting point is 00:24:09 The Department of Justice Office of Inspector General is now examining whether the FBI actions violate federal civil service law. While FBI employees may not participate in partisan political campaigns, FBI employees do not give up their rights to engage in political speech activity. We have serious concerns that the FBI appears to be retaliating against employees for engaging in political speech disfavored by FBI leadership. According to several whistleblowers, the FBI is suspending the security clearances of FBI employees for their participation in protected first

Starting point is 00:24:49 amendment activity on January 6th, 2021, among the justifications for the suspensions of security clearances. The FBI cited a adjudicative guideline, A, allegiance to the United States, implying that the FBI believes the employees who attend in protest on January 6th are no longer loyal to the United States. So just by the way, we're not even necessarily talking about

Starting point is 00:25:16 terminations. What we're talking about is what they're claiming is retaliation, is that after certain former FBI officials or FBI officials who are suspended or still FBI, after they attended the January 6th insurrection, as insurrectionists, they got their security clearance removed. And the Maga Republicans want them to maintain their security clearance, and they view that as retaliation. I'll just say one final thing about whistleblowers.

Starting point is 00:25:45 There are true courageous whistleblowers who came forward also in terms of why Jim Jordan should be disqualified from ever even talking about whistleblowers. He's someone who's directly retaliated against whistleblowers at the Ohio State University where Jim Jordan used to work in the wrestling department where Jim Jordan covered up multiple multiple multiple incidents of sexual assault against the players there and retaliated against the players and begged them and cried to them. And one of the wrestlers talked about how Jim Jordan called him up, weezing and crying, please don't tell anybody, please

Starting point is 00:26:25 you can't. I need my job. I need my job. That is retaliation against the whistleblower and the courageous whistleblowers who came forward at Ohio State are those deserving of the titles, not these traders who Jim Jordan is masquerading and trying to claim as whistleblowers. Let's talk about Kellyanne Conway now. She visited the Manhattan District Attorney's office. I believe she had multiple meetings. And the Manhattan District Attorney's Office investigation under Alvin Bragg is really starting to heat up here. You know, I co-host political beat down with Michael Cohen. He talked about this past week that he was going to meet with down with Michael Cohen. He talked about this this past week that he

Starting point is 00:27:05 was going to me with the Manhattan district attorney. He believed for the final time for preparation, which we assume meant preparation for Cohen speaking before the criminal grand jury right there. We know about five other people have already testified before the criminal grand jury. It is possible for all of the criticism Alvin Bragg has taken. And by the way, a lot of it very rightfully. So he may actually be the first person to criminally indict Donald Trump directly. What do you make though of Kellyanne? Apparently voluntarily showing up and just to remind people the context of what she was actually involved in as a lot,

Starting point is 00:27:47 I mean, she was Trump's campaign, a top campaign advisor and worked in the administration. She was there and observed multiple criminal acts on a daily basis involving Donald Trump, but she was also the person who called Michael Cohen to confirm. She was the person to call Michael Cohen to confirm that the hush money payments were actually made or that were they were received and basically thanking Michael Cohen that you know for making the payments to Stormy Daniels. So what do you think? I think Michael Cohen, this is an attempt by the Manhattan DA's office to corroborate one significant piece of Michael Cohen's testimony to bolster his credibility when he ultimately testifies. She from reporting and from what we know, while she had, as you said, a large role in the Trump administration and with Trump himself

Starting point is 00:28:39 and was one of his main handlers, her role in Stormy Daniels, according to Michael Cohen's public testimony, was relatively limited to what you what you mentioned, to kind of confirm that the you know, Goldilocks, the Papa Bear, the check has been delivered. That's about it. But why is that important? Because the more other people that are obviously not friendly witnesses to the Manhattan D.A.'s office that can corroborate somebody like their lead witness, Michael Cohen, the better. Because we've talked about it, we won't belabor the point here. Michael comes in with his own sort of baggage in terms of credibility from his prior conduct. And so if you get something like Kellyanne Conway, that's really powerful in front of a grand

Starting point is 00:29:26 jury. If she ultimately goes into the grand jury, this was sort of interviews to see how that would go. And as you said voluntarily, same week, she's apparently getting divorced from her, her democratic husband, George Conway, a marriage nobody understood how that lasted this long. But that's what I think it's for. I think it's they're trying to find people other than Michael to corroborate elements of his story as links in the chain

Starting point is 00:29:51 to put in front of the grand jury so they can walk out with the indictment and just tying it back to the other wheels of justice that are simultaneously operating. Federally led by Jack Smith, uh, state wise run by just two that we know of Fawney Willis, Fulton County, uh, Georgia and Manhattan, DA, uh, prosecutors, you know, we have letitia James, but she's a New York attorney general wearing her civil hat in the case against Trump. And as you said, we don't know, they're not timed out. They're

Starting point is 00:30:23 not going to conclude exactly the same time. And they may not conclude ultimately to indict the people that we would like to see indicted, although I lean towards thinking that they will. But I think if we're up to the Michael Cohen going into the grand jury, followed by like, like, like, Conway, I think they're almost done. And I don't think it's going to be much more maybe end of spring that if they're going to make that decision to entite or not, Alvin Bragg, who took understandably so a lot of heat literally from day one of him taking over, having been elected the Manhattan DA. And all what happened last year with the departure of the Noisily departure of people like Mark

Starting point is 00:31:05 Palmer and who was assigned by his predecessor to go after Donald Trump and was frustrated that they weren't doing it now under under under Alvin. Alvin has focused on one case now bolstered by the fact that he got 17 count conviction against the Trump organization, the only prosecutor in America to ever get a criminal conviction against the Trump entity and a main Trump entity. So he's he's bolstered by that. He's boyied by that. Now he's got a very discreet case. It's 130,000 or whatever it is, payment made by Trump, according to Michael Cohen through Michael Cohen to the lawyers for stormy Danielss passing through hands like Alan Weiselberg, the CFO and Kelly, and Conway, ultimately, along with along with the controller over at the Trump organization. That's the case.

Starting point is 00:31:54 That doesn't take long to put on. We assume Donald Trump is going to take the fifth and not testify at all. So this is a relatively short, discrete, easy case, as far as criminal cases to put on, but he's got to get the indictment first and that's all the work that Alvin's doing now. That's the role I think she plays. It's a corroborator for Michael Cohen's testimony. You know, I don't know if this is Alvin Bragg's strategy. If it was, I think it would be Bragg's strategy. If it was, I think it would be fairly brilliant, but I don't know. But here's something that it looks like. One of the things that I think he realizes and that Trump's good at doing is delay, delay, delay, delay, delay. Right? So he's aware that the New

Starting point is 00:32:38 York Attorney General's case, the civil fraud lawsuit that Latisha James brought, that's going to be heard. The trial is going to take place, no matter what, on October 3rd. That's like the death knell of Trump organization, right? Like that lawsuit seeking at least $250 million, but likely in the billions with the injunctive relief being requested that would basically shut down the Trump organization from doing business, right?

Starting point is 00:33:09 That puts the Trump org out of business. So perhaps, Alvin Bragg's- Alvin Bragg's- And the executives. And the executives. You know, all of Donald Trump's- Trump's- Trump's-

Starting point is 00:33:18 Children, Ivanka, Don Jr. Eric, all of them from doing business. So that in many ways is is is almost worse to the greedy Trumps that then then then criminal. But what if Album Bragg said this, all right, first go after the Trump organization, like let's in the first round, let's just get our first win. It's not a knockout punch, you know, where the law doesn't allow massive penalties. We'll throw one of Trump's people in jail, but Weiselberg and Rikers for, you know, the law doesn't allow massive penalties. We'll throw one of Trump's people in jail, but Weiselberg and Reikers for, you know, 50 or 60 days or so. By the way, Reikers even one day is a pretty treacherous place to be

Starting point is 00:33:54 and internationally being viewed as a very tough place to be in from a human rights perspective. But then get that felony conviction, make the Trump organization be deemed a felon. Okay, so what's the next criminal case if you're Alvin Bragg? Well, if you go after everything, the same thing that Tish James has been going after, that criminal case could take years and years and years. And Donald Trump is older, and we want to get Donald Trump in jail right now, right? We want to throw the guy in jail. So if you do the broader business case, could that lead to kind of many, many,

Starting point is 00:34:32 many years of discovery and that drags out? But what if Alvin Brad goes, I'm not saying I'm not even going to go there, but let's just chip away at it. And for the next one, let's focus on just a home run easy case that I think we could definitely win and win it quickly and get Donald Trump's ass behind bars relatively quickly. All right. So which one do you do? You got you put in front of a New York jury, Donald Trump having sex, if that's even what you would call it, with a porn star for three seconds that he tries to cover up because he's married at the time and his wife is and his wife is pregnant

Starting point is 00:35:11 at the time. You're going to put that before a jury. You got the witnesses talking about the hush money. It's all laid out right there. It's very easy to prove the jury is going to absolutely be repulsed. It's a four year prison sentence, you know, even if, you know, you factor in different sentencing guidelines, you get the guy in jail for a year, you know,

Starting point is 00:35:32 or even if you get him in jail for slightly more than a year, you put his ass behind jail. You don't give up the other cases. You still have the ability to pursue him, but Tish James is going after him there. Fawney Willis is going there. Jack Smith, let's get his ass behind bars. I'm not saying that that's absolutely what the strategy is.

Starting point is 00:35:50 Let me comment on that. Let me comment on that. I think you're on to something. There's an old country phrase. When you're walking down a country road and you see a turtle up on a fence post, somebody put it there. Alvin Bragg, who I can't even, the vitriol against

Starting point is 00:36:07 Alvin Bragg, including what we had him on this show, is the magnitude of it is mind-boggling. But he's been a career prosecutor for 30 years, federal and state. He has, he's not only just getting regular updates from, from Latisha James and the New York attorney general, they work hand in glove on all of these cases with people in each other's offices cross deputized to work in their offices. He knows what Latisha James's approach has been. The most powerful attorney general in the country is likely the New York attorney general because of the the powers that she's given

Starting point is 00:36:46 under a body of executive law that we've talked about before to, as you said, to blow up the world, death penalty to a company, death penalty to the executives from ever serving in any position in the state of New York. Again, basically they're done. The grift is over. He cannot do that at the criminal side. We had all the people crying into their coffee about, oh, the Trump organization only got fine $1.7 million or whatever it was. And nobody

Starting point is 00:37:14 went to jail, right? Because it's a corporation. Nobody goes to jail and corporations if that is the entity. And the fine is limited under the state of New York by a very antiquated set of statutes. So hit the powers of the attorney general so much broader, so much greater. And Alvin Bregg knows that. And so you're right. His complicated case under Mark Pomerance would have taken years to develop and put on.

Starting point is 00:37:38 And it would have resulted in, yes, jail sentence. We nobody wants the perp walk of Donald Trump more than you and me. But that is not what we want to hit him where he lives. We want to end the grift machine. We want to end the company and have that all happen before he runs for off or before the election. That's happening right now.

Starting point is 00:37:58 And you're so right then, he gets the 17 count conviction. He defers on purpose, not by accident, to the New York Attorney General to let her cripple financially the company and all of its people. And then he gets the layup of the conviction on Stormy Daniels. I mean, for us not to give him credit for perhaps that being his strategy is really doing the man at the service. He's not the village idiot. I know people that know him, okay?

Starting point is 00:38:26 He may not have been exactly what we wanted at that moment and everybody wants his head on a pike, but he knows how to be a prosecutor and he's learning how to go after strategically people. So we're gonna see at the end, he'll write a memoir one day, we'll really get to the bottom of it, but I like the way you've laid it out. And I think now looking at it, it is for me a little bit

Starting point is 00:38:48 of the, the, the tortoise up on the, on the, on the, on the fence post. Oh, I couldn't agree more. We got to talk about the Fox filing, the Fox files, the new Dominion opposition document that has these devastating text messages and under oath that position testimony about I've never seen something just so laid out like this because normally a case like this would settle from the outset, but just given the dynamic here, it has not and I don't think it is. I want to know though, if you think a fox is going to write a billion dollar check because I don't know what other move they potentially have on the right and a billion billion dollar check.

Starting point is 00:39:28 But remember, they only have five billion dollars in reserve, so they may have to sell some stock. We'll talk more about that. Let's also talk about the Department of Justice filing. I think a pretty bombshell legal brief with the DC Circuit Court of appeals saying that Donald Trump should not have absolute immunity that even though presidential powers are broad and the outer limits of immunity as defined by the Supreme Court extend very, very, very far.

Starting point is 00:39:54 Donald Trump's conduct on January 6th extends beyond those outer limits. But first, let's take a very quick break. Oh, hey, I didn't see you there. Look, everyone knows how annoying cheap razors are, the cuts, the irritation, the frustration, and don't get me started with subscription razor services, the headaches that those can cause. That's why you gotta meet Hansen Shaving. Hansen Shaving is a family-owned aerospace parts manufacturer

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Starting point is 00:42:13 legal a f and you'll get two years worth of blades free with your razor. That's 100 free blades when you head to h-e-n-s-o-n-s-h-a-v-i-n-g.com slash legal a f and use code legal a f and now back to the video. And we are back to legal a f. I'm Ben. My cell is joined by Popeye. What we still got to talk about in this episode for those just joining right now is first, we are going to talk about the new filing and the Dominion defamation lawsuit against Fox some smoking gun after smoking gun after smoking gun. I don't even know. What do you call it when there's three, when there's hundreds of smoking guns. I got it. Dominion, I know. It's called a circular firing squad. Okay. I love it. And the Dominion lawyers, you know, after this is all done, we got to get them on the show because

Starting point is 00:43:12 they have done an A plus job. And then we got to talk about the Department of Justice because I thought their legal brief that they filed in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals saying that Donald Trump should not have absolute immunity at all and having this very nuanced argument to protect presidential powers, while also recognizing a very narrow exception right here in the unprecedented nature of a former president and a pains me to say that and use that name with Donald Trump, but who actually engages in violent political insurrection and what that means. So we will talk about that. But let's jump into these Fox filing.

Starting point is 00:43:50 Just to give everybody the context here, when we talked about the Fox filing last time, it was Dominion summary judgment motion that they filed against Fox, where they were saying judge based on all of the evidence that we've developed find liability right away. No jury could ever disagree with us. Essentially that Fox defamed us even under the heightened pleading standard that we're talking about in when it comes to defamation cases. We've actually proved actual malice and recklessness here. Look, look, I right here in the times of you Sullivan line of cases. This specific filing is an opposition that dominion filed to Fox's summary judgment. So Fox is saying we are just neutral reporters

Starting point is 00:44:41 of the news and we deserve immunity. Look, there are these what this is Fox's argument. There's all these wacky conspiracy theories out there. However, all we did is give them all we did is just let them speak and share their story basically. We just gave the guests a platform we didn't do more than that. Okay. So what is Dominion saying that's filing? Let's pull up the deposition of Rupert Murdoch. Question.

Starting point is 00:45:12 You are aware now that Fox did more than simply host the guests and give them a platform. Correct? Answer by Rupert Murdoch. I think you've shown me some material in support of that. So right there, I think the summary judgment is over when Rupert Murdoch admits and he goes on to talk about all of the various hosts, some of the disgusting things that come up in this filing as well. Rupert Murdoch basically says, well, all I care about is the green, whether you're red or blue, all I care about is green, talking about

Starting point is 00:45:41 it's all about the money. We see that during Trump's campaign, Rupert Murdoch provided Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with confidential information that Fox received about Biden's ads along with debate strategy and specific sections of Rupert Murdoch's deposition was quoted where he admits to it, as well as communications are attached where you see

Starting point is 00:46:06 that Rupert Murdock was providing confidential documents that the Biden campaign gave it because Fox pretends to be a news network and when Fox is hosting a debate, they have to get some of the assets. Fox would then leak, not leak, they just handed over and over the assets to Jared Kushner. And then there was this one moment from the filings that one thing they basically said is Rupert confirmed that he could have told anybody, basically, stop this and they would have listened. So the question was, and you could have said to the CEO of Fox who's in Scott or to the

Starting point is 00:46:40 host, stop putting this person or that person or Rudy Giuliani on the air, you could have done that. And then Rupert Murdock says, I could have, but I didn't. And then this one moment that I thought was so powerful the day before the insurrection. This is what the filing says. Rupert Murdock understood that Fox could do something about the false claims. Indeed, he believed Fox was uniquely positioned to state the message that the election was not stolen. On January 5th, Rupert Murdock and Suzanne Scott discussed whether Hannity, Carlson and Ingramham should say some version of quote, the election is over and Joe Biden won. He hoped those words quote, would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election

Starting point is 00:47:20 was stolen. These are all deposition citations. Suzanne Scott told Rupert Murdoch that, quote, privately, they are all there. But, quote, we need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers. So nobody made a statement. The next day was January 6th, the date of the insurrection. So just showing that privately all of their hosts in Graham, Hannity, Carlson, all knew that Joe Biden had won. They were uniquely positioned to get it out, but they were afraid of pissing off the viewers and the cult that they helped create your reaction, Michael Popuck.

Starting point is 00:47:57 Well, this is a Murdoch week, although slightly spelled differently. The reason Alex Murdoch week, although slightly spelled differently, the reason Alex Murdoch lost his murder trial is for two two word reason Alex Murdoch and the reason I believe ultimately if they don't settle Fox is going to lose their case on defamation and dominion's going to be able to prove actual malice is because of 91 year old Rupert Murdoch and his testimony. If anybody's testimony will be a powerful moment in the courtroom that will swing the fortunes directly over to Dominion, if it goes as far as trial, it's gonna be the video testimony, ultimately live testimony of, I mean, I don't know how to put this nicely. Somebody that looks like he's lost his fastball in testifying about the case.

Starting point is 00:48:49 He got, for me, he got confused about their strategy, their defense strategy, which appears to be that they're able to thread the needle or to push an elephant through the eye of a needle and prove to a jury that fox the fox corporation and fox news is not what the anchors do on the air. And that he has or has exercised no editorial control over admittedly over what the Hannity's Carlson's and Ingram's do on the air. therefore Fox Corp at least Shouldn't be liable for the craziness over at Fox News. It is not going to work if that is their theory of defense And it appears to be because they made a big deal on their summary judgment papers

Starting point is 00:49:38 Fox as saying see as you said earlier, but he didn't exercise any editorial discretion He didn't give them instructions, not to say those things into announced to the world as every other person knew the Joe Biden had won. If he had done that, of course, we may not, we may not be here. But some of the other comments were just eye poppingly, um, eye poppingly evidence in favor of dominion. And I think lose the case and it'll be because of Rupert Murdoch when he says, in interrupting the person asking him the questions under

Starting point is 00:50:10 oath in deposition. And he said, yep, yeah, the anchors did that, but not Fox. It wasn't Fox. It was the Fox anchors. Good luck with that distinction without a difference in front of a jury. And saying that because that only for me proves actual malice, which is the standard that has to be proved again, that the on air personalities in bringing on its guests, and not just bringing on its guests like Michael and Dell, the pillow guy and other and other people to spew and spout these unhinged theories of QAnon, you know,

Starting point is 00:50:49 the fever dreams of QAnon and conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and Arizona and all this other BS that led to the election of Joe Biden and not the election of Donald Trump. You know, it's not just those people. It's the commentary in and around it by people like Tucker Carlson, who goes on the air and says things out loud that are defamatory about Joe Biden, the Democrats and other people in power. That goes beyond first amendment. Well, we're going to talk about first amendment when we get to

Starting point is 00:51:25 the last segment today about the inciting insurrectionist speech by Donald Trump and why that doesn't enjoy absolute immunity. But here, the first amendment that is given to a legitimate media organization who only reports on the news, but doesn't say things out loud or let its guests think, says things out loud, unchallenged, that where they recklessly disregard the truth or know that it's false, which is the standard that has to be proved, Rupert Murdoch proved that standard. They asked him in his deposition, why, why in heaven? This is my paraphrase of the question from the deposition. Why would you allow or the organization allow Michael and Dell to come on and promote all of his conspiracy crazy crackpot theories?

Starting point is 00:52:13 Why would you platform him to use a term that you you you like to use? And root bird knocking a moment of Freudian slip where he accidentally told the truth, which is the definition of it in Washington said he pays us money. He pays us a lot of money. I don't do Australian accents. So I'm not going to do it here. He said, and this is my favorite quote, it's not red or blue.

Starting point is 00:52:35 It's green. That's the reason exactly that that's going to be my lead in the opening. If I'm the the lawyers for dominion who we hope to have on one day. Right. It's not about politics. You never believe this stuff. This was just to make money because you were afraid of losing audience and viewership to right wing, even more right wing extremist platforms like OAN and Newsmax and all that.

Starting point is 00:53:01 So you needed to keep putting the red meat front and center for your audience, the truth be damned. And that is what comes out of Rupert Murdoch. You know, Joe Biden gets a lot of unfair criticism and ageism because he's 80. Rupert Murdoch is 91, okay? And so I'm not saying that that's the problem here, but he did not seem to really help his cause at all and seem to have lost his way in the deposition about what their theory of defense was, whether the jury was going to buy this is all about the brand protection. I'm not responsible for what Tucker Carlson says on the air. If you're not responsible for it, who is? He's not on the Tucker Carlson network.

Starting point is 00:53:46 I mean, some of these guys that had to leave mainstream or right wing media had to go off into the hinterlands and go to, you know, cable or satellite, but that's not these guys. These guys and women are on the air and they're making billions and billions of dollars as a result. So there's absolutely no incentive for them to ferret out the truth. They bury their head in the sand and we know from the emails disclosed by the people on air that they didn't even believe any of this stuff either. Tuck, I'm going to say this once and for all because I read recently what Tuckercross has been saying on his show. And again, it's, it's the family. Tory mostly is shows the family. Tory and not protected by the

Starting point is 00:54:26 first amendment. Nothing that is controversial that comes out of Tucker Carlson's mouth. Does he actually believe? And they should have an FDA warning label at the bottom of whatever he says, because he does not believe this. And now they have finally met their match by going after dominion and who had their business destroyed, who's not gonna take it, who's lifted up the window, put their head out of it and yelled,

Starting point is 00:54:56 we're not gonna take it anymore. And they're now gonna bring Fox News to its knees. Although I have not been, I wanna hear your comment, I have not seen a change in their editorial approach since all of these emails have come out at all, not one. So a lot of times, and I'm sure the Divinity lawyers are watching it too, because they can point that out to the jury that look, even after all of this came out, here's a clip from two days ago and Tucker

Starting point is 00:55:25 Carlson going after somebody else, this is a unhinged organization. And there's one other comment I'll make. I have a lot of negative things in general to say about Roger L's, who had to leave the, the, the network in disgrace because of sex, sex crimes and the Me Too movement. But one thing he was very good at was keeping control over the anchors Tucker Carlson, Sean Hadity and the like and threading that needle, walking that fine line to make sure they didn't go and drink all the cool aid and go completely over to the other side. Roger Ailes has been gone for a long, long, long, long time. Rupert Murdoch can't serve that role. Locklin Murdoch can't serve that role. And the president of television over there is obviously no Roger Ailes. This is all because Roger Ailes has been gone. And

Starting point is 00:56:19 the inmates are running the asylum again. The one editorial change that I've seen is they've kind of done a light shadow ban, if you will, of Donald Trump. They don't have Donald Trump directly on the program. They're promoting DeSantis over Donald Trump, which is infuriating Donald Trump. They did not cover Donald Trump going to East Palestine, they're not covering CPAC. They are still spreading lies and disinformation regarding lots of other topics with equally disastrous consequences attacking the fibers of our democracy every day.

Starting point is 00:57:01 I do think the one editorial change that they've made, however, is specifically as it's related to Donald Trump now. Did you talk to me before you move on? Did you Tucker Carlson just three days ago said that one of the reasons we have a transgender problem in America is because Joe Biden is too old to be president, and it reflects a decaying society that allows for the issues that we have. I mean, this is on, and what, 10 years or so and whatever, the replacement for Rupert Murdoch is going to say, but that's those guys.

Starting point is 00:57:36 That's not Fox. Come on. Well, you know, to my point, they are still saying hateful, discriminatory, spreading conspiracy theories about Biden relentlessly every single day in service of DeSantis. That's the one that they want to annoyed to try to help their oligarchical ambitions of being state-run media in a non-democracy country. That's ultimately their final aim. But you know, you even see Donald Trump

Starting point is 00:58:09 basically going after Rupert Murdoch and I don't wanna read the full post, but you've got Donald Trump saying, why is Rupert Murdoch throwing his anchors under the table, which also happens to be killing his case and infuriating his viewers who will again be leaving in droves, they already are. And I think what Trump meant here,

Starting point is 00:58:26 because he said puts some other posts is throwing his anchors under the bus, like his news anchors under the bus. But it's also a Freudian slip because he engages in so much under the table transactions. Right. So that's not the phrase. That's right. So so it's a complete, it's a complete fusion of all of the deranged things that are in his mind.

Starting point is 00:58:48 And one final point I'll make though, to the point that you made though about Murdoch. You know, when I read a lot of the filing, Murdoch does try to wiggle out of the questions, the problem that he confronted, all of this is in text messages and emails. And so what the Dominion lawyer brilliantly does at the outset of these depositions is basically train the witness, do not lie, do not lie. Why not? Because I'm just going to show you a document that's going to show that you just lied.

Starting point is 00:59:25 So your first lie, okay, the dominion, the dominion lawyers probably have 50 binders. And the deposition can be an easy one where they don't even need to use the binders because the answers are going to be truthful or okay, you want to play it that way. You know, and this is what I've done in my depositions. Okay, let's pull out the binders. Let's go through your messages. Let's go through your messages Let's go through your emails and we go one by one and inevitably what happens once the witness learns that oh crap You've done your homework. You've read all of my text messages. The witness then goes all right. Yeah, I did it

Starting point is 00:59:58 Yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about we still have a lot to discuss on this episode of legal a F what you're talking about. We still have a lot to discuss on this episode of legal AF, including the Department of Justice's brief that they just filed in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, describing absolute immunity, the contours of it. And most importantly, Donald Trump, you ain't getting it. The Court of Appeals still has the rule, but a powerful filing indeed by the Department of Justice.

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Starting point is 01:01:28 Go to greenchef.com slash legalaf60 and use code legalaf60 to get 60% off plus free shipping. That's greenchef.com slash legalaf60 and use code legalaf60 to get 60% off, plus free shipping. And now back to the video. And welcome back to legalav. So wanna talk about this filing by the Department of Justice because of the unprecedented nature of having somebody like Donald Trump

Starting point is 01:02:00 incite a violent insurrection, our constitution is being tested for centuries, decades recently, where the powers have been even more expanded, but Article Tool, which sets forth the powers of the president, have been expanded, and they've been viewed by Supreme Courts over time to have expanded immunities from civil lawsuits. And so in 1982, for example, there was a case called Nixon versus Fitzgerald where the allegations being made by a government employee

Starting point is 01:02:39 against Nixon when Nixon was president. You unlawfully terminated me because I was a whistleblower and was speaking out against your criminal conduct. And there the Supreme Court said, sorry, sitting presidents can't be sued. They get absolute immunity. So long as they're conduct is within the kind of orbit and prerogatives of a president's constitutional powers.

Starting point is 01:03:03 And so even if the conduct being alleged by the government employee, in this case Fitzgerald falls within the outer contours of the presidential powers right wrongfully terminating somebody, the Supreme Court still said that's still a function of what executives do, what the president does, hiring and firing employees within the executive branch. Then came along a case in 96 or 97, the Clinton versus Jones case. And in that case, the allegations against Bill Clinton preceded the time that he was in office. And they are the Supreme Court said, no, what Nixon versus Fitzgerald said is this absolute

Starting point is 01:03:41 immunity we're giving from civil lawsuits to presidents. You have to be in office Bill Clinton. So you're conduct before or you're conduct after you should not be subject. You don't get absolute immunity. And this conduct predates the time that you were in office as the United States president. So in this case, that was brought the current case, fast forward after the January 6th insurrection, members of Congress and Capitol Police Officers,

Starting point is 01:04:11 file a lawsuit directly against Donald Trump and other people for the injuries they suffered during the January 6th insurrection when the insurrection has came to threaten their lives. And one of the accusations is emotional distress and other harm that they experienced from this incitement of violence to stop a lawful processes that was taking place.

Starting point is 01:04:32 Donald Trump argues in front of the district court judge, federal judge in DC, Amit Mata, I should get absolute immunity citing Nixon versus Fitzgerald. In a very well-reasoned opinion judge, Mata, the federal judge says, look, I absolutely respect Nixon versus Fitzgerald in a very well-reasoned opinion judge, Maita, the federal judge says, look, I absolutely respect Nixon versus Fitzgerald case law. And I understand the outer limits of presidential power. But your conduct on that day of inciting political violence is not

Starting point is 01:04:59 within even the outer limits of what a president supposed to do. So only in this narrow circumstance is there an exception. Donald Trump then appealed, because he lost the motion to dismiss. He appealed before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. They held oral arguments in the past few months, but then they asked for a legal brief to be filed by the Department of Justice.

Starting point is 01:05:19 Hey, Department of Justice, what is your opinion here? What the Department of Justice opinion and is not dispositive. So this legal brief that was filed is not the final word. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has to ultimately make a ruling. It will undoubtedly go to the Supreme Court. And it was an interesting position for the Department of Justice to be in because they represent the executive branch. So their normal briefing is, let's protect presidential powers. How do we expand the powers or protect the expanded powers? So they had to have a very nuanced argument here and Pope, maybe breakdown, the nuances here

Starting point is 01:05:57 though, when they said in this specific circumstance, only, and that's all we're talking about. These specific facts, Trump's conduct on January 6th does not even fall within the outer perimeters of what presidential power is. So no absolute immunity. We are not having a broader discussion here on the breath of presidential executive powers, though. They wanted to make that point very clear. Popuck. Yeah. It's actually even more nuanced than that because they made it clear in, well, let me start procedurally judge made to make a ruling last February in Thompson versus Trump, which is the case that we've talked about with 11 house members, including

Starting point is 01:06:44 Eric Swalwell and Maxine Waters. Trump, which is the case that we've talked about with 11 house members, including Eric Swalwell and Maxine Waters, used to be Benny Thompson. But when he became the chair of the Gen 6 committee, dropped out, a couple of capital police are suing under the KKK act for civil rights violations and other civil claims against Donald Trump as president, when he was president for inciting the riot, the anarchy, the insurrection that attacked the Capitol, and all of the injury, personal physical, emotional that occurred as a result. That's the case. Judge Mehta, who we've talked about before, who's presiding over cases that, including

Starting point is 01:07:19 the oath-keepers' cases, we've talked about them before, very smart, very sober, very salamonic in his decision making. He looked at all the pleadings and said he made a determination that the language that Donald Trump used was outside the outer boundaries of absolute immunity that's given to a president generally when he exercises his article to powers, his official duties, and even things because the US Supreme Court has expanded that, as you said, pushing it out to some, some envelope or box that even the courts don't know what it is. They just call it the outer boundaries. When I was a kid, there was a science fiction

Starting point is 01:08:02 show called the outer limits. You didn't know what that was, but it was somewhere out there. And it's somewhere out there. This nebulous concept at the Supreme Court has developed one comment on that about wheels of justice and how fast they move or don't move the case that you cited and rightly cited as the Nixon case. That was decided if it's Charles Nixon be Fitzgerald in 1982. Nixon was president and resigned in 1974. This is eight years. And people are like, you know, in two years, we haven't completed everything. This is the worst episode of law and order yet.

Starting point is 01:08:39 You know, things such a good, such a good point. Exactly. This eight year old case, the president, he was almost dead by the time. Nixon was almost died. I think you have to find the year he died. Anyway, so we have, the interesting setup here is the DC Circuit Court has actually asked the Department of Justice to file their Amicus brief. So it's a friendly, friendly brief.

Starting point is 01:08:56 1994. He died in 1994. Okay, it was almost dead. And so this Amicus brief comes in, you know, sort of on a greased set of skids because the court wants to see the Department of Justice's position. And this happens all the time. We just saw it just as an example as we're doing our legal AF homework here, coursework

Starting point is 01:09:16 here. There's a case that just got hurt on a roll argument. And I love this. I love this. This is so like foundational for the United States, New York versus New Jersey. That's the case over whether the Waterfront Commission, which has been around since the 1950s or 1960s, whether New York can force New Jersey to stay in the Waterfront Commission or if New Jersey exercising sovereignty can say, we're out.

Starting point is 01:09:38 We're kind of tired of being forced to be in this commission. And there was an oral argument with the Supreme Court and the Department of Justice took a position and filed a brief even though they're not part of the parties. They're not New York or New Jersey about, and they actually sided with New Jersey that they could exit here. They're, they're not taking a position. They were very careful in the briefing and we'll put part of it up on the screen. They're very careful to say, we're not here to comment about whether judge made it was right or wrong about that the language incited the riot. But if it did, there is no absolute immunity. And the most interesting thing then, and this is another,

Starting point is 01:10:19 I believe, tactical error by the lawyers working for Donald Trump. No shock here. They did not, did not claim that the language did not incite. I want to read, I want to read the quote, at least if I can grab it quick, they did not claim that. This is what the Department of Justice and maybe our producer salty confine this. This is what the Department of Justice said in its brief. In this court, President Trump has not challenged the district court's conclusion reiterated by plaintiffs on appeal that the complaints plausibly allege that his speech instigated the attack on the Capitol. Stop right there. The most fundamental thing that his speech instigated the private violence on the Capitol, he did not oppose that.

Starting point is 01:11:12 It is briefing. Instead, the Department of Justice go on, it goes on. Donald Trump's briefs advance only a single categorical argument. A president is always immune from any civil suits based on his quotes speech on matters of public concern. And they cite to the brief for Donald Trump, even if that speech also constitutes incitement to imminent private violence. The US respectfully submits the court that that is categorically wrong. That argument is wrong.

Starting point is 01:11:48 That is how they've set it up so beautifully, so eloquently, so, so perfectly. And it's because Donald Trump walked into the trap. What he should have said is my language did not incite private violence. That's the exception to both the First Amendment protections and equally, decommunit decommunit the presidential absolute immunity privileges. If neither the First Amendment nor presidential immunity covers language that incites private violence or leads us there, his argument is even if it did, I'm the president, article two powers, official duties, commenting on public things.

Starting point is 01:12:29 I get absolute immunity, which is if it's that narrow of an issue as, as briefed. And I got to believe the Department of Justice is properly reciting from Donald Trump's own brief. He's going to lose at the DC circuit court level. And I believe he's going to lose at the US Supreme Court level, even one led by the complete right way. What I would have argued on appeal is that I was commenting about an election. I'm an article two president at that time wearing that hat, even given the outer boundaries. And we never get to whether that's that is within the heartland of absolute immunity.

Starting point is 01:13:07 I'm within that. They want to know, they want to take it further and make new law that even if I incite violence, I'm covered by absolute immunity. He is going to lose on that argument and the Department of Justice very definitely said, we're not going to comment on judge made as decision that the language did do it. Department of Justice very definitely said, we're not going to comment on Judge Mata's decision

Starting point is 01:13:25 that the language did do it. We're just going to use Donald Trump's own words as a cudgel to bash him and say, if that is the way you have set up the argument, we're going to pull the leg out from under it and everything falls. This house of cards is all going to fall. So I like that a lot.

Starting point is 01:13:41 I think that's another example of just the pure brilliance and talent of people that work in this case in the appellate group in the appellate department of the civil division of the department of justice and taking on Donald Trump just the right way. We'll see who the panel is. They'll have oral argument. We'll report on it. I'm sure Donald Trump will take some sort of attempted fast track. This will be covered by Chief Justice Roberts because we're talking about DC stuff. He's going to have to decide whether it goes to the full Supreme Court, which I'm sure

Starting point is 01:14:16 he will, and whether they're going to make new law about what are these outer boundaries of Article 2 presidential official conduct for absolute immunity and make again new law. We've talked about this before. Let me end my piece here. The reason why you and I cite so many times, some case involving Richard Nixon, Nixon, Nixon, Nixon, Nixon is because that was the last time we had a traitorous president in office for which Congress and the American people had to regroup to reestablish the guardrails of democracy and through the court system to make sure this never happened again. That's why there's a whole body of law from the 70s.

Starting point is 01:14:59 And as we just said, all the way up to 1982, involving Richard Nixon. We, the next generation of legal AF hosts with our children, grandchildren, take over as hosts and talk about what dads did back then. They're going to be talking about a whole body of law that starts or ends with the word Trump because that's what happened. That's what a healthy democracy with a properly functioning co-equal branches of government, including a judiciary. That's what happens. Now, I'm just not sure how that body of case law is going to come out. Part of me being filtered through a right wing. We didn't have that. We had a war in court. We had a reinquished court during the Supreme Court. that was handling those other cases. And while they were Republicans, they were state, they were more states people. They were

Starting point is 01:15:50 the classic goldwater Reagan type Republicans, not what we're seeing here, not this right-wing federalist, you know, nationalist religious, religious system. Just call them Basha, and then call them what they are. Basha's traders, but that's our problem. That's the filter, and they are, that's what you do. That, you, you, but that's our problem. That's the filter, the prism that this body of law,

Starting point is 01:16:11 off of this traitorous corrupt president, is gonna be developed. And I'm not sure exactly how it's gonna come out. Nixon, they were like everybody, red, blue, purple, green, thought Richard Nixon was corrupt, and what he did was in a front

Starting point is 01:16:27 to democracy and needed to be punished. And all the cases went in that direction. You and I are going to have a lot to report on as these Trump cases, when they're way through this US Supreme Court. If you look at the history of Fox, it was actually created by right wing fascist leaning people, evaluating the experience with Nixon and wanting to come up with a propaganda machine to try to avoid that situation where objective truths can lead to actual accountability. To your point also, Popok, not a lot of universities, high schools, hospitals, highways, named after Richard Nixon, and the same fate will ultimately befall Donald Trump, but certainly a lot of court cases. And we

Starting point is 01:17:18 certainly hope that those court cases are court cases that strengthen our democracy and strengthen the rule of law, not in the performative sense that is used by Maga Republicans, but in the real sense of what the law is supposed to do and it's equal treatment and that no one should be above the law. But we do know, and I will leave at this point, because I think it is a bit of a nice way to put a bow on the episode to see how Donald Trump is handling all of these developments, how terrified he is right now. And earlier in the day, Donald Trump kept on posting and posting on his social media platform as he gets weaker and weaker and weaker and more scared.

Starting point is 01:18:10 This is what he referred to Jack Smith as today he goes, this animal prosecutor they stuck on me over the box hoax is trying to torture and he puts torture in capitals. My people into telling lies. It's all for political reasons and the fact that I'm leading big and all of the polls. He's flying people from all over and throwing them in front of a DC grand jury. They are confused and scared. They've never done this before. These Democrat Marxist pigs should be the ones that are investigated.

Starting point is 01:18:43 The nice guy prosecutor in the Biden documents case hasn't even started yet. And then there's another one that he posts, like right, right, right, around that time. But the radical left Democrat prosecutors go after Trump over the box hoax horse face and all other trivia. They've stolen millions of dollars. caught, I am not even gonna read the rest of it because it is just so despicable and disgusting. And he uses the, you know, that, that term also to refer to the woman, a stormy Daniels that he had sex with, that's what he calls, he calls our horse face and he repeats that over and over again.

Starting point is 01:19:20 So we're really dealing with a degenerating, disgusting, deranged individual. And the fact that, and this is what we were just talking about, where are we in 2023? Right? There is this exhausted majority. And what we know historically is that there are susceptibilities for exhausted majorities to succumb to really motivated, relentless fascist minorities in historical precedent. And one of the reasons we do legal AF and why we talk about the importance of law and order in its truest sense and why it's vital that we have this community education and why this is all about the community at Midas Touch.

Starting point is 01:20:18 The Midas might be all of you watching, all of you listening to this is that the exhausted majority can be exhausted no longer and we're not exhausted any longer. The threat is existential and the remedy, the antidote actually is the true rule of law and it is vital that that be upheld and part of upholding it is educating and understanding what it is in its truest sense. Popack will give you the final word. Yeah, every time I look at these texts, truth, whatever they are, it's always the same dog whistles. It's always racist.

Starting point is 01:20:57 Anybody that goes after him, black, white, Asian or otherwise, is racist. So he likes that in there. It's always Marxist or Socialists because that's the way they've successfully unfortunately tagged Democrats regardless of which end of the spectrum that Democrat is on as a Socialist and Marxist, which really plays to them trying to get the Latin community to vote for them. Because anytime you say somebody Socialist, and they convinced that that person, that voter, they vote the other way. And then it's just this constant haranging, which he thinks, which he thinks is winning in the world of public opinion, but I assure you is likely losing where it matters, which is, it is just pissing off the prosecutors who are trying

Starting point is 01:21:45 to find ways 24, 7 to bring him to justice and allowing him to continue to poke the bear like this is only at the end going to when he's sitting as a witness or not or the grand jury. They're going to use comments like this to show state of mind, or would you think, and I think, which is a state of a mind going out of his mind, but criminal intent at the most important moments when they're seeking the indictment. So what I would like to say to Donald Trump is keep tweeting, keep social true thing, keep whatever you're doing because you're sloppy.

Starting point is 01:22:23 You don't have any handle around you that you trust. There's no good lawyer around you that vets these things. You have screwed up and you will screw up in the things that you're writing and a prosecutor who knows what they're doing like Jack Smith and his team and Merrick Garland are going to put these and shove these up your backside at the appropriate time when they're seeking their indictments. Michael Popack, well said, thank you everybody for joining us in this episode of Legal AF Special Things as well to our sponsors. Support our sponsors,

Starting point is 01:22:55 because they support our show and by supporting our show, they support our democracy. Also, check us out wherever you download your audio. It's a way that you can help us as well. So for all the audio podcast listeners Subscribe to YouTube if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel. We're marching to one million subscribers in the month of March We got to do a subscribe. It's free to subscribe and then for all of our YouTube listeners here is an important way you help the show Please subscribe to Legal AF on

Starting point is 01:23:26 audio podcasts wherever you get your audio podcasts. Subscribe to Legal AF because here's the thing. We also drop special weekly other episodes of Legal AF, some of the hot takes that Michael Popeok and I do there as well. So make sure you subscribe to the Legal AF Audio Podcast there as well. Check out patreon.com slash might as touch PAT our EON dot com slash might as touch. We are doing we or we did earlier in the day rather a live zoom call with all of our patrons. But we're going to be doing another one next month. So subscribe to that, you get to meet us, we can ask questions, you'll meet me and my brothers,

Starting point is 01:24:11 maybe Popoq will show up, one of them would just say, what's up, and also check out all the Popoq's hot takes. He makes them hot, right out of the oven for you, he cooks them, he serves them to you, they're delicious. Check out Michael Popoq's hot takes, Michael Popoak, as always, I love doing this show with you. I have so much fun. I love your glasses and I love the Midas Mighty out there. Thank you to all the Midas Mighty. None of this is possible without you. Special shout out to the Midas Mighty.

Starting point is 01:24:41 the Midas mighty.

Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump is getting CRUSHED by the PRESSURE of JACK and Prosecutors

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