Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump is OUT OF TIME with NO CASH and Criminal Trial HERE

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

On the midweek edition of the top rated Legal AF podcast, trial lawyer Michael Popok and Meidas Touch founder Ben Meiselas (subbing in for Karen Friedman Agnifilo who is “on assignment”) debate/discuss: the Manhattan DA gearing up for the Trump election and business record fraud trial later this Spring, and Judge Merchan’s recent decisions on witnesses and evidence that Trump cannot be too pleased about; what exactly is Judge Cannon doing in the Mar a Lago case, and will her most recent order concerning the classified documents at the heart of the case, lead to her being removed from the case by her appellate bosses; whether Trump will finally pledge enough assets, obtain enough loans, and join together enough bonding companies to stop the seizure and sale of his real estate assets by the NY Attorney General on Monday; the new Miami federal suit filed by Trump during his terrible “I don’t have enough money” news cycle, against ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for defamation because George called him a “rapist” instead of a “technical rapist” during an interview of a Trump supporting elected official; Trump’s opening brief filed with the Supreme Court concerning his attempt to overturn the ruling by the DC Court of Appeals that he does not have absolute immunity for criminal conduct while in office, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! Lume: Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with Lume deodorant and get $5 off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code legalaf at https://LumeDeodorant.com! #lumepod Fast Growing Trees: Head to https://www.fast-growing-trees.com/collections/sale?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=legalaf right now to get 15% off your entire order! OneSkin: Get started today at https://OneSkin.co and receive 15% Off using code: LEGALAF AG1: Try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase exclusively at https://drinkAG1.com/LEGALAF SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop NEW LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hi there, my name is Alameen Abdelmahmoud. I am the host of the CBC podcast, Commotion. You need to drop by, okay, because that's where we talk about all things pop culture. We talk about what people are watching, what people are listening to, like how the Smiths got on a Trump rally playlist, or how Elmo became the internet's therapist, or how Dad TV got so darn popular. Comotion with Alameen Abou Mahmoud, available now on Spotify. Getting behind the headlines, here are the developments at the intersection of law and

politics you need to know. The Manhattan DA gears up for Trump's criminal business record and election fraud trial in early spring as Judge Murchon deals Trump an unbroken string of almost a dozen losses on important evidence and witness pretrial matters before he even steps into the courtroom. We have the SIPA, Classified Information Procedures Act decision, and some other weird ones down in Mar-a-Lago about criminal charges and instructions from an outmatched and inexperienced Judge Cannon.

We break it down and discuss the likelihood that now is the time for special counsel Jack Smith to take Cannon up on appeal and possibly seek her removal. D-Day is Monday for Donald Trump and I don't mean D for D Trump. I mean that's the day the New York attorney general will start confiscating, seizing, and selling his assets for cash to pay off her 465 million plus judgment if he doesn't solve the bond problem. Does he allow her to sell off his assets? Does he try to pledge his real estate deeds to the judge in lieu of a bond?

And what about his last minute filing to the app in lieu of a bond. And what about his last-minute filing to the appellate court where he had unqualified and biased witnesses, including one that participated in the fraud, submit insufficient affidavits to argue that they just can't come up with one big bond in time or use their real estate to do it. Is any of that true? Or has Trump just lied again to a court? And right on time, and as part of his MO to distract from a bad news cycle about his lack of finances and poor business judgment,

Trump filed a meritless suit against George Stephanopoulos and ABC News down in Miami, claiming that George defamed Trump by calling him a rapist when interviewing a guest, when in reality, the New York judge and jury called him a technical rapist and a sex abuser. Is this yet another suit that will be quickly dismissed by Trump after he is severely sanctioned with his lawyers, just like the Cohen suit, the Pulitzer Prize suit, the New York Times suit, the Steele dossier suit,

the suit against Letitia James ad nauseam. And Trump's lawyers recycled the same tired arguments they used unsuccessfully with the DC Court of Appeals in their losing immunity argument and sent it off to the Supreme Court in advance of the April 25th oral argument. They didn't even bother to answer the sole question that the Supreme Court was focused on for the appeal. Can a former president use immunity if the criminal acts are based on official acts? Or the criminal acts are based on official acts. That's right.

I'm Michael Popok and I got the pleasure of being joined by my colleague and friend, Ben Mycelis, subbing in for a traveling Karen Friedman at Nifilo. While I miss my time with Karen today and our audience will miss her and her unique voice, I am thrilled to share the mic with you today, Ben. Well, it's great to be here on the midweek edition. And, you know, if you list all of the times Donald Trump lost when he was a plaintiff, each and every one in front of many different judges. We know that he's lost all of the time when he is a defendant. He is a perennial loser in the court system, a perennial loser in life. And, you know, we're seeing him, though, try to abuse the court system, which he did

throughout his entire life. But now, and of course comes into sharper focus and there's nothing that he won't say or do to try to get out of his then and try to duck accountability, right? And here he's going to the appellate division in New York and basically trying to act like he's indigent. He's basically saying that despite being a purported billionaire, that he is unable to figure out a way to find cash in order to post this bond.

And we'll talk about it in the show, how New York Attorney General, Letitia James filed a surreply earlier in the day, which is what I thought she should do. And not only did she point out that everybody in Donald Trump's latest effort to try to avoid making this payment, all the declarations are from the exact same witnesses who Justice and Goran found to be not credible at all and just complete and utter liars. But this declaration that was filed by New York Attorney General, Letitia James' team talks about,

Trump hasn't even talked about the steps that you would go about taking. If you're a billionaire, you should have the means to figure out how to post this bond. There are other corporations, real companies, that have been able to post bonds like this before. You can assemble a tower of multiple sureties. You don't just have to go to one surety to assume all of the risk. Like there's a whole plethora of options and Trump's just saying, yeah, I'm above the law. I shouldn't have to do this.

I tried, sorry, now I'm poor. And therefore I should just be relieved from my obligations here. So I mean, we're right there as you call it, it's D-Day. There's one other observation that I thought was an interesting one. So the money that Donald Trump ended up getting from Fred, where there was a lot of accusations of his wrongdoing from his father, the ultimate irony is

that number's right around half a billion dollars, which is almost the exact same amount of money that he can't come up right now with the cash for. He was given that cash by his dad. He can't come up with that cash to post a box. You start with dust and you end with dust. I mean, there's a lot of bookends that you and I have followed in the law. Lena Haba's first case with Donald Trump may be one of her last cases.

We did a hot take on that because of something that she did that was underhanded in trying to get a settlement reached in a sex harassment case. But it's just, you're right, the cosmic gods and irony, there we go there. We'll just touch on it here for a minute. Alina Haba befriended on purpose, fake befriended a server at Bedminster Golf Course. What all she was trying to do was curry favor with Donald Trump and convince him as her first tryout that she could get a case settled, but she did it in an underhanded fashion. It violated her bar rules and ethics.

Based on a settlement that's not really even a settlement that was entered into. She is fair game to be sued for fraud and that means she's going to have to self-report that case to the, if she hasn't already, to the New Jersey bar, which regulates in this area and she'll have to explain why she sent text messages to a person claiming that she was her friend when she was really working for Donald Trump to try to get her a low ball, to take a low ball settlement. But that's what we're dealing with. Let me return though to the D-Day.

We kind of skipped around a little bit, which is good. It keeps us on our toes, our producer and our audience. So on the D-Day for Donald Trump, there are a number of things he could have done. Besides going to the press and filing papers that says that he's the equivalent of being financially destitute in the sense that he can't match his judgment with an equivalent amount of assets or money. There's many things he could have done, which are all pointed out in a nice package

by the New York attorney general in their paper. He filed something irregular anyway because in his last paper is not where you're supposed to file with the court. Your last brief is not where you are supposed to raise new issues and file new affidavits with the appellate court at all. But he did. So of course, Letitia James's office had to say, we need a reply to the reply. And in our business, it's called a SUR reply. And in that SUR reply, the proposed anyway, because they have to get it approved to be filed,

they said, okay, first of all, let's put aside for a minute that the two people that filed affidavits are completely unqualified in the area of finding bonds, have never been qualified as an expert in that area, and the judge has already questioned their credibility and called them out for a lack of credibility because they also testified in the 13-week New York Attorney General case. Put that aside for a minute. Put aside for a minute, the New York Attorney General said, that one of the two people that filed their affidavit actually participated in the fraud. That's the New York, that's

the general counsel for Donald Trump, Alan Garten. Put that aside for a minute. Where is the credible evidence that they went to any, where are the, besides just a list in a footnote of 20 or 30 bonding companies, where is the on oath, the sworn testimony of somebody with knowledge about what was the assets that were offered to be pledged by Donald Trump? What were their value? Why was it rejected? Where are their rejection letters?

Where are the affidavits from the surety companies, from the bonding companies, from the banks, from the people that you went to, for the people that rejected you, that you claim to have been rejected by? Where are they? And they're nowhere because it didn't happen. And so they just wanted to be,

take our word for it, your honors of the Appellate Division First Department. We tried really hard to get a really big fat bond. There's also no discussion of what's called syndication, which is you take a bond or a loan, and because no one bonding company or lender wants to be on the hook for the total amount, you know, over $600 million, you syndicate it. They take pieces. Lloyds of London takes a hundred million, and Swiss Re takes a hundred million, and Chubb, which already

put up a hundred million in the E. Jean Carroll case for Donald Trump, they take a hundred million, and you put it all together and you got six hundred million dollars, and you spread the risk. This bonding expert, Mr. Gialetti, down in Palm Beach is a golfing buddy of Donald Trump, literally, and has made over a million dollars in commissions off of Donald Trump. So an unbiased person he is not, he never talked about we attempted to syndicate the bond and what about the opportunity, which they about we attempted to syndicate the bond. And what about the opportunity which they never took to have gone back to Judge Angoron and said to him,

here are deeds to five or six properties, free and clear, that are worth over $600 or $700 million. Here's Mar-a-Lago with an appraisal from a legitimate company. Here's a 40 Wall Street. Here's my triplex. You hold them judge. We'll pledge the assets in lieu of a bond. You hold them. And if I win on appeal, I get the deeds back. If I lose on appeal and I don't pay the judgment,

you give the deeds to the other side. He didn't attempt to do that. And so the question is, we're running out of time here. By the time you and I come back on Saturday for the Saturday edition of this show, he's gonna be T minus 48 hours from Letitia James sending out the sheriff to padlock his property and start seizing it and selling it at sheriff sale,

including the bank accounts. Oh, by the way, another comment. Where's Barbara Jones, the monitor who knows where all of the bank accounts are and knows where all the real estate is and their values? Where is her affidavit? Nowhere to be found. And so by the time we reach Saturday,

he's either gonna have to go hat in hand to some quote unquote wealthy friends to go raise the $600 million. He's gonna have to sell something, or he's gonna have to beg the court to pledge his deeds. But right now, I don't even see movement by the appellate court. They're not even treating this like an emergency,

even though the Trump side has asked for it to be treated as an emergency. Where's the emergency hearing? Nowhere. Now we might have one between now and Saturday, but as of right now, Donald Trump is staring down the barrel of this judgment with nowhere to pay it. Well, let's not forget when it came to Donald Trump posting the $83.3 million

dollar bond in the E. Jean Carroll case, and he ultimately got the surety chub to post that bond, but Trump lied. Let's just say the word. He lied and told the court that he couldn't find it. And the court said, well, I don't care. Federal Judge Lewis Caput says, not my problem. This is your fault. The way you've conducted yourself, not going through the diligence,

not providing the evidence. Good luck. That's what the appellate division should do as well. In the E.G. and Carroll case, Donald Trump managed to come up with it and diligence, not providing the evidence, good luck. That's what the appellate division should do as well. And in the E.G. and Carol case, Donald Trump managed to come up with it and figure out a way to do it. And he should either have to, you know, he should be treated like the rest of us. You know, none of us would get a special treatment at all.

Um, and Trump's not asking for, you know, regular treatment. He's asking for, to be treated especially here. And he wants to brag about how he has all of this cash when he's on Fox and on right-wing media and when he's doing his rallies. And then in court, he wants to basically cite the case law for indigent people who file appeals. It's absolutely absurd.

Just a procedural note as well, and this is one of the aspects of Trump not following the rules, like in addition to the fact that he doesn't file a scintilla of actual evidence that you all list, what he always tries to do is in the reply, which is supposed to be the last word, where you're not allowed to interject or as Trump would say, interpose new facts and new information. It's just supposed to basically round out and respond to any arguments that

may be made in the opposition. Trump always uses the reply as a way to basically treat it as a new motion, which is just patently improper. All of the arguments that he was making in the reply that was filed earlier this week, that should have been made in the opening appellate brief that was filed with the appellate division. That's one of the things that New York attorney general

Atisha James requests, points out and says, look, he didn't follow the right procedure, so you should strike it. Let's start with that. Just strike it and rule against it. But if you're going to entertain that, then you can accept our sir reply, which has all of the arguments that you recounted,

Michael Popak, about why it's improper, how he relies on people who already have credibility issues, and how the evidence simply is not there. I go back to what Justice Inguarán said in the opening days when he ultimately appointed the monitor Barbara Jones, retired federal judge, and Inguarán said, Trump has not shown a scintilla of evidence. I'm talking about the preliminary injunction that was over a year ago, plus almost dating back two years ago. That's the issue. What you and I always talk about here on

Legal AF and in our hot takes is show us the evidence. Put forward a declaration that has all the data that Michael Popak and I are used to seeing in filings like this. And then we can, you know, Popak and I, we'll talk about that and we'll go through the declaration, say, hey, Trump put forward this evidence and it's, you know, compelling or not compelling. Trump doesn't do that. And then he whines when he loses that he's being treated unfairly,

but he's simply not doing what every litigant does. Well, let me comment on that or reinforce what you're saying. As a New York lawyer practitioner, I was shocked by the paucity of information and the, just the sheer size of these declarations. This is a guy who's staring down the barrel of what has to come up with $600 million to post against this bond? this judgment and the best he can do is his golf buddy down in Florida who says

Nakedly without any support or any attachments any exhibits any Correspondents attached to it. I tried can't get it. I Mean this and then using his own general counsel, because he's so cheap, using his own general counsel, despite the fact that general counsel was involved with the fraud in the New York attorney general case to say, it's really hard. Banks don't like to like give letters of credit based on real estate. Where's the banks affidavit? So I'm thinking, you got to be kidding me. This is what you throw. You and I would tip our hat if we saw an appropriate package of material, a raft of material that was supplied by Donald Trump

in the last month that he developed with, we spoke to this bank and this bank and this bank, and here's what they said, and here's what they said, and we pledged this and that. We're, it doesn't exist because they didn't do it. And instead, they want to get away with, as you said, with this sort of this just cursory, naked allegations unsubstantiated by lawyer argument. It's really shocking. I can't put it any other way. It's shocking. Unless he's just planning. I read the New York Post today and they speculate it based on who knows what sources. That Trump actually is okay and has considered the reality that assets start getting sold and seized on Monday,

but he'll get them back. Okay, let me news flash for Donald Trump. If those properties are sold through a sheriff sale, and they're sold to what we call a bonafide purchaser, a BFP in the law, who takes the deed and owns it, even if you reverse and the money goes to the New York Attorney General for the people of the state of New York to pay the judgment, even if you were successful in reversing it, improving that the judgment was wrong or it should be reduced on appeal, even if you're successful, you're not getting the building back. It's sold to a BFP. You'll get the cash back, but you're not going to get 40 Wall Street back. So I can't even believe even Donald Trump thinks that, oh, I'll just let her sell it. I'll get it back later. That can't

be true. Let's stay in New York, as long as I'm in New York. Let's stay in New York and let's you and I talk about Judge Mershon gearing up in a way that we haven't seen from a lot of other judges except for maybe Judge Chuckin for a trial in April or sometime in April or so, early spring, against Donald Trump. Well, you and I'll talk about, you know, nine losses for Donald Trump on major issues involving witnesses and defenses and pieces of evidence, including him trying to keep the main witnesses off the stand. Stormy Daniels, a doorman who also was part of the Catch and Kill program because he had a story that needed to be killed that would have hurt Donald Trump. Karen McDougall, a former playmate,

and Michael Cohen. Sure, just gut the entire case. Judge Mershon was never going to do that. We'll talk about Judge Mershon and the rulings. We'll talk about what that means for the trial that'll be coming against Donald Trump. We'll also talk about one of your favorite thing. It's your personal jam on Legal AF. Anything involving CIPA, Ibarra Lago, and Judge Cannon. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about the Supreme Court filing by Donald Trump and why is George Stephanopoulos being sued and how quickly is that case gonna get dismissed after it gets sanctioned by the federal judge in Miami? But first, let's have a word from our sponsors.

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Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. And we are back and we're gonna stay in New York. We're gonna talk about Manhattan, DA. It's unfortunate we don't have our resident Manhattan, DA and prosecutor Karen Freeman McNifilo, but we're gonna muddle through it with my regular colleague on the weekends, Ben Micellis.

I'll frame it. I'll kick it right over to you. Here we go. That was the frame symbol for those that didn't see the universal sign for framing. So, uh, an installer vibe here. That's right. So, so judge Mershon had some decisions to make to get this case shaped up for trial. First thing he had to do is go through all the motions that Donald Trump filed to preclude evidence at witnesses and the ones that the New York attorney, the Manhattan DA, Manhattan

DA did as well. And in a very succinct like 10 page set of orders, you know, three lines a piece, judges rip through them to get this case right sized. So on the Trump side, he's not going to be able to keep Stormy Daniels off the stand. He's not going to be able to keep the doorman off the stand that took $30,000, or he was going to go public with Trump fathered a love child story. Whether that's true or not, Trump thought it was true enough that he didn't want it to go public and paid him.

He was like, he was actually victim number one of the catching kill program before they got around to Karen McDougall and Stormy Daniels and paid them 130,000 a piece. He's going to be testifying. Access Hollywood tape, although it's not going to be played, it can be referenced to use as part of the overarching theory of the case, the theme of the case for the prosecution, which was that when the October surprise of the old Access Hollywood hot mic moment between Donald Trump and Billy Bush came out, in which, you know, Donald Trump infamously said he can get away with grabbing

a woman's genitals and sexually assaulting her because he's a celebrity. That that blowback from that happening in October while he was running for election against Hillary Clinton rocked the Trump world and they decided to also implement this strategy to catch these negative stories involving sex and Donald Trump, pay off the women and in one case a man, give them lots of money, have the National Enquirer and or Michael Cohen enter into an NDA with them, a non-disclosure agreement, a confidentiality agreement, and then kill the story. Say we're going to buy the story for the National Enquirer, never publish the story, but make them abide by the confidentiality

requirement and take the money. And so Donald Trump doesn't like that story, which is at the heart of the Stormy Daniels, hush money, business record fraud case that's being tried, and he doesn't like the other examples of that story in the plan, and he wanted to keep those people off the stand. Just like he wanted to keep David Pecker from the American media, who owns the National Enquirer off the stand, and he wanted Michael Cohen off the stand because according to them, without any proof, Michael Cohen is a perjurer, which is not true and has never been proven in a court of law. So that's not happening. Merchant said Stormy's going, Michael's going, Access Hollywood tape's going,

uh, uh, all the witnesses are going and, and what are your defenses, Mr. Trump? And I'll turn it over to you, Ben. What's that one? You want to say that there were, there was the essence of lawyers, there was the presence of lawyers around, and that's enough to give you some sort of defense and what happened with that? How did you find the efficiency by which Judge Mirshad has gotten this case ready for ultimate

trial? Start off with the efficiency question because I know many people were worried that based on this 31,000 doc dump plus another 15,000 doc dump from the Southern district of New York, from the feds that Alvin Bragg, Manhattan DA had been asking for for a year that Trump asked for in January, that that was going to derail this thing for a significant period of time. Judge Mershon, unlike Judge McAfee, who had this wide ranging hearing that devolved into what we all now know this Fulton County District Attorney, Fonny Willis, think to have evolved into, which by the way,

while we kind of tie this all together, which Judge McAfee certified allowing Trump to file and the co-defendants to file an emergency appeal there, but McAfee said that he would keep the proceedings going in the trial court with discovery and other motions as well. Judge Mershon kept the wheels, kept this thing very confined to this issue of these documents. He set a hearing for March 25th, which of course will report about here. Just adjourn the trial for a short period of time, 30 days. So as of now, that would be April 14th or April 15th, which I believe falls on the Monday. And then there's going to be a hearing on March 25th. But Mershan now clearly indicating he's ready for trial.

I mean, that's what, these are all pre-trial motions you make when you know you're going to trial. So this to me was comforting from an indicia of this judge is ready to go to trial. And I think that he realizes that at the end of the day, whatever this universe of documents is that we're gonna even be talking about on March 25th that the DOJ just turned over

is likely not all that material in general such that it's not gonna truly impact the trial day. So whether trial starts April 15th or May 8th or whatever it is, that trial is starting soon. Now, to your next point, what is Donald Trump's defense? You know, Donald Trump had filed that kind of bizarre frivolous thing about absolute presidential immunity in this case as well in the Manhattan District Attorney case, claiming that criminal acts before he was in office because he tried to cover it up when he was in office gets immunity. Most

legal scholars just kind of, you know, laughed at that one up when he was in office, it gets immunity. Most legal scholars just kind of laughed at that one, but he's essentially saying, yeah, I did it, but I'm immune from my conduct that I engaged in before I was in office because I tried to cover up the crimes while I was in office. The other thing, and this is an interesting one that Trump was arguing, is this, he wanted to make a semi advice of counsel defense.

He wasn't saying that he was going to make a full advice of counsel defense because then he'd have to almost certainly testify to say what the lawyers did that he relied on. I don't think he's going to testify, although Karen Friedman and Nicola thinks that he may actually take the stand, but I think you, Popak, and I think that he isn't. Also, it's a waiver of attorney-client privilege in general. So Trump tried to have it both ways, which is kind of a constant theme,

not follow the rules of what an advice of counsel defense is. Meaning like, an advice of counsel defense is like, yeah, I committed the crime, but my lawyer told me to do it, and it's my lawyer's fault, and here's why, and you take the stand, and you try to throw your lawyer under the bus. The funny thing is, it's funny, I mean, maybe it's funny if you're a law geek like Popak and I,

Donald Trump tried to cite favorably Judge Kaplan, who he attacks the E. Jean Carroll federal judge. Trump tried to cite Judge Kaplan favorably for allowing Sam Bankman Fried in the Sam Bankman Fried trial to basically testify to some extent about what the lawyers for Sam Bankman Fried had advised Sam Bankman Fried about SPF regarding document retention policies. So Trump tried to argue that that case, that Judge Kaplan did the right thing there, and therefore Judge Mershon should follow what Judge Kaplan's doing, because Judge Kaplan's

a respected judge. So that's what I mean to that. Donald Trump just will say whatever it takes in a motion, including praising the judge that he attacks outside. But Judge Kaplan didn't even say that. Judge Kaplan precluded most of the testimony from Sam Bankman Fried, except on a very narrow issue of document retention. And Sam Bankman Fried testified, and Sam Bankman Fried was found guilty and sentenced to like a hundred years in prison.

So not exactly the smartest case. He's going to be sentenced to at least 60 years in prison in about a week or two. Not exactly the best person to cite, if you want to cite it, but yes, Donald Trump, cite someone who's going to jail essentially for the rest of their life as your citation. But here, Judge Murchon basically said, you're not citing a real defense,

I'm not allowing that next. Like you can't do a semi-advice of counsel defense. You either assert advice of counsel, you did it, you waived it, sorry, move on to the next one. Also, Judge Murchon is precluding Donald Trump and Trump's lawyers essentially from the way the motions were filed by the district attorney was basically to exclude Trump from like whining about things and trying to say that like trying to curry pity with the jury and the judges like yeah we won't allow that as well. So overall it was a complete wipeout for what for Donald Trump here when it comes to these pre-trial motions and

this is moving very very fast trial, Michael Popock. Yeah, yeah. And it's a trial. You know, we'll talk to Karen. She's often offered to try to get into the courtroom and do some live reporting there. And maybe this is a good opportunity. You know, you and I can talk to her offline. She certainly has the street cred, the credentials and the access. I mean, I could do it too, but I can't think of anybody better to be in the room than Karen. We'll see what we can do for the Midas, Mighty and the Legal AFers. Let's move our Legal AF wagon down to Florida

for a couple of stories. And we'll start with the one that's near and dear to Ben's heart. And I'll try to carry my weight, hold up my end of the bargain. We'll talk about what's going on in Mar-a-Lago. Finally, we've got some sort of ruling, and I'll let Ben take it from there in a minute, on the Classified Information

Procedures Act on SIPA and a really weird instruction by the judge that puts the prosecution back on its heels improperly to have to defend jury instructions about key issues in the case, including the Espionage Act and the application, if any, of the Presidential Records Act in a thought exercise where she wants to see competing jury instruction forms to be used for the jury. I like the jury part, the fact that she's thinking about a jury in a way that she hasn't before, but I don't like this ridiculous thought experiment because it implies, it infers a wrong-headed interpretation of both the Espionage Act and the Presidential Records Act. So, if I was the government, I would push back and say, pass, we're not doing this.

You're asking the wrong question and you're forcing us to put together some papers that we shouldn't be asked to put together in this way, including having the jury make legal determinations that you as the judge, as the lawgiver, you're supposed to be giving to the jury, not asking the jury in some sort of experiment to try to figure out the law wrong. So I want to hear Ben, your overview, the details, the molecular level of a couple of these issues. And then when do you think it is or is this now the time for Jack Smith, who's been chomping at the bit to go to the 11th Circuit to take her up, as we like to say, in the trial business? Well, look, I'm not saying this for my position of ignorance because I study these areas at the level of granularity

to hopefully offer the highest level of expert opinions in these different areas. I don't even know what it is that Judge Cannon is absolutely, I don't know what she's doing here. And again, not from a position of ignorance, but because she's behaving not just corruptly, but also so ignorantly and so incompetently that she's issuing orders that, frankly, I've never seen before. Those who practice at the highest level of national security law have never even seen these things before.

It almost would look like if you were to take a first year, or you wouldn't get national security law your first year in law school. If you were to take a law school course in the third year, you were to take a national security law course, they would give you these things as like such outrageous hypotheticals that can never happen to deconstruct for the law exam

to kind of point out everything that's wrong. And that's what Judge Eileen Cannon is doing on a daily basis. Like she issued this order almost, and she doesn't call it suespante, meaning on her own, but she issued it on her own. Like this is not even responsive to anything. Like when someone files a motion,

if Donald Trump's filing a motion to dismiss the indictment under the Presidential Records Act, you issue an order on that. You either, you grant it or you deny it. Donald Trump's claim is that all of our classified records and national security records and nuclear codes and anything that belongs to the government, he could telepathically declassify. But not only that, when he puts it in boxes, it takes the boxes and

ships it to Mar-a-Lago, it becomes his own personal property. I'm not hyperbolic, that's what Trump's argument is, that our nuclear codes, our national defense information belongs to him personally, like his personal property. And he calls that, look, this is like the Clinton socks case, he claims, in a case that one, the person who Donald Trump's citing lost, that's kind of a common theme with Donald Trump.

Two, it was like filed 12 years too late, this Sox case, but it involved personal notes that Clinton was making for his personal autobiography and a district court basically said, I don't think I have jurisdiction to make an issue on personal notes regarding an autobiography of Clinton. On that basis, Donald Trump says nuclear codes are my personal property, like Clinton's autobiography personal notes. Note this though, and we forget about this, but we shouldn't, that back in 2022, when the 11th circuit overturned Judge Eileen Cannon twice, the 11th

circuit already held that Donald Trump has no possessory interest in these documents. Think about that. The 11th Circuit has already made that ruling when Judge Eileen Cannon did kind of the same stuff when she tried to assert equitable jurisdiction. So not only are these scenarios that Judge Cannon proposing just completely fallacious and unlawful,

but the 11th Circuit has already said that. Go back and read those 11th Circuit Court of Appeals arguments. Now, what Judge Cannon's doing here is she's saying, hey, provide hypothetical proposed jury instructions. And by the way, you're right, she's talking about jury, but there was a hearing a few weeks back where she talked about how she doesn't even believe there can be a trial until 2025. So what jury is she even referring to? Yes,

she's talking about a jury, but when is this hypothetical trial going to take place? She hasn't made basic scheduling orders on key things like SEPA Section 5 hearings, which requires the criminal defendant to talk about documents that they want to publish publicly during a trial. She hasn't ruled on these things with the protective order that Donald Trump wants to make confidential records public, and he tries to change the standard from a good cause standard to compelling government interest, which again is legal. If she hasn't made these rulings though that are threshold to the case yet she's talking about jury instructions to what Donald Trump's motion to dismiss the indictment under the presidential records

like and what she's saying here is accept as true Jack Smith to hypothetical scenarios when you give these hypothetical jury instructions to a hypothetical jury. Why? Why would he even do that? Like, this isn't a game, like it's on a puzzle. Like this is a trial. Like what are you even talking about? The jury instructions, the Espionage Act,

for the Espionage Act, they've been around for a while. The Espionage Act was passed by Congress, I think, in 1917. There are standard model Espionage Act jury instructions that you just copy and paste from how they've been used forever. But she wants him to change the model jury instructions for Espionage Act violations, USC section 793E, and accept these two scenarios.

Under one scenario, A, if a prosecution of a former president for allegedly retaining documents in violation of USC Section 793, a jury is permitted to examine a record retained by a former president in his or her personal possession at the end of his or her presidency and make a factual finding as to whether the government has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that it is personal or presidential using the definition set forth in the Presidential Records Act. That's the better of the two scenarios, if you will,

but that just completely butchers the law. It butchers the law with the Presidential Records Act actually says you can't just change the classification of personal records or presidential records and claim they're personal. It doesn't make a difference. If you're a former president, no one is above the law. She's affording special status for Trump to make these arbitrary classifications that it's unlawful for him to make.

So she's saying Jack Smith assume this unlawful situation and advise the jury on how they should do it unlawfully But then the second scenario is even worse where it says a president of sole authority Under the PRA to categorize records as personal or presidential during his or her president. I keep going on But like so no here's the question. No, no, I want you to keep going on. But here's the question. If you're Jack Smith being given this ridiculous thought experiment, which is already wrong, because it starts off with assumptions in the law that are incorrect, do you participate in it? Or do you say, Judge, with all due respect, you're asking, we can't participate in this because you're already wrong and try to get an order out of her that you take it up on appeal. How do you

participate in this if you're Jack Smith? I guess that's my- I think you cite with the 11th circuit previously held and then you take option three. You don't go through door one or door two. You offer door three and you go, we've evaluated door one and door two, both would be contradictory to what the 11th circuit has previously held and what case law is. What we would suggest is the normal jury pattern jury instructions for Espionage Act violations that were recently used in case boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Then you cite the cases and you keep it simple. I know, I agree with you.

That's a perfect way to do it. I know why she did it. And it's to answer your question. If you have a motion, you enter an order. If you're interested in something, you hold a hearing, but you don't do this. And I've seen this before. This is Lazy Judge World, where they ask, sorry judges,

where they ask you to submit like competing orders because they don't want to do the work. And they take either one entire order that somebody proposed or not, or they use this thought experiment of, I'd love to see your jury instructions on this issue because they can't get their heads around, their minds around the fundamental legal premises

that are being suggested. And the reporting that's out there, Ben, is that this idea of submitting these types of jury instructions in model form was the idea of the Trump side. And I agree with you. I think that he can't play this game. He's gotta say, I know you want me to play backgammon,

Judge, but we gotta play checkers or chess. And it's over here. And this is what you should be looking at for your jury instructions. So I guess let's end the segment with this question to you, Ben. When, either based on the SIPA decision or this, when does Jack Smith take her up to the 11th Circuit? Is it now?

You know, here's the thing. I'd love to, I'm not giving you a lawyer cagey answer. On SIPA section four, she ruled that the government can withhold the documents, the classified documents, but she reserved the decision. Note, that's the same thing she did with another motion to dismiss that Donald Trump filed against the, you know, in this case, saying that the Espionage Act was unconstitutionally vague. She didn't issue a final order, again, on the SIPA issue and on Trump's other motion

to dismiss, not this one where she's giving the jury instructions, because she knows that if she does that, the 11th Circuit steps in right away. So she's trying to do this to avoid going to the 11th Circuit and to keep this thing in limbo, but kind of torture the special counsel's office. It's very obvious that that's what she's doing right now. And so a lot of people are saying, does this hypothetical constitute even a final order that Jack Smith procedurally can take to the 11th Circuit? It's such an unusual

ruling that it's not clear that this is, like, what is this thing even? Or does Jack Smith have to file something, then she does something and then he brings it up? Can he file like a writ or a mandamus? Yeah, I was just going to say a writ of mandamus to force her to order. Yeah. And so Jack Smith has his appellate team, he's looking at these issues. When she gets overturned, it's going to be the most scathing order you've ever seen from the 11th Circuit with her behavior. But I know that justice delayed is justice denied and it's like, when is that happening already? But I want to let people know the

reason we're even at this point and that hasn't happened yet is because she's made these paperless orders. She's reserved rulings. She's pretended that she's made these paperless orders, she's reserved rulings, she's pretended that she's given Jack Smith wins while reserving issues to avoid the 11th Circuit issue. Yeah, very well wrapped up there on that particular point. We're gonna stay in Florida, we're gonna talk about George Stephanopoulos and him getting sued as a distractor as we frame the issues as a distractor Because Donald Trump was having a bad set of news cycles in his New York Attorney General case in his Manhattan DA case and the rest And then we'll talk about the first brief that's come in already

By the United States Supreme Court orders related to immunity Donald Trump has filed his brief Jack Smith will have an opportunity to file his opposing brief. And there'll be one more brief by Donald Trump. And based on my elite colleagues observations, we can expect that last reply brief to have all new arguments and new evidence in it that wasn't in the first brief. But we'll talk about all that. But first, another word from our sponsors. I'm 57 years old. And I'm often told that I look much younger than 57 years old. I attribute that to my skin because I try really hard to take good care of my skin. And it's important to

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And so people joke about, oh, another ad. Yeah. It's another ad that's helping keep this network growing and your support of it is really appreciated. So let's get back then to our content. That's what people come here for. Let's talk about George Stephanopoulos. I'll do two lines and turn it over to my illustrious partner, who I

think did a hot take on it. So you got a bad news cycle for Donald Trump. It can't come up with a scratch to stop the enforcement of a $465 billion judgment. Judge Mershon guts his defense and his case and basically tells the world that Donald Trump is heading to a quick conviction, I predict, in New York. And what does he do when he's pressed and he needs to recapture the news cycle? He files a lawsuit in federal court, usually down in Florida, tries to do a little judge shopping, avoid the judges he doesn't like, like Judge Middlebrook's up in West Palm Beach, even though that's right

next to the same county of Mar-a-Lago where he lives, said he files it down in Miami, which is odd. Using a lawyer he used for the failed Michael Cohen lawsuit, a small-time lawyer in Coral Gables, Florida, where I actually have a law firm and a practice, and they file the lawsuit and the wheel spins and they get the chief judge assigned to it, Celia Altanaga, who I know, I appeared in front of Judge Altanaga, both when she's a federal judge

and when she was a state court circuit court judge. She's the first Hispanic woman on the Miami federal court, trailblazer in that regard. She's very well considered. She's been assigned the case of Donald Trump suing George Stephanopoulos because he doesn't like something that George Stephanopoulos called him while he was interviewing Representative Mace, a Trump supporter on the show. And I'll turn it over to Ben and then you and I can predict what's going to happen next over to Ben and you and I can predict what's going to happen next with that case.

Uh, and I'll just, I'll give you the short answer. It ain't going to trial. Go ahead. Yeah. What's the height of frivolousness. So Trump's alleging that when George Stephanopoulos said that Donald Trump was found liable for rape in the interview with Nancy Mace, Trump says, that's not true. The jury didn't find that he was liable for rape in the interview with Nancy Mace, Trump says, that's not true. The jury didn't find that he was liable for rape. The jury found that Trump was liable for sexual assault, which the federal

judge said is the equivalent of, you know, the difference between digital penetration versus genital penetration. So if you want to take Donald Trump's defamation case and view it this way, Trump is arguing that he is a digital rapist. He did it with his hand versus with his genitals because E. Jean Carroll was not sure which it was at the time. And that even though the jury found that he had sexually assaulted her, that it's defamation to say that it was genital rape versus digital penetration.

So that's, on one hand, that's what Donald Trump's arguing. Now, federal judge Louis Kaplan, in the New York case, and there is comity, C-O-M-I-T-Y, between federal courts and doctrines called race judicata, collateral estoppel, where there are findings that are made in courtrooms that are binding judicial determinations and have impact. Notwithstanding Trump's attempt to forum shop and bring this in different jurisdictions, but federal judge Louis Kaplan, in multiple orders, when Trump tried to raise these issues in New York, the federal judge said, for example, consequently the fact that Mr.

Trump sexually abused, indeed raped Ms. Carroll has been conclusively established and is binding in this case. That was one ruling and one order by federal Judge Lewis Kaplan. In another order by federal judge Louis Kaplan, he writes that, in other words, that Mr. Trump in fact did quote, "'Rate Ms. Carol' as the term commonly is used and understood in context outside of the New York penal law. And that that had been determined. And it should also be noted that New York penal law and that that had been determined. It should also be noted that New

York's criminal code was actually also amended because there was this little anomaly in the law that was uncovered as a result of this that somehow what everybody would refer to and what the federal judge explained was the definition of rape under New York that constituted sexual assault versus the definition in the criminal code. But where you have a federal judge repeat on multiple times that Trump engaged in the conduct and George Stephanopoulos, working as an agent of ABC on the show, used the language, as I read it to you, from what federal judge Lewis Kaplan said. Trump is then suing George Stephanopoulos there with Alejandro Burrito as Trump's lawyer,

same lawyer who sued Michael Cohen for Donald Trump on that $500 million lawsuit that Trump dismissed when he was too afraid to show up for his deposition. But you know, when Trump is doing this, he wants to change the new cycle, as you mentioned, Michael Popak, and also Trump wants to try to chill free speech. That's why this is going to be subject to Florida's equivalent of the anti-slap statute and they have a lot of robust anti-slap protections there. Trump wants to try to scare other journalists, not to refer to him the way Stephanopoulos did.

Trump believes if you sue him, even if you lose, you will make other news networks afraid to use the language that Stephanopoulos used right there. And other news networks may be afraid to use that as a result, even if they know it's a frivolous lawsuit. That's potentially like his other lawsuits just being funded with money Trump's grifted off of his donors. I don't know if this is one of those,

but all of his others or most of his others have been funded that way. But that's why Trump's going to lose here. And we're just reading you what the federal judge said. I'm reading you the orders from a federal judge. Yeah, I agree with you. I think there's a very quick, first of all, ABC News, I probably know it, but I'm not gonna say it out loud,

which law firms they're gonna use and which local law firm in Miami, which is one of my hometowns they're going to use. They're going to file a very aggressive and well-written, well-researched motion to dismiss this particular complaint at the outset, citing, as you said, a number of the findings made by a federal judge and where Donald Trump tried to sue, counter sue, E. Jean Carroll, as you said, because she said something similar when she went on the air and he didn't like that. And his best defense to this is, no, my reputation that has been injured is the reputation of a digital rapist and a sex abuser, not of a rapist. I mean, this makes absolutely no sense. I don't think it survives a motion to dismiss at the pleading stage, meaning they don't

even get to depositions and summary judgments. And I think early on, I'm sure it's being written right now. A rule 11 letter is being written where the lawyers for the ABC News and Stephanopoulos joined together there are writing a letter to the lawyer Brito telling him that both you and your client could be subject to attorney's fees and costs for a meritless bad-faith filing if you don't withdraw the suit within the next 21 days. Now, Donald Trump may not care at all about it. He also doesn't have a law license. Alejandro Brito, in a small little firm in Coral Gables, Florida, who has to appear in front of Celia Altenaga on a regular basis that sees her around. It's, you know, there's a comment about Miami. It's a small town with a big mouth.

And they say that lovingly and endearingly for people that live down there. And that community and the legal community and the community of Cuban-American legal community is very small. And they see each other and we see each other when I'm down there on a regular basis at Bar Association Functions,

at the Cuban-American Bar Association Function, which is the dominant bar association down there of which Celia Atenaga is a member, and I'm sure Brito is a member. He does not need this case and a motion for sanctions against him. And Atenaga, if you look her up, she's not afraid to sanction. She has sanctioned lawyers and law firms frequently. She's the chief judge of the entire Southern District of Florida, top to bottom. She's basically Aileen Cannon's boss, if you will, as the chief judge.

She's supremely well respected. And if I were the ABC News people, I'd be glad that she's the lawyer for this. And if it survives somehow, the motion to dismiss and it doesn't get withdrawn voluntarily under threat of sanctions I think they file a motion for rule 11 sanctions under the federal rules arguing that had bad faith filing and meritless and let Altenaga decided right now at the very very beginning and if it somehow survives both of those motions then you do

depositions of Donald Trump he's gonna get deposed again. He's not gonna be able to argue, I'm on the campaign trail. By the way, Ben, I love that. I'm sure you caught it. First line where they described Donald Trump. He's described as Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States and the leading candidate for the presidency. Like, what does that have to do with your identity? How is that your identity as the plaintiff in this case? In any event, he's not gonna be able to do it. Can't make a judge run for office.

She's gonna say, you're a plaintiff in a case in federal court, you filed. Sit for your deposition. You know, he tried that game with Michael Cohen. He kept playing the game, playing the game, playing the game until he finally dismissed the case because at bottom, this has nothing to do with a merit lawsuit. This is just a press release. This is just a campaign grift. And as soon as he has to do something in federal court or face sanctions,

where he's been sanctioned already, Donald Trump is a classic vexatious litigant who has been litigant who has been sanctioned time and time again for millions of dollars by courts, including this particular court and another judge. I know for a fact that Altenaga respects Judge Middlebrooks, who's one of the longest serving judges in the Southern District, and respected his decision to sanction Alina Jaba and Donald Trump over a million dollars for another fraudulent case that he brought involving, where he sued the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and others

under some crazy, crazy theory and he got sanctioned as a result. This case is gonna disappear, but not before this lawyer in Florida may be sanctioned and certainly Donald Trump. You know, you see the theme here on Legal AF of here are the rules, here's the way our system works, and here's how Donald Trump tries to take a baseball bat,

and quite literally, when you see the photo of him in the baseball bat with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and tries to beat down our system, and then hope that the American population does not want to learn and does not want to have civic engagement and you take away education from the red states. You do all of that and hopefully people just don't know where all of this is coming from. If the Supreme Court refuses to rule on Texas SB4, where Texas can, you know, anyone who's brown, Texas can basically round up right now and say, we think you're an illegal immigrant,

we'll throw you in jail. And then the Republicans can then try to blame Democrats for it and be like, well, President Biden's the president, so he's the one responsible for it. And not have an understanding of the way, no, these are Trump appointees on the Supreme Court. This is how it works in the House of Representatives. It's controlled by the MAGA Republicans. Your state is led by a Republican governor. And it's why civic understanding of these issues is so important. It's why we go through all of these filings.

And Popak, as you talk about this final issue where Donald Trump is trying to basically say that he should get the powers of a dictator. He filed the opening brief claiming that he should get absolute presidential immunity. And one of the facts that he cites to the Supreme Court is he says that as part of his official presidential responsibilities, he was given the information that there was pervasive fraud when again, that's just totally false. Like we know, we watched the January 6th committee.

We've heard what Bill Barr, Trump's own former attorney general said. They did all of Trump's lawyers, Trump's attorney general, Trump's DOJ, all of the courts, including Trump appointees all said that there's no fraud. But you know, the MAGA Republicans want to give the January 6th committee the names, unselect committee, they deserve to

go in jail, and then they pump this North Korea, Russian style propaganda. They pump it, they pump it, they pump it, and then they push out these bad faith arguments and hope that the federal judiciary is so scared of Donald Trump that they won't do the right thing. I'll let you take it away, Popeye. Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't know it by reading the brief that Donald Trump filed through John Sorrow, the lawyer who lost badly at the DC Court of Appeals. He's the lawyer that got all tied up in knots

when Judge Penn asked him. So you're saying that the President of the United States can order SEAL Team 6 to take out a political rival because he was president, there's absolute immunity, especially if the Congress in its impeachment and conviction process wasn't able in the time remaining to convict him. Is that your argument? And John Sarah did a lot of double talk and said yes.

And she said, I'll put you down for yes. And you wouldn't know what the arguments were because John Sauer's brief, almost completely ignored the heart. There's only one issue that the Supreme Court is interested in. They're not interested in hearing about you have to have conviction in the Senate before a president can be indicted in a criminal court Outside of the Senate because they that's not true and they don't want to hear that's not the appeal they want to hear They don't they said particularly what they want to hear. They don't want to hear about due process

They don't want to hear about like, you know structural Immunity issues they have one issue Can a former emphasis, former president, use immunity concerning a criminal indictment based on official acts? You got official acts analysis, former president analysis, and immunity analysis. Instead, they stuff this brief filled with just a ridiculous collection of losing arguments, cut and pasted from the first brief that lost the DC Court of Appeals, barely acknowledging

the only issue on appeal that is there, acting like we're going to reframe the appeal. This is the appeal that we want, which is always a bad place to be because it's just so easy, especially when now John Sauer is going to be arguing this apparently on the 25th of April. God help us, although we will be able to listen to it and report on it on the Best Touch Network. It will be fun. We'll get a big barrel of popcorn for it because he's going to get slayed by a lot of the judges and not just the what we call the left-wing judges. They did a lot of the judges and not just the, what we call the left-wing judges.

You know, they did a lot of pandering. Let's pander to Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh, before he was a judge, wrote a law review article about why you shouldn't indict a president. He was really talking about a sitting president. Oh, but they love that. So he took quotes out of context and

said, Kavanaugh, you're going to love this. Look at this argument. And then just stitched together ridiculous failed arguments that have no historical precedent. My favorite line in the whole brief, and one of my favorite lines is, one of the things you should look at is that in 250 plus years of our republic, there's never been a president, a former president has been indicted. That is long-standing precedent that it shouldn't happen. We've never had a criminal ex or current president before. That doesn't mean that when we found one, that the criminal justice system was unable, based on their interpretation of the Constitution, to bring this person to justice. Even this majority of the Supreme Court, I don't believe, wants the precedent to be that a rogue criminal president outside of his official conduct can get away with it,

and get away with murder. Don't think that's going to be the case law that's gonna develop from this. And they're gonna get into the weeds about his official conduct. Now I think things that he is permitted to do, that he is given as the executive branch and as the president that are within his bailiwick,

you know, like conduct foreign policy, commander in chief, things like that. They're going to give him a pretty large birth, wide birth without finding anything in their criminal. But nothing about candidate Trump trying to cling to power and interfering in mechanisms for which the presidency has no role? The counting of votes, the use of electoral certificates that are fake and phony, calling up various state officials,

elected and election officials, to try to convince them to overturn the will of the people? What does that have to do with Article 2 powers of a president? How is that the president's responsibility? And for him to say, well, the president's responsibility is to ensure a fair election, it isn't. It isn't. Perhaps the Department of Justice under him, perhaps the federal court system, Article

3 judges, the president of the United States is not the super cop related to election fraud even if there was any. And that's the problem with their brief. So you and I, having digested this mess of 60 pages and trying to find any cogent argument whatsoever and finding none, we're now going to wait patiently for on the briefing schedule set by the Supreme Court for the brief of the special counsel Jack Smith and another brief that both me and more importantly somebody like Judge Ludig has asked for that the 10th Justice, the Solicitor

General of the United States, who's often referred to that the 10th justice, the Solicitor General of the United States, who's often referred to as the 10th justice, right, weigh in and file a brief. I know that Joe Biden wants to be above it all and act like, well, this is my opponent, so I want to stay silent. This is too important of an issue. And the Supreme Court justices always want

to hear generally from the Solicitor General. She needs to file a brief. And a brief, I'm sure, will mimic a lot of what Jack Smith says. But I'm less concerned about amicus briefs, which have an important role. I want to see a Solicitor General brief. And then I want to see, and then we'll see the final brief for Donald Trump, which as you've anticipated, will include things he didn't argue in the first brief, and isn't responsive to the arguments raised by Jack Smith in the middle brief, which is exactly what a reply brief is supposed to be. And then we'll see what happens there as you and I wait patiently, along with Karen, for the April 25th, last day, last argument for this term, and we see quickly, because I'll say one thing, I'll turn it back to you Ben, one thing about this particular lineup of justices. We used to say, it's very hard to tell from oral argument in a hot bench how they're going to rule. Forget that. I

don't know if it's their attempt to be completely transparent in everything they do now because we've called them out so many times for being unethical as a Supreme Court, but the one-to-one correlation between what we learn in oral argument and what ends up in the page is mind-boggling to me. I've never seen a stretch of oral argument that so closely mirrors and matches the majority opinion and the concurrence and dissents as we're seeing in this term. So I used to say, well, sometimes it's hard to tell because they'll take a position and it's just a thought experiment. Forget that. We'll know exactly the lineup of votes and who's in the majority and who's on the dissent, just like we did when they ruled for Donald Trump and even people that we didn't think

were going to rule for Donald Trump on the ballot banning issue, 14th Amendment Section 3. And so that's one thing I wanted to give as sort of a frequent watcher for the last 30 years of United States Supreme Court issues is how instantaneous the transfer is of things that are discussed out loud by justices during oral argument and how it ends up almost verbatim in their actual decisions. We're going to cover all of these oral arguments here on the Midas Touch Network. We're gonna have them live on our YouTube channels and across our various platforms.

Next week, there's the Miffah Priston oral argument before the Supreme Court. We're gonna have that here on the Midas Touch Network. That week of April 25th, there's also the argument in Fisher v. United States or United States also the argument in Fisher v. United States, or United States, or yeah, Fisher v. United States involving the obstruction of official proceeding count in the case against the January 6th insurrectionists. And that's going to be oral argument two days before.

And then we have on April 25th, this oral argument on the issue of absolute presidential immunity. So a lot happening. We'll stay on top of it every step of the way. And when we give you the analysis, we'll make sure we continue to direct you to the filings, the orders. And then all we ask is, you know, spread this knowledge to people. It warms my heart when I see the analysis that's out there based on

those who watch Legal AF because other networks don't explain the process and how it works and how these things are happening. And so I want this community to be an empowering experience because knowledge is power and it's important to the survival of our democracy. Popeye, thanks for letting me host this with you I really appreciate absolutely and for those that Remember or don't remember we just celebrated our third Anniversary our third birthday for legal AF and if you remember that I know you do and people that are have been with us from Day one the Supreme Court decisions was the way that we sort of got into the world of hitting stories

and analyzing them at the intersection of law and politics. We looked forward to every Supreme Court season, not necessarily because of the decisions, but because it gave us the opportunity to communicate this way, as you said, and empower our audience. We've reached the end of another episode of the midweek edition of Legal AF. Karen Freeman, Iqnifilo traveling today, but we had a pinch hitter who couldn't ask for a better one and Ben Mysalas, my colleague and co-founder. And we're going to do a show again on Saturday at the end of the week edition of Legal AF, same time, 8 p.m. Eastern time on YouTube and then on audio podcast

platforms of your choice. And I gave you the outline of how you can support us. Be here in the chat. We get 15, 20,000 people in the chat. We end up in the top three or four YouTube live because of that. But then we do the, you know, I, I do the, the bumpers for illegal AF after dark, where we segment this into three or four segments. One, for people who don't have the opportunity

to watch the entire show or can't make that kind of time investment of an hour or so, to get the clip nonetheless. And then actually for people who follow the show and are supporters to take the clip and send it to friends and family and people in their life and say, hey, you know that show Legal AF that I really enjoy?

I know you haven't had an opportunity to kind of grab the whole thing. But here's a clip of Ben and Michael or Michael and Karen or whatever it is, Ben and Karen. Take a listen. And that's a good way to get them to see what we're all about, get a little taste of our content, and then join us. And then we also post it for people who, frankly,

are on the Midas Touch Network, enjoy the content, but really don't know much about Legal AF. That's an opportunity to do that. So until our Ben and My Saturday edition, and then next week, Karen will be back with us. Shout out to the Legal AFers, the Midas Midas, Michael Popak, Ben, myself signing off.