Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump is SURROUNDED by Prosecutors on ALL SIDES and Can’t Handle It

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

The top-rated legal and political podcast Legal AF is back for another hard-hitting look at the most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this midweek’s edition, Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo, discuss: 1. Updates on the Georgia Criminal Cae against Trump, Giuliani, Meadows, Clark, and 14 others, including Judge McAfee setting bond and release conditions; and their one by one surrender for arrest, booking, mug shots and fingerprinting; 2. The efforts of Meadows and Clark and others to try to drag Georgia Criminal Case out of State Court and over to Obama appointed Judge Jones’ courtroom to argue for a quick dismissal of the indictment on “Supremacy Clause Immunity” grounds, and to stop Fulton County Prosecutor Fani Willis from arresting them at all; 3. Developments in the Mar a Lago criminal prosecution of Trump, including protective order issues with the Trump maintenance worker, and Stan Woodward in potential hot water over manipulating a key witness, the Mar a Lago IT Director Yucil Tavares; 4. Jack Smith’s team fires back about the “April 2026” trial date that Trump’s team wants from Judge Chutkan in the DC Election Interference criminal case, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! Miracle Made Sheets: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGLAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. Eight Sleep: Go to https://eightsleep.com/legalaf and save $150 on the Pod Cover Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to https://RocketMoney.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 Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 MAGA Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All the presidents, men and some women are trying to get as far away from Fannie Willis as possible. All the way to federal court and judge Jones. Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark are first up to try to argue that they belong in federal court, not state for the criminal prosecution against them, and that they are immune from suit altogether, and that they shouldn't even have to bother with being arrested and booked and mug shoted at the Rice Street jail. How well did that go over with the federal judge this evening?

We have the results, so we'll let you know. Then while Judge McAfee is busy as a B, asserting that he does have jurisdiction over all 19 co-conspirators in the Fulton County courthouse setting bond conditions and conditions of relief a release as they all come in one at a time for a mug shop. We're going to talk about Fulton County because that's really where this criminal trial belongs and where Fawni Willis is prepared to prosecute. And what's going on in Mar-a-Lago these days?

That's been awful quiet. And what series of things that Jack Smith's team do to just drive Judge Cannon and Trump's lawyers batty, including driving a wedge between the maintenance worker, the IT guy, and the butler, along with the candlestick maker butcher and baker. And then finally, Jack Smith's team fires back at the absurd request by Trump's team before judge Chutkin in the DC circuit court to have his trial there about election interference happen in April of 2026. And so much more.

And we have sponsors for our pro democracy, legal and political analysis. And I am joined as always. I'm Michael Popak with my co-anchor Karen Friedman, Agnifalo, hi, Karen. Hello, how are you? I'm doing great. We were talking pre-show, as we're doing hot takes today that it's almost an embarrassment of riches, how much content, because we look at it, this is content, is out there. So many orders by federal judges, so many filings by the Georgia 19 for lack of a better term,

as they try to wriggle their way out from under the criminal prosecution of the Georgia criminal case. And then, you know, Jack Smith has, at his team, have to keep all that straight, be consistent with their filings and what they say as they prosecute in two other locations that we're going to talk about today. Judge Chutkin and in DC, and we have a hearing coming up on the 28th in front of her to set the trial with the bid-ask established already as January 2024 for the feds. April of 2026, I can't even say

with a straight face, for Trump's team. And then we got to keep an eye because you got to keep an eye on Judge Catden on what she's doing down in Miami or in the Fort Pierce Southern District of Florida about things like she hasn't even entered a protective order yet to allow for the continued production of documents. She's asking maintenance workers to weigh in about classified and confidential documents. She's scheduling and canceling out of the blue hearings

about confidential documents. And she seems utterly confused about how grand juries work under the federal system. We're covering all of that tonight and whatever else pops into our brain as we continue. What do you think, Karen? You want to kick it off with all the activity. It's like a beehive of activity in Georgia.

The one that's every that's lighting up the internet is going to break the internet is the mug shots for those that said there they are for those that said I want to see mug shots. Oh, we got mug shots. This looks like a perverse game of the Brady Bunch. We got, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Salty. Jenna Ellis is Marsha.

We've got the maid being played by Kathy Chatham or Latham there. And on the bottom left, Ray Smith, a little known character from Brady Bunch, the neighborhood sex offender because I don't know what that's supposed to be. Everybody took this a little bit differently. David Schaeffer, who's, who's, I'll take in the square in the middle to block, he decided he was going to make a joke out of it and make it his new LinkedIn profile and his new Twitter profile. It isn't that nice.

And Kathy Latham, where's some sort of inappropriate top? Rudy Giuliani, I don't know what he's doing Latham was some sort of inappropriate top. Rudy Giuliani, I don't know what he's doing. He's got a weird grimace on. And then there are people there, of course, that don't think they're out there junior prom and know they're under serious state indictment. So Karen, you pick it up. You're the prosecutor on the team. Talk about the unique qualities, unique differences that we're seeing already in state, Georgia, prosecution, arrest, arraignment process that what you see normally in the federal system and then we'll talk separately about meadows,

maybe Giuliani and Clark, trying to get federal judge Jones Obama appointee to rule on their favor and get us far away from judge McAfee as possible. Yeah, so much is going on. I'm worried that I'm not going to keep it all straight. So if I mess something up, you'll correct me because there's really so many filings and

so much going on with each of these 19 defendants that it's going to be hard to predict exactly how this is going to go. So step one is everybody has to surrender by Friday, Fannie Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County as a courtesy, gave everybody two weeks to show up and surrender and go to the Fulton County jail and go and get fingerprinted and mug shots and processed and arrested and in New York we don't have a procedure like that. In New York you go to when you get arrested that you immediately have to go before a judge but in 24 hours. There is no negotiating bond ahead of time like that the way they have in Georgia. And so here, there's a disconnect between

the arrest and the arrangement. And everybody has to be there by Friday. So far about half have shown up. Trump is coming on Thursday evening or late afternoon. And that's when he's turning himself in. And many of them have negotiated through their lawyers a bond release where you will have certain amount of money that you have to put up and certain number of conditions. And there's the list right there. Thank you, Salty, of the various counts and dollar amounts affixed for Trump that all equal a total about $200,000 worth of bond conditions. And then here are the other conditions that Trump had to has to follow.

And most noteworthy is that the defendant cannot, has to refrain from intimidation of any person known to be a part of the case, to be a witness, etc. And it also talks about social media and reposting and things that could affect the administration of justice, in addition to witnesses and co-defendants and victims. And so this is a very broad order that says, basically, watch it. You know, we're watching you. And we've seen what you've done in other cases. And you better not cross the line here by, you know, saying certain things

or reposting what other people say. And so they were very specific. Of course, Trump violated the order or potentially violated the order very shortly after he signed this bond order. And his lawyer agreed to it, the judge agreed to it, Fannie Willis agreed to it. And you know, he basically, he already, I mean, it specifically says, defendant shall not communicate in any way directly or indirectly about the facts of this case with anyone known to be a co-defendant except through counsel. And, you know,

but then, you know, he basically goes on to say, you know, he basically goes on to say, you know, two posts. Can you believe it? I'll be going to Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday to be arrested by a radical left DA, Fannie Willis, who's overseeing one of the greatest murder and violent crime disasters in American history. In my case, the trip to Atlanta is not for murder, but for making a perfect phone call. She campaign and is continuing to campaign, and she is in cahoots with Biden. This is election interference.

He then goes on to post two hours later, the failed DA of Atlanta, Fannie Willis, insisted on $200,000 bond. I assume she thought I was a flight risk. What would I do fly away? Maybe to rush a rush a rush a rush a share a gold dome, sweet with Vladimir Putin ever to be seen or heard from again, would I be able to take my very understated airplane with the gold

Trump affixed for all to see, probably not. I'd be much better offline, commercial, I bet nobody would recognize me. And look, you know, the question is, did he violate this consent bond order? If you look at section four of the consent bond order, it says defendant shall perform no act to intimidate any person known to him or her to be a co-defendant or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice, no director, indirect threat of any nature against the community or any property in the community, the above, she'll include any post on social media. And look, this is clearly an indirect threat

to the community. He does it right after he signs this consent order. And he's basically just throwing it in everybody's face, saying, you know what, go ahead, you can try, but I'm going to keep going and you're not going to stop me. And eventually, at some point, somebody will ask for a gag order, that'll be the next step. And then after that, we'll see, you know, if they'll do the nuclear option, which is what they do for everybody else, which is incarcerate him. But, you know, I doubt that will happen with him just because he's a political candidate and he'll argue first

amendment. But so, you know, we still have him to turn himself in tomorrow and he'll be arrested and, you know, and the other defendants as well. But that's what's sort of different about what's going on in Georgia in terms of what I've seen in other places, this sort of bifurcation of the arrest and the arrangement. So that's what we're seeing now is just the arrest processing. And, you know, there's been lots of court filings, you know, that people are making pre-arrest in these 19 defendants, which is also quite unusual.

There have been several, I think three, motions to remove the case to federal court. We've had Mark Meadows, who has filed a motion, Jeffrey Clark, who's filed a motion, and the head of the Georgia GOP also has filed an emotion. His name is Schaefer and they've all filed motions for, or sorry, the former head of the Georgia GOP is Mr. Schaefer and they all have filed or motions to remove the case to federal court.

The other interesting motion that's been filed, and we'll talk about these motions for removal, but the other interesting motion that's been filed that I wanna make sure we talk about is Ken Cheesebro who filed a motion for speedy trial, which I think is probably the most significant motion that's been filed or the most significant thing that's happened other than the indictment in this case so far because Georgia has a very different speedy

trial law. Every jurisdiction has speedy trial laws, state and federal that you have to be ready for trial. You have to say you're ready for trial as a prosecutor within a certain period of time in New York for a felony at six months. And then there's certain periods of time that are excluded. Like if the defendant wants to make motions, that's excluded from the six months. But in this particular case in Georgia, it's a very, very interesting speedy trial law.

It's Georgia law, OCGA, section 17-7-1780 sub A. And it says, any defendant against to a true bill of an indictment, that just means an indictment is filed with the clerk for an offense, not affecting the defendant's life, which means not a death penalty case. May enter a demand for a speedy trial at the court term at which the indictment is filed or the next succeeding regular court term thereafter. People have said that means she has to start the trial in November of this year in like two months. She has to start this trial and and there's so many open questions. What does that mean for the other 18 defendants? You know, many people think speedy trial for one means

speedy trial for all. The judge has a discretion apparently to sever. Will the judge sever the ones who demand a speedy trial instead of the ones who are going to make motions? What happens if some defendants are removed to federal court, you know, what happens during that? There's so many open questions. It is absolutely perceived to be an active war on the part of Ken Cheesebro and the defense attorney to demand a speedy trial in a case like this. It's your calling the prosecutor's bluff. You're saying, I don't believe that you're actually ready. I'm not going to give you time to prepare. I want my speedy trial in two months. Bring it on. And it's kind of a declaration of war.

During those two months period. Can I ask a quick question? Yeah. Do you think that's one of the reasons of continuing with your prosecutor view? Do you think that's one of the reasons we had that huge gap between I'm ready, indictments are imminent, which she said in March

and the actual inditing document in August because she wanted to make sure that when she said ready and indicted, she was ready for trial as well. Oh, 100% funny will this is no dummy. She is a professional. She is a, you know, a real pro. She is a real pro practitioner prosecutor. You can just tell.

So she knew that this was not only a possibility. She's playing in the big leagues. This is, you know, at the Manhattan D.A.'s office, we, you know, also played in the big leagues many times in cases. And, you know, you, when you, when you have cases that, that are major league cases, you, you prepare for everything. And you know, exactly, you prepare for all the possibilities. And you make sure you're ready for them all. Look, in your average run of the mill case, you don't always do that because things just sort of go a certain way.

But in the big league cases, and Fani is no different. She's a real pro. So 100% popoq, that's why there was a delay, not really a delay, but she took her time to prepare for trial during that time so that this really isn't that short for her. So she's going to call the blood, his blood right back. But look, there are dangers, right? It's the case is going to be tried in on TV.

The good side, the good thing is Trump can't control the narrative, right? This is going to be out there for the whole world to see, but it also will potentially, it gives everybody one bite at the apple to kind of see how the witnesses do and create a record of cross-examination. And I'm told that Cheesebro has a really good lawyer. So this is gonna be a real fight,

but if there's a conviction and he gets convicted, then I think you're going to start to see a lot of people lining up trying to get a good plea deal. Yeah, I agree with you. The one thing I've been struck with so far, and I said on a hot take with Ben, our co-anchor, earlier today about a lot of the activities on this rocket docket, high velocity docket at the not just at the federal level with Judge Jones, but even Judge McAfee is right out of the box. He's making sure nobody argues, what's the state court judge doing? He doesn't seem to be asserting himself or treating this case like a normal case. He is. And I think that's helping Judge Jones in his ultimate decision, which he will make early

next week, whether he wants to take this case or not take this case, why they're running away from McAfee. I have no idea. She looks like the male version of Eileen Cannon. He is, he's been on the bench for three months. He's 34 years old. He was Federalist Society. He was the office of Inspector General under Governor Kemp. I don't know why they're swimming so fast to try to get away from this guy. I'm not sure the Obama appointee judge Jones is going to be a more hospitable environment for them to make their legal arguments, especially based on what he ruled just today. So let me catch everybody up because Meadows went very quickly. Jones went very quickly. And so legal AF had to go very quickly to kind a keep pace. Mark Meadows and

then filed right behind by Jeff Clark said two things. One, we think on the papers that we've already filed judge, you can take this case under federal jurisdiction and rip it out of Fulton County courthouse, only courthouse. Fony Willis comes along for the ride as does Georgia state criminal law. And it's not part and a bull by a by the president, whoever that is in the future, because these are Georgia pardon me, Georgia crimes now. But why do they want to be in Fed court? They want to be in Fed court because they're going to try to argue some complicated issues for at least a few of these people about constitutional supremacy clause immunity. I was just doing my job, my job description as Phil in the blank, acting attorney general

or chief of staff for Donald Trump included, I guess, helping him cling to power, not peacefully transfer it to Joe Biden. That sounds more like you're doing henchman work for the candidate Trump, not doing the work for President Trump, which is what would be your federal office. But put that aside for a minute. I'm sure Judge Jones will be drilling down on that issue when he decides whether there's federal jurisdiction. The presumption is there is no federal jurisdiction. And it's going to be the burden on Clark and on meadows and on Giuliani, if he tries, or anybody else.

I've even heard David Schaeffer, the former GOP chairperson, say, well, I was directed as a fake collector by Trump's lawyers. So I get the color of a federal office and I get to argue federal jurisdiction. Again, why they're running away from judge, judge judge what do they know that we don't know about judge Maccathies, only been on for 90 days. They can't possibly know anything. But they want to get that they want to get a little bit better jury pool that comes out of a federal court practice. A slightly better, although I don't think it's that much better for them in the Atlanta. A proper place that the jury would be pulled from. And then they get a fast track through federal appeal process, 11th Circuit, which sits in Atlanta. That's the same 11th Circuit Court of Appeals

that slap back judge canon a couple of times when she screwed up fundamentals of criminal prosecution and the role of a trial judge. And looks like she's on her road doing that again. We'll get that later on in the podcast. And then you get up, you know, fast track to the US Supreme court. You can still get to the US Supreme court on some of these things that they would raise in the state court level, but it's harder.

So I see why they want to try to slide it over. But as of right now, it's looking terrible for them. Just before we went on the air, like it's 630 judge, Jones already ruled on an emergency application by both Meadows and Clark to not have to go to the right street jail by tomorrow and get booked in process in the state system. They're like, it'll, it'll, it'll will repribe harm us. It judge, we're going to be with you in federal court one day. And we have, this is my artist rendering or my accent that I use for all of their whining. Sorry. We want to be with you. And you're

going to rule that we have immunity one day. We don't even want a bother getting our hands messed up with finger printing and a mug shot. Why? And we've seen the mug shots. These other people are doing. We don't want to do that. And the judge said, yeah, great. We'll see on Monday, the meantime, you are in the state court process. In fact, the removal statute that you care and cited before specifically says, unless and until the federal judge takes jurisdiction and outs the state court proceeding, everything goes forward the state court proceeding as if there were no application to move to federal court. So go get booked, go get finger printed, see on Monday, you don't even have to stay over.

You don't have to sleep over in the rice street jail. You'll come out in an hour, and then we'll see you on Monday for a full-blown evidentiary hearing. Not just the hearing where lawyers start talking out of their mouth holes, they have to bring in evidence. And Fawli Willis has already said, I got a great idea.

I'm gonna bring in a series of witnesses against Meto, and Clark, and I'm going to bring in a series of witnesses against Metos and against Clark. And I'm going to do a little bit mini trial. And if we want to know how that's going to turn out, all we got to do is go back to your old office, Karen, four months ago back in May when Donald Trump didn't like his judge in New York, Judge Mershon. And he wanted to go across the street to the Southern District of New York federal court and got, boy, this sounds eerily deja vu, got a Democratic president appointed judge, a Clinton appointee Judge Hallerstein, who did this whole thing, but

over a longer period of time. And basically, after an evidentiary hearing that went terrible for Donald Trump, where the Manhattan D.A.'s office got to put all the evidence on against him to show that he's a criminal, Judge Hallerstein said, yeah, evidence on against them to show that he's a criminal. Judge Hellerstein said, yeah, it's more likely than not that you're a criminal. Get out of my court. Go back to state court. This is going to happen again.

And the thing I was struck by where I started this whole analysis with is how little to know coordination there is at all with these 19. They may have been tied together in a conspiracy as alleged, but they are not cooperating or coordinating at all with these 19. They may have been tied together in a conspiracy as alleged, but they are not cooperating or coordinating at all. I would have thought, especially since some of them are getting their lawyers paid for it by the Save America Pack, that they would join together, at least in groups of three, like a day camp or a camp,

and kind of file papers together to accomplish similar objectives. They're not doing that at all. And all that's doing is strengthening Faudi-Willisessand because this is the game that can't shoot straight. Some of them, like the highest person on the chain, the totem pole, Donald Trump, who did the worst of all the bad things,

he's like, yeah, I'm fine with State Court. I'll be there on Friday, thank you. While his underlings, the all the bad things. He's like, yeah, I'm fine with State Court. I'll be there on Friday, thank you. While his underlings, the all the presidents men, are like, no, we don't want to be in State Court. And then cheese bro jumps off sides as you described earlier, Karen, and says, not only do I want to stay in State Court, I want to have a trial in the next like 60 days.

Let's do that. So you could tell while maximum chaos is certainly Donald Trump's calling card, I don't think he has any control over what's going on right now. And I don't think he said, jeez, bro, you do 60 day, let's go to trial and you, meadows. And you go to federal court and you try to, let's see how that works out. And I'll state he's not doing any of this. He is in a world now, not of his own making. Welcome to the criminal

justice system, Donald Trump. You are no longer the leader of the free world and people wearing black robes and prosecutors. Now we're going to run and ruin your life. You know, interestingly, this whole removal thing and why they might want to go to a federal court. I've been trying to wrap my head around it to understand, because I always try to see the other side. And it's hard to see the other side here, because they make these lawless, ridiculous arguments that have no basis in law and no basis in reality.

But I've still been really trying to wrestle this into the ground, and this is what I think is going on. So if you remember, when, as you mentioned, when Trump tried to remove the Stormy Daniels case to federal court from the Manhattan DA's office, the reason Judge Hellerstein ultimately said it will not be removed. So let's just talk about what the grounds are, what the law is on removal. You have to be a federal officer

or working at the direction of a federal officer. It has to be part of your job, so under the color of law, so under the color of your authority, and you have to have a plausible federal defense. And what Judge Hellerstein said was, this was, yes, you were a federal officer, Donald Trump, because you were president at the time, but this was not

part of your presidency. This was your personal life. And so you weren't acting under in the color of your authority. And so therefore that belongs in state court, right? You had a personal lawyer, you were paying off a porn star that you had an affair with in your personal life. That wasn't part of your job description, like if a federal FBI agent in the course of executing a search warrant gets into a fight with somebody and shoots them.

And that's a kind of case where he's clearly an FBI agent. And he was executing a search warrant as part of his job. And that's a kind of case where he's clearly an FBI agent and he was executing a search warrant as part of his job and they get into a fight and he shoots someone and if he was unjustified, State Court can't prosecute that. That would be removed to federal court because that was under the color

of his job description, right? That's what federal removal is meant for. So let's do that same analysis here. Okay, let's look at Mark Meadows, for example. If you read Fanny Willis's response to Mark Meadows' motion for removal to federal court, it is absolutely brilliant and genius. Okay, she smacks him down in the most beautiful way. So she says, first of all,

your entire motion talks about how this is all political, everything I did was political, political speech. First of all, it's all protected. I was doing all these things. He made all these admissions in his motion. And what Fanny Willis points out is that clearly, Mark Meadows is lawyer, has no idea of something called the Hatch Act.

The Hatch Act is such a fundamental part of any federal employee, what they know, of what they're allowed to do or not do. And in fact, any employee, I was aware of the state equivalent of the Hatch Act when I worked for an elected official. And what it basically says is, you cannot mix, you cannot use government resources for political, for your political ends. So Donald Trump is both President Trump and candidate Trump during the month of January, during the months of November, December, January, right?

2019, 2020, he was both. He was both running for office, and he was also President of the United States. And he had two different staffs. He had a campaign staff, and he had government staff, right? And those two cannot mix. You can't even, to be specific, you can't even use government stationary or a government printer or a government telephone

or office space when you are conducting campaign or election related activities. And Mark Meadows basically admits through his papers that he was doing all these things like helping set up calls, contesting the election, all of the things that he's accused of doing, that was for candidate Trump that had nothing to do with the presidency or the presidential duties. And so Fannie Willis said basically, that is a hundred percent in violation of the Hatch Act. You were not working for a federal officer.

You were not a federal officer at the time. In fact, this had nothing to do with your job description. You were actually doing the opposite of what you're allowed to do in your job description. So, I think that's why the judge basically said, you know, for now, we're not giving you an emergency stay temper, you know, I'm not ruling on the merits of removal, but I'm also not giving you this emergency stay. You got to show up and get arrested and, you know, get this thing going.

So, so it's really interesting, this, this removal thing. And I think it's going to fall on whether the judge finds that these people, whether it was President Trump or candidate Trump, and whether these people were all acting in the course of their duties as a, you know, whether it's Jeffrey Clark as the, you know, whatever he was, the pod dog, you know, the, whatever. I don't even know what it stands for, but something acting, you know, whatever he was, the pod dog, you know, the whatever, I don't even know what it stands for, but something acting, you know, attorney general, they have all these acronyms. You know, that he, that they, they, whether, you know, he was, yes, he was a federal official, but he was not doing a job that was in his job description. In fact, he was helping candidate Trump. And that has nothing to do with, you know, acting under the color of law. So that's what I think that these removal, uh, removals are going to fall on. And just one last thing, the reason I think to answer your question,

that I think they're trying to go to, um, federal court. I don't think it's because of the jury pool. I don't think it's because I think the judge is better. You know, I think it's because they think if I can get the judge to rule that I was federal officer acting under the color of federal authority, that then they will. And you've talked about this before, Pope Pot, if they can get them to rule and knit those two things, therefore the supremacy clause applies, and I can't be prosecuted. I think they think, if I can get those two elements ruled on,

it will kick in the supremacy clause, and they'll say, so the state can't prosecute me. And these are state charges. So, because as you said, federal removal is still state charges in federal court. They will say, but the state can't prosecute me because of the supremacy class. That's why I think it's a strategic decision to get to federal court because then those elements are met.

Yeah, they can make the same argument in state court, but they'd rather go federal court 11th Circuit Supreme Court for that argument than try to make it with Scott McAfee, who's been on the bench for literally 90 days. We're going to follow all of that and what happens because all of these things are interrelated. One thing I think we've been able to talk through in two and a half almost three years of legal AF is especially in the Trump indictment world, all of these things are interrelated, not that they're all working together, but prosecutors and civil lawyers and state and federal prosecutors, they know what each

other are doing, at least from the public record. And they can use it to their advantage and whipsaw the common defendant. And I mean common in many levels that's in front of them. I'll give you an example from my own civil practice. I have been involved with a case on the civil side where I've been suing a party and I know another law firm is suing that same party on something unrelated or maybe slightly related in a commercial world. And I will call them up and say, Hey, I'm doing my depositions next week.

Why don't you squeeze them and try to get your depositions like tomorrow, or I'm going to do this in the case, when are you doing the quicker we squeeze together, the better it is for both of our respective clients. If that conversation that I just described is going on, you know, the prosecutors and the civil lawyers are all saying or trying to take advantage of each other's positions as they make chess moves. Oh, you made, you know, like Jackson with saying, and I don't play chess, so I'm going to blow this, it's, it's analogy, but Jackson is, oh, look at that move. She did a king to queen six. Oh, I'll do. And then he's doing his own chessboard all against the common opponent, which is Donald Trump. We're going to talk about Mar-a-Lago and everything that's going on with

Judge Cannon. We're going to talk about everything that's going on with Judge Shuttgen and the trial date war, the warring dueling trial dates. But first, we have a word from our sponsor. Did you know that your temperature at night can have one of the greatest impacts on your sleep quality? If you wake up too hot or too cold, I highly recommend you check out Miracle Maid's bedsheets. Inspired by NASA, Miracle Maid uses silver infused fabrics and makes temperature regulating bedding, so you can sleep at the perfect temperature all night long. Using silver infused fabrics originally inspired by NASA, Miracle Mate Sheets are thermoregulating and designed to keep you at the perfect temperature all night long.

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and the UK and select countries in the EU and Australia. That's eatslip.com slash legal AF. And we're back. Well, I'll tell you the one sponsor we don't have yet, but people in the chat are telling me that I should have. They said sunscreen, but I have an excuse for today. The excuse is I took half a day off to go for a long walk on the boardwalk, where I live. And when I got back to my car, my phone was dead, and I couldn't open the door to the car, because it was tied to my phone. And I spent the next 45 minutes with no sunscreen

walking around looking for a charger, which I found. That's a story that probably nobody's really interested in, but I decided that I wanted to. You know what I find shocking about that? Is you also did about 18 hot takes. I don't know. If this is you working a half a day, I really don't know what you working a full day is like.

Like 40 hot takes in a day. So this is a good, this is a good segue and good transition. Not eight sleep, but the things we talked about. People in the chat want to know what kind of car you have, by the way. I have, I finally went E. I have an EV. I have a SUV that's all electric, and which I like, which was great, except when I decided not to take my keys with me, because I wanted to go for a long walk and not have them jangling around in my pocket.

I came back to a dead phone and a car that would not start. So enough of Popeop, first world problem, so let's talk about what's going on with Donald Trump. The good news about all the things we're talking about, because I've been here long enough and so have you, Karen. I remember saying, cut the crap, Popox. We want to see him indicted. I don't think it'll ever happen.

We want to see mug shots. I don't think it'll ever happen. We want to see the trial in 2024. I don't think it'll ever happen. All these things are happening. It just happening at a pace that we weren't really comfortable with and we all wanted to go a little bit faster, but it's going in a constitutionally appropriate time time interval, notwithstanding the fact that some judges are not playing by the rules. One of those judges, which Jack Smith knew when he drew her and knew there was a one and four chance that he would get Judge Cannon, but he was prepared for anything that she was going to do, either because she's a secret, MAGA undercover person, or because she's just not very good at her job. It's one of the two things because we're seeing some really weird orders and comments and statements in decisions coming out of this court about Mar-a-Lago

and the national defense information that was allegedly retained by Donald Trump and the conspiracy to hide it involving the butler. Well, now the maintenance worker, Carlos D. All the era and the IT worker. You see all to Varus who sometimes for whatever reason I call Jose. I know why, but I'm not going to tell people in the chat has to do with somebody I've did I used to work with. Who's last name was that last name? All right, putting that aside for a moment. The three things that are like up for grabs right now with balls still in the air that I'd like to talk to you about Karen for our audience is one, the request by Donald Trump that the government, meaning the taxpayers, like you and me,

build him a secure facility at Mar-a-Lago to look through the documents that he shouldn't have had in an unsecured facility to begin with. And the judge is sort of sitting around having not ruled on that. While in order to get a case to trial, and this one is scheduled at least on paper from May of 2024, you have to at least give the other side, in this case, the defense, all of the documents that would help them in their case, or at least that the prosecution is going to use in their case. And there's a problem because the judge hasn't entered the protective order. That's necessary before the full data dump is made on Donald Trump. And they can't do it because she's like slow footing and dragging her feet on the hearing related to it.

And when she's running out of reasons to delay that hearing, she reaches conclusions like this one. I think the maintenance worker, I'm not making this, I have to laugh every time I say it, the maintenance worker should weigh in. I want to hear what he has to say and his lawyers have to say about how confidential top secret information should be shared with the defense. Okay, stop right there. The maintenance worker is not charged with espionage act or anything related to the national defense. He is charged with trying to delete the server housing the surveillance

video, right? They were going to stab it, burn it, or drown it. And that is his crime of obstruction, along with the fact that he lied to the grand jury in the district of Columbia about his participation in that. That has nothing to do with what is actually in the box, or whether it's top-seeker classified or not classified. So don't start rolling up your shirt sleeves, Mr. Maintenance Worker. I don't think that after an appeal, you're gonna get your hot little hands

on our national defense information to further compromise national security. But this is the type of thing that she's doing. And now she's got the issue in front of her about, and I want you to take it from there, Karen, Stan Woodward, who is a MAGA PAC, Save America PAC paid, bought and paid lawyer through Donald Trump, handpicked, who represents not one, not two, not three, but four different Mar-a-Lago witnesses, targets, co-conspirators, indicted, or unindicted. He represents the two executive assistants that help move the boxes around, one work for

Melania and one work for Donald. They're unnamed in the indictment, but we know they are. He represents or represented, you sealed Tavaris,ys the ID worker until he didn't and that's a powerful Development that you can talk about Karen and lastly he represents Walt Nauta so that seems like a lot of people within one alleged criminal conspiracy and witness World to be representing and Jack Smith had a plan for this. He hatched it in DC. He hatched it in Florida. And now it's in front of judge

Canon. Pick up pick up from there and take our audience right through to the end about everything related to Canon, the skiff and and Stan Woodward, who in my view, is up to his, you know what, in deep shit with this judge on terms of credibility. Look, you know, look, let's just talk for a minute about what the issue even is with Stan Woodward representing lots of people or multiple people. And really, the issue is all about a conflict of interest.

And this is a common sense concept that anyone can understand. They're going to have a Garcia hearing, which, you know, in New York or in, you know, where I practice, they call it a curcio hearing in my district, but it's called, it's the same thing. It's a hearing to determine whether or not there is a conflict and whether a lawyer can represent multiple people. And Alex, just talk about it from a common sense perspective. You don't need a law degree to understand this concept.

And we'll talk about it in the course of Joe Takapina and Stormi Daniels. If you remember, he at a time represented Stormi Daniels. If you remember, if you remember, he at a time represented Stormy Daniels. Okay. What does it mean to represent someone? It means they tell you their deepest darkest secrets. They tell you absolutely everything about the case. They tell you all the good, the bad, the ugly. That's why there's something called an attorney client privilege because you want to encourage somebody to tell all of their information to your lawyer so that they can adequately represent you.

They can figure out what's the best way to help you. So you encourage this open communication. And so then when Joe Takapina no longer represented Stormy Daniels, but then was going to represent Donald Trump. There was a conflict issue and people said, how can you then represent Donald Trump if you represented Stormy Daniels because you know all her facts. You're not allowed to use them against her because she told them to and confidence. So how are you going to represent vigorously represent Donald Trump when you know facts that you can't even use? It's just such common sense. So same thing here, right?

Stan Woodward, you've got him representing Yoseal Tveris, by the way, at the time that he represented Yoseal Tveris. Yoseal Tveris got himself into a lot of trouble saying, I don't remember. Various got himself into a lot of trouble saying, I don't remember. And, you know, he didn't remember anything. All of a sudden, he gets a target letter. And Jack Smith, you know, says, look, you know, let's get him a public defender, which they did. He talks to the public defender.

He ditches Stan Woodward. And suddenly now he's cooperating with Jack Smith, testified and does remember. And he's not going with Jack Smith, testified and does remember. And he's not going to face any charges. He's now a witness, which is how it should be. But when you got the pack paid for lawyer, the Save America pack paid for lawyer Stan Woodward, his, you know, it just like, it was just like Cassidy Hutchinson, right, when she had the

Trump paid for lawyer. She said, they told her to say, just say, you don't remember. You know, they can't, they can't get you for per her to say, just say you don't remember. You know, they can't get you for perjury if you're saying you don't remember. You know, and don't jog your memory, don't look at things. And she's like, but what if I do remember, then that would be the lying? You know, so she went and got her own lawyer and then suddenly she told the truth. So that's the case here, right? You've got Mr. Tveras who had Stan Woodward who shared information with them, established an attorney

client privilege. He then gets his own lawyer co-operates with Jack Smith. So how is it possible that now Stan Woodward can represent Walt Nada because Walt Nade and you seal Tiveris and Carlos de Oliveira, all were working together to destroy evidence, move boxes, and work for the big guy, who was the one illegally possessing these things. And they were moving them from toilet room to ballroom tominster, back to Mar-a-Lago, moving these things around, and then trying to destroy the evidence, right, of the tapes showing all of this and lying about it. So how can Stan Woodward possibly represent Walt-Nada, you know, to a fullest extent, he can't use any of the

information that he got from Mr. Tveris. So there's a clear conflict there. We'll see how it goes. You know, he's going to try, I'm sure Walt Nott will say, well, all wave it. I don't care. I don't, you know, it doesn't matter to me. But I just don't see how you get around. It's not like you represented someone in a different case that might have had information.

This is the same case. How is he going to cross examine you seal Tveris? He has to cross examine him. How can you cross examine someone who you represented? You can't say, isn't it true? What if you seal Tveris says something different that he said to Stan Woodward? He can't say, isn't it true that when you were sitting

in my office, you told me that you didn't remember and now you're saying you do remember I mean it's it's just common sense shows it absolutely can't be done So that that's what's going on there. That's why Stan Woodward is is God of a self into a real pickle You really can't represent the witness or Yeah, a witness and a defendant in the same criminal case. It's just logistically impossible. And it's an actual conflict, but you've got Judge Eileen Cannon. So who the heck knows how she'll rule?

You know, because it's true. It's like, you can't even predict what anyone will do because you're in the twilight zone legal world. Don't you get the sense that on their side, they say things like this would normally work with a judge, but let's try it with Canon and see what happens. Just throw it up against the wall. Maybe she'll bite. Yeah.

You know what? Yeah. She's unpredictable is putting it, putting it nicely. One comment on what you just said that I agree with everything you just said. But one one further comment about it is what word is in trouble in my view because when another more senior federal judge, the the chief judge of the DC circuit court. So he's like, we're talking about if if I'm using baseball here in baseball analogies, if Eileen Cannon is the Miami Marlins who are playing pretty well this year, you know, this is like, you know, like pick the next

team. This is the chief judge of the DC Circuit responsible for all things grand jury. He took one look at the conflict of interest issue that you just so eloquently pointed out and said, yeah, you know what we're going to do? At least for this moment, I'm going to order that Mr. Tavaris have his own independent lawyer, not name, Stan Woodward. And that's going to be all the first chief assistant public defender for the District of Columbia. And you guys go off into another room and then you come back, Mr. Tavaris, you tell me what you want to do. And Tavaris came back in short order and said, basically two things. One, I want to fire Mr. Woodward. Okay.

And I want to keep my public defender. And secondly, everything I said in March to the grand jury was a lie. And while I was being represented by Mr. Woodward, and I'm now going to tell the truth. And he entered. Now we know he, and we thought it when we saw, super sitting indictment, you, me and Ben said, okay, you see, it's a virus has, has co operated and flipped on Donald Trump. And now we know he's got a full immunity deal and he's telling the truth because that's what you do when you realize that you've done something wrong and you got a target letter

and a target on your back. As I jumped on a hot tick today with Ben, if you want to get indicted by the government, hire Stan Woodward. If you wanna get a deal cut because you know in your heart of hearts that you're not telling the truth, don't you Stan Woodward, he's just gonna get you indicted. Because the number one person that the government really wanted, the biggest get that they really wanted at the beginning of Mar-a-Lago indictment

was named Walt Nauta. They wanted Walt Nauta. They wanted Walt Nauta. They said, this is an easy, nothing's easy, but they said, look, he's the butler. I mean, he's, how much can Trump really in terms of a relationship have with the guy? And we've got him dead to rights on video, on messages, on email, on chats. I mean, surely, he will flip. No, because his lawyer was, was Stan Woodward. Stan Woodward went to a meeting to have a discussion with Jay Bratt, the head

of counterintelligence for the Department of Justice, who's not prosecuting one of the prosecutors for the Mar-a-Lago case. And he came away with his feelings hurt. His own Stan Woodward's, his feelings were hurt. You can give a crap about his client. Oh, I didn't like the way I was treated. Jay Bratz said, mean, things to me about I wanted to be a judge one day. And why was I representing MAGA? Oh, the meantime, you just got your client indicted, right? And now we thought in the beginning,

wow, the butler did it. He really did do it. Now we've seen the video, the audio, the surveillance video. You see all Tavaris now turning on him. D'Ella Varra's next, by the way. He's next because he's the maintenance worker. And he's not represented by another Maga Pack paid lawyer,

but he's not represented at least by Woodward. And what does he have to lose? He was the maintenance worker. A maintenance worker where the government has a recorded phone call between him and the former leader of the free world for 24 minutes. As I joke before, it's the longest recorded phone call in the history of the world between a former president and a maintenance worker. And so he is in deep water.

So if anybody else is going to flip, it's going to be that guy. And then this is over. I don't care who the judge is, right? The judge could be judged. It could be Captain Kangaroo. I don't care. The federal court will could will affirm a, a, if a jury, if a jury finally finds against Donald Trump. But at this at this rate, I want to get your view on this one as a prosecutor. I think Mar-a-Lago has fallen to a distant third in the horse race. Not only because where the trial is going to happen, but in terms of importance to democracy in our justice system.

I see Jack Smith's case, the elegant surgical, one defendant, four counts trial coming up. We'll talk about it next about trial dates. one defendant, four counts, trial coming up, we'll talk about it next, about trial dates, and important stuff, all about Jan 6, the clinging to power, everything we learned about from the Jan 6 committee, the six links to the chain, the pressure on Mike Pence, the fake electors, the fake lawsuits, the pressure on election officials

and elected officials. This matters in the history books that we bring him to justice for that. Mar-a-Lago for me is like a cherry on top. Okay, we got him. We got him with his hands in the cookie jar. That's great. Let's get back to Gen 6th. And then Foni Willis, who I think bought herself, as you've said in the past, a non-2024

trial because of 19 monkeys at a barrel that she's got to have to try to coordinate unless this thing just goes like, can cheese bro wants it? I want to do it by fall and we'll go from there. Where do you think Mar-a-Lago sort of fits in and then we're going to we're going to eventually get over to our last topic tonight? I think that Jan 6, you know, there's always a little slippage to the dates, right?

So I think January 6 is going to push things as, you know, to a place where that might be, other than Ken Cheesebro and a few others with their speedy trial, now that Fanny Willis is in that situation. I think it's really gonna be the Jan 6, Jack Smith case. I think Mar-a-Lago, I mean, hopefully that ends in a conviction, right? So I don't know that Mar-a-Lago goes right after that.

We'll see. You know, I think you're 100% right, though. I think, and I think Jack Smith did it in a way, you know, four counts, one defendant, and he's ready to go. So for that reason, it's almost like Mar-a-Lago was a stocking horse for him, right? Let's just, you know, it's almost like a faked. Let's get Donald Trump distracted down in Florida about documents while I build my case behind him, this giant shark of a case, and case and right and launch it on him back in DC on home turf for the

Department of Justice and I use the fulcrum between Mara Lago and DC to my advantage as I whip saw the defendant between it, right? Isn't that starting to look like what's going on there with Jack Smith when everybody was all upset Karen for why did he go to the Southern District of Florida? He knew he could have gotten canon, canon, canon, I don't know why I'm using that voice for that, but in any event, now when you look at it, right, isn't he like, isn't he like the Yoda genius that's even above our thinking? We were looking at it like piecemeal, like, oh, this is an interesting piece. Let's spend an entire hot take on that. When he's got the grander 30,000 foot level, I'm gonna send all the troops down here,

but I'm gonna come around the back and I'm gonna attack him from there where he's most vulnerable. I mean, like, if he hadn't pulled Judge Cannon, right? Mara Lago is such a straightforward case, you know, it really is. It's, it's, so I think, I think he had contingencies, right? He knew, as you said, he had the whole view, he knew the whole picture. So he's got this case, if he pulls a good judge who, you know, that case could have gone

very quickly. It's very straightforward. But he pulled canon. And so now he's just like, okay, so I'll supersede. That case is not going anywhere anyway anytime soon. And I'll focus on my other case. So he's walking in chewing gum at the same time. Yeah.

So let's speaking of walking in chewing gum, Judge Chuckkin down it up, I keep saying down, it's down from me, up from Florida in DC, federal judge Chuckkin, who I was super impressed with back when she was sentencing regular old Jan six insurrectionists. And I always thought she was on the short list for Joe Biden, if you ever got another Supreme court pick, I liked her a lot.

With Ben and I were in you and I were reporting about her role there, and when she got picked, but to see her in action and compare her to Judge Cannon. I mean, Judge Cannon just does, just pales by comparison. But we're going to talk about Judge Chutkin and what's going on as we round out this edition of Legal AF. Might as such network is is gonna try to do something about the debate. We're gonna try to wrap this up so people can go watch

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Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and manage your money the easy way by going to rocket money.com slash legal AF. That's rocket money.com slash legal AF rocket money.com slash legal AF. Here we are rocket money.com slash legal AF. And now back to the show back to the show. Let's talk about judge Chuck and and particularly let's talk about where we are in the trial setting. We have a hearing coming up. It's really coming up.

It's coming up in five days before Judge Chutkin, and there's going to be a number of things I can project, I don't know if I can predict, but I can project that I think are going to happen. One of them is the government, if they don't do a filing before it's coming up about the comments, social media and otherwise, by Donald Trump and his proxies, ever since if you go after me, I'm coming after you, even since then, including the grand jury being doxed in in Fulton County, Georgia, other comments and retweets and tweets or whatever it's called on his platform. Donald Trump has done against Chuckkin, saying it's obvious that she wants to do election interference and all this other stuff. He always gets it wrong, by the way, just to correct him.

It wasn't Fony Willis that campaign to bring him down. him. It wasn't Fanny Willis that campaigned to bring him down. It was Latisha James, the New York attorney general who campaigned to bring him down. It wasn't Alvin Bragg. I know it's hard. Like you said, at the top of the show half kidding, it's hard to keep track of all this stuff for Donald Trump. I hope I get it right. It's hard for Donald Trump to keep track of all the people that are his prosecutors and attorney generals. And I think he purposely doesn't get it right for obvious reasons. So the only one that ran and was asked during a debate about what she would do was let Tisha James.

Funny Willis was, Jansick's hadn't even happened yet when she got on. She was already in the office working in another capacity. And Alvin Bragg never said it. Okay. I was at most or saw most of those debates and Karen, you and I had a friend that was also running for that office. So we were paying attention to that election. So now we've got Judge Chuck.

One thing I think, as I started to say, I think she's going to discuss is have the conditions of release been violated. And now you've got this balancing act that all the judges are going to have to do is you set as you set the mood for this issue at the top of the podcast, Karen, about what do we do with the first amendment rights slash guy running for office? But yet he, if he was any other common criminal or criminally criminal defendant, he would have already been found to have violated these things. You're not allowed to try to, you're not allowed to attack the prosecutor. You're not allowed to attack witnesses. You're not allowed to attack the grand jury.

You're not allowed to attack judges or their families in the, in normal cases. In fact, that would violate the conditions of your release. But you can see they're all like straining to strike the appropriate balance from judge Mershant, a judge, Chuckkin, Canada doesn't really care at all. And now Judge McAfee, a Georgia, the State Court judge, who's similarly following the lead because history is prologue, he got to see the orders of the other judges,

what Judge Mershond did, what Judge Chutkin did, and he emulated and copied that consistent with Georgia law. And so somebody's gonna have to say something about it. And I think it comes up on the 28th with Judge Chutkin about whether she's found it offensive or relative of anything that he said that he's crossed those lines that she established established for the proper administration of justice, which she says is her only concern wearing the black robe and not what he does during his day job of running for office and certainly not the fact that he's the former president of the United States. So they got that going on. He is worried.

For those that think he's not worried, he'll say and do anything. He does say outrageous things to try to get a rise out of the body politic and his people that he sees as his tormentors. But he purposely is not participating in the debate. This is my papakian logic because he is listening to his lawyers at least in one context. He is worried that the other people on that stage who don't care about his liberty or his ability to avoid jail time will catch him and put him into a situation where he has the comment about one or all of the criminal cases in a way that comment about one or all of the

criminal cases in a way that would only strengthen the hand of the prosecutors. And he's worried. He thinks that there is a missing piece or two, for instance, in Jack Smith's establishing criminal intent or mens rea. And he doesn't want to give him any other puzzle pieces to fit in there that could happen in a freewheeling to bait where he's got nine people that want his job or want the job of Joe Biden, you know, trying to walk him into a jackpot problem. The reason I believe that is he was all bluster about,

oh, not only am I going to go down to Fulton County jail and take my mokeshot, I'm going to do a press conference and continue to double down on why there is fraud in the election in Georgia. And then suddenly it was canceled because anything that he says now, people think it doesn't matter. It does. It becomes new evidence for prosecutors. It gets brought into the case either because it violates those conditions of bond and release that we've talked about at length here on legal AF, or it is new evidence corroborating evidence or new crime committed

by Donald Trump. And now he's got, you know, four major sharks in the water who were going after him at high speed. And he's swimming alone out there, right? You've got, you've got Jack Smith, you've got Fanny Willis, you've got Alvin Bragg and then, and then bring it up the other side on the civil side that could, that could wreck his whole financial empire is Latisha James, the New York Attorney General. So people think, no, he doesn't care about these things. He does. He saw Weiselberg, his longtime CFO, so long time that it was his father's CFO, chief financial officer. And he saw what he looked like when they carted him off

in an orange jumpsuit to Rikers Island. And somewhere, even if it's microscopic somewhere in the transum of Donald Trump's mind, he believes there's a chance one or more of these are going to be successful. And so he talks to Hill, he'll see what he can get away with like a child on this, you know, burning his hand on the stove, but he's not going to go so he's not so crazy that he's going to go to bait and give fodder to the prosecutors. What do you think about that theory, Karen? I think you give him so much more credit than I would ever give him. I think he doesn't go to the debate because he's kind of coward. He thinks, oh, I'm winning. I don't have to show up.

He doesn't want to answer tough questions. And he knows he's going to be the star of the debate, whether he shows up or not. Everyone's going to talk about him the entire time. You know, every question that he's going to be the most talked about person tonight by every single person on there. So why go? Because what if he's not that smart, right?

He looks kind of, when I hear him talk, I think he sounds ridiculous. And so why get up there? He's already in his mind. He's the front runner. So why say something stupid and have your numbers go down from there? He knows they're just going to eat each other alive and just talk about him.

And so there's just no reason for him to go in. Yes, of course, there's also the issues he could say something that could hurt him. But I don't think he thinks like that. He, to him, he thinks he thinks he can say anything and get away with it. So I think he makes, he's making some kind of calculation that it's just not, you know, he's going to say, I don't need, I'm winning. I don't even need to do something as stupid as that debate.

So anyway, but speaking of the debate, I think people might want to go watch it. So, you know, we might want to just stay tuned for August 28th when Judge Chuckkin gives us her trial date. When she tells us whether she's going to do the January 2nd, 2024 date that Jack Smith has asked for, or the April, April 2026 which is two years from then Which is basically never Is that gonna be the date, you know or something in between and so I think we'll get some answers then that's that's what I'm waiting for is is that hearing Yeah, I'd like people to go watch it, but we also have a podcast to put on so we're gonna

We're gonna gonna get to you to talk a little bit more about it. Yeah, listen, I, I, you and I sometimes agree, no, I reverse that. We often agree. We sometimes disagree. The only reason I, your point is well made. He definitely doesn't want to do the debate because he doesn't have to. When you're 40 points up, nothing says,

I don't need to go do a debate like that. In fact, I don't think Joe Biden should debate Donald Trump either because I think he's forfeited the right Donald Trump to be on the same stage with Joe Biden being a four times indicted, twice impeached, once a judge sexual assault victim, a assault sexual assault tormenter against a victim. I don't think he has any place on a debate stage. And I wouldn't fault Joe Biden for saying, you know what, the last time he came on the debate stage

to try to kill me with COVID. And I'm not gonna give you that. And people can make or very limited town hall. I don't talk to you. You stand across the way, and it's in a really neutral territory. I think he's fortunate to even be. The way he's tormenting

the RNC about I don't want to debate and you got to make a commitment and this and that. I think Joe Biden says, you know what? I don't want to debate you either. How about that? Have we let the American people decide after my four years in office and your four years in office and your four years not in office and let them make the decision there? I don't think anybody would fault Joe Biden for saying that. It's not the, yes, the child inside me would like to see that debate. But in terms of like what's best for the country, what's best for Joe Biden in democracy, I'd say screw it, you forfeited. I don't want to see your ugly ass on there.

But he did cancel the press conference as well. Somewhere in the back of his mind, his lawyers, at least, are concerned about a free-for-all at a debate and what it means for the prosecutions, because if he was just worried about elected or not getting elected, we wouldn't have a show. We wouldn't be talking about criminal prosecutions. But I don't want to underestimate him either. I mean, to make him into a cartoonish buffoon, which I'd love to do, is to underestimate his ability. This is a guy that ran reasonably successful, middleing real estate firm in New York, was a reasonable successful talk show host slash celebrity apprentice, whatever that thing was

supposed to be. And then everybody thought he couldn't become president of the United States. Not only one, but there's a fair amount of people in this country that thinks he should get in again. So, uh, when you think of the argument, my cup of tea, but,'s a fair amount of people in this country that thinks he should get in again. So, uh, when you think of the argument, my cup of tea, but, you know, he's not done too badly for a guy, you know, from Queens. Well, what, what do you, what do you think of the argument that he's not caught that he's disqualified or not caught?

He, he, he can no longer run because of the 14th Amendment section. Right. With it. I did a whole hot, I did a whole hot take on the two Federalist Society constitutional law professors who have written at 150 page law review article for the University of Pennsylvania law review arguing right now without having self-executing,

without Congress doing a darn thing, he is already disqualified, we're just waiting for the petition to remove him from the ballot because what he did is an insurrection and a rebellion against the Republic. And, and, and the good news is they've taken the position. He doesn't have to be convicted of insurrection, which is good because nobody's charging him with the crime of insurrection. But doesn't have to be convicted of something because you're innocent until proven guilty.

That's my only question. How can you? Well, well, I'll do it the other way. He doesn't have to be convicted of seditious conspiracy or insurrection. I think that as of right now, the evidence and the way the 14th, we can get the 14th amendment up there quickly. The way the 14th Amendment is written, I'm not sure he has to be convicted, although that was a position that I know Georgia took when they were trying to get rid of Marjorie Taylor-Green. I think if he gets convicted of any of these crimes,

he is off the ballot. Their big argument was, there's not another process. You don't have to go to Congress. Congress doesn't have to impeach and convict them, which is good because we'll never get that to happen. And it can just be, he did the bad thing. The bad thing is in the Constitution for you now being disqualified,

and that's a disqualifying event, and you're off. But I think you're right, without grabbing the 14th quickly, he's got to be convicted of something. But the good news is, I don't think that something has to technically be rebellion. No, but there has to be a finding, right? You can't just, in other words, someone has to, there has to be some kind of finding that he did something. Well, the Jan 6th Committee made a finding. Yeah, that may be that counts. I mean, but here, well, you know, why, why jerk around? We've got a second. I'm not concerned about the debate. Those that want to go to the debate and watch us later

You only reason by the way the only reason I'm going to watch the debate is because I think you know as commentators as people who You know comment on on all of the things that are going on Regarding this I think it's important that we can at least fight back some of the lies that will be that will be said I'm not telling people not to watch it I'm just not cutting our shows our shows short because of it because our show lives on forever in in podcast world article 14 14th Amendment article three does not require a conviction as as I go it says as an officer of the United States they can't hold office if they've engaged engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same or given aid and comfort to

the enemies thereof. That's not a criminal conviction beyond a reasonable doubt standard. That is a they have engaged. And I think nine sessions of the Gen 6 committee and all of the evidence already presented. And I think this is the what the two constitutional law professors said. It's already established that he has engaged. And now it's up for a judge with the evidence that's been presented to take him off the ballot based on an application of the 14th Amendment.

The judge in Georgia that was dealing with Marjorie Taylor Greenback, wasn't that cute when they were trying to get rid of her? And this local judge that was like, I don't know, like a zoning official, he was like some municipal judge was dealing with the issue of the ballots. And he said, no, I think she's got to be convicted of something. That's not what the 14th Amendment says. And the good news about the two constitutional law professors who are writing for the UPEN law review

is that that will then, because that is two Federalist society guys. One of them is just like all his entire expertise is on the 14th Amendment. You can make an entire career in academia on this. And I went on his websites for both the professors. This will now be cited, good and bad by judges, in briefs all the way up to the US Supreme Court. These aren't two crackpots. These aren't two Democrats. These aren't two liberal regressives. bad by judges in briefs all the way up to the US Supreme Court.

These aren't two crackpots. These aren't two Democrats. These aren't two liberal progressives. These are two conservative federalist society. I'm sure they voted for Trump the first time around law professors who said it's, I mean, they spent 128 pages explaining it or whatever it was, but they're like, it's a no-brainer. He committed it. You don't go to Congress.

It's self-actuating. He's off the ballot. He should be off the ballot. And now it's a no-brainer. He committed it. You don't go to Congress, it's self-actuating, he's off the ballot. He should be off the ballot. And now it's gonna be up to somebody to test it. So somebody was standing, which I think is anybody in the general electorate, is gonna be able to like bring an action when he's on a ballot, right now he's not on a ballot.

Right now he is not even a nominee yet. He's gonna have to go through a primary system, but right at the moment when before they're printing the ballots, and he wins all the delegates because all these other sleepy, dopey, grumpy, whatever is running against him, like last time, lose, and he is the nominee, the presumptive nominee, then you bring the 14th Amendment Article 3

and we have a fight over that. By that time, maybe Jack Smith's case has already gone through. Now, if he doesn't get convicted of these things, he'll point to that as being see, I wasn't an insurrectionist and a rebellion person. I was, I was absolved of that. But, you know, I don't think it's, let me put it this way to answer your question. I don't think it's an academic debate. I think it's an important turn of events. The war has turned against Donald Trump where he's now lost federalist society,

right wing conservative scholars and constitutional law on the 14th Amendment Article III issue. And that's not a good place for him to be because if his brain trust on the legal side is to paraphrase a number of the other Coke and spirit doors, team crackpot, team crazy, Sydney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Ken cheese, bro, and the rest versus these guys, they're done. They're dead. They're baked, but a fork in it. Yeah, yeah, you're right. I just think there has to be,

no, no, I just like, just, I just think there has to be some kind of, you know, maybe it's, maybe the indictment counts, maybe the Jan 6th committee, you know, it has to be some kind of finding or accusation or, you know, you can't, you know,

otherwise, how do you establish the fact that he did, you know, that he gave aid or comfort or engaged in, right? Like, how do you, how do you establish that? But the framers didn't say convicted of the crime of seditious conspiracy. But they left it open on purpose. And if the originalists, which are the majority of the US Supreme Court who believe you go back in time at a time machine and put yourself inside the head of the framers of the

Constitution in the 1780s and 1790s, and that's what it means. Okay, the two guys that just wrote the law review article, they're originalists, and they did a textual analysis and their takeaway, which I'm kind of remembering here as we go along, their takeaway is engage in a rebellion. Purposely does not include the words convicted with beyond a reasonable doubt and due process under our constitution. So maybe they wanted to write those words, they would have written them in. Yeah, so maybe it doesn't require conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, but there has to be some finding that he engaged.

You know, the framers also didn't believe women had a right to vote. So, you know, I'm not 100%. Well, they also believed in slavery, but if we go there, I'm just saying, you know, I think it's a Gen 6 committee. I think that's what the article kinda relies on

because they're willing to say it now based on the evidence that's already been presented. It's not like we can bury our head in the sand and act like there was no evidence that was the vote. That's true. There were a thousand witnesses that testified for the Gen 6 committee. Under. There is terabytes under oath.

There's terabytes in terror. Now, he didn't get the due process. He didn't get, I mean, he was invited to make presentations, Donald Trump and his lawyers, but they decided, along with the Republicans to take the ball and go home, not understanding that there was still a game to be played without them. But, um, yeah. I think, I think thinking it through, I think a secretary of state could say, I find based on the Jan 6 committee that Donald Trump engaged in XYZ.

And so therefore I'm removing from the ballot. That's all I'm saying is the question. I like that. Yeah, we're saying the same thing. We're just saying I just want to get people out of the head of, it's got to be a conviction. We're just sort of where we started. But I like what you just said. I think the Secretary of State of an individual state, who's responsible as an election official

for printing a ballot would be the one I've seen enough. And I and I and then have the challenge go up to the US Supreme Court and we'll finally figure out with this Maga right wing Supreme Court what they're going to do with article for the 14th Amendment article three. But I love this debate. We could keep going our debate all night long, but we're not going to we're gonna try to wrap it up here Thanks for watching legal a f with Karen Friedman Ignifalo and Michael Popeok again There's only one great way to support us if you like what we're doing go on to the mightest Dutch YouTube channel free

Subscribe there get them to two million maybe you're the one that gets them to two million free subscribers and then Listen to us on audio that'll drop in about five hours all around the world. And then follow our hot takes that Ben, Karen and I do throughout the week, throughout the day on cutting edge issues to keep you informed between hot takes. As I say on my hot takes. Now, you like hot takes. You're going to love our legal AF podcast because I love it. And I love being with you Karen every Wednesday and Saturday I'm gonna be on with Ben. My Salis as well.

Karen, last word. I'm gonna go ask the debate. Okay, that's a good last word. Good night everybody. So long Legal AFers, shout out to the Midas Buddy. you