Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Keeps LOSING and Fox FOLDS

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

The midweek edition of 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 special midweek’s edition, anchors national trial attorney Michael Popok and former top Manhattan DA prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo discuss: 1. Fox’s settlement during trial for $787.5 million dollars in Dominion Voting System’s defamation case and what it means for the Smartmatic $2.6 billion dollar defamation case against Fox in New York; 2. The Federal court hearing on Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s preemptive injunctive suit to stop further interference by the right wing MAGA House committee and Jim Jordan into the Trump prosecution and attempts to have a former special prosecutor testify before Congress about the case; 3. Updates in the E. Jean Carroll civil rape/defamation trial against Trump that begins in 6 days in a New York Federal courtroom; and 4. Fulton County DA Fani Willis’ revelation this week that some of the “fake electors” are cooperating with her office as she moves toward her charging decision against Trump, the fake electors, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani and others, with a new regular grand jury to start in May, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! NEUROHACKER: Go to https://neurohacker.com/LEGALAF for $100 OFF, that’s only $39 a bottle and use code LEGALAF at checkout for an extra 15% off your first purchase. MIRACLE MADE: Head to https://TRYMIRACLE.COM/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop 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 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 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alvin Bragg versus Jim Jordan in Congress to stop interference and obstruction of New York State criminal investigations and prosecution of Trump has now returned to court for a hearing today. And the judge in getting prepared accepted briefing from various friends of the court, including former members of Congress and former prosecutors and our very own resident Manhattan District Attorney Count Friedman-Inippalo was part of that briefing. Life is an imitating art. It is art with Karen's filing and we'll talk through it today. Then we're only six stays away from a Manhattan federal jury being picked to try the civil

rape and defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll versus Donald Trump. The Trump, the judge having denied not one, but two separate attempts by Trump's lawyer team to delay the trial up to 30 days. We will tell you why the judge denied these motions and why it may spell trouble for Donald Trump as we await the decision by tomorrow as to whether he appears at all at the trial. And then we thought we were going to talk about the first day of trial of the $1.6 billion $1.6 billion defamation case in Delaware Superior Court brought by Dominion Voting against

Fox Court, news, Merdoch, all the on air people, etc. But Rupert being Rupert and always settling cases like this as a cost of doing business and a toll on the road of his business model, settled for a record $787.5 million about half of the demand. What does it mean for Fox and Dominion? And what does it mean for the several other cases against Fox, including an almost identical one brought by smartmatic seeking $2.7 billion in New York State Court. And finally, we update you on the developments in the Fony-Willis Fulton County DA case against Trump, Meadows, Lindsey Graham, Giuliani, and at least

16 fake electors, with her first filing in court since her now infamous almost mean like announcement of indictments are imminent. What does it mean for the pace of the charging decision with a regular grand jury being seated in Fulton County in May? And why is Fulton will as seeking to disqualify 10 of the fake electors attorneys based on a conflict and what it may say about cooperating witnesses and immunity deals? We cover all this and so much more on this week's midweek edition of Legal AF on the Midas Touch Network, the top rated law and politics podcast with your hosts, Karen Friedman,

Nifalo, and Michael Pope-Pock. I, Karen. Hi. How are you? I'm doing great. We are up to the minute today. We're following closely the hearing on the Alvin Bragg, Manhattan DA versus Jim Jordan head of the House Judiciary Committee with a federal judge in the Southern District of New York sitting in between a Trump appointee.

Our co-anchor, Ben Mysalis on the weekend said, oh, it's a Trumpor. Oh, that's going to be a loss for Alvin Bragg. I held out some hope about whether just based on the law and the constitutional issues of federalism and sovereignty of states, especially in the areas of local crime and prosecution, that it would turn out in favor of Alvin Bragg, but we'll report at the end about what happened today at the hearing and your participation. My eyes almost popped out of my head when I looked at the docket sheet to get ready to record and there among many of the filings in the case was one Karen Friedman-Ignifalo in a group of other former prosecutors and others and elected officials filing a friend of the court brief in favor of Alvin Bragg's position, that the court ultimately

accept and we'll talk about all of that. The Anna Carroll gives the insider scoop on not just reporting on legal and political developments, but being part of them, it's like the zealog of this case gets the report from actually participating in that process. Isn't that great? Let's kick it off with what's on everybody's mind and in Fox News's Fox Corporation settlement. Yesterday, this is record setting, $787.5 million that they paid to Dominion, not on the courthouse steps, not the day before, not the 11th hour, but during the trial, they had already picked the jury. They were ready for opening statements.

The jury was told there was a break in the action the day before and that they weren't told why and that they would come back and have the case tried on Tuesday. We all thought, oh, settlement, settlement. But no, the judge said, oh, you're not ready to settle. I've been in this situation before. Judge said, okay, you got a settlement to announce. You don't have a settlement announced. I got a jury. And this jury is trying to case.

So let's go opening statements. And I guess they went back out in the room and struck the deal at almost $0.50 on the dollar. Let's talk about, we frame it and turn it over to you about the development. We've got the Fox was already in the hole. And if you're using baseball analogies in the middle of baseball season starting, they had two strikes against them and a third one halfway to the plate before they even started trial because the judge had already ruled that two out of the three elements to prove defamation had already been proved in favor of dominion voting systems

falsity of everything that was said about them on television accusing them of being in bed with the Venezuelans and Chavez and in a mass conspiracy to steal an election using corrupted software created by Smartmatic loaded into their voting systems and vote tabulation being done offshore in secret locations so that there be no audit trail then returned to the United States. If this sounds fantastical and totally imaginary, It's because it all is. It was made up by Giuliani and by a Sydney Powell

on shows like Maria Bartolomos and Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro's and different places. And they just bashed mercilessly, both Dominion and Smartmatic and a poor Venezuelan business person who had nothing to do with it at all, but they made the mastermind of it all. And so three lawsuits broke out, well in business person who had nothing to do with it at all, but they made the mastermind of it all. And so three lawsuits broke out.

$1.6 billion, one filed by Dominion in Delaware, because Fox Corp's a Delaware corporation, a $2.7 billion defamation case brought by Smartmatic in New York State Supreme Court, and a $250 million case brought by in the federal court, covering all the courts here, three different courts, two different systems in federal court brought by the Venezuelan business person for $250 million. If you're looking for a canary in the coal mine, that case was settled by Fox two weeks ago. We don't know for how much, but based on the math that we're seeing here in Dominion, you got to figure it was about $75 to $100 million to the Venezuelan business person.

So that all came out of all of this lies that the judge in Delaware ruled were lies. He also ruled before trial even started that Fox News and Fox Corp are responsible for publication transmitting this information to a third party. That's the second element of defamation. So the only thing for the jury to do is determine if there's damages and how much. Okay. So it's basically almost a damage, not a liability case. And you can take a look at Fox's defense of there's no actual malice, a constitutional

principle that where the plaintiff in this kind of case has to prove that the other party either false knew that what they were saying was false for all these things or recklessly disregarded whether they were true or false. And the judge says, I saw a lot of the evidence already. That's a pretty close call. I think it's against you, Fox, but I'm going to let the jury decide. So Fox knew all of that and all these bad rulings before they even went into trial. So the fact that they tried to get a settlement going and Rupert Murdoch having settled every

major case like this for hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in the past, both here and in the UK, it came as no shock. We're disappointed, but it came as no shock that he wasn't gonna let Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Jeanine Piro, Maria Barteromo, and all of his crown jewels of his network, right? Get embarrassed in Delaware, in real time, in a courtroom under oath in front of a jury, and four billion people watching at home.

So, Karen, tell me about your takeaway from the settlement and what it means to the next case, which is right next to it, in smart, mad, seeking $2.7 billion. Yeah, so, you know, the settlement is quite large, right? It's three quarters of a billion dollars and that's a lot of money in a civil case to receive, especially because this isn't one of those verdicts that you get against

somebody knowing you'll never collect that amount, you know, that you're just sending a message. Fox is going to have to pony up this kind of money and they have this kind of money. So, you're going to expect Dominion to receive a lot of money. And they have this kind of money. So we're going to expect Dominion to receive a lot of money here. Dominion's lawyers were very positive and came out and gave a press conference and went on various television shows saying that they were seeking two things from this lawsuit, which is vindication and accountability, and they feel that's what they got. They feel they got vindication and accountability. And so I think that many people expressed frustration with the settlement because it's just money. It's not a vindication in the sense of a jury saying,

you knew it was false and you did it anyway. Or it's not any kind of admission by them or a retraction. A lot of people said we wanted an apology because it's allegedly a news organization. I do think a retraction would have been appropriate and certainly worth a Few million dollars to insist on that Because really Fox is not going to report on this right?

They're not going to say this and they gave kind of a foe or fake admission That I wouldn't even call admission where they said something that we acknowledge that what the court found was correct that certain claims turned out to be false. Now, that's not an admission. I think to call that an admission is ridiculous. And I understand why many people were frustrated that Dominion didn't insist on Fox having to say it was false. We knew it was false, we knew it was false, and we're sorry, or we retract what we said.

And a lot of people were very upset by that, but I think we have to remember that civil cases are by and large about money. And they're not about things like getting apologies. And, they're not about things like getting apologies. And frankly, an apology I think could have been viewed as hollow and something they had to do. That's why I think a retraction would have been really powerful. But the plaintiffs who brought this suit felt that they got the vindication that they wanted, that now they have this quasi-acknowledgement on the part of Fox, and they obviously have a lot of money that they wanted, and that they feel that was accountability. And they're the ones who brought this case. And frankly, the fact that this was a 12-hour settlement means that we got to see Some of the things that we're going to come out of trial, right? We got to peek underneath the hood

Some of the really bad facts already came out in these motions To dismiss right in these summary judgment motions where the judge found for the the two of the three elements you were talking about In a defamation case. And so we got to see a lot of those facts. So I think that's been pretty good. I also read this morning that the, if you remember, Popok that the judge was frustrated with Fox and sanctioned them, saying there was going to be a monitor, a point did a special monitor or a master for withholding evidence in the case. I read that that was also part of the settlement was the judge is no longer going to impose those

sanctions or that monitor. So Fox got away with a lot here. They behaved badly. They deserved to be sanctioned, frankly. And in some ways, there are a lot of people who are saying, but this is such an unprecedented number that this is accountability and vindication. It's hard for someone like me to, who doesn't have a background in civil cases as to whether this is a lot of money to someone like Fox or not. So I don't have that gut or that gauge. It does feel a little frustrating like we wanted more.

But there are six more lawsuits that are left. There were seven total, right? And so I do think that this will, that this is a to-be continued. And, you know, look, the other thing that the lawyers were saying in this case is that, you know, trials, as you and I both know, they're uncertain, right? And there is a level of uncertainty at a trial, and this brings certainty and closure for them. So, and that was worth it to them. Yeah, as I said before, the old trial lawyer adage, I've lived by a my career, which is,

I've won cases I was supposed to lose, and I've lost cases I thought I would win. And that has to be going on in the minds. From a dominion standpoint, the apology was really for the American people. They don't need it because 787.5 million dollars is a giant rehabilitation of their professional reputation in the eyes of everyone. They're not out of business. They were going concern when they were mercilessly bashed

by Fox and they're continuing to be one. They're in the business of securing safe and fair elections through their technology. And now they can safely say, I mean, to anybody that didn't follow the news, be hard to miss it, unless you're watching Fox News, which really didn't follow its own, its own settlement. I don't know, I have a little point, right? That's the whole point. But if you watch anywhere else, if you're a municipality or a secretary of state and

you're deciding on equipment, you know that Dominion prevailed. And so they've got their apology. And I think it became I wasn't an insider on this at all, but I've been involved with similar discussions and sometimes it literally becomes You can have more money or you can have the apology, but you can't have both We're not going to give you the apology if you want the dollar amount that you want if you want to take less We may give you the apology and it becomes like this trade off of economic versus non economic settlement terms that sometimes goes on. It seems unsavory to be talking about it, but that's what happens.

They'll be like, right, we're going to give you $500 million if you want the apology. And though, we'll take the seven, we'll take the seven 87, which is what happens. This is not unusual for Rupert Murdoch. And I want to talk about smartmatic just for a moment, because I'm developing a hot take, which will be going up soon on this very issue. If anyone has followed the history of Rupert Murdoch, this is par for the course. This is not going, this settlement is not going to change the culture of Fox News anymore than the $50 million he paid to Gretchen Carlson and the other honor personalities for gender discrimination or the another $100

million that he paid to clean up Fox News and all of its gender and paid disparities issues or the $500 million that one of his subsidiaries paid to a competitor in the supermarket coupon business of all things during coupon wars in which they settled for $500 million in 2010 or the $100 million that he paid in his newspaper in the UK as part of the phone hacking scandal where they hacked members of parliament, members of the royal family, celebrities, um, uh, war, uh, soldiers who died in the war and their loved ones, phones were all hacked, voicemails were all hacked in order to put it into that newspaper. And he ended up not only paying the hundred million dollars when 100 million was a lot of money back in 2010, but he also, to remind people that succession is based on the Rupert Murdoch family.

He also threw his son James under the bus and blamed him for the phone hacking scandal. And so he no longer was going to be the person taking over for Rupert Murdoch and shut down 170 year old newspaper that he had bought as part of the scandal. So 100,500,100,787 million. This is all par for the course. It does not change his business behavior. He gets away with it time and time again, because the engine of his company generates so much cash that they can pay to be bad actors. And unless these other lawsuits bring them to their knees, because yes, you're right, Karen, they have $4 billion in cash and warrants sitting in their treasury, now minus $787 million. But that quickly will be dissipated if not only you have a smart mad at case, which is

not only not in the same courtroom, it's not even on the same track as the minion was, because the minion filed in Delaware, they got the benefit of moving really, really quickly in under two years from beginning discovery to trial. That doesn't happen as you don't care in New York State Supreme Court. It's not happening. So the smart mad at case that was filed for $2.7 billion on almost the exact same facts, almost the exact same emails, the same clips on television, the same personalities, the same arguments, the same conspiracy, all the same.

The only difference is it's sitting before Judge Cohen in the New York State Superior Court and has to go Supreme Court and has to go through the appeal process there. So all of those people that I just named, including Sydney Powell and Jeanine Pirro and Barnaromo and Fox News and Fox Corp, all filed motions to dismiss that were denied in March. That's where they are. They're only in the pleading stage in New York, but the judge in an 81 page decision there, Judge Cohen, did basically say, I think the jury could find actual malice. I think there's a substantial set of

allegations and claims here. I denied a motion to dismiss. He only let Cindy Powell out because of personal jurisdiction, whether whether New York was the right state to sue her in. Everybody else now has, and the appeal is over, now has the answer that suit, discovery will start just like the discovery, the exchange of information depositions and documents that happen in Delaware with Dominion or Fox says, all right, the going rate is 50 cents in the dollar. We'll offer you, you know, $900 million, $850 million to go away. Because I don't see the benefit of them having Dominion case chapter two in all of the newspapers with all the audio and all the video and all the emails and attacking these.

If he's trying to protect the brand, let's think like Rupert for a minute. If you're trying to protect the brand and you think the crown jewels, if your brand are your on air people at Tucker and Hannity and Lame Graham, Barnaromo, then you don't want them attacked a second time and diminish the brand in the New York state case. I think we'll see in the next six months a settlement in Smartmatic as well. But if there's not, it'll be 23 and 24 for discovery. We may not get a trial till 24 or 25. That's how slow things move in New York.

And then the one that we haven't talked about, I want to talk about it with you, Karen, is, what do you think about, this is a public company, Fox News, FoxCorp. There are shareholders who could allege securities fraud and class action fraud and go after management, executives, and boards of director and the board of directors of Fox News and seek another huge sum of money

in another Delaware case. What do you think about that? Yeah, but you kind of have proven my point or slash answered my question, which is 787 million. Really, it doesn't make a big difference to them. This is part of their business model. So if there's a class action suit with the shareholders, I think if this is the business model and they made the calculus that they're going to make more money by promoting these

lies on the air, you know, and that they can afford, because, you know, one of the things that was alleged, and that was basically shown with all the information that we got in the Dominion case, was this was a calculus on there, a part of business decision to say, our business, we're going to lose, if we don't say these things, we're going to lose our audience. And so I think in some ways, they will argue we had a fiduciary duty to our shareholders to do this way, because we made more money by doing this and paying this settlement as the cost of doing business, which I think is why this is so frustrating and why, because the money isn't going to change their business model, as you said, one bit.

So that's why a retraction, not an apology, because an apology, you know, it's like, when you tell a little kid, you know, go tell someone, so you were sorry, and they begrudgingly say they're sorry, because mommy told me so when everyone knows they don't mean it. Everyone would know Fox doesn't mean, I'm sorry.

You know, what even is that? That's like a sentimental nothing. You want them to retract this. You want them to come out and say, this not only was not true, we knew it wasn't true, but we said it anyway. That's what they should have had been forced to do. And say, if I was the judge, I would have said, you want me to take away this monitor and this sanction, then I want an under-o-statement from you on the record that says those things, because this is outrageous.

Yeah, well, the judge would, yeah, I get you. I get the visceral reaction of that. I just don't think the judge has the power to do that. He has inherent authority, but I don't think that matches the discovery abuse that he observed. But for people that wanted that to happen, first of all, I want to note or compliment you, you probably don't know this. I was doing it for the research for the hot tech,

but that statement you just made about it's our fiduciary duty to settle based on the facts as they're being outlined. It's almost identical to the press release that Fox put out when the coupon cutting company, the coupon creating company settled for $500 million. They said almost exactly that. Based on some pretrial decisions of the court, it was obvious that we have a fiduciary

duty to settle kind of skipping over the all bad behavior and bad conduct. While I don't think the judge would be able to do it, and certainly putting the plaintiff in the position of having to police fox is a very difficult place to be, as you said, it's binary. They either win their case and get a big check or they don't. There's not a lot of other things that a plaintiff can do in a civil case. Unless you're like the Department of Justice, forget the FEC, the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, their FACLIST, they don't have a lot of power, they're not able to take everyone's, take Fox's license away, it's very, very difficult.

They can investigate, but it's very difficult to take licenses away. The Department of Justice Civil Division could take a look and see if civil liberties have been violated by what's going on in the network. Maybe they're already doing that. I mean, you see what's going on with, you know, democratically appointed and elected prosecutors going after Trump. Could you imagine if Joe Biden's

Justice Department went after Fox News and Fox. Good luck. But it would be within their ambit to do that. But yeah, but there's just one more thing that's really frustrating, that Fox News from now on, all they have to do, they can continue lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, just don't say it about

a person or an entity, because that's what makes it definite defamation, right? If they just lied, the big lie, Donald Trump stole, you know, the election is stolen and they continue to pedal lies, then there's no one to sue for defamation because there's no one that they're saying that about right? And so the only way to get them to stop lies would be to do something like the FCC pulling up or don't call yourself news. You know, there has to be standards. Don't call yourself a news corporation, right? Well, even opinion, even the opinion here was the family. But I agree with you.

I would call it entertainment. Because really, that's not even opinion. This is entertainment. This is fiction. Well, my favorite filing so far will do more about it when we talk about and follow Smartmatic. Is Smartmatic's complaint in the first two lines. Had one of my favorite phrases ever used. It's so simple, but so beautiful in its simplicity. Here was the line, you ready? First line of their complaint.

The earth is round, two plus two equals four, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election. That's how they started. Those immutable facts, totally ignored by Fox News and then went on with the rest of their complaint. I mean, really, really beautifully done. But look, we're going to follow it. I know a lot of people are, you know, but we want more, you know, everyone's picking up pitchforks, but we can't rely on a plaintiff who has to get money into their client here.

There's a client here who got mercilessly bashed in their revenue stream, hampered for life that has to be compensated. And so that's what the money's for, as we like to say. And the rest of this stuff, which just make us all feel better, but as you said, would not hurt the corporate culture until the Murdoch's no longer own that company. It's run by independent professional managers. We are not going to see a change.

Maybe when Rupert Murdoch is no longer on planet Earth and Lockland Murdoch is not as smart as Rupert, hopefully, and other people take the company over. But until then, they're just gonna keep stroking 100 to $1 billion checks as a cost of doing business. But we're going to talk about other people spending lots of money to avoid the inevitable in Donald Trump and E. Jean Carroll, civil rape case. Now, six days away, it's on. It's happening. No more delays, no emergency applications, no Supreme Court. Rulings, he is being tried, whether he shows up or not, is another matter. But Karen and I will

talk about that after a word from our sponsor. Now let's take a quick break to talk about our next sponsor, NeroHackerQualiaMind. One's willpower and productivity can in turn transform your life habits for the better, from workouts to job performance to life goals. Throughout the course of a work day, we here at Legal AF are tasked with a ton of different assignments to ensure we keep you informed. That's why we're so proud to partner with NuroHacker, Qualia Mind. Our sponsor, NuroHacker, combines 28 of the most research-backed, new tropic ingredients

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That's neurohacker.com slash legal a to try qualia mind with code legal AF to experience life changing mental performance. We're back. Let's talk about EG and Carol. I feel like I got to do a little bit more than short-hambika. Sometimes we have, hopefully we have new listeners and followers to legal AF.

So EG and Carol, former editor of a gossip column for L Magazine 1995 or 1996. She alleges that she was raped, sexually assaulted by Donald Trump in a dressing room of a department store that sits to almost directly across the street from Trump Tower where Trump lives. And she sued as soon as she could. Statue of limitations had run at her criminal case, but she sued as soon as she could. Statue of limitations had run at her criminal case, but she sued as soon as New York passed

the Adult Survivors Act, allowing a victim's adult victims of sexual abuse to sue regardless of when it happened in time, as long as they did so within one year. And E. Jean-Karrel was case number one that got filed as soon as it could in November of 2022 by her law firm at her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan. She also sued for defamation.

We have defamation in two ways. One of them is when he was president, Donald Trump tonight, knowing her, saying she's not his type. It's a hoax. She's trying to shake me down for money. That was as president. And then he did it again in social media after he was president. So an issue developed about whether he was immune.

He had immunity as president under a doctrine called the West fall immunity while he was president. But fortunately, he did it again after he was president. And so the trial judge, Judge Lewis Kaplan in federal court in New York said, you know what, let's go forward with the case that we can try right now, which is the civil rape case of of E. Jean Carol versus Donald Trump and the defamation that happened after he was president. And the issue is about whether he can or cannot be sued while he was president.

We'll leave that for another day at another trial. But let's get going on April 25. We got two attempts in the last week and a half of the Trump team, which is a tell, like a poker tell, saying they're not ready. They're not ready for trial. They've asked for two 30 day extensions. The first one, Karen, they based it on, there's so much media frenzy. Dot, dot, dot created by their own client. Since the arrangement that he can't get a fair trial, we need a 30 day cooling off period. New Yorkers who are sitting in the 12, 12 jurors who are selected, I'll never be able to separate

the arrangement on hush money charges involving a consensual affair of the stormy Daniels to a rape case of E. Jean Carroll that happened at another time in place. So let's wait 30 days. Things will be a lot better in 30 days, your honor. And then they filed another one when that failed. We'll talk about the failure of that. They filed another one that said, aha, E. Jean Carroll, E. Jean Carroll's lawyers have

part of the costs related to the soup being paid by Reed Hoffman of LinkedIn. And he's a known Democrat and he supports Democratic causes. So aha, she lied. She didn't say that Reed Hoffman was supporting her case in any way, shape or form. And we need a 30 days or six months to get to the bottom of that issue. The judge said, now we're not doing that. You can do a short deposition of Miss Carol for about an hour. You can ask her about the funding if she knew anything about it. You can do what you want to do with that at trial. But we're going

to trial in April 25. Karen, you've had an opportunity now to read Judge Kaplan's orders, only 11 pages, but I think it covered a lot of ground, denying the motion for cooling off period that Joe Takapina had filed. What do you think about the judge's decision making and whether it backfired on the defense? Well, clearly, it clearly it did. I mean, it's absurd for the court, to ask the court for this cooling off period saying, oh, I can't get a fair trial because there's been too much media frenzy around here.

I mean, the reason there's so much media frenzy around the criminal cases because of Donald Trump, right? I mean, we saw when Donald Trump came for Letitia James deposition recently last week. We saw that he knows how to come in and add him and hat him quietly if he wants to. It doesn't have to be this big dramatic event the way he made his arrangement, his Supreme Court of Reignment to be. So he's the one who created this media frenzy.

He is the one who created the atmosphere that he is now complaining of. He can't benefit from that. In addition, I think the other issue, I think that everybody has to think about, and if I was the judge, I'd be thinking about, is things are only going to get worse for him, not better if we wait another 30 days. I mean, it is widely been reported that you have Fannie Willis, who is on the verge of inditing him. You've got Jack Smith, who has at least three different criminal investigations. Any one of them can rip into the point of a prosecution. So the only time he's going to have as little attention as possible is going to be now in this particular situation and starting April 25th. So anyway, this is what he's trying to do.

He's trying to do anything he can to delay or get away from having to face the music here. But honestly, I think you and I have slightly different views on this case in terms of whether he has a chance of success or not. I think you think that this is a stronger case for him than I do. I think this is a risky case. And I worry a little bit about this case because I think that he said she said. And I think that there's a whole issue in this case about the DNA and the lack thereof. And I worried that that's going to be a problem for the jurors in this case. And-

Well, they're not going to be able to mention the DNA at trough. That's- but that's the point. That's the point. So you can't mention it, but then they're all going to be saying, well, where is it? I don't understand. Everyone who's read about this case knows she saved the dress. Everybody watches CSI, Law and Order and every other show and knows that- Oh, you think the jurors know about the dress? Everybody knows about the dress. Everybody knows this.

Everybody in our business. No, I think everybody knows about the dress. Everybody. If you pulled somebody on the street in New York, you said to him, hey, do you know if she kept it in place? Everyone, everyone, they're going to enter the dress into evidence. 100%. Who is?

The plaintiff. How are they going to- the dress into evidence. 100%. Who is? The plaintiff. How are they going to, why wouldn't they? You don't think they're going to be, no, because they can't use the DNA. So why would they bring in the dress? Because she'll say this is what I was wearing when it happened. I think that has less impact if there's no DNA. I don't know. Not if she says I saved it all this time because I was so fond of it.

Psychologically. Yeah. Like, I don't know. I'd be shocked if they don I saved it all this time because I was psychologically yeah like I don't know I Be shocked if they don't enter it again. Yeah, if it was a criminal case Not only would you enter the dress into evidence you would put on and you would actually put on An expert as to why there is no DNA or you would never leave that hanging I know you say well, it's a different standard. No, no, I'm saying as a civil lawyer, I would now knowing the rulings, if I'm Robbie Kaplan, I don't bring that dress or that concept anywhere

into the courtroom. Now that the ZNA has been resolved one way or the other where I can't mention it. Because I don't know either. You saved the dress, right? Where is it? Well, we'll have to see if Kaplan would allow that. This is the little insider stuff, I'm not sure.

The judge ruled there's not gonna be any mention of the DNA one way or the other. If they go there, if the defense goes there and brings up the dress and tiptoes up to, but not at the DNA, okay, then I think we have a whole different cross examination or rehabilitation of E. Jean Carroll.

And by the way, I'm not sure it's he said, she said, because I'm not sure he is showing up. So talk about that. Tell people about because in a criminal trial, you don't have that option. You have to do it. Right. So let me, let me, before we get to the, let me just read a couple of things from, I think they're interesting from Lewis Kaplan's decision.

And they're not long from the order that he just ruled in which he really takes the defense and Donald Trump to task. He says in his order, there is no justification for a German. This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution. The suggestion that the recent media coverage of the New York indictment that the recent media coverage of the New York indictment, coverage significantly, though certainly not entirely invited or provoked by Mr. Trump's own actions, would preclude selection of a fair and impartial jury is pure speculation. So too is his suggestion, Trump's suggestion, that a month's delay of this trial would cool off anything, even if cooling off were necessary. And then when he drops the footnote, he says, even events happen during post-pomance, sometimes

they can make matters worse and then he goes on to recite the following facts. Mr. Trump faces a number of criminal and civil investigations and litigation including one. The United States Department of Justice Special Counsel's investigation of matters relating to the possible mishandling of classified documents, as well as matters relating to the 2020 presidential elections, and the events of January 6th to a criminal investigation by the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, And three, the New York Attorney General civil lawsuit against Mr. Trump, his family, the Trump organization for a ledged financial rune wrongdoings. Developments, this is to your point, Karen. This is the judge in at least one of these matters, as well as actions and statements by Mr. Trump

in relation to any may well give rise to intense publicity that in some respects, Mr. Trump might claim to be prejudicial in this case. Mr. Trump's suggestion that a one-month trial postponement in this case would ensure the absence of any such developments in the period immediately preceding jury selection is not realistic. He also went on to say, we're not looking for a jury, he doesn't know who Donald Trump is or doesn't know about these issues, maybe even the black cook dress. We're looking for a jury, it doesn't know who Donald Trump is, or doesn't know about these issues. Maybe even the black cook dress. We're looking for a jury who could be fair and impartial. You know, and so even a person who says, I'm maga, and where's a red hat?

Isn't automatically eliminated from the jury pool. Now, one of the one of the plaintiffs lawyers might use their, their challenges to get rid of that person. But if they're left at the end of the box, after all peremptory challenges have been exhausted, that's not for cause because you got a mega hat on. The judge will then do a searing inquiry during Vwad deer, during the jury selection process, the Q&A judge will lead and do to find out despite the hat you're wearing, sir, despite the fact that you went to a rally and you love Donald Trump, can you be fair and impartial and apply the facts developed in this court house court room to the law that I charge you with? Yes or no, sir, and he'll say yes or no, and if he can, take your seat number 12 in the jury box, that's what's going to happen.

So, this is the federal court, right? This is where the federal court. And we're in the Southern District, and that means the jurors come from not only Manhattan, right? But Manhattan, the Bronx, and Westchester County, correct? Yeah, I've gotten a very very intelligent jury picked in the Southern District. I had a jury in my own case where every member of the jury was was a graduate of college and half were post-graduate. Every member. Interesting.

Yeah. So you may be right that this particular jury of sort of her bane cosmopolitan people living in these locations may be more inclined to remember the black cook dress than I'm giving them credit for. I just think if she takes the stand, which she, of course, will, along with the two other women who claim that they were sexually assaulted by Donald Trump, the Axis Hollywood tape, Trump being Trump.

And and Trump, we got reporting today that he's not even coming to the trial. So explain that. I'm not even sure. Well, you don't have to. I mean, you, the, first of all, the judge said, I want to know the days that your client is going to be in the courtroom. And I want to know it by tomorrow, by Thursday. So he said that two weeks ago. So by tomorrow, although there's some early reporting

based on sources say that he's not coming because the judge says, I saw what happened when you went on your arrangement. And I want to make sure we have personnel and security personnel, the days that you come, so it's not a circus. So let me know when that is. Now, in a civil case, right.

No, the judge is not letting him change his mind. The judge is saying, I want to know by Thursday the days, if he's appearing and the days that he's appearing, like he's coming on the day that the case turns the defense, where they made an announcement, yeah, we're doing the whole case in cross examination, and we're not putting it on any witnesses, and Donald Trump's not taking a stand. He doesn't have to take the stand.

He doesn't have to show up. The jury can make their own conclusions by the empty chair, that he doesn't give a crap about this case. I don't think that helps his case to not have him sitting there listening to it. I think if I'm Robbie Kaplan, I dump on that empty chair all day long from opening.

Where is he? He doesn't care about this case. This shows you, you know, unless the judge enters an order that says you can't point to the empty chair, which I've never seen, because Trump's making his own decision, so own free will,

whether he wants to be there or not, civil case. But if he's not there, he doesn't testify, then they got to rely on Joe Takapina and Alina Habba to cross examine their way to a win, which I think is not great for them. But you know what, you only, you know, you got to get unanimous vote. So maybe you're right to who knows? I have a question. Sure. So can the can Trump can can his lawyers put in his deposition? No. In other words, but so Robbie Kaplan could if she wanted right. She could put in parts of the deposition, but they can't. Well, they shouldn't be they shouldn't be able to because he's not technically a witness

unavailable in the sense that he's outside a hundred miles of the jurisdiction or he's sick or ill. He's making his own choice not to be there. He therefore doesn't get to benefit from that choice by having just portions of his deposition read like a witness. Robbie can use it because she's on the offense and she can use his words as admissions and all of that. So I think they're stuck. I think it would be the Robbie Kaplan show, the lawyer for E. Jean Carroll,

being able to put on video after video after video of him in deposition, in which he, from the clips that we saw and the things that were filed, he didn't do well. So that's what the jury's gonna see. It's gonna come down to jury selection. I think if you get the right mix of women and men and college educated and all of that,

I think Trump goes down, but I've certainly been shocked by other developments involving Donald Trump before. I'm also trying to, I'm changing my mind, by the way, because although the DNA really just sticks in my craw, I think between the access Hollywood tape and the two other women, I think you're right. I think that pushes it over the edge. So, I think so. But you're right. The dress is a problem. And believe me, if Robbie Kaplan had a dress with conclusive DNA on it with Donald Trump, because she did have a test it. We know the dress, the jury won't know this, but we know this. We know that that she had a dress that she kept the dress

at her back closet for all these years because she claims because of the trauma of it. And that it was tested for DNA. And it had other people's DNA on it, which, you know, doesn't come anybody that rides the subways in New York that doesn't surprise anybody at all about having somebody's, it's kind of gross, but having somebody's DNA on you. But it wasn't conclusive. And so they, and they didn't pursue getting Donald Trump's DNA.

And I'm sure that wasn't a mistake that was on purpose because I don't think they would have liked the results. So you got, but you have the dress. And if she opens the door on the dress, that's a, you, you ask a very insightful question, which is, does that open the door to them saying, you have the dress? Did you have a test? I don't think they can say that you have a test. Because the judge has said no DNA reference by anybody.

And I think that, that covers that. So they can say, oh, you saved the dress. Uh-huh. Well, you can't do much with that after that issue. But anyway, I think the each girl can do. What you can do in summation is you didn't hear any evidence of any scientific, nothing to call it. I don't think you can based on campus.

You know what I'm saying? You're saying there's no scientific death or evidence that corroborate what you saying I think that's a mistrial but it's it's it's it's not good I don't know one day you and I are gonna try a case together I love that let's do it and yeah and you'll just have to keep tell you'll have to keep telling me every morning we We're not representing the people. Yeah, I've made that mistake. No, but every morning you're gonna have to tell me 51%, it's just 51%.

It's a gather on one side of the scale or the other. I mean, that's what you have. You spent your whole life, you spent your whole life with beyond a reasonable doubt. Yes, and this morning I was actually at the Manhattan D.A.'s office teaching trial advocacy, which is something that alumni do to the incoming rookie class every year. And so I went back today and yes, and it was all about Beyond a Reasonable Doubt and what that is.

But I love preponderance of the evidence. My God. One of the many reasons, one of the many reasons I like to share with you for many many reasons is it's also your innate humbleness. I love that you're. So I was down with Manhattan's office teaching trial practice today. I love that. I love that you thought to give back to the to our profession that way. Hopefully you handed out legal a f mugs to everybody. But speaking of legal a f mugs, it's time for another one of our sponsors. And here they are. This podcast is sponsored by Miracle Mate Cheats, whether you want to get more fit, be a better parent or get more done at work, there is one thing that will help. And that's better

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You can find it on the website. You can find it on the website. You can find it on the website. You can find it on the website. You can find it on the website. You can find it on the website. You can find it on the website. You can find it on the website. He doesn't care about this case. He's flouting the rules again. And they're worried about that. So they have now filed something today and telling the court that

Donald Trump would like to be there every day. It looks like he's certainly going to testify at some point. So it's not just going to be, it's going to be what you said, Karen, he said, she said because the he is going to show up. And the days he's not there, the Trump defense team wants the judge to give the jury an instruction, not to hold it against Donald Trump if he doesn't come because of how logistically difficult it is to show up. Even though Karen, you demonstrated that when he had a show up for the deposition last week, he figured out a way to slip in and out of Trump tower with little fanfare.

But I guess if we know he's going every day or nearly every day down to the court, on the federal court house on Pearl Street, down in Manhattan, then there's going to be the circus that's down there and free Donald Trump and all this other stuff. So he's not wrong about that. The judge will give an instruction to the jury. It's just not going to be the one that Joe Tekapino wrote, which is he wants the judge to instruct the jury in effect that because Donald Trump is a former president,

and he's very, very busy, and he creates a lot of security risks. He's not coming every day. The judge is not going to do that. There's a standard instruction that the judge has in his model jury instructions for witnesses not being there and how to the jury shouldn't Interpret anything about that on days when they're not there. He'll give that plain vanilla jury instruction But it looks like we got the update which is Donald Trump is gonna be there on some days likely the days that he has to testify if I'm him I'm definitely there day one where the jury is selected and

Opening statements are done I may or may not be there the day that E. Jean Carol testifies. And I'm definitely not there for that. And I'm just saying, if you're trying to minimize being there, you're there on day one jury selection, show you care about the case opening statements. You're there for E. Jean Carol probably,

you're there for your own testimony. That's about it. Everybody else you sort of stay away. If you're Donald Trump. Okay. So let's move on to another huge case involving Donald Trump, this time of prosecution. And let's go down to Georgia and get it. We'll do an update on Fulton County District Attorney, Fawni Willis. Fawni Willis, let me frame this one, I'll turn it over to you as a prosecutor, former prosecutor Karen. Fannie Willis, people joked around and have taken issue with her a couple of months ago saying to the judge, the judge, McBernie, who supervises her jurisdiction and her grand juries, that the indictment decision by her was imminent.

The decision was imminent, multiple indictments were imminent. And it's been a couple of months, everybody's been getting a good guffaw about it. Where is it? What does imminent mean? Why is it it now? Because they don't understand there's a misalignment between the evidence that she was able to develop with the special purpose grand jury and her ultimate charging document or decision about a more expansive rico conspiracy, the aspects of that, the evidence

that supports that. And you know, she doesn't rubber stamp everything the special purpose grand jury told her to do. She's got to be comfortable in her own way that she's got the goods and the evidence to support not just getting an indictment but winning a conviction against Donald Trump. And so that's what she's been doing the last couple of months. And she's only had a couple of windows of opportunity to make her decision to seek the indictment from a regular grand jury. They don't meet every month. They meet every other month.

So she had a March grand jury and she didn't present at the March grand jury. We know that now and now the next one is May So the next regular grand jury that she can march over across the street from our offices in Atlanta to the to the regular grand jury to present her case with her team is in May And so now hopefully she's ready in May in the meantime She's getting ready and her first new appearance in court in by way of a filing I was just yesterday. And that was another motion to disqualify a lawyer, interestingly enough, a lawyer that used to work in the Fulton County DA's office as a special assistant district attorney about seven or eight years ago and Kim DeBrow. And Kim DeBrow has the honor of representing

10 of the 16 fake electors, including the treasurer, an assistant treasurer of the Georgia Republican Party, a state senator, a Republican lawyer. She represents all of them in one big multi-party representation. And some people might be saying, how can a lawyer do that? Ethically. Well, there are ethics rules that govern when you can represent multiple parties, and it comes down to this. If your parties, your clients' interests are aligned, they're aligned, then you can probably

represent the ball. If they get out of alignment and they start pointing fingers at each other and saying, oh no, I didn't commit the crime, he committed the crime, then you probably can't represent the ball or any of them. And so when Kim DeBrow and her co-counsel, Holly Pearson in 2022 was representing 11 of them, the Judge McBernie said it was an

ethical dilemma, an ethical mess basically, and he said, I'm going to allow it for now, but you can't all represent the chairman of the Republican Party, David Schaeffer and the 10. You can either do Schaeffer or you can do the 10, but you can't do both because Schaeffer's got more criminal liability and culpability here. And they cut Schaeffer loose to go with another lawyer and they kept the 10. Another interesting fact I found while developing a hot take on this issue is that both Holly Pearson and Kim Debrouw are paid. Their legal fees are paid by the Georgia Republican Party, who have listed it on their disclosures, that they're paying for this representation of all these people.

Okay. So now, what we didn't know until the filing yesterday is that the DA's office is trying to get some of the fake electors to flip and cooperate. Now in 2022, Judge McBernie allowed the prosecutor to make an immunity offer to all 10, basically saying, here you go, blanket immunity, mutiny on the table, whoever wants it, come and get it. We won't prosecute, you just need to cooperate. And he required that Kim Debrow and Holly Pearson

report back to him as to whether that they've been told, the clients have been told, and if they had any of them, we're willing to take it. And the report from Holly Pearson in 2022 was, nope, none of them want it, which is amazing, right? I want to hear your prosecutor view. None of the 10 wanted to take the immunity deal. Okay, that's what that's with the report to the judge. Now we fast forward to like two days ago Okay, that's what that's with the report to the judge. Now we fast forward to like two days ago when they were being interviewed two of them, a fake electors by the office, by Fannie Willis's investigation team. And they learned two things. One, according to the two, they had never been told about the immunity deal at all, which I'm sure eyes were popping out of their head during

that meeting. I want to hear it from your perspective. They're like, no, we never heard about that. Really? Because your lawyer had told the judge that you had heard about it and you turned it down. That's one major problem for the lawyers of Pearson and Debra. The second one is they started to point to fingers at others in Kim Debrau's multi-party representation. I didn't do it. He did it. He's more culpable than me and things like that. And Kim DeBrow is sitting next to them in the interview because she still represents them. So they came in for a proffer, for a plea presentation, if you will. And so immediately, like a day later, the prosecutor's office filed a motion to disqualify Kim Debrouh again to get her out of the case because of the shooting match that's developed between the 10

and to raise with the judge's attention although they did it sort of subtly, that we also have a problem because they didn't know about the immunity deal and isn't that a problem your owner and sort of moved on. That's sitting there. So I want to get it from your perspective. What do you think it means that two out of the 10 are now pointing fingers? And what do you think it means that they didn't know about the immunity offer? What does that mean for the lawyer who told the judge otherwise? Yeah, well, look, one of the one of the lawyers says she has documents to prove that she

told them. And maybe she has something that she had them sign, but didn't explain it. Who knows? All I know is this is going to be very interesting, a very, very interesting development here, because the lawyer has an obligation to discuss these things with their client if this was, in fact, the case.

And you can't mislead the court. So I think people potentially could get a little bit trouble here. But this is, you know, and you can't mislead the court. So, so I think people potentially could get in a little bit trouble here, but this is, you know, it's very dicey to start to interfere with a person's representation. You know, people have a right to be represented by who they want to be represented. And, and as a prosecutor, it's tricky to go in and try and say, disqualify a lawyer from a case. And so I think I so I think it's going to be a very interesting to see how this goes, because really what Fannie Willis is trying to do, I think, is what prosecutors do

in gang cases or mafia cases where you're trying to develop cooperators, but the defendants who or witnesses are being represented by the lawyers paid for by the headperson. And therefore, they can't cooperate because that'll go back to the headperson and they'll get in a lot of trouble or their life could be even being danger. And this has that feeling, and as prosecutors, what we would do is you represent, you would appoint shadow counsel, which is literally a counsel that would address these issues with a client and not let the other lawyer know

so that the crime boss doesn't get to know. And that's really what we have here. You've got this situation where not only does it look like that these lawyers are representing the interests of what's in the best interests of their clients because, frankly, in immunity deal, it just doesn't get better than that. They certainly have to at least express that to the client and let the client decide. But really what they're doing here

is they're really working on behalf of the Republican Party slash Donald Trump. And so it's interesting. I see this, you know, Fannie Willis has a lot of experience bringing Rico cases, which are these big organized crime cases that have a structure like a boss, a crime boss, and lieutenants, et cetera. I think it's possible that that's coming down the pike

because that's what this is starting to look like. And these efforts by the lawyers not doing what's in the best interest of their clients, not informing them of things like this and by letting the purse strings be pulled by the crime boss, frankly, it's looking and sounding and smelling a lot like a Rico conspiracy case to me.

That's what I see when I see this. Yeah, I think I agree with you. She's brought more civil Rico cases cases have been brought under her two year Ten year than like ten years prior to that collectively in that office. She is a Self-professed expert in the area. She's got the chops to prove it. She's got the convictions to prove it and she's even hired a full-time civil rico expert lawyer to be with her as a special prosecutor as prosecutor in her office. So, you know, there's the old joke that to a hammer, everything is a nail.

And to somebody that likes civil rico, they can find civil rico. And it ties, as you've said in past podcast, it helps the prosecutor tie together all of these disparate acts and actors in a conspiracy tying together the fake electors with the phone call that Trump and Meadows made to find the 11,785 votes to the things that Giuliani was doing at the state house to try to hold fake legislative hearings and phony kangaroo courts, you can tie all that together and present one big case if you do it under the guise and rubric of conspiracy and civil rico conspiracy. So I agree with you, I would be shocked.

If she doesn't indict, I'd be shocked if the indictment isn't for civil rico. And I think that's also the reason it's taken her just a minute to get this case together for the regular grand jury. Everyone's like, you know, oh, it's the instant prosecution, just add water, just take the special purpose grand jury report, add water to it, boom, it's a dining document, take it in, let's go. That's not how that works. And if any, if you've learned anything on legal AF, it is that patients is a virtue that cases take a while

in a minute to develop as a bad. Especially Rico and a rico case. Absolutely. Is that complicated? Yeah. Go ahead. Which is why also, no, no, you're not interrupting each other. We're having a chat.

Ben Moussales put it right, which is if you went fast on all these cases, like hurry up, Jack Smith, hurry up, funny, well, then you don't get things like every person in Trump's inter-sanktum being stripped bare of any privilege, attorney client or executive or otherwise, and having been forced to testify at the grand jury. If you ended the case a year ago, you brought the case a year ago, you don't get that. If you don't wait till now, you don't get these fake electors to start flipping on each other. That happens with time.

That happens with pressure. That happens with developments and new facts and investigative things that are developed by the FBI and by the investigative agencies. That's what happens and that's why it takes long. That's why of the three or so grand juries that Jack Smith has going, Mar-a-Lago, Gen 6, everything related to the interference of the peaceful transfer of power. And this fundraising grift on the back of a lie of Joe Biden not being properly elected and then used to spend money on lawyers for witnesses. That one may be in the lead

because the complicated one is the Gen 6 conspiracy. And so, we'll see all of that. So I think it's indictment season. I think it's in May for Fawni Welles. She doesn't have multiple grand jury. She's got one grand jury. She's got one set of facts. She got one conspiracy theory.

And I think she's probably the next. And less and less Mar-a-Lago is ready and it's about ready because everything and all the witnesses have gone in that case. And with Evan Corcoran, the lawyer for Donald Trump in Mar-a-all things, Mar-a-Lago having recused himself, speaking of disqualification and recusals, saying, I can't also represent him because I'm a witness. Their prosecution for Mar-a-Lago could be right around the corner. Where do you think, Karen?

Yeah. Speaking of Jack Smith, can I give to fun facts? Of course. So totally off topic. So when you work at them in Hat and D.A.'s off, it's all about what class. Everyone's like, what class are you like what year did you start because you start as an incoming class after law school. So everybody starts right after Labor Day and whatever class you're in you sort of you move up together right it's it's a it's kind of a big deal. So like I'm class of 92 and I'm still friends with people from the class of 92 my husband's class of 1990. It's like a big thing right. Well Jack Smith was the class of 1994 in the same small bureau that I was in

right. So he came to I was two years senior to him and and we work together. But do you know who else I don't know if this if you guys addressed this or if we address this on legal but you know who else was the class of 1994? Juan Mershon. Oh, yes. There we have it. So Jack's, Jack Smith and Judge Juan Mershon. So different cases, right? Juan Mershon is doing the Alvin Bragg. He's the one who is the judge on the Trump org case with the 17 count conviction, and he's the one who arraigned and is currently the judge on this new,

the indictment that Alvin Bragg just brought in the Stormy Daniels case, and obviously Jack Smith, a special counsel, but they were both the class of 1994 at the Manhattan DA's office. One other fun fact of Jack Smith, and this is only because I was talking to somebody who was like, can you, what cases did he work on? What else did he do? And I couldn't remember. I couldn't remember. But then it dawned on me. There was a case in 1997 that a trial that I was supposed to do. And it was a pretty serious case. It was this very violent guy who had convictions in eight different states, and he carjacked somebody and then went on a high-speed chase

all through Atman Hatten hitting different people and cars and accidents, and he ends up in a head-on collision with a police car injuring the two police officers inside. And then when he goes to do a rest processing and be arraigned, he attacks the court officer and ends up severing, like breaking the guy's hand and nerves, etc. Really bad dangerous guy. And the guy started threatening everybody.

And he started threatening the court, he started threatening the lawyers, and he started threatening me. And at the time, I was pregnant with twins. And I didn't think I could, it was safe. You know, it was a high risk. I didn't think I could try a case, especially with someone as dangerous as this. And so, guess who said, I'll do it for you, Karen, because he's a nice guy.

And just the best person, Jack Smith, took that case. And he picked up the file and he tried. I think it was good. Like, he's just a good guy who just could handle. He was only like a third year, you know, which is not very similar. Anyway, it's not an animal lunatic. He's a nice person who like felt sorry for me

because I was totally stressed out with this really violent, terrible guy. And here I am, you know, giant with twins. And I'm like, I just can't handle this stress with, you know, this guy threatening me. And he's already attacked people, whatever. And Jack is just a good guy who said, I'll pick it up and do it for you.

Yeah, who is a good guy for starting three years at a law school, and has been a good guy his whole life. That's, you know, this place. Anyway, so I just wanted to share that. Yeah, I like what you're good, you know. That's why people tune in for that kind of anecdote. Let's turn to your office, your old office, and talk about it and speaking of,

and talk about a case that's God going on right now. In fact, we got some updated reporting we'll do right when we get to that moment in our segment. I'm gonna do one minute turn it all over to you. Alvin Bragg, Prosecutes, Donald Trump, gets 34 count indictment against him, related to Stormy Daniels, business record fraud, election, election connection, if you will, for a felony. And back cases in front of Judge Mershant who we just got

through talking about. In the meantime, the Mago right wing Republicans Jim Jordan, who had the who had the House Judiciary Committee because they've got nothing better to do because they don't have the numbers to pass any legislation. So they just got to run around doing investigations and and trumped up, trumped up committees all day long as a payback for Jan 6. Decide that they're because Donald Trump told them to decide that they're going to go after a local prosecutor prosecuting local crime about events that happened before somebody was even president. And that is Donald Trump for something that happened before he was president led by the

duly elected prosecutor from Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, elected by the people of the state of New York. Here it implicates. So he decides it's going to drag Alvin by letter, at least not by Sapena, to come to Washington to testify about the prosecution of the former president about events before he was even president, and why that's appropriate. And he's also bringing in Mark Pomerance, now I guess retired or retired to private practice who was a special prosecutor for

a two-year period of time starting with Sy Vance and ending on the 90th day of Alvin Bragg's tenure when he took over from Sy Vance, who was investigating everything. Trump didn't like that Alvin in his 90th day wasn't ready for the inditing decision, charging decision, and left the office noisily with a letter, and then a memoir in which he talked about insider information about the prosecutions that he worked on, including the story of Daniels I, made some untoward out of school comments about Alvin Bragg and Alvin Bragg.

And about career prosecutors in the office, totally. Yeah, and right, exactly. And Alvin, we'll get to that. You'll get to that. And Alvin Bragg's comments about witnesses that are involved like Michael Cohen, just totally inappropriate things. You do that in retirement after the case is over

as a memoir, not in real time as the case is still being investigated or prosecuted. But aha, Jim Jordan said, that's a great person. For me, a disgruntled former prosecutor who worked on the case that's currently being prosecuted. Let's bring him to Washington and sit him in front of a whole, a failing of microphones.

And I'll ask him a lot of questions under oath. And Alvin Bragg said, I don't think I'm going to do that. I don't think you're going to do that, because in order for Congress to have any power over anything a committee of oversight or investigation, it has to be tied to a proper legislative purpose. That's what the US Supreme Court says in a series of cases, including the mazer's case that you worked on Karen, you'll talk about it involving Donald Trump. And without a proper legislative purpose, you have no

subpoena power and you have no proper hearing at all. So that's where it begins and that's where it ends. So Alvin moved for a motion, filed a case, and moved for a temporary restraining order, and then an injunction to stop the, and quash the subpoena against Mark Pomerot, stop from testifying for lack of proper legislative purpose, and because it violated state sovereignty, the sovereignty of a state in our federal system,

and of local prosecutors to be immune from attacks by the federal Congress when they don't like something because they're a former party leader, you know, got himself into a criminal problem involving contact before he was even president. So we had a, there's filings on that, including one of yours, you'll talk about, and then accommodated in a hearing today

in front of a judge, vice go sell, vice go sell, sorry, the federal judge in South of Ditch, vice go sell vice go sell sorry the federal judge in southern district New York by the way a Trump appointee we'll talk about that in a minute pick it up from their care and talk about Alvin Bragg firing back what do you think about it what do you think should happen and then we'll talk about what did happen at the hearing today. Yeah so so what's been happening here is this attempt at interfering with a state court criminal prosecution and looking for an excuse or a reason to have oversight over of powers, does not have oversight over, say, the Department of Justice when it comes to active, ongoing criminal prosecutions. And it's something that is fairly clear.

And if Congress ever wore to a subpoena that someone from the Department of Justice to testify about an active ongoing case, they would decline and they would not have to testify there because there is a separation of powers and it would not be appropriate. And there is no legislative purpose where you would talk about the individual facts of a particular case in a pending or ongoing investigation or prosecution. But in State Court, where this is where the Congress is trying to reach in and have oversight, it's even doubly problematic because not only do you have a separation of powers, interest issue, like the legislative and the executive branch, but you also have a federalism issue,

right? It's state versus federal. And that is extremely problematic for Congress because they are going into a place that they truly have no business being. And so as a result, they're looking for an appropriate legislative purpose, some reason that they can stick their nose in the tent, right? And what they're saying is, and what they're trying to hang their hat on, is that, well, Alvin Bragg said in a letter that they used federal funds, not for this case, not for the Starmid annuals hush money case, but for a prior investigation into Donald Trump. And that was $5,000 back when Sy Vance was DA. He apparently used $5,000 of federal funding on a small portion of that case. And I would say small

because investigations of that size can cost millions of dollars, right? Investigations aren't cheap. So $5,000 spent is not a lot of money. And, but they are saying that gives them a legislative purpose to hold a hearing. And I myself have testified many times before City Council on how we spent on programs that the DA's office created or spent money on because we would have to justify how we

spent our money on various programs but certainly never on a particular case. That is always carved out of what was appropriate for the legislative branch to question us about. And that has always been how it's done because it is so clearly a violation of the separation of powers and here in federalism. Now, interestingly, you bring up Hopak a case, Trump versus Mezars, Maysars, which was a case that went to the Supreme Court twice, had to do with the tax returns, Trump's tax returns that Scythans' office tried to get and actually did ultimately prevail. But there was a second case, a companion case, that Congress was also trying to get the tax returns in the Trump's tax returns, and they said for a valid legislative purpose. And the Supreme Court in that case denied Congress's request to see the tax returns. Sivance got them, kept them secret.

They still remain secret. And four months later, he brought the case against the Trump organization based on those tax returns leading to the 17 count indictment. Congress did not get, the Supreme Court said, no Congress, you don't get to have those tax returns because it's not a valid legislative purpose. And they created a four-part test on what makes a valid legislative purpose and they created a four-part test

on what makes a valid legislative purpose or not. And that's the law that Alvin Bragg is citing when he says that Jim Jordan here cannot hold a hearing and call either Alvin Bragg or Mark Pomerance to testify about this pending case. And you referred to a brief that I was involved in that we filed on behalf of Alvin Bragg. We filed what's called an amicus brief, right? Or, you know, it's a friend of the court is the, it's a Latin phrase. And we are a Michi or a Michi. Well, how do you, which one do you believe?

I think it's a Michi, you know, the friends of the court. Definitely Italian to be a Michi. But I have a feeling, I don't know, I've done the Latin people because it's amicus curi, so maybe it's a Michi. And I know, well, anyway, so I said a feeling I don't know I've done the Latin people because it's amicus curi so maybe it's a Mickey And I know well that anyway, so I said a me to make it a meaky, but whatever So and that's just what that means is you're not a party to the action But you are somebody who feels like you would like to and you ask permission of the court to To give your support and your legal analysis as to why you think one side or the other should

prevail. And this was a brief filed by, it was 17 pages, I think. And it was something that was filed by former members of Congress, former prosecutors, and former government attorneys and scholars. Of course, I'm one of the former prosecutors. And what we said is we had an interest in ensuring the appropriate balance between an efficient justice system

and the need of legislatures to engage in lawful oversight and legislation. And so that was, and the judge accepted our brief. And really what we said was, and I'll just read a small portion of it, it says, you know, our federal system of government can, from time to time, create truly difficult questions about the balance of power between states and the federal government. This case is not one of those. Congress has no authority to interfere with an ongoing criminal prosecution, particularly one brought by a state prosecutor. That calculus does not change just because the defendant, whom a grand jury and died, it happens to be

a former president of the United States. And so, you know, when we go on to discuss the law in this area and why Congress does not have the authority to issue a subpoena, and it has to do with various privileges, like the attorney work product, privilege, the law enforcement privilege, threats to grand jury secrecy, the public interest and deliberative process privileges, and we talk about the Maysars for part test.

And today, there was a hearing held by the judge that you talked about, about why, about whether she should grant the Bragg's request to restrain or enjoy pomerance in particular from having to testify before congress tomorrow. And something that you and I have talked about seems to be something that the judge was concerned about, which is, didn't pomerance waive this privilege. I know it wasn't his privilege to waive. It was brags, but brags didn't sue him. Bragg didn't try and stop him. He asked him nicely and said, please, can you not do it earthen? Can I? You and I talked about

on the way. We said, why isn't he going to court to join and join him? Exactly. And he didn't. And he asked, can I see it in advance? And they didn't let him. And you and I have been saying, as loudly as anyone will listen, why writing this book was such a terrible idea and why it could possibly impact this future potential prosecution? Well, look at where we are now. I mean, this is ridiculous. So, Pomeran's, I think, is going to have to testify and he'll say, you know, I have nothing else to say, but what was in that book?

Okay, well, if I'm Jim Jordan, I would open that book and say, okay, you say on page 64 paragraph two that you think that this case, you know, that that Donald Trump should be prosecuted, even if it's a tricky case because he's a bad person. You believe that, Isn't that true? You said that. You stand by that. Don't you? I mean, I would just pick out the 25 worst portions of the book for, you know, or best portions for me, Jim Jordan, and I would just read them and take them out of context and put them on the record, highlight them, and show that it's politically motivated, the prosecutors in the office suck, you know, that Alvin Bragg sucks. I mean, I'm not kidding. He it's all there Yeah, Michael Cohen. It's all there. It's all there and you know what? It's there. Thank you Mark Comerance for doing that I mean, you know carried on the other prosecutor who's I've worked with I didn't work with Mark Comerance and who's excellent He didn't write a book. He didn't leak his resignation letter and guess what?

He's not being subpoenaed before Congress. You know, I also did write a book. Karen Friedman, Agnifalo, you've been there. You were there 20 years. You could have wrote a lot of books. There's 30 years. Every time we say 30, then you always tell us about the time you went to the mayor's office. Yeah, but that was four years in between. That's a three year career. Wait a minute. Salty, Salty salty mark this down because Karen once corrected Years all right 26 years 26 years of the prosecutor, but when I worked for the mayor it was all criminal justice

So that's why I say 30 years in 30 years you're gonna wrote a book Yeah, well It's just but you know, so what do you think we're here for? You know like so on Monday there was Jim Jordan did a field trip he called it a field field hearing, but I think it was actually a field trip Where he came to New York and he brought the entirety of his judiciary committee to New York and in the federal building at Judiciary Committee to New York and in the federal building at 26 federal plaza they held a hearing and this hearing the only time they've ever made a field trip to New York, the only time they've come to New York to question

crime in Manhattan, they say we're just here to talk to these very nice crime victims who they paraded out and used as props, frankly. How sorry for them. I felt so sorry for them. These were people who lost loved ones and whose emotions were hurting, they were raw, and you know, yeah, it's hard crime. They're being prosecuted by the Republicans. Yes, and crime is horrible.

It is terrible. But they don't mention Trump once. They don't mention this, at all, this legislative purpose, or if we're going to potentially pass a law about a former president, we're just gonna talk about local crime, like murders. If that's not pretextual, if that's not evidence that this is a pretext, so the crime was, I mean, the crime, the hearing was a little bit brutal, you know, especially when the crime victims spoke. I felt terrible for them.

But then, you know, frankly, once that kind of calmed down and people came forward and said, you know what, let's talk about crime in your jurisdiction, Jim Jordan. And let's talk about crime in Kevin McCarthy's jurisdiction in Bakersfield. They have crime, they have a violent crime rate. That is, that is exponentially the numbers way worse than Manhattan. So, you know, go hold these hearings in your jurisdiction. The only reason they're in Manhattan is because of this case and because of Trump. And there, so that's the problem here. This is one giant pretext this oh we have a Valor legislative purpose there is no Valor legislative purpose I thought it will talk about the hearing in a minute from what we picked up from the hearing that happened today which is a different

hearing. I was just talking about the court hearing today in front of the judge in a minute but I thought it's easy for us because we're armchair quarterbacks, right? We're 20, 20 hindsight, but we have experience. I would have made a bigger deal if I were the lawyer representing the office to do exactly what you just said, which is, say, let's look at the field trip. Because the field trip indicates the exact thing that we're saying, the lack of legislative purpose. What does the, what does Congress have to do with local crime and local victims of crime, which is based

on state sovereignty, local power, local home rule power, municipal power resides and by the constitution in the states. And that has to do with a local prosecutor, with all due respect to Donald Trump. This is local crime by a local prosecutor, to really elected to just do his job. What does that have to do with Congress? I would have pointed to that left, right, and center. The other thing going back, talk about crime rates, to go back on our 30-year kick,

we're talking a lot about the 1990s on this show. Let's go. When I had graduated college in New York in 88, I started the year after Bernie gets pulled out a gun on a subway and shot four black boys on the subway, paralyzing one of them. And by the way, got away with it. He was, he was not convicted at the crime at that level and a civil suit he never paid. That was a year before I started college. By the time I got out, this was the murder, New York was the murder capital of the world. It had on average 2500 to 3000 murders, not just violent crime, murders a year.

New York City in New York City, not just Manhattan in New York City. We haven't had a 500. By comparison. That's true. It's always less. By comparison, New York City as a whole, just as we'll say New York, before COVID had 258. We went from 3000 to 258. The drop was and then it only doubled during COVID, meaning listen, I feel for 450 people that died. But when your numbers used to be 3,000, and now they're 400, there's a reason why New York City has been a model that has been used by social scientists and criminologists to figure out how they systemically

and permanently lowered the crime rate and are no longer the crime capital, the murder capital of the world. The fact that there was a blip during COVID when the number of prosecutors and the number of police was constant stayed the same but crime expanded exponentially because people went kukukrazi

and the criminals went kukukrazi, that's a legal term during COVID. I mean, it's not like they, it's not an accordion. You can't like, let's double the size of the police force. Let's double the size of law enforcement during this period. We couldn't.

So they were overrun and overwhelmed during a blip of an operational period during COVID as every major city was. And now that Alvin's been in a full year and more, now it's trending back down in the exact right direction much better than every one of those Republican members. As you said, Karen, their districts are much worse per capita than the New York, which is the safest big city in America, bar none, period. Your office has a lot to do with that.

Governor's office has a lot to do with that. Governor's office has a lot to do with that, and local law enforcement has a lot to do with that. You know, who has nothing to do with that? Jim Jordan and the members of Congress putting on a show trial, a show gimmick trial to help their fearless leader, Donald Trump. Now, let's talk about the hearing today because there's been briefing that we've seen in front of Judge Viscousill,

in which it came down to this, right? Alvin Bragg saying, state sovereignty, you're violating state sovereignty, you're violating federalism, you're violating home rule power, you're violating the secrecy of the grand jury, you're interfering with an ongoing criminal investigation for political purposes.

It's a sham. You don't have proper legislative purpose. The $5,000 of federal money that was used for something who knows what went inside Vance's office has nothing to do with Stormy Daniels. You can't tie it together and that can't possibly be the hook for you to do a oversight and investigation of a district attorney sitting in Washington. And then Brad comes back with, I mean, Jordan comes back with, you can't sue me in federal court.

I've got speech and debate immunity and I had proper legislative purpose because of that $5,000. The judge says, come on into my courtroom. Let's have a hearing and we saw reporting. What did you pick up from the reporting of how she treated Alvin Bragg's lawyers and how she treated the lawyers for Jordan? And where do you think she has an issue to rule again as of the time of our recording?

And where do you think she's gonna come out? I think as you said, it was a hot bench, as they say, right? Popoac, it's, you know, and we've all been there, right? Where they come at you. And it's like the Socratic method in law school where they just ask you really hard questions. And it's boom, boom, boom, boom. And I think she really, I think ultimately, I think she was a hot bench to both sides.

And I think that makes sense. A lot of judges don't want to tip their hand and they want to make sure that they are fairly, if you're grilling one, you grill the other. But I think the Twitter verse, I didn't see the hearing, but the Twitter verse seems to suggest that she's leaning against Bragg. And I think at the end of the day, Mark Pomerance, he wrote a book and he waived whatever privacy or whatever he's going, whatever anyone would say, he waived it. And I think she's going to, she's going to say, had he not written that book, I would

say, they don't need to, that he wouldn't be permitted or required to testify number one and number two, there is a, it doesn't have to be the only reason, but there just has to be a reason that's a valid legislative purpose. And I can't, judges aren't supposed to opine on that. There's not supposed to say what they think of that legislative purpose, just that there is one. And I think the fact that they say,

look, we're looking at a couple of things. Number one, how the money was spent, and number two, to possibly pass law, a law that says former president should only be prosecuted in federal court, not state court. I think those two issues have a little bit of legs. Everything else, I think, doesn't. And I think that's what she's going to rule and say, palm rants show up to the hearing. And you're going to have to answer the questions. And frankly, he did it to himself. Yeah, I think your analysis is spot on.

It's a little different than what I thought, when I, you know, I'm evolving. We have the right to marinate and evolve. And a Saturday when I did the show with Ben, I was like, I don't care if she's a Trump appointee. I don't think there's a proper legislative purpose. I think the show gimmick hearing of bringing out human props and suffering victims

to try to attack the Democrats. And Alvin Bragg in particular was on savory and it only proves the point that there's no proper legislative purpose. And the subpoena has to be issued by a committee with proper legislative purpose, but like where do you go from there? So they get to talk to Alvin Bragg and Mark Pomerance.

So like where do you go from there? Oh, I hear what you'revin Brack and Mark Pomeranz. So like, where do you go from there? Oh, I hear what you're saying, Karen, you're saying, oh, they're gonna change the courts in which the, I'm not sure they can do this. They're gonna pass a rule that only federal prosecutors can prosecute a former president. I'll tell you why. In the mazer's case, okay.

That was the Manhattanzer's case. Okay. That was the Manhattan D.A.'s office issuing a grand jury's subpoena to the mazer's accounting agency, which was Trump's accountant, asking for his tax returns. Okay. The subpoena wasn't even to Trump. It was to the Trump agent, right? The mazer's. The accountant firm.

The accounting firm for the tax returns. Granjury's subpoena goes before grand jury judge in state court, which is where this was. They made a motion to remove it to federal court and it was granted because of his status as a former president that they felt it was more appropriately done in federal court. So to me, there's already precedent for this. You're right about that. You're right. I've seen, I'd have seen that case cited in the Northern District of New York when Trump was arguing about Latisha James going after him. He argued something similar. And she did recognize that body of law that you just mentioned, which is, you know, local prosecutors could be caught up at the heat of the moment, the heat of politics, and we don't want them going after our executive

branch, especially when he's still in office. Now, whether, so you're right, it's not that big of a leap to then say, we don't want farmers, and they did make the argument to Jordan's papers made the argument that you don't want sitting presidents to be worried about when they come out of office, what they could be facing about their prior conduct at the hands of a prosecutor in the other party. So I'm sure. And Fannie Willis brings a case, that'll just add to that argument.

And we don't know, there's still other states out there that he interfered in their election. We have no idea whether someone else, Arizona, Michigan, whoever else, they could also potentially still bring cases, right? We just don't know. And any, yeah, I just think that that feeds into to their argument that we can't have,

there's whatever thousand counties in the United States probably more, there's 62 counties in New York state alone. So that's 62 different prosecutors assuming Trump, they all have jurisdiction or venue, if he did something in those counties, but they've always made the slippery slow argument that if you let one do it, you could be thousands and how does that make any sense? It really should just be a federal prosecutor. And if multiple counties or state prosecutors bring cases, even if it's just two, I think that just feeds right into their argument. Yeah, we're going to have to see where we don't have there. We've been waiting a little

bit to see the ruling. It happened in real time while we were recording. I think she's working on knowing that either side is going to appeal this first to the second circuit, which is the federal appellate court that sits over New York. And whoever loses that is going to take it on a fast track to the Supreme's. Fortunately, the circuit judge for New York is one of the left-leaning democratically-appointed circuit judges. But this is not going to end with Judge Viscosil today. This is going to be a second circuit emergency application to the Supreme Court, and there's going to be new law made in Bragg, V. Jordan, that we're going to have to live with for a long, long time.

There was something interesting, I don't know if you caught a Karen in the political, that said this briefing and this strategy that Bragg used to take it to Jordan is a page out of a playbook that he was involved with when Alvin Bragg was in the New York Attorney General's office, if people always wonder where did Alvin Bragg come from, and he worked under then, but now disgraced New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Schneiderman went after Exxon and mobile with a subpoena, part of his investigation, and the GOP led congressional committees tried to subpoena Schneiderman to back him off a going after Exxon and mobile, oil companies. And there they successfully filed and sort

of the, the subpoena sort of died by their own, by their own virtue. But that was the attack they made. This is an attack on state sovereignty. We are New York. You are federal. This is attack on federalism. And the other interesting thing was that Leslie Dubek, who's the general counsel now of the Manhattan DA's office, was the general counsel under Schneiderman and with Alvin in the New York Attorney General's office. He took her with her and gave her that, I guess she wasn't there when you were there, right, as the General Counsel for the Office. So she- No, what in the circle was? Kerry Dunn was the General Counsel.

Yeah, oh, that's interesting. There you go. Comes full circle. So this is the approach. I mean, Alvin said, we didn't wish Nightermen. We're doing it here. It's a sovereignty argument. No legislative purpose. And Leslie do back help them there and help them here. So just kind of very interesting to see how all these things play out and how your past is prologue to how you approach things in the future. We're going to have to wait and see the judge's decision. We'll cover that. Maybe it'll be on the Saturday edition with Ben, my cellist and me. Maybe we'll do a hot take. Maybe it'll come in while we're we're doing live chat tonight. We'll update the on chat, but

Maybe it'll come in while we're doing live chat tonight. We'll update the on chat, but we've reached the end of another edition of legal AF at the midweek where we've hopefully curated curated for you the top stories at the midweek that we think you should know with the intersection of law and politics, those politically charged stories that are so important to you to understand. We help you break it down and analyze it here with my co-anchor Karen Friedman-Eck Diffalo on the Midas Touch Network. Hopefully surrounded by the Midas Mighty and Legal A-Eppers,

people ask, well, we like the show, we like listening to it, we like watching it, how can we support you? You can do it all by free. I always feel like we're doing PBS at this moment. You know, you get a tote bag also if you subscribe. We don't do a donation run, but we do things that are free that are really,

really helpful to us. If you're watching us on YouTube tonight or otherwise, go over and download and subscribe to us on places where you get your podcasts. You can follow or subscribe or plus sign or whatever it is on your platform. And that's helpful to us, plus you'll get notifications when our new episode drops.

And if you're listening to us and you want to know what Karen looks like and I look like and Ben looks like and all of that, you can, or what glasses I'm wearing or what glasses Karen's wearing, you can go over and watch us on YouTube because we keep that up on the Midas Touch Network and you can subscribe to their network as well. And you can do both.

You can cross pollinate and kind of keep this whole big thing going. And then we got a store. We got a Midas Touch store for your Midas gear at store. . MidasTouch.com. We got legal AF gear. We got coffee mugs. We got those T-shirts, wheels of justice. And you can support that as well. So those are the ways to do it. Karen, making history, filing a amicus brief in the very matter that we talked about in the last segment of Alvin Bragg versus Jordan, put her money where her mouth is. She's just not a commentator.

She's in the world filing legal papers on her own name to support appropriate positions that matter to our listeners and our watchers and our followers. It's another great Wednesday for me to be with you, Karen. So for today's last words, if it's okay with you, there's some really sad news that I feel I just want to say out loud so that this lives on forever. This person lives on forever. So as we were recording this, I got confirmation that there was a parking garage in New York City that collapsed yesterday. It's a four-story parking garage and it completely collapsed from top to bottom.

And as coincidence, I've been parking there for 26 years and my car has gone, obviously. But the manager who worked there is names Willis. He's worked there for over 25 years. Was the world's nicest person. He was special. And I know there's a lot of times people after someone passes, they all say, person. He was special. And I know there's a lot of times people after someone

passes, they all say, you know, this person was really special, they were different. But this one really is true. And it just, we just got confirmation that he was the one person who died when the building collapsed. And when I tell you how tragic this is, he was, you know, he cared so much for this parking garage. He came every single day dressed in a suit. He was friendly. He was kind. The entire neighborhood knew him and loved him. And the outpouring of who he was, this wonderful man, Willis.

I just want him and his honor and his legacy to be recorded somewhere, because he touched me and my family and my neighbor's life. So much, he's just a wonderful, wonderful person. And I wanted to dedicate this episode to Willis and just it's such a horrible tragedy. I sent Salty a picture and he's gonna put them up here. So yeah, I read as all as all Americans and New Yorkers did about the collapse. I knew where it was located near the Sheriff's Department had used it. I didn't survive. And now you brought it real to us and brought it home and in his honor. And I'm sure we all appreciate that you did that.

We in our hearts go out to his family. And if there's a go fund me page or something related to him, where his family, I'm going to try to, I'm going to try to find that whatever he's left behind, we'll try to post that. I'm adding we want to represent them because I'm so upset, you know, of course, because it's just terrible. Real tragedy. And we get the circus that comes to town in this ridiculous field trip. It looks like a sixth grade class trip of these Maga Republicans coming to New York.

And New Yorkers don't care about any of that. New Yorkers rally around real tragedy, whether it's a World Trade Center bombing or the destruction of the world trade center or what Karen's describing. You know, real New Yorkers unfortunately die every day innocent victims and in different ways. And sometimes they're the anonymous, they're the people that you don't see, that you should see. I know I make a point of thanking people in that world and make them be seen. And you did that today for him. I really appreciate that you did that. All right.

Okay, and we'll see everybody on Saturday and next Wednesday. This is Michael Popak and Karen Friedman at the Filosiding Off. care for your medic, the fellow sighting off.