Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump LEGAL NIGHTMARE Rapidly ACCELERATES

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo are back for the Midweek Edition of the top-rated Legal AF podcast. On this episode, with the backdrop of white-hot Harris-Walz campaign and summer vacation over for the Trump criminal judges and attorneys general, the anchors discuss and debate: Judge Merchan’s next steps toward sentencing Trump on 18 September for the 34 felony convictions he received by a NY jury for business fraud; Federal Judge Chutkan taking steps to get the DC criminal case against Trump back on track for trial; the Arizona Attorney General getting 2 co-conspirators including a Trump lawyer to flip on Trump and the others in her fraudulent electors criminal case; the Supreme Court refusing to bail out Trump and stop his being criminally sentenced in NY for his crimes; and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF Thanks to our sponsors: Miracle Made: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. Policy Genius: Head to https://policygenius.com/legalaf to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. One Skin: Get started today at https://OneSkin.co and receive 15% Off using code: LEGALAF Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to https://RocketMoney.com/legalaf Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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He's going to be sentencing Donald Trump in the middle of September. He's denied some motions. He's told people, I got enough. Don't tell me anything more. I'll be issuing some rulings about immunity and your attempts to disqualify me, Mr. Trump, relatively soon. But we'll see everybody on the 18th of September for, I don't know, it could be a sentencing. You should probably send me sentencing memos in advance because we're probably gonna do that. We're gonna break it all down with somebody who

knows her way in and out of the New York court system the way I do, but on the prosecutor's side, my colleague Karen Freeman-Iknifilow. And then we're gonna talk about the Supreme Court, usually reliable in throwing monkey wrenches and sand in the gears of justice as it relates to Donald Trump. Not this time. Even for them, except for Alito and Thomas, even for them, the attempt by the Missouri Attorney General, who just won his primary today in a battle against a Trump lawyer in Missouri, his attempt to do Donald Trump's bidding to get his endorsement, which seemed to have been successful, and sue New York, Missouri v. New York, in an original action in which

the Supreme Court would be sitting as trial court, not as an appellate court, in order to stop the continued prosecution of Donald Trump, vacate his verdict and stop his sentencing. Well, even that was too far for this United States Supreme Court. We'll talk about the impact of that case and what the court did related to that. And then speaking of judges who are just chopping wood, doing their job and keeping the trains running on time in criminal cases related to Donald Trump for the summer. Judge Chutkin is back and she's, I was gonna say with a vengeance, but that sounds like she's not doing her job. She's back being the sober jurist that we've always come to know and love and respect. She's making her way through the underbrush of the cases,

dismissing motions that were filed by Donald Trump back in October, telling parties that have no right being in the courtroom, you have no right being in the courtroom, and setting a status conference to talk about how to get this case back on track and what the actual hearing or briefing and or briefing will look like around what she has to do with taking the immunity decision and shoving the indictment through it and see what comes out the other side like a giant cheese grater. And let's see what's left over. Is there an indictment left? Are there counts left? Are there overt acts left? Spoiler alert, yes. And she's going to talk about all that and

how to get this case back on track. And then lastly, again, not letting, you know, not letting grass grow under their feet. The attorney generals around the country are, still have their cases against the fake electors and those in the inner sanctum of Donald Trump, people that go by the name of Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Boris Epstein, and the like. They're all, if you remember, Ben and I did a hot take on it, I don't know, about two months ago, they're all indicted except for Donald Trump in Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, those kind of places about the fake elector scheme because the Arizona Attorney General Chris Mays and the others are kind of cleaning up behind the elephants of what the feds

didn't do. They let the Department of Justice, and even Foddy Willis, go first and watch carefully and then said, all right, well, we've got to protect our electorate, our voters, the enfranchisement of our citizens that live in Arizona. We have an obligation to do that. And they did. And now we've got two people who have flipped. One, a cooperator used to work for Donald Trump, and the other, a fake elector. It's the start.

It's flipping season in Arizona. We're going to talk about it all here on Legal AF. Karen, missed you last week. We had Dina Dahl sitting in for you, but there's no replacing the incomparable KFA. Welcome back. Ah, thank you. And I'm so appreciative to Dina and loved the show. It's amazing how fungible we all actually are in life. So you're not fungible. You know, I will tell you it was a relief when I was a young prosecutor. My kids are 28 now, the twins, and I was pregnant. I'll never forget the time when I had this giant grand jury presentation set up.

It was an Asian gang case. I had maybe 20 witnesses coming in, was going to indict 18 defendants, one of these big sweeping, huge indictments. I had three different interpreters of three different Chinese dialects coming. I mean, the coordination was unbelievable. And literally the night before, I went into premature labor and ended up in the hospital. Coordination was unbelievable. And literally the night before, I went into premature labor and ended up in the hospital.

And they said, you're on bed rest starting now. And I panicked. Oh my god, what's going to happen? All the stuff, my case, this and that. I called my supervisor. I'll never forget it. And he literally said to me, it's like 11 o'clock at night, he's like, why are you calling?

I'm hanging up the phone. I said, oh, there's this, there's that, there's the case. He's like, take care of your family. You are irrelevant. We are fungible. This is fine. And you know, it was the biggest relief of my life. I thought, oh my God, he's right.

He's right. And honestly, after that, life goes on. No more stress when it comes to that. And so thank you, Dina and Popok for proving that point all over again. Not only would you do it for us and me, you've done it for us and me. We've taken holidays and vacations and life interferes.

And I had a baby and well, my wife did and everything else. So no, that's the network. I mean, that is the reflection of- Why would you maybe better do it? Oh, the baby's fantastic. Six. So no, that's the network. I mean, that is the reflect of the babies. Fantastic. Six weeks old, I've sent you pictures. I post a few on Instagram. Francesca's is a very long baby.

You know, with the Olympics running, my wife and I are thinking about, I don't know, is it volleyball? Is it swimming? Is it tennis? What is it? She's a very long baby, which we appreciate. But that's a reflection of, you know,

it runs on both sides of this lens, on both sides of the screen. Our audience is so loyal and committed and loving and kind. We know it because we see it in the chats and the comments that are made and the way this audience has built, this followers and subscribers of the Midas Touch Network have built.

But it also, to be frank, goes out on the other side, and maybe it's reciprocity that goes on, because we enjoy each other as contributors, as podcasters, as founder, whatever we are, we enjoy each other, and nobody even thinks, like you said, nobody even thinks twice. When I ping Dina, Dina, Karen, we just can't get it to work. Can you jump on the moments?

No, absolutely. And she would do the same. We'd all do the same for each other. Well, Doc, I want to just tell one more story because you just reminded me of that. Wait, wait, before you, I would tell the story. What happened with the Chinese thing? Oh, they got indicted.

It was fine. It's all good. That's fine. They got indicted. But when you talk about the community, I want to, I want to just tell you, tell one more story. And this really meant a lot to me. The reason I couldn't do it last week is there's a pretty significant medical situation happening with a family member of mine, and it's been very hard. and I've been traveling a lot, my family's been traveling a lot to spend time with family and to handle the situation.

And last week was a really rough week and I was in, I was traveling, I was visiting in the hospital visiting in the hospital and I left just an emotional, you know, an emotional wreck to be to be frank. I was absolutely devastated to leave and and it's just very hard to go through something with people you love. It's life. And I'm walking through the airport and I'm just feeling all these emotions, most of which are pain. And one of the TSA workers, she was a woman, probably around my age, and she's African American. She walks up to me and she just says, might I just touch? And I looked at her and I said, yes. And we just looked at each other.

I burst into tears and we just started hugging. And we just looked at each other. I burst into tears. And we just started hugging. And it was this most powerful moment. It's like she somehow knew that I needed a hug. And I actually texted Ben. And I said, Ben, you have created the most amazing community. This is not just about legal cases and politics. This is a community.

And when you said that, you just reminded me. And so thank you for letting me tell that story. It was really incredible. That life intrudes and you and I and Ben and others, the brothers, we've all had opportunities to, not as poignant as that one to meet people off screen. And it is, it is a powerful moment, whether it happens in joy or in sorrow. And, uh, yeah, I can imagine, cause I, I know a lot of things about the TSA, but

given our free hugs is not one of them. And the fact that she's part of the Midas mighty is quite remarkable in heartwarming. Um, let's, you want to stay in, uh want to stay in, let's stay in New York. Let's stay in New York for a moment and transition. There's no segue for that. So I'll just. Sorry.

No, no, no, it's a good event. Not a story, it happened. It's a good life moment. So Judge Mershon issued to remind people of how things work in New York, where Karen and I practice regularly. We do a lot of things by letter. To outsiders is like, really, isn't there

like a more formal document? Nope, we like letters. And so when you wanna file a motion in a criminal or civil case, you file a letter request. Sometimes you ask the judge to just treat the letter as your motion, and then the judge gets around to sending you an email or a letter. We had lots of things in the Judge and Goron fraud case were just done by the judge emailing

the parties and that constituted formal action, if you will, of the court. So it came as no surprise when on letterhead addressed to one of the lawyers for Donald Trump and one of the lawyers, Emil Bové, and one of the lawyers, Josh Steinglass, for the Manhattan DA's office, Karen's old stomping grounds. Judge has woken up out of whatever summer hibernation people thought he was in, which he wasn't, and said, all right, I got a lot of things in front of me. I got a motion to disqualify me filed again for the third time.

And I've got a request for another round of briefing by Donald Trump on that. Let's put a pin on that for a minute. I've got a request for another round of briefing by Donald Trump on that. Let's put a pin on that for a minute. I've got an immunity decision. Donald Trump has filed a motion to vacate the verdict of the 34 felony counts on the immunity decision, even though all the contact was really before. Most of it was before, if not all of it was before,

and some evidence maybe after he was president, but how does the immunity decision from the Supreme Court even map onto this? But there's briefing about that, and that's sort of complete, and I gotta make a ruling on that. And then I gotta talk about sentencing, because I pushed the sentencing off

a couple of times already, because the convictions happened, and even though the appeals haven't happened, that's not how that works. You sentence, and then if somebody's got an appeal, they can go take that whole thing up to the appropriate appellate court. So, Karen, you want to talk about the couple of page letter that Judge

Mershon issued and what it means in terms of things that the Midas, Mighty and Legal AFers should be focused on in terms of milestones coming up? Because it's all going to be relatively quickly. A couple in August, a couple in September, to catch him up as to what Mershon's doing with all these things. Yeah, so the thing about the letter that I found to be most heartening and significant

is that there is a sentencing that looks like it's happening in September. People were slightly concerned because there was a when when when Judge Marshawn originally postponed the sentence, it was also by in writing. And what he wrote was I'm adjourning the proceedings to September 18th, and we will proceed to sentencing if necessary. And that that gave a lot of people concern because what do you mean if necessary? Why wouldn't there be a sentencing?

Judge Marshawn is just a very careful person. He speaks and writes very carefully and very deliberately. And what this letter I think really solidified is that it looks like there will be a sentencing. He writes at the very end, please note the court appearance scheduled for September 18, at 10am remains unchanged. We will proceed on that date and time to the impossession of sentence. It says or other proceedings as

appropriate. So he's again, still kind of slightly hedging, but a little less. And so I thought that was good. He's still intending to proceed to sentence. He told the parties to file their sentencing motions, which is common in cases especially of this magnitude, especially when there has been a trial. What normally happens is lawyers will write what's called a sentencing brief, where they put in anything especially when there has been a trial. What normally happens is lawyers will write

what's called a sentencing brief, where they put in anything they want the court to know to take into consideration during sentencing. They can be hundreds of pages long. You can attach letters from the community asking for leniency. You can, if you're the defendant, you can attach letters from medical records showing

that you have some kind of medical problem and therefore please show some leniency and mercy or whatever it is you that's the time for the defendant to put in all of the reasons they think that they should be given a lesser sentence or what they think is appropriate. And the judge will look at are they contrite? Are they apologetic? Are they all of those things are things that the judge will take into consideration? And then of course, the prosecution does the same thing where they put together a summary of why they think the person deserves X, Y, or Z as a sentence. So the judge has asked the parties to, if they, it's not required, by the way, to do that, you can also just show up at sentencing and make an oral speech.

But a lot of people like to put it in writing and make their case both orally and in writing. And so the judge specifically asked the parties to do that and gave them a deadline for that, for when they, if they plan on doing that. And the judge put a few more dates in there. He basically said, you know, he summarizes where we are and what's going on. And he specifically tells the defense who wants to submit another motion, another reply to the recusal motion, right? They submitted a third recusal motion, as you said, the prosecutors reply and he said essentially, I don't need you

to reply again. I have enough information. And he's gonna deny that. He's denied it several times. There's no reason he would grant that. And, but you know, he'll resolve that. And then the 33030 motion, which is the motion to set aside the verdict based on the immunity decision, that's going to be a slightly more, slightly more involved, I think he's going to actually, I think Judge Mershon has been quiet as you say for a while, but I think what he's been working on is applying the law from the case, right, the immunity decision that came down from the Supreme Court to this

case and he's going to write a significant decision. Unlike the Washington DC case that we're going to talk about, that one has not had a fact finding. There's not been a trial. There's not been a hearing. This has had a full-blown trial with evidence, with witnesses, with witnesses who have been cross-examined. So the judge has a full record to apply that new law to those facts to determine what if anything comes out and what if anything

happens to the case and whether or not it's harmless error, which I think is ultimately what he's going to find. So that's what Judge Machan has been doing and will be doing. And we're going to see some deadlines come up where things are filed, but essentially what we're going to really, the show, the time to show up is September 18th. That's going to be the sentence. Unfortunately, it's not going to be audio or video recorded or broadcast. So we're going to have to rely on stuff coming out of court like we did during the trial. Yeah. Yeah. Just a couple of color around what you just said.

So I think on the immunity, you're right, because the case has already been tried, the evidence is already in, the record is already established. It's going to be relatively easy. Even Trump's not trying to argue that his actions were immune. What he's trying to argue is under What he's trying to argue is under some other parts of the immunity decision that certain of the evidence relates to official conduct while he was president. So the whole of the conspiracy to pay off Stormy Daniels was before the election because it was done to suppress that information so Donald Trump could get elected. That's what everybody testified to, including of course, our fellow podcaster and friend, Michael Cohen. There was some leftover economic entanglements that extended beyond the election and even the swearing in like private checks that had to be

written on private Trump checkbooks on invoices that Michael Cohen submitted to pay off the scheme that was already established before he was president. It doesn't make it a presidential act just because, which is what Judge Hellerstein said, the federal judge, when he looked at this issue once before related to some of these things. He said, so the issue is whether any of that evidence, if it came in, was it outcome determinative? In other words, did the jury rely on a couple of stray pieces of testimony by people that worked in the White House like Hope Hicks and the woman that was responsible for his agenda and the revolving door in front of his office for scheduling, whether that was the reason the jury convicted him of 34 felony counts, and that's to

your harmless error point. The answer to that is no. I mean, even if it shouldn't have come in because it was official conduct that the Supreme Court has said should never be used in a case, it doesn't mean if it is used, it either falls into reversible error because it was outcome determinative. It made the case or it's reversible error. It's just something that, all right, shouldn't have happened but didn't have an impact on the actual outcome. I think that's where the judge here is going to go. I think he's going to issue that in September the way he said. He's going to dispatch that. He's going to deny the motion for recusal. Donald Trump's lawyers asked for, they're always so

greedy. Can we have one more brief on the issue of you being disqualified because your daughter works for Democratic fundraising causes? And the judge is like, I issue of you being disqualified because your daughter works for Democratic fundraising causes. And the judge is like, I don't need any more briefs. This is the same arguments you've raised in the past. He didn't say that last part, but that's what he meant. And so he's gonna deny that. And then we're left as you said, Karen, just what's there glowing on a bright calendar

is gonna be this September 18th sentencing. And there will be sentencing. So for those that are, you know, there's an interesting split screen that I'm going to show you next before we take our first break for commercial and talk about what the Supreme Court didn't do to help out Donald Trump recently. You know, this split screen image of the big mo around Vice President Kamala Harris and walls, or I like to call them walls to walls, and their ticket. I mean, it's just an amazing surge.

The Kamala momentum is outstanding and will likely lead to us talking about Madam Elect President Kamala Harris. But there's also that interesting juxtaposition because it is the prosecutor versus the criminal. It is the, right, it's the prosecutor versus the criminal. It's the prosecutor versus the felon. What happens is, the audience cheers her on. These raucous rallies, like the one we just saw in Philadelphia, one that we're going to see today, where everybody wants to encourage. I haven't seen this since

Barack Obama. They're just so hot and enthusiastic for Kamala and now for Tim Walz. They automatically break out whenever Donald Trump's name comes up with this, lock him up, lock him up, which is what he always chanted against Hillary Clinton back in the day. I get the exuberance of it, but it creates an interesting dilemma for Kamala because there's all these things in the ether made by MAGA that this is lawfare, the weaponization of the Department of Justice, and that's the only reason people are going after him. It's to stop him from being duly elected. And that's not what she's running on, nor does she have to. So she had a very great and interesting way to address this issue at a rally today. I want to show that clip.

I know Donald Trump's tight. I know his tight. In fact, I've been dealing with people like him my whole career. For example, as Attorney General of California, well, hold on, you know what? The courts are gonna handle that part of it. What we're gonna do is beat him in November. See, that was an off the cup. That just shows how comfortable she is in her own skin four years ago,

or when she was running in the primary, she never would have had, that wouldn't have come off her silver tongue the way it just did then. And it was such an artful way for her to frame the issue at this intersection of law and politics. What do you think about Kamala sort of tamping down on the lock them up, lock them up at her campaign rallies. I love that she's doing the we go high and they go low. I love that she's really not turning into Donald Trump that so many people try to do. We used to have a certain level of discourse and decorum and, and people spoke publicly a certain

way, especially people running for office. And Donald Trump is like brought that down to the gutter. And so many people think they have to also match him in the gutter. And I've seen so many people really go to that level in. Talking about him and talking to him, and I'm thrilled that she is not doing that and that she's keeping her dignity and her integrity and handling it in a way that is appropriate and looks like what I know to be the way people should behave and conduct themselves, especially in public office. I loved it. I thought she was fantastic. And continues to show tremendous judgment. You have to judge a presidential candidate on

a number of things. One, their body of work before they ran. We know what Donald Trump's body is, or as Tim Walz said, crime was way up. Violent crime was way up when Donald Trump was president. I'm not talking about his crimes. So you have that versus her really stellar body of work as vice president, attorney general, and all the other things. But then you have her being the CEO of Kamala Incorporated and watch how she's running this campaign. It may be high velocity sleep when we die campaign with 99 days or whatever is left or less than that. But look how she's running it. And then the judgment around picking her vice president and really, and being her own person. I mean, Obama was probably for Shapiro. I mean, there's

an old joke about Josh Shapiro that he's Baruch Obama, that he comes off like Obama when he talks, his cadence, his mannerisms. He was close to Obama, but that's not what she was looking for. She wasn't looking for another attorney general. She was looking for what Tim Walz could bring to the ticket and balance the ticket in that way. And yes, the progressive ideals that... and somebody that wanted to be her number two, and was willing, like she has been a dutiful number two for Joe Biden, a partner needed that that person next to her, the way that Biden was for Obama. She was looking for her Biden

versus Obama, the way she's been for Joe Biden. I really love that about her and the confidence and judgment that she shows and what she's doing on the campaign trail has to be attractive to the voter, right? I think, I hope so. I think I love her. I've been a fan for a long time. So I think, and I think she is just doing great and the polls are showing that he's doing great. And Tim Walz, look, he's, he's definitely, I need to play catch up. I didn't know about him or of him prior to this, but so far so good. Watch his speech. All you need to know is what Midas Touch ran the other night with his being introduced. His 10 minutes was withering. He's such an affable, happy warrior messenger. You can see all you like if you had like who's the guy?

Why the weird guy? Well, just watch him. And now you know why he's up there. But there's a lot of, you know, and the other thing that's happening with the Kamala surge is there there is a surge of interest in the Midas Touch network. I thought that it was going to take us till election day to get the 3 million free subscribers. But and you can make a liar out of me or make an honest man out of me. I think this is going to happen by Labor Day. I think we're that close. And it just takes, for those that wonder how you support the network that we're on, which has no outside investors, completely independent, no censorship.

We just, nobody tells us what to say. Lord knows that's true, is to free subscribe. If you're not already there, just go out and hit the free subscription button. And that's really it. Then you can watch the show to the very end signal to the algorithm you like the kind of content that we have. And then you can go out and get our audio podcast, just plug in legal AF. We have these clips that come out right after this show. We call Legal AF After Dark, only tongue and cheek,

which is just the segments that we're gonna do. Three or four segments today, we'll have three or four after darks. And those are very, very popular. Not so much, I don't think, with the audience that's here with us tonight, but with people that the clip is either being sent to for organic growth, word of mouth, or people that

are just stumbling into the legal AF through because they're YouTube people and they're just, you know, there's audio people who don't even know we're on YouTube as I think Brett, one of the brothers told me once. And then there's people that only know us, you know, one or the other. So we have that going on and that's another way to support us. And then we've got, besides our sponsors, which I'm going to get to next, we've got a new Patreon, patreon.com slash legal AF, where Ben and me are doing sort of teachable moments and kind of, I don't want to call it a law school class, I don't want to get in

trouble. We're not accredited. But we are taking the concepts that you know about here on the law side of law and politics and teaching them in a way we hope is informative and entertaining. We got a huge community there, over 3000 people. We just did a town hall Q&A with Ben and me. We had, I don't know, 1500 people that watched in real time and that was really rewarding. And then you can support the other contributors and other podcasts on the network. We started out four and a half years ago. It was the Brothers podcast and Legal AF. And now look at us. Now look how far we've come. And now we've got, I don't want to call it a sister podcast, that's the meaning, but there's another podcast that Karen Freeman McNipolo is on. It's called Mistrial. And she's right there in the middle,

Karen Freeman McNipolo, Danya Perry, Kathleen Rice, and they take it from a slightly different perspective. It's not just a repeat of Legal AF. It's a version brought by three prosecutors and partners and friends, and that's on the Midas Touch Network as well. And then Jordy has worked his little backside off the whole year, putting together an amazing group of pro-democracy sponsors. And the way you can support the show is not only watch the ad, and we try to make them as entertaining as possible, but also, you know, we've vetted the products. We like the products.

Take a look at the products. More sponsors, the more we're on the air. Let's be frank here. It's one of the ways to support the Midas Touch Network. And now we've got our first set of sponsors. With a growing family, making sure I know every one of my life is taken care of in case disaster strikes is more crucial than ever. I can never know life's next turn

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three piece towel set and save over 40% off. Again, that's trymiracle.com slash Legal AF to treat yourself. Thank you Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. Okay, well, I'll come back. Let's talk about something related to New York and then we'll move on to DC and then Arizona. The Missouri Attorney General a couple of months ago filed this WACO Missouri versus New York case. We were like, what is this? Now we

also understood that that Bailey, Andrew Bailey, the attorney general there was going to be in a dogfight, I hate that phrase, was going to be in a really a life or death struggle in the primaries against a Trump attorney of all things for the attorney general position. In fact, primaries already happened just today and it looks like by a landslide, 63 to 37, Bailey has won. And I think one of the ways he wanted to show his utter fealty and allegiance to Donald Trump was to bring this crazy suit to try to get the Supreme Court exercising original jurisdiction, meaning that they're not sitting as an appellate court, they're sitting as a nine-person trial court, which only happens under their article, article three powers, when there's a

state versus a state or foreign countries involved and filing actually a petition or a complaint with them saying the New York prosecution of Donald Trump, which led to the 34 count felony conviction we talked about is an interference with the First Amendment and electoral rights of Missourians. I'm like, go on, because it's gagging him with the gag order, which has already been upheld by the appellate court just recently. The conviction tied him up so he couldn't campaign. All right, well, that's sort of over. And he was campaigning during the trial. And sentencing would be terrible because, you know, he's a candidate and Missourians want to be able to vote

for him or some BS like that. So what happened with that case with the Supreme Court and what do you think it means and what signal perhaps is being sent to Donald Trump by his favorite court, which is the United States Supreme Court? I mean, this was even a bridge too far for the Supreme Court. They filed an unsigned order, meaning it was just from the court, generally speaking. And it was just a couple of lines.

It just said, Missouri's motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied, and its motion for preliminary relief or a stay is dismissed as moot. Justice Thomas and Alito, the two buddies that seem to always now be on the other side of things, would grant the motion for leave to file the bill of complaint, but would not otherwise grant relief. So really, what does that mean?

It means a bill of complaint or a complaint is a charging instrument that is filed if you're ever going to bring a cause of action, whether civil or criminal. And as you said, since this is a court of original jurisdiction for a state versus another state, that if they were to do this and try to get New York to stop doing what to try to prevent the sentence, essentially, is what they were trying to do and lift the gag order. That's what they would have to do is file a complaint. And so the Supreme Court just basically said, no, this is a they didn't explain it.

But this clearly was too far for them, said no, and we're not even going to let you file the complaint. And so so I thought that was interesting. But Thomas and Alito, you know, oh, yes, you could file the complaint, but it doesn't seem like they would, then they would dismiss it, right? They were just, that was sort of seemed to be what they were saying, but that they should be allowed to file a complaint.

I don't know, it's just sort of strange. Interestingly, but really quick also is Will Sharf is the guy who ran against the attorney general. And I happened to be with him in a CNN green room and he's one of these really, really smart nerdy lawyers. You know, like he's an appellate lawyer and he does all of the Trump appeals. He's on that team.

And he thinks John Sauer is a brilliant legal mind. And we sort of talked about some issues while we were in the green room. He was going on on the same day I was. And I had never heard of him until we were in the green room and you kind of just sit there and you're like, so who are you and what are you doing? And so he was telling me that he was running

and he thought he had it locked in. He really thought his ticket to winning was being Donald Trump's lawyer and that it was almost a sure thing. And I just think that's, I think this is unbelievable and incredible. It's a signal that it doesn't necessarily, just because you have hitched your wagon to him

is not necessarily, I mean, so many people, including people like Will Scharf, who's a very smart lawyer, who are willing to literally, I mean, I think he's dangerous, right? But he's willing to line up with the devil, frankly, thinking it'll make him win. And I think this is a very powerful condemnation of, and something to show other really smart people don't, just

because you're associated with him doesn't mean it's this automatic ticket to knighthood. I thought that too, except for one weird situation in Missouri. Trump endorsed both of them. He literally had a joint endorsement. He said, you can't go wrong with either one. He literally said that.

In fact, I did a hot take on the, when I did the hot take on the dismissal, I said, well, tomorrow, Bailey is going to be, um, in this dog, in this fight with, uh, with Will Scharf. Then weirdly he's been, both have been endorsed. I think what it came down to is, I don't know what Scharf's connections are to Missouri, but Bailey had already been there and Bailey like had to find a magic trick that would really turn on the Republican MAGA there for the primary and show his his he could out trump trump. I think I said in my hot dig it was

spy versus spy. It was like two trumpers fighting it out with Donald Trump, you know the winner is Donald Trump because one of them, you know, and I just think Bailey was more Missouri than Sharpe was, and they hadn't really heard of that guy other than like you said, who's this guy in the green room? I think that was the impact there. But Donald Trump wanting to play both sides. He bet on both horses. Then Bailey, but Bailey bent over.

I'm not saying Bailey's maga. He's election denier maga. He bent over backwards to file this saying Bailey's MAGA, he's election denier MAGA. He bent over backwards to file this lawsuit, which he knew was nothing more than a campaign, just a campaign ad for him in the primaries, just to give him some attention. He knew he was going to lose, he didn't care if he was going to lose, he lost. But yet the next day, he wasn't penalized by the voters of Missouri, he won 67%. Now the question is, is he gonna beat the Democrat? That's the big thing. I mean, when you go on the website for the DNC that's out there now for all the Harris-Wall stuff,

you know, a lot of it is just talking about down ballot. Like, it's Kamala, it's Tim, plus the Democrat. It's all about not just, it's stretching Kamala's coattails as far as they will go, not just to get as important as that is, as historic as that is, our first woman president in the United States, and a woman of color, no less, but to stretch her coattails so that down ballot, it's not a bloodbath, it's a bloodbath the other way. It's all blue. It's a sea of blue. It's a blue wave. And that's what we're watching here. So hopefully the two of them were fighting to see who was going to have the first class bunk on the Titanic, which is what I'm hoping. But you and I and everybody are going to have to keep an eye on that. So why don't we talk about, yeah, I think you had it right completely on SCOTUS.

I think it's nine zero, this loss, nine zero, they're not going to interfere with the sentencing of Donald Trump. Even Alito and Thomas weren't going to go that far and grant any kind of injunctive relief. It's just that, and I think it's seven to two that they were like, we, this suit has got no merit. Like you can't, I know what he was trying to argue. I don't know if you remember, Karen,

in the Colorado ballot, on the Colorado case about keeping Donald Trump off the ballot on the 14th Amendment as an insurrectionist, even like Kagan and others would say things, Kagan primarily, would say things in oral argument and in her opinion, like we can't have one state just decide and basically disenfranchise their neighbor state by not putting Donald Trump on the ballot.

We don't like that. That can't be what the framers wanted. And they kind of took that to the extreme. Like, hey, we can't have a state prosecute a guy who's a candidate. And then, you know, because that'll disenfranchise people who I don't really get it. He didn't stop him from campaigning. It didn't stop him from doing anything. And I said on my hot take, I got news for it. This is like a, this should be like a public service announcement in Missouri. If you're a

criminal in Missouri, the way to avoid being prosecuted by the Attorney General is to run for some office, maybe even the presidency. Because apparently that's enough. If you just do that, this guy, Andrew Bail, he's not going to probably or shouldn't prosecute you under this precedent that he's just established. It's just to watch people bend over backwards as contortionists, as you said, to try to curry favor with Donald Trump. And now they see they're on the losing end of that bargain, right? All the sharp money is pouring in towards Kamala and Tim Walz. And now all of these great theories about,

I'll be a Supreme Court justice one day, Aline Cannon. I'll be Attorney General, Jeff Clark, even though I lost my bar license, or Rudy Giuliani, or Alina Habba. You know, it was all like, what do I do for the next four to eight years when we're out of power? That's really the calculus that we're watching now in desperation playing out in the political realm.

Why don't we, I think next, why don't we talk about, there's a lot of updates in Arizona. We've got Arizona, Michigan, sorry, Arizona, Michigan in Wisconsin, and their attorney general is all going after fake electors and people in the inner circle of Donald Trump. And we've got some developments in Arizona in the case led by Chris Mays, the attorney general there. We'll cover all of that and so much more. But we have another word from our sponsors. Hi, this episode is brought to you by One Skin. I love One Skin. It's my favorite skincare product. I use it every single day. And I'm recently started using it on my neck because that's an area that I would like to see improvement. So I just add it to my daily routine of my washing my face

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Rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. All right, welcome back. So we're making great time here. I feel like we're double parked in this show for some reason, but we're efficiently making our way through our topics. Let's talk about Arizona. You wanna kick it off? Talk about what's going on with Chris Mays. Why don't you start with what was it? Because it was

like two months ago. And now what is it now? Yeah, like so the Chris Mays, the attorney general in the state of Arizona, brought a case against 18 defendants, right? I had to look that up. I'm like, 18, isn't that the number in Georgia too, with Fonny Willis? And I guess 18 is the magic number regarding their fake elector scheme. And some of the people you've heard of, right? The Rudy Giuliani's of the world and Jenna Ellis, et cetera, some of the same familiar names

and their roles in the fake elector scheme. And so what the big news that came out today or this week I should say is that Jenna Ellis who was Rudy Giuliani's attorney, they called her a senior, I can't remember what her title was, but a senior legal advisor for the 2020 Trump campaign. That was her claim to fame. And she also said she was part of an elite strike force team of lawyers who often appeared

on behalf of Donald Trump and was there to fight all of the claims that the election was stolen. And she was often side by side with Rudy Giuliani. And so if you remember in Georgia, she pled guilty to a very tearful plea of guilty, she pled to felonies and she agreed to cooperate there. And, um, and so that was what she did. And essentially during her plea and her allocution, she basically said, look, if I knew then what I know now, I would have never represented Trump. I would never have done these post-election challenges. I didn't do my due diligence, I'm so sorry.

And then of course she gets prosecuted in Arizona, and she's cooperating though there. And what was interesting about this and what was different to me about this was rather than having her plead guilty and cooperate the way, frankly, the feds do it, the way New York does it, the way a lot of people do it, they actually dismissed the charges against her.

They left it open to be able to refile if she doesn't testify truthfully and if she doesn't meet the obligations of her plea agreement. And there are certain things she had to do in there, including cooperate with the prosecution, make herself available, provide information documents and testify truthfully. But they dismissed it in advance. And that's very unusual for cooperation agreements. And in fact, they didn't do it in Georgia either.

What normally happens in a cooperation agreement is you plead guilty, and you don't make any promises as a prosecutor. You don't say cooperate, and then you'll get X, because that's going to be used against you on cross-examination. It's like, if I'm the defense attorney, you say, well, you're lying because you have to say this because you're getting, in exchange for getting a sweetheart deal, really you

don't make any promises. And the prosecutor says, let's see how you do. I might make any promises, be truthful, and we'll go from there. And you have to tell the truth. And if you don't tell the truth and if you lie, not only is your case going to proceed, you can also be prosecuted for perjury. It gets worse for you. So it was just an interesting way of doing it. But the attorney general, Chris Mays said, her insights are, this is a quote, her insights are invaluable and will greatly aid the state in proving its case in court. So I don't know,

she must be giving up some pretty good information to get an endorsement like that from the attorney general and get her case dismissed in advance. If I were Rudy Giuliani, I'd be quaking in my boots because she must have some really good information. I was going to translate that to all the other co-conspirators that work with her are EFT, that legal AFT, right? Because you're right. I mean, you would, you know, like we had an example just to continue sort of our teachable

moments, like, you know, Allen Weisselberg could ever trust the guy. And so you had to like hold dangle in front of him, you know, potential jail term longer than it would be if he didn't properly cooperate in a couple of these trials. And even there he effed it up and ended up getting convicted again of perjury because he couldn't get it right. Well, your old office, which is another testament to your old office, the fungible prosecutors that exist in the Manhattan DA's office, apparently. But here, you're right, it had to

have been like the mother load of information from from Jenna Ellis. I mean, people remember, there were three different lawyers who all pled guilty in Georgia. One, and they all had to read some sort of, I'm sorry, in court. Then, so Sidney Powell was like this ridiculous, she's writing her mother in sleep-away camp about something she did wrong. It was like, that's it.

In Ken Chesborough, slightly better. But Jenna Ellis, this was water works. This was water world. This was, I was misled by older white men. I'm so, how did I ever get here? And then she spent her entire, now she's trying to re, don't buy any of that by the way, just go on her social media feed.

Jenna in the morning, I'm not making it up, where she is Maga through and through. She's just not a trumper. She does everything else though. And she's trying to recalibrate herself and save herself from nine felony counts, which is what she was facing in Arizona. And also, she just barely missed getting disbarred off of what happened to her in Georgia. It kept her bar license. I don't even know how, but she did. But she's trying to like make a living on Instagram and on social media and all of that. So, you know, she is gone.

I am telling you, and you know it as a prosecutor, she's got the goods and she's bringing it. If you think Rudy Giuliani's hair dye was melting down his face before, wait till you see it now. Because I'm telling you, these people, Mike Roman, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Boris Epstein, the inner circle for Donald Trump,

many of whom who still are with Donald Trump, like Boris Epstein, who were already, many of them, either indicted in Georgia, almost indicted in Georgia Georgia or the like, have a lot to worry about. And it's not the last flip. They started with 18, as you so perfectly pointed out. It's down to 16. I said it's going to be like the International House of Pancakes. Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. There's going to be at least another five or eight. First of all, the fake electors, there's 11 of them, now 10, because Miss Pellegrino, who was a like a MAGA activist and ran a women's club for Republicans, she's now pled guilty as one of the fake electors because she's facing nine felony counts. And none of them, they're never going to be helped by Donald Trump. The only ones that are sticking

together and are willing to go to jail for Donald Trump are the ones that they think Donald Trump and MAGA will benefit in the future. And that this will be sort of something of value or virtue to them because they went down with the ship and they weren't a snitch or whatever the phraseology is. But the rest, get out of harm's way, man. Run for cover. Every man for himself. So that's what happened in Georgia. Almost all the fake electors, except for the ones that were like elected Republican officials, they all flipped. And that case was moving down a very nice track until it got stuck in the mud over Bonnie Willis having a relationship with somebody in her office. But that's not happening with Chris Mays in the attorney general's office. And the importance of the attorney generals

can't be understated, especially the ones that are in democratic states, in blue states, because those convictions stick. They don't get immunity doesn't help them. I mean, maybe a little bit, depending upon what the issues are, but immunities, Donald Trump wasn't indicted in any of these places, but the co-conspirators who don't have immunity,

these convictions are gonna stick and they can't be pardoned away by president Donald Trump wasn't indicted in any of these places, but the co-conspirators who don't have immunity, these convictions are gonna stick and they can't be pardoned away by a President Donald Trump if that were ever to happen, which is becoming increasingly unlikely. And governors of those states are not gonna be commuting and pardoning sentences. So they've been really, really important. I think as we said two or three months ago,

keep an eye closely on the attorney generals in the state and the work that they're doing. It's really, really important. Sometimes we just get sort of sidetracked talking about the Department of Justice and the feds, but as you know well, state prosecutors and attorney generals are just as, if not more important in certain contexts than the feds.

Yeah, I'm, as you know, proud state prosecutors. There's often a little bit of a snobbery, I will say. It's almost like people who, you know, who, the Ivy League, people who go to Ivy League schools versus people who don't, you know, there's a little bit of a elitism and snobbery. And same with federal versus state prosecutors. It's interesting. It's a very, occasionally we get looked down upon, but I couldn't be more proud of state prosecutors as usual. I think you look down on state prosecutors like Karen Friedman and Knifilow at your own risk. You underestimate them at your own risk. Because when you're sitting in a jail or prison,

it doesn't really matter which prosecutor puts you there. So I would not underestimate any of them, especially in New York. I think the Manhattan DA, of course, is the elite trial squadron, criminal prosecutor squadron, that's my view. And I'll go to my grave with that view. Let's talk about, just one thing I wanna touch on

the Supreme Court, then I want to move down to DC as long as we're in DC. Did you catch Karen Gorsuch giving an interview on Fox News? You know, I saw that he did. I didn't watch it though. WTF, as they say. Exactly. And W-legal-A-F. Like what is going on? I mean, listen, I would feel differently. I feel differently like if he went on C-SPAN, like no one's ever argued. Like, I don't even know what C-SPAN's politics are. I think they're just trying to

keep the lights on. I don't think they play politics. And you can't argue all these. I don't want to debate on ABC. Go debate on C-SPAN. Nobody cares. Just go there. Might as touch a host. We'd be happy to. I mean, bring them on here. So Gorsuch decides as a triggering event to go on Fox News to promote a new book, which is a ridiculous book, but we'll talk about that in a minute. But while he's there, he tells the moderator

that basically President Biden, by extension, Kamala Harris, better watch out and be careful in trying to reform the Supreme Court. Why doesn't he be careful instead of being in the alt-right of the court now with Alito and Thomas? The only reason that the Democrats have to have to clean up behind the elephant of the Supreme Court is because they're ethically deranged, because they are immoral, because they are no longer in keeping with three co-equal branches of government,

and they created a presidency that sits above it all without any criminal repercussion. They've unbalanced the three equal branches of government, our balanced government. And that's why we need term limits, ethics codes, an independent federal prosecutor as part of our system of government, and more of them, more justices, not just nine, nowhere in the Constitution anyway. So he goes on to talk about why that's wrong, and then also gets umbraged about his whole, got his whole backup about, got his whole backup about, oh, they're always, we're ethical because we say we're ethical, or we need to have zealous, zealous judiciary, ferocious judiciary, because the unpopular, what are you even talking about? The problem with Donald Trump is not that he's unpopular. The problem with Donald Trump is he's a criminal, and then he happened to also be running for a

presidential election in order to avoid the repercussions of his criminal acts. It's not the prosecutor's or the jury's fault that Donald Trump decided to run on purpose in order to be able to make that argument. But for him to go on Fox News and give that interview and say, watch out about reformation, beware. And then he wrote a book, Karen, catch the title of the book. No, called we get the name right, just flew out of my head. It's about it's about the premise of the book is there's two What is it called? Thank you. Was book What is it? Adam, you got the clip that to he wrote a book, Gorsuch,

he wrote a book that there's too much law in America. There's too much law. It's called, oh, I know what it's called. It's called overruled, overrule, like mistrial, but worse, like bad, overrule. And what he's trying to argue is there's too many laws. That's just what I want as Supreme Court justice to believe there's too much law that he has to apply. There's not too

much law. They ignore it when they don't like it. They make it when it doesn't exist. I don't really get the overruled part at all. I mean, it's just incredible. Why is he on Fox News? it's just incredible. Why is he on Fox News? Well, I think he's telling I mean, clearly, we know why he's on Fox News. I mean, right? He chose where to go. That's where he he wants to go. And look, he thinks there's too much law. It's like a doctor saying there's too much science. There's too much medicine. Medical school is too hard. I can't keep it all in my head.

It's too hard. Can you imagine? It's like- Salty just gave me the subtitle. The subtitle for the book is The Human Toll of Too Much Law. I mean, come on. You know what's crazy? Retire.

Exactly, exactly. Exactly. It's like, sorry that it's too much on you. You know, I had, I've been in government, I was in government 30 years. I have never never I'm trying to think of a single government organization, entity job job, anybody who doesn't have some kind of oversight and ethics requirements. I mean, every year I had to fill out this conflict of interest form, and then I had to update it and and even internally in my office there were checks and balances and the police department the NYPD I think has

four oversight bodies and an inspector's general and and I mean it's just mayors everybody judges like it's crazy to me to think that there's these nine justices who essentially they're above the law too nothing applies like that they don't have to answer to anybody, like as if there's some special class of somebody, I don't get it. When I hear Roberts say things along the lines, this tautology, it's ethical,

cause we say it's ethical. Don't you, do you ever, do you remember that scene in the 10 commandments? I love that movie when I was a kid, where God speaks as he's in a hovering Charlton Heston as he's throwing flame balls to make the Ten Commandments, you shall have no other God than me. Remember this scene? No, that was a goofy kid. Anyway, that's what I picture. I picture that voice in John Robert's head that they think they're some sort of God omnipotent,

infallible, like they're the Pope, like nine popes, like Chateau Nuf de Pape, it's like nine popes. They're infallible and they're not, and that's not how branches of co-equal government work. Oh, why am I so hot today? It's like a hot take in the middle of our thing. All right, I'm back now. I got a lot of time at home now with the baby. So let's move on. It's like a hot take in the middle of our thing. All right, I'm back now. I got a lot of time at home now with the baby. So let's move on. You're the wrong gender. You're the right age, but the wrong gender

for that to be happening to, Popeye. Oh, it's not that, oh, I understand that. Actually, and I just made a baby. I'm just saying. What? I'm glad we're done with the sponsors. Lord knows what sponsors will be coming up next. All right, so on that note,

we got one last thing to end our show with, and that could be the most important thing, which is Judge Chutkin in the DC election interference case. Remember that one? Put on ice literally in deep storage for a year and a half. Well, it's back. Formally, the mandate came from the United States Supreme Court, who also said, Oh, Donald Trump doesn't have to pay us $3,300 or whatever it was fine. In the meantime,

but sent it back to Judge Chutkin with instructions. Just do a couple of things. She's got to take the entire indictment and run it through a screen and figure out whether there's anything that comes out the other side that would make the indictment be able to go forward under immunity. One of the overt acts would have to be taken out or no longer could support the indictment. One of the acts, one of the allegations of the indicted crimes and one of the crimes themselves, the four crimes there. While you're at it, figure out whether you can still under our teachings of a companion case involving obstruction of official proceeding,

whether those two counts against Donald Trump survive. And then you can figure out how to put the case back on track. That's where they did that finger wagging. Oh, Judge Chuck, you should have done that at the beginning of the case. You should have tried to apply immunity and you didn't do it. So there's no fact-finding and there's no record. You got to do it now, which is what you were saying at the top, Karen, about we don't have that problem in Manhattan because we had a full-blown trial and findings of fact and verdicts, but she's got to

do it now. And Ben and I had a debate. I want to open it up to you on Saturday about what the contours and the shape of this process looks like. Meantime, she's dismissed some motions we actually forgot about. There were four motions to dismiss that Donald Trump filed back in October. Selective prosecution, vindictive prosecution, structural immunity, failure to state a claim. Why don't you talk about what Judge Chutkin has done to get ready for and what she's announced that she wants to have happen in August and leading to a hearing later this month.

So the immunity decision came down about a month ago. So I think people are probably wondering what took her so long? And the reason is because she had to wait until there was what's called a mandamus from the Supreme Court because she lost jurisdiction of the court when it went up on appeal. And so she had to wait until she had jurisdiction over the case again.

And that comes through the form of a mandamus. So that happened on August 2nd. On August 3rd, she was so she was clearly ready to go. She filed an order, and that's the order that applies to what the schedule is going to be and essentially said, okay, now I have regained jurisdiction. And she said on August 9th, which is two days from now, the parties are to meet and confer and file a joint status, if possible, on what the schedule for moving forward is.

And if necessary, explain why there's any disagreements in a separate section of this report that you're going to submit on August 9. So this is very common in federal court in particular, but in some state courts, to require parties to do what's called meet and confer. And sometimes it's a quick phone call and it's just to find out, do you agree, do you disagree?

And then you put that in your motion and you say, this is an opposed motion for whatever, or it's an unopposed motion for whatever. It just tells the judge what the people's positions are. And it also shows sometimes judges just don't want to waste any time. If why, why can't you guys talk? See if you can come to some agreement. And I'm the referee, right? You come to me if necessary. And so here she's just saying, look, you guys talk, have it out. See what are the things that you agree on and what are the things you disagree on.

And then tell me what the schedule is. That'll save a lot of time. There's no reason to fight about this all in court if there's certain sections that you agree on. So she essentially said, that's what we're gonna see in two days time and we'll see kind of what do the parties want to do. And then on August 16th, there is a status conference. And at that August 16th hearing,

she's expected to ask both sides, Jack Smith and the special counsel, how the court should decide. And she put three questions, which alleged acts by Trump fall under the executive branch's exclusive constitutional authority and are therefore immune from prosecution?

Which now number two, which are the official acts, but which are official acts, but otherwise prosecutable because they pose no danger of intruding on the power or function of the presidency. And number three, what acts can be prosecuted because they involve private conduct, such as possibly actions taken by Trump as a candidate and not as an office holder.

I think we will see, number one, there will be a lot of agreement. Why? Because Jack Smith and his team follow the law and are fair. As a prosecutor, you're not an advocate. You are an advocate, but you are not just an advocate. You also have an obligation to sit above, like a judge almost, and do what's fair and what's right

and what follows the law. And there will be things that Jack Smith will agree have to come out of the case and of the indictment. Some of those were already listed in the Supreme Court's immunity decision, and some of them are unclear. And so I think that that'll be number one, there'll be some agreement. Number two, there might be some agreement. I would be shocked if Donald Trump would agree that anything was private. He's going to argue that all of its immune. He's immune from all of it, I would I would suspect, because that's how he is. And through his lawyers.

And so that's what I think is going to happen on on the 16th. There's a few open questions, right? So let's unlike the Judge Mershon case in New York, there hasn't been any fact finding. So will she have a hearing or a mini trial, as many have described it? Or can she just do it based on the grand jury minutes and rule from the papers? It's unclear, right?

This is sort of unprecedented. I think she probably will have a hearing. Certain issues and certain items you have to develop a factual record for. So that's one possibility. Another question is, will they just strike certain things from the indictment, or will they have to go in and supersede the indictment based on the fact that some of that conduct is no longer prosecutable? And so then that brings the question, OK, is it getting too close to the election to supersede, right, to to bring charges?

And also, they're going to have to determine what what role Fisher versus the United States will play in this particular case, right? Don't forget that was the case that talked about whether 18 USC 1512 obstruction of an official proceeding can't be used vis-a-vis Mr. Fisher in that case because he didn't do anything with respect to documents or tangible items when he obstructed the counting of the votes on January 6th. So there was an interpretation of the law there. How does that apply to Donald Trump? Many people would say, you know, that it still survives here because his had to do with fake ballots. So those were documents. And that's a statute that was interpreted to require doing it through documents or things as opposed to just barging through and committing essentially burglary and trespassing, coming in to try to stop the proceeding,

that you have to do it through some kind of document. So that has to be discussed and decided as well. So I don't know if they're going to be superseding the case. I don't know if there's going to be a hearing. The other open question I have is, what about all those other, the I think it was five unindicted co-conspirators, right? When are they going to be indicted at this point now that there's never going to be a trial before the election? I think that the reason Jack Smith only indicted one defendant, Donald Trump, and for

four counts, unlike these sweeping sprawling other indictments like in Georgia with 18 defendants and 100 hundred and something charges, I think was to try to see if we can get a trial before the election. Well, now that that's not going to happen, I think it's kind of time to indict the unindicted co-conspirators and bring your case. So there's a lot of open questions. I think that in the next coming weeks, Judge Chuck is certainly poised to answer. And I think there's going to be a lot that we're going to see, get a sense of how this will happen and what will happen. Yeah, I don't think he's gonna, I mean, if I was a betting man, I wouldn't think he's going to try

to go back through a superseding indictment. You have to go back through a grand jury, of course, on that. That's just going to set the whole case back years because then it starts so sort of all over again with motion practice and other things. My gut is that he knew that this immunity decision could go badly for him and that Donald Trump would try to raise those arguments and was careful and methodical about how he prepared his indictment. And I think he thinks it'll survive. It won't be a Swiss cheese document where by the time you're done with it, you don't know what it is. I think a handful of things that'll have to come out. I think the rest are all well

supported, the actual causes of action, or I'm sorry, the claims, the criminal counts against him. I think we just sit back and let Tanya Chuck could do her job if she needs an evidentiary hearing and have full evidence put on because she was chastised by the Supreme Court who basically said you didn't do an evidentiary hearing. You didn't do the hard work to figure out and sort out all the evidence, figure out, all right, now let's have a public mini trial. And Ben's big on that. I know Donnie Perry on your show has been big on that. It's a big mini trial, present evidence,

and let's see what part of the indictment survives. I think that's what Jack Smith will push for. Briefing, of course. Donald Trump wants briefing, never. And I'm sure Jack Smith will request briefing so that all times out sometimes in August, sometimes just after September and Labor Day, but certainly before the election briefing on the issue. But the loser, whoever comes in second is going to take an appeal again, which is going to stop and delay the case, which is back to your point about this

case and getting tried before November. The question is, could it ever be tried before the inauguration? And that seems to be slipping away as well. But you know there's other ways for the American people to know who they're voting for when it comes when it comes to the election. You know so so you know look the my bet would be he stands on the indictment, special counsel Jack Smith, he makes the judge do the hard work of going through and shoving this case through the screen of the immunity decision and of the Fisher decision on obstruction of an official proceeding and see what comes out the other side.

If it's a tenable indictment, then you go forward and then she can make all the other ruling. She denied the motion to dismiss, she denied the motion to dismiss for Donald Trump. Most of them, except for selective prosecution, selective prosecution, she said, you're not making out that this, that you're being vindictively prosecuted by Joe Biden. And the fact that you've, your support for that is Donald Trump's own social media postings. And a couple of Washington Post articles does not rise the level of evidence that's necessary to show vindictive prosecution

or selective prosecution. You don't have a comparator, a person who's similarly situated to you as a soon-to-be-ex-president doing all these bad things. You don't have the other person. And she's also chastised, speaking of chastise, she chastised Donald Trump's lawyers for once again minimising what the indictment says about his crimes.

She let off in the first couple of paragraphs of her order and saying, once again, I have to tell you, the way you're reducing his, he's just sitting around in a room talking about the unfairness of the election and supporting some people that had other ideas. I mean that's sort of what he said in his papers that that's not what you're being charged with. You're being charged with the following crimes and the following criminal acts including

the use of fake electors and the pressure campaign and the pressure campaign on Mike Pence and all the rest of this. So she doesn't buy that and she's never bought that and she's never bought that. But we're going to watch to see what happens with Judge Chuckin. And we're going to do it right here at the intersection of law and politics. We're coming towards the end of another Legal AF. There's ways to support the show. Don't go yet. Patreon.com slash Legal AF. Join at a paid membership level and you get special content. You won't get anywhere else on the internet.

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