Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump LOSES BIG as Trial LOOMS

Episode Date: April 7, 2024

Meidas Touch founder Ben Meiselas and trial lawyer Michael Popok are back with a new episode of the weekend edition of the top rated Legal AF podcast. On this episode, they debate/discuss: updates in the first Trump criminal trial starting 15April, with the Judge reinforcing his gag order; denying Trump’s latest effort to delay the trial on “immunity” grounds; and setting a trap for Trump in allowing him to file motion to recuse/disqualify based on the Judge’s daughters professional life; Trump having all sorts of nightmare issues related to his $175 million dollar “bond” with the bonding company owner not being able to keep his mouth shut and giving interviews, the bond showing that the bonding company does not have enough in surplus cash to back the bond, and the NYAG requiring Trump and his crony’s bonding company to “prove” the bond in Court; whether the Special Counsel moves now against Judge Cannon to get her before her appellate bosses at the 11th Circuit and seek her reassignment from the case based on her latest “clear error” which could help Trump gain an acquittal with no chance to retry him; Georgia Judge McAfee denied Trump’s attempt to dismiss the Georgia criminal conspiracy indictment under 1st Amendment grounds, but why did the Judge allow Trump to raise the first amendment issue again at trial?, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. The Perfect Jean: Get 15% off for new customers at https://theperfectjean.nyc with promo code LEGALAF15. Fum: Head to https://TryFum.com/legalaf and use code LEGALAF to save 10% off when you get the journey pack today! Beam: Get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to https://shopbeam.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF at checkout! Athletic Greens: Try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase exclusively at https://drinkAG1.com/LEGALAF Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.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 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This NBA season, make every three-pointer alley-oop and buzzer-beater even more exciting with FanDuel. Download the app today to see why we're North America's number one sportsbook. 19-plus and physically located in Ontario. Gamling.com call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Michael Popok, we may be headed into spring, but it certainly feels like Groundhog's day. We're still talking about Donald Trump's bond woes, his inability to post the bond thought that issue was resolved. He got a break by the appellate division, which reduced the bond obligation in the New York attorney general's civil fraud case from the $464 number with post

judgment interest that could have been in the $500 million range to $175 million. Then he had his friend Don Hankey, who runs this insurance company called Knight Specialty Insurance Company, purportedly post the bond for him. Thought that was the end of that discussion for now. Then there was a bounce back message. Wasn't sure if it was an automated message or not from the New York court system, simply because I hadn't seen anything like this before, and I'm sure most court observers really hadn't. Turns out there was a deeper issue at play here because when the

surety tried to repost its statement of financials in a case involving fraudulent statement of financials What appears to be the case is that the surety doesn't meet the minimum threshold requirements for the reserves required to be a surety to post a 175 million dollar bond in the state of New York now the suretyty company claims, so what? We're not licensed in New York. Well, you're now doing business in New York, Hanky, in the New York court system. So Michael Popak and I will break that down. Justice and Goran has said a hearing. What is going on there?

Meanwhile, New York attorney general, Letitia James, she isn't backing down. Look, justice and Goran retains jurisdiction over all of these matters relating to the fraud case now. So as we previously noted, New York attorney general, Letitia James, doesn't need to file new lawsuits every time she wants to raise issues with Justice and Goran. She can file letter briefs and she just did that requesting an investigation be launched into whether there was a cover-up by Donald Trump and the Trump Organization of the perjury

committed by their former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, and also to enhance the powers of the independent monitor, the retired federal judge, Barbara Jones. That's what New York attorney general, Letitia James has requested of Justice Engord in this new letter that Michael Popak and I will break down. So a lot of activity in a case where by and large, we thought we maybe had closed one of the main chapters and we're just waiting on appeals, but with Donald Trump, nothing is done above board and And we're seeing that yet again.

Then we go to the Southern District of Florida, where again, when it comes to one of Donald Trump's appointees, federal judge Eileen Cannon, nothing also is usually above board, even though the headline this week is that Judge Cannon denied Donald Trump's motion to dismiss the Mar-a-Lago document case under the Presidential Records Act where Trump claimed by putting our classified documents including nuclear secrets and war plans into a box and chipping that box to Mar-a-Lago it thereby became his own personal property and the civil statute of the PRA the Presidential Records Act personal property and the civil statute of the PRA, the presidential records act preempts the criminal statute of the espionage act, one of the most absurd

claims while judge Eileen Cannon denied his motion to dismiss on that basis. She did what judge Eileen Cannon usually does, which puts some cryptic words and messages in there that seem borderline threats at special counsel, Jack Smith. Like I'm doing this at the pre trial stage and I will not be moved to make any declarative statements that I won't apply Donald Trump's presidential records act analysis at a later time. Feel free to appeal me if you like. I want to break all of that down with you.

Michael Pope-Pock also want to talk about Justice Mershon in the Manhattan District attorney criminal case scheduled for April 15th. He's been the target of Donald Trump's threats. Donald Trump's been threatening Justice Mershon's daughter, making post after post. Justice Mershon had to amend and enhance the gag order in that case, but that didn't stop Donald Trump from posting the articles of conspiracy theorists like Laura Loomer in his inner circle about Justice Mershon's daughter. Also Justice Mershon denied Donald Trump's motion to dismiss on presidential immunity

grounds calling it grossly untimely that Donald Trump would bring such a filing 17 days before the trial. Donald Trump has filed another motion to recuse Justice Mershon that looks a lot like the prior one that was denied by Donald Trump as well. Justice Mershon allowed Donald Trump permission to file it. He's not going to grant it, but you and I will break all that down and what to expect because this week we are one week away from the first criminal trial happening against Donald Trump.

Then just talk a bit about what's going on in Fulton County, Georgia, where Judge McAfee denied Donald Trump's motion to dismiss on First Amendment grounds, where Donald Trump essentially claimed that, Hey, look, if you're a bank robber and you say, give me the money, the give me the money part is protected by the First Amendment because it's words that are uttered out of the mouth. The analogy that Donald Trump was saying is that all of these things that he was saying, overthrow the results of the election, find me the votes, this, that, and the other, I was just saying them.

So the first amendment should protect my rights. Judge Scott McAfee said, you realize that if your words are integral to the commission of a crime, they don't get that first amendment protection, even under the strictest of scrutiny. get that first amendment protection even under the strictest of scrutiny. Michael Popock, great to be with you here on this lovely weekend and excited to be here with all the legal efforts. Yeah, Ben, I always love, I get so excited when you do the presentation of what we're going to do today because I have a handle on how you and I are going to address it. April has turned on the calendar. We like to call that around here, the Trump criminal justice season. April 15th starts

a New York trial, the first criminal trial against Donald Trump, despite all of him taking out all of the monkey wrenches out of his tool bag, all the sand to throw into the gears of justice. There's going to be a jury picked in the middle of April here. Like you said, we're about a week away. April 25th, there is a Supreme Court of the United States oral argument about effectively, if and when the DC election interference criminal trial presided over by Judge Chutkin is going to get up and running hopefully by the summer. And it's looking to me and as we hit at least the New York events and the Georgia criminal events, it's looking more and more to me. And of course, you and I will kick it around that we're going to be able to get two,

hopefully, trial criminal trials up and running into verdict before the voters have to vote in November. The DC election interference case looking like a deep dog days of summer event and the case in Manhattan that we're going to talk about presided over by Judge Mershon kicking off in April and finishing up sometime in June. It's not all four. We never thought on Legal AF we'd get all four criminal trials done before the November election, but two is a pretty good set of data and a body of work for the American electorate to decide whether they want to return Donald Trump to the White House or not. Then we'll get down, of course, into the granular level of what is happening. Then what I like and you like to do here is to get behind the headline.

I read all the headlines. I know what other people think the motions mean and the orders mean in these various cases, but you and I always have that unique perspective along with Karen that says, well, if you scratch the surface of the order, it's really not that great for the Department of Justice or for the prosecutor or for the George Fulton County DA. And here's why. And that's what we're going to do today. Well, I think you're certainly more optimistic than me, as I mentioned on our last episode together about that Washington, D.C. federal criminal case going, as I said,

I think people liked the line. I wish I was smoking that poppocky and hopium and hope springs eternal. I think we'll get one criminal trial in. I think Trump will be convicted of a felony in the Manhattan district attorney criminal case, but we'll break it down. You and I have those debates and it's okay to disagree sometimes on things. Want to give a shout out to all of the new patrons to the Legal AF Patreon site as well. It's patreon.com slash Legal AF. That's patreon.com slash Legal AF. Hey, Popak, my law school

class size at USC where I'm a professor is about 60 students. But did you know the new Legal AF lecture hall that we have at patreon.com slash Legal AF is 1,231 students so far and counting. And that's only in a two week period. Thank you all for enrolling, but let's get right into it. Michael Popok, and I'll toss it to you early on because I gave a bit of a long intro, the New York attorney general's civil fraud case, Donald Trump was hit with a $464 million judgment there.

This is not a criminal case. So do not get confused with the disinformation out there. And I had to remind Don Lemon in one of the collabs that we did as well, that in a criminal case, there's a bond that's paid. That's where you see if it's like a really bad guy, like a million dollars or five million dollars cash bond for them to be out of jail pending the trial. That's not what this is. This is a civil case. There is a civil judgment. Donald Trump has already been determined to have lost the case. For example, in the E. Jean Carroll case,

Trump was adjudicated to have sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll and then defamed her. He's the loser. So if he wants the privilege of appealing after being the loser, what the law says, you have to post a bond equal to the judgment that the winner has. So the winner can feel secured during the pendency of appeal that the money won't be hidden, concealed, or otherwise, you know, removed during the pendency of appeal that the money won't be hidden, concealed, or otherwise removed during the pendency of the appeal process. Same thing here with the district attorney's case. They're the winners. Trump is the loser. $464 million loser plus post-judgment interest. So if Trump wants the

privilege now, he has to follow the same rules as all of us, despite his whining and media saying, oh we've never seen this before. Nope. Every single case, if you want to stay the enforcement of a judgment, you got to post a bond that's equal to the judgment amount so the winner can be secured and the loser can have the privilege of staying the enforcement of the judgment so the winner can immediately start seizing assets. So Trump was given that benefit of the doubt, which I think you should never give him by the appellate division.

Trump was claiming essentially that he was indigent or didn't have the money. So they reduced the bond from 464 million to 175 million. Then they gave him an extra 10 days. And as I've said before in other shows, you give Trump an inch, he takes your life. You give him an inch, he takes your life. He views you as weak and he will make you look stupid for giving him any benefit of the doubt efforts. Why you can't do things like that.

And boy, is he making the appellate division look stupid because he's now posting a bond that doesn't seem to meet the threshold requirements. Popak, what are we learning that Trump did this week? Yeah, and I like your description a lot of the bonding process and just to continue it, and we'll continue these things on our Patreon, and our Patreon account and for patrons. Bonds are posted all the time in civil courts. The main place

that you and I as practicing lawyers deal with bonds is yes, in the appellate world where you post the super-sedious bond to stop the enforcement of the judgment until you continue to litigate the issues when you're on the losing end of the judgment as you described. But you and I deal with bonds all the time in the area of injunctions when you're asking the court to use its equitable powers to stop something or force something to happen in the way of an injunction, either a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction and you're asked to post a bond and that bond is calculated at the amount if it turns out later in the case that the injunction was improvidently

or wrongly granted, the damage to the person that has been enjoined and the trial court will calculate the amount of that bond and the bond gets posted. So I've been involved with cases to make the point that the other side gets the injunction, wins the injunction hearing, but doesn't have the money or the wherewithal to post the bond. So it's a Pyrrhic victory. They win, but they can't get the injunction in place because they can't post the bond. And that's okay. I was involved with a case years ago, one of my first cases when I practiced in New York, where the other side won, but we won because they couldn't post the bond and because they couldn't post the bond the injunction

never attached and therefore you move on now. For those who are sort of new to all of this, not us, or people that want to misstate or mischaracterize, they, oh we've never seen such a thing, happens every day. The party that needs to post the bond, they either post it or they don't and if they don't, they don't get the relief that they're looking for. Plain and simple. Donald Trump's got many, many problems here. One, I had never envisioned. He actually used a bonding company that's not only a crony of his, owned by a crony of his, and a Trump donor and supporter, but somebody who can't keep his mouth shut. I thought that Donald Trump would be the biggest problem to Donald Trump in the bond arena. Don Hanke, or as you and I like to call Mr. Hanke, Mr. Hanke is the worst bonding owner ever for Donald Trump

because he can't keep his mouth shut. He keeps giving interview after interview to ProPublica, to CNN, to CBS, where he says all sorts of things that undermine the bond in Donald Trump. For instance, he told ProPublica that he was actually willing to give the larger bond for $464 million, and they were just down to figuring out which assets, not cash, he was willing to, that's the difference, he was willing to, that's the difference, he was willing to take real estate and other pledges of assets. And that's what they were negotiating. At that very moment that the lawyers for Donald Trump were telling the Appellate Division First Department, which is the appeals court, that they've looked everywhere and they

can't find a bonding company, including going to 30 different ones, ones not named Knight Specialty Insurance Company owned by Don Hanke, Mr. Hanke. But that's a lie. And you as an officer of the court, you have an obligation to have candor to the tribunal. Don't lie to your appellate bosses or appellate judges. So they should have updated their filing and said, you know what we told you? We can't find it anywhere. You need to lower the bond.

We got a guy, Mr. Hankey. He's willing to do it. We just haven't gotten around to finalizing it yet, but they didn't. And then the appellate court relying obviously on the affirmations and the declarations that were false because they had Hankey in their back pocket, no pun intended. They lowered the bond to $175 million. And then Hanke continues his interview and says, Yeah, and they said,

well, thanks, thanks, Don, we're not going to use you this time, you know, the 175, we're going to take care of it. And then three days later, they came back and said, No, no, we need you again. And we're going to use cash. Here's another problem. Don Hanke told reporters that he doesn't know where the cash came from, from Donald Trump to back the bond. We have a word for that in the law.

It's called the violation of anti-money laundering laws, Bank Secrecy Act laws, and the Patriot Act. You need to know your customer. That's literally what it's called. You need to know the source of funds. If you don't, from a bonding company perspective, you may have just violated federal law. So you have that problem. This is the lageria of the mouth of Don Henke, who's just the gift that keeps on giving to

the New York attorney general and ultimately to Judge Angoron, who as you alluded to in the opening is going to be holding a hearing on this. Why? Because when they posted the bond, whatever piece of paper, that's all it is. It's a piece of paper supposedly backed by somebody, a company with the wherewithal financially to back the bond dollar for dollar. It says on its face, we fill in the blank bonding company's name, who are, I don't know, they said they're not authorized to do business in New York, but they said they're authorized to post bonds in New York. They try to get some magic language right, which they didn't get right in the bond.

And they didn't have the right attorney in fact listed and they didn't have the right power of attorney filed, all sorts of, you know, they might sound like picky you and things, but you know, our entire practice in the law is based on understanding and mastering details and picky you and things. And so in there, they also forgot, oops, to file their financials. This is ironic, right? Donald Trump, who never met an audited financial

that he didn't try to defraud the auditors with and rarely use audited financials, hired a company that doesn't have audited financials because they're not a publicly traded company in any event, who submitted non-audited financial statements that are three months old to the New York court system and said, see, we have plenty of money. But then when you look at the finances that they finally filed after the first bond got bounced, and the clerk gave them more time to refile, and they did refile. They got almost everything right, except that when you look at the finances, this company's underwater. This company doesn't have enough surplus cash to back the bond.

They're a $158 million surplus, meaning money they have above their debt liabilities, against a $175 million bond. They're short. Now, they may say, well, we're backed by a $2 billion parent company also owned by Don Hanke, but there's no relationship that's established in the filing that shows that Don Hanke's parent company gets to step in and make up the difference. So on its paper, this looks like an insolvent company that's been hired by Donald Trump, backed by a guy who makes his money giving no and low credit loans in the auto world. That's his

business. And so nobody in the New York bar like me was shocked. We would have been shocked the other way if the New York attorney general just didn't call the bond. It's like when you're in a poker game and you say, call, I don't think you have those cards. In New York, it's called proving the bond. And you can on the other side of a bond where you are the person entitled to get the bond in your place, you can say, prove the bond, meaning come into a courtroom with all your evidence and all your finances and prove it to a judge that you actually can stand behind that 175 million.

I mean, Letitia James is already upset that, in her own way, that she doesn't have a fully backed bond dollar for dollar behind the $464 million judgment. She had to take a 175 because that's what the appellate court gave based on misrepresentations by Donald Trump. But at least she wants the 175. And Judge Angoran is very interested too. And I assure you, Ben, at this evidentiary hearing where the bonding company has to come

in with its lawyers and its proof and the lawyers for Donald Trump all in front of Angoran, this is going to open up an entire Pandora's box for Donald Trump. It's going to include the statements that were made to the New York Appellate Division about his inability to find the bond based on statements and interviews made by Don Henke, the owner of the company. And this has gotten so, then I'll kick it back to you, Ben, this has gotten so in the weeds and so much more time that Don Henke wanted to spend that he actually, I don't know if you caught this, Ben, he actually said in a recent interview that he had charged Donald Trump a low rate fee for the bond itself. It's usually one to 2% of the bond amount. And he suggested that he

charged less than that. And now he's saying, if I had known I was going to get caught up at an evidentiary hearing and all of this. I should have charged him more. And it's not helping Don Trump for Don Henke to constantly looking for the spotlight in media interviews, just as a last contrast here. When Donald Trump posted his bond for $91 million in the E. Jean Carroll case about three weeks ago. He went to a legitimate bonding company that's owned by a large insurance company that's also publicly traded, Chubb Insurance, and their division related to bonds.

Okay, the Chubb Insurance guy, who's owned by, and the Chubb Insurance guy is a very famous insurance executive who's the son of a controversial insurance executive, wrote a one-page letter, sent it out to his investors explaining why he posted the bond. That was the last we ever heard of the guy because that's normal. Chubb doesn't give interviews about his bonding decision in any way. Not when you go to the king of the subprime mortgages or subprime auto loans, he appears to think he's the celebrity here and gets to go on television. And now Judge Angoran gets to pull it all together with a hearing that you and I will be able to cover in about a week. And if they don't

prove up that bond properly and Judge Angoran is not satisfied that that company has sufficient wherewithal, then the bond drops. They'll have to report that to the appellate division, first department. And then Latisha James will ask for special permission to continue to collect on the bond. And I'll kick it back to you for the monitor issue that came up about what Latisha James wants to do with the monitor.

Look, there can be broader issues too about lying to the court. There may be crimes that are being committed here in dealing with the other financial fraud judgment. This could open up a Pandora's box into so much more. Take a look right here about what Don Hankey said in this Reuters interview. He said that the cash collateral is being held at a brokerage firm and pledge tonight, specialty insurance company, and that Knight can access it if needed. Quote, this is what Hanke sang to Reuters. Quote, I don't know if it came from Donald Trump or from Donald Trump and supporters.

Hanke said of the cash Trump provided for collateral. Now I'm speculating here, but what if it came from supporters? That goes to your point that you have to know the source. That's why there are these anti-money laundering rules in effect. Is he pledging RNC money? Is he pledging political action committee money and super PAC money? Is he pledging political action committee money and super PAC money? Is he pledging money from Trump media? What is he pledging here?

And the fact that the bonding companies out there saying, I don't know where it came from and they're being quoted as saying that, that is just unheard of. But it's so Trumpian. And we're not going to spend time talking about it here, because you and I have done a million hot takes on it of the Trump media debacle and it crashing this week. But I'll just mention this point here. You know, the same way Trump has like Alina Habba as his lawyer, the independent auditor for Trump media, which is supposed to be this publicly

traded company, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Granted, we've seen the financials $58 million loss, $4.8 million total revenue. But the independent orders, like just some dude with a small office in Colorado, who in his independent audit to this guy's credit, he says that Trump media, um, has substantial doubt about continuing as a going concern based on its massive loss and may not be able to survive much longer. So you have all of everything that this person touches has some element like

this. And that's why I always go, I go folks, this isn't a political thing. This isn't like Democrat, Republican. It's just about competence. It's about fraud. It's about about competence. It's about fraud. It's about deceit. It's about corruption. It's about everything he does.

Trump's corrupt to the bone. We will be right back after this quick break. We'll talk about what New York Attorney General Letitia James is doing. Let's take our break. All right, Legal AFers. I need to tell you not just about any genes, but the perfect gene. Today's sponsor, Legal AFers, I need to tell you not just about any jeans, but the perfect jean. Today's sponsor, The Perfect Jeans, finally solved all of your denim difficulties.

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Start the good habit at tryfume.com slash legal AF to save 10% off the journey pack today. Welcome back to legal AF Michael Popok and Ben Mycelis here. One point I do want to raise though, Michael Popok, is I know there are some people who I've seen who are critical that Justice and Goran set this thing for late April and then they're saying more delay, more delay. This is what Trump wanted. Look, I agree with you on the fact that this is what Trump wanted. The appellate division is the one that you should be angry at, not Justice and Goran.

He has to set it at a normal, noticed motion schedule. And so he set it to allow the parties the opportunity to file their briefs. That's why he set it the soonest day, basically, he could to allow briefing and to then have an evidentiary hearing so that it's compliant with the law. But he was constrained that the appellate division, when the only fact that had developed since the trial where Trump lost was that the former chief financial officer pled guilty to felony perjury, and that was not in justice in Goran's order. And then Trump files a motion with the appellate division, which is just like, trust me, bro.

And the appellate division is like, okay, I guess we're going to have to reduce it now from 464 to 175. It's almost giving a reward to someone who doesn't just have unclean hands, but whose main witness is now a felon again. It was already a felon and now a felon who turned the New York court system into a crime scene. So frankly, shame on the appellate division for doing that, but Justice and Goran is gonna be strong and tough

in his order. And we always know New York attorney general, Letitia James is gonna be strong and tough. She sent a letter also to Justice and Goran saying, hey, can you enhance the independent monitorship order that you previously issued a month ago or so in connection with your prior order that the independent monitor would get these additional powers? One of the things that a New York attorney general, Letitia James, is asking for in this letter is let's allow, she's requesting, she's demanding that the independent monitor retired federal judge, Barbara Jones, conduct an investigation into whether Donald

Trump and the Trump organization were complicit in the perjury and Trump's lawyers were complicit in the perjury of Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer, since all of those documents that showed that Weisselberg had access to the things that he testified and lied about, and they were in the documents that he knew these things were lies, but they were never turned over in response to the subpoenas and the formal discovery requests. That retired federal judge Barbara Jones do a two week investigation right now into that and report back to the court about whether Trump and the Trump organization is complicit.

I think that the New York attorney general's office is teeing this up for another case. And whether that case is a criminal referral or another civil case or seeking more damages, I think, you know, that's what's going to be happening there. And then they said in this letter to allow the independent monitor to kind of be a little bit more nimble other than these quarterly reports. If the independent monitor sees things that are suspicious, to be allowed to report it right away to the New York attorney general on an ex parte basis as opposed to just submissions of kind of quarterly reports because a lot of this stuff needs to be monitored in real time. I don't think that's a controversial ask. In light of the conduct and the fact that a felony

was committed in his courtroom. I don't think Justice and Goran's gonna deny that. I think Justice and Goran will accept that. One thing I'm interested in knowing though, is if I was the New York Attorney General's office, as it relates to this issue of the bond, Office as it relates to this issue of the bond, I would request also in a letter to Justice Ingoron that Ingoron order in that same two-week period, because, right, Pope Hockett's right before that April 22nd hearing date, allow Barbara Jones to conduct interviews

with Hanke and all of those people, let the independent monitor do an investigation for two weeks as well, so that in addition to just the people, let the independent monitor do an investigation for two weeks as well. So that in addition to just the briefing, by the time you have that hearing, you could potentially have had depositions taken with retired federal judge Barbara Jones going to Trump and all these people and writing a report. I wonder if that'll happen. That's what I would do if I was in the New York Attorney General's office. But that's my own view. I know. I agree with you.

Look, you have a monitor. You have the unique device that's in place because of Judge Angoran. It has been in place for 17 months almost. Now with new robust superpowers, sounds like we're doing an ad for a new product in the supermarket, but the new and improved monitor has tremendous amount of powers. And why wouldn't the judge, who's properly referred to Barbara Jones as an officer of the court and a direct, who's directly responsive to Judge Angoran, he's got an insider in there that he can trust like no other in the Trump organization.

And Angoran, to your point, has to be concerned when the lineup of all of Mr. Hankey's interviews and all the things that he has said, where you and I have just slapped our forehead and said, what do you mean you don't know where the cash came from? What do you mean you don't know if it came from donors or not? What do you mean you don't know if it came from the company or not? And you've got a company and all of it, it's not just a company who's under the monitorship. It's all of the assets, including Donald Trump's main source of income and funds, which is his trust. How has he funded this account that's backed it up? If he had been able, as you said, this is an error of Trumpian proportion, right? It only

happens in his world because a person who hasn't committed fraud as a judge by a New York judge, who hasn't had his auditors and accountants fire the client for fraud because they believe they've been defrauded, who doesn't have their chief financial officer go to jail and can be convicted twice of both perjury and tax evasion. That kind of person can get a bond on their IOU because they're trusted and trustworthy. You don't have to go to, you know, there used to be an ad when I was a kid, Earl Shine, $99, paint your car for $99. I mean, this is, I mean, I know Don Henke is an eight billionaire, but he runs this thing

like a family office where he's made, he even said, I took a look at it. I don't know what he actually sounds like. I took a look at it and I said, he's got enough liquidity from what I see. I'm going to give him that loan. That was the underwriting. That was the entirety. And I said this before I even heard Don Henke speak in his interviews, that he obviously went Donald Trump to somebody who's just a family office where one guy makes a decision and he just decided, and now we know more about Don Hanke, Trump supporter, Trump donor, and all of that, who just like, you know, because he's friends

with Donald Trump, he backed a $175 million bond or did he? But I like the way you've outlined what the evidentiary hearing is going to look like. And I think there is a tremendous role for the monitor who's the only trusted person independent in that room. I love Letitia James, but she's not independent. She's the prosecutor, if you will, of the case. She's the attorney general of the case. But there is an unsaleable, ethically bastion of ethics in that room who could be trusted about financial matters, and that's Barbara Jones. And I agree with you. I think she takes the stand where there's affidavits. I think he grants the ability for the attorney general to speak directly to Barbara Jones

outside the presence of the lawyers. As an officer of the court, it happens. I've been involved with cases where that happens. And I think he grants that. And you and I will have a lot to talk about. I also agree with your point. Don't blame Judge Angoran. The appellate division, although they could change their, if they feel like they've been had by Donald Trump, they could change it, but they're the ones that kick the oral argument on this case out to the September term. They're the ones that decided that the briefing would happen through June and July and that the actual oral argument about the appeal wouldn't happen until after everybody got back from summer vacation.

That's not on Judge Angoran. So the fact that he's moving around some chairs here well before the deadline for the appeal, who cares? I mean, he's doing it, as you said, properly and allowing there to be proper due process so there's no challenge by Donald Trump that he didn't have enough time to make out his evidence. But it's going to be a clown show that you and I are going to revel in covering when Don Hanke and his people come into that courtroom married in a shotgun marriage to Donald Trump and his lawyers.

I mean, if I would pay to do hot takes, I'll don't ever repeat that for those because it will be, it will be must must watch TV, must see TV. You will, you will pay me to do hot takes. I like this. Wait, wait, does that stay in the pod? I think you've been stigmatized and we hear your perspective there. So, um, one interesting thing about the dates and times of all of this is Donald Trump will be in the Manhattan district attorney criminal case

starting the week of April 15. So when that hearing takes place before justice and Goran, there's going to be a little bit of shuffling from justice Mershan's courtroom in the criminal case to the civil fraud courtroom, um, in justice or justice anger on so Mershon to anger on, we will be covering all of that. Let's pivot right now and talk about, you know, a hanky like figure, um, a Trumpian like figure, uh, a federal judge, Cannon, who was appointed by Donald Trump and appointed during the

period where Trump was a lame duck. Um, although he's always been a kind of fraudulent lame duck his entire life and perhaps far worse than that, but she's been the worst judge ever. And nothing that she says even looks like the law. She, you know, it would be like Judge Eileen, it would be like Alina Habba becoming a judge is almost like what Judge Eileen Cannon is. And, you know, we've tried in a PO-POK, you've tried more than me to early on give Judge Cannon the benefit of the doubt of things, but, you know, she ends up kind of making a fool of you and me when you start seeing these orders and everybody out there, you know, the headline about this recent order

that judge Cannon makes is you'd be like, hide the ketchup, Donald Trump's pissed, the judge can and turn against, uh, Donald Trump. She ruled that the motion to dismiss that Trump filed under the presidential records act is denied. So isn't that a big win? Not really, because it's the stupidest argument ever. It's a borderline treasonous argument. It's arguing that Trump under a civil statute, the presidential records

act, which deals with stopping people like Trumpian figures from claiming things as their personal property on a civil statute. That that somehow preempts our criminal law so that if he's willfully retaining national defense information, the PRA, the presidential records act trumps, no pun intended, his committing crimes such that a judge and a jury cannot even question the categorization of things as personal. And so the presidential records act says, look, these types of things are presidential records. These types of things are personal because what it was trying to do is create some clarity for presidents on their way out.

Like, OK, you know, like your notes may actually still be presidential if they relate to like an autobiography or something personal, then they're personal. It never said that a president could claim our nuclear codes and things that are clearly classified records and national defense information as their personal property. It's the dumbest argument ever. It's so dumb that if you were to make this argument in a national security law school class, you would flunk it on the first day and the professor would say, what are you talking about? And the students would start laughing because it's the stupidest concept ever.

You can't claim nuclear codes as personal property because you just said so and put it in boxes and shipped it to Mar-a-Lago. You can't telepathically declassify records just because there's a process, there's a law. This is the United States of America damn it so the fact that Judge Cannon denied his motion to dismiss under the Presidential Records Act that's like the bare minimum but remember what Judge Cannon did before that and this was also a development this week where Judge Cannon had previously requested that Special

Counsel Jack Smith engage with, those were her words, engage with two different types of hypothetical factual scenarios and based on these factual scenarios provide jury instructions regarding the interplay between the Presidential Records Act and the Espionage Act. Remember that? And both of those hypothetical scenarios that you want to Jack Smith to engage with. By the way, what are you doing that you as a judge, you don't ask the parties to engage with things. You make orders. You grant a motion or you deny a motion. That's what you do as a judge. This isn't like a game. You're not a game show host. Like what in the world are you even doing? So Jack Smith, Michael Pope, did exactly word for word almost what you and I predicted he would do.

He said, I'm not going to engage with unlawful scenarios. The premise of both are false. The Presidential Records Act has nothing to do with criminal law and the espionage act. But Judge Cannon, let me submit for you the instructions that have always been used for like a hundred years in cases involving the espionage act, because this isn't a new statute. We have the model jury instructions. Here are the jury instructions you should use, which are the same instructions that courts use across the country in any case involving the Espionage Act. But Jack Smith also said, Judge Cannon, if you really believe though, like you are essentially implying here that the

Presidential Records Act plays a factor in these jury instructions at all? Let us know now, because we'll either seek an appeal or we will seek a writ of mandate or a mandamus. We will go directly to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal and order you to comply with the law because you clearly have a misconception of the law. Jack Smith put it in slightly nicer words than that, but he was elegant with it. So what did Judge Cannon do?

I think she realized that she was trapped. So she denied Donald Trump's motion to dismiss under the Presidential Records Act, but she stated, she goes separately, to the extent the special counsel demands an anticipatory finalization of jury instructions prior to trial, prior to a charge conference and prior to presentation of trial defenses. The court declines the demand as unprecedented and unjust. So judge Cannon saying, I'm not going to tell you if I believe the

Presidential Records Act should be part of the eventual jury instructions. She goes, I find that to be unjust. And then in her order denying Donald Trump's motion to dismiss, she goes, for these reasons, accepting the allegations of the superseding indictment as true, the Presidential Records Act does not provide a pretrial basis to dismiss under Rule 12B, which is a federal rule to dismiss. But notice what she says there. She says, does not provide a pretrial. She puts those words very intentionally and specifically in there.

It's not that it doesn't provide a pre-trial basis. It's that it provides no basis at all. She's putting those words in there to hint at that she would dismiss this case while the trial is taking place. Otherwise, you don't need to put the words in there, pre-trial basis only. So now the question is, and I'll toss it to you, Popak, but just so our viewers and audio listeners go, Ben, you hog the whole topic. Don't worry. When we get to Manhattan District Attorney, Popak's going to handle that whole topic. Everybody knows that I'm a geek when it comes to SIPA, Classified Information Protection Act, Procedures Act, Presidential Records Act, stuff.

So here's what I think Judge, here's what I think Special Counsel Jack Smith does. He won the motion, so there's nothing to appeal. He can't appeal the win. It's not the way it works. So I think what he does though is he will wait until the motion eliminates the pretrial motions. He will file one to exclude any reference to the PRA.

If she does not make a ruling on that, he's now built his record. He will then go to the 11th Circuit. Then we'll see what the 11th Circuit does. Now, I think the one thing that Jack Smith has as an insurance pocket, though, as an insurance policy, since we're talking about insurance, in his back pocket, people have been wondering why hasn't Jack Smith done anything with Ben Minster and charged in New Jersey federal court? He still is within the statute to file against Donald Trump there.

I think that he's thinking that if after all of these things, the 11th circuit doesn't step in eventually, which I think they're going to. Jack Smith just has to be, unfortunately, patient with the timing, so he doesn't screw himself with the games that Cannon's playing. I think Jack Smith goes, if after all of this, Cannon does something egregious, and a jury's impaneled, and then Cannon dismisses it, so Jeopardy attaches, and then there can't be an appeal and the case is fully dismissed. I think he says, well, then I have, I have my New Jersey case.

Trump did this in other States as well. And I'll go there anyway. That's my thinking about his fine Jack Smith's final move. If after all of this cannon kind of gets away with it. Yeah. Here's my respectful. It's not disagreement because you and I usually see eye to eye on things,

but you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of fun and energy in juice when we can disagree a bit. I'm not sure he has to wait until, because he quote unquote won the motion. I'm not sure he won the motion. The problem with the way that the motion is written, as you've outlined for Judge Cannon,

is the headline we've talked about and you got into the details of it. the motion is written, as you've outlined for Judge Cannon, is the headline we've talked about. You got into the details of it. It is a motion to dismiss the indictment at the indictment stage on the Presidential Records Act is denied because the Presidential Records Act doesn't mention in the indictment and I have to accept everything is true. There hasn't been briefing on the issue, but I'm going to allow you to raise it again at trial. The problem with that is that even as written, it demonstrates that the judge is in

the throes of a stalemate or painting herself into the corner of her own making, that you now have on paper an indication or a memorialization that can go up to her boss of the 11th circuit that she has gotten off on the wrong foot about how to analyze these various laws and whether they intersect at all, which they don't. There's no Venn diagram in a proper world, in a non-alien canon world where the Presidential Records Act intersects with the Espionage Act or the Obstruction of Justice Act to serve as a defense or as an element of the crime. You have now her indicating that she's doubling down on her wrong-headed thinking, which infects all of her other decisions and that she's created, as I said, this sort of stalemate environment. There's a set of factors. I've

done a hot take on it. In Florida, the case is called Torkington. There's three specific factors. And I think we're at the point where, and I'm sure that Jack Smith is evaluating it, whether he can hold up this piece of paper, align with all the other things that she's done wrong in the case from day one. In fact, we don't do shows

about what she's done right in the case because we'd have no show to do. She's done everything wrong and when she does it wrong and makes an error, it's always in favor of Donald Trump. It's never in favor of the prosecutor. And what he has to worry about, what we worry about is this concept of double jeopardy, which we will cover at length, you and me, in Patreon,

because it's a long topic, but I'll give it to you the short way. If through, even through error, if instructions, for instance, are given to a jury that improperly instructs them on the law, right? And gives them jury instructions that make it harder or almost impossible for the prosecution to win their case because it's added on elements that shouldn't be there, as you said, that don't belong in a model jury instruction on this thing. And the jury acquits and Jeopardy is attached. He's acquitted. It's very difficult, if not impossible, even with an appeal, if you will, to retry Donald Trump. He walks. And that is the fear that she is not just not competent

or just inexperienced, which is what I gave her the credit for in the very beginning. And we're going to talk about two judges today. The next segment is going to be about another inexperienced judge and what he might be doing wrong again. Both of these judges are less than a year under their belt as judges ever when they got their respective Trump cases And I know people around the world are saying that's how you guys administer justice You take the least experienced judge and give them the most monumental In historic of cases. Yes, if that's the random assignment process But that's what he's got to worry about.

And if he can now pull together that this judge is under the torquing factors, it's now time. We don't have to wait to see that she is speeding at 100 miles an hour down a road where the bridge is out ahead. We don't have to wait for her to go over the bridge and take justice with her. We can stop it now and get a proper judge because every time, Ben, it just shows that her mental process is infected improperly with a position that she's

taking and doubling and tripling down on it, digging her heels in on. And you see it in the writing. And I'm sure they'll circle it when they send this in, if they do this, to the 11th Circuit, where she's, as you said, she's dared them to take her up on appeal. She didn't have to say that at the end. Everybody knows that people have the right to bring appeals on things with merit that they need. But she was reacting to her, their criticism, calling her out and saying, your homework assignment about the jury instructions and telling us to both assume two scenarios, we can sort of live with your second scenario because we feel we'll be able to prove that none of this information could possibly

be personal in nature to Donald Trump. But the fact that you're putting us through that exercise because you think the Presidential Records Act somehow provides a defense shows clear error if that's the case by the court. And she said, no, no, it's not clear error. Mr. Special Prosecutor, you have misstated my position. I was doing it as a thought experiment. I wanted to see the jury instructions well in advance of ever setting a jury for trial. Now, just to see how the parties analyze the case law and the legal to guide me in decisions. The problem with that is, and the problem the 11th Circuit will have with that self-confession, is that the person wearing the black robe a year and a half into a trial, into a case, needs to understand at now, if not at the beginning of the

case, the law and how it applies to the facts and the indictment and the defenses, not fumbling around in the dark looking for the law and hoping that Trump's submissions help her. That is not her job right now. And she just confessed to me that she is right now at the moment when she should have understood this law a year ago, she is now just coming to a realization that she doesn't understand the law and it's infecting every decision that she's making. If I'm Jack Smith, I say we're not appealing the ruling, but look at how she got there and look at

what she has said. Use the Torkington factors, get rid of her, reassign her off this case and bring in a judge that knows what they're doing so that we can do justice. That's me. That's the Hopian-Papakian thing that you like to sell on the show. No, the Hopian-Papakian smoking thing is about the Washington, DC federal criminal case going, but we'll talk about that in a bit. Just so people know the way Popak just characterized what Cannon said, let me just give you Cannon's exact words.

This is from Judge Cannon's order. The court's order soliciting preliminary draft instructions on certain counts should not be misconstrued as declaring a final definition on any essential element or asserted defenses in this case, nor should it be interpreted as anything other than what it was. It was just my genuine attempt in the context of the upcoming trial to better understand the party's competing positions and the questions to be submitted to the jury in this complex case of the first impression. As always, any party remains free to avail itself

of whatever appellate options it sees fit to invoke as permitted by law. The ultimate gasoline, look, and again, this is what I say, this isn't a Democrat or a Republican thing. You don't want people like Judge Eileen Cannon or Alina Haba or Laura Loomer or Matt Gates or James Comer or Jim Jordan, who's like, think about it this way. Jim Jordan, who runs the Judiciary Committee, is not a licensed lawyer.

Not a licensed lawyer runs the Judiciary Committee in that he went to a law school, never took the bar exam. I know a lot of people who were still smart who didn't pass the bar exam, but I don't think you need to be on the judiciary committee. I don't think I want a licensed lawyer on the judiciary committee the same way I want like a brain surgeon to be doing the brain surgery. I mean, I don't think that's a significant ask, but this is the MAGA crew and this is why this is the intersectionGA crew and this is why this is the

intersection of law and politics. And if you want to take a deeper dive and get lectures by Michael Popak and I, Popak, I told you I was nervous that people weren't going to like how much we geeked out at patreon.com slash legal AF, but people seem to like the geeking out. P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com slash Legal AF. We already have 1200 students who are part of our Legal AF class. Let's try to make that 3000 by the next episode. Lofty ambitions, but we'll see. Thank you everybody who's signed up for the classes there.

It's been great to see y'all. Pope Ox has been doing some great videos. I promise you I'll be doing some videos soon as well. I'm gonna get through my semester though as a professor and then I'm gonna start doing that. Let's take our last quick break of the show and then when we're back, we still have to talk about what's going on in New York and Georgia.

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So super cool to see that class grow. And as I said, when I'm a professor at USC, got about 60 students in my class, which is a packed house, but we got 1200 students at the Patreon. Let's keep that growing. Michael Popock, let's talk about what happened in Manhattan. Let's talk about what happened in Fulton County, both the criminal state court cases. Manhattan district attorney criminal case against Donald Trump for making

hush money payments and then covering it up with falsified business records as the first way Donald Trump tried to interfere with the free and fair election in 2016 by covering up bad information, two or three seconds of sex he had, which Donald Trump says is not an affair, which I agree that probably doesn't constitute an affair. The way Stormy Daniels describes it, one of the most disgusting two to three seconds of his life, it's very small genitals. And Donald Trump wanted to try to cover all of that up. Let's talk a bit about what this is about in Manhattan district attorney's recent motion, recent orders where Donald Trump filed. Try to assert presidential immunity there.

He did it 17 days before the trial date. Justice Mershon shot it down, said it was untimely. And Justice Mershon really a scathing order. Like you had all the time in the world if you wanted to bring this in good faith, but you waited until after every deadline expired and now you're saying presidential immunity in addition to the fact that it's just a bogus and frivolous invocation that you're... and Justice Marshawn didn't even have to go into this because he could just reject it as untimely

and he didn't want to get into the substance either because why create additional potential appellate issues if you start getting through the substances. I'm not even listening to this motion, but Trump's claim that he had presidential immunity for conduct that took place before he was in office because while he was in office, he tried to cover it up by making deranged and unhinged social media posts, so that's not going to fly. Judge rejected that. In addition, Michael Popak, Donald Trump talking about unhinged messages, it's just more of the same, attacking the judge's daughter. And then when he was banned from doing that in an amended gag order, tried to

post other people's articles that attacked the judge's daughter, like who attacks the judge's daughter, the judge's daughter, I mean, it's just despicable behavior and then Donald Trump brought a motion to recuse break it all down. Pope. Pop. What happened in Manhattan? Yeah, we've got a lot of judge Mershon flexing his muscle appropriately and letting everybody know who's boss in that courtroom as we expected.

That's what happens when a case, the random wheel of assignment lands on a judge who's been a judge for 15 years, who's already tried Donald Trump type cases, including against Donald Trump's own companies where a jury that he presided over, 12-0, a year and a half, two years ago, found that Donald Trump's companies committed tax fraud. Same judge, same judge, same daughter, daughter who's employed and has a professional life and First Amendment rights to do whatever the heck she wants and be involved with politics and civics. As long as the judge is not financially benefited somehow by the daughter, the judge doesn't

work on commission. His daughter doesn't send him money as a percentage every time he makes a ruling against Donald Trump. That's what you would think Donald Trump. That's what you think what's going on with Judge Marchand based on the filings by Trump to try to recuse or disqualify Marshawn again. This is the second time in a year with really no new evidence. It's just a bad faith filing as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure Judge Marshawn too by Todd Blanch on behalf of Donald Trump to try to, again,

has nothing to do with whether Marshawn is biased or not or is indicating that he can't properly administrate justice in that courtroom. Everybody who's a legitimate, reasonable court watcher, including us, knows that that's not true, that he is at the highest levels of integrity as a judge and there's no grounds proper or otherwise to bounce him from the case. But Donald Trump needs delay. If he can't get the judge bounce, then he'll argue that why can't we just wait to see what happens with the Supreme Court on the 25th, 10 days later of April with their oral argument about whether I have immunity. And the judge's response was like, first of all, why are we talking about presidential

immunity? You weren't president at the time that these indicted acts were done. You were candidate Trump running against Hillary Clinton. You weren't in the White House. That's the point. The point was, there, yes, to your point, I'm just pop-up commentary here, there was election interference because you were trying to interfere with the voters knowing about you as a sex addict or a person that had sex outside his marriage and so you were paying off all these women. I think the side note, side bar, I think it's ironic, although the irony I'm sure is lost

on Trump and his followers, that at the exact same time that Donald Trump is having the first criminal trial against him about a cover-up of him having a sex act with a porn slash exotic dancer or whatever they call it these days. He is also in the news again because he took $8 million for his Trump media company from a bank in the Dominica that makes most of its money in porn and sex worker transactions. I mean, the irony is not lost on me, but I mean, apparently this is the type of candidate people are interested in voting for. So Judge Murchon did a few things.

One, he said, we talked about it at the midweek, but we never, I mean, I don't get it. Porn bank, porn star, I mean, for me it was ridiculous. But a couple of things. One, the judge was like, we covered it midweek, but we'll just touch on it here. I got to reinforce my gag order. You keep attacking my daughter, which is the civilians in the criminal justice system. As I said, even the mafia doesn't go after the civilians.

It doesn't go after the family. Donald Trump would be thrown out next communicated from the mafia. It goes after the daughter, just like he went after the principal law clerk for Judge Angoron, just like he goes after every woman in power that's against him in one way or the other, prosecutors, attorney generals, and the like. And so he said, all right, I didn't think I had a right, don't attack my daughter in the order, but I'm going to write that. And then of course, he also reminded Trump that he's the judge, that he has the power

to find somebody in criminal contempt, meaning bring your toothbrush, you're going to jail, and I can find you $5,000 a day, try me. The try me was my part. That was my color commentary. So that gets enforced, which is another trap the judge has set for Donald Trump to have him do it again. And what Donald Trump decided to do is, well, I have a way to continue to attack the daughter to have him do it again. And what Donald Trump decided to do is, well, I have a way to continue to attack the daughter that may be legitimate or not. I'll put it in a legal filing.

And then he filed it as at the judge says, you wanna file a motion on me? You want, this is a New Yorker. You want a piece of me? All right. It's like De Niro in Taxi Driver. You want a piece of me? File your motion.

And the entire motion was just comprised of attacks on the daughter, which is exactly the thing under the gag order that he's not allowed to do. And then page after page of you and me and the rest of our audience, Ben, learning the intimate details of Lauren Murchon's professional life, like a 40-page LinkedIn about every title she's had and how they make money. Now, let me make this clear. Lauren Rashad, who's an independent unit from her father, she's a grown woman who has a job. Part of her job is in politics. She works for and runs or helps run a political marketing firm that works primarily because they make a choice like we do on the Democratic side. So all of her clients have been in the past like Kamala and the Biden campaign and Adam Schiff

running for Senate and all that. Okay, great. That's how they make their money. Now let me make this finer point. If you and I and our audience learned that Judge Mershon used to be the General Counsel of that company and he gets a pension from that company and or he gets a bonus from that company that company where he has a financial Vest and interest I would be the first one to say that judge Roshan should go that that the fact that he's taking dollars directly into his pocket or Indirectly or otherwise through his daughter and is being rewarded at basically working on commission for every time He makes a ruling against Donald Trump that company makes more money. Okay, he would have to go. Right? But that's not what we have here. Judges are allowed to have family members. Family members are allowed to have jobs. And they're allowed to exercise the

First Amendment rights and they doesn't back up on the judge for removal. If that's all it took to remove a judge, we would have no judges presiding over any cases. And every defendant not named Trump would be trying this trick. That's not how it works. Judges are a stubborn thing. I've been doing this for 33 years. Judges are a very stubborn thing. It's very hard to get rid of a judge. I've only tried it once in my career and it worked. But that was the only time I ever did it because I had the facts on my side of extra judicial statements made outside the courtroom that showed that he was biased towards against my client.

We happened to catch it. That's good. The other stuff that's listed in the motion for recusal besides that Laura Mershon makes a living in politics, good for her, God love her, is, oh, the judge gave an interview. I leaned in. I was like, okay, what did the interview say? Was it something about bias or that he's going to throw the book at Donald Trump? He can't wait to get Donald Trump in his courtroom? What was it? And then you and I read it. And as he said, I'm going to apply, because Meshach is a very sober guy, I'm going to apply the law. I'm going to apply the law, the facts, a lot of the facts.

It's a very intense case. I'm like, that's it? That's the judicial bias that's being expressed in an interview? No, that doesn't work under New York law. I'll tell you that straight. And then it was, oh, and Lauren, Lauren, Lauren Mashan on a podcast, back to our world, said something that indicates that the judge has been talking to her about the case. Well, what was it? Tell me. Lauren Mershon

said her dad doesn't like that politicians use Twitter and he finds it unsavory. Okay, first of all, he's, oh, it must be talking about me because I use Twitter and I do crazy things by social media. There's no social media at issue in this case. This is one of the rare cases involving Donald Trump where his social media tweets and postings don't matter except when he's violating gag orders. This was all done pre that. This had to do with Stormy Daniels and a cover up of a sex act payoff and how it was reflected in the books and records of the company, which is a crime in New York. And then when you couple it with another crime that you want to do it to interfere with an election, you got two crimes and two crimes equal a felony in New York.

That's what this case is about. There's no tweet. The only tweets that are going to hang Donald Trump have nothing to do with being president. It's going to be when he made statements about this case in which he indicated that Michael Cohen wasn't doing official acts for him in some sort of presidential capacity or attorney-client relationship, but that it indicates that Donald Trump knew about the cover-up and had instructed Michael Cohen to enter into the agreement with Stormy Daniels. That's the only set of tweets that are going to come into play. So when you're done

reading the 35 pages of total and complete nonsense, all it's going to lead to is Mershawn denying it. He's not going to certify the appeal. He's not going to stop the trial. They're going to have to try to run and try to get some emergency duty judge down there at the appellate division in Manhattan to give them an emergency stay of the trial. They've done it a couple of times in the past for at least a day or two, but I don't see that happening here because this issue of Judge Murchon and the daughter, which has already been fully briefed already, and the Judicial Ethics Committee has already given an advisory opinion to the judge, told them, don't you go anywhere. You're on this case and you're not biased and you don't have to be disqualified, is gonna die. This case, I want to hear your opinion,

sometimes we disagree on timing. This case starts on April the 15th with a jury pick. What do you think? Yeah, I don't think you're smoking the poppocky and hopium there. Look, we like to say here on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network, what we can do is the same way meteorologists try to predict all of the weather patterns to tell you, is it going to be a rainy or sunny day or whatever, we try to do the same here. That's every indication is that, you know, out of nowhere, could there be some emergency motion that gets filed? Then you get some, to your point, some, uh, appellate judge who does

something absolutely outrageous. And then that you just, you never know. I don't expect or foresee that happening here, but you know, I agree. I think this goes April 15th. Um, justice Mershon has protected his record. He's done everything exemplary. And so I think that's a testament to Justice Mershon not taking the various bait that Donald Trump threw his way.

I think it's also important to note that Susan Necklis, who's one of Donald Trump's lawyers, is not on these filings. It's always the Todd Blanch guy who's willing to kind of sacrifice his career and reputation for Trump while she keeps a distance. It's frankly why I don't fault her for representing Donald Trump the way she does. I think people are entitled to have, you know, even Donald Trump, criminal defense lawyers who represent their interests. What is always problematic in the Trump world is where the criminal defense

lawyers no longer act really as lawyers, but they act in a way of people who are really trying to tear apart our legal system and undermine our legal system and gaslight and then go on the press, you know, the press conferences and just lie all of the time. That's, that's where my criticisms are focused on the Habas and the Blanches and Takapino when he was doing that, although he kind of had a change of heart and the Chris Kises and all of those lawyers, but Popak here's the post, here are the types of posts that Donald Trump was making in the past year. Um, again, these weren't, these were, these are recent posts. Just, just take a look at this to your point before, when you're like, like

people support this, like people like this guy, this is what Donald Trump said about this. He goes, I did nothing wrong in the horse face case. Cause he, he refers to Stormy Daniels, uh, the woman who he had sex with as a horse face. He goes, I did nothing wrong in the horse face case, because he refers to Stormy Daniels, the woman who he had sex with as a horse face. He goes, I did nothing wrong in the horse face case. I see she showed up in New York today trying to drum up some publicity for herself. I haven't seen or spoken to her since I took a picture with her on a golf course in full

golf gear, including a hat close to 18 years ago. She knows nothing about me other than her con man lawyer, Avenatti and convicted liar and felon jailbird. Michael Cohen may have schemed up, never had an affair with her, just another false acquisition by a sleaze bag witch hunt. And here's the photo of Donald Trump with her right there. And he calls her a horse face. And I mean, again, the level just the, this level of just, this is where I go guys, people,

this is not Democrat Republic. The leader of the Republican party is calling the porn star he had sex with for three seconds. And she says he's got a small dick and, and, and he, and he calls and he calls her a horse face and says that he never had an affair with her and can't spell the word accusation and calls it acquisition. I mean, like what?

Like what? Like really, like what are we talking about? You know, like we're the United States of America. What in the world is this? Anyway, I digress. I can do a whole show about that. I guess I did. I guess I created a whole network about that.

By the way, by the way, I don't want to make promises I can't keep, you know, back on Popoco-popium, but I have been contacted by a close business advisor of Stormy about having me do an interview with her before the trial. I'm in talks. That's all I'll leave it at that. Popocan is in Popocan negotiations. All right. We're just going, let's, let's just talk about Judge Scott McAfee.

He's of course the judge presiding over the Fulton County, Rico criminal case against Donald Trump and other code defendants. A number of those code defendants, including some of Donald Trump's former lawyers have already pled guilty to their role in that case. But one of the motions to dismiss there that Donald Trump filed, notice all of these motions, you know, that he's been filing across the country. And it's basically, I can do whatever the hell I want to do and here's why. Absolute presidential immunity.

I can order SEAL Team 6 to kill my political opponents. When you're a president, they let you do it, right? What's his argument under the Presidential Records Act? I put things in boxes, those nuclear codes, United States of America, ha ha ha ha ha ha, they don't belong to you. You thought the war plans were belonged to me? Oh no, no, no, I put them in boxes,

I shipped them to Mar-a-Lago, they belong to me now. When you're the president, they let you do it, they let you steal the nuclear codes and the war plans. Ha ha ha ha ha. And then the First Amendment argument that Donald Trump made in Georgia is, I can say whatever I want to do and you can get away with it if it's words. Sure, I can say words that are integral to the commission of crimes, but if I say it, the words are protected by the First Amendment.

And to his credit, Judge McAfee said, no, that's not the way our First Amendment works. There are robust First Amendment protections. The example I gave at the beginning of the episode, it'd be like a bank robber who doesn't execute the bank robbery, but is attempting it, but doesn't succeed in it. Who goes, give me all the money, give me all the money, and then runs away. And then they're prosecuted for saying, give me all the money and attempting. I go, as a First Amendment, look, I was just saying, give me the money. Those are words.

When the words are integral to the commission of the crime, even under the exacting judicial standards of strict scrutiny that protects First Amendment speech, integral to the commission of a crime, you don't have First Amendment protection. And so Donald Trump lost his First Amendment claim, but his claim is, if I say it, I can do it. And by the way, that goes back to what Donald Trump said in the Access Hollywood tape, when you're wealthy and you're a rich man, they let you do whatever you want to do.

You could grab women by the genitals is what Donald Trump said. And again, this is the leader of the Republican party, disgusting, sickening stuff that's coming out of it. It's, it's, it's vile. I never thought this would be, I never thought this would be the United States of America, but I think it's just important that we just keep sharing these things. Show you the patterns here. That's why it's the intersection of law and politics.

Pope, any comments you have about what Judge Scott McAfee did? I know you see something a little deeper maybe going on here. Yeah. I'm getting concerned. I always get concerned. I know you do too when we have inexperienced judges, when they both make decisions and then try to kick the can. It's the can kicking that concerns me. So, the headline is what we've talked about, which is exactly what you and I predicted. Standing on the shoulders, although he did not really cite to Judge Chutkin's earlier decision that was almost identical, that the First Amendment could never provide a cover or a defense to criminal conduct, even one that involves speech, speech plus willful

intentional criminal conduct is not covered by the First Amendment. Nor did he cite to the DC Court of Appeals who backed Judge Chutkin. He cited to a lot of other fundamental precedent and seminal cases in the Supreme Court, US Supreme Court, some in the Georgia Supreme Court to make his decision. So I wasn't worried at all that he was going to come out on the wrong side of finding that the indictment, when you have to evaluate the indictment giving all of its allegations the benefit of the doubt, you have to assume in the purposes of this indictment that everything that's been alleged is true.

And having done that, because that's the benefit that's given to the prosecutor in when an indictment is being evaluated as whether it should be dismissed or not. I knew once he did that, everything there, he wouldn't be able, and despite Steve Sadow saying over and over again, we had it, the Midas Touch had broadcasted

or rebroadcasted the YouTube of Judge McAfee when Sadow said, this is core political campaign. I got to do it with my hair back. Core political campaign speech, everything in the indictment. That was my Steve Sadow. And the judge was like, no, it's not. Speech is often at the heart, as you laid out then, of a crime. Unless, as I joked, unless it's a band of mimes

who are using sign language and even to coordinate their efforts, there's always first, I think even the sign language would be First Amendment speech, or it would be speech. So the judge came out right on that. The part that troubles me is that he's allowing, he did adopt the, there was a debate that has now manifested itself in the order that maybe you caught then. When Sadow said to Judge McAfee, McAfee said, well, you know, McAfee always looks bored. He's always got his hand in his head, his hand in his face. He's like, well, so, you know, we donee always looks bored. He's always got his hand in his head, his hand in his face.

He's like, well, so, you know, we don't have enough factual record now, you know, wouldn't I have to decide all of that later when there's a factual record at trial? But judge, we never get to a trial, that's my point. We shouldn't put my guy through a trial. Well, now the judge has said, I need more facts to finally decide it.

It's almost a motion to dismiss denied without prejudice because it says at the end of the order, I reserve the right to revisit this issue once there is a proper factual record developed. Well, where do you do that? There's not going to be an evidentiary hearing. It's a trial. Yes, Trump now has to go through a trial because his counts, at least two of them, and the conspiracy count, which is the engine driving the entire indictment of prosecution, it remains intact. It's gone through the acid bath and acid test.

It's come out the other side and Fonny Willis has her indictment. She'll decide down the road now that she's still in the position and the Judge McAfee's not going anywhere, whether she'll move for a re-indictment on some of the counts to clean them up or not, that's going to be a timing decision for Faunie Willis, somebody who said the freight train is back on track and we are moving towards a trial. I'm not sure we are for the summer anyway. And my problem is if he allows this First Amendment thing the way that Judge Cannon did, if he allows this confused law giving to go on without clarity at trial, he'll provide Donald Trump with a defense he's not entitled to under the First Amendment that he's just rejected now for now, not enough to get rid of the

indictment, but I'm willing to listen to whether there's a First Amendment defense at trial after the presentation of evidence. That still concerns and troubles me for the same double jeopardy analysis that you and I gave when we were talking about Judge Cannon. So not out of the woods yet. And there's still more motion practice out there. You know, you've got, and I'll do a hot take on it because I saw it and laughed, you still have blacks for Trump and

Willie, whatever his name is, Willie Floyd threatening that if Fonny Willis doesn't recuse herself by Monday, he's going to try to put her in jail. I'm not sure how that doesn't violate the gag order that Judge McAfee put in place, but you still got all the crazies who are bringing the motions. Yes, Schaefer, who was the head of the GOP, his motion to dismiss was denied. Donald Trump's was denied and all that, but there's still some other crazies out there with motions where mischief is, we're not out of the woods yet. Mischchief can still be done. But we're in April. We joked at the beginning of the podcast about criminal justice season for Donald Trump is

kicked off. It's like baseball season. We're in April. Great. There's a lot of things in April that you and I will be able, along with Karen, to talk about as we round into May and June and oral argument and that kind of thing. But the chances of the Georgia, this is the opposite of Hopium, Popake and Hopium, the chances of the Georgia case with outstanding motions, appeals that'll likely happen all the way up to the Georgia Supreme Court and all happening by the summer is almost zero

for me. I'm not saying that McAfee is dragging his feet the way Cannon is, but he certainly is being very methodical in terms of his rulings and when they happen, and there's other things out there. And Fonny Willis is keeping her powder dry, I guess, because she hasn't run into court to ask the case to be set for trial at the moment, even though the judge has said, despite the appeal that he has certified about whether Fonny Willis was properly removed or not, his decision on that, he's not stopping all the other decision-making that he'll be doing on the motion. But he didn't say he was going to set the case for trial or anytime soon. And that concerns me, as does the fact that Fonny Willis

seems to be sitting on the sidelines and hasn't run into court to try to set the case for trial. So I think at the end, you and I are gonna be talking a lot between now and the summer about developments in the Cannon case, including through appeal. The Manhattan DA case was what, which will already be up and running. What happened with the bond and the appeal

and the collection efforts by the New York attorney general and all of that, and the DC election interference case after the appellate argument at the end of August. But I don't think we're going to be talking about or updating our audience that there's going to be a Georgia trial in the summer. And to answer the question, I often see in the chat, no, courts are not going to require Donald Trump to simultaneously be tried. It'll be a due process violation. If they do, he needs the chance to catch his breath, regroup, and prepare for a new trial. So there'll always have to be a gap. That's why even in my opium world, I'm only, I'm only saying there's going to be two trials, not four trials.

Well, there you have it. Has everybody seen Against All Enemies? The new documentary that's out that the Midas Touch Network executive produced. It's the number one documentary on Apple right now. You can get it on Apple TV. You don't even have to have an Apple Plus account. You just go on Apple right now, you can get it on Apple TV. You don't even have to have an Apple Plus account. You just go on Apple TV. Amazon, YouTube, it's called Against All Enemies.

Make sure you download it. And it's a really important film. And we're so honored to be a part of that with all the great filmmakers and veterans who made that possible. Of course, I want to remind you, now's the time to sign up for patreon.com slash legal AF, our law school class at legal AF, where we really geek out.

I mean, if you like the geekiest of the geekiest stuff that we do, oh, you're gonna love the legal AF Patreon. And if you just want to see me and Popak lecturing, you'll like it. You'll like it as well. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Legal AF. Let's see if we can get that class size up from 1200 to 3000. I think we will get there. Michael Popak, always a pleasure spending these weekends with you. To all of you watching and listening, we are so grateful for this community. We are honored to be a part of this community with you.

None of this is possible without you. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Together, let's get out all this accurate data and information, that's key. Thank you all so much for watching. Shout out to the Midas Mighty, Shout out to the Legal AFers. Everybody have a great rest of the weekend. Rest up. We got a whole lot of work ahead of us. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.