Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump PREPARES to LOSE IT ALL, GOP Prosecutor Case COLLAPSES

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Defense attorney Michael Popok & former prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo are back with a new episode of the midweek edition of the Legal AF pod. On this episode, they debate: what happens next in the NYAG general civil fraud case now that the judge is about to entered judgment against Trump for almost $500 million with interest running at almost $400,000 per month; Hunter Biden’s new aggressive attacking of the Special Counsel who indicted him and what it could mean for the President; what the indictment of a key FBI informant falsely claiming that President Biden took a bribe, means for the MAGA impeachment proceedings and Hunter prosecution; Alabama’s male dominated Supreme Court finding that unborn embryos have more civil rights than their born mothers and fathers, and so much more at the intersection of law, politics and justice. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! Prize Picks: Go to https://PrizePicks.com/legalaf and use code legalaf for a first deposit match up to $100! 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. One Skin: Get started today at https://OneSkin.co and receive 15% Off using code: LEGALAF AG1: Try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase exclusively at https://drinkAG1.com/LEGALAF SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop NEW LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Call 1866 5-1-2600 or visit connexontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Oh, it's that time, Karen. It's the midweek edition of Legal AF, only on the two million strong mites, Touch Network. We curated a great show for you today with a little bit of an audible that Karen and I did right before we got on the air of the stories at the intersection of law, saying if Donald Trump doesn't post his bond, and we'll talk about the bond amount,

plus interest, plus 120%, if he doesn't do that within the time allowed, she's going to start seizing his assets. And for people like Karen and I that have worked on seizing assets, we're going to tell you what that all means. Plus, can Donald Trump even get a bond? And is he going to come up with the over $500 million in cash that he would have to post if he can't get a bond? We'll talk about all of that. Then we're going to talk about Mar-a-Lago. Has, after a year of us patiently waiting,

has Jack Smith finally cornered Aileen Cannon, the judge there. There are two possible appeal issues that are coalescing all in the same week. One has to do with her, what Jack Smith and his team have referred to as clear error and manifest injustice by Aileen Cannon in her order two weeks ago for Jack Smith to just tell the public the names of all the secret grand jury and other witnesses That are currently under under protection Just replace that not give it just to donald trump tell the world by filing it on a public docket That violates law

That violates the standards that are applied in the 11th circuit in other places And jack Smith filed a motion for reconsideration warning the judge that if she doesn't change her mind and make the right decision, they are going to take her up to the 11th Circuit on a standard that she's committing manifest injustice and clear error. And then she's making a series of rulings about the Classified Information Procedures Act, but we like to call around here, Ben likes to call around here the SIPA stuff and on the SIPA stuff Here's how it works One page out of thousands if she screws up that gives Jack Smith an automatic right to go directly to the 11th circuit

On an appeal and at the same time ask to have a lean countant removed. Will he? Talk about it here with my co-anchor, Karen Friedman-Nipolov? Then we're gonna talk about a guy named Smirnoff. No, not that one, Alexander Smirnoff, who you never heard about, except he was the heart and has been the heart of two major proceedings that you have heard about.

David Weiss, the special counsel, appointed by Merrick Garland for whatever reason to go after Hunter Biden had been relying on Alexander Smeartoff, who apparently is a Russian asset who was hell bent on interfering with our US election and trying to stop Joe Biden from being elected. How did he do that? He told the feds that Joe Biden, when he was vice president, took a $5 million bribe and so did his son, Hunter Biden. The only problem with it, it wasn't true. That didn't stop MAGA Congress, like James Comer, using this fake false news or information to open up an impeachment proceeding against Joe Biden. In fact, they claimed it was the smoking gun. The smoking gun has now flamed out. And in fact, it forced the special counsel, David Weiss, to turn

around and prosecute and deite and prosecute the very confidential informant they were using against Hunter Biden. And that was the heart of the impeachment. And then we've got some hanky-panky going on in Nevada, where the magistrate judge made an interesting ruling about whether Alexander Smirnoff should spend time in jail before he goes to trial, or should be out with an ankle bracelet. And we'll talk to you about developments related to that. And as they touch on Hunter Biden.

And then, because that's what Karen and I do, we just like to do jazz riffs. We may touch on some other things that are really, really important to our audience. And we'll just see whatever comes to mind. We're going to do this extemporaneously, as always. This is one take. High Wire Act that we like to call the midweek edition of Legal AF with your co-anchors, Michael Popak. And one of my best friends, Karen, for you, Magnifala. Hi, Popak. Hi, Karen.

How are you? I'm doing fantastic. Where are you these days? Are you in? I'm in New York, and I want to give a shout out to my dad and my stepmom in Palm Springs, or Palm Desert, I should say, where they live.

They are watching us live, because we're doing this live. So they're watching us right now. And I wanted to say hi to them. I love them very, very much. And I also wanted to mention that my two necklaces that I wear are my dad served in the United States Army. And he also was a Los Angeles police officer. He worked for LAPD.

And so my dad is a public servant as well. And when he retired, we found his uniforms in a box somewhere and my sister said, look, there's these beautiful, I don't know if you can see them, these beautiful buttons. This is the Army one, this is the LAPD. There's five of them and he has five daughters. Let's get them made into necklaces. So I wear them. They give me strength

They remind me of my dad who is the heart and soul and strength of me and Really the best person I know so dad. I love you. Thank you for being our number one fan and Tony you as well I love you guys. So thank you for letting me say that to them. And now we can talk about the issues. Yeah, everybody knows my strong relationship with all my family. My dad passed, but he was also Army, go Army and had a Army burial,

not at West Point, but locally with us. And so family is really important where we wouldn't be literally where we are if it wasn't for a strong family and strong family values. So of course, welcome to Mr. Mr. Friedman. Is that what you call? Yes, it is. No, he is. Yes, it is Mr. Friedman.

Howdy, Friedman. OK, now let's let's make his night with his daughter here with me and talk about the first topic, which is right in your neck of the woods. about the first topic, which is right in your neck of the woods. I'll frame it and turn it over to my favorite former prosecutor on any network, Karen Freeman, Nifalo. So all that's left is the shouting. We've already got the judgment. In New York, we call it something different.

I know sometimes we label it as the verdict or the judgment, nothing, it wasn't a verdict and it wasn't a judgment. A verdict comes from a jury, a judgment hasn't yet been entered. The thing that came out is what we in New York colloquially call the DNO, the decision and order. I can't tell you how many decisions and orders

that Karen and I get in our cases from judges. And it looks just about that. This one was 92 pages. It went on with findings of fact because Judge Engoran was the trier of fact because there was no jury. And he'd made conclusions of law. That's what we call it.

Find that you find facts and you conclude law, applying the law to the facts. And then you have a remedies section, usually your relief section, in which the judge spells out in the D&O what he wants to have happen next as a result. And here the judge was applying the remedies that are available under the case law of New York and the statute of executive law 63-12, which allows for disgorgement, which is the clawing back

of ill-gotten gains, not damages, but money that somebody shouldn't have benefited, shouldn't have kept as a result of an unlevel playing field, in this case caused by fraud by Donald Trump. That's disgorgement. And then the ban that we've all talked about in prior hot takes and prior legal AFs, including over the weekend, when we had all three anchors, all that gets reflected there at the end. The monitor, the use of the monitor, the expansion of her powers, the creation of the independent compliance director and his role, or her role, all of that. That's all baked in there. But it's not a piece of paper that you can go and execute on and take to your local sheriff and say, hey, go collect the yacht, the boat, the art, the building, the money, the whatever,

because I've got a judgment. Because if that were the case, the sheriff would say, let me see that piece of paper. Because they're looking for magic language, which says a judgment, entered by a clerk. And the D and O is not a judgment. And so now there's a fight about what the judgment should look like.

Which should not be a fight at all. We'll talk more about it when Karen comes in. But that's what we're waiting on. We're waiting for the judgment. Once the judgment is entered, which should reflect and be based on the 92 pages of the decision and order by Judge Anguaron, then Leticia James can go execute on that

and go take 40 Wall Street or whatever she said she's gonna do to up to the amount of the judgment, which is running with substantial interest. I calculate it at about $400,000 to $500,000 per month until it's paid. And that interest keeps running even on appeal. In fact, if he posts a bond, which he'll have to do,

if he wants to stop the execution of the judgment once entered, the only way to stop that during the course of an appeal is to post a bond. We call it a supersedious bond. All it means is an appellate bond that stops the enforcement of the judgment temporarily while the parties continue to litigate on appeal. If you don't post a bond and a lot of people don't or can't post a bond, they can't afford it, then assets can be collected. If the appeal is successful, the assets will have to be returned, but that's what happens in the interim. For right now, at least if you listen to Alina Habo, which I try not to, but if you listen to her false bravado, we have all the money, we have the $500 million,

we're going to post it. All right, well, she's going to have to post 120% of the almost $500 million judgment as of a week ago. Plus, it's running with daily high interest. You have to project interest, compound that into the amount, and then you got to either get a sucker bet, get a bonding company who's going to lend you money on some asset that you think you have, which is all under the monitor of Barbara Jones, who's the federal judge, that monitors all assets of Donald Trump. Or you got to put up all the cash, all of it. And so that's a lot, even for Donald Trump, because he may have a lot of real estate that's valued at weird, inflated manufactured numbers, but he doesn't have a lot of cash for a guy of that level. I mean, if he's got 400 million and 500 million dollars in cash, that would be a lot of cash for a guy of that level. I mean, if he's got $400 million and $500 million in cash,

that would be a lot. And the rest is gonna have to go like hat in hand and sneaker on foot and whatever the hell, whatever the heck else he's doing to try to collect new money and then use it to post this bond. So we're gonna talk about all of that and this little fight that's going on. What are you making of, Karen,

of this kind of move towards the judgment, post-judgment execution on the judgment? And do you think, I'll leave it on this one, do you think that he's going to scrape up the $500 million or so and or get a bonding company to do it at risk if he doesn't of losing one of his buildings? So it's kind of fast. This whole part of the process is utterly fascinating to me and should be to everybody because as you said, if he wants to appeal and he wants to make these arguments that he's been making about how the judge and the law secretary are somehow biased and that he didn't get a fair trial. And on all the things that he's been saying, it's fascinating to me that he's going to have to put up

about 120% of this judgment, which will be about a half a billion dollars, right? He'll either have to put it up in cash or he'll have to borrow the money or get the money somewhere else through a bond. And what's fascinating about it is if you remember one of the parts of the judgment in Judge Ngoran's ruling is that he can't borrow money from any lending institution, financial institution, a bank, or a financial institution that is chartered in New York and most, if not all, are. And so that really limits

where he can get money from. So either he has cash in hand or he has to get a bond. And you ask yourself, who's going to give him a bond? Right? It's some percentage of the money, but also it has to be secured by the property up to the amount of the judgment. Now, bonds people don't like real property. That's not something that typically they like to get or take because it's so fluid. And frankly, how would that even work? How would they even value the properties in order to secure the loan given that so much of the valuation is fraudulent because the entire ruling was based on the fact

that these properties are fraudulent. These properties are also highly leveraged. So there isn't as much equity in each of the properties. It's not like he could just put one of them up. He'd probably have to put multiples of them up because they are so highly leveraged and have mortgages out on them. So it just poses a logistical problem. And then the final thing that I think is absolutely fascinating is if you remember on Saturday when the three of us did a legal AF episode

and it was so fun doing it together, there was so much going on that week that it was just fun to all get on legal AF. Well, you were on your baby moon in the beautiful sunshine popock, so it was great that you even on vacation you work. You never stop working. But anyway, it was, it was fascinating to me. And what I said on Saturday was to me, the thing that was most significant about the judgment was the installation of Barbara Jones as the monitor, partly because she is so highly respected

and she's a former federal judge and she's just somebody who even if, even if Judge Angoran is, he writes very flowery and he's very dramatic and he has a colorful personality. And like many state court judges, sometimes gets reversed every once in a while. And Barbara Jones is one of those people

who in some ways is bulletproof. She has a reputation that is regarded by all. So if she makes decisions about things, I think by putting her in the position of making decisions, I think it really makes his judgment almost bulletproof. But what's fascinating about it and what's fascinating is in the context of what we're talking about. If Donald Trump wants to sell any assets to pay this judgment, he has to ask her permission.

He has to go to her first and he has to get her to agree because she is the independent monitor who's going to be monitoring all the finances. And again, remember that this entire case is about fraud in these assets. Right? It was all about based on fraud and lies, lies about whether something is, whether a building is fully occupied or whether something is residential versus commercial, right? Mar-a-Lago. It's he it's it's he valued it is as if it's a residential property, but it's actually commercially it's a commercial property that has to be for all time and Or the or the size of one of the apartments that was triple the size, you know, it's all lies So so it's just gonna be fascinating to see how logistically he does this and how he does it in 30 days, right?

He only has 30 days to appeal. And if he wants to appeal, he has to do that. He also has to make a calculation, a business calculation. Does he want to do this and accrue all this interest? What is it? I read somewhere it was $87,000 a day and it's compounding interest, which means that number goes up, right?

Because it gets added on to the total and that whole thing is, then the interest is compounded over time. So, from a business perspective, is he going to do that? So I find it more just fascinating, how is it going to play out where the ill-gotten gains, these profits that he has to disgorge because of his persistent business fraud that happened. How is he gonna logistically do this? So go ahead. What I loved about Angoran's decision

is that it reminds me of Gulliver's travels where the little Pugetians just pin down, Gulliver wakes up and he's just pinned down. And it wasn't by accident that Angoron gave the monitor, Barbara Jones, more robust powers, established an independent director of compliance, meaning somebody that has to install and make sure that proper control functions

are present within the organization. And all of Donald Trump's assets are not just kind of loose in the ether. They all exist within his trusts, and the trusts are also part of what Barbara Jones gets to keep an eye on so you're right It's not he's gonna have to get permission because now he has to ask in advance the monitor not just report after the fact that's one of the other changes in the order and She he can't just like sell off a piece of property because he did that before to her and she had a report That they're not respecting the monitor. That won't happen anymore, because if it does,

they're going to run into court for contempt. The judge will have ongoing jurisdiction over this matter in case he screws up. It's not just going to be Barbara Jones going, please, and writing increasingly nastier letters. She has a recourse. She is a court officer that's been appointed, and she will run back to Angoran.

And so where does he come? But he has no choice from a business standpoint if he doesn't post the 500 million plus, 120% of 500 million that he either gets in cash or a combination of a bonding company giving him credit, which is dicey right now considering he's just got convicted of six, I'm sorry, seven counts of fraud in his financial statements concerning his assets So what bonding company in the right mind is going to lend money? Maybe a maga bonding company. So maybe he gets half a floated to him and alone under with secured by whatever assets He can figure out what he can pledge

And then he has to because if he doesn't post it, Karen, then Letitia James has already been on ABC News, giving an interview yesterday, and a couple of us did a hot take on it, where she said, oh no, oh yes, I heard when Donald Trump in his depositions and Don Jr said, oh, you wanna see one of our buildings? Open your window, open your window.

There it is, Forty Wall Street. See that big, beautiful building across the street? She says, yeah, that big beautiful building across the street is across the street from my office too. That's how windows work. I see it. And that would be the first place I'm going to go. Here, Mr. Sheriff, here's the judgment. Go put a padlock on 40 Wall Street and sell it at auction. And then you only get up to the amount, but the amount is like running. So they sell 40 Wall Street for let's say $100 million or even $300 million. He's still short. So she goes to Trump Tower and she goes,

it takes the triplex, whatever size it is. And then, okay, we're still short and the interest is still running because the interest is still running until every last dime of that judgment is paid. Okay, I've been involved with my law firm in going after assets for huge judgments. One of the things that my law firm does,

for instance, down in Miami, shout out to my partners, is that we have an anti-terrorism practice, which is what it sounds like. We go after terrorist organizations and collect on behalf of victims of terrorism. And my partners are expert at finding the money in United States banks and getting it back to the victim. So if you ever want to find out how to go,

seize a building, a boat, big bank accounts, my partners in Miami know how to do that. So I've done it in the past too, I've seized the yacht. And so that's what you got to do. And've done it in the past too. I've seized the yacht. And so that's what you got to do. And you have the right to continue to go, you can't get more than your judgment with calculated compounded interest, but you don't get less either. Oh, I love your I love your visual. The I've seized a yacht. I'd love to see that. I have a question for you. So what would what, yeah, I just saw in the comments,

someone said, take his plane. I guess, yeah, that's something, you know, that's worth some money. I have a question for you. I've read somewhere that people say that he can declare bankruptcy. And so can you just take us through all that? What does that do to this?

Well, because he's a recidivist. He's filed for bankruptcy. I was on, I did a take with Michael Cohen. I'm gonna be on Mea Culpa with him. We talked about it, because Michael was there for most of it. He's declared bankruptcy five times. People think he's some sort of super, not our people.

Other people think he's some sort of superstar business person. He never was that. The only person that was a successful developer in that family was named Fred And he inherited his first 500 million And then you know look what he did with it including a persistent fraud in his operation and almost overthrew democracy So he he's one of the he's one of the few people in America or in the world That found a way to declare bankruptcy three times,

running three of the times, running casinos in the United States, that manufacture money where the house always wins. He found a way to put multiple Atlantic city properties into bankruptcy. And he was at one point when I was a young adult and kept an eye on Donald Trump before I knew I was gonna have a podcast one day.

He was put on allowance of $50,000 a month back in the 80s by a bankruptcy judge. And at the time I thought, wow, that's his allowance. That's crazy. But, so he's no stranger to bankruptcy code. The problem with bankruptcy is we're back to all roads, lead back to Barbara Jones. He is not just gonna be able to file,

there's something called bad faith filing in bankruptcy and it's a bad thing. And so you have to have your debts have to exceed your liabilities. I'm sorry, your liabilities have to, where am I tonight? Your liabilities have to exceed your assets. Let's try that. Okay. And so Donald Trump, who claims to be a three billionaire, Donald Trump, who claims to be a three billionaire. Okay, last I looked, three billion is bigger than 500 million. So he doesn't have the ability to file for bankruptcy. Rudy Giuliani is a different story. He has a $148 million judgment

against like a fuzzy lifesaver in his pocket, 42 bucks in change, a bunch of old cigars and a watch. He is a perfect candidate for bankruptcy not for intentional torts So I don't think it works for him But I so let me just say it this way that idle speculation about bankruptcy despite the fact that Donald Trump Filed for it before that's because the individual entities that he owned, you know, Trump Resorts Trump palace Trump Trump that, they were technically bankrupt because their liabilities exceeded their assets.

But we're talking about Trump, warg, Trump, Donald, and Trump, what do you call it, trust? They're not because even though he's not liquid in the sense of cash, he claims to have even at, I mean, you can't have it both ways. You can't stand up in court under oath. And then in the case involving E. Jean Carroll, which came out with sworn testimony and tell the world that you're a multi-billionaire and then run to a bankruptcy court for protection. So I don't even think that. I've given it more time here than it's necessary. He ain't, he doesn't have the grounds to go bankrupt. And that would be a bad faith filing. And the creditors could go in there and convince the trustee and the bankruptcy

judge that it's a bad faith filing. And that's a bad thing, including a crime. I don't think Donald Trump's doing that. He's either going to scrape up the money. I don't know from where, including from MAGA and PACS, although they're almost busted at the present time. And he's got to post this money in T minus like 25 days. Well, I think it actually starts

from when the judgment has entered and the judgment hasn't yet been entered. So let's say the judgment has entered the next four or five days. He's got until the end of March beginning of April to scrape up the cash. And if he doesn't, I am sure that Letitia James and her crew

are working hand in glove with the sheriff To like the day he misses that deadline to go season asset. What I have one more question Will we know when the E Jean Carroll because that clock is ticking yes Carol 83 million Will we know? Whether he what when he posts that? Will we know whether he when he posts that? Yes. And you're right. That is that's on a different time track. He's got to post 83 and a half plus interest at 120%. It's like another 100 plus million dollars. The last time he had an E. Jean Carroll judgment, because he loves E. Jean, he likes collecting E. Jean Carroll judgments. He likes to faming her as a misogynist. And then she gets new judgments against him. Well, the one from last May

The last time we were on vacation remember that one He posted cash because it was only five point two million So he's like, I got that it's not like my my grandfather used to call it call it. That's my folding money That's my I always make Trump sound like fog horn leg horn from the old Warner Brothers cartoons I don't know why but you know all I got it right here in my pocket because he didn't want to go for the bonding because you got to apply and post assets. Now all the Tisha James has to do is go to Barbara Jones and say, can you hit print and print out for me all of the bank accounts, all of the assets because she knows she knows where all the money is hidden. She knows where all the bodies are buried 14 months of being a

month of being the monitor. This is the easiest collection that let's see James will ever have. And you will see her with a big smile on her face, rightly so, because let's see James just to do a shout out to her for a minute about strong women taking down corrupt men, which is a good thematic on the show, especially when you and I are teamed up here, is that Leticia James is going to take down in 2024 Donald Trump, financially and otherwise, and the National Rifle Association, which, you know, I used to lose sleep

over the NRA and their impact on policy. And she's going to put both out of business in one year. I mean, I don't know what she wants to do after the Attorney General position, which is quite a body of work to run on, don't you think? Yeah, yeah. Now, she's amazing. We're very lucky to have her. Absolutely. So we'll continue to follow on hot takes and updates about when the judgment is finally entered and the clock is running and the money posted for Donald Trump, which will exhaust all of his cash. And speaking of cash, you know, there's a calculation

that'll help you out of all the money in all his packs to pay his attorneys fees by July. So this is one of the reasons he's very upset with Nikki Haley, because every dollar he's got to spend there and every dollar he has to pay on his attorney's fees and post bonds is one less dollar to go against Joe Biden in the general election. He's, I'm telling you, when those numbers come out

as we round into the summer, Joe Biden's going to have a $500 million advantage in terms of fundraising. It's going to be like 500 to 200 million. You don't think he's going to sell all the $500 million worth of shoes? By the way, okay. He didn't design them. He doesn't own the company that's selling them. It's a license. Just like- By the way, they're ugly too. I mean-

I'll tell you who's not wearing it. The kids that are in the kicks market, who booed him mercilessly at Philadelphia SneakerCon are not wearing these things. I saw Brett posted, maybe it was just internal with us. Oh no, he put it on his social media feed. Some artists did a custom version of the Midas Brothers on a pair of Air Force ones, like Jordan's. And he's like, these are much cooler than those.

But the whole thing, the fact that he did it the day after the judgment came out, that's such whistling past the graveyard, such like, oh, I'll just sell a thousand shoes. That'll pay the, no, it won't. Yeah, he needs the money. I mean, clearly. So I also saw a GoFundMe and I also saw somewhere,

who knows if any of this is even true, but that Louboutin, you know, those shoes that have the red bottom that they're going to sue him for the red bottom sneakers. I mean, it's just crazy. It's another suit. And then last thing before we turn to our next topic is, you know, people are also worried. Oh, well, Joe Biden's Securities and Exchange Commission approved finally the merger of Truth, Truth Social media company that Trump owns

98% of with a public company. And there's a bunch of suckers there that invested on this thing. And on paper, he could Trump could get, I've heard I've seen the number, it's like ridiculous, like two or three or four billion dollars. However, there's a lot, we'll talk about it at another time. He has to hold it for a year. And if he's a twice convicted felon by then, who's lost the presidential election, I'm not sure he's getting $4 billion for the truth social. I'll just leave it at that. Do you have any? It also, it also doesn't help him right now when he needs to. Right. Right. That's again, he's pushing up his nose at the candy store.

Can't get that money fast enough. And by the way, just back to the bond issue, and then we'll move to the next topic, or an ad probably, Salty's probably saying it's time for an ad. But one more thing is the other reason no one's going to bond him is, what God forbid he wins the presidency, you can't, what are you going to go after the president's, one of his real estate holdings or his residents to go after the president's one of his, one of his real estate holdings or his residents? I mean, it's just logistically, it's not possible. He's going to have to come up with this cash somehow.

The bond, that's just a bonding company padlocking the White House. That's not going to happen, though. I don't want to have that, that hellscape in my mind because that's not, I know, I know, but I'm just, it's just when you think through all the different, you know, if you're a bit, if you're a bondsman, that's what you're thinking, right? It's just when you think through all the different, you know, if you're a bit, if you're a bondsman, that's what you're thinking, right? We're gonna talk about coming up coming up here on the midweek edition of legal layoff. We're gonna talk about Mar-a-Lago and developments there that could finally get Aileen Cannon off the case I got a theory about why she's had such a light footprint over this case for so long, maybe inviting her removal

Well, I'll I'll float that at the appropriate time. And then we're going to talk about, um, Alexander Smirnoff, who he is, why he's so, um, why his indictment is such a blow, thank God, to the impeachment, the fake impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden and ultimately impacts, uh, of fake impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden and ultimately impacts Hunter Biden's efforts to try to get his indictment dismissed by the very same special counsel. And we may touch on some other things that are out there

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Thanks to all our sponsors for sponsoring this episode because without them, we'd just be you and me chatting away, which we did before we first started the podcast. We used to laugh. I'll just tell a little side note here. We used to get on Jordy, Jordy for those that don't know, Jordy is the brother that is responsible for our ads

and our relationships with our advertisers. And it's amazing the job that he's done and shout out to Jordy who's a new father along with his wife and just does spectacular work. But when we started, you know, I did the show for free for about two and a half years in terms of having absolutely no sponsors whatsoever. And we used to get on Jordy and laugh with them like, you know, we'd have a sponsor and then like weeks would go by and we'd have no sponsors whatsoever. And we'd say to Jordy, Jordy, what happened to the sponsor?

Are you getting, he would I'm like, what? And I still laugh with Jordy about it, but thank God he's built a stable, you know business model here. I mean, you know, this is what a grassroots movement looks like. I mean, truly. People think it's good when you and I are split screen because they love all your paintings, but they think one looks like Donald Trump, the one in the middle of the talk. It's funny. It's funny. You can't see it when we're split screen.

You have to go through to me. Yeah, there it is. It's funny. I've seen that in the comments before. I'll have to ask the artist. His name is Ben Linovitz. He's this great local New York artist who I love. His mom actually owns this amazing store in New York. It's called Fish Is Eddie. And they have just incredible dishes. Yeah, Fish Is Eddie is amazing. And it's just one

of my favorite stores. And they're huge pro-democracy. I mean, their products and their advertising, it's always, if you go to the window on 18th and Broadway, you'll see some kind of political message that's always hilariously funny, but always very pro-democracy. And I just love how involved they are in the community and in the movement. And anyway, so the son of the owner is this great local artist and so I bought some of his work and

I'll have to ask him if that's Donald Trump because if it is, I certainly don't have it up there on purpose because it's him so yeah And I don't want people freaked out by it. So let's make it a freaked out the special counsels Jack Smith was freaked out by alien cannons most recent decision about two weeks ago, which she thought nothing of Violating another making another cardinal sin for a judge overseeing criminal case She thought I'd be fine if the prosecutor not only turned over to Donald Trump to fashion his defense, all of the names of the witnesses, including those that are protected by grand jury secrecy laws, just put it on the public docket. Why not? And she cited a bunch of cases in her order and said, you know, based on these cases,

you should do that. And you have till five o'clock tomorrow to do it." And he said, I mean, they must have, I can't even imagine the commotion at the DOJ and in Jack Smith's offices when this order came out about how they were gonna handle it. But then, once you are handed that, you can either treat it like poison or you can treat it like a gift. And they've decided to treat it like a gift

because they've been looking for a way to get back to the 11th circuit because they haven't yet done it on an Aileen Counten decision. I'm going to talk about her light footprint in a minute up in Fort Pierce, a little sleepy town up by Lake Okeechobee. I mean that positive way. I mean, I practiced up there. I've been to Fort Pierce's courthouse. She should never have been assigned this case. It's the way the wheels spun. There was only a couple of judges that could have landed on for that Northern division of Southern District of Florida.

And Don Middlebrooks was sort of busy in West Palm Beach and it ended up in her lap. But she's never handled a classified information procedures that case, a SIPA case. Of course, she's never handled a classified information procedures that case, a SIPA case. Of course, she's never had a former president be a criminally indicted defendant in front of her. And so they've been chomping at the bit for her to really step into the bear trap.

And it looks like she did. Because that decision, as they noted in their Motion for Reconsideration, was based on an improper, clearly erroneous application of the law. In an R jargon, we call that clear error. And clear error is what it sounds like. It's reversible. And it's so patently clear that the judge is also admonished.

It can be admonished by her bosses at the appellate division, in this case, the 11th Circuit, who's already admonished her twice before the case even went to the indictment phase when she interfered improperly with the search warrant execution and overrode her magistrate judge who reports to her about these issues and was told not once, but twice by two separate panels,

three judge panels of the 11th Circuit, including one that included the chief judge prior that she needed to back the F up, my words, and get out of the case and get out of the prosecution's way and let them get to a grand jury and an indictment and then let everything, all the chips fall where they will. The issue now is why did she impose a higher standard on the prosecutors than the law requires in order for them to keep the names of the witnesses confidential? Given that Donald Trump as noted by the magistrate himself

that reports to Judge Cannon noted that Donald Trump is a frequent person who attacks with vitriol and violent rhetoric judges and prosecutors and Witnesses and grand jurors and staff and families and everybody else I mean even a lean cannon has received a death threat They just prosecuted in texas a woman who phoned a lean cannons chambers and threatened to kill her. So it's not like she's immune to what's going on around out there. And so they told her in their papers, the special counsel, Judge, now you've done it. Clear error and manifest injustice, which should have set a chill down.

If not alien cannons back, her law clerks back, because if they're right, okay, then she's going to be reprimanded and maybe more by the 11th Circuit. And the second one, then I'll turn it over to you, Karen, about whether you think the 11th Circuit's going to bounce her at this moment and get a proper judge in charge of this. The other thing is she's dealing with these SIPA, classified information procedures, Act issues, on thousands of pages of this. The other thing is she's dealing with these SIPA classified information procedures act issues on thousands of pages of documents. And she has to get it right on every one because just one page of the wrong decision is enough for them to take an immediate appeal to the 11th

Circuit. And she's been holding these, we don't know much about them because they're in a black box. They're these secret confidential hearings, sometimes with just the prosecutors without even the defense present. That's how serious these classified information act issues are at Mar-a-Lago And but there she's about to make a ruling. What do you think happens if he gets a bad ruling? Jack Smith and SIPA on just one page and combined with Friday, we're gonna know and we'll be able to talk about it with Ben on Saturday We're gonna get Donald Trump's response to the motion for reconsideration as to why the witnesses should be disclosed to the public. And then the right up for the appeal. What do you think happens? What does Jack Smith do, your former prosecutor?

And then what do you think the Eleventh Circuit does with the problem named Judge Aileen Cannon? couple of things. First of all, there's a third rail for a prosecutor, which is witness and jury tampering or safety or threats. You can threaten law enforcement, you can threaten the prosecutor, it doesn't go over well. And I'm not saying it's okay. But prosecutors will tolerate a lot. Judges will tolerate a lot. Law enforcement will tolerate a lot. When it comes to witness safety and protecting your witnesses or the jurors, that's the third rail. And so there's that. Number one. Number two, getting a judge, knocking a judge off a case is hard. Normally it's up to their, you have to ask them first, if you will, but ultimately to get a judge kicked off a case

that's very high standard. And she's done some things that are beyond reversible and she's been reversed as you pointed out earlier, which is when you gave the intro to this, you talked about how in the beginning of the case, she inserted herself and gave herself jurisdiction over a search warrant execution before there was even a case and she doesn't have that jurisdiction

and she was admonished and smacked down and reversed already. And she's made a lot of other questionable rulings, but nothing that would get her kicked off the case. But she's starting to head in that direction, right? She's she's she's slow walking this case, even though she hasn't taken the the case off the calendar for trial in May. Everybody knows there's no way it the calendar for trial in May. Everybody knows there's no way it's going to happen in May, just based on how she's conducting the docket. She's clearly not acting in such a way

that this trial could even go in May. But she's so disingenuous that she's not taking the trial date off the calendar the way Judge Chutkin did, knowing that there's no way the case can go now, right? In March, given the fact that it's on pause with the Supreme Court. So she's being disingenuous and she's making all these questionable rulings.

But Jack Smith is sort of sitting back and waiting because it's such a high standard and so difficult to do, waiting for her to make it so that it's absolutely irrefutable that she'll have to be removed. And these are the two things that could do it. One is putting witnesses and not just witnesses, but also a bad SIPA ruling is now you're putting the country in jeopardy. You're putting national security in jeopardy.

You do that and you go to the 11th Circuit, that doesn't fly. I think she gets removed from the case. So I think they're just waiting for her to make such a move. She's no dummy. That's the one thing I will say. She's not a dummy. That's the one thing I will say. She's not a dummy. She's inexperienced and I think she's also has a point of view that is non-judicial and is absolutely pro or I don't necessarily want to accuse a federal judge of something I don't know, but her rulings to me seem to suggest that she has a bias.

And you're not supposed to have a bias when you're a judge. You're supposed to be fair and impartial and call balls and strikes. And she doesn't do that. But so she puts witness safety in jeopardy. She puts federal investigations in jeopardy and she puts our national security in jeopardy. She gets bounced. I think she knows that. And so I think she's gonna reverse herself. Yeah, I agree with it. She's gonna have to reverse herself.

She's just gonna be embarrassed at the 11th circuit and more that'll be, you know, I practice regularly in Florida and federal court. We have like a lemon law when it comes to judges based on case law and three strikes. And especially on a case like this, I don't think the 11th Circuit is gonna hesitate. The good news is, and I did a hot take on this one,

it doesn't take even an actual proof of bias because that's so difficult, almost impossible to prove. I've had a judge removed filing a motion for disqualification. You can't even cite to bad rulings against you or even patterns, but you don't need it here in the 11th Circuit, as in most cases, if a judge demonstrates, for instance, just a series of rulings where she's driven the case into a stalemate and or has boxed herself in by her own making by internally inconsistent rulings, that could be enough for the 11th circuit to remove her and find that she's over her skis

and she's over her head here and take her out, which is good because trying to prove bias against somebody, we can all idly speculate. I mean, that's part of what the podcast is about. But in terms of proof, hard proof, that's a little more difficult. But fortunately, under the standard that's applied in the 11th Circuit, they don't need to do that. They can just point to her decisions, including this one here. She has two choices. That's why it's such a sword over her over her neck. If she doesn't grant the motion for reconsideration and change her order after listening to Donald Trump on it, I don't know why she hasn't done it already. Frankly, she doesn't have to wait. She can do what we call Sue a sponte, avoid the embarrassment.

But if she doesn't find a way, if she doesn't do it, then she will get removed, I believe, at the 11th Circuit after Jack Smith takes an immediate appeal. And also they'll move to stay her order because they don't want to disclose the 12 witnesses. And if she doesn't grant it, I believe the 11th Circuit will in order to hear the issue. And then they're going to be slapping their forehead up at the 11th Circuit like, oh, we're back with alien canon again. What did she do now on this case? And then I think, you know, they have the right under their powers as an appellate court, as all appellate courts do over the trial courts that report to

them as part of the administration of justice to change horses here or change jockeys, if you will, related to it. Now, I have a theory. I want to get your view on this. One theory that we've been running or positing on the podcast and in hot takes, and I know Ben especially subscribes to it, is that she's carefully avoided making any appealable orders in order to stretch this case out, slow foot it, slow walk it as an advantage to Donald Trump. That's a theory. There's another theory I came up with when I was doing a hot take recently,

which is because in the case law, it basically says that one thing that the Pellet Court looks at to determine whether they should replace the judge is how invested the judge is in the case in terms of their rulings. Well, let's look at and whether there'll be a waste of judicial resources, scarce judicial resources, if they remove the judge now. Well, think about how light a footprint she's had in this.

There hasn't been the motion to dismiss practice in front of her, so she hasn't had a rule on it. The immunity issue, which we know is coming. He's immune, presidential immunity, presidential act immunity, sovereign immunity, separation of powers immunity, and all the stuff that's a dead bang loser over the DC election interference case hasn't been raised yet in Mar-a-Lago. So she hasn't had a rule on that yet. And then of course the SIPA issue. So when you really think, you know, she's masterful in the

sense that for a year, she's been tying Jack Smith up at knots much to his chagrin making very few rulings But that also favors removing her from the case that she's not diligently She's not so invested that switching now would hurt the case in fact quite the opposite Putting a proper jurist in charge of this case is the only chance America has at getting the trial before November. And I think that may weigh into the minds of the 11th Circuit. Karen, what do you think about my theory? I mean, I think it's as good as any other. You know, it's so interesting because I found myself

when I was talking about her just now struggling because it's hard to say negative things about a federal judge or a judge. And I realized that. I realized, god, because you're trained as a lawyer. The judge is this person who is above everything. They're not an advocate. They do the right thing.

And you can't say anything negative about them. And I realized just how uncomfortable I was saying anything negative. And I just want to point that out because look at the quality and types of, and I'm not unusual, by the way, that's how every lawyer I know practices practices, like any lawyer that's legitimate, think about his lawyers, some of them, think about Alina Habba, for example,

how she parrots and mimics the language that Donald Trump and his supporters do, going after judges, right? That just should show you and tell you kind of what kind of lawyers they are and what kind of people they are. So I just wanted to contrast that. No, and listen, I'll be frank with you.

We don't blow smoke or sunshine here. I told people that are involved with this show that it makes me uncomfortable critiquing a federal judge that I can appear in front of. I practice in Florida. I'm a member of the Southern District of Florida. I've appeared in front of other judges regularly. I've tried cases in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale and in Miami, I've had hearings in Key West. I've had hearings in Fort Pierce where she sits. I could just as tomorrow, I could have a case in front of Aileen Cannon.

So it makes me uncomfortable. And the fact that we're willing to use our goodwill and credibility to the limit because there are ethical limits to what we can and can't say about a judge, frankly. But it's not a judge that we're in front of, but it's a judge that I will appear in front of one day. Even if you didn't, you don't want to tear down the Institute.

Like judges are kind of above the fray. They're apolitical, right? Like it's just, it's just not, whatever. I would never think to do any, I mean, I had a comment recently where I called out Chris Keis and his unruly, inappropriate, unprofessional, misogynistic attacks in and made a mockery, just dropped his pants and took a dump on our beloved New York court system and our judges. As a carpet bagger, and I'm not a carpet bagger,

I practice in New York and Florida. Chris never practiced a day in his life in New York. He wouldn't know the CPLR from CPR, which is, that's an insider joke for New Yorkers. The CPLR is our civil procedures laws that we refer, Chris doesn't know that, he's a Florida lawyer. You know what? He's a good, he was a good Florida lawyer until he pulled this shtick,

as you said, anybody that gets into the orbit of Donald Trump mimics him, but the difference is, he doesn't have a law license that can get pulled. And he's not a professional or an officer of the court, and they are, and he should be ashamed of himself going after Judge Inguirin and going after that poor principal law clerk. And I've never seen it.

I mean, listen, I bit my tongue plenty with judges. I bit my tongue plenty with federal judges. But at the end of the day, the person wearing the black robe has your entire case and your client's potential liberty in the palm of their hand. And you need to supplement. I don't know if that's not the right word. You need to get your ego out of there and make sure you're doing the right thing for your client and you're a professional and you're supposed to be.

And if an honorable profession, you're supposed to be. And I would never think to ever act like that. If a client ever asked me to act like that and I've had clients say do this do this and I'll say okay first of all Yeah, that's a loser for you And I have I have a career and I have to appear in front of these judges and I have to be an honest advocate I'm not doing that and if I'm not the right lawyer for you That's okay, and I fired clients over this kind of dialogue You know Alina Habba be like, what fire client?

I would, there seems to be no boundaries that she thinks ever get crossed by any client, but people like you and me fire clients all the time because we're not comfortable with representing them in the world at which we operate. But, you know, let's talk more about magistrate judges that maybe have made mistakes. We'll talk about Hunter Biden. We'll talk about Alexander Smirnov being a Russian asset trying to interfere with our elections. And what the special counsel, the Hunter Biden special counsel is doing about it and the impact on Joe Biden's quote unquote impeachment by MAGA who have nothing better to do. They can't pass a bill to save their life to help honest Americans.

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Check it out. And we are back. I saw one funny, there are a lot of funny comments. I saw one funny comment that, and I stand corrected. Fort Pierce is not a sleepy little town. Somebody graduated from Fort Pierce High School and said it's's nowhere's filled. So, okay, I'll go to that.

So let's turn to our last topic. And if we have time, I mean, I do wanna talk about Alabama. I have a hot take up right now about Alabama and the ruling, which is now negatively impacting people's ability to use IVF as part of their family planning. The University of Alabama having now ruled based on the ruling that they can't provide IVF services to women and families in Alabama because now an unborn embryo has more rights

than a woman or husband have in the state of Alabama. We'll try to touch on that before we finish so I can get Karen's view about all of that. But let's do a quickie, hit and run here, hit and run hot take on Alex Spernov. I'll frame it. And you tell me what you think the magistrate's doing and then what do you think the actual judge sitting in California is doing. And that gives us time for a legal AF breakout about when you pick up a criminal defendant who happens to be flying into one jurisdiction, but the case is pending in another jurisdiction.

Who does the arraignment, but who's really responsible for the case? And all of that very interesting stuff, even between federal judges and the hierarchy within the federal judge system. The Article III judge, which is what it sounds like, that's the person who gets nominated and confirmed, comes out of the Constitution. We call that an Article 3 judge, which is what it sounds like. That's the person who gets nominated and confirmed, comes out of the Constitution. We call that an Article 3 judge. And then that other level of

judges, we call magistrate judges, which are not Article 3 judges. So why am I even talking about that? Pope Poc, you're like rambling. Let's bring it home. Okay, here we go. I have to coach myself sometimes. Alexander Smirnoff was an Israeli citizen who was an informant, a confidential human asset or source, a CHS is what it's called in the world of the FBI. And he's cooperating with the FBI and telling them all sorts of loads of bullshit, including that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden

took $5 million bribes eat a piece from Burisma, the oil company, who believe this? The Burisma, the oil company in order for Burisma to both kind of grease the skids to let them go public, public company in the United States and to get a special prosecutor off their ass in Ukraine when Joe Biden was allegedly vice president, except that's completely inconsistent with everything the guy had said until Joe Biden became president because he

had contacts with the FBI before that and never mentioned that at all. Turned out that he was just an asset of the Russia of Russian foreign intelligence being used to try to get their favorite candidate. I wonder who that is. Donald Trump elected to interfere with our election. No, it's not Russia Oaks. It's real Russia asset in Alexander Smirnov. He got, so he's cooperating.

He's part of the milieu of information that the FBI is using to go after Hunter Biden. And then it turns out, and maybe you can speak to this as a prosecutor. What happens when an informant goes south and you have to prosecute your informant? And what does that do to the, I think that's what people want to hear from you, Karen. What does that do to the entire prosecution package?

If one of your lead witnesses, you now have to turn and fire on because they've become unreliable and and Telling lies to the FBI. Well, I'll leave it on this. He flew into Vegas for whatever reason I can think of the obvious reasons and got picked up at the airport because you know people Interpol and other other agencies know when you're traveling and he got Andrew Paul and other agencies know when you're traveling. And he got, there's an indictment that got unsealed against him, a couple of count indictment for false statements to the FBI and other things related to that.

And he got arraigned in front of a magistrate judge who was assigned to him in Nevada, in federal court. But the judge that's responsible for the case sits in the central district of California. It's somebody, I forget his name right now, it'll come to me in a minute. And that's who's really responsible as the Article 3 judge over the case. But arraignments have to happen where people are picked up, unless there's extra addition. We can talk about that too. And the government filed a very compelling piece of paper that said this guy should be kept in jail in detention until his trial

And then transferred ultimately over to California because of things like he lied about the amount of money He had at his bank account by millions He said he had twenty five hundred dollars when he had eight or nine million dollars. That's a problem And he is the the indictments about lying to the government., that's a problem. And he is the indictments about lying to the government. So that's a problem. And then he's an admitted asset of foreign intelligence, trying to interfere with the election, including reporting to a guy who they don't have the name of, and they have it as Russian official number two, who's responsible for assassinating officials in other countries. Bad guy. But that's not what the magistrate heard.

Take it from there, my partner, Karen Frimignifala. So the business of dealing with confidential informants is a tricky business because look, it's this thing that it's a necessary evil. Law enforcement does it. And there's a big difference between a cooperator and a confidential informant. A cooperator is somebody who essentially you've brought charges and you flip someone to cooperate against their co-defendants, right? That's someone who you already have evidence against and they have to admit what they did

and usually plead guilty and then they cooperate in exchange for a lenient deal. A confidential informant or a confidential, I forgot what they called this guy. Confidential human source. Okay, confidential human source. That's a fancy federal term. We called them CIs or confidential informants

in the state, but it's all the same thing. And look, some are paid. I don't know if this guy's paid or not. Some are working off a case. But typically these are criminals who are in with other criminals. And they are kind of this necessary evil for law enforcement. And look, there are some people who are just sort of the guy on the street who wants to make some extra money.

And so he's the eyes and ears. But you just never know, right? You never know. These are not, these are people who are hanging out with unsavory people, whether or not they are committing crimes with them. But you can get a lot of great information from them, but you verify everything they say. You don't just trust them. And what was weird about this was this is somebody who it looks like has been a long-time

asset of the FBI, which means he's given a lot of information. The first thing I thought of was I wonder what other cases and investigations are gonna be impacted by this because he lied and he lied in such a way that he has been indicted. And so this is what happens when you deal with somebody like this individual and you rely on them and you do on them and

You do it at your peril and so as I said sometimes it's a necessary It's a necessary evil. It's the only way in to some to certain big criminal enterprises or criminal organizations sometimes law enforcement uses them to make an introduction of in of an undercover or they use them to get initial information and then they go and build their own case based on that information. So you use it, but you don't rely on it to the point where I think they relied on it for Hunter when you're talking about the vice president and his son, right? And let's just pivot to a little bit about Hunter. Hunter is also, I think, extremely problematic, right?

He's a problematic person generally. It's not just because he's Biden's son. I mean, he's committed crimes, and he also the Nairdou well child of, of, you know, a politician who was, who was, who knows, but probably trying to cash in on the name, right? And, and unfortunately, he's somewhat bringing his father down in the process, you know, and, and this, but this guy, it turns out, exploited that. Smirnoff exploited that.

He exploited the fact that there was, you mentioned the president, you mentioned the president's son, or the vice president at the time, people are gonna listen, right? And he exploited that. And that kind of information should have been something that the FBI, I think,

that they verified and that they never relied on and here we are. And somehow it got to Congress and that's what they based their impeachment in Korean was this guy. And you know, look, good for good for the special counsel David Weiss and good for and good for law enforcement for prosecuting this guy, no matter how good the other information he's given them, you can't do that. This this the whole system will collapse if you're allowed to do that, right? So because they do rely so much on on on confidential informants, you mess with them, you have to come down hard on this guy. And I think he's facing 25 years for doing this, and he should, he absolutely should.

This is, to me, one of the more serious and more egregious violations I've seen with huge stakes, with international stakes. I mean, this guy, with international stakes. I mean, this guy, it's terrible. And he exploited the fact that Hunter is an addict and a criminal. And frankly, what's going on in his case right now is, I don't know what my computer's doing,

because I put my thumb up. But anyway, what Hunter Biden is doing right now, I don't love. I feel like he's selfishly not thinking of the bigger picture and the fact that you know, he's You know that he filed all these these motions through his lawyer He's aggressively fighting this case but in doing so what he's doing is is you know First of all, he committed tax fraud and he had a gun. Period, full stop. For him to go out now and say selective prosecution

and witch hunt and to parrot all the arguments that Donald Trump says, I think it's doing a disservice to his father, to his movement and to all the work the rest of us are doing. Own up, take responsibility for what you did. Take your lumps and go and deal with it. And deal with it like every other person who gets caught and who goes through a hard time.

Yes, he's had a lot of sad things happen to him, but I'm sorry, you have to take responsibility for your actions, but for him to turn around and put in legal filings, the same exact things that Donald Trump is saying, it delegitimizes our criminal justice system, it delegitimizes the cases against Donald Trump, because he's saying it's political,

he's saying it's a witch hunt, he's saying all the things that Donald Trump says. And so guess what the average person who doesn't take the time out of their day, like me and you and Ben, to read all of these, all these legal files. It throws it up there for, for, for people to just throw their hands up and say, it's all the same. He's doing it. He's doing it. It's all political. It delegitimizes the legitimacy of the prosecution of Donald Trump, whether and and of Letitia James case against Donald Trump and his

frauds about Alvin Bragg's case because of his trying to steal the election the first time of the two Jack Smith cases, calling the special counsel. Did you see those those those motions that they made saying a special counsel's not legitimate that he didn't get the funding approved? Again, the exact same things that Donald Trump says and look I can see I can see some of the comments people don't love what I'm saying but I I say it how I see it and I am not I am never gonna stop this before you know what I do and this is how I see it and it is and and honestly to me he needs to think of the bigger picture and really think this is not a battle, this is a war and he does not realize by filing these motions

and calling into question the same things that Donald Trump is doing, he's de-legitimizing those prosecutions and creating the politics. Let me take it from a different perspective, because you come from a prosecutor's world. You spend over 30 years as a prosecutor, and I've spent over 30 years primarily, never being a prosecutor, but being a defense lawyer.

So my focus is a little bit different. I don't think because he was the president's, he is the president's son, that he forfeits the right to raise meritorious, He is the president's son, that he forfeits the right to raise meritorious, to raise meritorious motions and defenses and seek dismissals of his indictment, or nor that he should be gagged from using if it's appropriate. And if the facts fit, even something that smacks of being similar to Donald Trump, one of the problems that Democrats have is that we're not willing to go there at the appropriate time and we just let things run over us. And in Hunter Biden's standpoint, regardless of his descent into his own personal hell caused by drug use, addiction, porn addiction, sex addiction, and all sorts of bad judgment that comes from that, whatever the reason for it is. And let's be frank, whatever was going on in that household,

there are at least two children of Joe Biden, both who are survivors of a terrible tragedy related to the death of a mother in a terrible car crash and the house there in a father, frankly that was devoted to the American people In terms of being a senator and the public eye since he was 29 all the way through He's now 81 and so, you know, the daughter has had a well documented To too well documented a descent into her own personal hell related to drug use as has hunter

But I don't think that gives the Republicans the right to use them as political props, drag them into Congress, make them try to get their hands on and successfully get their hands on Ashley Biden's personal diary and put and writ that large in filings. So look, if if Abby Lowell, the lawyer who's the new lawyer for Hunter Biden, he's a great lawyer is if he feels he has a merit based argument of selective and addictive persecution, I know you're a prosecutor, but I'm telling you from a defense standpoint, then he should raise that issue even if it means I'm a defense attorney, but even if it means that it backs up on Joe Biden, he shouldn't because he shouldn't forfeit his rights to mount a meritorious defense even if it in your view it mimics What Donald Trump is saying if he doesn't have it and he's the problem with Donald Trump is not that he raises the issue of

selective prosecution vindictive prosecution hack of selective prosecution, vindictive prosecution, hack democratic prosecutors and attorney generals and judges is that there's no merit to it and that he does it anyway. By contrast, if Abbey Lowell is signing pleadings and signing these nine motions and believes at the end of the day that there is a basis for this, that a federal judge overseeing the case

should get to the bottom of, to be frank, I don't think you sit at the top of what we're talking about now. You said that he should take his lumps because he's, you know, I'll just paraphrase because he's a criminal and he did these bad things and he should just sort of do it for the rest of our, do it for the rest of the country. But I don't have to sit in a cell and you don't either. And he does. And so, you know, when you're staring down the barrel,

as you know, because you were holding the barrel, when you're staring down the barrel of potentially losing your liberty for a period of time, if you've got a merit argument, you make that merit argument regardless of who your daddy is. And so we will see, I mean, I've looked at the motions. I assume Abby's got the goods to back them up.

If he doesn't, he's not going to win these motions. That's the good thing about our justice system. That's why a person sits in a black row. But I don't want it. For me, I'm fine with him if he's got the merit based arguments to make him, even if, you know, it sort of rings us, seems to be taken out partially out of a Trump playbook. Because if we just sit on our hands, you see what the Republicans and

Maggard are going to do to us, which is drag us into Congress, impeach people that have no right to be impeached and the rest. So, but this is the thing. I say debate every time I write the note for the show, because we're gonna, there's things that you and I are at core at core and value and morality 100% I'd I Strategy sometimes we disagree so look there and there's there's fair comments saying You can't compare a hunter to Pope. Look, I love the car. I love what I love being able to read the comments

Whether comparing hunter to me. No, no, there's no to Trump. They're saying I they think I shouldn't they're comparing Hunter to me? No, no, no, to Trump. They're saying I shouldn't. They're saying that me comparing Trump and Hunter is an unfair comparison, and I agree with that. And I'm not trying to compare them. What I guess what I'm suggesting is that our, again, I'm coming from a certain perspective, but our prisons around this country are filled by and large with 90-something percent black and brown people

who some possess guns, most are addicts, many have trauma. And it just, but then you have, you have Donald, you have Hunter Biden who absolutely did not live a perfect life and committed crimes he admitted to them. One of them is based on statements he made in a book about it. And Joe Biden, like it or not, yes, he is not involved, but it's his, the father put a special prosecutor in place to investigate it and prosecute it. And that's what's happening. And he left the prosecutor that Donald Trump put there.

And to now then go and call that special prosecutor that you're that frankly your father's uh department of justice put in place to call that illegitimate I just think is especially because it you did do you know you there are certain things that you did do I I do think it is having an impact. I'm not trying to say that what he did and Donald Trump did are equivalent in any sense whatsoever. I'm just saying, I just don't, I know you're never gonna make this a topic on a midweek again, the Hunter thing. I'll let you and Ben talk about it,

but this is my perspective. Wait, wait, no, we will. We will. By the way, I like looking at the chat and seeing, you know, the, we are here to have an honest and informative, insightful debate and some great things come from that. I think that's why people tune in here. I like those comments and also somebody that said I look like Count Chocula today with my- No, people love your glasses today. Somebody wrote, you look like Dracula. No, it's Count Chocula. People are also noticing my red lipstick. No, they love your lipstick. We need-

It's new. And you want to know who inspired it? There's an inspiration for your lipstick? I've never worn lipstick a day in my life other than very, very subtle. Who? I'm not a lipstick person. Who? This is honestly true. Yep, people got it.

Taylor Swift. She looks so good in red lipstick. That's the illegal AF out of here. Taylor Swift. I swear to God, I swear to God. I have a crush on Taylor Swift. I just think, because I think she's amazing. And I'm a Swiftie. What can I say?

I think she's amazing and I just think she wears this red lipstick and it's so Dramat like it's so I love it. I was like, I'm gonna try it anyway So I appreciate that people have noticed and you get you're getting it's it's running It's running neck and neck your Hunter Biden comments in your lipstick, is that the- I know, people don't like it and the Hunter Biden stuff, but I just, sorry, I am- That's right. The one thing you'll at least know is I'm honest, right?

What is my motto I use in my hot takes? We don't blow smoke or sunshine. I know, I know. You don't make it, this is not to go for you. And, you know, all right, so listen, you wanna do like literally like three or four minutes just to touch on and I wanna get really like you can talk in on Alabama.

Yeah, the Alabama thing is, yeah. And I saw your hot take and, you know, it was incredible how you shared your personal your hot take. And, you know, it was incredible how you shared your personal story and your experience with, you know, you and your wife with IVF. And look, for the people who don't know about this ruling, the Alabama Supreme Court essentially ruled that an embryo that is frozen and out of a woman's uterus.

So, you know, just the IVF process, they extract an egg, they extract sperm, they put them together and they grow it up to I think 14 days. And at a certain point, they may or may not implant them into the uterus, into home is uterus. And many of them are stored, right, in this, like, I think they're frozen, actually. And they're kept there. Some never get used, right? Some people keep them there and may use them. Some never do. There's famous court battles of celebrities fighting over embryos and who they belong to. I mean, this is a thing.

And somehow a patient got into the room where these were frozen and touched and picked them up. where these were frozen and picked them up. That's the whole black story that I love to know what they were doing in there and why they picked them up. And I guess the dry ice that they used to freeze them burned their hand and they dropped them. And so they were sued for essentially wrongful death of these embryos. And it basically, the Supreme Court

in a ruling that was completely filled with religious references. And this was in a concurring opinion, but the Chief Judge Parker of this court said in the concurring opinion, but the chief judge Parker of this court said in the concurring opinion, even before birth, all human beings have the image of God and their lives cannot be destroyed without a facing his glory.

I mean that that's in a court opinion. Even if you believe that life begins at conception, Even if you believe that life begins at conception, it putting God at that level, Christian God at that level into a decision really flies in the face of the separation of church and state. But, you know, this impacts, I think, 10% of women who've received some sort of fertility treatment. of women who've received some sort of fertility treatment, this impacts decisions now about what people will do. And certainly in Alabama, they have stopped for now, they have stopped, they won't go any, they'll extract the eggs, but they won't fertilize them and they won't store

them because unborn children, essentially, these them because unborn children, essentially these are considered unborn children even if they're not in the womb. And this comes from the Alabama wrongful death of a minor act, it was enacted in 1975. And they ruled for the first time that this could be a wrongful death claim because an embryo is a person,

even if it's never been implanted in a person. And they used a lot of examples, they used a lot of examples of the extreme of things that could happen. What if science gets to the point where they can grow an embryo outside the womb the entire time? Are you allowed to, at what point is it a child?

Is it, you know, it's very much a life begins at the moment of fertilization. And it definitely made me think about where the implications in criminal law too, right? If an embryo is a person that could have implications for murder and other types of crimes ultimately. But it just really goes to show what the Dobs decision over turning Roe versus Wade and putting this in the hands of the states. You know, Alabama is one of the states that has this provision in the constitution, right?

Where abortion at any time is illegal and you can't have an abortion, but now you can't have fertility treatments in Alabama. Nobody's doctors aren't going to do it while they review what all this means. But essentially right now, it is on pause. And it's going to impact a lot, a lot of families or people who are trying to start families. And it's just really, you know, for the Republicans who, who their entire message is all about

get government out of our lives, they really do wanna control women. And look, I don't wanna just say women, cause again, your story and the fact that you shared on your hot take, Popak, what really struck me with that is, is that, you know, I always talk about it as a woman's issue, but it really isn't you know you you wanted to have a baby just as much as your wife like this was a this is a and it you know can impact all sorts of people who are trying to start families

not just you know not just the you know not just a person with a uterus who's going to be the one carrying the baby, it could absolutely impact anybody wanting to start a family. And so really this was a really sad and non theoretical, non hypothetical tragic consequence I think of the dobs decision. Yeah, there's 12 states that have an Alabama's joined them that it's called the march towards personhood, making a person having all the rights of a person at the moment of fertilization.

If I was in Alabama, there's no way my wife and I would ever consider doing IVF. We were fortunate that in between our IVF treatments, my wife got pregnant the old fashioned way, but we were fully prepared and we have to be frank, we have embryos, at least two of them that are on ice or frozen that we may use in the future, but there were others that were not viable after they did the genetic testing and other testing. And they were, we don't have them any longer. In Alabama, we could be, I would assume there's no reason to believe that that wouldn't naturally lead

to a prosecution for a murder. There's no way. It would be completely inconsistent with the ruling they just made that being whatever that is, regardless of your religious beliefs, scientifically, whatever it is, it's a person.

Well, if it's a person, then it could be murdered. And that's why there's no way an IVF clinic can operate in Alabama or any of the other 11 states, which means that we're back to a divided country, red and blue, off the dobs decision, because we've lost equal protection under the law because a Michael Popak and his wife in Alabama does not have the same rights as I have here in New York.

And they should, and they should be able to have the luxury and the freedom have here in New York. And they should. And they should be able to have the luxury and the freedom. Now that's a better word, the freedom and the civil rights. And for a woman, the woman's bodily autonomy to make these decisions about whether to carry a being to term an embryo to feed us to term or not. And these other earlier decisions and not be dissuaded because the chief justice

of your local Supreme court wants to quote the Bible and the face of God in every living creature, you know, as the justification for the decision. If anybody thought that this was based on science, it is not based on science. Just as the fetal heartbeat states for abortion, outlawing abortion are not based on science, it is not based on science. Just as the fetal heartbeat states for abortion, outlawing abortion are not based on science either. And I take this very personally

because I've been public about, you know, my wife and I are, you know, very far along in a pregnancy. And so I'm pretty well versed in all facets of this in real time. And that's why I felt compelled to do the hot take on it. But I wanted to get your perspective on it as a mother, as a mother of children that are having children and have had children about what it would be like.

And we've got to, that is- I'm a grandmother. I'm a grandmother. Oh yeah, a grandmother. Well, I said a mother of children. I know, I know. That's great. That was my way of saying you're a grandmother.

I know, the greatest thing that's happened to me, frankly, is being a grandmother, I will say. It's amazing, but really quick, I just wanna share one more thing about this ruling that I thought was so interesting, was so much can be gleaned from the words that are used, from the phraseology and from the way things are framed in this ruling.

And there's two things I found, one interesting, one depressing. The interesting thing was they started with, this is a wrongful death claim, and all parties, meaning the plaintiffs and the defense and the court, this is what it said, all parties and the court agree that an unborn child is a genetically unique human being who life whose life begins at fertilization and ends at death so that It was interesting to me that that they all agreed that court took it as a given that

the plaintiffs, the defendant, and the court all think that life begins at fertilization. And as soon as they said that, there was no other place to go than this ruling. And the thing that was also interesting is there are multiple times in there where they would use the following word. So they'd say, is there an unwritten exception to the rule for unborn children, not physically

in utero, at the time they are killed? Okay. They kept talking about killing the embryo. When you use language, I mean, so there's no doubt where that decision was going. That's your viewpoint that you are killing a human. And that is, right? Like then you know sort of where it's going. If that's your viewpoint that you are killing a human and that is right, like then you know sort of where it's going. So it was just even just the wording. This wasn't even a close call for them, you know, that they view this as murder. So yeah, when they use that, you know, I did it in the hot tag when they use pregnant work. No, that's the wrong word. When

they use trigger words, you know, you words, you know exactly where they're going. The unborn, just using the term, as you said, unborn child, that's that personhood. That's the personhood that they're using, which has been, you know, the anti-abortion group has been using for years. And now they got their hands on the Supreme Court. All the members of the Supreme Court,

including the one woman on the Supreme Court, voted for this in Alabama. And. All the members of the Supreme Court, including the one woman on the Supreme Court, voted for this in Alabama. And this is the problem of when you have a constitutional, a right that's enshrined in the United States Constitution versus leaving it to each state legislature to do their own bidding. And this is the problem, because when you and I were

in law school, we learned about, you know, Griswold, you know, these various cases in Supreme Court precedent that were moving towards establishing more and more freedom and bodily autonomy and about family planning and reproductive rights and a woman's right to choose. And so Roe versus Wade, which was just one in a series of decisions that made me proud to be an American and are proud to live under the protection of our Constitution.

But now, with this MAGA right wing, a Supreme Court, that goes out of their way to remove the separation of church and state, to do everything they can to undermine a woman's bodily autonomy. We now live in a different hellscape of a world when it comes to that. And now we're letting it be put up for bid in state by state, meaning we're now going to have half the states that are going to respect a woman and make her an equal and in family planning decisions and half the states that aren't. And that's not the America that I thought we were going to live in in 2024. But here we are. I hate to end it on

such a dour note. Let's go back to the lipstick. Where's Karen? We can't end it on that. You know what? So that, that, that ad that I did for one skin, I actually, I actually didn't wear makeup because I wanted people to see, you know, I look at the picture because I was watching it while as we're watching it, I'm going, Oh God, you know, but I was watching it, but I purposely didn't wear makeup because we all know everybody knows I'm a big user of the touch up your appearance feature on, you know, the cameras, look, I'm on it.

I'm on it. Oh, I clicked that little button. This is touch up my appearance. I just get giant glasses and then nobody looks. Nobody looks at my camera. You know, you gotta, I'm a grandmother. I gotta fight this back with every ounce that I can. You know, it's coming, It is what it is. I

am good Karen. No, no, I'm just saying so but I wanted people to see because I really because my mom, I'm gonna now I'm going to talk about my mom who's you know, the most amazing person I know. My mom tells me like, like it is right. She's a little bit of a savage and so so my mom will be the one who will tell me exactly, it's time to do your hair, see some grace. And I saw him on the podcast, I'm like, okay, mom, thanks a lot. But she saw me and she looked at my skin

and she's like, oh my God, you look great, what are you doing? And I was like, it's this new thing, mom, it's going great. So I wanted people to actually see. And now I'm wearing lipstick. Set up time people to actually see. So and now I'm set up time with for me and Mrs. Friedman to do a consultation. I think she'd be great to give me notes. Trust me. I'll tell you one time my mom said to me she literally this is a

true story and I'll just tell you what a savage amazing woman she is, but she's a savage. I was every I think if people know I'm I'm a legal analyst on CNN CNN and when you go on CNN, they do your hair and makeup, right, before you go on. And my mom, just texting with me, hey, you know, what are you doing right now? And so I took a selfie and I was in the hair and makeup chair, you know, just whatever, looking like you're getting your makeup done. All I get get back all I get back from my mom is she She goes into the photo and she zooms in to this part of my head That's all you see back and you can see this white line, right?

Because whatever I am I'm gray So you can see it and that's all she sends back but without a comment without a comment That was her way of like you know and so I was like oh so the hair and makeup people they were lovely They're like they spray you You can get on TV. I'm like you got to do it for my mom. Anyway, so I Love your mom said back. What are you doing it madam to sods wax museum? So my mother will tell you exactly cuz she's she's my mother's amazing. Yeah. So she you know I get I get a lot of my strength from her so but she's she's a savage.

I get a lot of strength from my mother so there we are. It's a better way to end the podcast. We've reached the end of another edition of Legal AF Midweek. I'm tan ready and rested. I'm so I couldn't wait to get on the on the microphone today with My co-anchor Karen Freemann, Ignifolo So our briefly I was holed up on holiday and did the we just had to all get together and join together and add Bandwidth analyze everything that happened last week, but I love I love this time with you and We will pick up because there's a lot that's gonna be happening tomorrow as in every day in our lives at the intersection of law politics and justice And we cover it in a way that's unique. I'm not going to critique other places that do we try to do what we do But I think we do it in a very unique way here on the Midas touch network

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He is our producer. Salty's the best. Yeah, without him, there's no, literally, there's no show. If you'd see how many times Karen and I are trying to figure out our microphone and our camera before we start, we'd have no show. So you can- Not just that, he looks things up in the mid-show

and like sends it to us. If we can't think of something or forget it He kind of he anticipates what we're gonna do and it'll put stuff up He's all deep amazing. We have a chat that goes on here along the side We kind of keep each other honest during the chat You know if I make a mistake or a malloprop or something You know Karen'll weigh in if I if I hear something that she said, you know, I've done it with Ben too Ben. I'll say What's called me Cohen? Because Michael Cohen, what do you

think about this? And I go, I think we stopped it. I was like, stop. Wrong show, Ben. Because what did I say? Wrong, Michael. Wrong, Michael. But Michael Cohen and I are going to be together on May of Culpa next, which will be, which is fine. My first time on there. And we're going to have them, I don't know if it's with you and me or me in bad, but we're going to have Michael Cohen on before he testifies lead witness in the story of me, Daniels, Hush money cover up case business record fraud case brought by your old office in Manhattan, DA starting March 25th.

We got a lot to do on Thursday. We'll pick it up on hot takes that the three leaders of the Goliath will do between now and Saturday and Saturday 8 p.m. Eastern Time. Come join Ben, my cellist and me for the weekend edition of Legal AF. So until our next Legal AF together, our next series of hot takes, this is Michael Popak, Karen Friedman, Ignifolo. Shout out to Legal AFers and the Midas Mighty.