Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Reaches TOTAL DESPERATION as Prosecutors GO ALL IN

Episode Date: September 17, 2023

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back with a new episode of LegalAF. On this episode, the dynamic legal duo discuss: Special Counsel Jack Smith’s move to gag Trump; Trump’s move to disqualify the federal judge presiding over the DC Election Interference case; Fulton County Judge McAfee issuing orders ensuring that at least 1 criminal will happen next month in the Georgia Criminal Case against Trump; developments involving Mark Meadows continued efforts to get his portion of the Georgia Criminal Case tried in federal court; Trump’s latest effort to delay the start of his October 2 NY Attorney General Civil Fraud case this time by suing the trial judge; new revelations in the recently unsealed proceedings about Twitter trying to tip off Donald Trump about an ongoing criminal investigation; the Republican Senate voting to acquit Attorney General Ken Paxton and other breaking legal news from around the US. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSOR! Green Chef: Head to https://GreenChef.com/60LegalAF and use code 60LegalAF to get 60% off and Free Shipping! Rhone: Head to https://rhone.com/legalaf and use code LEGALAF to save 20% off your entire order! Prize Picks: Go to https://PrizePicks.com/legalaf and use code legalaf for a first deposit match up to $100! SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop NEW LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 MAGA Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Salesforce, we're all about asking more of AI. Questions like, where's the data going? Is it secure? Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure? Get answers you can trust from Salesforce at AskMoreVai.com. Jack Smith's motion for a limited gag order against Donald Trump in the Washington, DC,

federal criminal case was just unsealed. Finally, folks, it's the motion you've been waiting for. Jack Smith is asking for an order prohibiting Trump from making extra judicial. In other words, out of court threats against the judge, the prosecutors, the witnesses, the community, and others, which would cause intimidation and bias in the jury pool. This is how any other criminal defendant would and should be treated. So what happens next also in the Georgia criminal Rico case against Donald Trump and 18 others some critical rulings were handed down this week in Fulton County Superior Court by Judge Scott McAfee this as an expedited appeals process in the 11th Circuit is Simultaneously playing out involving Donald Trump's former chief of staff and co-defendant Mark Meadows after a federal district court in Georgia

denied Meadows' attempt to remove the case from Georgia State Court to federal court, with court with Trump criminal cases and litigation like all aspects of his life. It's all chaos, disorder, and screwing up and then playing the victim when he screws up. Trump and his lawyer, Alina Habas, screw ups were on display this week from failing to check the box to request a jury trial in the New York AG civil fraud case to failing to assert presidential immunity as a defense in the E. Jean Carol One case to having their attempt to revive a lawsuit where they were previously shanctioned, one million dollars denied and getting another scathing rebuke from the federal judge. It is just sheer incompetence and abuse of process and whining on display from Trump and his team this week and all weeks. Speaking of the New York Attorney General civil fraud case,

a ruling by the New York Appellate Department might delay the October 2nd start date of that $250 million fraudulent valuation case after Donald Trump sued Judge Arthur and Goran, the presiding judge over the New York AG case. What was the move that Donald Trump made? What did the first appellate department do? How is this going to impact the trial date? We will break it all down. And finally, new details have emerged about Jack Smith's subpoena to Twitter almost nine months ago where

Jack Smith sought and obtained Donald Trump's direct messages and Twitter activity. This is where Elon Musk's Twitter was held and contempt and ordered to pay a massive sanction after trying to obstruct turning over the evidence that was sought by special counsel, Jack Smith. The district court's orders and related filings have been unsealed. By the way, it appears that special counsel, Jack Smith, may have obtained devastating evidence, including direct messages sent on Donald Trump's account. Talk about this and more here on Legal AF. I'm Ben Myselis, joined by the one and only Michael Popak. Hi Ben, and sweet new year to all those in our audience that celebrate the beginning

of the holidays that we're in now. We talk a lot then about Donald Trump being a phony, saying false things, saying fraudulent things, swearing to false and fraudulent things and court filings. But I want to put back that picture that we always use this. It's a great stock photo. This is outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and that clock, Ben, do you know the story about that clock? No, tell me the story about that clock. It was put up fraudulently and the city of New York is trying to take it down.

They never got a permit to put up that clock. It just showed up one day. They didn't go through the proper zoning and land use approvals for it. And so this illegal clock that a lot of tourist take photos in front of should not be there. And if the city of New York has its way, will be torn down along with the legacy of the former president. And I'm sure everybody wants to know as we heard about Donald Trump suing the judge, it's kind of a writ proceeding, a mandate, a writ of mandate kind of proceeding. Want to talk about what happened there

because it appeared on its face to be very frivolous. We then had the first appellate department, Court of Appeals judge who got it on the emergency basis, kind of kicked it to a full panel. So the way it was reported, and it is, that there has been this kind of temporary stay pending a review by the full panel. I know you're steeped in New York law, so I know our listeners and viewers are going

to be very keen on hearing your take there. But let's start with the gag order. We've been talking about it for some time. People have been asking, I always see, it's probably one of the number one or number two things, other than people saying how cool Michael Popok is in the chat, Popok so cool, Popok so cool. When is Jack Smith going to seek a gag order already? And look, we previously talked about how

there are first amendment considerations, number one, that gag orders have to be kind of narrowly tailored and construed appropriately so as to not create any constitutional issues, but here Donald Trump's flagrant conduct in threatening the judge and witnesses and prosecutors and the communities prosecutors and the communities unprecedented, you know, even in mob trials, you don't see, you know, the mob boss going on social media and saying that the my Marxist judge is gonna get what's coming to her and If you do this to me, I'm coming after you and you know know, and Jack Smith had enough. And this issue had been percolating

for some time. You know, if you go back to some of the other legal A.Fs, we talked a week or so ago about there was this filing that Jack Smith made where Jack Smith wanted to file something under seal. And Donald Trump was objecting to the filing under seal. Not only was Trump objecting to it, Trump wanted a full briefing, three weeks of briefing or more on the issue about whether it should be filed under seal to then get to the merits itself and then have a three week or more period on the merits issue.

And it turns out that what was happening because the documents were just mostly unsealed. Fortunately, we had Judge Tanya Chutkin who was having none of this Trump delay. Although there was a headline back, Judge Chutkin gives Trump a win by forcing this issue by giving three extra days for Donald Trump to respond to the motion

and have Jack Smith respond shortly thereafter. And now it's made public this week. But what now we know was happening, Popeyes, right? Is that Donald Trump wanted the identities of the individuals who received threats to be public. Jack Smith was saying, look, this motion for a gag order that we're filing before even getting to the substance of a judge, we're going to file most of this on the public docket. We simply want to redact the names of victims who are being threatened and targeted by Donald Trump because that serves no public purpose.

And then they're just going to be targeted with more threats. So Trump was fighting, and this was what one of the initial things was, like Judge Chutkin's order first came out unceiling portions of it, but but but keeping the names of the targeted victims redacted. Trump wanted those names public. That's a pretty astonishing thing when you think about what Trump was fighting for. And then fortunately, Judge Shuttkin allowed redactions over the names of people who received threats. By the way, we learned the court was threatened as well. The courts been receiving racist threats. People have been arrested. Jack Smith pointed that as well. But Popeyes, this is big. Jack Smith's had enough. And now we know what that what that was all about last week or the week before was this

filing for this limited gag order. So what's going on? We got the filing. And there's a pattern here. I want to connect the dots on between the last segment we're going to do on this podcast about the Twitter filings that are now also unsealed back from the beginning of the year that we could see and the filings that jack smith has just made different members of his same team but saying the exact same thing consistently and coherently in front of two different judges, but always being consistent. And that is Donald Trump's MO is to pressurize the undermine people's faith and confidence in the justice system in the judges, the prosecutors, the investigators, the witnesses that will be against him.

And he does it and then they tie it back to the indictment. He does it judge just the way the indictment charges that he did leading up to Jan 6 and the cling to power by undermining people's faith in our election process. Same guy, same playbook, two different, two different facing pages. And that is, from what we saw in this motion that finally got unsealed Ben, the one before Judge Chutkin, which has been reported as sort of a gag order motion. I'll talk about what they are actually seeking, the two things they're actually seeking, not quite up to the level of a gag, but close to it. But in that particular filing, the opening paragraph of it, or so, is something that they can use in their opening statement when they finally get this case to trial, because it

also gives you the inner workings, the inner thoughts of how the prosecutors see this case and the way they consistently present it to different courts. It starts off with the motion. It starts off with a excerpt or a quote from a famous Supreme Court case in this area, Shepard versus Maxwell. This is on page 14 of the motion. And it says, the reason we're even here talking about putting limits on the defendant in undermining the justice system is that the trial of an individual under the Sixth Amendment, Donald Trump included, should not be a, quote, carnival atmosphere of unchecked publicity and trial by media

rather than our constitutionally established system of trial by an impartial jury. So, just like Fawney Willis is worried about the six amendment rights of defendants that are being undermined, even Jack Smith is saying, the ability to pick an impartial jury because of Donald Trump's own actions is severely compromised and undermined by Donald Trump being the ringmaster of a carnival-like atmosphere. He thinks Donald Trump that what he's doing is he's speaking to the future Trump or juror who's going to hang the jury, but all he's really doing is making it almost impossible to pay without protection, to pick a jury that is not afraid of him and therefore won't give him actually a fair trial.

And that's what he, that's what Donald Trump always misses. And so what they did is they walked the judge through who this Donald Trump is as if she needs a lesson in it. And in it, they, they say in the opening paragraph, then, which I said could be a version of their opening. They start off with the indictment, another another ability and they'll take it, a gift given to them by Donald Trump for the prosecutors to ring the bell about how bad this guy is and as alleged in the indictment and then tie it together with what he's doing now. It's just another version of what he did

leading into Jan 6th and beyond. They said, as set forth in the indictment, after election day in 2020, the defendant launched a disinformation campaign in which he publicly and widely broadcasts knowingly false claims that there had been outcome determinative fraud in the presidential election and that he had actually won. In service of his criminal conspiracies through public false public statements, the defendant, Trump, sought to erode public faith in the administration of the election and intimidate individuals who refuted his lies. The defendant is now attempting to do the same thing in the criminal case

to undermine confidence in the criminal justice system and prejudice the jury pool through disparaging and inflammatory attacks on the citizens of this district, this court, prosecutors and prospective witnesses. The defendant's conduct presents a substantial likelihood of material prejudice to these proceedings and the court needs to take steps to restrict his extra judicial statements. That's the beginning. That's the opening salvo in the motion. And then they walk through all of the things that he has done in which he lights the fuse, knowing that his followers are going to follow him, and then harass and intimidate and docks

people that he points his eye or at. And they use as examples and this is where the blackout comes in, what we call the reduction. If we go salty to page three, you'll see the version of what we're talking about, what we've been waiting for. It's this blackout, that's not by me, that's by the court. Now, by the way, I have to tell you, in this entire document, there is very little reduction. And in fact, I'm not outing anybody. It is obvious when they start with the sentence like this, the former head of cybersecurity in election integrity for the United States, blacked out, we know that's Chris Krebs. I mean, that, some of the blackouts, I was like, that's what we're blocking out. And it's obvious they're

talking about Ruby Freeman and Shane Moss because it's a full description of Fulton County election workers, including the two that are suing Giuliani for defamation and others. And we know what happened to them. And we know the Georgia Secretary of State by name who stood at the podium and said, somebody is going to die and get killed based on the rhetoric that Donald Trump is using. That is all, this gave, this was the gift that keeps on giving, as we've said before, in other legal AFs.

Donald Trump refuses. You did a hot take on it that's running right now. Refuses to shut his mouth. And even knowing that this is now pending, rather than go into a quiet mode and not say a darn thing, he just ramped it up again and started attacking the judge and the prosecutors. Everything that they're asking for the limitation on, he's just giving another example, which as I said on my own hot take, the government is just going to send in as an amended motion or further evidence into the judge when she holds this

particular hearing after full briefing before this month is over. They didn't have to, but they reminded the judge that she's been attacked, including an assassination comment that was left on her voicemail, racist attack on her to kill her. That was mentioned. And we've had issues in our country. Unfortunately, we're federal and state judges, prosecutors and their families have been assassinated because of rhetoric just like this one. Then talking about the witness tempering him going after Mike Pence, it's Mike Pence, him going after anybody else that's

going to testify against him or bolstering their testimony, which is another aspect where you say, I know Rudy Giuliani's going to testify for me. So I'm going to pollute the future jury's mind by telling them what a great guy Giuliani is, the former greatest mayor, you can't, you're not supposed to be talking about witnesses because the fear is that the future jury not yet picked in the district of Columbia. What we, what we refer to in the business bet in me as the veneer, the future panel that is brought down to choose the ultimate 12 jurors from, I think it's 12 in this case. They're right now potential jurors.

Everybody in DC is a potential juror. That's got a department of motor vehicle registration, whatever they use in the District of Columbia. And so by making these comments, he's having these people start to pre-judge and not be able to be fair and impartial when they come in or worse, because in this document and the motion, then they reminded the judge that on at least one Jan 6 trial that the Department of Justice handled, the jury, and I think you and Karen did a hot take on this one, the jury sent a note asking to make sure that the defendant that they were not a sentencing

the trial, that a defendant that they were adjudicating his guilt or innocence, whether they had, whether he had their phone numbers and addresses, because they were fearful that he would come after them and, and, and worse with Donald Trump. So, this is the world. And then the two things just to leave my portion on this. The two, quote unquote, limited orders that they're looking for from the judge. Because as I always say, when you go to court, you got a judge who's impatient, tap in their foot, asking two questions. Why are you here and what do you want? We've done the why are you here?

What do you want? And what we want, judge, is for you to enter in order, limiting or preventing all outside the courtroom statements by Donald Trump and Anna's lawyers about witnesses, the prosecution team, the trial in particular, and jurors. They didn't mention the judge, but I'm sure when the judge gets around to it, she doesn't like being attacked either, but you know, she'll put that aside for a minute.

And the second thing they want besides Donald Trump, not at rallies, social media, press conferences, and otherwise, attacking witnesses, jurors, and the prosecution team, and undermining the judicial process, the justice system, is they want to know, and they want the judge to authorize when parties, Donald Trump, meaning make an attempt to create what's called a... It's what jury consultants do in order to figure out what their future jury should be made up of. You hire a jury consultant to help you select your model juror, demographically, racially, you know, all sorts of different... socio-economically, all sorts of different things. Is this better if I have all women?

Is it better if it's mixed? Is it better if it's older? Is it better if it's people that served in the military? Whatever the demographics are, you hire somebody. But they do a jury pool and they do a jury analysis and they wanna make sure that as part of that, Donald Trump isn't polluting the jury and the future jury by the way he does

this jury science project. And so they wanna know when he's doing that and they want the way he does this jury science project. And so they want to know when he's doing that and they want the court to approve how it's done. Again, under the auspices of we got to protect the jury from intimidation and tampering so that we can have a fair jury at the end of the day. And the last thing I'll leave it on then is they also said it has already been proven in this case that when you judge, you judge and given order up specifically it gets complied with they

noted that when you john Laura the lawyer for Donald Trump went on all the Sunday morning talk shows and you and I covered this in both legal a F and hot takes one Sunday morning hit like seven talk shows and he started doing exactly what you're not allowed to do under the local criminal rules as a lawyer Which is he started bashing witnesses like Mike Pence He started talking to future jurors if you will and just talking about the case in an extra judicial Meaning outside the four corners of the courtroom and in in filings in a way that he shouldn't have. And they said when you told him judge to stop doing that and it managed him in a hearing, we went back and checked. John Loro and it was basically gagged. He never did it again. Do the same thing with Donald Trump because only you can do it. You see what he's doing when you don't do it. What do you think about it all been?

Well, I can tell you what Donald Trump did right after Jack Smith filed the motion. This is Jack Smith filing a motion to call out Donald Trump's threats against prosecutors, the judge, the community. Donald Trump's response was the following. Biden prosecutor deranged Jack Smith has asked the court to limit 45th president and leading Republican nominee by more than 50 points in beating Dems, Donald J. Trump's public statements. That's all in caps because I think he thinks that's more important if you put things in caps. So I'm campaigning for president against an incompetent person who has weaponized the DOJ and FBI to go after

his political opponent. And I'm not allowed to comment. They leak lie and sue and they won't allow me to speak. How else would I explain that Jack Smith is deranged or crooked Joe is incompetent? Just first, just dealing with Donald Trump talking about incompetence. He gave a speech yesterday in Washington, D.C., where he believed that he had run a campaign against Barack Obama, and then Donald Trump also accused President Biden of starting World War II. And so I know the media likes to have these boltsides narratives that exist and they want to

start attacking President Biden, who's doing an incredible job overseas and here domestically while Donald Trump makes posts like this threatening prosecutors after prosecutors seek a limited gag order because of the threats leading to actual death threats taking place to the court and to judges and to community members as well. That's what Donald Trump does and then Donald Trump doesn't know the difference between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and President Biden and then also believes President Biden somehow started world war two we cover that here at the Midas Touch Network You know what one of the things that Donald Trump's trying to do here also though, he wants

to bait Jack Smith to making a mistake. He wants to bait Judge Tanya Chutkin into saying something or making a mistake so he can go see, see, she's biased. She's biased against me. You see, I'm not going to get a fair trial here. That's part of the gaslighting tactics of an abuser that we see deployed by Donald Trump over and over again. You know, and one of the things that Jack Smith also filed

this week was a opposition to Donald Trump's request to have Judge Tanya Chutkin recuse. And with special counsel, Jack Smith pointed out is one, Donald Trump is just mistating the law in the recusal motion because the statements that he's taking issue, which by the way, he's cherry picking portions of the statement and not giving the context, involved Judge Chutkin in sentencing cases, sentencing January 6th insurrectionists who have all been blaming Donald Trump for their conduct, and who have all been blaming Donald Trump for their conduct, and they've all been saying Donald Trump should go to jail and not them.

And she's rejected that argument, and she said things like, it is true that the people who you say directed you have not been charged yet, but that's not here nor there. You're responsible for your actions. Then she would sentence the insurrectionist. Then Donald Trump uses her saying that to say, she's biased towards me. I can't get a fair trial in front of her. And Jack Smith's like, no, she's just stating the facts.

That's factual things that happened. And I know that the MAa Republican Party lives in this world devoid of facts, devoid of evidence, you blame anything on the deep state or when you threaten attack people and commit crimes, you waive the Constitution around and you go see, First Amendment Second Amendment and they don't even read what the freaking amendments say and they don't even understand what the laws are that know you can't engage in threats at people. You can't attack people like that. Those are crimes, but I wanted to point out that motion that Jackson Smith filed as well.

And Jackson Smith pointed out the legal standard is in order to demonstrate that a judge's intra judicial in court statements rise to the level of being, of creating bias against a party, you have to show that the judge has showed an absolute, like the standard is like an absolute clear antipathy and discussed publicly discussed about, in a court hearing, about a individual. And Jackson said that Donald Trump falls far short of that. So there's no chance that Judge Shuttkin's going to be recruits. Popeye, I want to get your take on that and more, but I want to take our first quick break of the day.

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They're not going to win on yet another attempt by Donald Trump. We're going to talk about a fourth one here during the podcast for Donald Trump to try to gonna talk about a fourth one here during the podcast for Donald Trump to try to get rid of a judge he doesn't like. This is his continued campaign, which we've seen fail in Florida

to try to remove Judge Middlebrook's. There's some new litigation with Judge Middlebrook's I know, Ben, you've done or you will do a hot take on. He tried and failed and is attempt to get rid of Judge Mershon. He's trying to get rid of Judge Mershon. He's trying to get rid of Judge Engor on the civil fraud judge presiding over his civil fraud case. Going to lose there.

We'll talk about that in a minute. And then Judge Chutkin, same thing as they said in their papers, the Department of Justice said in the papers that they just filed based on the briefing schedule, very fast one, the judge set up. All the Donald Trump has, which is not the clear and convincing evidence of judicial bias to overcome the presumption of impartiality, right, under a reasonable person standard. And we're kind of missing a reasonable person in this analysis because Donald Trump is not the reasonable person standard. All they have left judge, as what they said, their papers, is insinuation of sinister motivation by you without anything else.

And if that's all it took, all you got to do is file a motion to recuse the judge that you don't like and you get rid of them. All you got to do is file and we'll talk about it later. An article 78 petition under New York law when you just don't like the judge and you'll get rid of them. Everybody would be doing that. And that's why there's a presumption of impartiality

by the person wearing the robe. If they've done something, you don't like in the case. And it's within some version of their discretion, like you don't like to have fast trial setting got set within some version of their discretion, like you don't like to how fast the trial setting got set by Judge Chutkin. Or she makes another decision you don't like here and there. Okay, then step up, file an appropriate appeal at the right time, the right time, and argue to some appellate judge who's the boss for this particular judge that there has been reversible error that they have abused,

the discretion they have, or whatever the standard of review is for that particular issue. But to come in now and say, we don't like the fact that in the course of a dozen or so more Jan 6th sentencing, when somebody argue that they should be given leniency in the sentencing, because they were just following orders of the grand leader, the cult leader for them, and the judge is a human being and commented in response. That may be, but you're in front of me now. We have to sentence you for your conduct. I have my own opinions about people that are not here.

They said, oh, Donald Trump, she's got our own opinions about Donald Trump. We don't expect our jurists to be lobotomized before they get on the bench. They're allowed to on the bench. They're allowed to read the paper. They're allowed to handle other cases that might impact on this particular one. They're allowed to be appointed by presidents that are not the person that's in front of them

or former presidents. And they are allowed to make comments like that. And it doesn't rise to the heightened level of the squalifying animus, the squalifying bias that's required. Otherwise, everybody would be doing this and we wouldn't be able to get anything done in the courthouse as an America. You know, when it comes to Maga Republicans, Donald Trump, it's all projection and confession

when they talk about, oh, banana republic, no, I am so proud of the way our jury system works. And it's not perfect. And juries don't always get it right. And judges certainly don't always get it right. But when you read and you evaluate thoughtful judges like Judge Tanya Chutkin, even when we're about to talk about Georgia, judge Scott McAfee who's been very thoughtful in his orders, who by the way is appointed by Republican governor in Georgia. It is important that we have an evidence-based system, and at the end of the show, we're gonna talk about the full acquittal of Ken Paxton,

the attorney general in Texas, who had his impeachment trial play out before Maga Republicans in the Senate and the Maga Republicans who make up the Texas Senate heard all of this evidence, not from Democrats. The evidence came from Ken Paxton's own staff, Republicans, who said Ken Paxden was engaging in all of these bribes. Here's the evidence. Here are the bribes. Like, the evidence was right there. Here's the mistress. Here's everybody who he was bribing. Here's how it was done. Here are the emails. And then you have the Republicans in Texas at the Senate level because Donald

Trump makes a post on his social media platform. They go, Hey, Donald Trump told us, that's not the country I want to live in. It's not the country any of us should want to live in. We should want to live in an evidence-based system. Let's talk about that a little later, but talking about our evidence-based system, a lot of updates taking place in Georgia and the criminal Rico case, both in Fulton County Superior Court by Judge Scott McAfee, as well as in the federal court, 11 Circuit Court of Appeals, as Mark Meadows is using all of these resources to try

and desperately, desperately get the case removed to federal court even after a district court denied his attempt to do so. So Pope, when we start off talking about judge McAfee and then we can talk about what's going on in federal court. And just so everybody knows here and I'm sure a long time legal a effort is get this, right? There are state court systems and there are federal courts and federal courts have jurisdiction over federal issues and state courts have jurisdiction over state law violations.

So with respect to Fulton County District Attorney Fony Willis, right, she is a state prosecutor in Fulton County. She brought state law criminal ricochardes. That's her mandate as a state prosecutor to enforce the law and to bring cases in state and within her jurisdiction. The reason that there's federal courts involved is because Mark Meadows tried to argue that there's some federal law invoked. And he said, because he was a federal official and he claimed to be acting under color of authority of his federal law and had federal

defenses. He said, actually, this shouldn't be handled in state court. It should be handled in federal court. It would still be the same prosecutors. He wouldn't be able to be pardoned by a future United States president. It would all be within the state court. It would still have the same kind of state apparatus, but it would be handled physically in a federal court.

So I just wanted to make that distinction as people go, stay court, federal court. What's going on here, Popeye? Well, yeah, and let's stay on there for a minute, because last count we have listeners and followers and audience from 140 countries. We get a lot of people in the chat and indirect messaging from not just expatriates

of the US that are sitting and residing in other countries, people that are from other countries. And we get comments about, thank you. One person just wrote us recently, Ben, that said, I know more about the American legal system from your shows than I know about my own legal system, which doesn't surprise me back to your point about we're proud of the justice system when properly administering justice, which is what we're seeing writ

large in Georgia under a judge that we didn't necessarily pick the governor's Republican did, but we can't fault him yet for anything that he's done. Scott McAfee and how he's made decisions. And just one point of clarification on state versus federal, there's, if you have federal claims and they're holy federal claims, you go to federal court, if you got state claims, you go to state court, state prosecution stay in state court, federal prosecutions for federal crime.

That's why we're saying Department of Justice, Jack Smith, all in federal courts that we talk about. There's some overlap between the two things because under our Constitution and other laws passed consistent with it related to justice. If you have a state claim like a breach of contract, that person in that other state breached a contract with me, or that other country breached a contract with me or that other country breached a contract with me or defamed me

or committed what we call a series of business injuries or other injuries called torts. I may be able to go to federal court for that filing and litigate it there or take the case to federal court depending upon the amount of money that's in dispute and if the parties are diverse in terms of where they're from. That's the one little other thing. That's generally how removal, like the one we're going to talk about with Mark Meadows, comes

up, which is a person gets sued in state court in a state that's not his home court or home country and wants to take it over to federal court for a federal judge. The judge's dockets at federal, the federal docket for a judge is made up of criminal federal cases. There's a lot of them drugs and everything else. And then cases that gets brought there by removal, either from a civil context or a criminal context depending upon the conditions. That's what we've been watching. That's the under, that's the foundation of the framework of what we've been talking about when we talk about in shorthand removal. First thing we got to talk about though is this bombshell. I mean, we use that phrase a lot

on this network, but in nine pages, Judge McAfee kind of Reset the entire game and showed who's in charge and it was a firm hand about Georgia process Georgia procedure and how he wants as the judge the 19 Co-conspirator cases to be tried in front of them and the take away in a very efficient ruling I mean, this is like nine pages. That's it. I'm going to tell you everything that's packed in that nine pages. That's really important to us and those that follow what we do. The first thing that was decided at the top is that what I jokingly refer to as prosecution table for two and chess, bro and Sydney pals, BD trial couple, they're not separating from each other,

even though they've tried to sever, cut the cord between the two of them and have their cases tried separately. The judge says, no, you're both Bede trial defendants, you're going together. And that's gonna be, now it's set in stone, right now that,

that wet cement is now hardened by the judge trial October, YouTube. Now, judge said, now that I've dispensed with that, let's talk about everybody else. There's 17 of them. And he said to Fawney Willis, there's a lot of talking to Fawney Willis in his order and giving her direction as to what to do next. And what he said to Fawney Willis is, and I'm only slightly paraphrasing, I appreciate that state that prosecutors want to say and do say that they're ready for trial. Like the judge says, okay, the parties are in the courtroom. We're setting the trial prosecution.

The people ready. Right, that's what I get it. You're ready. You want to do all 19. Appreciate you, right? Mad love for you, Fonnie. However, I cannot try 19. I can't try the remaining 17 people,

all in one courtroom at one time. And there's already been nine motions to sever already filed to get away from the Chesbro and Powell Speedy Trial Couple, which I'm granting. And I know others are coming down the pike and I'm going to grant those two even before they've been filed. So I'm going to make my own decision.

The 17 are now uncoupled from the two, the only two that are going to trial in October are Chessbro and Powell. And frankly, the reality of that bend to our audience is, Donald Trump is not getting tried in 2023, based on Judge McAfee's orders. What he's told Farni Willis, this is the instruction portion of his order as he's communicating with her in a binary fashion, right,

through this order. He's saying to her, I envision at least two groups among the 17, I could be urged to do three or more. We'll deal with that another day, but I'm telling you now that you're gonna have to take this, he called it a mega trial, take this mega trial and parse it down to groupings that make sense

that I can do in one courtroom, because he said 17 defendants with two or three lawyers, a piece, and paralegals. My staff, the sheriff's staff, the prosecution's team in one courtroom ain't happening. And so come up with another way. Now look, there have been cases, I know people in the chat were like, in the 1970s during the organized crime trials,

they tried 100 mob bosses, that's true. And they had multiple courtrooms, they had like closed circuit. That's true. They had multiple court rooms, they had like closed circuit TV, but this judge is not doing that. And he does think it impacts the fair administration of justice. He understands the point, Ben, that Foni made, which is we want to avoid inconsistent judgments. We don't want one jury hearing the exact same evidence of two separate defendants who should be convicted, one convicting and one saying no guilty. And the chances of that happening increased when you have multiple trials.

But we had multiple trials in the Oathkeeper case and federal court. We had multiple trials. We had two trials in the Proud Boys and both juries, two separate juries hearing similar evidence came to the same conclusion and convicted almost all of them on all of the charges. So it does put a little pressure on the prosecution, but they also get the benefit if for somehow they lose, it's not all or nothing. They almost get like a midterm before the final, right? Let's say they win most of the case, the first grouping, but then they make some improvements about how to present evidence in the second trial.

The real question for me is, which group does Donald Trump go in? Now she's going to have to come back to him, knowing what the judge wants, and propose a reasonably segmented set of trials. Is she going to propose two sets, like we should do eight and nine. Where is she going to come back and say five five and eight or five five and seven, whatever the math is for the 17 remaining. I don't think she goes more than three. I maybe she tries to shove it into two, she'll horn the whole case in the two, and then where does Trump fall? Because if she wants to all we care about, I mean, yes, I'd like to know in QT,

the Kanye stylist is gonna be tried in 2024, but I really care about Donald Trump. So the question I have for you Ben, and then I'll talk about Meadows for a minute. The question I have for you Ben on this one is does she, knowing she's gotta have to have at least two more trials? Does she put him in the first group in 2024? So that we definitely get a ruling in 2024, or does she put him in the second group so she

gets the benefit of the first trial as sort of a practice run before she gets the Trump? That's one. And there's pros and cons on both of those. And then the last thing the judge did, which leads into the other part of the segment about Meadows and the 11th Circuit and and the federal court is he denied Meadows. And anybody else that's looking for a stay at this moment, we're going to talk a lot about stays on this hot dick podcast, get where I'm at, he denied the stay of this state court proceeding,

while people are running to federal court to try to get their cases moved over to federal court. He says, you got plenty of time. The federal courts moving really fast. I'm not even going to look at your stuff until 2024. I got trial in October of these two. I'm focused on that. You got time to do your thing. I'm not staying a thing.

You're in this case, Mr. Meadows. You should be looking at evidence and coming up with motions you want to file until you're not in this case And so that was the kind of final line under his order related to that But you know when you do your part if you just at tell me what you think I'm of two minds about first trial or second trial for Donald Trump. I want to hear your opinion One of the things I love that judge Scott McAfee put in his order is he said, I appreciate how Fulton County District Attorney Fony Willis has and always on, always ready to go to trial approach. And we knew from the hearing

that we discussed about the trial setting that it was kind of going to go this way because he said at the judge Scott McAfee said, at the hearing, I'm kind of skeptical and I'm going to be able to try everybody on October 23rd. Are you sure that's what you want? He asked one of the lawyers from Fulton County District Attorney Fony Willis' team and the prosecutor said, no, we want to go. We are ready to go. We want to have the earliest possible date to try all of the cases. And I mentioned that because one,

anybody who brings a case, Popeyes, whether it's you or me, or prosecutors, federal prosecutors, state prosecutors, you want your case to go to trial. That's why you filed the case. That should be your approach to it. So to answer your question and be putting that in context, full of the County District Attorney, Foni Willis, her public position is always going to be as soon as we can try Donald Trump. I don't care what groups.

I'm not playing games. I want to go to trial with him even to me. If it's conflicting with other dates of, you know, the Jack Smith case, she's going to ask for the earliest possible date knowing that Donald Trump's going to try to delay delay and it will likely get kicked to a later date. Anyway, so that's always going to be the public posture that she has. And I think she wants to try it as soon as possible. So anything that she can try in a first batch, she will always try over a second batch. And that's going to be, I think, her view about all of the co-defendants as well

that are remaining. As many as can be tried early, that's what she's going to do. I have a quick question for you. Follow up. Follow up, Mr. Macellis. Suppose she wins Chesbro and Powell. Great.

Suppose she doesn't win Chesbro and Powell. Then do you still think she puts Trump in the first group in early 2024? Yeah, and if she loses that first group and that case is gonna be broadcast live, it is high risk, high stakes, but she's got the evidence she wants to go to trial. She wins that case.

What you're going to see is many other plea agreements are going to be entered. And basically, you may have only two or three people left to actually try the second case to. Conversely, you lose the first case. It's a disaster. Let's face it. That is embarrassing. It is a disaster. And what it will lead to is calls to then dismiss some of the other individuals, you know, who are

there. And so I think either way that, and this is what Judge McAfee realizes, that first trial is going to have a material impact on all of the other cases, but I'm confident that Folding County District Attorney Foniguelis is going to win that. One other quick point of comparison, though, as well as I say, she has this always on ready to go to trial approach, right? Compare that just to Donald Trump

when Trump brings a case. What's the first thing he wants to do in the cases? He files. He wants to run away from him. He wants to delay. He wants to always use the court for abuse and manipulation and not for what the purpose of the court is. And the example I give recently is Trump filed the $500 million lawsuit against my cohost

on the political beat down podcast, Michael Cohen. So you would think Trump would be like, let's go. Let's get the trial date. Trump's first thing is to say, I want a trial date after the 2024 election, not only that. I don't want to be deposed before then. Trump's running away from the deposition. Trump's witness list in that case has two individuals himself and Michael Cohen. Trump's document production is 100 unique documents in a case he's suing Cohen for $500 million. And again, I want to touch on that right here, though. And then I want to hear about

Mark Meadows from you, Popeyes, about what's going on in the in the court of appeals, the 11th Circuit, because evidence matters. You folks, evidence, data, documents, witnesses. that's why popo can I do this show? You know because that concept and I know you know civics and and has been so under attack by mega Republicans here and Wow, the process works like this system that was created by our founders and evolved and developed and got better But certainly nowhere near perfect But got better and better and better is one of the best systems that exists in the world despite all of its imperfections. Is an important one that we need to fight for. We need to understand what it means if we lose that system.

It means people like Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Bobert and Matt Gates and Donald Trump and Jim Jordan and James Colmer, they don't like you and what happens in authoritarian states happens to you. And that's why it's so critical we do this show and we keep building this community. But Pope, tell us about Mark Meadows. Yeah, and it's not going well for him. He's already gotten two losses by Judge Jones, a federal judge, is sitting in the northern district of Georgia to continue our teachable moments about state and federal court. There's a federal court house in Georgia and Atlanta. It's very close to where the state court house is filled with federal judges and federal staff.

And Judge Jones appointed by Judge Obama should be should, but you know, US Supreme Court judge by President Obama is presiding over that. And all the other removal attempts by the fake electors and people like Jeff Clark who says, yeah, it was an environmental lawyer but I got an upgrade. I got a paid grade upgrade by the president. I was able to interfere with elections

as well as part of my job. All those arguments are gonna appear before him too. But the first canary in the coal mine who's not doing well, is Mark Meadows. First Judge Jones 10 days ago said, yeah, I heard the evidence, you testified Mr. Meadows, and under the narrow set of grounds that you have to establish,

and the burden you have to show me, not only were you a federal officer, but you're also, what you did that's at the heart of the indictment as part of your job description. A job description, the judge commented, Mr. Meadows, you can't even tell me the outer boundaries of what your responsibilities are. I had to go look up other law,

because you were summarily unhelpful to me in that process. This was the judge said about Meadows. He said, no, almost the entire heart of the indictment against you in the weeko conspiracy, the racketeer in conspiracy is not part of your job description as chief of staff. And so, no, goodbye. And then the judge, then he said, Mark Meadows, can you stay your order, judge, which I might even share with the right place to go stay, the right place is what you stay your order, judge, which I might even share with the right place

to go stay, the right place is what you and I said, Ben, which is to go to Judge McAfee, who's all also denied the stay of the criminal process against him in state court while he works out his federal problems? And the judge says, no, I'm not staying that either. I don't think an appeal here in In order for you to win an appeal, I peaked under the covers here and you have to have a reasonable chance of success, likelihood of success. And you don't. There's nothing about my analysis that I think I did wrong and it's not wrong. And so no. And so he said crap. So he went and filed his appeal with the 11th circuit and also

asked them for the emergency stay at the 11th circuit. But he got assigned three judges because we always talk about three judge panels generally except when we talk about an appellate bench in New York. We'll talk about that last. But normally in federal court, it's a three-judge panel from almost all appeals. And the three-judge panel is in, and it's not great for Mark Meadows. It is two judges who used to be in the Southern District of Florida. So they were in where Eileen Cannon is now, including Judge Rosenbaum, who was the person that left the seat that Cannon filled, and when she got elevated to the 11th Circuit. So you've got Judge Rosenbaum,

who was a Democrat, or a democratically appointed, you got Bert Jordan, Adelberto Jordan, who was also, and I have appeared in front of him when he was a trial judge down in Miami, in the Southern District. He got two Southern District, the Florida Judges, on the 11th Circuit, which covers Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.

So, it's not that typical to get two out of the three B Florida. And then you've got a third one. It's also a Democrat President appointment. I don't know. I'm just going to go out here on a limb and say that Mark Meadows is going to lose his appeal at the 11th Circuit about that everything he did was part of his job description and therefore he shouldn't be trying his case, probably in his case, tried against a mistake court.

And the novel issue that came up then, that everyone was a little bit of a headscratcher, was before the panel was, it was already set, but before it was revealed to the public, so we didn't know who the panel was yet. The panel asked the question anonymously through the clerk. That's how it works, because they don't want to tip off either side as to who the panelists are, because they don't want them, you know, like, trying to write for the panelists, you know, let's go look up all of Bert, you know, uh, uh, uh, Adelbert, uh, Jordan's decisions on this area and load our, our piece of paper up with it.

They don't want that. They just want the question answered. The question was, where does it say in the statute that a former federal officer, because we all agree that Mark Meadows was not the White House chief of staff when he tried to take this criminal prosecution. He had been many months removed from being the being the White House chief of staff. Where does it say that a former federal officer gets to take his case to federal court? Implying that there is a policy that the lawmakers had about why you have federal officer

removal as a provision at all. The reason you have it is because you want to prevent a state from interfering with the lawful federal functions of a federal officer, state interfering federal office. Got two problems with that argument here. One, the arrow is running the other way. The feds are a ledge to be have been interfering with the state election process. So it went that way, not this way. And secondly, he's not currently a federal officer. So there's no federal function interference that needs to be worried about.

That caught everybody sort of flat-footed because Fawli Willis had already conceded that he was a federal officer. And even recent cases that we talked about on legal AF, because we like to say these are both, this show is both episodic in that you can, you can just stand alone, get a lot of information that's helpful here now, and it's also a serial. So it builds on itself over a period of time. In May, we did hot takes when two of us were on vacation or podcast in which we said we follow what Alvin Hellerstein, the judge in the Southern District of New York, did when Donald Trump tried this two-step dance

to get out of state court in the Stormy Daniels hush money affair. And there, Judge Hellerstein said, well, let me do the three elements for federal removal. One, do I have a federal officer in front of me? And the judge said, yes, he didn't get into the, he was former, so it doesn't apply. That whole issue of the 11th Circuit seems to be concerned about. Then he said, are you within the, your scope of your federal powers or your, your, your color of your office? And the judge says, no, I don't think covering up for an affair, short term affair with

a mistress is part of your presidential duties and denied, go back to State Court, which is what he did. Here the 11th Circuit is asked and both Fony Willis now in the Fountain County DA's office and Meadows have been heard from in their filings about, and now, you know, Fony's smart and so she's not good. She's going to be like, yeah, I think you're right. You're on her. When you look at the two provisions of federal removal, it's in the present tense and the

way they used other language in the provision right below it about other type of removal would indicate that you are right, that this should only apply to at present federal officers, not former like meadows. So they answered that question for them. Now we're still going to have full briefing on the rest of the issue. But what you're watching is in a pellet panel, Ben, that's going to first decide whether they even have jurisdiction. Federal courts are, federal appellate courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. They, we talk about appeals a lot, but appeals don't happen a lot because they get denied because they either find a way to say that

party over here doesn't have standing to take the appeal or the timing is wrong to take the appeal don't happen a lot because they get denied because they either find a way to say that party over here doesn't have standing to take the appeal or the timing is wrong to take the appeal. Or in this case, is there even jurisdiction to evaluate this issue or can we get, forget the merits just on the face of the statute? Can we dismiss this thing? And so we're watching a panel that is coming to grips with this issue and I'm sure it'll be part of the oral argument to the extent that it's recorded.

We'll talk about it on legal AF. And so that's where we are federal state meadows. And the rest are waiting like Jeff Clark Scottie. Everything else goes in front of Jones, the trial judge. Jeff Clark's got a hearing in front of Jones, the fake electors have hearings in front of Jones. He continues to generate consistent with his ruling in Meadows,

we know what he's going to do. I mean, Jeff Clark, maybe he could be a closer call, but I think it's gonna end up being the same thing, and then the 11th Circuit may not be the same panel. That's the one thing we should all to manage the expectations. You get who's the three judge panel at the moment you file your appeal.

It doesn't usually travel, even though you keep your trial judge, it doesn't travel. You don't go, let's reconvene that other panel that just did the meadows and have them do this because it's related. That's not generally how appeals work. That's why you get different panels in the, like in the Mar-a-Lago appeal that happened about Judge Cannon interfering with an ongoing criminal investigation and it went up to the 11th circuit twice. It was two separate appellate panels, including one which I think included Rosenbaum who's the judge here in Meadows if I'm trying to square the circle on all of this. You know, Popak, I thought we were three weeks away from the New York Attorney General

civil fraud case against Donald Trump. I had it marked on my calendar. I know you got the calendar of all the things. I was I was ready to go. And then Donald Trump sued the judge and then the judge. I mean, all legal observers, including myself thought that filing was was a pretty frivolous filing. The judge granted a temporary stay, but you think that the effect of that's actually not as significant as is being reported. I mean, look, this case is going to trial. The issue is when is it going to trial? And ultimately, the issues are gonna be

how vast are the claims that will be permitted to go to trial based on the dueling summary judgment motions that have been filed, New York Attorney General, the Tisha James filed the summary judgment motion asking judge and gore on to find liability and just move into damages, Donald Trump's asking for the case to be dismissed. There was already another ruling by the appellate department where Ivanka got dismissed several months back, where the appellate department delineated the statute of limitations issues, which are claims that accrued as of February of 2016.

I believe it's like February 8th, there's a specific date that was given of 2016. So a lot of these issues have already been decided. Judge and Goran knows these issues. Also, it's going to be a bench trial, not a jury trial. We'll talk about that reason as well when we come back from a quick break.

But I want, why is this getting delayed, Popak? What's going on here? I want to get your take on that. Also want to talk your take on that. I also want to talk a little bit about this Kenpacst in the Quiddell, which may have surprised many people, although when you have a Texas Senate controlled by mega Republicans, I don't think that should be all that surprising, that even when presented with evidence of Republicans saying Ken Paxton did these crimes and showing you the evidence of it, it's undisputed, that's not significant when

Donald Trump puts out a post on social media and tells the Republicans in Texas to do something. Also, we should briefly discuss that, uh, uh, subpoena to Twitter that, uh, uh, uh, uh, subpoena to Twitter that, uh, Jack Smith sent more in terms of, uh, the big evidence, the treasure trove that Jack Smith seems to have gotten as a result. Let's talk about that in more. Let's take a quick break. When I'm not hosting legal AF on the Midas Touch Network, I have a national law practice that includes daily fantasy sports clients. That's why I'm thrilled to have prize picks join us as a sponsor. Priced Pics is a skill-based, real-money, daily fantasy sports game. How does it work?

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Go to prizepicks.com slash legal a f and use code legal a f for a first deposit match up to $100. That's prizepicks.com slash legal a f and use code legal a f for a first deposit match up to $100 daily fantasy sports made easy. Welcome back to legal AF. Michael Popeye tell us what is going on in the New York attorney general civil fraud case, supposed to start October 2nd, but this ruling by a New York appellate department

may have caused this thing to be a little bit more delayed. We want justice Popeye. What's happening? Yeah, and let me, let me see what I can do, both explain Article 78, which is what they've attempted to use, something that most people, even in New York, don't know what it is, but you will by the time we're done with this discussion on legal AF. but you will by the time we're done with this discussion on legal AF. And let me start with where I think we're at now, and then I'll tell you how we got there. It's not the entire proceeding that is stayed because one judge that was assigned the case on an emergency basis, on an emergency motion of the first department of pellet division,

which is the first level appeal in New York for Manhattan, covers Manhattan and some other burrows. Above that, the highest court of New York, which is the Court of Appeals. We don't have a Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is the trial court level for our practice. Confused enough, first department of public division, when you file an emergency application, it gets assigned randomly to one judge,

one justice, justice Friedman, who was appointed by Governor Pataki, who was like a normal Republican governor, one of the few in New York, you know, like 20 years ago. So, that person has to look at it. So almost like that shadow docket at the Supreme Court level where one justice takes a look at it and decides whether they're going to make

a decision right now, whether to stay the case, subject to a full briefing at the merits panel, which is in New York, a five justice panel, and then they set how expedited they want, how fast they want that to be, or is he going to just deny it out of the box and go, nah, I'm not going to, I'm not going to delay anything at all in the case, including the trial date, because I don't see it on the papers. That's really, it's binary. You could do one of two things. And so the rest of the case, including the summary judgment hearing on the 22nd of September,

is still going to be heard by Judge Angoran. Judge Angoran is still going to issue his orders before the trial about which of the transactions which form the heart of the $250 million or what's now been referred to as the $3 billion personal financial statement overstatement by Donald Trump, which transactions based on a ruling over the summer in June by this another panel of the first department of palliative vision, which granted and appeal, granted partially an appeal by Donald Trump to take a razor or

scalpel and cut certain of the transactions out of the case. Under the argument that there's a statute of limitations, I think it's six years applies to this one, and that certain of the transactions that are the basis of the New York Attorney Generals, civil fraud case are outside the statute of limitations and therefore should not be part of the case presented by the New York Attorney General or in the ultimate ruling by the judge. No jury here. And that's important for many reasons, but I'm going to tell you why it's important for

this one. Judge is still going gonna make the decisions. He still has to take, as every trial court judge does, has to take the appellate decision about the transactions and the statute limitations and map it on his case and then use a scalpel to figure out which transactions are in and which transactions are out. It's that same ruling is the reason

that Ivanka is no longer in the case because whatever she did right or wrong was outside the statute of limitations based on the transactions, and that's one of the reasons she was dismissed from the case. So, the judge doesn't have to speed things up because Donald Trump doesn't like the timing. Oh, I got so many other things to do. I got seven trials and nine months. Can you tell me now which transactions are in or out the judge has the discretion? The case is in October. You know, it's got another month or so or less than a month, 90 days, whatever it is, to tell the parties which you're in and which you're out. In the meantime, you just prepare your case,

right? They don't like that. The Trump group wants to know now, you know, like babies in a high chair. No, I want it now. And judges are like, you're not getting it now. And I'm going to rule on your summary judgments and do course. And that will be after oral argument on the 22nd of September. None of what I've just said is going to stop because of this ruling by judge, justice Friedman. Justice Friedman said, I'm going to stay. I'm going to hold the ring. I'm going to put a pin in the October 2nd trial date for now, subject to a full merits panel of five people, not named Justice Freeman. He will not be part of that panel setting a briefing schedule, having or a large making

a decision about whether Judge Angoran was right or wrong to go full steam ahead with an October 2nd trial date, or should he have delayed extended the trial date several weeks or a month, both for Donald Trump to be better prepared, which is part of their argument, and to give the judge more time to make his own ruling about summary judgment that's pending, which I don't think is a compelling argument. Everything that they've raised on the Trump side to get this emergency stay of the trial date only subject to, it still could be the trial date is what I'm trying to say. When the five judge panel is convened, I assume somewhere Monday Tuesday, because Russia's shown on the Jewish holiday was Friday and that impacts the court's staffing.

I'm sure on Monday Tuesday, we're gonna get a five-judge panel who's gonna issue an order. I would think for expedited briefing because they know October 2nd, it's just around the corner and make the party's brief in a period in front of them in some sort of oral argument, and then make a decision.

If it were as easy as you judge, if I don't like how fast the judge is running his trial, not even a jury. See, the prejudice and impact you usually care about is if the jury is gonna be confused or impacted. But when the judge is the judge making decisions about the summary judgment, the one making the decisions about how to apply the prior appellate decision to the transactions in or out on the statute limitations. It's all the same person, right?

Then it's just a timing issue. This attempt to get the judge to move faster and stop the trial is premature. They should have waited until the judge made a ruling on summary judgment that they didn't like and or didn't properly apply the appellate order and map it onto the case and that they didn't like that then try to take an appeal. But if all it took is filing a petition under Article 78 to get rid of every judge you don't like everybody would do this. And Article 78 just to leave it on this is 99.9% of the time in New York used for something completely different. You use it when you get a decision from a administrative agency a zoning board a local your local municipality or local official that you don't like. You didn't get the permit.

You didn't get the zoning approval. You didn't get something that happened in the prison system. Then to appeal that administrative decision, you file an article 78 proceeding and it gets assigned to a judge of the superior court. I can think of two times in like 50 years where somebody's used an article 78 to stop a judge from doing something now that could may be error in the future. The timing is wrong here. My prediction, this panel is going to get convened Monday Tuesday next week. They're going to set a briefing schedule. And then they're going to hear argument. And

ultimately, they're going to say, I believe that engoran was within his discretion to continue the trial in October and not have it postponed. If they don't like the rulings, they can take their appeal. But for now to interfere with the judge before the trial has even happened, would be quite extraordinary. And I just don't think based on what I've seen so far, without having seen the benefit of the briefing, I don't think it's gonna happen. If this was a jury trial and not a bench trial,

and I wanna be fair here with my arguments, I would actually agree with Donald Trump's lawyers' concerns about having to prepare this jury trial if a summary judgment ruling that could alter the dynamics of a case came out right before the jury was about to be empaneled. And I have, it's going to impact my presentation to the jury. I mean, just think about it.

If New York Attorney General Leticia James just say she wins, and the case is just about damages to a jury, right? I'm going to be investing huge amounts of resources, subpoenaing all of these witnesses, doing all of these things, to then only have a case about damages. Then my entire case is going to have to shift overnight. And I'm not going to be able to be prepared in 24 hours 48 hours to kind of make that shift Similarly, even if the judge rules in favor of Donald Trump in certain areas and certain claims are limited That would ultimately impact my opening statement and and the way in order I would do the witnesses But to me those concerns don't apply where it's going in front of the same judge

those concerns don't apply where it's going in front of the same judge. Judge Angoran has now all of the evidence before the summary judgment that's basically in a trial going to be presented to him again. He's seen all the documents. He's seen all of the evidence. And in terms of narrowing the documents, controlling his court, dealing with the timing to your point, Pope Ike. Those issues just don't exist anymore when there's no jury there. And we're just dealing with a bench trial and the judge.

The judge can even hear, and I have this happen a lot actually with bench trials, typical objections that a judge would sustain sustain allow in front of a jury like hearsay objections. When it's in front of a judge, sometimes I've had judges in bench trials. You probably had the experience also where they're just like, you don't need to object on hearsay. I know what hearsay is. I'm going to hear all of the evidence. I'm not going to consider the hearsay in my ruling. I don't want to waste our time with that. Give me all the evidence and I can make that distinction in my mind. Well, to your point and bringing in our own practices, I'm going to give two quick examples, one that's starting on Monday for me, in the commercial division of the New York State

Supreme Court, which is actually the division of the court that Trump wanted to go to and get away from Angkoran. He's constantly trying to get away from Angkoran. And you touched on it in the opening because his lawyer, who was then Alina Habba, had 15 days to request a jury trial after the government, the New York Attorney General filed what's called a note of issue, and she missed the deadline. And that's why we never talk about a bench trial. We don't talk about jury trial for this case. We talk about a bench trial, and Donald Trump hates it, because this judge and Goron,

from the very beginning, has found him in contempt, installed a financial monitor, found his motion practice to be frivolous. Alina Habba has attacked and Goron in the courtroom, outside the courtroom. I mean, mercilessly, they've wanted to get away from the sky, but two, but two points on my trial that starts on Monday. I have a trial that starts on Monday in the commercial division. Before it's only it's a bench trial, no jury, all witness testimony, all, all direct witness testimony, which would normally be presented in court with it with a lawyer asking questions of their witness and then cross examination and then redirect all of that is being done by

affidavit. So just a piece of paper sworn to under oath with the direct testimony listed by the lawyer both with the direct testimony listed by the lawyer likely, and then signed by the client. And then the only thing that's live in the courtroom for the judge is the cross examination and then the redirect. Sometimes judges do it by even further remove. Each of these witnesses may have been given a deposition, a question and answer under oath before the trial itself.

And then you designate from the pages of the depositions called deposition designation what your your direct testimony is. And the judge reads that either at the time or in advance, it only gets certain things live in the courtroom. But I've had a jury trial where the two examples, jury, where the summary judgment had not been decided at the time that we picked the jury and did opening arguments. The judge was still holding the summary judgment went through the entire trial and then he granted or denied aspects of the summary judgment. I would have liked to have known that before I tried my case. And I had a case where during the jury trial, I stood up to do this this is 15 years ago, I stood up to do opening

argument. I take an opening statement. I take an over the case from another lawyer in my office and halfway through the opening statement, the other side jumped, this is trial, jury in the box. Other side jumped up and said, your honor, we need to be heard. During my opening, we go up to the bench, you know, with a little bit of conversation just with the judge outside the jury's listening. And they said, judge, he's arguing liability and damages. This is only a damage case because we had an argument that liability was still

alive. And the judge says, yeah, are my ruling and I just taken this case over. Under my ruling eight months ago, Mr. Popop, you don't have a liability case. You only have damage, which was news to me and everybody on our side of the case. Why don't we take a break for lunch and you can redo your opening? Okay, Sherry gets dismissed. I go and lunch the year me an hour and a half

with a yellow pad and I totally rewrite my opening and now I have to reformat my case about liability. That happened in the moment in a courtroom. So I don't feel bad for them at all and I do this is why I don't think they're going to win to get engorant to rule faster so they can have more time to prepare for the case. I think it's a loser and lawyers like me and you that have had things happen to us on the fly when you got to handle it have to adapt. And that's just a way our court system is. That's the way it is. You got to adapt, but Donald Trump rather than adapt, just wants to win. And definitely going to be whining a lot more about this subpoena or this

warrant, rather that Jack Smith had issued for Elon Musk's Twitter, and Elon Musk didn't turn over the records in time. Ultimately, was found and contempt by Judge Barrel Howell, who at that point in time was presiding over all of the grand jury proceedings in Washington, D.C. and she should very severe sanctions against Elon Musk's Twitter. At the time, ultimately, the documents that Jack Smith were seeking were produced. Donald Trump's been whining a lot about these Twitter documents. You have to think, like, okay, it's Twitter. Most of the things were posted.

We all saw them. So like why was Donald Trump whining so much about it? And Popoq, it seems that there's a reason why, huh? And it seems that there were, that was being used to send DMs or one of the things too that I, that, that reading between the lines that may be taking place here, Popo. Do you remember how after 9-11, one of the ways it was detected that Al-Qaeda was engaged in communications to avoid detection was they would open up email accounts, and then they would keep in drafts the emails, but not actually send the emails, and then they would have different people log on to the email address, look at the drafts

so that there would never be like it being sent for a specific location. And so one of the things could happen here that could could be taking place is that it was also being used to save notes and to save messages in drafts before a tweet was actually sent in addition to sending DM. So what Jack Smith get his hands on. Yeah, it's a treasure trove. You and I have been unpacking 403 pages of an appendix and the motion practice and the order and the transcript from the judge all related just to bring people up to speak as you know, we're talking a little bit in shorthand here Jack Smith wanted Donald Trump's Twitter account and everything about it who used it when was it used who what was it linked to direct messaging

drafts tweets and everything else I mean the tweets he had, I mean, everything's in the public record. A lot of them are deleted or they're fleeting tweets, whatever they could fleets or whatever they call them at the time, sort of like they just like Snapchat, they like disappeared. And so he wanted everything, full reason, title to everything, and then decide if any of it's relevant

and what to do with it. And by the time he got around to getting a search warrant, relevant and what to do with it. And by the time he got around to getting a search warrant, 9, 10, 11 months ago, in January, last year, almost, you know, long time ago, from Judge Barrel Howell, who was then the chief judge of the District Court in Columbia in DC, he got a granted. Judge said, fine, search warrant. And they also said, judge, we're also concerned because of Donald Trump and his intimidation factor and the fact that he could destroy evidence. And they put in front of her Mar-a-Lago type evidence that they had already established with this particular former president. Just as, yeah, I agree with that, too. So here's what you're going to do. You don't have to raid Twitter, but I'll give them a

non-disclosure order in NDO. This whole fight over the NDO is I've got our hands on all of this stuff now unsealed. That's why we're talking about it now. It's not that we missed it in January and that you and I want to add this to the podcast today. It's because we just got it because it's just got unsealed. That's what happens on the ceiling and unsealing things. You and I, and our production crew salty will see something on a docket, the electronic entries for a case will go, hmm, sealed, five sealed things in a row. It may be six months or a year before we get our hands on what it is. And the meantime, we're trying to read it from the context of what we

think is happening and report it. But in this particular case, judge, that's sure, NDO, non-disclosure order, they shouldn't be able to tip off Donald Trump, I believe. And we have the order now, which we'll put up during the show in which the judge says there is a likelihood. You've made out your case that there could be a destruction of evidence, interference, perhaps even fleeing the jurisdiction by Donald Trump. So I'm going to say search warrant granted and your request for a non-disclosure order, which tells Twitter, you are not to tell,

and you are gagged, you are bounding gagged, you are not to say a darn thing, here's the order, you are not to say a darn thing to anybody, including, but especially Donald Trump, about the search warrant, because you'll blow an investigation that is ongoing. And the federal government has shown me that there's a paramount concern to protect an ongoing federal investigation.

You are not to say a darn thing. And turn over all your documents. So, almost two separate things. Well, they foot-drag because Elon Musk took over Twitter, and Elon Musk has the judge pointed out in one of her comments because she's really smart from the oral argument. She said to the lawyer for Twitter, you're not trying to fight this search warrant and try to disclose it to Donald Trump

because you're trying to curry favor with him to get him back on your platform, having fired him because you have a new owner, are you? He literally said it like that, and the lawyer said, no, you're owner. Like what's he gonna say at that point? Yes, that's exactly what were you doing here, but it looked like that was exactly what they were doing.

And so she granted it and then Twitter didn't like it. And Twitter did two things. One dragged its feet and refused to timely research and produced all the documents that the government wanted. And the government filed a motion to compile the perceptions because they were late. They also wanted to get out from under the non disclosure order.

They basically told the judge, we have a First Amendment right to protect Donald Trump and tell him that there's a search warrant against him and we want you to uphold that. And we're going to assert executive privilege over even though we're not the president we don't have standing over maybe a document or direct message that may be executive privilege. We don't know we didn't look but won't you let us out from under the non disclosure order. Judge says, why don't you come in for a hearing? Do your briefing, come in for a hearing and the judge says, this is from the transcript we got our hands on, we got two problems. The first is your way late on producing your documents.

And I'm going to sanction you for that, $350,000. And the other thing is, does non-disclosure order keep fighting with me on? Your basis for saying that you want to be able to tell Donald Trump has holds no water. Or as she paraphrased, like the government's position is, what are you even talking about? You don't have the standing to bring up executive privilege, and you don't have a first amendment right to interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation and tip off the target, and tell, especially the one that I agree with the government is likely to interfere with witnesses, obstruct justice, and destroy documents. And perhaps flee the jurisdiction. I am not letting

you do that. So you are not to do that, and you are to turn over flee the jurisdiction. I am not letting you do that. So you are not to do that and you are to turn over all the documents. The good news is now we know that two things. They turned over all the documents and Jack Smith has had that treasure trove of documents. We know today that 32 of them, 32 of those documents were direct messages. I don't know if they were sent or not, but they were direct messages. We don't know their content, but we know that this is something within that treasure trove. And then, of course, we have all of the filings that were made that the seals now have been

ripped off of. And some people around, even in this country and around the world who watch our show might be thinking, what's the deal with sealing? Well, at certain points, depending upon usually criminal investigations, information is in the public domain. Everybody knows about it. But other information isn't witness identity and things like who's the target of a superior search

or before it's been executed or while it's been executed. And so to protect the sanctity of the investigation, things are temporarily sealed, eventually, either because the media files emotion, like CBS, NBC, Washington Post, I don't know, might as such, files emotion to unseal things because we lean in this country towards public trials and public filings. And so that and that the public gets to see more and more until they get to see all of it by the time all of the concerns about a criminal prosecution are removed eventually all that black tape that's on those pages get ripped off. It's just a matter of timing as to when it may be heavily redacted in the beginning black page, black page, black page, black page. But then as the case goes on more more pages are revealed. You and I get to talk about them, Ben, on this show. And then eventually, when the case is over, then everything is

in the public record. But the reason for that is transparency. And because we don't do secret trials in a fascist state, we do public trials. And everything gets revealed. Unless it's going to compromise an ongoing criminal investigation. And when you're talking about Donald Trump, it's always an ongoing criminal investigation. You know, when you talk about public trials, though, it's important that we all can see and evaluate the evidence and to make our own impressions about the public record, about what took place. I believe that transparency is so required. It's why I'm so thrilled that the George Ereco state case is going to be videotape.

I want everybody to see it. And by the way, a Fulton County district attorney, Foni Willis, doesn't have enough evidence if she isn't able to prove her case. She's going to lose. And you're not going to see me saying that's, you know, she should have won if she, you know, it's an evidence-based system. The scales of justice, you got to weigh the evidence. You know, so that just finally leads me to this Ken Paxton impeachment trial where he was acquitted. The evidence was all out there of his corrupt relationship

with one of his big donors, Nate Paul, how he used the Attorney General's Office in Texas to help Nate Paul make millions of dollars and avoid foreclosures as a clear quid pro quo for donations and also for Nate Paul to employ and pay for Ken Paxton's mistress to live close by to Ken Paxton so he could see here all the time meanwhile Ken Paxton's wife is a state senator, a Republican state senator who was there for the impeachment trial. The key witnesses in this case were Ken Paxton's Republican friends. Ken Paxton's Republican associates.

Ken Paxton's hand picked appointees who worked under him conservative Republicans. These were the witnesses. The documents were there. It showed what Ken Paxton did. You couldn't watch that and come to the conclusion that Ken Paxton didn't do what he was accused of doing. By the way, the mistress invoked her fifth amendment right against self and crimination, but all of the people who Paxton appointed his friends, accused of doing by the way the mistress invoked her fifth amendment right against self-incrimination

but all of the people who Paxton appointed his friends they all testified against him and said he did this there was not any rebuttal at all it was just Ken Paxton's lawyer basically invoking rhetoric like Donald Trump and and and and and and and Megan how Republicans need to stand together and you know, the speech that Paxton's lawyer gave was really not. Here's what the evidence showed. It was the days of the Bush family in Texas are over, basically saying that it's time for the Trump family to run Texas politics. And that's what's happened. You know, Donald Trump put a post up

and you had the 16 Texas Republican senators banding together. It's the way the Texas Senate works. There's 19 Republicans. There's 12 Democrats. And throughout all of the votes, the 16 Texas Republicans pretty much stuck together on all of the votes and blocked 16 Texas Republicans pretty much stuck together on all of the votes

and blocked a conviction in the impeachment trial despite all of the overwhelming evidence. And to me, it's not a political thing. Recall he was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives on a vote of 121 to 23. A Texas House of Representatives controlled by Republicans and There was bipartisan support for it there folks. This is just what the evidence showed he did it But the Magga Republican said screw it Screw the evidence Donald Trump wants can packs them there to help Donald Trump in another coup in 2024 To try to overthrow democracy democracy and I'm sorry

I don't want to live in a country of 10 packs in corruption I don't want to live in a country where I have Marjorie Taylor Green calling for secession. I don't want to live in a country where you've got Lauren Bobert in a country where you've got Lauren Bobert citing passages of the Bible and using Jesus's name to commit atrocities and to take away people's rights and freedoms while she's at a theater in Denver putting vape smoke on pregnant women while she's grabbing the genitals of the guys of the boyfriends sitting next to her as he's grabbing her breasts and she's grabbing the genitals of the guys of the boyfriends sitting next there as he's grabbing her breasts and she's making a whole scene and being kicked out because she's conducting herself like that and then she's gonna Walk around and tell you how you should live your life and take away your rights and freedoms

And by the way, it's not unique to the people I gave you whether I start with Trump or Boba or Marjorie Taylor greener Go to Jim Jordan who covered up sex abuse or I go to James Comer or Matt Gates, they're all like this. I can name, which I name Paul Gosar, should I name Anna Paulina Luna, should I name George Santos, this is who they are and who do we have on the Democratic side, people like Adam Schiff, former federal prosecutor, people like Dan Goldman, former federal prosecutor, people like Jamie Raskin, Harvard, constitutional scholar, legal scholar. I want to live in a world of competence and law and order.

And I hope you all do, which is why please share this show with people, let people know about legal AF. We need to build the community. Look, heck, the large media networks ain't doing it. So we need to come together and do that. If you want to support the MidasTouch network, go to patreon.com slash MidasTouch. You can hear all about Michael Popox origin story, Karen Friedman Agnifalos origin story, my origin story, my brothers origin story as well.

Check that out at Patreon. He's spelled P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash might as touch. Also, Karen Friedman Agnifalow did a great, great story on mightestouch dot com. There it is right there. Jack Smith is finally fighting back. The special counsel is finally seeking a gag order to stop the orange bully and chiefs of blatant taunting of the court and pushing of the justice systems limits Karen Friedman and FLO's great contributor of the website and of course our co-host on legal AF and you can

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