Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Search Warrant Appeal, DOJ Jan 6 Subpoenas Fly, DeSantis Human Trafficking, & MORE

Episode Date: September 18, 2022

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF x MeidasTouch is back for another hard-hitting look at the wheels of justice in “real time” as they analyze and discuss this week’s most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this week’s episode, the anchors break-down: major developments in the Mar-a-Lago search warrant case against Trump, including the DOJ’s motion for stay to the 11th Circuit and the first proceedings in front of the newly-appointed Special Master; the Trump Organization trial set for 10/24; the NYAG’s soon to be filed civil fraud case against Trump and his children; the DOJ’s grand juries and their investigation of Trump, his PAC and the Fake Electors scheme; the Jan6 Committee’s summer work leading to a new hearing on 9/28; the 5th Circuit’s ruling this week against large social media platforms and in support of a Texas law forcing platforms to publish hate speech and disinformation; and the criminal and Constitutional due process implications of Texas’ and Florida Governors using immigrants seeking US status as human props by shipping them to places like the Vice President’s home and Martha’s Vineyard. Special Easter Egg: New Wheels of Justice LegalAF merchandise is now for sale. SHOP LEGAL AF MERCH: https://store.meidastouch.com/ 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Department of Justice makes its move seeking relief with the Court of Appeals after Judge Eileen Cannon's order appointing a special master and granting the injunction Trump requested, essentially stalling the criminal investigation until the special master completes his work. The Trump Organization is set to be a criminal defendant in Manhattan, in October, and New York Attorney General Tish James. At the same time, looks ready to file a civil lawsuit against Trump, the Trump Organization, and other family members. It's going to be a busy month in New York with respect to Trump litigation and criminal cases.

Indeed, in speaking of busy, the Department of Justice has been very busy with its investigation into 2020 election interference, issuing at least 40 subpoenas to people in Trump's inner circle, executing a search warrant on Mike Lindell. And we're also learning details that Jeff Clark, a lawyer from the Department of Justice, low level person who tried to help the coup. We learn that he's also being investigated criminally for conspiracy and connection with his DC bar case that's taking place.

We learned those details. And the January 6th Committee is set to resume public hearings at the end of the month, so big news there. And the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, with all the Trump news, this hasn't really been covered that much and needs to be covered here. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton,

that social media platforms cannot moderate its content in a ruling that really turns the First Amendment upside down and will lead to more messages of hate and medical disinfo and Russian propaganda and frankly chaos just as Maga Republicans wanted when they passed that law in Texas and more disturbing details are being learned about Rondasantis' human trafficking scheme of Venezuelan asylum seekers, where he literally had an individual like find him, hurt him into an airplane from Texas of all places, not even Florida, send him to Martha's Vineyard. What is the criminal or civil or administrative exposure here?

Michael Popock and I will break it down. The most consequential legal news. This is, of course, legal AF Michael Popock. I'm Ben Mycelis. How are you doing, Michael? I'm great. I got so viscerally angry during some of your opening about some of the stories that we're going to talk about that I started to literally sweat. People that are watching are like, why spellbox sweating? Like it's like the adrenaline started pumping so quickly in advance of our breakdowns that I literally started to perspire. That's how pissed off, you know, we are, but we'll channel it right into the breakdowns

and the analysis that everybody comes here to listen, listen to it. And look, one of the sayings, of course, we repeat here on the show, the wheels of justice move slowly, but they move towards justice and the arc is always towards justice. But on that road towards justice, lots of roadblocks on the way, lots of nails and lots of Hot holes, all that. That is definitely part of the journey. And let's talk about that journey.

So the Department of Justice has filed its motion with the court of appeals. It's actually not technically the actual appeal, right? It's the motion for stay pending the more fulsome appeal that will be filed. What the Department of Justice realizes, I think, is that any appeal is going to just take a significant time to work its way through the 11th Circuit and really what thereafter is emergency, urgent relief here, especially as it just relates to these 100 classified documents that were obtained during the August 8th search of Mar-a-Lago. And the motion that they filed with the 11th Circuit comes after Judge Eileen Cannon,

the district court judge denied basically the same motion that was filed in her court where the Department of Justice said, look, Judge Cannon, you're wrong on everything, but whatever. Like the most urgent issue here is these 100 classified documents because there's real irreparable harm to the national security interest at stake. There's real irreparable harm to our criminal investigation at stake. And there could be no claim that Donald Trump owns those records, the classified records. Frankly, there could be no claim he owns the thousands of other records. And frankly, to the extent there was personal records intermingled within the overall records,

that search warrant 101 were allowed to have it to find. You won't waste everyone's time time with all that other junk with a special master. We know we're going to prevail, but find waste everybody's time. But with those 100 classified records, there can be no claim. In fact, Donald Trump made no claim in the legal papers. Trump never claimed these are documents that I own. He never claimed he declassified those records, even though classification again is still not an element of the crimes. He's being commit. He's being charged with, but he never claimed that those were his. He never claimed he'd declassified. He never said their personal records. So the Department of Justice told Judge Eileen Kennan, he's not even claiming them. There's no finding. There's no affidavit yet alone in actual finding that they belonged him. So you can't just say, oh, let's just give it to a special master and let's enjoy us the executive branch from

literally looking at our own documents. Those are our documents. They, they can't be long to him by the very existence of the way our government is set up. Like this isn't a complicated question. And Judge Eileen Cannon denied that request. She appointed Judge Raymond Deere, a quasi-retired federal judge. I say quasi, he's sitting on senior status in the Eastern District of New York, but a very well-respected judge. He was Trump's select, one of Trump's two selections,

but someone the Department of Justice said, we'd be fine with if you ultimately select a Judge Deary. And so we'll get into more of that, of course, in a little bit. But after Judge Eileen Cannon made that order, the day after the Department of Justice filed its motion for appeals with the 11th Circuit and basically said, this is unprecedented 11th Circuit. Like what she did is a violation of the most basic principles.

This is the first time ever where a judge has said the executive branch can't look at its own documents. Donald Trump hasn't even claimed he owns these documents and they're asking the Department of Justice is asking the 11th Circuit, we need to look at these documents immediately and find we're okay. Have the special master go look at all those other documents, but with respect to these 100 classified documents,

stop her order with respect to that. Allow us to get our records back. Allow us to pursue our investigation. Let's pause there on that part because Judge Raymond Deerey, who is the special master, did issue an order. There's going to be a hearing that's taking place next week as well on Tuesday before that court. He invited the parties to submit an agenda.

But ultimately, Popeyes, if the 11th circuit rules in favor of the Department of Justice, all that would happen is that the 11th is that the, those 100 classified documents would happen is that the 11th is that the those 100 classified documents would be removed from the process that that judge Deere is engaging in and judge Deere, which they'll continue the other part of the process. Popeyes, tell us what else is going on here. Yeah.

Yeah, that was a good, that was a good beginning of the break down, good outline for everything that's going on. Let's start with Judge Cannon. Boy, is she over her skis and just keeps doubling down on a misinterpretation. You know, people are starting to think it's intentional where she's trying to help her patron, Donald Trump, who put her in that position. And her analysis is really flawed, as we said last show. She starts off on the wrong foot in the choreography and never really catches up. Her wrong footedness starts with her interpretation of the executive privilege. And once again, in there doing exactly what they said they were going to do in the department

of justice filing with the 11th Circuit for the stay, replicating the papers they put in front of Judge Cannon. They said, first of all, the executive branch can't be denied the ability to look at executive documents. She's wrong on that. You and I giggled about that in our own pop-up, my Salis Giggling way, about two or three episodes ago. When I raised the issue of, it's the executive branch. How could you deny the executive branch looking at the executive privilege documents? And she is, she has got her self, Judge Cannon has herself wrapped around her axle related to that analysis because she's wrong about the executive privilege application. She's also wrong about how things work in the criminal justice system and the

rights of a person who's been the subject of a search warrant, whether he's a criminal target or she's a criminal target or otherwise, because even in her 10 page opinion, which I know you read, and we're kind of breaking down for our listeners and followers now, Judge Cannon says, yeah, well, I'm concerned that even in formal mechanisms that former president Trump used to find out what exactly was picked up in the search warrant,

and what was the actual list of things? I'm like, you know, criminal targets and people that are subject to search warrants don't get that from the federal government at this at this stage of an investigation. They don'taled to them as part of the beginning of a criminal process, but she is not only bending over backwards, she's contorting herself into like a balloon animal, like, you know, you know, in terms of contortionists to come up with a way to give Donald Trump what he wants, which is a delay, delay, delay. Eventually, whether it was the Department of Justice or now Rae Deere, you know, and I'll move to Rae Deere in a minute, somebody's going to be looking very quickly, although not as quickly as the Department of Justice or now Ray Deere, and I'll move to Ray Deere in a minute, somebody's going to be looking very quickly, although not as quickly as a Department of Justice once, at these 100 documents, these classified documents, these 48 empty folders and what they mean, and not only look at them, because the Department of Justice, as we've said in prior shows,

has already looked at them. It's the aspect of her order that they're so concerned about is that she is handcuffed and shackled the Department of Justice from progressing their investigation by taking those documents and following them where they lead in talking to witnesses in finding out of there's other documents sitting in other repositories that Trump owns, other hotel properties, other homes, other airplanes, where documents may exist, and just doing what investigators do, which is drilled down all the way until the investigation is exhausted

about witnesses, documents, and in here, here, the compromise of national security. She clarified, which is sort of a small win for the Department of Justice, Judge Cannon and her 10 page order. She clarified that you can, Department of Justice, you can continue your investigation. You just can't use the documents and reveal their contents to anybody while you're doing it, but don't stop your investigation. I mean, that's ridiculous. I mean, to rip away the very evidence that they've, uh, search warrant evidence that they've, they've, uh, they've, uh, captured and,

and take that away from them effectively from progressing their investigation. It's just wrong. And then, you know, she tried to answer some of her critics in her 10 page order, because she knows she's taking heat here. She tried to answer them by saying, I am mindful that it's extraordinary for a judge to step in with jurisdiction into an ongoing criminal investigation this way, but given the extraordinary impact on this particular criminal defendant,

a former president, and these unprecedented events, I feel I must, and I'm not just going to accept the Department of Justice at face value when they tell me the top secret things are top secret And I'm going to let the special master work his work his work his business She gave the Department of Justice one other small victory. She told Deary in instructing the special master Do the first do the hundred of the 11,000 documents that you and your team are going to look at. I don't wanna talk about that in a minute too, about a sitting federal judge who has active cases,

and how he's gonna be able to get through 11,000 pages with his staff. We'll talk about that in a minute. But she told him in a revised instruction, Judge Deary, special master, do the first 100 documents that the government claims are classified first before you get to the other 11,000.

The Department of Justice implored the judge because of the irreparable harm caused by their inability to assess with the intelligence community, the damage or impact on national security and defense because of the documents that were retained by sticky fingers Trump has asked to have all that reviewed done by the special master by mid-October, you know, pre-midterms. Just conveniently, Judge Cannon picked, Ben, what's the date Judge Cannon picked? For which thing? For Judge Deer to complete his work? November 30th? November 30th after the the midterm elections. So she just kind of went out of her way wherever she could

to kind of throw a little help, give a little love to Donald Trump. Now, the good news for all of us, and I know in one of your hot techs, trending techs, you talked about it, Judge Deary is the real deal. I had some concerns because of his involvement with the Carter Page surveillance things, but his body of work over 30 or 40 years, including as the chief judge of the Eastern District

of New York. And I want to give our followers and listeners a little bit of understanding of the Eastern District of New York. We talk a lot on the show about the Southern District of New York, which is Manhattan, Eastern District in Brooklyn. And he was and is admired as a gentleman, no nonsense judge, who had an amazing track record as a fair and honest jurist, right through until today, even though he's been on senior status for the last 11 or 12 years.

Now, look, I like the fact that he's not resigning his status and he remains a judge, which means he's subject to the rules that judicial canons related to ethics. I like that. He's not just citizen Deere, which is what I feared when they were going to hire him originally. And you and I were dead on two or three episodes ago when I said Paul Huck Jr. being proposed by the Trump side was obviously a way for them to get to the middle and have the judge pick judge Deerey because Huck was definitely not qualified for this particular role other than being married to somebody in the 11th Circuit. Not happened. Everybody kind of coalesced around

Judge Deerey. The Eastern District of New York Ben is known and has been known for quite some time as being sort of a maverick department within the federal courts of New York. And what I mean by that is the following. There are two judges, like lions of the bench, that have served and served the Eastern District well, but are known as Mavericks. One of them was Jack Weinstein who recently died, unfortunately, but was on the bench for over 50 or 60 years. And he was a no nonsense guy. I appeared in front of him. He took on the government on a regular basis.

He took on criminal justice and criminal sentencing on a regular basis and just kind of set the course for the Eastern District and Judge Deary, a friend of Jack Weinstein's it was cut from that same cloth. So I like the fact that there is a courtroom in Brooklyn, not in Fort Pierce, Florida, that is now handling the most sensitive issues here on a very fast track. As you mentioned at the top of the show, there's going to be a hearing early next week. He's asked the lawyers, Judge Deary has asked the lawyers to propose an agenda, and he'll set his own, of course, about how he gets from here.

It's on November 30th, focusing first on the first hundred, and I assume one of the issues is what documents ultimately are going to go back to the Trump team that he's going to be able to show them, the Department of Justice going to argue none of them, certainly none of the top secret classified documents should ever be shared, it should all be with the judge, special master in camera. The 11th Circuit, we're going to have to sit and wait for the wheel to spin and see which three judges of the three judge panel, the 11th Circuit, hearing the motion for stay, are going to be pulled, reminding everybody that six out of the 11 people on the 11th Circuit, six out of 11 were picked by Trump, not just Republicans, Trump. So he really has dominated

the 5th Circuit and the 11th Circuit, which is why all of the cases we talk about that we don't like come out of the 5th Circuit, the 11th Circuit. Now, if we're lucky, we'll get some moderates in there, you know, out of the other five, but we're going to get probably two, at least one, but probably two Trump appointees hearing this case on the stay. And then if that goes wrong for the Department of Justice, then it's going to be an expedited or an attempt to get an expedited appeal to the Supreme Court. And again, it's going to be another member of the Supreme Court. We don't like one of the far right wing that sits over the 11th Circuit. It's not one of the moderate Democrat appointees on the minority. It's going to be one of the majority who's going to handle that appeal up from the 11th

Circuit. But let's see. Let's see. You and I will talk about it. We're going to know in a couple of days who the panel is you'll be able to do a trending take. We'll be able to talk about it in detail on one of our shows. But that's where we are.

And I think I'll just add my part of the contribution this way. Judge Cannon is dead wrong about the application of executive privilege. She's dead wrong about the bending over backwards on the rights of Donald Trump because of this unprecedented. The Department of Justice shouldn't be penalized because the person who committed the potential crime and did all these bad things happens to have been,

you know, the former president at the time he did it. You know, that's setting a new set of rules. That's not impartial. That's not fair. Impartial and fair means you treat him like the dime store guy who sticks up a gas station or commits a federal crime. You don't treat him any differently because justice and lady justice is supposed to be blind. Canon has lifted up the blindfold. She knows exactly who's in front of her and all of her

rulings flow from that. You know, Popok, the real and precedent and aspect of the, you know, of the, there's so many aspects, but the idea that a federal judge would be in joining the Department of Justice from doing what they do, stopping the FBI from their role of investigating crimes that could kill Americans. Like that is the most dangerous aspect of her ruling. This isn't some like legal theoretical thing. The FBI is doing work here with top secret sensitive compartmental information where human's human source information is out there and people are getting killed. And the judges saying, let's wait until November and just go through this process here because

not because Donald Trump is actually even claiming those documents belong to him, but because he's claiming they're around other documents, which may belong to him, but because he's claiming they're around other documents, which may belong to him. And this is all just so confusing. And it's a big mess. And he's, and his reputation could get hurt. And so let, look, let's just give it to a special master. Like when I say it like that, that's actually what her ruling is, is saying to what the department of justice, I think is most worried. And you hit the nail on the head here about the judge, Deary process is not judge, Deary, they're confident there.

And I think what they were thinking about in terms of whether or not to even appeal was the following issue. And this is what you talked about, Popeak. Donald Trump and his lawyers involvement in getting the documents and being a part of the process, the mere prospect of that of a criminal target, commandeering the ship of a criminal investigation, or just even being involved in that, is so enathema to what law enforcement functions are in this area. I think that was when they waited on balance. They said, no matter what we've got to file this with the 11 circuit because we can't even have the risk of Trump being involved in that

process whatsoever. But going back to your point, judge Deary is the right judge for this. And I think that the ultimate outcome here is going to be favorable for justice. It's just going to delay and delay. And here's the miscalculation. I can say it now, because the process is too far along for me to actually give Trump the legal idea and the decision he should have made. Because I think he made a stupid legal blunder here, actually, by requesting the special master. If you have Judge Eileen Cannon in your pocket, Bobak, why ask her to appoint a special master? Why not just ask her as the judge to do an in-camera review? She's already exerting extraordinary powers that she doesn't even have to begin with. Why would you ask her to then ask somebody else to make the recommendation back there?

Now normally these cases where you'll have the special master is where the judge is the person who's actually overseeing the criminal case itself, perhaps like a judge Reinhardt or if the criminal case were to actually be filed. So the judge can't unring the bell or unsee documents that they've seen. If the judge shouldn't see, for example, attorney, client privilege documents, which are where special masters usually come in. If the judge overseeing your criminal case sees a privilege document, he shouldn't see, that could be held against you and hurt your rights. But as we saw in the central district of California, for example, with the John Eastman case, which he filed to stop

the January 6th committee from getting his documents, Judge Carter is actually doing it in camera review. Judge Carter didn't say, hey, I need a special master. Judge Carter is a federal judge. It would be like Judge Carter appointing a special master. So here, Popok, the one thing that I just don't fully understand from a strategic standpoint, and this is good. And it's too late for what I just said to change or impact anything, which is why I can say it now.

But that's the part about it, which I think is a big strategic wonder by. I have an answer. That's a very, very good and concise observation and comparing it to Judge Carter. I'll give you the answer. I'll give you my answer. One, remember, Trump had a shifting combination of lawyers, most of them unqualified until he got the current team of trusty and Chris Keiss and we'll talk about Chris Keiss in a minute

He of the new three million dollar retainer paid by the state of America pack We'll talk about that as we get it to be in other investigations, but until he got Chris Keiss And it who left fully in Lardner his law firm in order to set up the law firm of Chris Keiss, who left Foley and Lardner, his law firm, in order to set up the law firm of Chris Keiss, whose number one client is Donald Trump after two weeks ago. He had a clown car filled with lawyers that we've talked about at Nazim and rightfully critiqued and criticized, including Christina Bob, Alina Habba, the guy up the road on 95, the Fort Lauderdale ticketing

who went to a military academy with Trump. This was the clown car that was making decisions. So they finally hired trustee, and then brought in Chris Keiss after, they had already made the filing that you talked about, asking for special master. So their knee jerk reaction of sort of inexperienced lawyers was, let's throw a monkey wrench. Let's ask for a special master.

And when they filed that, I'm not sure they had already had Canon assigned to the case because they had to make a filing. Yes, they wanted Canon. They went up to Fort Pierce, Florida. Most people haven't heard of. And the upper barren reaches of the Southern Pierce, Florida, most people haven't heard of, and the upper barren reaches of the Southern District of Florida, you know, 130 miles away from Miami, just to give a point of reference, and filed it hoping to get her.

God, her, but wasn't sure they were going to get her. And then I think even they have been amazed at her superpowers that she's decided that she has to overcome precedent constitutional analysis and you know, a body of Supreme Court case law starting with us V Nixon, or Nixon V GSA. And they're like, wow, and now to your point, if we had known, she was going to be that much in our favor, these new lawyers. They may not have asked a special master. They'd be like, we're fine with Canon.

Judge Canon, federal judge, take a look at all those documents. But I think it's because he changed his lawyers so frequently and most of them were incompetent in the beginning until he got the current team that's not bad, including led by Chris Keiss. Then what did you think about the reporting ban that Chris Keiss, very smartly because of all the people that have gotten a stiff by donald trump as for and got a three million dollar retainer paid by the save america pack which itself is under federal criminal investigation as a fraud so the fruits of a fraud or in his escrow

account what did you think about that and what do you think happens to three million dollars if the department just as the sides go after it i think it's a lot of money i think about that and what do you think happens to three million dollars if the department of justice the sides to go after it? I think it's a lot of money. I think that you know what I think that I think that that's you know what Spires a lot of those people to become traders to the United States of America and that's something that Chris Kice is gonna have to live with You know and you have the right you know as a criminal defense lawyer I don't knock you for representing people who could be accused of crimes. But here, having knowledge that the Save America Pack is under criminal investigation for its role in trying to overthrow our democracy, There are places where I think criminal defense lawyers need to draw lines and the very essence

of our democratic system, overthrowing our democracy, taking funds from an entity that you know is a target in a criminal investigation or could become a target in the criminal investigation, but in Maga Republican world, grifting money talks and overthrowing our democracy is the side of me.

Let me make one more point about that. Connected to Florida. The reason that Chris Kies had to take the $3 million fee payment, retainer payment from the Save America pack is because what you and I reported about a couple of episodes ago, a couple of episodes ago, a couple of podcasts ago, the Republican National Committee has cut off publicly, cut off Donald Trump from having his legal fees paid related to Mar-a-Lago. That's public. Ronan McDaniels, Mitt Romney's niece who heads the RNC made that publicly.

If you fight that, you're doing that on your own dime. Trump's running out of dimes, personal dimes. He might be real estate rich, but he looks like he's cash poor, and he's using, and Chris Kais knows he's using. I know of a very famous case from 10 or 15 years ago, where the Department of Justice went after a criminal, a well-known, well-respected, criminal defense lawyer in Miami.

I won't mention his name, because I don't want to dirty it any further, he it wasn't right with the Department of Justice did but they went after this particular guy who who was malrush more of criminal defense lawyers in Miami over the very issue of the retainer he took for a fee and whether it was tied to an illegal operation and he should have forfeited it and they also you know went after him in a hearing eventually it came out okay but the Department of Justice can at the appropriate time seek civil forfeiture of a lawyer's retainer amount if they have good evidence, proper evidence, that the lawyer knew or should have known that that money was tainted.

I'm not sure the Department of Justice does that just yet because that's another thing that plays in the Trump's hands, related to him being his persecution complex. But it's something you and I will watch, since it's so public where Chris Keiss's retainer came from. Oh, absolutely. And speaking about tainted the Trump organization is tainted because it's engaged in criminality,

it's entire existence. And the chickens are finally coming home to roost in Manhattan. What we have going on there is the criminal trial, which we previously reported, where the Trump organization is a criminal defendant. That trial begins October 24th. Trump organizations tried to delay the number of times the Manhattan judge just said, okay, I get you're trying to delay it. No, it's going to trial. One of the things that also the Trump organization wanted to argue there is that there was selective prosecution.

You know, oh, they're coming after us for political reasons. The judge isn't allowing that to come in as part of pre-trial motion. So stay tuned. I mean, the Trump organization as a criminal defendant is a big deal. That's the case where Alan Weisselberg, the CFO of the Trump organization, has previously pled guilty and he will be testifying at that trial. Likely Donald Trump's going to be called, then he's going to take the fifth at that trial. We'll keep you posted there. And then New York attorney general, Tish James,

looks ready to file a civil lawsuit against the Trump. And it's a civil lawsuit because that's really the only power she has here with respect to the investigation. She's doing on Trump with respect to the investigation she's doing on Trump, inflating valuations and engaging in fraud with respect to the insurance companies and investors and the taxes that he pays and just what he declares as the values of his various properties, shape shifting them depending on the situation. That's the case where Donald Trump was recently deposed

and pled the fifth, like hundreds of times, him pleading the fifth we've talked about this before on the podcast is an adverse inference, meaning it can literally be used against him, unlike in a criminal case where you can't use Fifth Amendment invocations against the criminal defendant. Here you can say, look, Donald Trump pled the fifth that in a civil case shows that the reason that he's not answering is because he has a guilty conscious or a guilty mind. And if he answered that question, it would prove our case. And this was an interesting part of it too. One that she's also looking to go, we potentially sue other Trump family members. but that, according to reports, the Trump

organization is trying to settle the case. And Tish James says, no, I'm not settling this case. And they're probably not settling it for anything meaningful, you know, knowing how cheap the Trumps are. But just interesting that they're trying to settle that case. Yeah. Two value ads on both of those stories. One, the judge in the trump organization trial

it judge quan mershan very well respected member of the new york state supreme trial level court he's also the same judge who's that been assigned the banan indictment which is a coprosicution of the new york attorney generals office public integrity unit cussed cishc james is attorney general does have some criminal powers just not for the trump organization civil investigation she's doing and just interesting judge they

pulled a bad judge the Trump the Trump people did with with Juan Moshon and so did baton in that case. Secondly the the Trump organization investigation pardon me Ben it's just to remind everybody who thinks, who thought, I don't think they think any longer that Merrick Garland was moving too slow, is three and a half years in the making. That's how long Tish James has spent investing the Trump, investigating the Trump Organization and the Donald Trump and the children

related to the loan inflation issue. This is personal to them. This is a civil case. It'll be against Donald Trump when it's filed. The reporting has been at least one of his children. If I had a guest, and I want to hear Michael Cohen's view on this, I think it's Eric, just because of the involvement on certain of these issues. It's the one that would be closest to loan lending for the Trump organization and borrowing

money and who signed most of those documents. I don't know why I think it's Eric, but I think it's Eric will find out. The reason this came back into the press is because there's been reporting that the Trumps have tried to reach out to Tish James, try to settle this case. She's up for re-election, by the way, and she's looking good for re-election, but she's in the midterm time period being reelected in November. There's no way she's settling this case before.

And what could happen to the to Trump in this in the civil side? His he and his companies could be barred or limited from conducting business out of the state of New York. The Trump organization has worldwide holdings, but they operated out of New York. It would force them to leave New York or anything that touches New York. They'd be heavily regulated. Civil fines, which could run into the millions and millions of dollars. And then, as you and I talked about many, many podcasts ago,

it has a ripple effect if they get charged, or sorry, the civil suit is filed against them and they lose that civil suit. Or even when it's filed, they have to disclose that to all of their lenders and it can trigger certain covenants within the lending documents that back up on the Trumps and trigger personal liability on all of those loans because you're going to have to disclose as a material development that you've been

charged with a civil fraud in a case by the New York State Attorney General's Office. Lenders aren't going to like that. They might start calling their loans or require more collateral we put up. It will have a devastating impact on the Trump business world if this happens, not just paying fines and having to find a new place to apply your trade. Yeah, that's why he needs to steal our top secret sensitive compartment and information. So we can sell it to the foreign cut. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's true, though. I mean, that's that those are the issues. That's that's why this is incredibly frightening. You know, when you

hear that Jared Kushner gets two billion dollars from the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund and Jared Kushner's not a wealth manager. He has he has a run a private equity company. He just give him two billion dollars. You know, it raises, it raises serious questions. You know, one of the reasons Trump was in Virginia recently, apparently as well. He was in DC. You know, he was setting up another live golf tournament for the Saudis and the Saudis were recently at Bedminster and, you know, he was setting up another live golf tournament for the Saudis. And the Saudis were recently at Bedminster and, you know, and Trump does the interviews where he spreads 9-11 conspiracies. Oh, is that why he was golfing in his golf shoes off the plane with a

bunch of people and not playing golf? They were organizing that. There's probably much more to it. But one of the things was apparently gearing up for another one of the Saudi live events, but there's that looked like it right out of Tony soprano. I mean, you know, it's funny about that. You know, it's funny about the mob thing. The, and I'll link it back to Judge Deerey. Judge Deerey is also handled a number out of Brooklyn, as you could imagine, a number of mafia cases.

He's the one, that judge, I don't know if you remember this, Ben, there was a very famous head of the Genovese crime family in New York who decided for years that he would avoid prosecution by acting as if he was mentally ill. He used to wear dirty pajamas and a robe and slippers and walk up the streets of Brooklyn and literally mumbling to himself in reality he was behind the scenes as the mastermind of the entire gen of his crime family he eventually got prosecuted and convicted and judge dearest court room that's what this look like this look like you know trump looks like he's this far away from wearing dirty pajamas

and a and a bathrobe trying to act like he's not in his right mind while he's really running the whole thing like guys are so Z, you know, I, I know, you know, one thing I wanted to mention to you, just about judge, Deary, this is what I like. He moved very quickly. He said a hearing right away. So I just want to kind of reassure people. I do feel good about judge, Deary.

If this case was assigned to judge Deary and not judge Canon, somehow if it was there to start, this would never be happening. But it's a good person for that to be in front of anyway, the Department of Justice has been very, very busy with its criminal investigations as well into the 2020 election, interference, issuing at least 40 subpoenas. Some people who received the subpoenas also include Stephen Miller, one of Trump's top former political aides, Brian Jack, one of Trump's former top political aides as well. And in addition, a search warrant was executed on Michael and Del. The pillow guy apparently Michael and Del was leaving a hard ease. It was originally reported as an RBs, but it's a hard ease in Minnesota. And as part of that search warrant, the FBI seized

his phone. And look, Michael and Del was literally the pillow guy. This just goes to remind you of the world of Maga Republicans. Michael and Del, the pillow guy was there before January 6th, after January 6th. Remember, he was leaving the White House around January 15th with documents that said Marshall law on them and with documents that said a point cash patell as acting head of the CIA. That's why he received a search warrant for that and for more reasons there. But a flurry of activity there as well. And then we've of course known about the investigation that the Department of Justice has been doing into Jeff Clark.

Jeff Clark used to work at the Department of Justice has been doing into Jeff Clark. Jeff Clark used to work at the Department of Justice. He was a lower level environmental lawyer who tried to literally become the attorney general by helping draft a memo that he wanted the Department of Justice to send on official letterhead to states telling them to overturn the results of the election. And fortunately, the acting DOJ leadership basically said to Trump, we're all going to resign and just make you look like a fool. If you give this Jeff Clark any power at all. And when you confront Donald Trump like an adult and you speak to him and you say, listen, mother, you know, shut up Donald Trump backs down. You know, the Republicans can't do that. They're just such chicken shits that they can't stand up to the person. But when you do confront him, he always backs down because that's his personality. He's, he's a typical kind of bully personality that you just got to confront him. But in any event, remember Jeff Clark

had the search warrant that was served at his house. The search one was executed back in June. Remember, he walked out in his boxer shorts and we're learning additional information there as well that I think is important to the overall investigation, the Department of Justice is conducting. And we learned this information because Jeff Clark was asking the DC bar, which is seeking to revoke his law license. Jeff Clark was telling the DC bar, just hold off on

your investigation because I can't, I can't speak to you pending the Department of Justice's investigation because I'm going to be likely invoking my fifth amendment right against self-accrimination. So I'm not able to speak to you,

you know, fully, and the crimes I'm being investigated for include obstruction and also conspiracy. And what was just interesting about the conspiracy account is you think, well, who is he in a conspiracy with? Who are his Koch conspirators? And Donald Trump. And you know, what's interesting, of course, and we've talked about this in prior legal a apps with a conspiracy count is it doesn't actually require the commission of the crime. The conspiracy itself can be the planning and the plotting. You don't actually have to complete the act that you were tending to conspire to commit. And so as I think about Trump, who the co conspires, I think about Clark, the co conspirator would likely be Trump. And that to me would represent an escalation in what the DOJ has done, going from the low

level insurrectionist to the next level leadership and the violent people to the terrorist organizations like the oath keepers and the three percenters and the proud boys. And now what I think we're going to see over the next kind of coming months is that real close Trump inner circle, people like Johnny Eastman, people like Jeff Clark, people like Rudy Giuliani, and so stay tuned for that, Popeye. Yeah, let's just give the timeline here just so people get more patient. Three and a half years for Tis James to do her investigation. John Durham, who was a special prosecutor appointed by bar to keep him in a seat after Trump got out looking at Russian collusion, which is resulted in almost nothing in terms of prosecutions. Thank God. And he's now wrapping up, but he's three years into his investigation.

And America, Garland is not even two years into his investigation already has over 700 convictions at the people that actually laid siege to the cap But all the tip of the spear but now going after all of those organizers We know from prior reporting there are at least three if not four grand juries that are going on in the under the Department of Justice's leadership in Washington looking at save America pack fake electors the pressure on the vice president and all of those things the architects for all of those things were all the people that you've identified John Eastman Clark Jeffrey Clark. another lawyer who's lost his phone to the Department of Justice in a search warrant. Search warrant pick up last week. He's now I think if we're if you're playing the game at home, I think this is at least the sixth lawyer related to Trump who's lost his phone in a search warrant, which is a good thing for democracy. And now you've got that in parallel. And everybody was a little bit up at arms about some reporting last week and about this internal informal 60 day before an election rule, and whether that was going to grind the Department of Justice to a halt in their in their in their prosecution.

And the answer to that question is it isn't because this 40 plus subpoenas, which we know from reporting, the Department of Justice doesn't issue a press release and say, we just issued 40 subpoenas. It's because the people that receive the subpoenas go on places like Tucker Carlson and on other places and reveal that they've been subpoena. Tucker Carlson having gotten a copy of one of the subpoenas and thinking he was doing his public service in revealing that. But all it did was give people like you and me

and other legal commentators the ability to kind of get to the bottom of what's going on with the prosecution. I don't think because Donald Trump has not declared that he's running. He's not on the ballot at the midterms just because Republicans are on the ballot. Doesn't mean I would think the Department of Justice would exercise discretion to stop the Jan 6 prosecutions and investigations because a midterm is coming up. That sounds silly. And it doesn't look like they're doing that at all. On top of that, we have reporting, you know, Liz Cheney or the revenge of Liz Cheney is coming back to prime time really soon. They're going to be, uh, the Jan 6 committee isn't stopping for any midterm issue. In fact, they want to get a preliminary report done before the midterms. They said they want to issue it in October with a final report

in December, but they're going to be coming back for the, I don't know if it's if it's the 10th hearing or the 11th hearing, but they're coming back September 28th after the Jewish holidays and all with a with another hearing. We thought it was going to be done in July. And apparently the reporting is that in August, that Jan 6th committee spent an anordinate amount of time continuing their investigation with more cooperating witnesses, with more documents, and the list of people that the Jan 6th committee wants to bring before them includes Jennyny Thomas on her role in the fake electors scheme and in stopping the peaceful transfer of power.

They want to bring Steve Bannon again in. And there's others, a whole list of people, vice president Pence will be invited to participate. And they also want to focus on something we haven't talked about in a while, Ben, which is the application of the 25th amendment to remove the president, which, which certain cabinet members discussed in earnest after Jan 6th, and before he left office on Jan 20 in that 14 day interstitial period, there were cabinet members that wanted to get enough majority votes with the vice president

to remove the president and take them out of office, you know, clinging on to the resolute desk in the in the oval office if they had to. And they want to get to the bottom of the 25th amendment. So cabinet members have been interviewed or will come before the committee. And we might see the results of that when might the might a media network covers the new September 28th hearing. Here's my prediction. January 6th committee is going to focus on three more areas of inquiry. The first major area, as you said, the 25th Amendment and the cabinet wanting to remove Donald Trump from office based on his

actions, inactions, and being a traitor to the United States of America. And I think we'll have a hearing that focuses on that. Two, I think we're going to be focused on all of the efforts of obstruction from things being deleted, logs being shredded, text messages being destroyed. And all of those efforts tell a very damning tale in it of itself. That to me is worth, you know, one of the nuggets of the stories that the secret service. And the secret service. Correct.

Although, you know, the one positive development on the secret service is since Biden's appointed a new head of the secret service. There's been a lot more forthcomingness of documents being turned over, not to say that documents haven't been destroyed, but they are getting a lot more text messages and a lot more documents. And they previously got before who knew that when you remove the corrupt people and replace them with people who actually follow the law that that happens. And the third category, I think the January 6th committee is going to focus on is the

continuing efforts of the attempts to overthrow our democracy today. These ongoing efforts are taking place each and every day right now. And those efforts exist at every level. It never stopped. The lawsuits that the MAGA Republicans are filing, the attempts to incite violence, the spreading of disinformation, literally trying to inspire additional insurrections. I mean, heck, even the New York Post of all places just did an op-ed today that basically said to Trump, stop inciting violence. It's not enough for them to say that and then spread all the other dissinfo they do in the New York Post. But every single day he goes on a social media platform,

he spreads QAnon conspiracies, like he's he posts a hundred times in the morning before noon, like who like end always point and all his posts are election disinformation and memes that spread lies and inciting people to violence and mocking people. It's like a horrific and sane silent and fascist cosplay circus that this man. He's unemployed. He's got a lot. He's an unemployed retiree in Florida. He's got a lot of time on his hands. Still want to talk about pop the fifth circuit court of appeals ruling that's going to have a big impact on social media platforms, which will undoubtedly be appealed and Ron DeSantis, what type of liability will he be facing? Is it likely that he's going to actually be prosecuted for any crimes? First, I want to tell everyone though, this is a big news.

So everyone's been asking, can you do wheels of justice merch at legal AF? And we've got it at store.mitustouch.com. We've just made, we've listened to you. We spent a long time designing it. We talk about the wheels of justice here. Get your wheels of justice long sleeve tea at store. Mightestouch.com that's store. Mightestouch.com the wheels of justice long sleeve tea show the world that you are a legal a effort a popokian with the wheels of justice long sleeve tea at store. MidasTouch.com also, uh, MidasTouch now has a Patreon account.

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That's patreon.com slash Midas Touch. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Michael Pope, and I are practicing lawyers. And I think that's what adds to the show as well. And so, you know, the cases that we handle tend to be, you know, on my and catastrophic personal injury cases. So cases that involve death or people being so severely injured, if the loved one or anyone got into such a severe incident, that's the kind of thing that I handle.

So you can reach out to me and very kind of high level, complicated, you know, business disputes or disputes involving founders or also do sexual harassment cases or sex assault cases and and and molestation cases for victims. And so if you know a victim of any of that type of conduct, you can reach out to me and Michael Popak. My email is ben at mitestouch.com and popaks email is m popak mpop. Okay. At zp law.com m popak at zp law.com.

And we'll do our best to get back to you as promptly as we can and let you know if you've got a case in all consultations, of course, are free. Michael Popak, I want to talk about this net choice LLC versus Ken Paxton case, which was appealed to the fifth circuit after net choice as a consumer, as a group that represents, it's a collective that represents the social media companies. And when Ken Paxden passed this law, I believe it was AHB20, which was a Texas statute

that would regulate social media platforms. And what the law purports to do is regulate platforms with more than 50 monthly active users. So it was specifically targeting Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and the purpose of the law, on its face it claimed that it prohibited large media platforms, large social media platforms for censoring speech based on the viewpoint of its speaker.

Which really means what they were trying to do as Twitter was removing people like Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene's account and others from spreading COVID disinfo and Russian propaganda and inciting hate that those would be viewpoints and that those viewpoints should not be discriminated against by social media platforms. They should not have moderation policies. And so typically the first amendment, typically meaning historically every other incident other than this, a private company has first amendment rights and is treated as a speaker and you can't in a capitalist society, right? I mean that's other Republicans believe in small government have a government

force a private company to speak a certain way and Is part of that prohibition? And as part of that prohibition on forcing them to speak a certain way, it followed naturally and legally logically that a company can say a social media company should say, hey, if someone's saying things that promote Nazis, if someone's saying things that promote medical disinformation or engage in bullying and harassment or spreading Russian propaganda memes or inciting insurrections, we at our discretion are going to say that that person could be banned from our platform. And this law that was passed by Texas would allow people to get their

attorney's fees and to sue the social media platforms. And it also has a series of very onerous reporting obligations for the social media platforms really designed to shut down the platforms. The district court in Texas found in favor of the social media platform collective group because that's the law. They have a First Amendment right to have moderation policies. Ken Pax then appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the injunction that was in place by the district court which stopped the law from going into effect. It was then appealed to the Supreme Court, which stopped the fifth circuit from staying the injunction of the district court, so the law never actually went into

effect until now where you have the fifth circuit finally making this ruling, that social media companies can be bound by this law, and that this law is a valid law, and that social media companies can be bound by this law and that this law is a valid law and that social media companies can't engage in these moderation policies because according to this ruling, that would violate the First Amendment rights of the people who want to be hateful on their platform and that we should view social media companies more like common carriers who are, you know, and allow people to be Kate on their platforms. It's a really frightening ruling because even though it's in the fifth circuit, which just covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, to comply with that ruling, the social media companies are going to have to,

the lawsuits will emanate from Texas. And so the social media companies, if they don't win on appeal to the Supreme Court, and of course they're going to file an appeal, I mean, you know, could be, you know, could become again, you know, one of these repositories of all this filth and disgusting stuff, which frankly is exactly what the radical mega people wanted to be. I'll just read this one quote right now from the head of the Computers and Communications Industry Association, one of the other kind of trade groups that represents the businesses, forcing private companies to give equal treatment to all viewpoints on their platforms, places

foreign propaganda and extremism, unequal footing with decent internet users, and places Americans at risk. God bless America and death to America are both viewpoints. And it is unwise and unconstitutional for the state of Texas to compel a private business to treat those as the same. And I finally, Pope, I want to just say this, what made me so upset about the ruling also is the level of gaslighting in the ruling as well. Because what the ruling says is we're trying to, this is what the ruling says. We the fifth circle, what we're trying to protect is the LGBTQ plus community and marginalized communities. And we don't want these tech companies discriminating

against marginalized communities. What if a private company says we disagree with your viewpoint of how you want to live your life and how you were born or any of that. And we don't want them to discriminate when it was exactly the opposite conduct that was at issue. It was not that. It was that the people were trying to target and attack LGBTQ plus other marginalized communities, minority groups, and spread this information. That's the part that was equally insidious and disgusting to me. Yeah.

Where do we start with this one? So we talked about the fifth circuit and the 11th circuit, usually being on the same side. Here they're not. The 11th circuit looking at a very similar law that DeSantis passed to try to stop what's called de-platforming or censorship or moderation, which all of these large social media platforms generally have under the First Amendment a right to do that, to not have on their platforms hate speech, disinformation, and things that they find repulsive or

with any normal American would find repulsive. Levin Circuit said that law, most aspects of it, which match Texas, is unconstitutional. It violates the first amendment rights, same plaintiffs, same parties involved. The fifth circuit, or three judges of the fifth circuit, so the fifth circuit, took the opposite view, actually counter to the 11th circuit. So now we have what's called a good old fashion split of the circuits, which only gets resolved

by one other higher court, which is the US Supreme Court. Now interestingly, as you said earlier, the US Supreme Court. Now, interestingly, as you said earlier, the US Supreme Court already tipped its hand, maybe not on the merits of the SB 20, the actual law, but the Roberts was able to get five votes to stop the law from going into effect, pending an appeal to the Fifth circuit. And that's an it's an interesting combination. And I want to talk about it so that when more developments happen, our listeners and followers have a framework. The five to four decision by the Supreme Court not to allow HB 20 to go into effect, pending the fifth circuit, which you

just reported on was Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett, Steven Breyer, who's now, we know, stepped off and Sonya Sotemayor and Brett Kavanaugh. That's the five. Kagan, who's usually very reliable, but on first amendment issues, sometimes takes a different approach. She dissented. Alito dissented, so did Thomas and Alito wrote a dissent. Now, Kagan didn't side with Alito. She wrote her own dissent for her own reasons. My gut is when it comes back to the Supreme Court, Kagan will get off the sidelines and get off the wrong side of the case and move over to the right side of the case, maybe replacing one of the Republican appointees, but that ultimately this will come back to the Supreme Court. And it looks

like we may have the numbers on this. It would be the equivalent pen. If, if the, if the mightest store, the mightest merchandise store was required to carry F. Black Lives matter or let's go Brandon, or it would be found to be a violation of the first amendment by you not carrying that. It's really no different. The platforms may be larger what they call the platforms, the Facebooks and the others of the world. But the analysis would be the same. And the one dissenting vote who was who was it just to show you how far we've come with how right, right wing and extremist the Republican Party has been that you don't even recognize Republicans that aren't from that generation anymore. The one dissenting opinion was by a George W. Bush appointee. that Leslie Southwick, he said that the First Amendment protects moderation,

moderating and curating by the platforms of other people's speech because the platforms have their own First Amendment right and they are akin to the press and to newspapers. First thing that Edith Jones and judge Aldham, who's, Aldham is a Trump appointee. And Edith Jones is so far right wing extreme on that court, but was once considered to be a Trump nominee for the US Supreme Court. She called the platform's position ludicrous that they had a First Amendment right and said, you are not an Aldham, it is majority opinion said the same thing. You are not the equivalent of a newspaper and you're first to bet. You're just a corporation and your corporation doesn't, doesn't have a freewheeling right to deny somebody else their first amendment expression. I'm hoping, Ben, and we'll see what you think that if the about the Supreme Court's ultimate decision on this because we have a split circuit and we've got a decision of a tremendous constitutional import. So we know the are going to side with the 11th Circuit, they're going to agree that the Texas law is unconstitutional.

And they're not going to do it there, I think, for the reasons that we lie. I mean, if they could help out Maga Republicanism, they would. The issue is that the mega-republicans have so contorted any philosophical string of what they're supposed to view, what's their position. On the one hand, they view in Citizens United opinion that corporations are like people. In corporations should be able to do whatever they wanted. And then on the other hand, where they perceive it as hurting, mega Republicans,

we need to intervene and shut down corporations. And that's just the sign, frankly, of like what dictators do. Because ultimately, when it helps me great, when it hurts me, you know, whatever, but, you know, here, I think that the Supreme Court's just going to say, if this law, the implications of this would be so actually harmful and detrimental to business generally. And so I think from the perspective of not their concern about the proliferation of hate speech, but more its broader implications of how it can affect other businesses, you know, I think is going to be at the core, even though they're not going to say that. And I think they're going to reject that Texas law.

And so I agree with you. I agree with you. The fifth circuit's decision basically tracks Alito and Thomas in their descent. So we need to look at how much power and influence Alito and Thomas's thought process has in caucus at the Supreme Court with getting Kavanaugh who voted in effect voted against the bill already, Amy and Amy Coney Barrett back over to their side, but Kagan again is the one to watch because it was one thing for her on a motion to stay to decide whether, you know, on the, not on the substance. But now when the rubber meets the road, I think she lines up on the right side of this

issue. And we know where Roberts, I think stands, I think you're dead on, dead on right. I think the Supreme Court, but we'll have to see. It's going to be, you know, they'll have to take it up in October. You know, we won't know about it probably till the spring. There'll be a lower argument, you know, in the meantime, that law goes into effect. So we're going to have to, you know, we're at least two months, if not longer, and we know, you know, the Supreme court doesn't like to get involved with Texas law. We saw it with SB 8 and the abortion thing. They'll probably just let the law run until they make a final decision sometime in late 2023. We will keep you posted there. And finally, I want to talk about this horrific news out of Blarada. We're run to Santis, literally trafficking humans, trafficking Venezuelan asylum seekers.

The story was reported the other day I saw Martha's vineyard was trending. And I said, why is it trending? It's after Labor Day usually quiet around. It's usually, it's usually over. It's usually quiet around now. I mean, I don't know film festivals. I'm aware of like, why would it be trending right now? And then I saw the story and I almost didn't believe it. And I thought it was

like, like a sick parody that was being spread. But then, no, this was coordinated also where Fox News got the exclusive and humans, that is well in asylum seekers, seeking the better life and trying to flee from the horrors of what they were experiencing in their country, were shipped and hurted onto planes and then shipped to Martha's Vineyard. They were told that there would be jobs waiting for them, and that was not the case. There was no coordinating with anybody at Martha's Vineyard when they arrived, and they were just dumped there and then told to go. And then they were left and kind of just stranded there and then told to go and then they were left and kind of just stranded. And then the people in Martha's vineyard saw a group of Venezuelan

asylum seekers there and a group of people, they didn't know who they were and these people didn't have food, they didn't have money and they were just left there. It was as more facts emerged, we start learning that actually the individuals, the asylum seekers never even were in Florida in the first place. And as more information emerged, Ron DeSantis apparently sent literally at least one individual or maybe multiple individuals, but with the asylum seekers, rep, recommend, continue to represent that an individual by the name of Perla approached them, promised them jobs and better wages in this other area.

If they took this flight, lied to them, got them to go on an airplane and people who were desperate got on the airplane and went there. And so literally, DeSantis coordinated with someone there to kidnap people, put them on an airplane, and then ship human beings to another state, and then DeSantis held a press conference.

And when he was asked about it, because Florida does have a provision where they have a $12 million budget of bringing undocumented workers. Again, these are asylum seekers, but in any, it's horrific, regardless of it, moving undocumented workers to what they call sanctuary cities or just democratic cities to try and own it. Although I should also mention Massachusetts has a Republican governor, but setting all that aside, it turns out that what the law

was was that it has to be people in the state of Florida. And these individuals were never in Florida. And so what DeSanta said was, well, they could have come to Florida. They may have come to Florida. So a governor of Florida is going into other states and kidnapping human beings, asylum seekers to nonetheless, who are then missing their court dates for their asylum, trafficking them to other states, dropping them off without food, shelter, water, or anything like that, placing their lives at risk. That's what took place.

And people are asking, are there criminal implications involved? And what else could happen to DeSantis? And look, this is one of the issues where are their criminal statutes at play? Yes. Do I think that Ron DeSantis is going to be prosecuted anytime soon? No. But this is just one of those things. Be quiet because he's the governor of Florida. And when you're the governor of Florida, you know, there are all these ways to abuse our constitutional structure and say, Hey, I'm the governor of a state. And you know, and I was doing this to protect the state. And I have state sovereignty. You know,

and there's, it'll get into all of those issues. But I actually do think if the public pressure mounted and DeSantis loses the election by a non insignificant margin, I do think then there could actually be a criminal prosecution of him. I don't think as long as he remains the governor there could ever be. I don't think the Department of Justice would go there even though they should and they should absolutely open an investigation just the prospects of prosecuting a governor would be difficult. But if he is defeated, and this is a reason and we're already hearing that the Venezuelan community in Florida is living at this PR stunt by him. And if this impacts

his election, I think that they're good. And the statutes that I would just flag right here is the kidnapping statute, 18 USC 1201 kidnapping. Whoever unlawfully sees his combines decoys, kidnaps, abducts or carries away and holds for ransom reward otherwise any person. The person is willfully transported and interstate or foreign commerce regardless of whether the person was alive when transported across state boundaries. So 18 USC 1201 seems to be a statute and then the other one is 8 USC 1324 Which criminalizes conduct that involves smuggling aliens into the United States transporting aliens within the country or otherwise

facilitating unlawfully present aliens to remain in the United States. And then smuggled aliens may not necessarily be trafficking victims, but immigration crimes may be relevant to human trafficking activities that involve facilitating aliens and lawful entry and presence. So to me, there's those two, the trafficking and kidnapping, but Pope Ock, you have other thoughts too, because these were asylum seekers. A couple of things. Let me talk about the politics having lives in Florida and South Florida

for over 20 years. The Venezuelan community is very strong. The Venezuelan American community is very strong. Those that vote, it is a large voting block in Broward, Fort Lauderdale, Miami-Dade County. There are cities in those places that are jokingly referred to as little Venezuela or different things that reflect the makeup of a very hardworking, patriotic, Venezuelan-American community. Charlie Cris, running against the Santos needs every vote he can get and needs to run up big margins in places like Miami-Dade County. One of the reasons that Biden lost Florida is because while he won, Broward and Miami-Dade County, he didn't win it by enough to compensate and offset places in the

northern part and the central part of the state where he lost. In order for a Democrat to win Florida, you have convincingly, you have to win in the I-4 corridor from Tampa to Orlando, which is increasingly becoming purple, moving to blue because of immigration. You have to run up big numbers in Miami-Dade County because you're not going to win the North and you're not going to win. There's that bug again. You're not going to win the North of Florida. You're not going to win all the other counties that are like above Palm Beach County. So this could be a turning point if it's

properly used by Charlie Christ and his people in that election. That's one, two. The thing we haven't talked about yet, and I agree with you, the criminal prosecution is unlikely. Although technically, he looks like he may have violated these human smuggling criminal statutes that have been on the books. If you look at the literal definition and the terms that you used, it looks like this will comply. But there is a 14th amendment constitutional due process issue, which is also implicated not just by Charlie, not just by Ron DeSantis, because Abbott, the governor of Texas, did the exact same thing. He dumps off migrants in Washington, DC in front of the residents of the vice president, Kamala Harris happened the same week, obviously

in coordination with Charlie with the Ron DeSantis. And the reason they chose Martha vineyarders, these are all democratic vacation hotspots and enclaves. And they want to try to embarrass, you know, Democrats by having this happen. But at bottom, there are human beings who require constitutional dignity and due process, which have been violated. The 14th Amendment under a body of case law, the Supreme Court recognized in 2001 called Zadvitis versus Davis said that if you're in the country already, whether you're an illegal alien or a migrant or whatever you are, but your feet

are on terra firma of the United States, you are covered by the 14th amendment against a deprivation of life, liberty and property without due process. What due process is happening to get these people through, through a subterfuge, through lying to get onto a plane, thinking they're heading for the better life, the golden door of the entry to US immigration status. And they're being sent away from their lawyers, away from their people helping them with their immigration status, away from their families and support system, hundreds, if not thousands of miles away and dumped, literally dumped in an area without

money, without shelter. As you say, without food, without dignity, they're being used as human props. And it would violate, in my view, and I'm sure the Department of Justice and at Civil Rights Division is looking at it. And I don't think they're going to be shy about bringing a case in a courtroom, a favorable courtroom against what you referred to rightly so as human trafficking in migrants for political optics. And I'll give you, I'll give you an example, at least one of the people that we know of from reporting that got brought against his will through, through lies to get on the plane had a hearing hundreds and

hundreds of miles away from Arthur's Vineyard in Boston to meet with his lawyer to talk about his immigration status. That's 14th Amendment due process issues right there Ben. How's he going to get there? Oh, he's going to use his trust fund, you know, the secret stash of money that all illegal immigrants seem to have in the Trump universe, you know, from their drug dealing or whatever, that's what he's going to use. No, he's that person has nothing. And whatever he had got stripped away from him by Ron DeSantis and Paul Abbott, and anybody else that wants to do this shameful political optical scene for their own benefit. And hopefully a backfire is politically the way we outlined. And somebody in the department of Justice wakes up and brings a 14th amendment

claim on their behalf and and this policy, this now de facto policy of Abbott and to Santis gets brought into a federal courtroom and shut down ASAP. room and shut down ASAP. Popoq, when we started this podcast, you know, you said, wow, those topics, you know, are, uh, let me sweat a little bit, you know, but, but, but because we're dealing with really, really, really serious issues and these issues, this cruelty, this right wing extremism didn't develop overnight, right? It was a concerted effort that's been pushed and pushed and pushed over a long period of time to remake this country in this

very dystopian apocalyptic, horrific way. But there is an opportunity to combat that. And we don't want to wave the white flag. And part of the show and part of the education is ultimately putting it into action because one of the issues that has allowed this horrible conduct to exist is it's been able to fester in secrecy and because it's been shrouded in the legal ease, it's been hard to really access the information to confront it in the way it needs to be confronted. And that demystifying process is what we focus here on legal AF to do so that we can combat it, we can stop it. We can educate you on what's going on. And we can keep you posted as well on what the lawmakers, what the, you

know, that what democratic lawmakers, pro democracy lawmakers are doing to try to combat it versus what mega Republicans are doing to try to bring us back and to harm this country, what the Department of Justice is doing, what the FBI is doing, what other institutions are doing. And to let you know what this process looks like. And so I think it's an invaluable experience here to be a part of this community together. And ultimately that's what this is. This is a pro democracy community. It's more than just some network. Make sure you do get that wheels of justice long sleeve T at store dot mightestouch.com. Supplies are limited. So just get it now for the fall store dot mightestouch.com.

The long sleeve wheels of justice long sleeve tea. And again, now would be the time also to go to Patreon, PAT, R E O N Patreon.com slash minus touch become a member at one of the various tiers there, patreon.com slash minus touch. And again, if you want to reach out to me or popok directly, my my email is benatmitastouch.com and Michael PopoC's MPOPOK at zplaw.com. If you have a case or you want us to take a look to determine if there may be a case. We'll see you next time as the wheels of Justice move here on LegalAF. It's been so great sharing this weekend with you all.

I'm Ben Myselis. Join by my co-host Michael Popak with, of course, a special shout out to the Midas Michael.