Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump STRICKEN with BAD NEWS in Court as HIS LIFE COLLAPSES

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

Join trial attorney Michael Popok and former prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo for another action pack episode of the top-rated Legal AF podcast On tap? 1. Trump continues to lash out and attack the one judge that holds his liberty in the palm of his hands and is ready to squeeze—Judge Merchan who is about to issue his decision likely confirming Trump’s conviction for 34 felonies and sentence him to jail time. Just how effective is that “strategy” for Trump? 2. Trump has put the Government he hopes to head again on notice that he is suing “The United States of America” for malicious prosecution and $100 million + dollars, since his hand picked Judge Cannon dismissed the Mar a Lago criminal indictment against him; 3) another Trump MAGA lawyer and MAGA election denying county clerk are in big trouble in court, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF Thanks to our sponsors: Lume: Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with Lume deodorant and get $5 off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code legalaf at https://LumeDeodorant.com! #lumepod Armra: Head to https://tryarmra.com/legalaf or enter promo code: LEGALAF to receive 15% off your first order! Miracle Made: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. Smalls: Smalls: Head to https://Smalls.com/LEGALAF and use promo code: LEGALAF at checkout for 50% off your first order PLUS free shipping! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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So that goal to be the ultimate soccer parent? Keep chasing it. Drive your ambition. Mitsubishi Motors. And we are on the air. It is the midweek edition of Legal AF. You know that. You didn't just stumble across this. You're, you're devoted to us the way we're devoted to you. We appreciate you being here with us. Karen, we are so close to this network getting 3 million free subscribers. I always said it was Election Day. At the rate we're going, it'll happen before Labor Day, but only by word of mouth and organic growth. And I welcome each and every person here on our live recording of our podcast. We've got a lot to talk about. And we always have to do it at the intersection of law and politics. Let's kick off with the politics for a minute. We've got a

surge in Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. We've got a Biden administration that continues to deliver for the American people. We've got the inflation rate on the heels of the Inflation Reduction Act being passed on party line votes over a year ago, working, getting inflation down below 3%. We had two big announcements that are going to be coming out of the Biden-Harris administration, as we continue to focus on the future Harris administration, there already is an administration in place that she's a part of, and they're delivering for the American people. They're

going to be making an announcement on Thursday, likely to declare that at least 10 major prescription drugs on the Medicare list that help everyday Americans for everything in their life that ails them are going to be substantially reduced in price because of a year-long negotiation process. In addition, Joe Biden, the Kamala Harris having given up on canceling student loan debt. And I think that's going to happen before the end of the year. And certainly the two other things that Joe Biden wants to accomplish as part of his legacy. On the unshackled Joe Biden, one of them is to get all those federal judge positions filled and to surpass by not a little but a lot, Donald Trump's list of federal judges at the

appellate level, at the trial level, not the Supreme Court level, we don't think that's going to happen in time, but certainly in every other place. And then lastly, a little known, a little covered fact, New York Times did a good piece on it two days ago, Karen, is naturalization of immigrants to make them new citizens is happening at a record pace by the Biden-Harris administration, cutting in half the amount of time it's taken to make new citizens, many of them of voter age and many of them in battleground states. 3.3 million people have become new U.S. citizens under the Biden-Harris administration, many of them voting in November. What a record. And then you've got the criminal justice system, the attorney generals around the country,

the prosecutors around the country in New York, in DC, again holding Donald Trump's feet to the fire. Bad week for him legally, Karen. We're going to talk about it all here. He's going to, some things just are going to fall off the continuum. We don't have time to talk about them. Like he's about to, he's gotten sued by the auto workers by the UAW because of national labor relations violations related to his interview, Trump's interview with Elon Musk in which they both threatened to fire workers who are just trying to unionize at the Tesla plant

since 2016. That's a big no-no. Donald Trump could likely be sued related to the French female boxer in the Olympics who won the gold medal because of his his consistent attacks on her sexual identity just like he attacks Kamala Harris's racial identity and her personhood in every way shape and form and so On the heels of that we got three major major topics we're gonna talk about today.

We're gonna do what's going on in New York as Judge Mershon is about to make his ruling on Friday about how the immunity decision for the United States Supreme Court maps onto the 34 felony convictions that Donald Trump was given by a jury, if it does at all. That's on Friday. September 18th is the sentencing,

but there was yet another attempt to recuse or disqualify Judge Marshawn, and Judge Marshawn has issued his ruling. We'll talk about that. Then we need to talk about Donald Trump's threats to sue the United States of America. The very same government and people he plans to represent for over $100 million, he says he's and people he plans to represent for over a hundred million dollars.

He says he's now, he's filed a claim with the government telling them he's going to sue them for what he calls malicious prosecution related to the Mar-a-Lago indictment because he got his hand picked a judge, Judge Cannon, to dismiss that indictment. We're going to talk about that and the chances of that succeeding at all or Donald Trump and his lawyers getting sanctioned again. And then we got to talk about some developments involving MAGA Trump lawyers and people that follow Donald Trump like clerks in county clerks handling elections and what's happened to them as they've gotten sideways in various court proceedings. One of them, a county clerk

being found guilty by a jury in under four hours in Mesa, Colorado for her role in allowing dominion voting machines to be broken into, data to be downloaded by people who are right wing MAGA, like Patrick Byrne of Overstock.com and Mike Lindell the Pillow Guy, that's Tina Peters, we'll talk about her case, and we'll relate it to a lawyer who has now gotten in trouble with a DC federal judge and has been disqualified from continuing to represent Patrick Byrne of Overstock.com in the Dominion Voting Machines or Voting Systems defamation case that's going against him and then separately Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and others in the District of Columbia. So summer is over.

The summer doldrums are over. We're at the intersection of law and politics. Karen, how are you? I'm good. I was transfixed by your beautiful sunset that was happening while you were speaking. That's what's so great about doing this Live at 8 p.m. Eastern on the East Coast, right? Oh, it's a birthday present for you because I like to call it it is birth cafe day

I didn't catch talk to you live yesterday I could only text you so happen like we'll take we'll take a one a one second break for everybody in the audience to wish Karen very happy happy birthday Couldn't think of anybody. I'd like to wish happy birthday to the Karen For sure. I want to say one thing about what you just said though. Thank you. I appreciate it very much on Monday. I was very much. On Monday, I was driving on a long car drive on the way back from dropping my youngest off at a program that she's going to. And I was like, What am I going to do on this long car ride back and I go and I look online and I go to my

Twitter account or X. And I was like, What is this spaces live thing happening with Elon Musk and Trump? Because of course, I probably was the only person who didn't get the memo ahead of time. And I literally stumbled upon it. And at first, I thought, is this real? I mean, first of all, Donald Trump was speaking with the strangest lisp.

I thought it was an SNL skit for a minute of somebody imitating him. And then, of course, unfortunately it was real and it was two hours of my life that I wish I could get back. It was really terrifying, really just all over the place. And I do not recommend that anyone listen to it, but it's just bananas to me the way Elon Musk really just has

has completely sold himself out and gone totally hook line and sinker all in with Donald Trump in the weirdest way. Donald Trump would just say things that were absolutely false and Elon Musk would just accept it. I mean, I was shocked actually. I couldn't wait for it to end and I couldn't believe it kept going. So what a strange, strange experience that was. This is a stream of nothing but happy birthday KFA, including people making contributions to the show and to the network. I just wanted to show that show how much you're loved. Yeah, that we remember

remember a long time ago, you, me, and a couple of other people, we did a spaces about the the not quiet quitting of the prosecutors, special prosecutors in the Manhattan DA's office and our reaction to that memory we had like 20,000 in our spaces never that I didn't know what space was. Yeah, no, that was crazy. And interview is, that's the wrong, I don't know. It was not an interview.

I don't know who was interviewing who. First of all, you know, Donald Trump, he has no. It wasn't even a conversation. It's like one of them starts talking and then the other one starts talking. And then the other one starts talking. And it was just filled with just, I don't know. I guess, I don't know why I expected

more of Elon Musk, but I did. I expected more of Elon Musk. And I just was so disappointed and terrified at the same time because Donald Trump just he's back to if anyone thinks he changed after getting nicked in the ear at that rally, whatever you want to say, he absolutely has not changed. He is, he is terrible. I think he's suffering concussive, some sort of concussive disorder, PTSD on top of the mental faculty problems he had even before that. But the good news is he's decided that in contrast to a vibrant, robust, enthusiastic, energized Kamala Harris and Tim Walls, who are doing the retail

politics of campaigning with nine battleground states and these amazing throngs of people from tarmac to stadium to podium and everything else. He's decided that he's literally going to just phone this in. He had one stop in Montana. That's not a battleground state. I got news for him. Sure, there's a Senate seat that's sort of up for grabs, but he goes off to Montana. That's all he did.

And then JD Vance is trying to do sort of full court press by himself. And all he can muster is five people behind him at some sort of factory. And then he's gotta go do that ridiculous stunt where he photo bombed Air Force Two. Secret Service should have taken him out, sort of factory. And then he's got to go do that ridiculous stunt where he photo bombed Air Force Two. Secret Service should have taken him out, by the way. I'm not his walkover, except he had Secret Service.

So that was an interesting combination. But that's it. It's the quiet quitting of the Trump campaign. And there's even rumors now that watching him looks like a person that wants to be put out of his misery and doesn't really want the job. I mean, even in North Carolina, where he gave a speech person that wants to be put out of his misery and doesn't really want the job. I mean, even in North Carolina, where he gave a speech that was supposed to be disciplined and focused on the economy, and he made some interesting points that could, in the hands

of the right person, be an effective criticism, I guess, of his opponent. But of course, he can't help himself from being the racist misogynist that he is and attack and continuing to attack, you know, Kamala Harris's intellect misogyny, her racial identity, racist, and everything else. And you know, and there we just have Joe Biden getting up every morning brushing his teeth trying to figure out with Kamala Harris how to help the American people until 1159 on the 20th of January. And now the court systems, the spaces thing reminded me, we're going to talk about New York now, let's dive into New York, Karen.

Why don't you take it? It's your old office. They got their conviction on the heels of another set of, they got 19 felony, let's give credit where credit is due. Two years ago, as a precursor, as a preliminary bout to going after Donald Trump, which I think whet the appetite of Alvin Bragg and taught him that he could break that ceiling and he could go after Donald Trump, they did a test run and they got a seven, I think it's 17 count felony conviction for tax evasion and business record fraud involving almost

the very same people in terms of witnesses for the prosecution in the Trump organization against Donald Trump's entities. And that's why Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer went to jail for the first time. And then he did it again, a year later, different jury with Donald Trump directly on another set of business record fraud type allegations and got 34 more accounts.

You know that there's no prosecutor in America that has nailed Donald Trump more and more regularly and more successfully than Alvin Bragg of the Manhattan DA's office. There's no other way to put it. And so now he's wearing the last gasps of Donald Trump's having to realize that he's going to lose his appeals on this, that the immunity decision does not help him in New York, the Supreme Court one, whatever life preserver he thought that was, and in the hands of Alvin and in the hands of Judge Mershon and Alvin Bragg, he's going to be brought to justice on the 18th of September. With that framing, tell our listeners what just happened with Judge Mershawn, and then why don't you go right into what you expect to happen on Friday with the immunity decision that the judge said he's going to be issuing, because he's very timely when he says he's going to do something on a date certain. He does it,

and then as we lead into the 18th of September on sentencing. Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting because when this morning when we were picking topics and you said the Judge Marshawn and Donald Trump case, I said, but we covered that last week. What is new? What could possibly be new? It's because he's doing the same thing over and over and over again that I it's just shocking to me as a lawyer, I could never do what these lawyers are doing. You and I would get sanctioned by the court

if we were to bring the same thing over and over and over again that's been denied on no new grounds and did it in an untimely way and made these frivolous arguments over and over again, we'd get in big, big trouble. And that is exactly what Judge Marshawn is setting the groundwork, setting the stage for in case these lawyers don't finally get the message because they literally filed for the third time, another motion to recuse the judge based on this ridiculous claim that because he has an adult daughter who works for a political

consulting company in, I think, Chicago, because he has an adult daughter who does that, that somehow he is disqualified and has an interest, a financial interest in this case. And it just makes no sense. And it has been denied over and over and over again. In fact, in a lengthy decision back in 2023, Judge Marshawn sought an advisory opinion from the, like a judicial ethics body that judges can seek an advisory opinion. In New York and in many jurisdictions, the decision on whether or not to recuse

comes from the judge themself. And or not to recuse comes from the judge themselves. And you have to ask the judge and the judge is supposed to look within themselves and see if they can be fair and impartial and they're governed by judicial ethics. And you can appeal it, but in the first instance, you have to go to the that judge and this judge when this first issue first came up about his daughter and about the fact that he had donated some nominal, I don't remember what it was, $10 or $15 to a Democratic campaign during the Trump election that he sought an opinion. He didn't think he could be that he needed to be recused. He knew that he could be fair and impartial. But he also decided to get an advisory opinion to see whether

or not the judicial ethics bodies that oversee judges agreed with this. And they said they agreed he did not need to recuse himself. And he wrote a lengthy decision spelling it out. Well, despite that, despite that Trump has done it twice, despite that Trump has appealed it and appellate courts have upheld the fact that Judge Marshawn did not have to recuse himself. And for whatever reason, Trump's lawyers, once again, same lawyers who tried the case, brought the truly at this point frivolous motion. And they brought it late. I think it was 48 or 50 days after the deadline for post verdict motions, they just file this motion for recusal again, they didn't seek permission, they didn't seek leave to have an extension of time, they just filed a motion you can't do that when a judge sets a deadline and says, by

this date, you have to have your motions in, you have to do it. And if you miss that deadline, you have to ask permission to not do it. So not only did they miss the deadline, not only did they not seek permission, they essentially made the same, they recycled the same old tired argument all over again. The judge really smacked them down at this time. And, you know, my favorite kind of line in this three-page order that the judge said, it reads, defendant appears to present two arguments in his instant motion. Although not entirely clear, defendant first argues that the court's order restricting extrajudicial statements is unjust and unconstitutional, because they threw in the gag order in this

as well, that saying that's why he should be recused and By the way, the judge reminded them. Hey, I lifted the gag order on the witnesses and on the jurors You're just not allowed to go after the prosecutors and the court staff Anyway, he said he goes on to say This argument that the that they're bringing up saying that this gag order is unconstitutional and unjust, he says, this argument does not merit extensive discussion, since it does not credibly purport to support the motion for recusal. Rather, it would appear to be nothing more than an attempt to air grievances against this court's ruling.

I just, I love that line, because he's basically calling them out saying, all you're doing is complaining again. You just, you like to complain and you're doing it again. So he then goes on and says, look, you know, yes, I, your second argument that this relationship between between the presidential nominee, Kamala Harris and his daughter warrants recusal that this is a change in circumstance now that Harris is the presumptive nominee. He literally says, I don't need to repeat my legal analysis or decision. And for the third time, okay, for the third time, I am denying this motion. And what the lawyers did was they said, there's been a change in circumstance, which is why we're bringing this up now.

And the judge said innuendo and mischaracterizations do not a conflict create. Recusal is not necessary. So, I mean, he just really shot them down and essentially said to them that this is, we've shot you down before, the appellate courts have shot you down and and he essentially said you do it again and I am going to sanction you he didn't say that but he what he did was he reminded them he reminded them that that of what the ethics rules are and that if he violates them uh you know essentially essentially reading between the lines, it's, it's we, I can sanction you or hold you in contempt. And the date, what I loved about the order, it was dated my

birthday. So thank you for my birthday gift. Yeah. I don't know what the hesitation is with these judges. They get to the, they get to the water's edge on sanctions and they seem to, because of who's on the other side and making him a martyr and all the rest, I've seen the back off a bit here, of who's on the other side and making him a martyr and all the rest. I've seen the back off a bit here, the judge and his order that you read from basically I thought warned again the lawyers. Because when he said, I'm all in favor of zealous advocacy, however, you've crossed the line as officers of the court and you're making meritless arguments over and over again, wasting the court's time. That usually leads to a referral to a grievance committee related to somebody's bar license. This is on the heels. The reason we're all sort of going,

rubbing our eyes and cleaning out our ears about this is like, can we just do this? Yeah. They filed a month ago a motion to disqualify judge Angoron After he you know months six months after he entered his judgment for five hundred million dollars in the fraud case They're always moving to disqualify some sort of judge that they don't like the decision from they fought with Constantly that this is some sort of weird strategy where when a judge is holding your This is some sort of weird strategy where when a judge is holding your nether region in the palm of his hands and has the ability to squeeze, you don't generally attack them. Like the judge who's about to enter a 500 or half a billion dollar judgment, don't attack his wife and his principal law clerk and himself over and over again and expect a good result. Same thing with Judge Lewis Kaplan

in the case involving you being found, Donald Trump being found to have been a sexual, I almost said sexual deviant, having committed sexual assault. And for punitive damages, they constantly battled with that particular judge. And look what happened there with over a hundred million dollar judgment

against Donald Trump after he testified. Now they're going after Judge Mershon. I would not try to do you know tilted windmills related to Judge Mershon. He's the person that has Donald Trump's liberty literally in the palm of his hands and will be sentencing him on the 18th of July. You don't have to suck up to the judge, but you don't have to constantly file meritless motions and attack the judge and his relationships with his daughter, which has no bearing whatsoever on anything that's going on in that courtroom, and try to demean the judge and act like he's got challenged ethics and compromised ethics when he does not, over and over again. And these lawyers don't know better. I said on a hot tick about this very issue the issue of whether Judge Mershon should have

recused himself or disqualified himself has already been preserved appropriately on appeal when Donald Trump finally gets the right to appeal after he's sentenced. He can appeal everything that happened that he didn't like. You know the list of grievances that he thinks rise the level of appellate reversible error issues, he's allowed to raise when he finally gets around and he's given the right to appeal. He's preserved already the argument against to disqualify Judge Bushani. He doesn't have to keep filing it over and over again and be rejected. When you said error, the grievances, it sounded like, you know, a scene,

an episode of Seinfeld. It sounded like, you know, Festivus where, you know, give Donald Trump an aluminum pole. There's Lily. Give Donald Trump an aluminum pole and let him air his grievances. But that's not the makings of a motion to disqualify. Let's turn to what you think is going to happen on Friday, Karen, with the, when we get the immunity decision. Of course, we'll report on it right here on the Midas Touch Network Legal AF and Hot Techs. But give us a little advanced screening here. You've got a good theory about the evidence.

The only issue that's up for grabs, right, is not whether the immunity decision makes what he did immune. It's whether the certain amount, small amount of evidence that came in through witnesses about Donald Trump in the White House after he won the election by election interference, by hiding the Stormy Daniels affair and the bribery pay off to her in the way that he did it.

There were a few checks on personal checkbooks that were written by Donald Trump in the White House. There were a couple of meetings in the White House. There were a couple of meetings in the White House. There were a couple of pieces of testimony about the internal press communications department for now Donald Trump president, how they were dealing with some of these issues. But talk to the audience about what is and what is not harmless error and reversible error and what do you think the judge is going to do this coming Friday? Yeah.

Just to catch everybody up and remind everyone where we are, the immunity decision came down after the verdict in this case in July. I think it was July 1st. It held that in addition to certain conduct being absolutely immune, if it's official, if it's official presidential conduct, it also held that you are not allowed to use privileged evidence in order to prosecute non-official conduct. The decision kind of went further than anyone thought. It's not just prosecute or not prosecute.

It also applies to what evidence can be introduced at trial when you're prosecuting someone for non-official conduct or non-immune conduct. And so that's really that kind of middle category is what is at issue here because, as you said, not even the defense argued that the conduct here was in Trump's official capacity. This was private, right? And he's said that over and over again in many different filings and in many different other areas, whether it was before Congress or

whether it was in his removal proceeding where he tried to get the case removed to federal court. Early on, other lawyers and these lawyers argued that this was personal and not official. official. And so not even they, not even Trump can argue that that's an issue in this case really with a straight face. But what they did say was, however, there is evidence that was introduced at trial that given this decision now should not have been introduced. And the judge is going to be faced with making that determination. A, is that the case?

Was there evidence that now, given this new law, should not have been introduced? And if so, what impact will that have on this verdict, on the jury verdict? There are two options. There's the option of reversal and a new trial. or there's the option of saying, no, it might have been an error and it was a harmless error. I guess the third option is all the evidence that was introduced was appropriate and none

of it falls into that category. So he's going to make a ruling. And unlike the case in Washington, D.C., where Judge Chutkin may have to have evidentiary hearings to determine which of those charges and what evidence falls within the president's job description or the official conduct bucket and in that official conduct evidence bucket, in this case, there's a full record that's already been made, because there was a trial, and there was cross-examination, et cetera.

So there's no need to hold a hearing. The judge can just rule off the record. So that's what he's going to do. And I think that the evidence in question, for example, the tweets that were introduced into evidence, I think they were from the White House Twitter account and communicating with the public as part of the president's job, et cetera. I think that's clearly harmless error if that it turns out to be not something

that should have been introduced, because it's official. The area that I think it starts to get a little bit tricky is gonna be in the area of Hope Hicks' testimony, where, because if you remember, one of the issues or elements that the prosecution had to prove was that not only did he falsify these business records, it was for the purpose of committing or concealing another crime, and the crime here was to basically steal the election,

right? And that's what they had to prove. And so there was a very powerful piece of testimony in Hope Hicks' test, when she testified, it was the one day I happened to go to the trial and I happened to see this part of the, it was the only time I got to go to court. It was really hard to get in. And on this particular day, someone gave me their seat

because they had to leave. And it was so powerful. It was absolutely her testifying that this was all about the election. Trump said, I'm so glad this didn't come out before the election. And she kind of broke down into tears having really, really just, I think, recognized the gravity of what

she had just done. She just sank her boss, you know, and the guy that she admired and who she said she admired. And so I have, I think that that's going to be something because she was the White House. She worked in the White House at the time. She was, I think, the communications in communications and she was talking to him. It was in April of 2017 while he was in the white house as a white house communications person so it was very damning and and that might be one of the the things that falls into the category of of of privileged and the reason it concerns me is

because uh josh steinglass the prosecutor who's just extraordinary prosecutor prosecutor and has a great reputation and I've worked with him and I know his work and he's just a great lawyer. He said in his summation, because a lot of this had to do with, a lot of the arguments were about Michael Cohen and Trump's lawyers were arguing that he's not credible. He's a liar. And so one of the things that Josh Steinglass argued in summation was you don't have to trust Michael Cohen alone. Everything is corroborated. And he really underscored this Hope Hicks testimony

and made it central to the case. So that's going to be where the judge, I think, is going to grapple with whether or not that's harmless. Error, I think in the end, the evidence was overwhelming and it is harmless. And I think the judge will rule that. But I think that is the one area that the judge is gonna have to really make

some very specific findings. And really, I think it's gonna be a well thought out. I think it's gonna be a long decision. It's gonna be written. And it's going to parse out the entire trial and put things in the buckets that the Supreme Court set out for the court in that case. So, you know, we should clear our calendars for Friday

because we're gonna have a lot of hot takes and things explaining this ruling because I think it's going to be significant. With one correction that the audience reminded me of, he moved it to the 16th of September. I thought it was going to be this Friday, because my notes were before he moved it last week. But he's going to give,

because I think your old office asked for more time, just like Jack Smith asked for more time to brief the immunity decision with Judge Chutkin. So I think it's going to be the 16th, but he's told everybody send in pre-sentencing memos We're gonna talk about sentencing next so everything our audience Everything that Karen and I just said is true. It's just gonna be on the 16th On the autumn he could be tomorrow. It could be the 16th. It doesn't matter I do not believe that Judge Murchon is going to find that there was reversible error in

allowing in the Hope Hicks testimony. In other words, the reason Donald Trump was convicted by a jury of his peers of 34 felony counts did not hinge on Hope Hicks' testimony. As you said about Josh Steinglass' presentation, there was a wealth, a mountain of evidence that would have convicted 10 men, 10 people, including Michael Cohen, including David Pecker, including a series of people within the Trump organization themselves, who all testified to the timeline that makes this

stuff not really matter. And even when Donald Trump was within the White House, I don't believe that even stretched to the outer boundaries of official conduct, the things that he did writing in a personal checkbook and meeting personally with Michael Cohen on invoices Michael Cohen sent in to get them paid and what kind of press release he was gonna do, this or that, even under the murky decision of the United States Supreme Court,

I think Judge Machado is going to find it's outside the outer boundaries. It's not official conduct in any way, shape or form. And even if it was, we're back to your, it's not case dispositive. It's not the reason, it's not what the jury hung their hat on based on all the other overwhelming evidence that convicted Donald Trump. In other words, if you removed, you know, Madeleine Westerhoof's testimony about how she runs the daily diary for Donald Trump and who gets to meet the president

after he became president, there anything about Hope Hicks, half of which was before when she worked for the campaign and half of it was after. If you remove that from the equation, the question is, would the jury still convict Donald Trump with the 34 felony counts? And I'm sure Judge Machena is going to say yes, they would. And if that's the case, then he can take it up with the appellate court and we'll move on two days later from the, so we'll get immunity. It's going to be fast then. We're going to get immunity on the 16th. He's told them, as you and I did this already, on a midweek and then up in hot takes, it's going to go fast. He's told them, get your pre-sentencing memos in. Hint, hint. I'm going forward with the

sentencing on the 18th, which is a signal that I'm not granting immunity. And don't bank on that. And don't ask for more time. We're going on the 18th, hell or high water on a sentencing, as long as I don't grant your immunity decision. So we're going to follow all that. We'll talk about sentencing. We're going to talk about Trump now turning around. This is like a dog, man bites dog. Now we got Donald Trump thinking he's emboldened because his handpicked judge in Judge Cannon dismissed the Amaralago case and now he's emboldened because his hand-picked judge in Judge Cannon is dismissed the Amara Lago case, and now he's emboldened to bring a malicious prosecution case or threaten to bring one against the U.S. government, which means that U.S. taxpayers, you and me, for over $100 million,

we'll talk about that and the chances of that happening. And then we're going to talk about all these MAGA lawyers and election-denying county clerks who are being brought to justice by state and federal prosecutors and judges around the country. But now we got to go to the thing that keeps the wheels of justice spinning on this network. How do you support this network? Help them get the three million free subscribers. At the rate we're going, we're going to get there before Labor Day, which is amazing. And if you're already a free subscriber, we really appreciate you. And if not, go out and do it. You're here.

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That's one to support the other content The content makers that we have on this network Karen's got a new podcast now called mistrial There it is Karen free McNiffalo along with her law partners Donya Perry and Kathleen Rice Karen you got to get back to me. I'm supposed to have dinner with you and and Donya sometime in September Get back to me. I'm supposed to have dinner with you and Donia sometime in September. Get back to me on that text. That's a great new podcast that's out there, The Unique Perspective of Former Prosecutors.

It's not Legal AF. It's another angle or take on things at the intersection of law and politics. And that's Mistrial. And we've got a Patreon, patreon.com slash Legal AF. It's a, I don't want to call it a law school class, because we'll a patreon patreon.com slash legal AF. It's a I don't record a law school class was we'll get in trouble But it is a it's an informative in it's an informative presentation of the law at the intersection of law and politics That Ben and I are doing its legal AF

Patreon and we got exclusive videos got about three or four hundred videos up there. We're doing Q&A's live Q&A's we're them about every month at this rate with Ben and me. And so we've got that. And then we've got this amazing set of sponsors. Every day, Jordy, who's responsible for that area. I'm always amazed by who he writes and says to me, Popak, we got another sponsor. We got another ad.

Karen, the same thing. Ben, the same thing. I'm just amazed at what we've been able to accomplish. Four and a half years ago, when I joined with the guys, you know, the guys, the brothers, we had 500 people. But that was basically family, friends and family. It was soft opening, as we like to say

in the restaurant business. And now we're on the precipice of three million. It was just like a year ago, Karen. You and I were doing a, we had, it was less than a year ago, that you and I and Salty made a counter to see if we could hit two million while we were doing our show.

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I've always wanted to have some sort of relationship with a cat. My grandmother had a very not happy cat when I was a small child, that left me a little bit scarred, literally. That was okay. But I've had an amazing cat relationship through my wife and, and with Chanel love Chanel to death. And Chanel, Chanel. Name alone is like, just brilliant. Yes. All right. So we're back. Let's let's wrap up New York

with with what we've got the dates straight with what we think is going to happen. And this is this right on the 18th when he sentenced anything changed in September has anything changed in your mind because we've been there's been an evolution for you and me, and I think Ben to a certain degree, about the sentencing. We started six months ago after the conviction, whatever months ago it was, and we said things like,

oh, he'll be picking up litter on the highway, or he'll do community service, or he'll never see jail time, or he'll see jail time, but it'll be home house, house confinement or home arrest, or it'll be suspended while he appeals. And now we've had more time. We've seen what's going on around the country and Donald Trump's unrelenting assault on the criminal justice system and on judges like Judge Mershon. And we've seen the analysis done by your friends over at Just Security, with analyzing thousands of cases that the Manhattan DA's office brought

against similar people not named Donald Trump for the exact same types of crimes, not even as egregious because of the number of felony counts that Donald Trump was convicted of, and then mapping out on a matrix how many months or years they got to demonstrate that this is a garden variety prosecution, it wasn't done for political purposes, it would be you can't look the other way on this kind of fraud and then mapping out what the likely or recommended sentencing is. Sentencing memos are being prepared by whether he likes it or not, Donald Trump is going to be preparing a sentencing memos are being prepared by, whether he likes it or not, Donald Trump is gonna be preparing a sentencing memo of recommendations. I'm sure it'll say zero. The Manhattan DA is doing the exact same thing. The probation or

parole department is doing the same thing. Now, let's see where Karen Friedman McNifilo is in the evolution of your thought process as we get closer to the 18th. Does he get jail time suspended or not? Any meaningful, meaningful punishment as a result of the 34 felony counts being meted out by Judge Machon? I mean, look, it's a tough situation. This is a sui generis situation, as they say. If you were to treat Donald Trump like any other defendant similarly situated, despite the fact that he has no criminal convictions, just his conduct in this case alone,

the stakes couldn't be higher, falsifying business records in order to steal a presidential election. I mean, that is just a resounding, I can't think of a falsifying business records in order to steal a presidential election. That is just a resounding, I can't think of a falsifying business records, the fact pattern that is worse than that. Especially given the fact that he won by 70,000 votes in three swing states. He won by such a small margin. Maybe this is the thing that made

the difference that they suppressed this information. Who knows? And so if you just look at the fact pattern alone of what he did, and you compare it to the 20% of falsified felony, falsification of business records cases that did receive jail or prison time throughout New York State. This is, I think, the most serious. So how do you not give him jail or prison? In addition to that, again, he went to trial at the time with three other pending indictments. He was an indicted felon in three different other jurisdictions, both in state and federal court. So he's like a career criminal. I mean, and you look at all the civil filings, you look at what Judge Angoran found,

the just rampant fraud that went on in his business dealings in New York. You look at what happened in the defamation case with E. Jean Carroll, he's an adjudicated rapist. I mean, just, he, there, when you bring all of that to the table and all of that is fair game for the judge, in addition to the fact that his own conduct

in this particular case, he threatened Alvin Bragg with a baseball bat over and over again. Judge Mershon held him in contempt, not one, not two, not three times, 10 times, 10 times he was held in contempt for violating a court order in this case, this judge. I have to say, and I don't care what his name is, Donald Trump or John Smith, he absolutely

deserves state prison time. He deserves the max. That is what any other defendant would get in his situation. That being said, he's the Republican nominee for president and I actually don't think it is legal. I don't think because of the supremacy clause and federalism and all the other things that have to do with state versus federal,

I don't think the Judge Marchand will feel that he can interfere with that at this time. I also think given the immunity ruling, there is a non-frivolous appellate argument about whether or not whatever his rulings, Judge Marchand's are in terms of the evidence that was admitted at this trial. And so because there is a non-frivolous, legitimate appellate issue, he's not gonna put him in now. So I do think he will be sentenced to state prison, and I do think it'll be held in abeyance,

or he will get what's called bail pending appeal, meaning he will not have to serve his sentence during the pendency of the appeal. I do think it'll be stayed until he exhausts his appellate litigation. I also think the judge is not going to put him in in case he wins, right? He has to be president of the United States. So that's what I think

is going to happen in this case. Will he also do something else in addition to that so that there's some punishment that's immediate, like community service? I don't think that you can do that. I don't think you can. I think you have to, it's a binary choice. I think it's an either or. There might be a split sentence that would allow like probation with, you know, six months split with probation, meaning six months incarcerated with probation. And then as part of probations, there's conditions.

And so you can impose certain conditions like picking up trash on the subway. Who knows? He might be create, he might do something creative that brings some kind of, you know, combination of things, but that's what my evolution has come to. That's what I think will happen.

And look, I think, I assume that's one of the reasons people enjoy our show, because we are evolving. Our thought process is evolving. We don't just take a position and then, you know, when I'm wrong, I'll say I'm wrong. When I've evolved, I'll say I've evolved. Karen just evolved appropriately based on new input, new information about where she was.

If you looked at a clip of us six months ago, you know, we weren't saying that. I agree with you. I think he's gonna get a sentence that's gonna be suspended. I think that when the research is done by the court's own staff, by the probation, parole department,

and by the Manhattan DA, maybe leaning into what Norm Eisen has done at just security, I think the judge is going to have no choice. He's going to have a chart in front of him of people just like Donald Trump, who went to jail, or people who did less than Donald Trump and went to jail. Yes, there are some people that got let off or given probation, first time offender kind

of thing, but he's not a first time offender. As you said, even within the court process, he violated and was contumacious throughout the court process itself. He acted out in ways that while the judge didn't feel the need to handle at the time, certainly it all is on the table. All of his bad behavior and conduct, which will rely on the Manhattan DA to point out to the judge, is fair game for the judge to sentence. And I think that's what's going to happen.

And we'll have more time and more bad misconduct by Donald Trump between now and then, I'm sure. And everything he does for people that think that it's only what happens in the courtroom and six months ago that goes into sentencing, your bad acts right up into and through the moment you're being sentenced in the courtroom all factor in until the judge finally lays down the sentence.

And so Donald Trump has never understood that. There's always been this tension between Donald Trump, the candidate, and Donald Trump, the criminal defendant, and Donald Trump, the business person. And he can't figure out how to, if he does something that he thinks is successful in one arena, it often tanks him in another arena. He'll go on that interview, that spaces thing that you talked about that you couldn't stop, you know, it's like a train wreck, you couldn't couldn't look away, didn't want to watch

and you couldn't look away. Same time, he tanked his own stock, because everybody realized that the only asset of truth social is the exclusivity of having Donald Trump and all of his crazy mean tweets on one social media platform. Well, he's going back to, he's returned to Twitter. He's returned to X and the market that I know pretty well from having worked on Wall Street on the law side, legal side for a while, kind of hammered him because he, again, he has so many conflicting goals.

Candidate, it may be helpful to candidate Trump to do these things, to attack the judge, to attack the clerks, to attack the system, to undermine everything, but it doesn't help him in sentencing time. And so this is the problem that he's having as he's, as we're watching him circle the drain and struggle, struggle, and he'll never figure it out. It's like a combination lock on your high school locker. You can't figure, you forgot the last number. You can't get the locker open.

He can't figure out how to go after Kamala Harris in a coherent, disciplined way that's successful. And he's not gonna figure it out. He's never gonna figure out how to do it. She's too smart for him. She's too poised. She's too good at being a prosecutor and counter punching. And her social media team is extraordinary. And now joined by people that helped Obama become

elected, you know, like David Plouffe. I mean, the reason, there's three reasons Barack Obama became president. Barack Obama, David Plouffe, and David Axelrod. And they, I said at the time, they will go down in the annals of of the hall of fame of Election strategists at getting him elected along with his of course his message and who he was the messengers Of course is very important to when you're picking a president But pluff is joined and so we're watching we're watching that too. So we're going to talk about Let's turn to Donald Trump's threats, just again, a screed masquerading as a legitimate legal position, a campaign, a talking point to steal a news

cycle masquerading as something legitimate, an airing of grievances once again by Donald Trump when he's not suing the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton, the Pulitzer Prize board, George Stephanopoulos, ABC. I mean, the list goes on. I said on a hot tick recently, Karen, there couldn't possibly be as many conspiracies that people are, are, are, believe exist because there are not enough people in the United States to participate in all of these conspiracies. Right?

There's just too many conspiracies. The entirety of America would have to be involved in all these conspiracies. It's always blaming somebody else. And now that he got Aileen Cannon, who will ultimately get, I think, reprimanded and slapped back for the third time by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals when they get around to it in the fall about her dismissal of the case, the Mar-a-Lago case, because she believes that the prosecutors are a figment of our imagination, that they are illegitimate, that they are rogue, that they weren't properly appointed, that they're not

inferior officers that work under the Department of Justice and its Attorney General, that there's something else entirely. You're ignoring 50 years of United States Supreme Court precedent, starting with the Nixon case, and dismissed the case. And Donald Trump said, aha, I've got something I can do. I'll put the government on notice that I'm going to sue the United States of America for $100 million because of this malicious prosecution. Why don't you break it down for our audience Karen and tell us what you think is gonna happen to the lawyers

and to Donald Trump if this lawsuit ever actually gets filed. I mean, so within the two year statute of limitations, they had to kind of initiate that and within the time period to perfect their notice of appeal, they filed kind of this intention to appeal, is the best way I would describe it. And it's basically a notice that he plans to sue the Department of Justice and the FBI for $115 million for, quote, malicious political prosecution and abuse of

process. And he is essentially accusing the Department of Justice and Jack Smith and the leadership of basically malicious political prosecution and saying that they did it in order to affect an electoral outcome and prevent Trump from being re-elected. So he claims that this malicious prosecution led Trump to spend millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars to defend the case and his reputation.

And his attorney that he hired to do this, his name is Daniel Epstein. He's a former White House lawyer. And he now is a lawyer with or some kind of high up person with an organization called America First Legal or something like that, founded by Stephen Miller, another Trump crony. And the filing essentially states that the search warrant was improper and the subsequent indictment was improper and that the search violated the quote, well established protocol

involving former presidents. I don't know where that he got that from. And so, I don't know where this protocol is that he's referring to, but that's what he says. This well established protocol and essentially saying, and what I loved about it was this protocol that he's citing to, he cites his own social media posts on Truth Social, right?

And he basically says, look, you know, the government could have had these documents, all they had to do was ask for them, you know, these records and, you know, but you know, the thing is like, and that's what this notice says, but it leaves out and it omits the truth. And that is what I love about legal AF because what we do is we

actually tell the truth like it's one thing right if you were just an alien from Mars coming down from outer space and you and you Were reading this and and you see that they said that a lawyer would represent in court an officer of the court I mean we are required to tell the truth. We're required to tell the full picture. When you make a legal argument, if there are cases that don't support your position, you don't leave them out. You talk about them and you say why your case is distinguished from it. But you have a reputation, you have an obligation to complete the story, to tell the truth, to You have an obligation to complete the story, to tell the truth, to bring it all out. But Trump's lawyers and Trump himself,

they live in this world of half truths or of outright lies. And that's what I love about Legal AF, is that the whole purpose is to give the context and the truth and to read the filings ourselves and to tell everybody what actually is going on. Because like I said, if you were an alien from outer space coming down and reading this filing that this lawyer Daniel Epstein filed, he literally just says, look, you know, he

shouldn't have done it. They could have had the stuff back if they asked for it. And they leave out the whole part of this that's in the search warrant, where the Department of Justice spelled out multiple times, right? Multiple times, both the National Archives and the Justice Department, for Trump to return the records. They even identified some of the records

that they knew he had, because it was missing when they turned over the records. And so they not only asked for it multiple times, the Department of Justice issued a subpoena for the return for these documents multiple times. And an attorney for Donald Trump even signed a declaration stating, oh, everything's been returned when it's not true. It did not happen that way. And so it's just really kind of another outrageous legal filing that, you know, it's like a precursor. It's an intention to file, but it's still, it's a very

misleading piece of, frankly, propaganda, I think. And this was invited by Eileen Cannon, who dismissed this case. And so they cite to her, you know, and they cite to her decision dismissing the case. And, you know, I have a question for you, Popok, when is the 11th Circuit going to come in and, and reverse this ridiculous and lawless decision? I don't understand what's taking them so long. Well, I set a briefing schedule out in September and Jack Smith didn't object. They but I mean, Jack Smith has is running a elaborate chess game here. But I think he's already decided

to pick his battles and that he's never going to get the Mar-a-Lago case up and running before the election or even the inauguration at this rate. And he's got his hands full in the DC election interference case with Judge Chuck and I'll think, although I think he will ultimately thread the needle with Judge Chuckin, convince her that his indictments as is, or maybe with a little bit of blue penciling, withstands the instructions of the United States Supreme Court in the immunity decision as do the two counts for obstruction of an official proceeding.

But he's picking his battles. It's obvious. And he's not asking for things to go faster. He's asking for them to go slower, because he's also within, as you know, from being the head of a large prosecutorial organization, he's got lots of division heads, civil and criminally, that he's consulting with about what to do

and what position to take about the immunity, not just for the Trump case, but for generational stuff, stuff in the future for the Department of Justice, because if they take, if they make a false step, then it'll impact future prosecutions of future Donald Trumps or worse, if you can imagine that could possibly be true, and they're worried about that. So the 11th Circuit said, you know, early fall, and it gave him the right to ask for expedited. He didn't ask for expedited, although I thought

for sure he was going to. And so that's on that track. And he asked for three more weeks with, as we reported a couple of weeks ago with Judge Chutkin in DC, and Judge Chutkin gave him the three more weeks and set a date. I think it's September the 5th or the 6th to be in the court. September is going to be very busy. Now that we got our dates straight. September 16th and 18th in New York, September 6th or whatever with Judge Chutkin. We're gonna have a lot to talk about. If people thought Legal AF was gonna go out of business anytime soon, it won't. And even after Donald Trump, it won't. There's certainly an audience here for what we're doing, which we appreciate. And there's a lot of different ways to support us here. And we've talked about some of them.

Free subscribe to the Midas Touch Network, support other content like the other podcasts that Karen is on and heads called Mist Trial. I'll be going to dinner with two thirds of Mist Trial, or maybe you can get Kathleen to join. I'll go, I'll be a mistrial dinner. That'll be great. And then, you know, there's-

Well, we scheduled it for Wednesday. Maybe, you know, we can do like a crossover, or a mashup, or something. I'm totally into that. Well, that sounds great. We're gonna do, be at patreon.com slash legal AF that you could also support if you ever wanted to know what it was like to take a law class from professor ben or professor popak you'll find out

on legal af patreon uh we've got merchandise that karen helped design through one of her friends who's a as an amazing designer legal af we got while you're at store dot mightestouch.com go on make jordy and everybody really happy and go grab all that amazing Kamala and Tim Walls gear that they have. Amazing t-shirts there that they're advertising as well. And then we've got sponsors and we've got, and it's not just, just to be clear, it's not just kind of sitting through the ad or us reading the ad. It's, you know, we tried these products, we like these products, we're promoting these products, and if it's within your budget

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and save over 40% off. Again, that's trymiracle.com slash Legal AF to treat yourself. Thank you, Miracle Made, for sponsoring this episode. We are back. We're in the home stretch of our episode at the midweek. Now we got a turn to all the crazy MAGA and conspiracy theorists and election deniers out there. They're going to take two forms now in this last segment of Legal AF. In one form, we got Tina Peters. Tina Peters, you may remember, was the M Mesa Colorado County clerk that went on the lamb after she had violated election law and criminal law by allowing

the pillow guy and overstocked comm guy Patrick Byrne and others to break into the county Election offices during the election and download and steal voter data, the votes of you and me, and then try to use it for their own nefarious purposes including, you know, misleadingly, excerpting it out of context to try to make some argument about fraud that lost in 70 different lawsuits. Well, Tina Peters was finally caught, extradited. She was hidden

by Mike Lindell for a while, brought back to justice and it sat for trial. And we'll talk about what happened to her in record time, the jury came back in four hours against her, which I think when we get to the result there, I think Karen is a message and a warning to all those hundreds of new election deniers who are taking jobs in election offices, who are flooding these offices and pressurizing these offices with ridiculous requests and demands for voter records in order to try to throw a monkey wrench into the 2024 election. The Justice Department and the Department of Justice

and each state is going after these people. No matter if it takes one year, two years or four years, you will be brought to justice. I think that's the signal for what happened at Tina Peters. And then we're also gonna talk about one of my favorite stories, which I've covered a couple of times now,

is the story of the Stephanie Lampert, who was the lawyer for Patrick Byrne, the Overstock.com guy who also was in the Oval Office in December after Donald Trump lost, strategizing with Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell about how to seize voting machines, suspend the Constitution, and impose martial law. That guy. And so think about that next time you shop at Overstock.com. So Stephanie Lampert is his lawyer, but that's not what the federal magistrate judge Upadaya

thought her real role was and called her out on it, sanctioned her and disqualified her. And my favorite little tip, but I'll turn it over to you now Karen, is that back in March, while she was appearing, she's a Michigan lawyer, while she was appearing in federal court with Judge Apodaya, at the end of the hearing, the judge asked everybody to leave and for Lampert to stay behind, like the principal.

She got called to the office. And in came marshals and law enforcement to arrest her and extradite her because she failed to appear on a bench warrant in Michigan because she'd been indicted from Michigan for tampering with election equipment owned by Dominion voting systems. The very entity that she was a defense lawyer against in a defamation case representing Patrick Byrne. That's the complicated, curious story of her. What did, piece it all together from a prosecutor standpoint, what happened to Peters, the clerk, what do you think is

going to happen to Lampert, the lawyer, and what do you think it means as prosecutors draw a line and the Department of Justice draws a line in the sand as we come into the 2024 election about other people that think they're going to commit mischief? Yeah, well, first of all, talk about being able to vote with your wallet. I mean, you know, I never even realized before how much that can make a difference, right? Look at who our pro-democracy sponsors are. These sponsors that we promote on our podcast are people that choose us too, right? We choose them, they choose us.

They know what our message is, and this is where they choose to advertise. And similarly, look at the MyPillow guy and the Overstock.com guy, and now Elon Musk, frankly, and I do think people have to realize that you're not just buying products anymore. Sometimes sometimes you are, but sometimes you're also supporting, you're supporting a particular point of view. And in this particular case, it's just unbelievable to

me that that these individuals, you know, are this is like a criminal enterprise, frankly, you know, all the MAGA people, I just can't get over it. How many, it's one thing to say, hey, I voted for a Republican and I believe in Republican values and I believe in there should be the bigger government or smaller government or pro-choice, pro-life. You can have, I think, debates about issues in this country. That's the beauty of this country. But the MAGA movement is not Republican.

It's not conservative. It's truly people who will, it feels more almost like a cult. I hate to use that lightly, but it does. The people who are just willing to throw their lives away and engage in criminal behavior on behalf of these crazy conspiracy theories. And the two cases that you're talking about and that you're talking about and that we're talking about here tonight are just two more examples of that. It's shocking.

And so one of them is this pro-Trump lawyer that you were talking about who's essentially facing criminal charges right now in Michigan for accessing those voting machines after the 2020 election. She was just disqualified from representing the Overstock.com CEO, Patrick Byrne. There's a lawsuit by Dominion Voting Machines, similar to the one where they won from Fox News. This one though, I think they're seeking over a billion dollars from Patrick Byrne.

There's this ongoing lawsuit going on and this lawyer was representing Patrick Byrne at the same time she gets indicted in Michigan for breaking into the voting machines there. And there's a court order in the overstock, in the Dominion case, right? There's a court order telling the lawyer and Byrne saying, you can't share any of the documents. All of the documents that, discovery that are being turned over are under a protective order. You can't release them. What do they do? This lawyer, her name is Stephanie Lambert, what does she do? She releases them in her Michigan case to not only help her criminal case, but also to spread further information. And so it's just outrageous behavior. Like again, as a lawyer, it's just shocking to me. I'll never get used to it.

I'll never get used to what these lawyers for Trump are willing to do. One day someone's gonna come forward and say that there was some kind of magical hypnosis or something causing everybody to go insane and lose their mind and do things that are just not remotely Legal normal ethical or anything that that I recognize as a practicing lawyer or an American citizen, frankly

um, and so Stephanie Lambert has now been barred from representing Uh burn in this in this lawsuit by Dominican voting system. She's been disqualified over these violations. So again, despite this court order saying you can't release these records, what does she do? She releases them. And this magistrate judge just really smacked her down and issued I think a 60 plus page opinion and

most of it is just listing all of her violations, right? It's just listing them one after another after another after another and found that this lawyer Lambert and Byrne unilaterally decided to disclose thousands if not millions of Dominicans case documents to outsiders and thousands if not millions of Dominicans case documents to outsiders and continued to promote disinformation and they did it despite all the warnings not to and they made misrepresentations and frankly there was dangerous, I think the quote that I wrote down that the judge wrote was, her intentional dangerous and relentless misconduct shows no regard for orders or ethical obligations as an attorney. And the judge also went on to find that this wasn't an inadvertent breach or good faith, you know,

disclosure, this was intentional and caused harm, including including threats lodged against the Dominion's CEO. So they found, the judge found this is truly egregious misconduct and required disqualification because it could infect future proceedings. I think she's gonna get smacked down in a big way in Michigan as well for doing this.

I'm surprised she can even practice law given given all of this. She's all everything you just described has happened since March. This is this is August. So I've been involved with cases that I just settled a case last week in Chicago against a major institution there that I filed four years ago in 2020, and we just settled it last Friday. This lawyer got retained in March. She committed 32 pages worth of misconduct and contumacious behavior to the point where this was my favorite line from the 63 pages, Karen. The judge said that Lampert's repeated misconduct raises the serious concern that she

became involved in this litigation for the sheer purpose of gaining access to and publicly sharing Dominion's protected discovery. In other words, she's just a Trojan horse. She had no intent to really be a lawyer for Patrick Byrne, and Patrick Byrne is behind it. So for people that think, wow, that's terrible. A guy lost his choice of lawyer. No, Patrick Byrne and Patrick Byrne is behind it. So for people that think, wow, that's, that's terrible. The guy lost his chosen, uh, his choice of lawyer. No, Patrick Byrne used her as a vessel, as a conduit to obtain information against the minion voting machines that was supposed to be confidential and only used under court order in that case to then funnel it to the to the MAGA right conspiracy alt-right wing of the party everybody from the constitutional sheriff Darleaf to every podcast you've never heard of got something out of Lampert and Byrne and Byrne is the puppet master that's the that's the dirty little secret

that that Upadaya doesn't come out and say because she doesn't have to address that And just qualifying her but burn is behind it all and all the roads lead to burn effect burn Speaking of I know this is gonna get your dander up Karen speaking of of of part party litigants who? attack verbally with threat of violence prosecutors attack verbally with threat of violence prosecutors, Patrick Byrne just attacked and said that they better watch out the prosecutors of Tina Peters, back to our Tina Peters part of the story segment.

The prosecutors of Tina Peters better, I don't think he understands how the justice system works, better let her out and I guess wipe out somehow her conviction by a jury in four hours, record time on nine out of 11 felony counts because if they don't listen to this one Karen they better watch out for being strangled with piano wire and some sort of a bomb or a flamethrower. I'm like did he just threat now if the prosecutors in Michigan don't bring him to task and

bring that before the judge there and get and get and prosecute him for making those threats then I'm just gonna throw up my hands here I mean law enforcement saying they would face a piano wire and blowtorch if they didn't drop the case yeah so what do you do? My point is, aren't, don't they have to prosecute him? It's no worse than all the things Trump did. But don't they have to prosecute him? You know what?

Then they got to go after Trump for all of his, yes. And they have to go after Trump for all of his threats and violence. This has become the norm of MAGA. This is coming from their leader. This is what Donald Trump does and says without any consequence in all his cases. He goes after law enforcement. He goes after prosecutors. Look at what he did in Mar-a-Lago, basically lying and saying that they issued assassination

and deadly physical force. And then you had Jack Smith coming forward saying there've been threats to FBI agents. I mean, there are real life consequences and they all get away with it. So I think not only do they have to prosecute him for it, but they have to start holding Donald Trump accountable for his vicious vile vitriolic. Hold them all, it's not an either or, go after all of them.

These prosecutors that are sitting around, some of them who are sitting around kind of doing the calculus of, forget the calculus, be like the attorney generals, mainly women attorney generals around the country that are going after the fake electors. Sure, they made a calculated decision about Donald Trump, but they're cleaning up behind the elephant

of the federal prosecutors, and they're bringing all these people to justice. If you get threatened, I'm sorry, that's like the old Untouchables, the Chicago way. Somebody comes after you with a knife, you go after them with a gun, and the prosecutors have the ultimate gun. They can criminally prosecute somebody for making threats against the prosecutors. No other way to interpret it. Because if you don't reinstall the guardrails of our democracy and reinstitute our social contract, which is what Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are going to do, then what are we? Then it's just a Hobbesian future where there are no rules, we're living in anarchy, we're back in a jungle.

I mean, nobody wants that. That's the greatest thing that I've been watching with the, with the, the growth's the wrong word, with the leadership demonstrated by Kamala Harris in her campaign. It's this, it's what Tim, Tim Wall's called the joyfulness by which she campaigns and will lead this country, installing and instilling joy again into the country. Forget that the dystopia, the American carnage outlined by Donald Trump. He just did a social media post. Trump himself did

a social media post, a racist one that would have made the people that came up with the Willie Horton ad proud in which there's a split screen. This is your neighborhood of Trump selected, and it's like a white picket fence neighborhood. And then this is your neighborhood of Kamala Harris is elected. And it's a photo taken out of context of people who are trying to obtain immigration status lined up in a facility in New York. Keep the teeming black and brown people away from America. Vote for me, Donald Trump, the white guy. I mean, come on. That's what he's doing. I'm putting each other at each other's throats, but we'd rather, would we not, go back to where we were with

Barack Obama and other great leaders, where there's a joyfulness, there's a whistle on our lips, and a bounce in our step again, about being patriots, about being Americans, about reaching out. Instead of doing what we all do reflexively, including me, when you see a Trump flag in your neighborhood, I would love to go in the middle of the night and tear that down. You know, I want to get to the point where Kamala Harris is elected and I go over and extend my hand to that neighbor and say I don't agree with any part of your politics But you are my neighbor You are a fellow American and I appreciate your right to do what you want

But you have to appreciate my right to coexist. I want to get back to the social contract I want to get back to our Constitutional Republic. That's been so so Sullyed, you know, it's just Donald Trump dropping his pants and lowering a zipper and peeing all over America enough. It's like enough and You know, we're doing our part we do our part every week twice a week and mistrial another another one or two times a Week and hot takes but we can't do it without our audience. That's that doesn't echo without saying We wouldn't be where we are We weren't standing on the shoulder of three million people that not only came here, not once to check us out, oh no, I don't like that, stayed, built a community, a loving, embracing, supportive community that nourishes us and we, hopefully them,

that replenishes me and my spirit about America, about patriotism in a way that didn't exist before. And that for which we will forever be indebted to everybody who's a legal AFer and a Midas Mighty on this network and will follow us on our journey as part of their own journey moving forward. I don't worry. Some people get around with me that know what I do, partially for a living, here on the Midas Touch Network and say, Pobok, what's going to happen if Donald Trump goes out of business? You don't have Donald Trump anymore as your foil? What's going to happen to your

network? I said, absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. First of all, MAG is not going anywhere. The opposition is not going anywhere. And people and the Supreme Court, unfortunately, unless we win in November, is not going anywhere. And so we have things to defend and explain on this network that go beyond one person, okay? Who will one day leave this planet. That's it.

So I'm not worried about that. There's enough unfortunate, there's enough things for us to talk about at the intersection of law and politics that will be on the air for as long as people want us on the air. And the topics will just be there. You know, when Ben and I thought

about putting the show together, we were like, is there enough stuff to talk about four and a half years ago? Boy, were we wrong. So how do you support this show? Watch Mistrial. So if you want a real, there you go. If you really want another podcast like ours,

if you want us get into the nitty-gritty of the law at the intersection of law and politics, patreon.com. If you want to fly, there it is right there, it's $10 a month as the entry level membership and you get exclusive content you don't get anywhere else even in the hot takes even on the podcast. If you want to fly the flag of legal AF, we got a store. There it is. I'm gonna work with Jordy and Karen to refresh the store after the election.

Not to say it's gotten tired, but it needs some new products. And I've got some ideas, and I'm sure Karen does and Jordy does. Baby onesies. Baby onesies is great. I mean, people that are on my Instagram, they've already seen me post,

my law partner bought me some things. Attorney work product is one onesie that Francesca wore today. Yesterday it was Daddy's Little Co-Counsel. And then my favorite one is, you know I'm billing you for this conversation. So yeah, there's a, but hopefully people see that there is, there's so many podcasts out there. There's so many people trying to do what we're doing. But I think people understand we do it in an insightful way. We don't get everything right every moment, but we try. And we do it with a certain amount of joy, a certain amount of enthusiasm for us.

And because we're conscientious that we're talking to people and it matters. And I hope that people pick up on that when they watch this week after week, but those are the different ways and get the Midas Touch Network. If you love us and you love the network, help them get the 3 million free subscribers. You might've thought you're free subscribed already.

Go check, it's really easy. Big button says subscribe, push it if it hasn't already been pushed already and help us get the 3 million before the end of the year as an independent network where nothing is censored. Nothing, nothing. I mean, nothing comes out of Karen's mouth, my mouth. Nobody tells me what to say. We're doing this live. Nobody's a baby in the corner, even on our birthday. This is absolutely live. Anything can happen right now. Your dog jumped in the, nothing's edited, nothing's censored. This is unfiltered. Didn't just come in,

came in with quite a dramatic entrance, liketered. It didn't just come in, came in with like quite a dramatic entrance, like hounded the door up. I want Chanel to come join. I want to see Chanel. All right, I'll do, I'll be like Dr. Evil. I'll stroke her while we're on the show on the next episode of Legal AF Midweek. So join us on Saturdays.

I'll be back with Ben Misalas. Karen's got her show, of course, her other show, Misdrawl, and then on Hot Takes throughout the week. So I really appreciate everybody. Great show today. Karen, really loved seeing you. We'll see each other for dinner very, very soon.

We're in the same city, which is always great. So until our next, well, no, I want to give it to you. You always have a way to end on a high note. So here you go. I want to give it to you you you you always have a way to end on a high note. So So here you go. Tell tell tell our audience What what what you'd like them to know about you us them in your life? Whatever so two things first of all, thank you so much for all the birthday wishes. It really actually means a lot this is a community and and It really is a lovely, lovely supportive community. So thank you all.

But what I want to say is when I was a prosecutor, so I was a prosecutor for almost 30 years, and what I used to always say is, put me out of business. I don't want to prosecute crime, right? Like make it so there is no crime. Make it so that you don't need prosecutors or you don't need as many prosecutors, right? Put me out of business. That, to me, equals success. And I'd say the same thing about this show in a way. I would love it that all we could do is sit in kibitz about our cats and our dogs and our kids and talk about happy things and talk about how great our President Harris is doing and how great America is and that we don't have to do these things. So I, although yes, I suspect we will never go out of business.

I wouldn't mind a world, or at least dream about a world where you don't need to have this type of show because there is so much misinformation in the world. But frankly, Popok, there is nobody, nobody I would rather do this with. I absolutely love doing this with you all the time and I love there's just nobody I'd rather be on this journey with than you and Ben

and all of the Midas Touch people. I think I'm very, I have a lot of moist eyes lately because one I'm under, I have, I'm not sleeping And two, my daughter just brings out so much joy in me, but I got a little moist eye there when you were giving your description of that. And that's legitimate and genuine. Love you, Karen. Glad it's your birthday. Glad you, I'm sure you celebrate it with your lovely family.

And our thoughts and prayers are always in support of everything in your life and everything that you do. So until our next midweek with Karen Friedman at KnitFlo and our Saturday show with me and Ben Mycelis, this is the end of Legal AF Midweek. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.