Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump SUFFERS Major Appeal LOSS on Sentencing

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

In breaking news, a New York appellate justice has just denied Trump’s second effort in the last 24 hours to block Justice Merchan from sentencing him on Friday for his 34 count conviction. Michael Popok explains the intricacies of the NY appellate process, and anticipates what Trump’s next 2 likely moves are to try to kill his sentencing. 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 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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that MGM dot com for terms and conditions must be 19 years of age or older to wager Ontario only please play responsibly if you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you please contact Connex Ontario There are so many breaking and fast-moving stories in Donald Trump's legal world today. You gotta be on MidasTouch Network and on Legal AF just to keep up. We got a new order on an emergency application that Donald Trump and his lawyers just filed this morning at the Appellate Division First Department, which is the Manhattan Appellate Court, if you will, for all things in his criminal life, in which they tried to convince

a Justice of the Appellate court, Justice Ellen Gessmer, to grant an emergency ruling, an emergency order to block Friday's sentencing of Donald Trump for his 34-count criminal conviction. And we've got the ruling by Judge Gessmer already. I'm Michael Popock. You're on the Midas-Dutch Network and on Legal AF. And let me not bury the lead. Justice Gessmer has denied the emergency request.

She is not going to, on an emergency basis, block the sentencing of Donald Trump's schedule before Judge Mershon on Friday, something that he can attend virtually. There was a debate, broke out, an oral argument in the courtroom in the first department in Manhattan on Madison Avenue. You had Todd Blanch, soon to be in the Department of Justice, but currently Donald Trump's lead criminal defense lawyer on one side. You had Stephen Wu for the Manhattan DA's office on the other. It all came down to immunity arguments. The Manhattan DA's position, of course, is there is no presidential elect immunity,

that everything related to this case happened before Donald Trump was ever president. The criminal conduct was before he was president, the indictment before he was president, the trial before he was president, the conviction before he was president, and the Friday sentencing before he's president. So what's the immunity hubbub all about? That's basically the argument for the Manhattan DA. On the other side, of course, you know what Donald Trump's arguments were in his filing papers and in his oral argument

directed to Justice Gessmer, and it's immunity, immunity, immunity. He's the president-elect. He's got president-elect duties. They'll be interfered with if he's got to be sentenced. Look, Donald Trump does not want to go before Judge Marshawn, even though he already knows that Judge Marshawn is not going to sentence him to jail because Judge Marshawn has already said he's not going to. He's going to do an unconditional

disposition or discharge, meaning the felonies stay on Donald Trump's record, all 34 of them, but he's not going to serve any time, he's not going to pick up trash on the side of the road. He's not going to do any of that. Donald Trump's not satisfied with that. Why? Because in a full-blown sentencing hearing, the judge in writing and orally is going to chastise Donald Trump. He's going to recite all the bad conduct that the jury found against him. He's going to recite all the bad conduct the judge found against him in contempt eight or nine times, all the acting out and lashing out and vitriol and crossing the line and attacking the judge

for being a criminal, attacking the Manhattan DA for being a criminal, claiming that there was a coordination with the Biden Justice Department or Biden himself. All those lies are gonna come home to roost during a sentencing hearing. That's what judges do. He's gonna talk about the failure to accept responsibility, the failure to show remorse,

and Donald Trump doesn't want to sit for any of that. He wants to have a victory lap before his inauguration. I've said it before, there's a cold hard rain falling right now on Donald Trump. Last week he loses the E. Jean Carroll appeal on his way to paying her $100 million for sexually assaulting, defaming her and being hit with punitive damages. Now he's not gonna be able, he's already lost one, two different motions by Judge Mershon in the last week

to try to throw away the convictions by a 12-0 jury. And now he's trying to convince Ellen Gessner. Now let me explain it to you from a New York practitioner standpoint, because I practiced in this court. I practiced in the first department. I've argued there. I'm actually admitted there. I was sworn in there as a young lawyer in 1992. I can't believe it. Justice Guestmer is effectively the duty judge. She was on duty today when the papers came in. There's one justice that's responsible for emergency applications. Five justices generally sit, sometimes six,

to listen to oral argument and make ultimate decisions on the merits of a case. But if you want an emergency application, you gotta go fishing and see who's there. And whoever's there, depending upon who's there, you might get your emergency motion granted. They wanted to stop Friday to allow for the full appeal on the immunity issues. The Manhattan DA's argument was for the full appeal on the immunity issues.

The Manhattan DA's argument was they're going to lose on the immunity issues and let the matter finally conclude before he's in office, before he's inaugurated, on the 10th, and then he can appeal the entire kit and caboodle up to the appellate courts. But right now the record is still incomplete and justice demands that we finish and sentence Donald Trump. That's the argument. This particular judge on duty, Alan Gessmer, ruled against Donald Trump. Now in the past Donald Trump has been successful. There's one justice in particular that he's randomly drawn a couple of times that had issued temporary injunctions, temporary stays

pending the full panel making their ruling, but not Judge Gessmer. She's not going there. Now it doesn't mean that she's going to be on the panel for the full-blown appeal. She may or may not be. It depends upon how that lottery wheel spins, that random selection wheel, but she has set a briefing schedule, which she's allowed to do in her capacity as an emergency duty judge. She says the motion is going to be heard or returned before the entirety of the panel, the five-justice panel, on the 21st of January. That's interesting. A day after the inauguration. So a day after the inauguration, Donald Trump is going to be filing papers before this Appellate Division First Department on his

full-blown brief and emergency application. She wants the opposition papers from the Manhattan DA by the 14th. She wants a brief reply in the morning of the 21st, and then they're going to have oral argument at some point thereafter. So obviously she knows how a calendar works and where the inauguration falls and picked a date after the inauguration. But as of right now, what does it mean? It means as of right at this minute, at two o'clock Eastern time,

this is how fast this story is moving, Donald Trump has failed in his first attempt to get the Friday sentencing postponed by an appellate court. He can try a couple of other things. He can try another emergency application, a slightly different way to the same court. I think that fails.

He can try to try to skip the appellate division first department and go directly to the highest court in New York state appellate world, which is the Court of Appeals, and try there. That's a harder and even narrower path because of the grounds that you have to allege up there. It's even more difficult to thread that needle, so that's going to be hard. And he could just say, all right, I've got big problems. Try to take the case to federal court, which he's tried to and it's been rejected before, try to lob an emergency application for an emergency stay or writ into the United States Supreme Court on the federal side.

But I think the first stop on that train has to be Sonia Sotomayor because she's responsible for all things New York. She's not gonna grant that. Maybe she'll think because of the immunity issue being raised, they need to bring it to the full nine justice Supreme Court. I think it's slim to none chance that the Supreme Court is gonna interfere in this area.

They're gonna argue on the Donald Trump side that this goes right to the heart of their immunity decision and the fact that they didn't want to have presidents being prosecuted for crimes committed and he's the president, there's presidential absolute immunity, but that's not how that immunity decision works. We've analyzed it extensively in Legal AF.

It's about when somebody who was president is being prosecuted for crimes while he was president. And you have to determine whether the crimes that he's being prosecuted for are based on conduct that are absolutely immune because it arises under his Article II power under the United States Constitution, and it's listed in the Constitution,

or it's a part of his official conduct stretched to its outer boundaries, that is all gonna have some level of immunity. But if it's private conduct, then it's not. And that was only about whether he could be prosecuted and participate willingly or unwillingly in a criminal justice system. We're beyond that.

This is about conduct before he was president. The trial happened already. The conviction happened already. He's been convicted before he was president. The trial happened already. The conviction happened already. He's been convicted before he was elected president again, and he's not even president today, as Stephen Wu reminded Judge Gessmer. We have one president at a time, and his name right now is President Joe Biden, until it's not, until 1201 on the 20th of January. I mean, let's just think of it that way. While Joe Biden is sitting in the audience, and he is going to go to the inauguration because he's a decent guy, while he's in the audience, until the oath of office is given by the Chief Justice to Donald Trump swearing him in on that strike of noon, he's President

Joe Biden. When he walks into that crowd, you know, hail to the chief should be played and it's for Joe Biden, not for Donald Trump. You only play handle the chief for one guy at a time. And that was Stephen Wu's argument today for the Manhattan DA. So is there a path in the state appellate court system for another attempt at a stay now that Donald Trump has failed to get the trial judge to do it, the first level appellate court to do it, yeah, there's probably one more Hail Mary at the court of appeals level. We may see that application today,

and I'll be right back here, or on PopePak Live tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern time on YouTube for Midas Touch catching up on all this. Then there may be an attempt at a federal intervention trying to not take the case to federal court, because he tried that and lost, but to not take the case to federal court, because he tried that and lost, but to try to lob at an emergency application for stay at the U.S. Supreme Court level, but I don't think he gets passed out to Mayor.

But if he does or he tries, come right back here to Legal AF and the Midas Touch Network and we'll catch you up on it. So until my next reporting, Legal AF here or or Legal AF the YouTube channel, in collaboration with Midas Touch, I am Michael Popak, and I'm reporting. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro-democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories, the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legal AFMTN. That's at LegalAFMTN.