Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump THROWS Co-Defendants UNDER THE BUS with Ruling

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

Michael Popok of Legal AF explains why ALL THE OTHER Trump CRIMINAL COCONSPIRATORS will NOT be able to use the new Supreme Court immunity decision to have their charges dismissed or convictions vacated. Popok explains that immunity is like a pardon and is only enjoyed by the person receiving it and that it's not like “executive privilege” which can extend to a third party other than the president at the time. Find out how you can get a free 30-day supply on bundles of new SuperBeets Heart Chews Advanced and save 15% for a limited time only by going to https://SUPERBEETSRADIO.COM, promo code LEGALAF Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! 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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This is Michael Popak, Legal AF, just because the presidency and Donald Trump by extension now enjoys absolute immunity or qualified immunity or conditional immunity or no immunity based on the Supreme Court decision. And I'll talk about how the waterfall falls into each of those buckets does not mean that those that were co-conspirators with the person who enjoys some sort of immunity is also immune from prosecution

and can move to dismiss their cases. Donald Trump participated, as alleged in the indictments, in Georgia, in the District of Columbia, in Mar-a-Lago, and in DC, in a series of conspiracies that he was the hub. Think of it as a wheel with spokes and the other co-conspirators are the other spokes along that hub, Donald Trump at the hub. Immunity, let's call it out for what it is. It doesn't mean you're not guilty.

It doesn't mean that you didn't commit the criminal acts as indicted. It just means that there is a principle that has now been established by this MAGA Supreme Court that renders what you've done, even if criminal, even if you should be convicted, even if you committed those crimes, you are immune. It's like a pardon, the flip side of a pardon. You did the bad thing, but for other reasons, and what MAGA and the right wing like to call separation of powers doctrine, we're going to put the presidency, the Article II president,

above the other branches of government in what was supposed to be a co-equal arrangement of a constitutional republic, where no branch was higher than the other by giving the president absolute immunity for core duties, core presidential responsibilities as they appear in writing the Constitution, giving them a conditional or immunity, presumption of immunity for official conduct in the role of president, qua president, and then no immunity for unofficial acts, they have put their fat fingers on the scales of justice and imbalanced the delicate balance of the founding fathers and the framers of our constitutional republic. Congress people don't enjoy immunity for official acts, at least right now they don't.

Supreme court justices don't enjoy immunity, at least right now they don't. Supreme court justices don't enjoy immunity, at least right now they don't. And so right now you've got the scales, this three level scale that was supposed to be legislative, judiciary and executive branch at OAC. Now, having said that, you know the co-conspirators, Mike Roman, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Ken Chesborough, and the list goes on. You know that they are going to argue, he's immune, I'm immune. He's immune,

I'm immune. That is not how the immunity doctrine works, even with this MAGA right-wing Supreme Court. And so inevitably, invariably, when Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark, who the Supreme Court went out of its way in their opinion to say that the Jeffrey Clark-Donald Trump interaction when he was trying to, Jeffrey Clark was trying to engage in a coup to overthrow the Department of Justice hierarchy and leadership and use and allow Donald Trump to use the Department of Justice as a tool as a

Weaponized tool to cling to power that is immune It's the only one they said is immune the rest they sent back to judge Chuckin to sort of sort it out Although they suggested that the interaction between Donald Trump and Vice President Pence, the pressure campaign, would also in their mind enjoy immunity, but they're leaving it to just shut in to make the final decision. Because when they don't want to make a decision, they go, well, we're the appellate court. We only make decisions on appeal as a reviewing court. We're not a trial court, except when want to be like in Jeff Clark. However, we know that Jeff Clark, former Department of Justice number four, who wants to be the attorney general

in a Trump restored presidency, it's going to be a battle between the disbarred Rudy Giuliani and Jeff Clark, who's now been exonerated because not because he got immunity, but because Donald Trump's interaction got immunity. they're all gonna file. Mark Meadows is gonna file. Motion to dismiss based on the ruling, US versus Trump, Trump versus US that just came out by the Supreme Court. And now with the trial courts,

the district courts are gonna have to decide is how do you extend immunity? I can tell you that there is no doctrine, at least at present, a constitutional doctrine that allows immunity granted to a certain type or a certain position in our government, a certain constitutional officer in our government, to be extended to somebody else. So even though Donald Trump is going to get some sort of immunity from much of what is in the indictment

that remains in the District of Columbia. We'll leave Mar-a-Lago aside for a moment. We'll leave New York aside for a moment. We'll do some other hot takes in midweek edition of Legal AF on that one. But there is going to be, out of the 45 page indictment in District of Columbia, surviving prosecutable wrongful criminal conduct as alleged overt acts and crimes, without a doubt.

Whether Judge Chutkin, and I did a separate hot take on this, is able to hold that evidentiary hearing she's gonna need to hold a mini trial and get this case up and running, even if it straddles election day and the inauguration, I think she's the judge to do it. Now, what about immunity extension? That's not a thing. The Supreme Court said that their separation of powers doctrine requires that the executive branch be above the law for official conduct and for core presidential function as expressed literally in the US Constitution.

That does not mean that co-conspirators who did the exact same thing enjoy it by extension. A lot of them argued, well, he had executive privilege, so I've got executive privilege. Privilege is different than immunity. Privilege is different than immunity as a doctrine. Privilege says there has to be basically two parties to a privilege, right? Whether it's an attorney and a client, whether it's the president and somebody who works with him in the executive branch, there has to be a, to paraphrase Judge, Justice Kavanaugh, what's it to me? What's the connection to me? There has to be connective tissue between the office,

the person holding the privilege, because the person holds the privilege, the attorney client privilege, the client holds the privilege, the executive privilege, the president holds the privilege, and the other third party. Immunity does not have any connective tissue. You get immunity, you. It's like a perverse Oprah Winfrey show.

You get a car, but not the other person. Not the person that you were in the conspiracy with. There's plenty of examples in the law where somebody is exonerated, not exonerated, that sounds like they got away with the crime. They're given immunity because of some doctrine, in this case, separation of powers. That doesn't mean the person that robbed the bank with them,

that tried to overthrow democracy with them, is going to get by extension immunity. Immunity doesn't extend. It has very short arms. It doesn't reach out to grab and embrace all the other co-conspirators. I'm looking at you, Jeff Clark, Mark Meadows, Ken Chesbrough, Sydney Powell, Jenna Ellis,

Rudy Giuliani, and the rest, and Mike Roman. Heart health and staying healthy, especially when you have a family that you want to be able to spend as much time with as possible, is so, so important. We could all benefit from heart-healthy energy. One of the best ways to get some, by supporting your blood pressure and circulation.

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and a free full-size bag of Tamaric Juice valued at $25 by going to LegalAFBeats.com. Get this exclusive offer only at LegalAFBeats.com. Those people, you know, oftentimes, I'll give you an example, in the world of prosecution, somebody gets a plea deal. This is the equivalent of the immunity. The Department of Justice or the prosecutor decides to give a cooperating witness who participated in the crime, no matter how heinous.

They give them immunity. They give them a plea deal. They won't prosecute them. That doesn't mean that the other people in the co-conspiracy who committed the crime, committed the murder, tried to murder democracy in this case, are going to be able to say, but wait a minute, he got a deal. Where's my deal? You don't get a deal. There's a... The Supreme Court has announced that there is a constitutional principle founded on separation of powers that's more important to them than what it appears to everybody else, which is they've now created a king who the next Donald Trump or this version of Donald Trump 2.0, right? This is like the Fast and Furious movies.

Donald Trump, Fast and Furious 2. Following the blueprint of what's in this decision by Justice Roberts writing for the majority, six to three of the court, we see it as, oh my God, look at the constitutional principle they've just established for our children, for our grandchildren. Donald Trump sees it as a playbook,

as a to-do list, as a odor's manual of what he can do next. But that doesn't let the others off the hook. The purpose of my hot take is to say all is not lost. Yeah, it was a sucker punch to the solar plexus of democracy. We gotta get off the mat now. We gotta get off the canvas with our gloves up and see how we navigate a path

to preserve our constitutional democracy. It was very similar to the sucker punch and the solar plexus punch to our democracy and civil liberties and women's rights that happened in the Dobbs decision, which also was in late June or early July two years ago, which ripped away an enshrined constitutional right for a woman to choose that had been in the Constitution as announced by the Supreme Court for over 50 years. The Roe vs. Wade right to choose and to make a decision about bodily autonomy and a right to an abortion. And we said, how are we ever going to survive? And how will this republic survive? Well, I think

it's motivated people, women and people who support women to go to the polls in large numbers and make sure this never happens again, to go to their state polls, to put on their state ballots laws that enshrine a right to choose for a woman and reproductive rights for a woman. Same thing here. This isn't just about Donald Trump. This is about how imbalanced now our constitutional republic is as a result of this decision. The Supreme Court just severed the relationship that holds, I almost said Donald Trump alone,

holds the presidency with a capital P, responsible and accountable to the people. There's no recognition of that. This Supreme Court is so upside down and has their head up their collective backsides that they can't see what the ramifications are going to be five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years from now in the hands of somebody not named Donald Trump but heaven forbid worse, who as I said sees this decision as a permission slip, as an owner's manual, as a to-do list for how to cling to power and do worse while in office with impunity, figure it out later, impunity, figure it out later.

Ask for forgiveness, not permission, just do it and hope it sorts out with this new precedent of Trump versus United States. That wasn't the message that the court, the Burger Court and the Warren Court during the Nixon era said about the criminality of a president in office. The right-wing mag I like to talk about and the ones on Supreme Court like Lawrence Thomas like to talk about, the first time in 200 years,

we have the prosecution of a former president, right? It's the first time in 200 years we've had a criminal president that refused to leave. Even Nixon didn't do that and running for office again. So, I wanted to make it clear the difference between immunity and privilege and to equate immunity given to Donald Trump by this Supreme Court from absolute to conditional to no privilege depending upon the act that will be decided by a trial judge, in this case for now Judge Judkin and future district court judges in the future. I wanted to contrast that and compare it to a plea deal. It's very similar to a plea deal.

Just because one co-conspirator got a plea deal and is therefore immune and immunized doesn't mean the others are. Same thing with pardons. It's very similar to pardons. That a president pardons one person of a multi-party conspiracy or crime doesn't mean the others are pardoned. Doesn't mean the others enjoy being pardoned or can point to the pardon as grounds for them to be have their claims dismissed. So I want to call out the decision by the United States Supreme Court for what it is. And it's dystopic on its surface, but I want to talk about

what are the dominoes that will now fall and what ones won't fall so that we can keep clear. There's going to be moments of confusion. I don't see the Trump versus US decision on immunity helping Donald Trump in the New York case, yet he filed a motion related to it in the New York case in advance of sentencing. You're going to see the Mark Meadows of the world and the Jeffrey Clarks of the world and others say, he was immune, I'm immune, or some version of that. I wanted to make it clear upfront with this hot take so you can hold onto it as you are buffeted by some of this competing and often false information out there.

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We are the network you've been looking for and that you're helping to build. It's like ultimate do it yourself network. So until my next hot dig, until my next legal AF, this is Michael Popak reporting. Heary, heary. Legal AF law breakdown is now in session. Go beyond the headlines and get a deep dive into the important legal concepts you need to know.

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