Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump UNRAVELS as ACCOUNTABILITY ARRIVES

Episode Date: June 9, 2024

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back for the weekend edition of the top-rated Legal AF podcast. On this episode, the anchors discuss and debate: (1) the sentencing process for Trump as a convicted felon, and what happens to the gag order against him in New York and the criminal contempt hearings; (2) strange and “out of order” developments in Judge Cannon’s courtroom in the Mar a Lago criminal prosecution of Trump; (3) whether a Georgia appellate court’s decision to stop the Trump Georgia criminal case from proceeding is racial in nature; (4) Steve Bannon’s upcoming jail sentence that takes him out of the running to host his podcast during the election; and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF Thanks to our sponsors: Lumen: Head to https://Lumen.me/legalaf and use code: LEGALAF to get $100 off your Lumen! 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. Beam: Get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to https://shopbeam.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF at checkout! Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to https://RocketMoney.com/legalaf 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 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://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coalition-of-the-sane/id1741663279 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The score bet app here with trusted stats and real time sports news. Yeah, hey, who should I take in the Boston game? Well, statistically speaking. Sounds perfect. The score bet, trusted sports content, seamless sports betting, download today. 19 plus, Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to ConnixOntario.ca Now that the ramifications of Donald Trump's felony conviction are setting in, the mischief is truly beginning in MAGA world. They're saying it's rigged over and over again, coming up with the latest MAGA conspiracies.

The most recent one, look, Justice Vershaun had an obligation to inform the parties that there was an individual who was making posts on the New York court system's Facebook page, claiming while the trial was taking place to have some connection to a juror as a family member, it should have been obvious by the individual's Facebook account,

a self-professed shit poster, whose avatar was a dead musician known for defecating on a stage that this was a prank. The individual came out and admitted to it being a prank. It's a malicious and unlawful one. And I wouldn't even want to use the term prank to call it what it is. But nonetheless, Donald Trump's now posting mistrial, all of MAGA saying mistrial, mistrial, mistrial.

And they are now spreading that conspiracy, despite the fact that the Midas editorial team and others were able to quickly debunk this nonetheless in the interest of transparency. Justice Mershon did what he had to do, but we're living in different times, right? At the end of an election, we used to accept the results of a free and fair election.

At the end of a trial, we used to accept the results of a free and fair election. At the end of a trial, we used to always say that we respect a jury verdict. With MAGA, we are in different times and we're seeing that play out right now. Speaking about being in different times, you also have MAGA Republican Jim Jordan immediately subpoenaing Alvin Bragg and Matthew Colangelo. Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, Matthew Colangelo, the Assistant Special Assistant District Attorney who helped prosecute this case subpoenaed them before Congress saying, look, we just want to ask you to show up at our weaponization of the federal government to just ask you about how state

prosecutors are trying to undermine Donald Trump, to which Alvin Bragg responded, look, as much as I appreciate your invitation, there's currently proceedings still taking place, but maybe tell me what it is that you want to actually talk about and we'll get back to you when we get back to you. We have sovereign interests as a state, Jim Jordan. I'm not sure if you've heard we have sovereign interests as a state, Jim Jordan. I'm not sure if you've heard of it. It's a concept called states' rights and federalism. We'll educate you on that if you need some help.

Also, Donald Trump requested that his lawyer, Todd Blanche, the living mannequin who just stands next to Donald Trump and scowls, or as I refer to him, kind of looks like the weatherman on the Anchorman movie. Trump asked that Todd Blanch babysit him when he has his first probation officer visit coming up soon. Justice Murchon granted that. We'll talk about all of that and more.

Also want to talk about federal judge Eileen Cannon's just truly bizarre orders. I mean, we know she's doing everything she can, and she already has done everything she can to delay a very simple trial from taking place, a very serious trial involving Donald Trump's theft of our nuclear codes, of our classified information, of our war plans. We've seen the surveillance footage of, uh, Walt T. Nauta, Donald Trump's, uh, valet literally moving the boxes that contain our nuclear secrets. This is some serious, serious stuff with such an

unserious, no offense to clowns, clownish judge and Judge Eileen Cannon. She's inviting random people, uh, who submitted amicus briefs to, uh, show up for a hearing that's going to take place at the end of this month and give oral argument. So she's having just random non-parties show up and argue the case to her, which is not something that happens in courts where the parties lawyers argue, not like, Hey, we're doing a party in Judge Eileen

Cannon's courtroom. Who's coming? Pro Trumpers, you're all invited in. So that's what she's doing over there. She's also moved the schedule around to hear like a day and a half to two days of Donald Trump's ridiculous arguments that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed and the money that's been appropriated for the special counsel's office is unlawful. Whereas she only devoted just a mere few hours for oral argument on special counsel Jack Smith's request to have a gag order on Donald Trump for his lies that when Trump claims that the FBI and DOJ have tried and are trying to assassinate them, which is causing death threats and potential acts of violence

against our law enforcement. Hey, law and order, right? Law and order. Also, Steve Bannon, his bond has been revoked. He will be going to prison July 1st. We'll talk about that. He lost all of his appeals and finally a federal judge presiding over his case. Judge Nichols, who by the way is a Trump appointed judge, uh, ordered that

Bannon go to jail on July 1st. Also the Georgia court of appeals, uh, has issued an order staying, pausing all proceedings in the Fulton County District Attorney criminal case until the appeal of the Superior Court's order denying the effort by Trump's lawyers and other defendants to get phoning will is disqualified. That appeal will be heard by the Court of Appeals and the Court of Appeals is staying all proceedings until that's heard. So justice delayed, justice denied when it comes to the Georgia Court of Appeals and Judge Eileen Cannon's proceedings. But where justice is served, Michael Popak, you see how what MAGA is doing, not we respect the verdict of the jury.

Um, it is let's attack the jury and come up with any conspiracy theories. Hey, Ben. Yeah, it's, it's where law and where the law and order party, except when our cult leader is the one that's at the opposite end of the law and the order. There's this new phrase that I, that I despise called lawfare, which they've come up with because they think that the justice system has been weaponized against their one guy. We have another name for it.

You and I and our audience call it justice. We call it law and order. We call it democracy. We don't call it warfare. There's no proof and there's no facts and there's no evidence of support that attorney generals, prosecutors, state and federal, the department of justice, the FBI, state judges, federal judges, appellate judges, or any of those parts investigators are weaponized against Donald Trump. And so

there's no such thing as lawfare, it's just a talking point on a palm card that the followers of Donald Trump like to use because they got nowhere else to go for a party that used to pride itself on law and order and on justice and criminal justice used to be one of their big talking points except when their guy got indicted and convicted. I mean this is what we're watching and every week that you and I do the show on Wednesdays when I do it with Karen, it's another example of our justice system operating despite tremendous attempts to destabilize it, undermine it, and pressure testing by Donald Trump. And we're trying to tear away at the guardrails, but it's working. Bankruptcy courts are handling the

liquidation of assets belonging to Rudy Giuliani and Alex Jones, the big denier of all, not an election denier, but mass shootings and school denier. The criminal courts are handling the criminal cases except for that big anomaly of alien canon that we're going to talk about, state and federal cases. Attorney generals are stepping up their game of having now waited for the Department of Justice to bring their suits are now stepping in and saying, we got to protect election integrity in our individual states and now we've got at least two of the attorney generals there doing that. Civil courts are doing their thing.

E. Jean Carroll awarded running with interest on a meter that's going to approach $100 million for defamation, for being a sex assault victim of Donald Trump, and probably going to be a likely plaintiff against Donald Trump. Again, an appellate court, state and federal, I'm not, I'll leave the Supreme Court out for a moment, are doing their part to rein in Donald Trump's reign of terror, criminality and kleptocracy, which he threatens to restore if he gets back into office. You and I have talked about it at length. I did a hot take on it. The first thing he is going to do, as all fascists do, is going to be to dismantle the independence of the Department of Justice. It's not, you know how I know he's going to do that? Because he says it out loud. It sounds like I'm not

interpreting it. I'm just listening and I'm comprehending what he is saying. And he's made it clear that he is going to weaponize the Department of Justice to go after his political enemies, starting he says with the Biden crime family, which in a talk about a projection moment, he says is the greatest crime family the world has ever known. I doubt that's possible or true. So he's already got this project 2025 that you and I have talked about in other hot takes and we'll do it one day here too, in which he's got a shadow government

Indians in think tanks and institutes that are all MAGA right wing and he's ready to bring back into office along with him. People that have either been indicted or convicted or lost their law licenses are all coming back. It's old home week at the White House. He's going to be bringing all these people back. Peter Navarro and Michael Flynn and Rudy Giuliani. And I posited this on a hot take, Ben, before I kick it back to you. There is nothing that requires that the attorney general be a licensed lawyer. How about this? Attorney General Rudy Giuliani under Trump administration. And if that sends Jill down your spine, then let me connect it to something we're going to talk about today. Associate Supreme Court Justice Aileen Cannon. And if you don't think that's

possible, then you're not watching him as his lips move about what he's going to do. There is, there is, and I'm not saying this in order to say there's a boogie man under the bed. There's not, it's not a boogie man. There's an up-and-running series of institutes and think tanks devoted to, in this project 2025, devoted to installing in all of the cabinet positions and all of the lawyer positions within government, sycophants of Donald Trump that'll do his bidding as he weaponizes the government and destroys the independence of the Department of Justice. Merrick Garland gets a lot of grief, and usually rightly so, including criticism on this on this network and from us. However, you can't challenge that he's not independent. We think sometimes he's too independent and also

in his use of the special counsel position, but at least we have an independent Department of Justice inside of the executive branch. Say goodbye to that if Donald Trump somehow finds a way to be restored to power. So one of the motivations for Judge Eileen Cannon even inviting these third party groups, two separate pro-Trump groups, one relating to the actual group Citizens United, is that this is part of her audition to become a Supreme Court justice. And what she wants to show Donald Trump

is the types of things that she will do for him that have never been done before. You don't invite random people into your federal courtroom to give random oral arguments just because. And she's inviting these groups to ultimately, I think, back her when she believes she'll be selected in a Trump administration, if that were to ever happen. And let's hope it doesn't happen and work to make sure it doesn't happen by putting out the truth out there. That she'll have the support of groups like that to try to push her through.

I mean, that's why I think she's doing it. And Michael Popock, you talk about our system working. And I would just with this caveat, and you and I think both agree with this, and I think it was implicit in what you were saying. Prosecutors, juries, we the people are stepping up and that part of it is working. Where it's actually not working is with right-wing Supreme Court justices who are stopping the jury process,

who are stopping the justice system, who are not making rulings, right? We haven't heard the Supreme Court rule on any of the major cases yet. They've paused the proceedings in Washington, DC. They're entertaining the concept of kings and monarchs that a president and former president can be actually above the law and have complete immunity from crimes. The mere fact that they're entertaining that when the very foundation of our country was built on a rejection to that premise.

That's why our country was created. What are we talking about? Monarchs were absolute immune. We the people created a system where no one is above the law. In Georgia, you've got the Republican court of appeals that's dominated there. That's pausing and stopping those proceedings there, despite the fact that a Republican appointed judge ruled against Trump, and then in Florida, you have a Trump appointee.

So if you want to see where the justice system is intentionally malfunctioning and combusting, it is through what the MAGA Republicans have done to it and what they want to do to it. The jury system works. The jury system should be respected. They want to stop that system from happening. Pope Buck, let's talk though, just so you see, this is what Trump's been sending out, you know, and there's emails like this every day. He's saying, join Trump's war council. I need you on my war council.

Biden and the deep state have declared all out war against me. Here's another one there. They opened fire on MAGA, end of the witch hunt. This is from a radical left war machine. Those are the messages that they're sending when it's no. No, you had sex with a porn star. You falsified business records when you made hush money payments. You lied about it.

It's a crime. It's a crime that's prosecuted in New York, not infrequently. A jury found you guilty. That's what went down. Washington, DC, you led an insurrection. You tried to overthrow our democracy. We saw it, we know what went down. Other people have pled guilty already in Georgia

for the criminal conduct as being part of that, because your own lawyers have pled guilty in connection with their role. And we all saw what went down there. You stole classified records. Your own lawyers have pled guilty in connection with their role. And we all saw what went down there. You stole classified records. You stole our nuclear codes. And your argument isn't, I didn't steal the nuclear codes.

Your argument, this is what his main argument is, that he's put in his court filings, that he's allowed to do it because when he was in office, if you're a president or former president, by putting them in boxes and shipping them to your homes, they automatically become your own personal property. That's his argument that our nuclear codes, they actually belong to him. And he has a whole political party, the Republicans, like, yeah, those are his personal nuclear codes. And we're all sitting here in the law and order legal AF community. What do you mean those are his nuclear codes? Those aren't his nuclear codes.

Those aren't his war plans. It's not Obama's war plans. It's not Clinton's war. It's not George W. Bush doesn't belong to them. They are temporary holders of an office where they take an oath to protect our democracy. What are you talking about? It's not lawfare. We know what happened. Here's the latest from the New York trial. This is where I said this reminds very reminiscent,

Popak, of the election, right? They throw out everything to try to discredit it. The event happens, they lose, and then they go into the next tier, which is that it's all rigged. You come up with your conspiracies, your 2000 mules or whatever the heck it's called, and that, by the way, there was a retraction there like three years later from Salem saying that, yes, we lied about that, this is all false. Too little, too late as that's being used and everything. But this is just the jury verdict version

of the election, right? This is what they do. And now you'll have a thousand conspiracies, everything's rigged, everything's one big plot. So Justice Mershon posted, today the court became aware of a comment, this was posted on Friday, that was posted on the Unified Court Systems

public Facebook page, which I now bring to your attention. In the comment, the user Michael Anderson states, My cousin is a juror and says Trump is getting convicted. Thank you folks for all your hard work. The comment, now labeled as one week old, responded to a routine UCS notice posted on May 29, 2024 regarding oral arguments in the 4 department of the appellate division unrelated to this proceeding. The posting entitled the appellate division fourth department will hear oral arguments the morning at 10. So just a random post had nothing to do with this case on the New York court systems website. Michael Anderson, if that's probably not even the name of the person posted that you see the post right there.

Um, the photo of like Michael Anderson is Gigi Allen, who's the deceased musician who like defecated on stage. And so the whole thing is a ruse and a prank. And then this account said, yes, it's a prank. I'm a shit poster. The, the account says I'm a professional shit poster. And then the person goes, take it easy. Let's just pull that up.

Take it easy. I'm a professional shit poster. An internet culture shit posting or trash posting is the act of using an online form or social media page to post content that is aggressive, ironically and trollishly poor quality. Um, we identified like dozens of other times where this individual had made posts like this, uh, before, but nonetheless, this is what MAGA is using right now and saying mistrial.

It was rigged. Look, some rando set. And by the way, it'd be one thing if cat turd this right wing influencer account was just like some random account. said, and by the way, it'd be one thing if cat turd this right wing influencer account was just like some random account. This is a, this is the most influential Republican account, one of the most influential Republican influencer accounts. Then all the other Republicans start posting it and Fox starts posting it. And then Donald Trump at like 1 30 AM in the morning posts mistrial. And so this is what they're running with now, that quite literally some internet

troll made a random post or a random internet troll made a malicious post on the New York website. And so they're going with that now. And the thing, Popak is in normal times, we'd all just be like, this is ridiculous and then move on. That's how this would normally go down. We're in a different time where, look, Justice Mershan did the right thing by bringing that to people's attention so we wouldn't be accused of, like, what if that was being planted by MAGA so Justice Mershan does not bring it up? And then they use the fact

that Mershon doesn't tell the parties as a way to try to get a mistrial. So Mershon did his job but now you have all of the MAGA saying, look it's rigged, some random person made that post. Who you know, damn the facts full speed ahead. Popak, what do you make of this? Oh, there's a lot there to unpack and things that we'll continue to talk about this segment in the New York Trial. I took a couple of notes while you were doing your analysis. One, the posting by Donald Trump where he said, they made me a convicted felon. Think about the sentence structure there.

They made me a convicted felon, as opposed to I was found guilty for my criminal conduct by a impartial and fair jury in New York after a two year process and a six week trial. I love that. The other one, we posted the cat turd. Not only is that an influential MAGA, whatever it is, it's actually got a blue check mark from X. This is the world that we live in now. I don't even think I have a blue check, maybe I have a blue check mark, but I think that's amazing.

The jury hoax thing has to be taken seriously by Judge Murchon, as you just said, this is not ripped out of the movie plots just a week ago of ripped out of the movie, you know, movie plots just a week ago in a federal case involving the theft of COVID funds totaling $50 million. A juror during jury deliberation had $125,000 bribe delivered to their house in cash. And the judge there had to deal with that. So jury influence and jury tampering is not just things of Hollywood creation. It happens. It just happened in a federal case. PS on that the judge figured out a way to separate the jury, protect the jury, let them complete their deliberations, and

all five defendants were convicted. But this happens, and it's not up to Judge Murchon and his team, who are already fending off with the Department of Public Safety in New York, death threats, which have escalated. That's a thing we haven't talked about here. We've talked about it, but just not at this moment. This lawfare rigged mistrial is also followed by right wing, not even dark web comments, hang the judge, assassinate the judge, kill the judge and his family

and everybody associated with it. Because that goes on in the echo chamber of MAGA because that's disgusting. And that just on in the echo chamber of MAGA because that's disgusting and that just rips the mask off that they are a legitimate political First Amendment party. They are not. They have pinned their hopes and dreamsGA wing that is a violent cult. And if every week it's a it's like flavor of the week. Last week it was, Mershon gave the wrong jury instructions because he allowed the jury to to to pick like a like a Chinese menu from column A or column B about which crime was being facilitated by the

by the business record fraud. No, he gave an appropriate business record fraud in furtherance of a second crime instruction to the jury under New York law where I practice and it will be upheld. And I'm just, for those that cross over and watch our episodes, I'm telling you straight here, listen to me. Come to the light, okay? It is going to be upheld by all appellate courts in New York. I saw a poll, Ben, that 55 or 60 percent of MAGA thought there was no way Donald Trump was going to be convicted. And they were shocked when he was, because they're not following the trial the way we are in our audiences. They're not using their critical lens the way we are. They don't know about the evidence that's being presented. They don't know what the jury is receiving in terms of information

and analysis. And instead they rely on Donald Trump saying, I was convicted by a rigged election of kangaroo court. The jury wouldn't even smile at me. Right? Because A, you're not liked, B, your lawyers were acting out in court on a regular basis at your instruction, and your defenses were ridiculous. And that's why the jury,

who was charged through their civic duty, which is what they did, we all wanna live in a world where there's a defense, even what is strange is Donald Trump's, and there is a jury and it's public and there is a result. You may not like the result, but you accept the result. Just as you said frequently on this network and during our own podcast, we were prepared to accept the result of the jury. We had a lot of nervous energy and hearts in our throats waiting when we heard the jury hit the buzzer twice, the verdict is in, we were like, oh shit. Not because we thought the fix was in. Alright, let's do that. If the fix was in and this was rigged, right?

And we're pro-democracy, so we're on the other side of MAGA. Why would we have been upset? We would have been popping champagne as soon as we heard the two buzzers because we would have been like, of course, here comes the guilty verdict. That's not what we were feeling. All the lawyers on this network, including those that are contributors to the legal AF, were like, oh crap, I wonder what's going to happen here because there is some great evidence that was presented and I think it's beyond a reasonable doubt, but I'm not the jury. And the jury's gonna have to make their decision. So when the jury verdict came in,

it was a relief because we thought justice was done, but if the jury came back and said, listen, mistrial, hung jury, and or he's exonerated, we'd be like, okay, it's not exactly what we wanted, but we accept outcomes of our legitimate institutions in America no matter what they are. The judge did the right thing on the whole hoax thing. The gag order to pick up there is still in play,

as you and I talked about right after the conviction came out. All the conditions of release are still in play because he hasn't been sentenced yet, and the appeal process is also part of the criminal justice system, and the judge is responsible for fairly administrating and administering the justice system. Blanche, the human mannequin that she referred to, he writes a letter along with his colleague his colleague, his associate, in which and they by the way, can be conspicuously absent is Susan necklace, who practices law regularly in New York, and apparently does not want to have anything to do with this. This reminds me when Joe Takapina

used to let Alina Haber file everything that he didn't believe in. Whenever you and I would see a Halina Haber filing without Joe Takapina, we knew this was going to be complete, not her bullshit, and it was going to be rejected quickly. Same thing here. No Susan Neckl, she didn't even cc'd. Susan Neckl was the co-trial counsel, not even cc'd on this. So Blanche and Emil Bové, his associate, write in and say to the judge, it's over. He lost. We think he should have won, but he lost. And we think he should be sentenced to probation. But in the meantime, he has a First Amendment right and he gets to go out there and he's got a debate coming up on the 27th of June and you got to remove all of this. The trial is over. And the prosecutor's write in to the judge

and say, what are they talking about? There's still the administration of justice that needs to be preserved by you. That's the focus of the gag order. Nothing's changed. It's gotten worse. And now the judge is going to set that briefing schedule and have that hearing or make a ruling on it. But I believe he's going to keep most of this gag order in place, especially when he is the subject, despite all this, he's the subject of tremendous violent rhetoric against himself, his staff, and others. And Donald Trump has shown that he has, as Mershon once said in the courtroom, a no self-restraint. And so he can't trust him to do the right thing, so he has to regulate.

We still have the criminal contempt proceedings that are not yet concluded. The judge hasn't made his rulings about all those things, you know, whether how he's going to find him in contempt, whether he's going to find him in contempt and all of that. So all of that is still in the mix. And lastly, before I kick it back to you, I thought the judge bent over backwards on the probation interview that has to happen. For those that, so we don't talk in complete shorthand here, have a little Patriot breakout session. The sentencing, whether state or federal, requires that there be a independent department, it's usually probation or pretrial services, depending upon which system you're in,

that does, prepares a report to the judge. Usually has a range of sentences that may be recommended in federal, it's off the federal sentencing guidelines. In state, it's like, all right, here's the 8,000 false record cases. This is how many people got sentences. This is the range of their sentences, just so the judge has that information. And then details about the individual who just got convicted, including his mental health. That's going to be an interesting interview. His social media, again, and his finances, not great right now.

Have you ever been convicted of, have you ever been judged to have committed fraud? Yes. How much do you owe? $465 million. Have you ever had a case against you related to violent sexual crime? Yes. How did that go? Not well. A hundred million dollar judgment that I haven't paid yet. This is the type of, you know, it's not, we're New Yorkers, so we sort of know Trump, but they still got to check the box

and ask the questions. So the judge is allowing, unlike in most cases, is allowing Blanche, the lawyer, to go in to this interview. I don't think it changes the outcome, but it'll give Blanche the opportunity to go out and I guess complain about it and Trump to complain about it. But there's going to be a report and the prosecutors are going to prepare a report and the defense can prepare a report. But the ultimate arbiter for deciding what happens on July the 11th for the sentence, whether it's probation or no punishment at all on one end of the extreme or 20, up to 20 years in jail on the other, is somebody named Juan Mirshad, who is the

only judge with broad discretion to set this sentence. Now once he sets the sentence, if it has any kind of jail time component to it, whether he defers having him report for his sentence until after an appeal process, which is sort of likely, so I don't think he goes in before the November election even if he is sentenced to jail time, and all of those factors, that whole thing, the conviction by the jury, the decisions made by the judge within his discretion in administrating the jury process and the rules, the decisions he made about evidence and decisions he made about all sorts of motion practice during this thing, along with the sentence goes together in whatever appeal Donald Trump is going to

take first to the first department of appellate Division, New York, first stop on the train, and then Court of Appeals. There is, and then lastly, there is no Supreme Court here, US Supreme Court here for Donald Trump. There's no like writ of habeas corpus to like jump over. It's just a garden variety fraud conviction, as you'll talk about when you, when I kick it back to you on Jim Jordan. this is a garden variety a Convicted felon for business record fraud in New York has nothing to do with the federal process constitutional law or Congress Popak I really enjoyed your legal lecture criminal sentencing 101 on

lecture, Criminal Sentencing 101 on Patreon. That's patreon.com slash Legal AF. If you ever wanted to sit in on a lecture from Professor Popak or myself, I'm currently off this summer and I'm taking off for the fall from USC Law, but I'll resume teaching back again next September. I wanted to be here, of course, for the election and some other things I'll be sharing with people as well. Um, go to patreon.com slash legal AF one more time, patreon.com slash legal. Af.

It also helps support the growth of, uh, this show. Um, and you'll get to sit in on some of those lectures. Check that out. Let's take a first quick break of the show. Proper sleep can increase focus, boost energy and improve your mood. Introducing Beams Dream Powder, a science-backed healthy hot cocoa for sleep.

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During that ad break, Michael, I was just reflecting on what that sentencing memo is going to look like from the prosecutors from pointing out Donald Trump. It'll be the most devastating sentencing memorandum like ever submitted, short of like a murder case. I mean, it'll certainly be the most devastating sentencing memorandum ever in a white collar kind of falsification case where you go through the background of an individual, have they been found criminally? Have they been found criminally responsible in other settings? Yes. The Trump organization has been determined to be a felon.

Donald Trump leads that. Have they been determined to be a fraudulent enterprise or a fraud? Yes. Donald Trump was just found liable for civil fraud. To your point, Michael, was he found liable for sexual assault or any violent types of crimes like that? Well, he was found liable, at least in a civil case, uh, for sexual assault, uh, and for defamation.

How has he showing any form of remorse, uh, taking accountability? Absolutely not. What's he doing sending out messages about people joining the war council and attacking the judge's daughter? I mean, they're going to show in that sentencing memo, hundreds of examples where Donald Trump's attacked the judge's daughter, attacked the prosecutors. And they're going to not just talk about the trial. They're going to talk about before the indictment, right around when the indictment was handed down when Donald Trump took the baseball bat to Albuquerque.

That's a very good point. In the photo. I don't mean to interrupt you, but all that stuff, Ben, that Donald Trump feared would come into the courtroom if he testified, including all of the cross-examination material that the judge said that the prosecutors could use if Donald Trump took the stand, may not have been fair game to be introduced to the jury without Donald Trump's testimony, but the probation department will, as you just outlined, will be able to use all of that against him. As you outlined all of that, I thought about it, it's like an NBA star. He just fills up all the boxes.

I mean, his stats are just outstanding. He does not, I mean, like you said, we can't wait to get our hands on this report. We should be able to. I would not be surprised if Donald Trump refuses to answer the questions. And I think part of having Todd Blanch show up that way is to refuse to answer the standard questions that everybody has to answer at an interview like that. Do not, you'll re replay this episode and we're going to call it here. First, I would say that he's not going to respond to most of the questions

and he's going to try to pull some stunt there. That's why he wants Blanche there. Nothing that he does is in good faith and then when he gets a significant sentence and one of the factors is gonna be his failure to cooperate with the probation department in their interview then all of MAG is gonna come back and they're gonna go oh that's rigged and it was unfair. Watch for that stunt that they're going to pull. He's very, very, very predictable. Just talking briefly though about what Jim Jordan and the MAGA Republicans in the House of Representatives are trying to do. They've been trying to interview with, uh, interfere with all of the

various, uh, prosecutions by first requesting an interview and then trying to subpoena all of the different prosecutors, whether it's at the federal level or it's the state level. Look, the jurisdiction of Congress is based on their enumerated federal powers, uh, within the house of representatives. is based on their enumerated federal powers within the House of Representatives. So the only hook for them to possibly have jurisdiction over a state prosecutor is if a state prosecutor,

one does something that interferes with the procedures or protocols of the federal government or through the spending power of the federal government. So if federal money was appropriated to a state prosecutor, that could be used as a hook to try to explore the relationship between state funds and how a prosecutor's using those funds, you know, state prosecutors using those funds. You know, one of the MAGA conspiracies out there is one of the members of the prosecution team, Matthew Colangelo used to work for the department of justice,

um, was a top person at the DOJ, left that job to be a prosecutor on the Manhattan district attorney's team. And so Merrick Garland must have ordered Matthew Colangelo to be a part of that team. When in reality, what seems to have happened is an accomplished lawyer, Matthew Colangelo, a law and order guy, just wanted a different job. And he wanted to be in a job. Like we all have different reasons for being in jobs where you can have, a job could be more fulfilling.

You can try to find your you think is your highest purpose or more money, whatever the reason is, someone's allowed to change jobs and move jobs. So it's not uncommon that a prosecutor works in different places. And so Matthew Colangelo wanted to work in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. He probably wanted to work there because he wanted to be involved in this case. And he said, I'm a good lawyer and this is a case I wanna be a part of and I wanna use my skillset there, right?

I mean, not everything is a MAGA, the MAGA conspiracies that, oh, Merrick Garland ordered it. So they wanna have Matthew Colangelo come in as well and testify before the House of Representatives. And I thought the response from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was just pitch perfect because if you just say no or you don't respond, the next move would be that Jim Jordan would have the Judiciary Committee institute a lawsuit and try to compel it. And the record would look like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's not even trying to cooperate at all,

and he's in kind of bad faith. And so what you have to kind of do when you respond to these things is you have to engage at least in like a little bit of a good faith dialogue. So Jim Jordan, obviously acting in bad faith, sends the requests that Alvin Bragg and Matthew Colangelo show up at this like ridiculously named hearing that like only MAGA could come up with. I mean, just if you take a look at even like the name

of what the hearing is, it just goes to show you like how MAGA and Jim Jordan like actually view justice. So if you look at what they're calling it, they're saying it's the hearing in Rayburn, the hearing will examine actions by state and local prosecutors to engage in politically motivated prosecutions of federal officials, in particular,

the federal prosecutions of President Donald Trump. I think that just goes to show you how they view the justice system, right? Rather than just give the hearing a generic title and they want to engage in fact-finding and just find what the evidence is, they've already called the hearing the outcome, right? They've already basically said, we found you responsible and that you've acted inappropriately now come into our hearing. And again, that's what they want to turn our justice system into. And so Alvin Bragg responded and was just like, look, I'm happy to engage in a constructive

dialogue with you. In fact, there may be a circumstance where we show up and not at that hearing, but we can provide you with information, give us more info what you're actually looking for here. And then, of course, while appeals are pending and while sentencing hasn't taken place, we can't meet with you before then, there are active proceedings taking. So that's not going to happen anytime soon, but I thought it was a good response. But the broader point though was, I think also when you see how they're labeling the hearing, that's their view of justice, not let's let a jury decide. No, Jim Jordan, James Comer, Matt Gates, Donald Trump will give you the outcome, show up, and then they will start yelling at you and then

say, aha, there's the outcome. Right. And two of your points there this is this is round two of Jordan V Bragg they already had a fight two years ago year and a half ago over a subpoena process related to a Donald Trump and the original investigation where they wanted to bring in Mark Pomerantz, who was the special prosecutor that Alvin Bragg's predecessor, Cy Vance, had appointed to look into Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump and all things Donald Trump who noisily exited. We won't bore everybody with the details again, but there's a book out there, People versus Donald Trump, Mark Pomerantz's

fevered dream of how he would have prosecuted him if he woke up one day and was the Manhattan DA, which he wasn't. But of course, that gave fuel oxygen to MAGA and to Jordan and to Comer, and they wanted to bring Mark Pomerantz in and they subpoenaed him. And then there was this whole fight. And then finally, Alvin Bragg decided to resolve it similarly to the way he's resolving it now like you want a piece of me? You want to talk to me? You can talk to me and I think that'll go about as well as when recently because MAGA got sort of full of themselves and what they were able to do with some presidents of some major universities about the protests that have been going on on campus a number of them lost their jobs over the way they answered questions to things like to to do with some presidents of some major universities about the protests that have been going on on campus.

A number of them lost their jobs over the way they answered questions to things like to people like Elise Stefanik. They tried it again with public school leaders and they got no pun intended. The MAGA got schooled by the school administrators, including the superintendent of schools for New York, who sort of like in the same, you know, cut from the same cloth as Alvin Bragg in terms of, you know, being a New Yorker and being, knowing what he's doing in his, in his area of expertise. And I think that's, I think I would pay and buy popcorn and, and give everybody popcorn to watch Alvin Bragg, who's, who's really amazing and super smart and down to earth and sophisticated,

yet humble, yet is able to communicate and eviscerate. He's a prosecutor, every job he's ever had, he's been some sort of state or federal prosecutor. And people follow Alvin Bragg. Alvin Bragg spent a very short amount of time in the state prosecutor's office. His main prosecutorial chops were made on the federal side and working for the attorney general of the state of New York. He's held all

the jobs. He's had all the positions. That's why he's so supremely qualified and the New Yorkers voted him in. So people like Matt Colangelo following Alvin Bragg and wanting to be a part of his of his talented squad, squadron of elite litigators and trial lawyers for justice in New York is no surprise because Alvin Bragg will attract that kind of talent to come work with him, especially people that had federal background the way that Alvin Bragg did. On the I love your comments. It's so perfect about the the the the titling the labeling of these things Which is already the conclusion that they want to reach that we're gonna talk a little bit later about alien cannon Allowing all this amicus brief people

Three different ones two pro trumpers and of course just to show that she's fair and balanced one That supports the Department of Justice position about whether this interesting notion, only interesting to Alien Cannon, about whether the special counsel was properly appointed or funded. Like, what are you even, well, we'll get there. I don't want to jump the gun on it. But there, at least one of the people that wrote an amicus brief that's going to be able to argue appeared in front of another Jim Jordan special Which was the weaponization of the department's the title not we're looking into the Department of the

weaponization of the Department of Justice And how it's being used improperly against Republicans Like I thought you're holding a hearing to determine if there is, has been, weaponization. Not that you're starting from the conclusion and then only allowing people in to reinforce your foregone conclusion. I mean, you're right. Talk about kangaroo court. Can you imagine if out in front, the equivalent would be that if you went to the wooden door in front of Judge Mershon's courtroom, and instead of listing people versus Donald J Trump, starting at 8 a.m., 9 30 a.m., whatever, in this courtroom, instead it said the anticipated conviction of Donald Trump for 34 counts of felonies

starting today at 9 a.m. That would be the equivalent. And everybody would be like, oh my God! Now that's a kangaroo court. Not what you and I do for a living, but what we were trained to do for a living and what we're watching here. So, when and if we see Alvin Bragg or anybody else, Macalangelou show up in Congress, it will be a mismatch. But the other way, the cat is the New York prosecutors, the mouse will be the MAGA leaders of these phony committees. Couldn't agree more with you there, Popak. I want to remind everyone, patreon.com Couldn't agree more with you there. Pope I want to remind everyone, patreon.com slash legal AF is the destination. If you want to get those really geeky, very nerdy, Michael Pope, Pock legal

action, Pope, Pock legal. If you want to geek out with professor Pope or my, or myself, go to patreon.com slash legal AF. It also really helps build this platform. We don't have outside investors, so we rely on those pro democracy sponsors who we appreciate and that a Patreon is some of the main ways that we're able to grow this patreon.com slash legal AF, go check it out right now. And let's hear from some of those pro democracy sponsors.

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That's rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. Rocketmoney.com slash legal AF. Thank you to our pro democracy sponsors right there. Popak taking a little cheap shot at Paramount Plus, which you discovered with Rocket Money over there. And I'm not, you know, I, I hear you, but I do like how they help you find those subscriptions that you don't even know that you had because I had a few of those and I was like, all right, that's a problem.

Anyway, thank you for your response. I don't know why I said that one in particular. It was probably one of the list of things that I got rid of. Well, you know what? Sometimes we gotta consolidate it. I absolutely get it. All right, talk about just,

we've talked about it at the outset of the show, so let's just touch on it briefly here. Judge Eileen Cannon, in another bizarre paperless order, inviting two pro-Trump groups, and then one group that's just upholding what the law is on this issue about the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith. Now, I've called it like a tinfoil hat kind of argument that, uh,

Donald Trump's making here because this has been decided over and over again in many other courts. It's a legal issue. It doesn't require a hearing. And in fact, it's a legal issue that a judge Sue Esponte on their own initiative should just rule on and just say, no, I'm rejecting it out of hand right away. Trump argues that special counsel Jack Smith's appointment was unlawful claiming that Jack Smith, because he's not an, you know, a technical officer, um, cannot have been selected through the department of justice process

and selected by Merrick Garland that it required Senate confirmation. Um, and as a result, the entire criminal case is against Donald Trump is unlawful and needs to be dismissed. And also because special counsel Jack Smith was not Senate confirmed, the appropriations, the funds that go to the DOJ that then go to pay for special counsel Jack Smith are improper and unlawful. And as a result, uh, the entire case against Donald Trump should be dismissed. That's a Trump's argument. Uh, judge Eileen Cannon, rather than just dismissing it is holding a day and a half

of oral argument at the end of June on that, uh, issue. And then she's saying that she's going to be holding half a day to address Jack Smith's request that the conditions of Trump's relief be expanded or release be expanded to prevent him from lying that he's currently the victim of attempted assassination attempts by the department of justice and the FBI. And that he was the victim of an assassination attempt at the during the Mar-a-Lago search simply because one of the documents turned over in discovery in the Mar-a-Lago criminal case was the standard use of force policy that exists in every single

search warrant that gets executed across the country. But Trump says, look, lethal force. It uses the words lethal force. And as a result, they tried to kill me. They're coming after me. They're trying to kill me. It's the most ridiculous argument in the world. It's not even an argument. It's just yet another one of the it's rigged, uh, whining.

They're trying to kill me, join my work. You know, it's, it's just his kind of loser whining, um, attack on our justice system types of stuff, but look, Judge Eileen Cannon's entertaining it. She's already done enough stuff to kick the trial out indefinitely. So there's not going to be the trial before her. There's really nothing Jack Smith can do right now because there's no final order. I mean, yes, you could potentially seek a writ with the 11th Circuit, but it's potentially seek a writ with the 11th circuit, but the path to doing that would likely result in Jack Smith not prevailing because there's not a final

order and if Jack Smith loses before the 11th circuit, that loss will forever prevent him from removing Judge Eileen Cannon because once you lose there, you're not going to be credible if you attempt to do it again. So, you know, he's waiting patiently for a final order. And, you know, I know there are people who are saying, like, Judge Eileen Cannon is, she's outmaneuvered and outplayed Jack Smith. That's like saying an umpire who calls a ball when it's a strike has outmaneuvered the batter. I mean, the judge, the empire, you're supposed to call balls and strikes.

And so it's not like the batter's being outmaneuvered per se. She's not following the law. But once again, we see another example where the norms and the good faith and the, our system is based on the idea that federal judges are accomplished, smart, intelligent people. And yes, they may have a little political bent, but they have life term appointments. They're supposed to put that aside. And when they wear that robe, they're supposed to understand the august nature of their responsibilities and not with Judge Eileen Cannon that would be a massive massive understatement and federal judges have discretion over their scheduling you can't reverse them moving

things around like that and she the lesson that she learned when she was reversed by the 11th Circuit the first time is if I never make a ruling I'll never get reversed so let me just turn never make a ruling, I'll never get reversed. So let me just turn my courtroom into a circus. I'll get the support from the MAGA lawyers. In fact, let me invite the MAGA lawyers in for a party in my courtroom. We could all have an argument together.

They'll get my back. And that's where she's going with this, Popeye. What are you making? I mean, I know we talked a lot about this, but what are you making? Yeah, I'll just throw my two cents in there quickly. First of all, there's been recent reporting of about a dozen or so fellow members of the Southern District of Florida, which I am also a member in the courts there, who've come

forward and have said anonymously that Judge Cannon usually bends over backwards against defendants in her courtroom. She is notorious as far as they're concerned for, we kind of call it the, you know, the hobgoblins of little minds. She gets very over her skis about minute issues. She loses the forest from the trees. This isn't her other cases. She has very little experience when it comes to trials. She was an appellate lawyer for the Department of Justice, if you can believe it. Never was a frontline prosecutor trying cases. Tried very few cases before she got this case because of COVID, almost none in her courtroom and certainly none about the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice about a former president. And so her normal instincts to side with the prosecutors has gone out the window.

And the only thing you can use to explain that is she's not only a member of the Federalist Society, she's gone to these Federalist Society boot camps at universities like the Antonin Scalia Law School that's run effectively by Leonard Leo, who founded the Federalist Society and hosts people like Aileen Cannon. She's gone there during the course of this prosecution. And so I'm sorry, you can only conclude that she's not doing her normal thing, which is being harsh on defendants is because, as you said earlier, this seems to be an elaborate tryout for higher office for Aileen Cannadim. There's no other way to explain it. And you were kind to her. You said she was reversed once. She was reversed twice

before even the indictment even came out about her handling of the case. And you're right, she learned all the wrong lessons about how to avoid reversible orders. And the things that she finds interesting are not really interesting at all because they've already been cited over and over again, both expressly by other appellate courts, other trial courts, the federal system, and even implicitly by the United States Supreme Court that the special counsel, which replaced, just to do a little historical thing for a minute. Prior to the special council there was a thing called the independent council. It was a statute, it was created by Congress, it was bipartisan and it was used. Ken Starr was the independent council prosecuting and investigating Bill Clinton in Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky, and Larry Walsh was the Independent Council investigating Reagan for Iran-Contra. You know, that was the Oliver North, you know, thing there. And after both of those investigations,

the Republicans and the Democrats at the time said, we hate the independent counsel office, and they scrapped the law. They let it lapse, they didn't renew it. It got replaced by what we call the special counsel, even though he is also independent, it's different than that independent counsel thing that I just described. And it is also a animal,

a creature of being created by Congress and funded by Congress and it has rules and regulations about what the the Attorney General can and can't do and how he has to report to Congress ultimately about the ultimate reports and what and all that it's all regulated by Congress. The funding for it is regulated about how it comes out of out of it and all of that. Aileen Cannon hears that there's a there that there was a Supreme Court case about funding about a bureau of the government,

which was the Consumer Protection Bureau. And even the MAGA was okay with how the Consumer Protection Bureau was funded by Congress. But she immediately wrote a paperless order and said, I would like everybody prepared to comment about this new precedent about funding and a bureau and how it may relate to the special accounts. Like what are you even talking about? At this point she's already done the thing that she

wanted to do. She's taken this trial off the docket for the American people. They are not going to have the benefit of an exoneration or a conviction of Trump on these issues about, as you said, espionage act, stealing America's national defense information and top secret documents, classified documents by a former president. We are not going to have the benefit of that information, that data set, before the November 5th election. She's already done that. The rest of this is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic at this point.

Well, oh, let's use the 23rd for a hearing about with a gag order about putting FBI at risk. It's an important issue, but this case has already hit the iceberg and is sinking fast. And unfortunately, Jack Smith, despite all of his brain power and all of his acumen, seems to be has been flummoxed. And there's a little, you know, there's been a little bit of acting out by a frustrated Department of Justice, even in her courtroom, you know, where they're banging, rightly so, banging on the table and arguing it to the point where the judge was like, calm down, just calm down. Well, it's not about

that. You know, as my mother would say, you know, when two kids are fighting over the bicycle, it's not about the bike. And they're acting out by the prosecutors in the courtroom is not about whatever's going on at that particular moment. It's that they are flummoxed and frustrated by watching her make a mockery of our justice system. And, you know, I don't know what's going on in the minds of the chief judge for the 11th Circuit. I don't know what's going on in the minds of the chief judge of the Southern District of Florida. But they can't be happy with what this is doing and for the reputation of what was once a once proud, uh, federal, uh, federal district court, of which I proudly call myself a member on the attorney side of, of what this is doing in the annals of history about

this, how this case was handled by this young, inexperienced Federalist society, Trump-er. That's all I can say. Look, I know how strongly, how important it was for you when early on I was calling out Judge Eileen Cannon and you would push back on me, not against Judge Cannon, but you would say, Hey, look, Ben, what we really have to be very careful about though, is this Southern District of Florida has such a proud tradition. And you say,

I'm a member of that bar. I mean, you know, we have to believe that she's going to rise to the occasion and recognize the august judges on a bipartisan basis, who she sits with and looks around and the reputation of that courtroom must mean something to her. Let's just see. And it wasn't coming from naivety. I think it was coming from your love of law and order. And to watch you have to go through the journey of coming to this conclusion that, you know, this, this is a rogue and corrupt judge where you vocalize it now in the way you do, notwithstanding the fact that you practice there and how hard it is for you to have to do that for practicing in front of that court for so long. It's kind of like a sad, I don't feel sad for you.

It's like a sad thing to see that that institution be so tarnished. And then our country be so tarnished by these maggot judges. Like justice delays, justice denied. We see that in Georgia as well, where the Republican controlled court of appeals, they are also issued a stay. They're going to be hearing the appeal of the ruling by the Fulton County superior court, Judge McAfee, where he denied the effort by Trump's lawyers and others to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fonny Willis because she had an adult, consensual,

short relationship with somebody in her office where there was zero evidence that was actually that came out that that interfered in any way with the proceedings all they focused on was the salacious nature of where they went and did they have sex and when was the first time they had sex not whether it actually interfered at all with the prosecution judge McAfee said I don't like that that relationship took place, which I was like, who are you to say you don't like? Donald Trump's committed sexual assault.

Like, you don't like, people have relationships that work all the time, what do you mean you don't like it? So, but he's like, I'm not going to, you know, do anything to this case so long as, so long as, you know, the guy leaves the case and, and whatever. And, and, and, but I'm not going to disqualify her. So Trump appeals that on an emergency basis, emergency base, emergency. A female black district attorney had sex with somebody in her office.

This is the emergency. Not that I stole classified documents or nuclear codes or try to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. No, no, no, no, no. A black female prosecutor had the audacity to have a short adult loving consensual relationship with someone in her office. Let's go to the court of appeals. The court of appeals go, we need to hear this.

Not only do we need to hear this, stop the proceedings. Stay it. This is so serious. And the anger I'm channeling there is how outrageous this is. And it does show when we want to talk about the different tiers of justice and the way things are. That's the issue. What are you talking about?

You want me to go through, should we go through Michael Popak, the private lives of all of the white male prosecutors out there, other white prosecutors, see who they're screwing, see who they're dating, see, let's go through their text messages. Let's see what they do in their private life. Let's go into their bedrooms

and then let's overturn all of their process. What are you talking about? That's not the way our justice system works. There was a hearing that should never have even taken place to begin with. And the fact that this is even getting there, frankly, I blame Judge McAfee for even entertaining this ridiculous thing to begin with.

But you have the hearing that focuses on all these ridiculous, salacious details, people's private lives, their private life. People have relationships with people like that all the time, but because it's a black female prosecutor, that's what that's about. And now it's an emergency issue that we need to stop the prosecution of Donald Trump in Georgia until the appeals court can go, okay. So tell me when was the first sex act that took place? Michael Popak.

Yeah, well you laid it out great. I mean, you're right. This was completely invited by McAfee. I mean, it was a Pyrrhic victory for Fawni Willis. It should not have gone the way it did. And the way that another inexperienced judge, who was only on the bench for six months since Scott McAfee, who we held so much hope for, even though he was a Republican appointee, just based on his background, on his track record and the way he was making some initial rulings. But then when it came to the moment of truth, when he had to handle a very sensitive issue about allegations, and that's all they were, raised against a black female prosecutor in Fulton County, Georgia, he fumbled the ball. There's no

other way to put it. And you and I said from the beginning, and joined by Karen Freeman, our colleague, said this is not the way you handle a hearing like that. You start with having the lawyers at best make a proffer of what they think the evidence would show, and then show the case law and have a whole academic debate and legal debate about whether under the case law, even if the proffered facts were true, whether that would meet the standard to disqualify the prosecutor or show that there was forensic misconduct, which is a term of art in Georgia,

or whether there was any kind of financial misdealings that somehow impugned the integrity of the criminal justice process. That's what you do. And then you make a decision. And if only after then, that's the gatekeeping function the judge should have done, especially given what was being, what Foddy Willis was being accused by, of, and by whom. Instead of doing that, he went right to evidentiary hearing. Let's have four days of people speculating about the sex life and what goes on in the bedroom of Fonny Willis and somebody that she worked with and

Now we're off and running and then the invitation that McAfee made to the the Trump side In Mike Roman and Donald Trump and the six others that have now appealed was the way he wrote his decision Which was really disgusting and and and it was misogynist in his own way and insulting to Fonny Willis. And he used the term that will now go down in the annals of history the wrong way, which was the odor of mendacity hangs over this case. And I can't get to the bottom of exactly who's lying, but I didn't really like what Fonny Willis said. I didn't like what Nathan Wade said and so there's an odor of

mendacity aha the odor of mendacity Steve Sadow said for Donald Trump and takes his appeal certified by this judge McAfee and now it's been assigned to three right wing can we put the photo back up this photo will speak a thousand words without me saying much okay Uh, okay. All right. Tell me the result based on this photo of what, of what this appellate court is going to do in the hinterland of, of Georgia in the, in the concern more like the more Marjorie Taylor green section of Georgia than Atlanta, that's where these three judges are from or from that area. And they, they found it so interesting that as I was doing my hot take about it,

where I said, Trump is going to ask for a stay and he's likely to get it. They already on their own granted the stay of everything in the case. Um, and so there will be no trial, the trial that we held so much hope for. And the prosecutor too, from the very beginning, as we were trying to follow this horse race, Alvin Bragg, Fonny Willis, Jack Smith, and we were like, you know, that's one of the benefits of you and I covering with Karen on a real time basis,

developments at the intersection of law and politics, is that at any given moment, if you pulled, as we said before, if you pulled one of our episodes, you'll see, oh, we think Fonny Willis is going to be the first one, even though she was the second to indict, she'll be the first to trial. And then, okay, or wait, wait, Alvin Bragg's case. Here we go. Alvin was the first to indict. Now he pulls into the lead about halfway through this.

But no, Jack Smith, Mar-a-Lago is the easier case. It'll be Jack Smith and the Mar-a-Lago case going first. I feel like I'm calling the Kentucky Derby. But at the end, it was Alvin Bragg first to indict, broke the glass ceiling, giving permission and license to other prosecutors to say, hmm, you can prosecute Donald Trump successfully. And then you had Fonny Wells,

and then you had, of course, Jack Smith a couple of times. But now the case we held up so much hope for a year and a half ago, and the prosecutor, her reputation is improperly in tatters, although not to the people of Fulton County, where she won overwhelmingly by 30 points in her primary recently for reelection. They've circled the wagons around Fonny Willisis and she will be reelected as the Fulton County district attorney people's choice for that position. But her reputation because of the way judge McAfee handled it has taken a hit.

Now, fortunately, I'll leave it on this. If Mike Roman who led the charge with his lawyer against Fonny Willis thought he was out of the woods and yay, there's not going to be a prosecution of me in Georgia before the election. The attorney generals as I said at the top of my piece, the attorney generals are stepping in to do their thing and they've indicted Mike Roman again in Wisconsin related to his being one of the coordinators of and implementers of the fake elector scheme led by Donald Trump because he was the election day election day coordinator for Donald Trump and more

importantly to continue his vocabulary on this particular show he was the mule who was the mule for the certificates to try to get them into the hands of Mike Mike Pence so this is again we are, I guess back to my horse race analogy, people should take comfort that we have so many checks and balances and overlapping aspects of our justice system, the attorney generals who have criminal powers, the local prosecutors and district attorneys in the state side, the federal prosecutors, the inspector generals, you know, the various court systems. And while somebody like Trump may wriggle free from one of these or get a delayed or a justice delayed, justice denied thing somewhere, somebody else is going to

step forward. This is exactly what we saw in New York when Trump skated by and his Department of Justice didn't of course prosecute or investigate Donald Trump about the Stormy Daniels thing and went after Michael Cohen instead. The Manhattan District Attorney, who at the time was Cy Vance, soon as they were done said, now it's time for our office to take a look at what happened in our state about crimes here by this particular individual. So I guess what I'm trying to say is even though I had a moment here when I got, as you saw, disappointed, a little choked up about what's going down in Florida, I do have a lot of confidence and I want to telegraph that to our audience about the overall American justice system as we've

described here time and time again and its ability to as just like a jury to get it right ultimately. We might have to be patient. We kept talking about when you and I found at the show the wheels of justice are gigantic and they and they move slow but they grind very fine. And that this is again another series of examples that you and I have talked about on this podcast. Well, here's what we told everybody a year ago. We said by June of 2024 that Donald Trump would almost certainly be a convicted felon and he would have about $500 million in judgments against him. Go back, look at some of the Legal Aid episodes.F. episodes, and multiple Legal.A.F. episodes.

He'd be a convicted felon, and there would be about $500 million of judgments against him. Now, that's taken place. And I think a lot of people said that would never happen. He's a convicted felon, and he's got over $500 million judgments against him. But now the MAGA Republican party moves the goalpost.

They don't like the jury system anymore. They don't like our election system. They don't like the jury system. Now everything is rigged. Everything is a hoax. And we know they said that before, but again, the links are uncanny between their response to the election laws. And now that he's a convicted felon, they don't respect the jury process anymore.

Everything is rigged in their own mind. I want to share this one moment though, too, because I think this proves that point and it also ties into Bannon being ordered to prison on July 1st, which is a, I think a great way also to end the show with justice being served there as well. Um, Donald Trump's, uh, kind of Magus Vangali, uh, Steve Bannon, who only worked for, you know, nine months in the Trump administration and then was a podcaster. And then he refused to show up to the January 6th, uh, committee in response to their subpoena and then belatedly claimed that he should have executive immunity as a, uh, as,

as, uh, as a podcaster, which makes absolutely no sense at all. Um, he was convicted by a jury of his peers. He appealed and delayed and did every Trumpian tactic to delay this thing. appealed and delayed and did every Trumpian tactic to delay this thing. Ultimately, all of those delays backfired because now that he's lost all of his appeals, a federal judge, Judge Nichols, who's actually has to, who's following the law, Trump appointee who's following the law. So I just wanted to say that not everyone's like a Judge Eileen Cannon. Um, so although I have some issues with Judge Nichols ruling on the issue of obstruction of official

proceeding where Judge Nichols said he was the original judge to dismiss a case and said it was not obstruction of official proceeding if it didn't involve paperwork. That case is before the Supreme Court right now, which has impact on all of the other insurrectionist cases, but we'll set that aside just for the moment until we get a ruling from the Supreme court there. Judge Nichols ordered Bannon to jail or to prison. Bannon will start a four month sentence, uh, beginning July 1st. His bond has been revoked and he has to report on July 1st, but all of the delays

that Bannon did backfired because now Bannon's likely going to be incarcerated during the kind of four months leading up to the election where Bannon would have wanted to work the most mischief. He just would have served his prison sentence, he'd be out now, but now he's going to be there during kind of the key moments where he would normally work all of his mischief that he did in 2020, which is why he was being subpoenaed in the first place to the January 6th committee. So he ended up screwing himself there. And then in September, there is the trial for the We Build the Wall scam that he engaged in where he was pardoned by Donald Trump at the federal level where Trump said he was

going to build the wall. He didn't, but they did do a GoFundMe. And then the feds, Donald Trump's Department of Justice man arrested Stephen Bannon, Steve Bannon when he was on the yacht of Miles Guo, who's now been indicted. Miles Guo was the big funder of all right-wing media. Um, he was charged with a billion dollar fraud scheme. Not to be confused with the Epoch Times where their CFO was just charged with a massive money laundering scheme. One of the other

big MAGA right wing media is another criminal indictment there with their other media. I know a lot of indictments happening because a lot of crimes are happening. Bannon was on the yacht of Miles Guo. He was arrested in the federal level for the We Build the Wall scam, where they said this GoFundMe was used to basically fund lavish personal stuff of Bannon and the other founders of the GoFundMe and not actually to, you know, build the wall with the private funds. Trump pardoned Bannon. Then Bannon was charged in New York. He'll be before Justice Mershon in September,

but in the meantime, Bannon will be serving in prison for four months starting July 1st. But I wanna show you this audio here. What would the January 6th committee wanna talk to Bannon about? Well, Bannon, remember Miles Guo, who I just mentioned, who's been indicted for a billion dollar fraud, used the money to fund right-wing media,

used it to help fund Bannon and other people like that. Miles Guo held an event with his group, seems kind of more like a cult, but his group in October of 2020, Bannon spoke before that group. Bannon didn't know it was being recorded, but at that event, Bannon said, here's our plan for the 2020 election. No matter what the results are, even if Trump's down, we're going to say it's rigged and

we're going to say we won and we're going to cause all of this chaos and basically launch a coup. I want to play this because it was played at the January 6th committee. This is Bannon's own words about what the plan was to lie and say everything is rigged. Here, let's play this clip. I could stand in the middle of fifth Avenue and shoot somebody. And I wouldn't lose any voters." That quote came to mind last week when audio from Trump adviser Steve Bannon surfaced from October 31, 2020,

just a few days before the presidential election. Let's listen. And what Trump's going to do is declare victory, right? He's going to declare victory. But that doesn't mean he's the winner. He's just going to say he's the winner. The Democrats, more of our people vote early that count. Theirs voted male. And so they're going to have a natural disadvantage, and Trump's going to take advantage of that.

That's our strategy. He's just going to clear himself of the winner. So when you wake up Wednesday morning, it's going to be a firestorm. Also, if Trump is losing by 10 or 11 o'clock at night, it's gonna be even crazier. You know, because he's gonna sit right there and say they stole it. If Biden's winning, Trump is gonna do some crazy shit.

And of course, four days later, President Trump declared victory when his own campaign advisors told him he had absolutely no basis to do so. What the new Steve Bannon audio demonstrates is that Donald Trump's plan to falsely claim victory in 2020, no matter what the facts actually were, was premeditated. Perhaps worse, Donald Trump believed he could convince his voters to buy it, whether he had any actual evidence of fraud or not.

And now we're in this interesting period in American history where I agree with Liz Cheney, right, where I'm in agreement with Adam Kinzinger, where people with very different political beliefs but who fundamentally agree with law and order can set aside certain political views and differences for the importance of preserving, protecting, and defending our constitution. When you hear Steve Bannon say, we are going to lie if Biden is up. Our plan is we're going to say it's rigged and Trump's going to do a bunch of crazy shit,

even if Biden's up. Watch. He's saying that to a room of Miles Guo's crew and Miles Guo, an indicted, now someone who's been indicted for a billion dollar fraud. That's not, to me, Popaka, I'll let you kind of give the final analysis of the show. That's not, this isn't a Democrat Republican thing. I mean, it really saddens me to think that that's what one of our major political parties now that's gone full MAGA, that that's what they want.

This is what we saw with the Ba'ath Party, with Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi. It's what we see with Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin. It's what we see in authoritarian regimes in the past and in the future. President Biden made a post recently where he's talked about democracy being hard. He says that when he was on the beaches of Normandy commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day, And it is, it's hard. And I think that's why lots of people looked at America like, how do you hold this together?

Right? I mean, it's based on a lot of good faith, the constitutions, not all that long. When I teach, you know, there's another plug for patreon.com slash legal. When I, when I teach, when I teach, I always say, look, the collective bargaining agreements in sports leagues are thousands of pages more than the Constitution, which is a very small document. So how does that small document hold everything together? And it's based on good faith and norms and the way things were and political parties, not saying elections are rigged like that takes place in a lot of other countries. And now here the saddest part about it, but this is what motivates me every day, is to That wants this weirdo want to be authoritarian to dictate our freedoms,

to take them away and, and, and to lie and to gaslight us and, and to abuse us and to treat us like crap and to be in this abusive oligarchical authoritarian shithole that's what they want to create. I mean, I, I want to be a part of what do we what are you talking about? Pope a they Yeah, I feel your pain as Bill Clinton used to say when they asked Ben Franklin in the streets in Philadelphia, but what form of government Had been created by the founding fathers in Independence Hall.

He said, Dr. Franklin, what's the form of government? A new country coming off of the despotism of King George. He said, it's a constitutional republic if you can keep it. There was a lot at the time, I'm not sure the guy on the street that heard that from him understood what that meant, but we understand what that means. It's hard work to keep a democracy in place. And if you look at the evolution of democratic countries, unfortunately, in democracy 4.0 or 5.0 or whatever we're in, sometimes, and the fork in the road, it goes towards fascism, depending upon the totalitarian instincts of the other party. There's a reason, I'm not sure I totally agree with it, but there's a reason that Mexico has a strict one-term

president limit. Some people think, well, AMLO was a great president for Mexico. Look what he did for the economy. Look what he did for the people. Look what he did for independence. One term. And it's on purpose. It's because of what happened after the Mexican Revolution and what they wanted to make sure would never happen again and having somebody get into power and they wouldn't be able to get him out. And yes, we have two terms, although we have a presidential candidate who doesn't even respect that part of our constitution, because he doesn't respect the constitution and thinks it's just a piece of paper that can be suspended and stretched and molded to his will. And that's why you hear Donald Trump talking about massing the American

military on the border in violation of the Posse Comitatus law, because he will suspend the constitution and invoke martial law or the insurrection act or anything else that Jeff Clark, who could potentially be the Attorney General, whatever comes out of his fevered mind will be implemented. And it's not hyperbole that you and I talk about here. It's not to scare the crap out of our particular audience, because we know where their pro-democracy instincts lie. It's that if we can ever break through and we know from people that have contacted us, people we've met on the street and just

our overall understanding of the demographics of our audience, that there is a fair amount of Republicans and independents who get their news directly from Midas Touch and legal and political news from Legal AF. I know it for a fact. And so that's who we're talking to at these moments when we conclude our episodes where when you and I get on what we like to joke around about being the rant and the one we're on now. So that is what we are worried about and it's not to scare the crap out of somebody to make sure they vote against Donald Trump. This is the reality. This is based on his own words and those of his advisors.

The stop the steal was invented by Roger Stone eight years ago, 10 years ago about another election. Okay. And they were always planning if they lost not to respect the will of the American people and to try to cling and to stay in power. When I was in DC recently, we took a bathroom break in the Willard Hotel and it almost, when I realized I was walking into the Willard, which was the the war room for Donald Trump and the overthrow of democracy democracy staffed by General Bannon, though this war council, General Flynn literally, Rudy Giuliani and others, okay, Mark Meadows coming in and out in order to try to overthrow democracy. It just

shows you that as much foresight as the founding fathers and the framers of our key government documents, which I went to Washington recently, sort of renew my faith in our democracy with my wife. We see under glass in a hollow temple, we see our constitution, we see our declaration of independence, and it's there for a reason, right? And with lots of people, not just from this country, but from other countries who were, I don't want to say worshipping at this altar, but they were there in reverence of these documents. And we have an obligation, a patriotic obligation to implement what those things say, right, in our democracy. But the foresight that as much as they had, the framers and the forefathers, and I said

this to you guys, the brothers and others, we were doing some text chains to prepare for our various shows, I said the forefathers and the framers did not anticipate the criminality of one of the two major parties in this country. They didn't anticipate. And that's why we see so much groaning and straining of our guardrails around our democracy that they did install by somebody like Donald Trump because they did not anticipate a criminal president being restored to power, literally. A felonious president, a kleptomaniac and a party that is also in their way criminal. There's things that scared the crap out of

the framers and the framers, the founding fathers, like the masses, which is why we have the Electoral College. The public's court is scared that the non-landed gentry scared the crap out of them, but they did not anticipate that one of the parties, whether it was the Whig Party, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, whatever it was called at the time, and they've sort of morphed over time, would be criminal. It started as the Tea Party movement, which we sort of saw as a weird, fringe response, but now it has hijacked a major party in this country. And what we're watching, when we watch MAGA in Congress, do nothing, talk about a new, do nothing Congress, do nothing for the two years they've been in power to help the American people at all. Not one job created by that Congress.

Joe Biden created 16 million jobs while he's been in office. Not that Congress. Not one infrastructure laid. Not one thing done by this Congress at, except where they had to finally approve Joe Biden's plans, right? And that is what we see when we have a criminal party. There's no other way to put it. I apologize to those people that grew up as Republicans and their party left them. And I know plenty of them that will be never Trumpers. And I tell them, be pro-democracy. That's enough. Vote for Joe Biden because he's the only adult in the room with the moral character and fiber to lead our great nation standing on the shoulders of all these documents

that we've just talked about. That's the reason you do it. You do it because you're a patriot, not because you're worried about, your party's gotta to win. Okay. Regardless of who's heading your party, vote for the right person to lead our great nation because you are a patriot. That's it. That's all I can say. Well, I think powerful words to end this show on. I want to tell everyone one more time now is the chance to go to patreon.com legal AF, go check it out right now get those law school like classes at patreon.com legal AF. It's exactly what it's very similar to how a professor

Popak law school class or my law school class would be. So check that out. Also store.mitustouch.com. Get the gear that was featured in the Trump criminal trial. I should say it was an exhibit at the Trump criminal trial, thanks to Donald Trump's lawyers and their failure of a cross-examination of Michael Cohen, where they tried to act like our merch store was Michael Cohen's store. You can get that famous Mar-a-Lardo correctional facility t-shirt and otherstore.mitustouch.com.

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Have a great rest of the weekend, Michael Popak. Great seeing you. Love to have you. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and shout out to the Legal AFers.