Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump’s Criminal Cases COME DOWN to This…

Episode Date: July 7, 2024

On a special weekend edition of the top-rated Legal AF podcast, Michael Popok is joined by Legal AF/MissTrial co-anchor Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Meidas legal contributor Dina Doll (substituting in for Ben Meiselas) to debate whether the MAGA Scotus immunity decision will gut the: (1) NY convictions of Trump; (2) the Mar a Lago espionage/obstruction case against Trump; and what the immunity decision means for the future of our constitutional republic and the checks and balances on what was once 3 co equal branches of government, in the hands of an unscrupulous future president hell-bent on crimes and destruction, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF Thanks to our sponsors: Prolon: Head to https://ProlonLife.com/LEGALAF to get 15% off their 5-day nutrition program. Beam: Get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to https://shopbeam.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF at checkout! Zbiotics: Head to https://zbiotics.com/LegalAF to get 15% off your first order when you use LEGALAF at checkout. Laundry Sauce: For 15% off your order head to https://LaundrySauce.com/LEGALAF and use code 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 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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I'm joined by Karen Freeman Agnifilo regularly of the Midweek Edition of Legal AF on the Midas Touch Network. I'm joined by Karen Freeman Agnifilo, regularly of the Midweek edition of Legal AF and of Mistrial here on the Midas Touch Network. And Dina Dahl, Midas Touch legal correspondent. We have to join forces for this special edition, weekend edition of Legal AF because we ganged up on Ben and we decided that he and his lovely wife, Soshi, needed a well-deserved rest. We need Ben back recharged, hand ready and rested as the presidential candidates make their closing arguments over the summer as we lead into the November election. So Ben is temporarily on assignment not working on Legal AF today.

But we have a great show for you that we've designed and we've decided to do it in a great and efficient way to take advantage of each of our sort of strengths and to give new voice to some of the issues that are out there. We're gonna talk about the immunity decision dropped on July the 1st by the United States Supreme Court. We've talked about it at length. I'm going to be doing, and I've done, an interview with Judge J. Michael Ludig,

conservative icon, federalist, icon, defender of the Constitution. That's going to drop tomorrow morning here in the Midas Touch Network. He called the decision an abomination, a scourge on our jurisprudence, and it will go down as one of the worst decisions in the history of the United States Supreme Court. And he put it right up there with Dred Scott, which effectively enshrines slavery into our constitution. That's how he feels about it in a no-holds-barred interview. So we sort of know what happened, but now we're talking about the aftermath of what absolute immunity means in the wrong hands, and the wrong hands being Donald Trump. Judge Ludwig even went further,

you'll hear it in the interview, and he said, it is obvious that the entire decision was rendered to benefit one person named Donald J. Trump and the candidacy of Donald J. Trump, and you'll hear why when we talk about it. In our first segment that we're gonna do today, and it'll be led by KFA with the rest of us contributing, it'll be the immunity opinion, majority opinion,

law of the land now, and its impact on the New York criminal prosecution conviction of Donald Trump, the sentencing around that, which has now been postponed at least till September the 18th. And then in our second segment, we'll talk about the immunity decision and its impact on the Mar-a-Lago case presided over. No, presiding is doing too heavy a lift in that sentence, in which Judge Aileen Cannon sits over the case, not yet scheduled for trial, but there are new developments,

including as recently as today, in the Mar-a-Lago case, and Dina Dahl will lead us on that. And then finally, I'll lead on the issue of what does the new decision mean, the creation of an imperial Leviathan president that now floats above the entire republic in a way that the founding fathers and framers had never envisioned because they saw a checks and balance system, a delicate checks and balance system with three co-equal branches of government. We have no longer have three co-equal branches of government. We have one imperial president that's now been empowered

by this United States Supreme Court in the decision Trump versus the United States. And the question is, when we're picking our next president, now knowing that this will be used by the unscrupulous, by the unhinged, by the demented that the American people may see fit to vote in, should that matter? Now that you know what the presidential powers are, including getting away with murder potentially

and getting away with crimes potentially, should that impact who you vote for? What does this decision mean for the future of the presidency and the presidency's relationship and accountability to the American people. We're going to cover it all on this weekend edition of Legal AF when we welcome our guest co-anchors. I mean, Karen's not, she's a regular co-anchor on the Legal AF, but certainly this combination of the three of us together. Never been seen before. Collect all three, like Burger King glasses. Karen, why don't you jump in and then we'll give it over to Dean and then we'll get started with our

first segment. Yeah, so I have to say I couldn't agree with Judge Ludwig Moore when he says this is a the worst decision of our lifetime. I can't get over how bad this decision is. And the more you think about it, the worse it gets, as opposed to the opposite, right? When you first read it, we were all thinking, well, maybe it's not so bad. Well, everything will be okay.

Well, literally the more you read it, the worst it gets, because the more you realize how many things this impacts and how this creates an immunity for one person in the whole world where they have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for when they do their job. And there's not another person in the world who when they do their job, whether you're a judge, whether you're a member of Congress, anything else where you have absolute immunity for that, for committing crimes. And, you know, my feeling, and I know a lot of people thought, well, how could committing a crime ever be within your job description? And so therefore, there shouldn't be absolute immunity in that circumstance. However, the Supreme Court has made sure that that is the case. I can't wait to watch the Judge Ludig opinion. He's a constitutional or your interview, I should say he's a constitutional scholar, someone I respect, someone who's been calling the shots here and really predicting what's going to happen and has happened just really in a way like nobody else, partly because he's conservative, so he knows how the other side thinks. And he can really, really share with us the full implications of all of this. So I look forward to hearing

what he has to say. So great that he comes on as a friend of Midas. So back to the decision and why it's so bad and how it applies to the New York case. So just to remind everyone the basics of the decision, which is essentially there are two categories. There's official and unofficial acts. And if it's unofficial, then you can be prosecuted for it. If it's official, there's kind of two branches under the official. There's the absolutely no matter what official. And then there's the, okay, we're going to presume it to be official, but you can rebut it. But you can't ret it with evidence of things that might be official.

You have to look some other way. And so, but essentially, if you get into the official acts or official conduct category, it is you cannot prosecute it, nor can you use it as evidence in your case. The evidence is out. The evidence can't even be looked at to look behind. What were your motives? What were you thinking? What were you intending to do? And that's where I think the real harm comes in. Now, the New York case, you look at it and you say, okay, but that already happened. And that wasn't the law at the time, right? The, the, if you,

Judge Chuckin addressed the issue of official immunity and said, there is no official immunity or I should say absolute immunity, there is no absolute immunity for, for, or presidential immunity for committing crimes. Right? That's what she said. She didn't even say, well, if it's within your job description or in the outer perimeter, that's civil talk, right? That's what she said. She didn't even say, well, if it's within your job description or in the outer perimeter, that's civil talk, right? That's what they talk about in the civil world. You can't be sued for things that are your official acts, things that are in your job description. And that's the case for all sorts of people, right? Police officers, judges, members of Congress, that's in the presidency. That was always the law. That's what we understood. Numerous cases talked about that, that if

you're within the outer perimeter of your job description, you can't be sued civilly. But nobody ever thought it applied to criminal, including Nixon in the Nixon era and the Nixon cases, everybody now thinks, wow, Nixon would have been found to be immune and he had to be pardoned. That's how much everybody assumed that was criminal at the time. So essentially Judge Chukin ruled that we're not even gonna go there and look at whether this is official or unofficial

because committing crimes can never be in your job description. Now, I'm oversimplifying it all, but that's essentially what she said. Went up to the DC circuit. They held the same thing. They didn't even make a they didn't even kind of have any sort of, well, these things are official. These things are unofficial. They didn't parse it out like that, because again, it would be preposterous to think that you can do whatever you want,

like order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate your rivals, like accept bribes in exchange for a pardon, etc., all the things that they talked about during oral argument. Well, then it went to the United States Supreme Court and they ruled not so fast, hold on. Presidents are kings. Presidents can get away with this. And they made this whole distinction here and now they're sending the case back down to Judge Chuckin to figure this out. But how does that impact New York?

They've already had a fact finding. They've already had a trial. All the witnesses have testified. The evidence is in. Well, on the one hand, you would say, this was all personal. That was all litigated, right? That was all completely litigated.

Trump's lawyers talked about that this was personal. That all happened when he tried to get removed to federal court under Judge Hellerstein and said, no, no, this is personal. This was my personal attorney. And there was no question about that. This was personal. That was even his whole argument at the trial.

Right. His whole argument at trial was this had nothing to do with the election. This had nothing to do with anything with the election. This is just personal. I just didn't want my wife to know, right? This wasn't election interference. I just didn't want my wife to know about it. That's why I paid this off That was their whole defense their whole defense was this was personal so you would think oh So this should just fall into the unofficial acts category, right? This shouldn't even be impacted at all by the case. PS, all the other cases might not ever get prosecuted

because he might be immune. And so a lot of people were criticizing this case when it was brought. Why this case? This case, I don't understand. This isn't so serious. Why is this going first? Why is this going at all? Well, guess what? Now that we have this case, you know, I don't understand. This isn't so serious. Why is this going first? Why is this going at all?

Well, guess what? Now that we have this decision, this might be the only case, the only conviction that stands, because all the other cases will be impacted by this decision significantly. So again, his entire defense in the New York case was very much this personal, personal, personal, unofficial. But this is where it gets tricky. It gets complicated because one of the worst part of this decision, although right now

my feeling it's the worst part of the decision, I'm sure that will change depending on what it's impacting. But right now the worst part of the decision in opinion, is that it talks about you can't even use evidence at a trial, a criminal prosecution against a former president. You can't even use evidence, even if it's personal, like this, of anything that was official, of anything that could be considered an official act. That can't come in. And when you look at the evidence that was introduced at trial by the Manhattan DA's office, my old office where I worked for 30 years, when you look at the evidence, there's certain piece of evidence that under this Supreme Court ruling might be held to be impermissibly admitted, might be held to be official, essentially.

And I'll tell you where I think the area that I'm most concerned about, and that was Hope Hicks' testimony and Madeleine Westerhout's testimony. Those are two White House employees that testified at the trial. Hope Hicks, interestingly, talked a lot about the importance of how much they didn't want that Access Hollywood tape to come in, if you remember, because the campaign was really, really, really upset at the time, and we're thinking it was devastating, they were trying to keep it out, and her testimony was very important. And what worries me about this is normally a judge could just look at that and say, you know what, I hear you, I see that that probably falls in this category might have to come in,

might rule that no, she was she was helping candidate Trump. And there was a blurry a blurring of the lines there between the campaign and the president. But she was a White House employee at during some of the conversations, especially when Donald Trump said to her later on, if you recall, one of the the part of the testimony that I think was really damaging. I was actually in the courtroom for this. It was the one part of the trial that I saw when she was talking about while he was president months later, I think it was April of 2017, he said to her something to the effect that he was glad that this didn't come out at the time before the election.

And he was really focusing on the election. It was such devastating evidence because he said, gee, I'm glad this came out now and not before the election. Cause obviously that was really an important factor for the prosecution, right? This had to be an element of the crime that they had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this was election interference. And this was a piece of evidence that they had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that was that this was election interference and this was a

Piece of evidence that they really relied heavily on and in the courtroom That's when she broke down crying as if to having felt the weight realizing Oh my god I just sank Donald Trump because that was to me it was one of the most devastating Pieces of evidence in the whole trial. It felt like a Perry Mason moment now as was one of the most devastating pieces of evidence in the whole trial. It felt like a Perry Mason moment. Now, and what concerns me is in summation, Josh Steinglass actually, he actually talked about how important this was.

His closing argument, he said, I have a quote right now. It said, okay, he said, I have a quote right now. It said, it said, said, okay, he said, answer. Oh yes, he wanted to know how it was playing and just my thoughts and opinion about the story versus having the story, a different kind of story before the campaign had Michael not made that payment. And I think Mr. Trump's opinion was it was better to be dealing with it now and that it

would have been bad to have the story come out before the election. Josh Steinblast then went on to say, that is devastating. That's from the defendant's own communications director who still respects and admires the defendant so much. That was the last thing she said on direct. And she basically burst into tears a few minutes later, a few seconds after that, because she realized how much this testimony puts the nail in Mr. Trump's coffin. By the way, one comment. Westerhaus bursts into tears all the time.

She burst into tears when she lost her job for making an impertinent comment. That was Hope Hicks. About, no, it's Madeleine Westerhout. Madeleine Westerhout, I'm looking at the article right here. She got fired because she made an important comment about Ivanka and Tiffany. And she got canned and she was in tears. She's in tears a lot, but that's not your point. I just want to make a point. We all like responded to her being in tears. She's always in tears.

She's a young woman that constantly seems in front of the press to break into, break into tears. Yeah. Well, Hope H press to break into tears. Yeah, well, Hope Hicks also broke into tears. I was in the courtroom. So that was what I was just referring to, was Hope Hicks' testimony. And so essentially what ended up happening there was Josh Steinblass said in summation,

his whole summation was all about how you don't have to rely on Michael Cohen. There's so much corroboration. And one of the things he relied on right there was that testimony, that Hope Hicks testimony. So it was pretty devastating. Like I said, I was in court when it happened. So I experienced it in real time and saw how devastating it was. And that's what concerns me, is

the judge is going to have to make a harmless error analysis. Now there is mountains and mountains of evidence that prove Trump is guilty. I do think that the judge will ultimately find that it's harmless error, but given that the judge will ultimately find that it's harmless error, but given that the summation is all about, you don't have to just trust Michael Cohen, it's all this corroboration. The fact that there is evidence that might fall into this official category is something

that the judge is going to have to grapple with. What's the official conduct bucket that that falls into, the conversations with Hopek, Westerhout, Roanagraph over the Trump, which is the link of the three. What's the official conduct bucket? Why isn't that private? Because she worked for the White, she was working in the White House just like the same way that any discussion with Jeffrey Clark. So the United States Supreme Court said, for example, any conversation with Jeffrey Clark, immune. It doesn't matter what it's about.

It's immune. Part of your job is to speak freely with your direct employees. At the time that Hope Hicks and Donald Trump had that conversation, that was in April of 2017, that was while she was a White House employee, it was after the Access Hollywood tape did come out and the Karen McDougal stuff came out. All of that was coming out. But I don't think that's the, I don't think the Manhattan Year Old Office lays down for that. I think they argue that either it's unofficial conduct or it's official conduct for which they

can overcome the presumption by arguing that it is not going to be an improper impairment of the executive branch because all he was doing, Westerhout, all she was doing was schedule Michael Cohen to come to cover up a private affair and negotiate over the checks and the legal fees and all that What's Your Name was doing similarly fell into to cover up without motives. I get that. But you don't think your office is just going to go. Yeah, go right to harmless error. They aren't they're going to try to argue it's in one of these buckets. Yeah, they're gonna they're gonna argue all that. I mean, I think the content of the conversation is going to have to matter and not just whether there's employee, otherwise the whole Monica Lewinsky thing would be considered official conduct.

So I think there's going to be, yes, the person was an employee, but were they talking about something within anything official? And I don't think that conversation he could argue even was official because it was clearly about the campaign before he was elected. So to me, I think the content of the conversation, yes, like they're going to have to go through that once that person is an employee, they're going to then have to go through whether or not the conversation itself had any connection to his official conduct. But to me, it seems pretty clear that that was a campaign conversation.

Yeah, but the campaign's over, right? So at that point, he had already won and she was a White House employee. Look, I think the Supreme Court, look, it's gonna, we'll see what Judge Murchon says. I think it's gonna be pretty clear that that is gonna fall into one of those categories, whether,

you know, it's going to be interesting to see whether he finds it to be harmless error or not. But there's another thing I want to bring up that I think is where I'm landing in terms of this case. At first, I dismissed this argument in my head, but now I'm landing as this is probably the most important thing that Judge Mershonwn is going to have to rule on, which is that, look, you know, Donald Trump waived all this. This issue is waived. He waived it with Judge Hellerstein during removal. He then blew the deadline again when he was

back before Judge Mershawn during the time when he said, this is the deadline for motions in limine. And then after that deadline, but before the trial, he filed a very detailed statement of what he, of Donald Trump, of what he would have argued. So the exact scope of the waiver is quite detailed. And he can't claim that he didn't think of these arguments before the court ruled, because he filed this detailed, this detailed kind of presidential immunity in two times that was not timely. And in front of Judge Hellerstein, he clearly waived it. He blew the deadline before the motions in lemonade. And so I'm gonna argue that they better make a waiver,

a waiver fine. Oh yeah, but here's the counter to that to play devil's advocate. When Alina Jhab argued to the Second Circuit about E. Jean Carroll and the failure to raise immunity then, the judges on the Second Circuit did say at the time, didn't you waive this? And Alina Jaba said in response, it's not waivable. In other words, it either is immune or it's not immune or whether we raise it or not, it's not that kind of defense that if you don't raise it, you've waived it. The, the, what, what strengthens Donald Trump's hand on, I may have not raised immunity, um, prior to this,

but the immunity as now shaped by the July one decision by the United States Supreme Court was not on the books. You can't waive that which did not exist. He's going to argue this is not a waivable issue. I'm either immune under the various categories of immunity now established by Trump versus the United States, or I am not. And whether I raised it or not, it's not what drives the defense. Now, I don't know what the result of that's going to be, but that is going to be Donald Trump's argument. It's new law. It wasn't on the books back when I was arguing this. It is on the books now and I need to be able to take advantage of it. That's going to be the debate, won't it? Of course. Yeah. You're a hundred percent right, Popok. But I still think there's a strong waiver argument that the judge hopefully... Look, a lot of this is academic.

Obviously there's now significant appellate issues, so there's no way Donald Trump is going to go in, if he ever was going to go in, it's going to be stayed pending appeal if the judge sentences him to incarceration while they litigate this. And of course we'll already know if he's president or not once these appeals happen, because these arguments have been postponed until September. So the sentencing is put over until mid-September. And as you know, to appeal these types of issues, it can take years, maybe even months you know, months, maybe years. And so one way or another, we'll know if he's president, if he wins, he's never going to serve the sentence

and it'll go up the appellate chain one way or another. And if he loses, you know, then all of these issues will be fleshed out. It'll have to go to the appellate court in New York up to the highest court, and then it'll make its way up to the United States Supreme Court. Yeah let's let's I want to bring in Dina on this one then we're gonna turn to Dina's lead topic which is gonna be Mar-a-Lago. If the audience is finding this fun and interesting

which hopefully after four years of Legal AF and its different iterations they do, then you're going to love the new Patreon that Ben and I are doing, patreon.com slash Legal AF. You can nerd out on for lawyers and non-lawyers alike, mainly non-lawyers, we do it in an informative but entertaining way. We sit at that intersection again and teach you about civil law and criminal law and constitutional law women's rights reproductive rights voting rights Procedural things that matter arbitration mediation you name it we cover it We have over 60 exclusive videos already up on patreon three thousand members

already actively participate we just as a special a actively participate. We just as a special treat for the Patreon paid membership level people, we just posted early the Judge Ludic interview that will be going, there it is, that will be going live on the YouTube channel tomorrow sometime in the morning but is now available by early access to those people that have paid memberships and membership start at $10 per month. We've also got Karen Freeman-Magnifilo is anchoring a new podcast here on the network called Mistrial with two of her colleagues

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doing hot takes and analysis as a regular Midas Touch legal contributor. She often does it with Frances Maxwell or with or without Frances Maxwell. She does some really fun and interesting things on other social media like TikTok. And Dina, what's your social media handle? What's your address? Ask Dina Dahl. There you go.

On all platforms, yep. Perfect. There you go. So we're going to pick back up with New York. We're going to go into Mar-a-Lago and then we're going to talk about the future and what it means for anybody who occupies that Oval Office now that there's this new Imperial presidency. But first, we've got some great pro-democracy sponsors that help keep this show on the air, and we've got some coming up right now. These days, a lot of people are learning about all the benefits of fasting, like weight loss,

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We're an independent network. We don't take outside money. Sponsorship is really important. Support of our sponsors is really important. And it keeps us on the air. We're building this network brick by brick with your help, trust me. Let me turn it over to Dina about New York and then we can segue into your leadership today on your thought leadership today on Mar-a-Lago and what's happened just today in yet another paperless order by Judge Cannon. She should write a memoir that just called paperless orders by Aileen Cannon. So why don't you give us

your thoughts on New York and then we'll go right into Mar-a-Lago. I think I kind of said it a little bit. I think the content of the conversation is going to be really important, and they can look at surrounding evidence. I think that it was clear that the content was not part of him carrying out his duties of the presidency. The fact that the check was signed by him personally,

and that he kept saying that this was Michael Comas's personal attorney. I see Karen's point about this is exactly what the Trump attorney is going to raise, but I think that the content is pretty clear that it wasn't about what he was doing in office. And so I think at the end of the day, it will stand, but to the point that the Supreme Court opinion is pretty awful, we've talked about this so many times, they don't have a very clear standard that they set out to give to the judges. And a lot of it will depend on that particular judge's

opinion, let's say, and it is going to have to work through the court system, because this is all novel and this is all new, but I do think ultimately that conversation was a private conversation and not an official one. So let's, yeah, listen, it's gonna get played out. There's gonna be full briefing. The judge hasn't set that, I don't think yet,

but we'll set full, we'll see all the briefs, we'll be able to comment on all the briefs, we'll know know all the positions and we'll give our best guesstimate nest and opinion about what how this will shake out with judge Mershon who so far has not made a false step just as the Manhattan DA's office hasn't made a false step in this case They'll get it right and we can trust that they will let's talk about somebody who never seems to get it, right? Which is a judge in the Southern District of Florida talk about somebody who never seems to get it right, which is a judge in the Southern District of Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon. I have a friend of mine who's hung up in getting her federal judgeship confirmed in the Southern District of Florida, Ms. Deitra Wilder, who would be an amazing federal judge. She's getting hung up by the MAGA right there. She's the kind of judges we need

on the Southern District. Instead, we've got Aileen Cannon, Federalist Society Trump-er, who it's a win-win for her because if I had to guess, she'll be one of those judges that leaves the federal bench early, doesn't keep her lifetime appointment, and rotates out in a revolving door or at least a one-way revolving door and ends up at a lucrative million-dollar law firm partnership representing, I would almost say conservative, that's a bad word now, right-wing MAGA clients. Or she gets elevated by President Donald Trump into a position that she's also not qualified for at the appellate level or heaven forbids at the United States Supreme Court, should Alito or Thomas,

who are both mid 70s, decide they're going to step down to let President Trump, I just can't say those words out loud, pick two more people, one or two more people. The importance we'll talk about in the next, the last segment, it's relatively straightforward. If the Democrats win and the Biden administration win and Joe Biden wins in November, whatever combination that is, then it's likely, it's possible that we get a five to four Supreme Court led by the progressives and led by the Democrats. And if they don't, we'll have a six to three for the next 20 years. I don't know how much of a stark, you know, dystopic landscape I can paint, but that is it. So, Dina, why don't you lead on what's going on in Mar-a-Lago, including some recent orders today, and then we'll have Karen comment on that before we end our time today,

talking about the future of the presidency and immunity. Yes, a flurry of activity there. And to your point about her leaving for a big firm, she started at a big firm. That's, it was the same firm I started at. And so comments that people sometimes make that she's just like not intelligent enough to do this case, it's not true. She's just very partisan. To be honest, the fact that she is overseeing

a case against the person who disappointed her a few short years ago, why that wasn't just, why she didn't step aside, why she wasn't made to step aside is beyond me. But anyway, so today, basically, she issued this order staying the proceedings essentially. We know that the Trump attorneys after the Supreme Court ruling has now argued that he should be immune from prosecution in this classified document case. And so she

is delaying it, which she loves to delay it. She's delayed it so many different times already in different ways by holding so many kind of unnecessary hearings. But today she's kind of making it official in that she's stopping the discovery, anything relating to this expert testimony, all these motions that were kind of scheduled to occur in July. She's saying that they don't need to happen after all because she's first going to determine whether or not he's immune from prosecution. And kind of what I said earlier about the New York case, how I think that how vague the Supreme Court decision is and how broad this Supreme Court decision is, is really going to give a huge amount of discretion to the trial court judge. Yes, the trial court

judge can ultimately get overturned, but as we know, the appeals can take a very long time. And so it's especially in a very partisan trial court judge, a judge canon, having free reign, let's say, by the Supreme Court is not going to bode well at all for Jack Smith. I think we kind of can already see the writing on the wall. She already didn't really want to try this case before the election, maybe not if all. And the Supreme Court just kind of gave her a bunch of breadcrumbs, let's say, in their opinion, to allow her

to veer off track even more and delay the case even more. And specifically in the Supreme Court opinion, when they talk about the Article II core powers, and Karen laid that out very well, how the Article II core powers is the one that has absolute immunity. And they describe those Article II core powers. And one of their phrases that they use to say what is an Article II power was intelligence gathering. They specifically use that phrase. And we know that opinions are negotiated. They are among the justices who are, you know, side on to that opinion. And I really do wonder if that phrase was specifically

included as a breadcrumb to Judge Cannon. Was it a mistake that they use the term intelligence gathering when they know that he has a classified document case related to intelligence gathering out in Florida. Probably not. I think they are very specific about what language they use. So they use this really vague term, intelligence gathering as part of his article two

core powers. And then kind of right after that in a sentence, they say that he is, you know, it's his job to kind of make sure that the laws are faithfully executed and to kind of oversee the various departments. So you could argue and Trump's lawyers will certainly argue this, that the various departments include the CIA

and the NSA and the DOD, all of the agencies that whose classified documents are at issue in Mar-a-Lago. And they will argue that because it's an Article II core powers classified intelligence gathering, which these documents were a result of intelligence gathering. And it is up to him to kind of oversee the departments who gathered this intelligence that it will be, that it is within his Article Two power to kind of, you know, his handling of those documents can foreseeably be within that. And this is why this opinion is so dangerous because the vagueness of it,

the amount of conduct that's going to be caught in this is stunning. And especially in the hands of somebody like Judge Cannon. If we had somebody like Judge Chuckin, they may not make that leap. But Judge Cannon wants to make that leap. I think she's made that clear with her entertaining all of these kind of nonsensical arguments by the Trump court. Now they've given her a path to argue that the Supreme Court has included this as part of the Articles of Powers. argue that the Supreme Court has included this as part of the Articles for Powers.

And so, OK, let's break it down a little bit more. So the there's a few charges that he has in classified documents case. One is him having the actual classified documents, even though he wasn't supposed to have them, and then some having to do with the obstruction, him getting the subpoena and then not turning over the documents. I think it's going to be much harder obstruction, him getting the subpoena and then not turning over the documents. I think it's going to be much harder for the Trump lawyers to say that he has immunity for the obstruction charges. At that point, he's no longer president.

He gets a subpoena. He, you know, instructs people to lie about the subpoena. He hides the documents. That seems very even for somebody like Judge Cannon, that seems very far-fetched to be able to say that that is official conduct and not private conduct because he was always the president. But to Karen's point about perhaps one of the most dangerous parts of the opinion

is the fact that you can't use evidence of official conduct to prove a private action is criminal is this is where this comes in because you can argue that in order to prove that this was an obstruction charge, they're going to have to talk about how he got the documents to begin with and how he got the documents to begin with was he was president and he was given the documents. So they have really like hand tied this prosecution to such an extent that I think it's going to be hard for any judge, but especially Judge Cannon, to navigate it in a way to allow the prosecution to have a case. The other thing is that, let's say they argue it's not Article II, right? Let's say even Judge Cannon says that's a stretch too far, it's not Article 2.

Then you get into the presumption of immunity, which is going to be really tricky, I think, for Jack Smith down in the classified documents case. The presumption of immunity is similar to, let's say, qualified immunity that you would have in a civil case. The problem is, is in applying qualified immunity to a criminal case is you already have a higher standard of proof in a criminal versus civil. You already have a presumption of innocence for the defendant and a criminal that you don't have a civil.

And then they've added this extra third layer of a presumption of immunity. And we know that Trump's lawyers are trying to argue that he was able to have those documents because he labeled them as kind of personal president, under his own presidential records act, that they are personal documents and not classified documents. That seems to me, even if you say it's not an Article II power, seems to me that's going to be able to argue again, especially in front of a judge like Judge Cannon, to say he was president at the time and that was part of his intelligence gathering, was part of his overseeing the CIA, was the ability to be able to classify a document as a presidential records act instead of it being a classified document act. I think that that is probably where she will end up. She might not go as far as article

two, but who knows? Maybe she will, but she'll probably end up that it at least has that presumption. And again, it's going to be hard to be able to introduce, you know, evidence of an official conduct. So I think this classified document case is in big trouble, unfortunately. And I think to your point about the mess that we're in as a result, Popok, of this Supreme Court decision, is it really makes voting really so important. Because the Supreme Court, I think, basically really so important because the Supreme Court, I think, basically said, I don't agree with it, but they basically said the Constitution doesn't limit the presidential power. That's what they essentially said, that the Constitution didn't have that. And so then the argument is the only way to limit a presidential power is to vote in a president that you don't think is going to break

the law. That's the only thing we're left with, essentially. Yeah. Well, I'll say one comment, you know, the thing that they of course missed, that we covered it with Judge Ludic in the interview, is that when the framers of the Constitution had their quill pens out, they knew how to write an expressed immunity provision in the Constitution when they wanted to, but they didn't for the president because they just came off of fighting to leave a monarch who abused them in King George. So there was the opposite. They would never have done that if we were able to exhume the bodies of the Founding Fathers or bring them back in a time machine. They'd be like, and the framers would be like, what are you guys even thinking about? Let's hear from Karen on Mar-a-Lago. And if you could touch on also

the, um... The dissent? Thomas? about. Let's hear from Karen on Mar-a-Lago. If you could touch on also the illegitimacy of the special counsel. Love note from Clarence Thomas, which has been received by a willing alien canon. Comment on that too and then and then we can turn you know we'll wrap up here. Yeah I mean I couldn't agree with Dina Moore this is just this case is dead in the water because of who the judge is I mean if this was in front of any other judge possibly not but because of who the judge is she's been looking for ways to toss this case it was like the Supreme Court was talking directly to her right with what you were saying about, okay, yes, intelligence gathering. All she has to do is say, the obstruction, you can't use that. It's fruit of the poisonous

tree. As you said, his evidence can't come in. He was allowed to possess it, and it's fruit of the poisonous tree. That's a concept in criminal law that fits squarely here. And she's going to dismiss all those charges, she's going to go even further than that because she was invited by Clarence Thomas. This is an immunity decision. This was nothing about special counsel. This was nothing about anything. It's not the powers of presidential immunity.

And Clarence Thomas on his own, nobody joined this dissent, by the way. So this was his own personal message to Judge Cannon, basically saying, by the way, not for nothing, the idea of having a special counsel appointed to investigate a president, that's not okay. That's not allowed under the law. And he spells out, spells out in detail the arguments of why. It's like he wrote her decision for her because he knows that there is, there was hearings going on, right? Remember a couple of weeks ago, she had these hearings on special counsel

that she invited amicus briefs and then Amici to come and argue in front of her. I've never seen that in the district court level. The amicus, people who file amicus briefs are friends of the court. They're not parties. They're just people who come and say, look, I believe I have an interest or I have an opinion and I want you to hear it. You asked for permission and you can file briefs.

I've signed on to amicus briefs before, but it's always at the appellate level. Well, the district court level, she invited them. She allowed them to come and she allowed them to argue. I didn't even know that was a thing. So this is going on in real time in front of her. And it's like Clarence Thomas. If he wasn't if there was any question that he's completely corrupt and in the bag for MAGA, this right here should have told you

there was no issue before the Supreme Court on special counsel in this case. Period. Full stop. And he decides to write a dissent speaking directly to Eileen Cannon while she is considering the issue of special counsel and spells out for her why it is that this is illegitimate. Jack Smith is illegitimate. So I will bet you lunch, Popak,

because I know we'd like to do this. I will bet you lunch that in addition to dismissing this case the way and the ways that Dina laid out so beautifully, she's going to go one step further. And she's going to rule that special counsel Jack Smith is illegitimately appointed. And she's going to do some sort of injunction the way Judge Kazmarek did in Texas for myth of press stone and that applies to the whole country. She's going to try to enjoin him so that he can't prosecute Donald Trump in front of Judge Chutkin either. You watch. That's my prediction. Yeah, I'll take that bet even though I paid off the last one. I agree that she's going to, I agree that she's

going to try to find immunity, guts, most of this case. Although I agree with, with, and I've said it in hot take, I agree with Dina that 99% of this Mar-a-Lago thing has, we call it Mar-a-Lago for a reason. Everything happened at Mar-a-Lago. It didn't happen in the White House. He's a former president or as one of our founding fathers once said, the president rises from the masses and then returns and recedes back to the masses after he loses or after his term is over. He has no more second article, Article 2 rights or executive powers or executive privilege than anybody else. And everything that he's alleged to have done at the heart of the Mar-a-Lago indictment has to do with things that were done at Mar-a-Lago by a former

president. Sure there's some conduct before and kind of packing the boxes up, but what? But that's not the obstruction of justice charge. And that goes to everything that happened at Mar-a-Lago with his various henchmen in the videos. But that's not going to stop her agreeing with Karen from mapping that immunity decision onto it in such a way as to gut the case. A case she's not set for trial. But once she makes that ruling, and I disagree with Karen, I don't think she's going to go farther and do a nationwide ban on all cases against Donald Trump for on immunity once she says that the special counsel, and I'm not so sure she goes as far as the special counsel is illegitimate part, but let's just brief tutorial to the

audience on majority opinions, concurrences and dissents and their weight because they're not all weighted the same. The majority opinion, even if it's supported by various concurrences, is the law of the land. And they saw and they had the benefit of the other dissents, Sotomayor's in particular, and Thomas's concurrence before they wrote the majority opinion. And that they don't mention everything in every other dissent or concurrence doesn't mean that they agree with it because they don't have to agree with it. They are the law, the land, and the others are just color around certain issues. Now, with a passage of time, what was once the dissent could be seen to be the better reasoned argument and is often referred,

you know, and you'll say, well, the dissent had a right and people can try to argue that, but until there's a change in the law, the dissent is what it is. A concurrence that's not adopted by the majority opinion is just a concurrence. It's just a sidecar and it may give color around an issue, but not this one because the majority opinion by implication does not find a pro does not have a problem with special counsel's legitimacy. Because if they did, they would have gotten rid of that they would have adopted Clarence Thomas's argument, and they would have made that ruling and I don't think they needed further briefing on the particular issue or further record below

if they really wanted to go that route. The fact that they're sending it back to Judge Chutkin in that particular case and asking her to go through the indictment led by a special prosecutor, special counsel, it means that they are they're okay with the appointment through the Department of Justice and through the Code of Federal Regulation with that particular prosecutor. That doesn't mean that she's not that Judge Ken is not going to be let astray by this. I think she doesn't take the bait on that particular thing. She's asked for a very quick briefing schedule. Donald Trump wanted to stretch this out till mid-September. She said, no, why don't we do it over July? And by the end of July, why don't we have full briefing?

She's going to have to make a ruling on this. And if she were to rule that the special prosecutor is illegitimate, we're going right to the 11th circuit where I think it'll be quickly reversed, maybe even on an emergency basis, and then maybe go back to the United States Supreme Court if necessary. But I do agree with Karen and with Dina that this effectively guts the case in the sense that it's never going to get tried before November. Now, whether the Department of Justice is being sincere, which I believe they are, that they don't care about the political calendar any longer, all of their guidelines, nothing was done particularly as a timing mechanism to influence the election or to benefit one person or the other. This prosecution was started two

years ago. The reason we're even talking about being up against November is because of Aileen Cannon and all of her delays and accepting all of the delays of Donald Trump. And then they look, oh, look at the time. We're almost done. Yeah, we're almost done because every other judge would have had this case up, running, tried, and we had a jury verdict already. So if the Department of Justice is right, they're going to straddle this November. They think they have until January 19, really, to get this case up and running before heaven help us,

a new President Trump would kill the prosecution, which he'll have immunity to do, and it won't be seen as obstruction under the new ruling. So I don't see the nationwide ban part, that part of it. And finally, we'll get an order, Lord knows what it'll be, sometime in August or September, from the judge that can go right to the 11th Circuit about these two major issues. And she's got other major issues that Karen, you mentioned during our midweek, a couple weeks ago, that they're just stacking up,

that go to the heart of the case. How about suppression of all of the evidence that was gathered during the search warrant process? I don't think she's going that far, Could be wrong. How about Evan Corcoran, who is one of the lead links in the chain of a criminal mens rea that the prosecutors have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. One of their major pieces of evidence, we talked about major pieces of evidence and bombshell moments in trials with the New York trial, is Evan Corcoran, the former lawyer for Donald Trump with incriminating damning evidence against Donald Trump, which makes the case for criminal mind and mens rea.

And if that gets thrown out because she's declared as a judge, she gets to look anew at all of the hearing and evidence that was conducted by Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the DC Circuit Court, a judge, frankly, Judge Cannon can't hold a candle to. But she says, I'm the trial judge. Everybody agrees. Before trial, I get to reevaluate things that happened in the grand jury process. And I may not like what happened with Evan Corcoran being stripped along with Donald Trump of attorney-client privilege and that there being a finding that Donald Trump committed a crime

or fraud. I'm going to do it all over again. That scares the crap out of me too. But again, no trial date on the books and none for the foreseeable future, right? What I think she's going to do though, Popa, yes, I agree with you a thousand percent, but what I think she's going to do is she's. Yes, I agree with you a thousand percent. But what I think she's going to do, she's going to look all the way back to the search warrant. And the search warrant is going to,

you had to put established that a crime was committed based on probable cause. And she's going to say there's a lot in there that you that was immune. And so it's fruit of the poisonous tree. It all gets dismissed. She's going to she I just think there's the whole case gets gutted under her under fruit of the poisonous tree. Number one, number two, number two, the reason I think she's going to go with the special counsel's illegitimate is because she's going to dismiss

this whole case against Donald Trump for the reasons, I think the reasons we just said, but then number two, she's not going to want to be left with just a case against Waltine Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira. She's going to say that's not fair. And so that's why she's going to rule that the special counsel is illegitimate anyway. But she's going to rule that all of this was fruit of the poisonous tree. And it taints both of them too. She's dismissing the whole case. Is the fruit of the poisonous tree because while he was in the

White House, making the decisions about what to take and what not to take, that is totally immune. And so once it got there, the fact that he's hiding immune, immune acts is no longer a crime. Correct. Exactly. Because they said the official conduct can't be used as evidence. Even beyond the fruit of the typical criminal thing, they articulated that in this opinion.

And I think that is the argument. It's interesting your point about POPOC. They could have mentioned this special counsel illegitimacy, but we know there's again, lots of negotiations going on. And just because they didn't mention it, I lost a lot of faith in this court, to be honest, from this opinion because it's so far removed

from their own precedent that I don't know if that's why they didn't mention it. Because the fact is that issue was not in front of them. And so I could see Chief Justice Roberts kind of trying to craft this majority by arguing, hey, you know, if that comes in front of us, we can address it, but it's not in front of us now. I'm not convinced that they don't have a majority that would agree with a judge canon decision that the special counsel is illicit. I don't know if we can read that far into it to assume that they did it for good reasons

or right reasons and might have just been, hey, we might get there, but it's not here yet. Yeah, it wasn't presented. Yeah, exactly. It wasn't presented and they are so far removed, I think, from any basis. They're willing to do whatever they want to do at this point. Fundamental issues don't have to be... A Supreme Court or any reviewing court has the ability on their own to observe defects in a case, including in a prosecution, including

a fundamental defect in whether somebody has been properly appointed or not. The reason I said it is back, again, I agree with you, they just don't, they don't, there was not a lot of precedent cited in the decision, but if you're going to cite precedent, like something like US v Nixon, in which Leon Jaworski's power was being challenged, they enforce the subpoena for Leon Jaworski, who by the way, was appointed much less, with less of a procedural process, if you will, than the Department of Justice appointing special counsel. That was just Robert Bork acting attorney general during the Watergate hearings, telling the chairman of the committee

that he would, to avoid an appearance of impropriety, he was planning to appoint a special prosecutor. They were like, okay, that was it. And so here it went through, you know, yes, there was an independent counsel role that was eliminated by Congress, bipartisan way many years ago, but there's always been an implicit understanding

that a appointment of a special counsel under the DOJ guidelines would be appropriate. But, you know, I agree with all bets are off. It's like I've said it before, precedent doesn't matter. They have the votes. They have their Federalist MAGA checklist of things they've wanted to accomplish when they finally got the votes. You know, Roe versus Wade, out the window, check. Limit the administrative state through overturning the Chevron decision, check. Create the imperial presidency, check. Take down the wall between church and state, check.

This is the list. This is the Federalist Society list. And they were, when it was just, you know, sort of Antonin Scalia and then Alito and Thomas, you know, in the majority, in the minority, we were like, okay, thank God they were in the minority. But now with Gorsuch sliding over with Thomas and Alito, forming this Mago-right block.

And the only thing that's holding this thing together is this quote unquote centrist block of Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett, which I've done a hot take on, the rise of Amy Coney Barrett. She may end up being the swing vote going into the future, along with Kavanaugh, which is what I had said in the past about be careful through the confirmation process. We may need Kavanaugh because when Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett sided with Sotomayor, Kagan, and Katanji Brown Jackson, Jackson, things that we and our audience like got passed, got adopted. And when they didn't, and they slid the other way, all these terrible other things that we've now outlined happened. And so it's not the Roberts court for

me, it's becoming the Amy Coney Barrett and Kavanaugh Court. And that's who we have to shoot for going forward if this is going to be the makeup. We're going to talk about the future of both the Supreme Court and of the presidency now that they've given him or her these unlimited powers, but first, another round of amazing pro-democracy sponsors. Let's take a quick break to talk about our next sponsor, Zbiotics. If you're like me, you've probably skipped a workout because of drinks the night before.

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You can fly your Legal AF flag. We've now got a Patreon, patreon.com slash Legalaf, where you can get to the nitty-gritty of the law side of the intersection of law and politics with Professor Mycelis and POPOC Talks galore. We've got over 60 different exclusive videos up there. And then you can support the individual contributors and content providers here on the Midas Touch Network. Karen Friedman-Iknifilo is with me today, is with me on Wednesdays on the Midas Touch Network on Legal AF and has her own new show as well with two other co-anchors called Miss Trial

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now that in the wrong hands, I would posit, this Supreme Court decision will be seen as a to-do list, an owner's manual, and an instruction guide for destruction. In the right hand, somebody that's scrupulous, a high character, takes the job seriously and the mantle of responsibility that comes from being the leader of the free world, I'm not that concerned. I'm not that concerned about somebody who doesn't trend towards kleptocracy or criminality. It scares the crap out of me when it's in the hands of not next Donald Trump, Trump 3.0, Trump 4.0, MAGA world getting into the White House on a semi-regular basis and now having nothing in terms of the criminal prosecution process to check

their worst instincts and behaviors. Now, let me just say there's two other checks and balances that are still in place. One of them is impeachment, conviction, and removal in Congress. And that also depends on who's in Congress and who's got the majority. Because even for past crimes, I would posit high crimes and misdemeanors is not something that immunity could be granted for, and that Congress can remove a criminal, murderous, larcenist president. That's one. The second is, unless the criminal president is pulling the trigger himself, so to speak, if he's using or commanding other people

to commit the crimes, those other people are not going to enjoy presidential immunity. It's not like a privilege. It doesn't get extended to the third person. So immunity, like if Michael Flynn or Rudy Giuliani or Sidney Powell or Steve Bannon or somebody else or some members of armed forces assassinate somebody with a drone while the president who gave the command may have criminal prosecution immunity, they don't. And so you would think that would also keep people in their own lane

because they don't want to go to jail except at least on crimes that where you don't go away for a long time, you know, months instead of years, people like Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro and others are more than willing to go to prison in order to show their fealty and bona fides to an out-of-control cult leader who's also a president at the time. So, yeah, maybe that's not another checks and balance in our process. So, let me turn it over to Kara, why don't you lead first on this? Now that there's, and then we'll turn it over to Dina, now that there's been this Trump versus US, as I said two years ago, just as in the last criminal presidency, every other case in this

area was called Nixon, now every case that matters is called Trump. What do you think this new blueprint for a Leviathan president means for our future and for our electoral choices? Yeah, unfortunately, although you are accurate, Popak, that it does not apply to the people who he orders to do the things and commits the crimes. All he has to do is pardon them, right? He'll say, go ahead and kill, assassinate my rival.

And then I'll just pardon you for those crimes. And so although at first blush, you get some comfort from what you just said. Ultimately, it does not prevent that. And it, you know, a really, really, really bad president like Donald Trump, he could actually say, do this and I'll pardon you. That can be the agreement ahead of time. And so I think you're going to start seeing a lot of that potentially, potentially.

And he'll say, look, the weaponized DOJ, the weaponized local prosecutors saw what happened to me. So I'm pardoning these people not because they did anything wrong, but just because I want to, the weaponized DOJ, the weaponized local prosecutors saw what happened to me. So I'm pardoning these people, not because they did anything wrong, but just because I want to prevent the weaponization. You know, he'll spin it in a way that that doesn't look, you know, that his his MAGA followers can all say, oh, it's not corruption. It's you. You're corrupt.

State prosecutors could still go after them. Yeah, exactly. What? State prosecutors. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Except, except immunity. Well, yeah, state prosecutors. Like you, go to ask them. Except, except immunity. Whatever. Yes, you're right.

Except they'll say this is evidence, you know, all that stuff. So so I do think the fact that he still has pardon power, unfortunately, kind of guts the you know, guts, what you just said a little bit. And the other thing that really that's hard too, is you say, oh, well, he can be impeached. That impeachment has become so much less about what happened and the truth and it's all partisan now. I've never heard of throwing impeachments around the way this Congress throws impeachments around, right? They just, let's just impeach everybody. And they do that, or at least they introduce

articles of impeachment, you know, because it's this MAGA right wing. It's not about, they literally do it for partisan reasons, not for, okay, because somebody did something wrong and someone committed a high crime and misdemeanor. And so, but even if the, let's say the Democrats control both houses, which hopefully they will after this election. And you say, okay, so impeachment could happen if, you

know, Donald Trump is elected, don't forget, you need a two thirds vote in the Senate in order to convict. And so even if they win, will they be able to pull two-thirds vote to be able to convict? I don't know. Unfortunately, this decision is so dangerous, especially because of where we are in the world, whether it's Congress, whether it's the Senate, whether it's the judges, Eileen Cannon, whatever it is, it's like they thought of everything. And it's like they were, they were, this is a decision in my opinion. Some people will say, well, it's, it's, it's there to protect future presidents. This decision is for, was written for one man and one man only, and that's Donald

Trump and, uh, and like I said, the more I read it, the worse it gets for me. Yeah. And you're so right about that. You'll hear in the Judge Ludwig interview that'll be exclusive or might as touch with me tomorrow. He said exactly that. It's not to help future presidents. It's only to help candidate Donald J. Trump.

And that's why it's so bereft of intellectual honesty, reasoning, precedent, analysis. He actually said during the interview that it was the equivalent of a first year law school moot court brief that I chimed in with. I wrote one of those ones. He said that's how weak it was, how sophomoric it was in its analysis because they made the decision even before oral argument that they were going to grant him absolute immunity and then they reversed engineered the decision behind it and backfilled behind it. And that's exactly right. Dina, let me turn it over to you. What do you think is the future of the presidency and that now what was once a delicate balance that you, well, three of us learned about in civics class, a law school, the delicate balance between three

co-equal branches of government ripped asunder by this particular decision. And we'll throw one thing at you. Have you heard that there's a move afoot to get a constitutional amendment up and running to reverse Trump versus the United States? But then how hard is that to get a constitutional amendment passed? I mean, I think that this opinion at some point is going to get reversed. It's just a matter of when and how much damage

is gonna happen before that. Because like we've been talking about, their reasoning is so flawed, it's like you can blow the house down. They used as precedent the civil analogy. And the civil and criminal are so different between the standard of proof that I mentioned, the presumption of innocence for the criminal defendant.

So it doesn't make any sense and completely also ignored their prior rulings allowing for all these criminal investigations to a president. Why would you have allowed all of that if they were just going to have immunity? So I feel like they completely disregard their precedent and then use really flawed precedent with the civil immunity. So I do think at some point this is going to get reversed, but how much damage does it be done? But to your point about the co-equal branches of government, this is also what I'm thinking, is they didn't mind elevating the presidency

because they themselves want to be elevated. We've heard Chief Justice Roberts say, like, ethics rules should not be allowed because Congress shouldn't be able to pass an act that oversees the Supreme Court. They want to also have that untouchable power that they just gave to the presidency. And I'm telling you, if Congress does pass some sort of law, who knows if that will ever have it, but it's trying to kind of regulate, let's say, the Supreme Court, they will point

to this precedent as giving themselves the authority to be untouchable by the act of Congress. And they'll say, Hey, we are co-equal branches of government. Since the presidency has, is, cannot be reviewed by an act of Congress, we cannot be reviewed by an act of Congress. We cannot be reviewed by an act of Congress. And I don't think that's a mistake. I think that there is this belief that, you know, they see themselves, they see people coming at them and they don't wanna give up their power. And the best way of keeping their own power

is by giving that untouchable power to their other co-equal branch of government. So I think that's at play. And I think they will use this decision to elevate themselves as well. Yeah. I think that's a very good observation on that. I mean, look, one of the things that if Biden gets reelected, which we hope he will, that he'll, I think he has to readdress with renewed vigor this issue about expanding the United States Supreme Court. I mean, before, you know, he was the ultimate diplomat, ultimate statesman, no, no, blue ribbon panel.

Let's see what they recommend. I mean, screw that. I mean, when Roosevelt was trying to pass the New Deal, and he hit a roadblock with the Supreme Court, which was much more conservative than the nation at large, and unwilling to allow the New Deal to be passed, he started to threaten court packing. We're going to pack the court, we're going to expand it to 12 or 15 or whatever it's going to be. And then they sort of got right with him about the new deal.

And I think, you know, if you're going to have a super Supreme President floating above it all, and you're going to get then, I think that he's going to need to consider things like expanding the United States Supreme Court. Now let's see what the Supreme Court has to say about that. You know, I've always said it is completely both ironic and the height of hypocrisy. The United States Supreme Court is always rooting around the Constitution, trying to look for something. They

say that's their job. And the ultimate irony is their entire role in our three levels of co-equal branches is completely made up from a case called Marbury versus Madison where John Marshall, who's got a huge statue right at the United States Supreme Court building, basically gave the power to the United States Supreme Court and, basically gave the power to the United States Supreme Court, gave it a role that even the Constitution didn't write out for it in Article 3. So they had no problem then, no problem when their own power was given to them through an interpretive model and a case. Yet they're always looking around and fumbling around in the dark, because it's all reverse engineering. They say they're not judicial around and fumbling around in the dark because it's all reverse

engineering. They say they're not judicial activists, but they are. They say they're conservatives. This is another comment by Judge Ludwig. He said, don't use the C word. They're not conservatives. If they were conservatives, they wouldn't be doing any of the things that they're doing now. It is anathema to conservatism. And he's offended because he is a conservative and it's becoming a dying breed out there because of what's going on with MAGA. So all we can continue to do is to give our best analysis at the intersection of law and politics

right here on legal AF and give our audience, if not comfort, at least real and true and honest, intellectually honest and authentic analysis and commentary in a way that we never thought was out there in mainstream or corporate media. That's why we put together this network and this show. In particular, we've reached the end of a special edition of Legal AF, first time ever, with Karen Friedman, Nick Niflo, Michael Popak, and Dina Dahl together for a somebody who's deserved, nobody deserves a vacation more than Ben Micellus, who's vacationing with his wife, Sochi. We wish them well.

They're coming back. I assure you they'll be back by this next week's edition. Ben's still doing hot takes while he's on holiday, as we all do on this network, but we do appreciate him. But we wanted to, as a belated wedding gift, we wanted to give him the day off. And that's why we got together again. And it became quite fun and fascinating for me to do it. Karen and I do it every Wednesday,

but to bring Dina and your unique perspective onto this particular show as well. And so I thank you for at last minute, jumping into this with us today. How's the baby Popok? Baby Popok is doing fantastic. We had our second pediatrician visit. She's up nine ounces, which is she was very, very happy with that. Testament to my wife, I assure you. But it's really just

every day is just as those that have children already, or even grandchildren know, it's just a special love for which there is no, it's a special brand. There is no name for it. It's just extraordinary. I appreciate you asking about it. I appreciate all the support here by the Legal AFers and the Midas Mighty. So, until the Wednesday edition of Legal AF and next Saturday's with Ben Mycelis, and shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal Aid efforts.