Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump’s OWN Accountants STICK THE KNIFE in His Back in DEVASTATING Testimony

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

It was Trump all along. A new Godfather remake? No, new earthshaking testimony from one of Trump’s current inside accountants at his fraud trial that Trump gave the command to falsely inflate his assets. Michael Popok of Legal AF analyzes another day in the Fraud trial against Donald Trump, including the curious choice by trump’s lawyers, not to cross examine any of the employee witnesses that are killing them in court. Go to https://neurohacker.com/LEGAL for up to 100$ off and as a listener of Legal AF use code LEGAL at checkout for an extra 15% off your first purchase! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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No waiting necessary. You have the latest phone. Now take advantage of a great price on a 5G subscription phone plan. It's the perfect deal for anyone who could use some savings right now. Subscribe today at publicmobile.ca. Different is calling. This is Michael Popock, Legal AF. to paraphrase the great movie The Godfather. It was Donald Trump all along. That according to a low level vice president that works currently for the Trump organization, Patrick Bernie, who Donald Trump testified in a deposition about six months ago. He didn't even know quite who that guy was.

Well, that guy who's an assistant vice president and reports to Donald Trump's former chief financial officer, Alan Weiselberg, was one of the insider witnesses. The only one currently employed so far for Donald Trump, although not for very long, I'm sure, who completely supported the New York Attorney General's fraud case with his testimony. It was bombshell weather in the room changing testimony by Patrick Bernie. Patrick Bernie confessed that in a conversation with Alan Weisselberg in 2017 or 2018, in Alan Weisselberg's office, Alan Weisselberg told him is underling that Donald Trump, the boss, wanted his financial statement, increased, inflated.

In fact, it was a direct question and answer led skillfully by the attorney general, the assistant attorney general, Eric Harren. Eric Harren asked him, point of blank question, did anyone ever tell you that Donald Trump wanted his net worth on his statement of financial condition to go up each year to which young master Bernie responded, yes, Alan Weisselberg, the CFO, in Alan Weisselberg's office. And that was the last question after almost a full day of Mr. Bernie on the stand. That's how the office of attorney general ended it. That shows a lot of confidence in your case when you do a mic drop at the end of a cross-examination. I've been doing this for 32 years, I do cross-examination, and that was one of the cardinal

rules of cross-examination on display by the Office of Attorney General and on a high note. on display by the Office of Attorney General and on a high note and your cross examination on a high note, whether you have a jury or a judge in this case deciding the issues, don't end on something that's weak and on something that's strong. And that was about as close to a mic drop as you're going to find from a cross examination with that Q&A. Not only that, but it was a fulfillment of a promise that was made in the opening statement by Mr. Harren's colleague when he said in the opening statement two weeks ago that Mr. Bernie was going to take the stand and say that Donald Trump told Alan Weisselberg

to inflate his assets, which is a fraud. And more importantly, is a persistent fraud, as that term is used under New York statutes, giving the New York Attorney General broad powers to shut down fraudulent businesses and their practices and take back from them assets that were unlawfully and illegally obtained. You know it was a moment that hurt the Trump organization. All they could do was jump up Mr. Kice, Chris Kice, who's handling as the lead attorney for this case, not Alina Habba, but really Chris Keiss. Chris Keiss stood up and said, Oh, juxtaposition hearsay.

And the judge and they had argument about it. And the judge, because there's no jury president, and the judge was nice to the trumpers and said, you can submit a brief on that point. I'll hold my ruling in a bay. It's, I'm going to make it simple for everybody. I'll make the ruling right here for judging. Goron, it's not hearsay. I'm going to make it simple for everybody. I'll make the ruling right here. Projudging or on. It's not hearsay.

It is not considered hearsay when a person reports something that's a statement against interest of another person. It's either non hearsay because it's not being considered for the truth of the matter asserted, although it is, I think, here. Or it's not hearsay because it's being offered for the impact it had on the person to whom that was said. Or it's a statement against interest that's been now been repeated. So it's a hearsay exception.

Under any of those categories, that statement is coming into the record. In any event, the bell's already been wrong. The judge has heard it. He's not going to instruct himself to forget it. He heard it. I think at the end of the day, this is interesting, but Bernie's comment to end that Q&A is going to come into evidence that he was directed by Alan Weisselberg on behalf of Donald Trump that it was Trump all along who wanted to see his assets artificially and fraudulently inflate it.

Now, I thought the other interesting thing I wanted to bring out on this hot take is the lack of cross-examination by Trump. The Trump side said no questions after Mr. Bernie just severely damaged their case. I want to walk through that for a minute. Now first of all, Bernie was not treated like a hostile witness. He was treated like a normal witness. If he was a hostile witness, they would have went into cross examination mode asking leading questions that lead to a yes or no answer, like you see on television. Isn't it a fact that Mr. Weiselberg told you to change the inflate, the assets on behalf of Donald Trump?

Yes or no, sir, that's cross examination. They didn't do that with Mr. Bernie. They asked him open-ended questions, what we call direct questions, that were the witness testifies. That's because they had already prepped him and they knew he wasn't gonna be hostile and he was gonna tell the truth.

And then he looks like a boy scout. He's been with the Trump Organization for eight years. You know, assistant vice president in New York is like the lowest level vice president in any organization. So this is not a high level guy. He started as a financial analyst. He's so low level, the Donald Trump stated, he didn't even know who he was

The reason the attorney general in her deposition Several months ago against Donald Trump the second time started running names by him is because they knew what they were going to use them in their trial They wanted to see what his reaction was to them in advance. Do you know Patrick Bernie? I really don't Do you do you know the assistant controller that works for Alan Weissobert? I don't. She's testifying by the way today in court. The assistant, the other one, he doesn't know. If someone would have told me that there are science-backed ingredients that could help me feel 15 years younger in a matter of months, I wouldn't have believed it. Then I tried qualia's senolytic. As we age, everyone accumulates senescent cells in their body. Senescent cells cause symptoms of aging, such as aches and pains, slow workout recoveries,

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I'm trying to be kind as a trial lawyer myself about why you wouldn't cross examine somebody that just damaged you either because they don't think they can at all in front of the judge. Or they're worried that somehow it'll backfire on them creating more bad evidence against them. And I guess they think they have another shot at putting him on when the attorney general's case in chief, her presentation of the evidence and her witnesses is complete. She goes first.

She has the burden of proof. They're going to try to argue that maybe the burden hasn't been met, that she has improved intent to defraud, which is the element that she has to make out here in this trial, which is different than the persistent fraud claim that she already won on on summary judgment, that particular standalone fraud count under New York law doesn't require intent. And so that's why she was able to do that on summary judgment. So they can't be that cocky on the Trump side. I think they've got intent in the bag that they'll be able to argue that it hasn't been

proven and they're not going to cross examine a witness who just hurt them. And they didn't cross examine the next witness who also works currently for the Trump entities. They didn't do anything about him either. And he took the stand and didn't do cross. There we had Mark Hawthorne, who's the Trump Hotel Chief Accountant.

They call him the Chief Accounting Officer, they call them the chief accounting officer, which is sort of strange. It's usually one wrong below the chief financial officer, which means he reported to Alan Weiselberg the disgraced criminal tax cheat felon that is also testified against Donald Trump in this case in another cases. But Mark Hawthorne testified about a $290 million fake number on Donald Trump's

balance sheet related to the Trump hotels. That's a big number. You only need to show fraud in one dollar. So far, if you add it up, I think the attorney general is up to at least half a billion dollars, half a billion dollars of fake numbers on Donald Trump's personal financial statement, which he then uses to borrow more money that he's entitled to to ensure his properties and values that they're not worth and to get insurance to back all of that up as well. And Mr. Hawthorne said as the $290 million that he had assumed based on bad information, meaning lies, told to him by the Trump organization, his bosses, and Alan Weiselberg, that a $290 million cash number on the balance sheet in the books related to Vornotto, a developer that Donald Trump

was in a limited partnership with, that all of that cash was accessible to Donald Trump and therefore was an asset of the Trump organization reflected on their books. But then he learned through the New York Attorney General investigation that that $290 million was not accessible by Donald Trump. It was part of a partnership locked away in a partnership to which he didn't have unfettered access and therefore he had to admit on the stand that listing $290 million on him as a plus on the balance sheet as an asset was wrong. And it was based on wrong information purposefully, the argument will go, supplied to him by

the Trump organization. In other words, just knock to $290 million. What's $290 million between friends? Take it off the balance sheet. And when they asked him as sort of their final concluding question, knowing what you know now would you list the $290 million on Trump's balance sheet as an asset? He said probably not. I love the concessions.

He's still employed there, by the way, at least currently. So what you have is another example of Trump either instructing employees to just change numbers, cook the books, or giving false information to other employees to lead them to a false conclusion and put a number on a balance sheet that is knowingly false, knowingly by Trump false. And he's done that before. He's misled his lawyers and puts them in harm's way when they're negotiating with the federal government or the Department of Justice like in Mar-a-Lago and Evan Corcoran. And he did it with his own employees.

Why are we shocked that he misled his employees? He's been misleading his outside lawyers for a long, long time about what really happened. And so, again, without explanation, no cross examination in Mr. Hawthorne by Mr. Kai, he just stood up to no further questions. No questions. Another oddity. They might think that this will stop them

from being able to ask for a directed judgment in their favor, but they're not going to get a directed judgment in their favor from this judge at the close of evidence. See, at the close of the party that has the burden of proof, like the Attorney General here in her case in chief, when she's done, we know it because the judge says, are there any other witnesses, know your honor? Is there any other evidence that needs to be put into evidence? Know your honor has the attorney general rested? Yes, your honor.

That is a important point in a jury, in a trial, in a trial, a bright line, procedurally, because that then concludes the record as it relates to the burden that that party has to prove their case. They can't put in any other evidence. They can do some things across examination, but that completes the record on the case in chief for appeal and otherwise and for the decision.

And so at the end, what normally happens is they take a break and they go to lunch depending upon the time of day, they come back and the defense invariably makes a motion that they haven't proved their case. We've heard all their evidence, we've heard all their witnesses, we've heard everything, everything's in the record, you're on her. And under New York law, they don't make the elements of showing intent to defraud under these statutes that she's suing under, the conspiracy, the fraud about financial statements, the fraud about business records, the fraud about insurance, and the conspiracies around

all that. They have improved it, Judge, and they'll argue about it. So maybe they're concerned that they'll accidentally get evidence into the record on behalf of the Attorney General that will help her case, And so that'll defeat their ability to ask for a directed judgment in their favor without them having to put on their decase and defense. But they're not going to get that in this case. So they're left with calling back Mr. Hawthor in the Trump hotel's account and calling back Mr. Bernie, if he's still there and other people that work for the company and doing

it in a friendly way in their case should they need it. I guess that's what they're going to do. I tell you that I generally cross examine, especially because it, especially if you have a jury, if you have a jury, you want to do it right there because the jury's already forming their opinions. I guess they're banking on the judge not forming opinions, but this judge's been on the case for a year. He's been violently attacked by Donald Trump.

He's been sued by Donald Trump to try to get him off the case. He's had a motion for disqualification against him. He's had social media attacks against him and his staff. He's had an issue, a contempt finding against Donald Trump and a $10,000 a day fine. He's had to gag Donald Trump. I think this judge is paying attention. And I don't think you're going to get your directed verdict or you should wait to cross examine, but that's my sort of sense as a trial lawyer and giving some free advice.

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