Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump’s WEEK RUINED by Jack Smith’s POWERFUL Moves

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo are back for the midweek edition of the top-rated Legal AF podcast. On tap? 1. Special Counsel Jack Smith can walk, chew gum, obtain a new grand jury indictment against Trump for the DC Election Interference case, AND school Judge Cannon to the 11th Circuit all at the same time; 2. the groundswell of Republican support for VP Harris threatens to swallow Trump alive, including a dozen former Republican White House Lawyers and presidential scholars all banding together to endorse VP Harris because Trump is a threat to our democracy and unfit for office; the Democrats are firing back at MAGA attempts to monkey with the election results, and have filed suit to ensure that MAGA doesn’t change the rules on vote counting and certification before the November 5 election, and and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Thanks to our sponsors: HumanN: Find out how you can get a free 30-day supply on bundles of new SuperBeets Heart Chews Advanced and save 15% for a limited time only by going to https://GETSUPERBEETS.COM, promo code LEGALAF 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. VIIA: Head to https://viiahemp.com and use code LEGALAF to receive 15% off! Zbiotics: Head to https://zbiotics.com/LegalAF to get 15% off your first order when you use LEGALAF at checkout. 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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and five percent uber cash back on rides. Not whatever you think university is for. Get uber one for students. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student. Join for just $4.99 a month. Savings may vary. Eligibility and member terms apply. Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal AF. No one will ever accuse special counsel Jack Smith of being a dull boy. He has been very busy since the last time Karen Freeman, Ignifilo and I got together. He shows what a what a accomplished special prosecutor can do. They can walk and

indict and file 11 circuit briefs all at the same time. We're going to talk about on this show the new superseding indictment coming out of a 2023 grand jury that Jack Smith went and got secretly without anybody knowing, you know, talk about gangster After asking judge Chutkin for an extra three weeks Can I have an extra three weeks so I can get my position ready on the current indictment and the United States Supreme Court? July 1st ruling on immunity. Sure you can while he was really going to get a new indictment We're gonna talk about what a superseding indictment is. We're gonna talk about the new arraignment. We're gonna talk about process and procedure

and what it may or may not do to the timetable for this particular case. Can't think of anybody better to bat these ideas around with than my colleague Karen Freeman at NIFILO. Then we're gonna talk about 11th Circuit. We've now got the filing there. Same people, same quality work you've come to expect from the special counsel's office,

filing the brief in order to school Judge Cannon. We're in Judge Cannon's school now, about what she did wrong in finding that the special counsel is a figment of her imagination, isn't properly appointed, isn't properly funded, isn't an inferior officer who sits under an attorney general or any of that? And then got around to dismissing the Mar-a-Lago case because she just can't figure out what a special counsel is or how they're properly funded by Congress or under the Constitution. And he's not having any

of it. We'll talk about what he's told the 11th Circuit. We don't know yet who the three judge panel of the 11th Circuit is, but we can make some educated guesses about how this is going to go for the Trump lawyers. Then I've got a special pleasure here, a point of personal exception and pleasure. We're joined again by my law partner, Nick Rostow. And when he's not my law partner, Mr. Rostow, Nick as we like to call him, has an amazing career primarily serving Republican presidents in the White House. He's joined together with 11 of his colleagues to not only talk about the looming threat to democracy, our constitutional republic of a Donald Trump being returned to the White House, but an endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Tomorrow, I'm going to be interviewing again, Judge Ludig, about his separate statement going after Donald Trump appropriately and saying why he's voting for Kamala Harris, but here Judge Ludig has been joined by 11 others, including Nicholas Rostow, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Legal Advisor to the National Security Council under both Reagan and Bush 41 will join us for that segment to talk about how he got to this point in history in his own personal position taking and why it's so important to our democracy and Constitution Republic. And then Karen and I will talk about the new case, new lawsuit just brought by the Democratic National Committee and the Georgia Democratic National Committee to once again make Fulton

County, Georgia ground zero for the fight for election integrity. No, we're not talking about the prosecution case against Donald Trump. We're talking about this new lawsuit against the election board, the state election board for Georgia, now dominated by Trumpers and MAGA, who have decided to change the rules in the middle of the game about how election boards can certify and canvas elections, trying to take away power from judges and courts to handle contests related to fraud in an attempt to throw sand in the gears of our democracy and avoid the inevitable, the certification we hope of the election of Vice President

Kamala Harris as president. Uh and I just we love that too. We're gonna talk about all of that and so much more with Karen Freeman, Agnifilo. Here for the hey, how you doing? I'm glad you're here for the whole show. I'm glad you're back where you're at. And last week, you were in you're in transit and you were able to participate in the Manhattan DA segment, but not for the whole thing. But let's love to see you here. Let's, let's jump right in. Jack Smith can walk and chew gum at the same time and indict and file 11th circuit briefs at the same time.

Talk about, I've done some hot takes. You've done some hot takes. Talk about it from your perspective. Why don't you explain to the audience, what is a superseding indictment? What is the meaning of it coming out of an existing grand jury that's been kicking around since 20, since apparently 2023. Why did Jack Smith decide to do that rather than, or did he have to do that in order to salvage his indictment?

And what does it mean for the future? Arraignment, motion practice, trial in this case. Why don't you sort of kick it off and then I'll do some commentary when you're done. Sure, so let's start with what is an indictment. An indictment is the charging document or charging instrument that tells you what the charges are against you. And you get the indictment by presenting evidence to a grand jury and the grand jury votes on

whether or not there is probable cause to believe that a crime occurred. It's a lower standard. It's not beyond a reasonable doubt. And in the federal system, you could, your evidence doesn't have to be live witnesses where they come in and they testify and tell you from their firsthand knowledge what happened, like you have to in New York, for example, you could have an FBI agent come in and testify and talk about their summary of the case. I mean, that's sometimes what prosecutors do. So it is quite easy to get an indictment

if you have the evidence. You go in, you swear to tell the truth and you have to under oath, tell them exactly what the case is about, but it's not that complicated to do federally. And prosecutors often supersede. Now a superseding indictment just means it's amended or it's changed. And if you're going to add any charges, add any words, add any defendants, if you're going

to add anything to an indictment, you have to supersede. If Jack Smith were going to just, for example, take out certain things from the indictment, he would not have had to supersede. He could have just literally crossed them out and dropped it off of the indictment. So, so that, the fact that he superseded and didn't just cross things out was clue number one that his, that the indictment has changed pretty dramatically in light of the July immunity ruling that the Supreme Court handed down saying that the president or any president essentially is immune for official acts.

And again, because he could be just immune from official acts, he could have just gone through and exed things out, but he made a lot of changes. And the changes were both substantive and stylistic and was very interesting because he made sure in this new superseding indictment to make this all about Donald Trump in his personal capacity or his, as a candidate, so not as president. And so a lot came out, including everything related to the Department of Justice, like Jeffrey Clark and his attempt to install Jeffrey Clark in the 11th hour after the election, after he'd already lost, but before inauguration, to try and continue this bogus election interference

claim with all these ridiculous investigations into quote unquote fraud. Right? That was he's like an environmental lawyer at the Department of Justice that he was going to super elevate to the role of acting attorney general in these waning days of his administration, which is which is just suspect in and of itself. And all of that has come out and it leads an open question because Jeffrey Clark was one of the co-conspirators,

I think it was co-conspirator number four, and that's just been removed. The other co-conspirators, there were six total, were still there. When, and when we saw there was a superseding indictment, one of my questions that I had to myself was are there are the co-conspirators going to be unin are they going to be indicted? They're unindicted co-conspirators.

Would you are we going to see a seven defendant or six defendant indictment? But no, Jack Smith kept it only Donald Trump and he kept the same four charges. He didn't change that the same same four charges. He didn't change that, the same exact four charges. It's just about what he's going to prove and what evidence came in. And the indictment takes you through it. You go through it all and it's very much about candidate Trump and citizen Trump

and Trump in his personal capacity. And he really, but the most interesting thing that he kept in there was all the references to Mike Pence, because that could have been something that Jack Smith said, you know, that's dicey because the Supreme Court said, you know, basically, your title doesn't give you immunity. It's what function you're in that gives you immunity. And the vice president could be one of those people that goes either way. Because in addition to being part of the executive branch and being Donald Trump's vice president at the time, he was also his running mate, right? He also was candidate vice president

for the next election and he, or for that election for the next administration. And the next, the other thing he was, was he, he, as all vice presidents are, he's the ceremonial certifier of the election results in his capacity as president of the Senate. So he's essentially part of the legislative branch when he does that. And so Jack Smith kept all of that in. But all of the Department of Justice stuff is out and the indictment is pared down. It's about 10, nine or 10 pages shorter. And he really made it so that there's very little that is still on the table for Judge Chetkin to have to apply the new law to these facts.

And I still think she might hold an evidentiary hearing with respect to certain evidence in here. There's some evidence that you don't have to that's clearly plainly personal, private candidate Trump stuff. And a lot of that had to do with the fake slates of electors, etc. in the states. And so much of that stayed in there. But this Mike Pence stuff, I think, is something that she might want to hold a hearing, as well as some of the evidence, some of the evidentiary stuff that Jack Smith had in here,

like, for example, the presidential Twitter account that Jack Smith added language to clarify that sometimes he used it in his presidential capacity, but sometimes in his personal capacity. So those are the types of things that Judge Chutkin will have to determine and potentially hold a mini hearing, if you will, or a mini trial with respect to this evidence at a hearing before the election, which might happen. But what has to happen first before that is you have to be arraigned. You have to be arraigned on this superseding indictment.

Every time there's a new charging instrument, the first thing that has to happen is an arraignment and nothing can happen until he is arraigned. And knowing that Jack Smith said, will waive Mr. Trump's or defendant Trump's will waive his appearance if the judge wants and if the defendant wants, because there's so much logistics and so much that goes into bringing him there and having him have to come to court, etc. And to just not delay things. But I agree with you, Popak. It's very clear that when Jack Smith asked for some more time, it's because he

was going into the grand jury and presenting this superseder. And it was secret because all grand jury proceedings are by their nature are secret. You never know what's going on there. So he's been busy at work. And I think we have a pretty substantial charging instrument here that's going to pass muster. Let me do the end and then I'll go to the beginning of your commentary. On the end, the arraignment, if I was a betting man, which I am, he's shown up for the arraignment. This is like telling an arsonist to stay away from a fire. He use these opportunities and he's running out of these opportunities in order to reinforce his whole lawfare, weaponization, election interference. I mean, everybody has seen it. If not, we've reported on it here on the Might-As-Touch Network,

all of his insane, untethered to reality social media postings about, you know, election interference again, weaponization again. He's not gonna give up this opportunity. He's gonna be like, nope, nope, I wanna go to the arraignment because I wanna stand in front of those bicycle racks in front of the courthouse again, like I did in New York, and I wanna have my press conference and I wanna have all the cameras on me.

And he's running out of opportunities where that happens. You know, they complain about Kamala Harris not giving an interview, which she's giving and it's going to be reported tomorrow by CNN, which I thought just to digress for a moment. Let's give her a break. Six weeks ago or whatever it was, she didn't know she was going to be running for president. So in that short amount of time, she had to recalibrate, get her entire staff refocused, hire new people, take over the social media platform, the campaign platform, get her delegates in shape, get actually nominated, hold a convention, and then do

battleground states while she's picked the vice president and be vice president while she's doing that. Okay, she may not have had time to sit down for a 20-minute Q&A. It's not because she's an idiot or she was avoiding it or because she didn't she wants to use notes or anything else. It's because she was doing some other really important things in a very compressed period. So even the Democrats are hand-wringing about, why isn't she doing a press conference? Relax. I think she'd have a, you wouldn't wanna hear from her if she hadn't already been nominated. She's now the vice president, the presidential candidate.

Donald Trump, by contrast, is gonna come to that arraignment. And it's gonna be maybe before the debate at the rate we're going. It looks like it's gonna be the sentencing of Donald Trump a week or so after the debate on the 10th of September and this arraignment maybe before. What I liked about this gangster act by Jack Smith is, and it doesn't, to answer the question, I think this is what you're alluding to, it doesn't eliminate the hearing, the trial

judge has been instructed by the Supreme Court and her bosses that she is to take whatever indictment is in front of her. Yes, it was traveled under her original indictment, but now take the superseding indictment and test it, pressure test it, and make sure that the immunity decision-making about evidence, about official conduct, stretch to its outer boundaries, constitutional core, presidential conduct, and private conduct has all been properly made out. Now I like the fact that rather than just blue penciling the indictment, he decided, you know what, while we're in there, let's beef up all the references to the private attorneys and the private ellipse campaign speech and the lack of a role for the president

in the electoral count process while we're at it. And let's also beef up the fake elector certificates and Donald Trump's role in it because that is completely a way to salvage the 18 USC 1512 counts for obstruction of an official proceeding. That was the blueprint left to them, the path left to them by the United States Supreme Court, a 6-3 MAGA right-wing decision. So, you know, they were diligently on their own running this through the filter of it, but now Judge Chutkin has to do her job. I'm not sure about the evidentiary hearing. First of all, as I said in a prior hot take here on the network, it's been reported that,

and he's right, Jack Smith doesn't want to showcase his trial strategy, his evidence. The last thing you want to do is tip off an outmatched and stretch too thin Donald Trump legal team. I don't want to give them a show of what. I've done many and summary trials in front of juries. You don't want to do it. If you don't have to, you don't want to do it. And I think this new indictment superseding

has to rise and fall on its own merits. Can't be supplemented by other pieces of evidence from the secret grand jury. It either does or does not state criminal actions against Donald Trump for the four counts based on the elements that have to be alleged from this. Or if it has deficiencies because of the way the grand jury handled it or otherwise that's for the judge to decide ultimately. I don't think she has to hear from anyone. Mike Pence doesn't have to come in and tell a story in order for her to understand just like any other

indictment has to rise and fall on its own merits. So I think they're going to push for briefing, no evidentiary hearing, Trump wants delay so he're going to push for briefing, no evidentiary hearing, Trump wants delay, so he's going to push for who knows what. Yes, I want to hear a preview of what the prosecutors are going to put on and we're going to hear from that. And then you have the question of what this does to the trial. And my argument, if I was Jack Smith, even though I know you framed it as this is a substantial rewrite back in old Hollywood when they used to rewrite the script, rewrite of the original indictment. That is one way to argue it. I think Trump's going to argue it's a rewrite. Another way to argue it is that the essential elements, except for Jeff Clark being removed and a couple of window dressings

about private counsel and a little more beef up on the fraudulent false elector certificates, it's essentially the same. It still tells the same story about battleground states, what Trump, Giuliani, and others did in Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, in Arizona, still telling the same story about Giuliani pressuring Rusty Bowers, the Speaker of the House in Arizona, the fake legislative hearings with the die dripping Giuliani in Pennsylvania. Oh, they left that part out. It still tells the essential same story and same four counts, same co-conspirators except one

has been removed. And then the other aspect of it I wanted to hit on here to get your view, Karen, is that the fact that we now have reporting that the grand jury, we now know more about the grand jury. The grand jury was not recently convened in 2024 in order to reindite Donald Trump. They went back to an existing grand jury that's been kicking around since 23. A grand jury whose number is 23-8, who sits in DC and has been doing lots of things over the last year and a half, including indicting Gen 6 insurrectionists. It's the same grand jury apparently that indicted the carjacker for Justice Sotomayor.

And I could just see Jack Smith sitting around the table like hmm, we're gonna reindite Where should we go? Should we do a spell and somebody said well, we got a 23-8 grand jury sitting around They've been doing Jan six stuff. Why don't we go into them great idea? When could well, when do they meet? Let's bring him. Let's do it. And my one of my one of my takes on this is I am not sure that Giuliani Boris Epstein Ken Chesborough, and John Eastman, who are still listed as unindicted co-conspirators, one through whatever, I'm not sure they're out of the woods yet. Because if I was Jack Smith,

while he's got the chance, and he's still the special counsel, I would bring US versus Giuliani, US versus Eastman, US versus Boris Epstein, and so on with this 23-8 grand jury. What do you think about that, Karen? Yeah, well, you know, that was my first question was, is he gonna, now that he's superseded, is he gonna indict the unindicted co-conspirators? Because, you know, my theory all along

was the reason they weren't indicted in the first place was to keep this streamlined in hopes of getting a trial before the election. Now that we know that's not going to happen, I'm not sure why he didn't do that, to be honest. Maybe he has. Maybe they're going to be part of a separate indictment. But in that same grand jury, you know, it's a it's a great question and it's a great observation and it is a mystery, right? Why haven't they been charged here? And they certainly deserve to be charged. And, you know, it's interesting to hear you talk about this grand jury versus that grand jury

because as a prosecutor, a grand jury, they're just people who are summoned to jury duty to hear any case that comes before them. And you don't think much about which grand jury you're going into. It's more about who's available, who has time, what time of day are they sitting, et cetera. And it's less strategic because although you charge them, you tell them what the law is, they don't really have much interaction with them. You go in, you present your case, there's no judge, there's no, no anything. So it's sort of interesting. I'm not sure whether he has something up his sleeve or not. But it is an interesting question that I'd like to, I'd like to think about and kick around a little bit more. And one other question too, Popak, that I'd love to hear your thoughts on is whether or not Jeffrey Clark, now that he's not an unindicted co-conspirator, do you think he, that immunity could extend to him? You know, it's an open question about him and other justice officials, whether immunity extends to them as well.

And you know, it's unclear and there's a Harlow versus Fitzgerald case that seems to suggest that it might. But you know, anyway, the jury's out for me on that question that I'd like to really think about and do some more research on, but I'd love your thoughts on that. Yeah, and I think you and I will be in a better position by next midweek after we see the actual filings from Jack Smith, because he's still going to be taking a position about, hey, guess what I

did during my summer vacation? I got a superseding indictment, and now we need to talk about it. And I think he's going to be doing some talking about it and we can, you know, is Jeff, to bet to your question, is Jeff Clark out of the woods now? Certainly under the way the United States Supreme Court framed the use of official conduct or in this case, core presidential absolute immunity conduct to help as evidence to prove unofficial conduct. That's a big no-no. I know why they dropped Jeff Clark from the allegations.

They didn't need him and actually would have offended, I believe, and poked and tried to poke the bear of the United States Supreme Court if he had continued to be included. But you're asking a broader question. You're asking whether Jeff Clark could still be indicted or has some sort of immunity. He'll raise all of it. He got indicted in Georgia. Meadows is busy, we'll do it on another episode, is busy trying to drag the case to federal court again. He's asked the United States Supreme Court

in the Georgia Fulton County election interference case, which sort of maps onto this to transfer the case to federal. But Jeff Clark is an indicted co-conspirator in the Georgia Fulton County case. And so, you know, I think it's still up for grabs. And if I'm Jack Smith, let's have that fight about the extension of immunity about it. I never really saw presidential immunity helping the other side of the equation, help the president. Right. But if one of the reasons that there's presidential immunity is so that it doesn't hamper his ability to make decisions, et cetera, well, how can he make- Consult, consult. Right, exactly. Well, how can he do that if they're facing prosecution? It's an interesting

question that if you start to go down the rabbit hole, I'm a little worried that it could be an issue. So I want to think about it. And I want to do some more research. But I think it's I'm putting a pin in it because the Supreme Court makes it unclear. It's not clear, but it might be. I think Jack Smith is hedging a little bit. You've hit a nail right on the head, as always. The murkiness, the muddiness, the unclear thinking of the Supreme Court decision has been chapping the ass of anybody that dabbles in constitutional analysis, like people on our show, people that are coming up like Nick Rostow

in our next segment or so, and it's purposefully not well-written. And we can't, the reason that we're here sort of ruminating about it and trying to figure it out is because it's not clear and nobody can figure it out. And that was one of their intentions, was to sort of leave it really, really, really bad. The last thing I'll say before we move on to our sponsors in the next segment is I mentioned Mark

Meadows. When the original indictment came down, Karen, how much time that you and I and Ben spend scratching our head about the fact that Mark Meadows was left out of the original indictment? Yeah, we thought he was cooperating. We thought he's cooperating. Well, now we know he's not cooperating. And so the question begs the question, why isn't he in the superseding indictment? It's more of a rhetorical question. So I don't think he's out of the woods. And maybe Jack Smith in this 23-8 jury, grand jury,

is we might see a US versus, as you said, a whole bunch of other people who are the co-conspirators. Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Pips all get indicted. But we'll talk about that in my ridiculous pop culture references. We'll talk about the 11th Circuit position that Jack Smith has taken against Judge Cannon while he's schooling her and telling the 11th Circuit that the judge has violated the Cardinal's

rule and Cardinal's sin of being a federal judge, not recognizing hierarchical stare decisis, which is a Latinate and complicated way of saying she doesn't know who her bosses are. And we're going to talk about why she should have learned that the first day in Judge Academy, in Judge School, when she got that position and why it infected her entire decision making. We'll talk about that. And then we're going to talk about the dam has broken against Donald Trump, and now Republican patriots, leaders, lawyers, White House lawyers for Republican presidents, constitutional scholars, judges have all come out, not only against Donald Trump, but for Kamala Harris. And we'll be joined by my law partner and one of the signatories of a stinging rebuke

of Donald Trump against him and in favor of Kamala Harris, Nick Rostow, and then Karen and I will round out the show today talking about the new suit in Georgia. We're back in Fulton County. You know, it's like Godfather 3 when I thought we were out, they're dragging me back in. We got another election integrity issue if you can, if you can believe it, even before we get to the election and anybody has voted in Georgia, we'll talk about all that. Now it's time to talk about how to support the show.

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and save over 40% off. Again, that's trymiracle.com slash LegalAF to treat yourself. Thank you, MiracleMaid, for sponsoring this episode. All right, welcome back. We're back and now we're going to dive into the other half of Jack Smith, walking and chewing gum at the same time, a filing at the 11th Circuit. I'll kick this one off and I'll kick it over to you, Kara. Does that make sense? All

right. So Jack Smith has told the 11th Circuit, no uncertain terms, the judge canon fell asleep in judge school, where they taught her that the Supreme Court reigns supreme. And if they make a decision in a case and they make it clear that they're not making any assumptions and they're making a fundamental decision that applies to an issue that's before you in your court, you have to follow the United States Supreme Court.

Just as Judge Cannon has to follow what her bosses at the 11th Circuit just above her say. She can't ignore it, she can't make new canon law, she's got to follow it. It's called hierarchical stare decisis. It's the stare decisis part is you got to follow the precedent and you got to follow what your bosses say above you. What did Judge Cannon do wrong? Well, she did a little thing wrong called ignoring a over 50 year line of precedent starting with US versus Nixon. The last time we had a corrupt criminal president, which generated a lot of case law.

And in that case, the Supreme Court validated the existence of a special prosecutor, which is effectively what a special counsel is. And whether you call it a special prosecutor or a special counsel or an independent counsel arose by any other name is a prosecutor. And that's the point that Jack Smith has raised. And that the Supreme Court declared that Leon Jaworski,

the special prosecutor in the 1970s, the White House case against Richard Nixon and everybody else in his dirty band of tricks. Had subpoena power, had power to prosecute. That can't be ignored. And that's what she did wrong. She said, well, there's so many different names for the prosecutor.

You know, there's an independent counsel and sometimes they're called a special counsel. Sometimes they're called an independent counsel. It's so confusing, I can't follow it. So I'm just going to say that this person is not a legitimately appointed inferior officer of the Attorney General. What is she talking about? Since 1909, the Department of Justice, through its powers afforded to the Attorney General under Article II of the Constitution, has fleshed out the Department of Justice. Where does she think 23 departments, eight divisions, and the rest, where does she think thousands of workers in the Department of Justice have come

from? Most of them prosecutors, if not by the proper appointment under the inferior officer clause of the US Constitution. So she's off on a wrong foot and she never catches up. Special Counsel Jack Smith is an inferior officer appointed by the department head of this case, in this case the attorney general of the Department of Justice, to prosecute cases. That's what he is. And that's who he works for. And that's who he reports to ultimately. And that's who he has to consult with. And that's what his paycheck says.

Paycheck says Department of Justice. He doesn't get a 1099. He's not an independent contractor. He's not some stranger to the case the way that Clarence Thomas suggested or she adopted. And he's funded appropriately by legislative action that took pains when they repealed the independent council law back in the 1990s when both sides of the aisle hated what Ken Starr did in the Whitewater going after Clinton. They were like, yeah, we don't need this independent counsel rule.

Let's let the Department of Justice, through its inferior officer appointment clause, handle it themselves, but they kept the funding intact. They basically said, we're getting rid of the council law, but the funding stays alive. This indefinite funding doesn't have to be sought every year. Anytime the Department of Justice wants to exercise its right under its guidelines adopted ultimately by Congress through the CFR, Code of Federal Regulation, to appoint a special counsel, which is what happened here, they're

funded. They're funded out of the Department of Justice's budget. That's it. This is not complicated. What I just did in four minutes, Alien Cannon in 93 pages couldn't get right. And now with the 11th Circuit filing, you have it. Let me just read two parts of it then I'll turn it over to you, Karen.

This is my favorite. These are my favorite parts. So under the statement of the case, they love taking her to task by saying that things, there's been a some version of a special prosecutor since the 1870s. Okay, and the naming of it, the nomenclature doesn't matter what we ended up calling it. And she puts undue influencer weight on the naming or the funding or the this and the

that and ignores the US versus Nixon precedent. This is what they said. The attorney general validly, this is page eight, the attorney general validly appointed the special counsel who is also properly funded. In ruling otherwise, the district court, that's canon, deviated from binding a Supreme Court precedent, misconstrued the statutes that authorized the special counsel's appointment, and took inadequate account of the long-standing history of the Attorney General appointments of special counsels. Oh, that's all she did? Okay. They then lead off with the US versus Nixon. And this is what they say on that. In 1974, the Supreme Court, this is page 8 again, determined that the Attorney General

had statutory authority under four different sections of the US Code. Section 28 USC, Section 509, 510, 515, and 533. That's the recurring theme in the brief. That those same sections, 09, 10, 15, and 33, are the power that come down from the US Constitution Article 2 through Congress to empower the Department of Justice and the Attorney General to do just what they did. This is what it says on page 8. Apart from the district judge below, district court below, that's Judge Cannon, apart from her, every court to consider the question has concluded that the Supreme Court's determination that those statutes authorized the Attorney

General to appoint the Watergate special prosecutor was necessary to the decision that a justiciable controversy existed and therefore constitutes a holding that binds lower courts. In other words, every judge in America, in jurisprudence, in federal practice that has had to deal with the issue since 1974, has found that Watergate stands for the proposition that the special prosecutor, special counsel, independent counsel is a proper creature of the attorney general and is not illegitimate, including the Supreme Court in more recent decisions that also could have been cited. So I could go on, including the references

to things that happened in 1909, in 1870, I mean on pages 12 through 13, they go through that long history of the Attorney General appointing the lawfulness of the special counsel's appointment. This is just a fundamental rebuke to alien canon. The only thing that surprised me, and I'll leave it on this and you can pick up where you like, Karen, the only thing that surprised me, maybe it shouldn't, is that I thought at this moment,

after three separate fundamental misapprehensions of the law by this judge from before the indictment and now with the indictment including dismissing the case because she found the special prosecutor special counsel to be invalid for the first time in 200 years would be grounds for Jack Smith to say at least in a footnote maybe it's time for the 11th Circuit to consider reassignment of the case to a different judge. He doesn't do that. Doesn't mean they can't do it on their own,

but he doesn't ask for it. Just like your old office didn't take a position, although I thought they did, in sentencing of Donald Trump and all of that. What do you make, you pick up with it. What do you make, what did you pick up from it? And what do you think about why Jack Smith didn't go for the jugular and ask for her removal?

So, you know, I'll start with that. That was the thing that surprised me too. A lot of us were wondering, is he gonna ask for the recusal? But I am sure what the Department of Justice did is they went through every single time any middle circuit appellate court ever removed a judge, right, and gave it a case to another judge.

They went through every single one, I'm sure, in the history of the Department of Justice and looked to see, is it something that you have to ask for or is it something that they do on their own? And I am sure whatever they found informed how they were going to handle this. They don't wanna look biased in any way. They don't wanna make this about Judge Cannon. They wanna keep this about the law.

And certainly the 11th Circuit knows that they can remove the case from Judge Cannon. They know they have that authority and they know that she has literally been lawless several times throughout this case. And so they don't need to be told or requested in order to do that if that is something they are so inclined to do.

So I'm sure that's what Jack Smith wants to keep this about the law and not make it personal. That's what I picked up from that. But yes, it raised an eyebrow for me as well when I saw that. I was certainly looking for it. The only thing I'll add to what you said, which is an excellent recitation of where we are in this case, is first of all, I enjoyed reading this. I've enjoyed this because, number one, it's really a lesson. It's like a history lesson

in special councils and the Constitution and the Appropriations Clause and the Appointments Clause and inferior officers. And, you know, it's really, it's just been a very interesting time to be a lawyer, because so many things that we have taken for granted and do take for granted, it all comes from a place, it all comes from a source. And, and so when you have to go back and refresh your your memory on these things, because you last time you read the Appointments Clause or the Appropriations Clause was in law school, you know, it's

it all starts to really make sense. And I thought that this, that Jack Smith's brief really did a great job at explaining in normal people's terms why Judge Cannon's position is illogical, makes no sense, and really just strains any semblance of logic and reason. Although you're right about stare decisis and precedent, she was essentially, Clarence Thomas wrote her a love letter, as you called it, inviting her to make this decision, right? And it's spelling it out for her.

So she knows who her bosses are, and that's why he's one of them, right? And so this was very much written for him as much as it was anybody else. You know, he gave her essentially he gave her permission to do this. So I think that's why she felt emboldened to do this. And don't forget, she did it on the day before the day after he was, you know, attempt the attempted shooting of of where he got nicked in the ear with shrapnel and the day before, you know,

the day of the convention is when she, you know, basically gave him this gift of dismissing the case. So, but you know, the thing about it, my favorite part of it is just how ridiculous and illogical it is, the position she's taking, which is that special counsel would be okay if you appointed him from within the Department of Justice.

The person had to be already an employee, but the fact that you pulled him from the outside, then it's not okay. And that just seems ridiculous, because of course the Department of Justice can appoint AUS course, the Department of Justice can appoint a USA's, you know, the special assistants who are thousands of people across the country who prosecute these crimes. And of course, they can even, you know, the the the they they can appoint

the president can appoint United States attorneys and, you know, all that. There's all sorts of units and bureaus, et cetera, within the Department of Justice, right, that they create. And none of those have to be have to be approved by Congress. And so just to make it so that the special counsel is somehow different than that really just makes no sense. So so I thought that they did a really good job at explaining that in this and to show how this is kind of an absurd position that she has put herself into. So I think the 11th Circuit will

very, very quickly and expeditiously rebuke her on this. That's my feeling. Yeah, I agree. I think they, by the prosecutor remaining agnostic about reassignment, I mean, it is what it is. And if the 11th Circuit and the three-judge panel, which has not yet been assigned, but I'm hoping that William Pryor, the chief judge, is part of it, if they think it's time for her to go under the reassignment power that they have under the statute, and they're going to reassign her, this would be a perfect time to do it. I will assure you that in the history of every person on the 11th Circuit, they have never dealt with a case where a federal trial judge has dismissed the case and closed the case on the indictment because she found that the prosecutor was improperly

appointed exactly zero amount of times. So they have the grounds to do it and he could just stay neutral. And this way it doesn't play into the hands of the law fair and the weaponization and boohoo election interference. Like we didn't ask, we didn't even ask for it. We just said, remand back to the trial judge with instructions, you know, but they're going to do what they're going to do and we're going to continue to follow it. I wanted to, Karen, I wanted to bring in, in our next segment, we're going to talk about the groundswell of support by Republican and Republican leaders, patriots, constitutional scholars, White House lawyers who all worked for Republicans and who banded together in a new

Republican White House lawyers letter, which we have our copy of here, to not only to rebuke, that's my word of the day today, Donald Trump, but also to endorse, more importantly, endorse Kamala Harris and for good reason. Let's bring in Nick Rostow. Hi, Nick. Hi there. It's great to be back on your show. Thank you. And for those that follow the show closely, we had

Nick Rostow on because he's also an expert on classified documents, national security issues. And we brought him on way back when we talked about the Mar-a-Lago case and about SIPA, the Classified Information Procedures Act case, right? Right. If I had classified documents in my garage, I'd be in jail. I wouldn't even, you know, there'd be no trial. There'd be nothing. Yeah.

So we got Nick back and and and when he's not my law partner full disclosure He has an illustrious career It would take it would take an entire show for me to read out his CV But you can go on wiki and in other places my for a website and find his is But we'll just summarize it this way, the very pithy way, as it relates to this segment. Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Legal Advisor to the National Security Council for both Reagan and Bush 41. And so you know

that those are both Republicans. And let me just read excerpts from the letter. I did a hot take about Judge Ludic about a week earlier. He's also joined this letter about his position that he's taken and we're gonna have him on tomorrow. I'm gonna have him on for a separate special edition of Legal AF as an interview. Let me just read to you what Nick signed along with all these other lawyers, including Judge Ludic. And we'll get to that in a minute.

It starts this way. We are lawyers who worked in the White House and executive office of the president for Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. We endorse Kamala Harris and support her election as president because we believe that returning former president Trump to office would threaten American democracy and undermine the rule of law in our country. And that's the first sentence, folks.

I continue. We urge all patriotic Republicans, former Republicans, conservatives, and center-right citizens and independent voters to place love of country above party and ideology to join us in supporting Kamala Harris. And then they give some of the reasons why. Donald Trump's own vice president, Pence, and multiple members of his administration, White House staff at the most senior levels, as well as former Republican nominees for president and vice president

have already declined to endorse his reelection. They understand especially well the profound risks presented by his potential return to public office. Indeed, Trump's own attorney general and national security advisor have said unequivocally that Donald Trump is unfit for office, dangerous, and detached from reality. Trump's attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after losing the election proved

beyond any reasonable doubt his willingness to place his personal interest above the law and values of our constitutional democracy. And they don't conclude it this way, but I think this is a very poignant point here to segue into Nick coming on. We believe this election presents a binary choice and Trump is utterly disqualified. Accordingly, we choose to cast our votes for Kamala Harris to prevent returning to office someone who was guilty of grave wrongdoing to our constitution, democracy and rule of law and who remains unfit, dangerous and detached from reality. And then they give

a whole list, which we'll talk about over with Nick, about why they will vote for Kamala Harris over Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Let's bring on Nick. Nick, talk to our audience about how your own personal evolution and how you got to this moment in history where you decided, and you've been doing this regularly with the filing of amicus briefs with this group or the similar group against Donald Trump, but talk about your background, your Republican, Federalist, conservative background, and how you got to the point where you said, I'm going to help

write and sign this letter and endorse Kamala Harris from my vantage point as both a constitutional White House presidential scholar and also as a Republican. Well, my personal evolution is from sort of A to B. I was an intern for Henry M. Jackson of the Senator from Washington, Scoop Jackson. I don't know how many people in your audience will remember him, but he was a hawk on defense and foreign affairs and a liberal domestically. And my political, my needle really hasn't moved very much since then. And I could not, I went to work in the Reagan administration just by serendipity really and wound up as legal advisor to the National Security Council and held that position for five and a half years. I was the, it was and am the person who's held that job longer than anybody.

And one learns working at the White House what an extraordinary office, the office of the president is, how bound up with the history and constitutional history of the country it is, and how much respect one has for it and how much respect for the office its holders, at least the ones I worked for, had for it. For example, George Herbert Walker Bush was never in the Oval Office in his shirt sleeves, always in a suit, wearing his jacket. Um, and, um, uh, Donald Trump is, is, I mean, this has been an easy one for me. I spent years working in New York city as a lawyer and, uh, he was in my face for 40 years and, uh, everybody in New York knows what he is. Doesn't pay contractors, doesn't pay lawyers, lies about everything, and is good at only self-promotion,

bankruptcy, and criminal conduct. So to me, he was unsuited to be president in 2016. I never thought I'd vote for Clinton. I voted for Hillary Clinton. And in 2020, it was easy. Interestingly enough, I signed a letter like this in 2020. There were five of us on that letter. One is now the acting president of, or interim president of Discover, and so he cannot sign a partisan

letter. But, or a political letter, I should say. But now we have seven additional people, so it's 12 people who serve various administrations as White House lawyers. And we all take the Constitution and Article 2 very seriously and worked our hardest to protect the Office of the President of the United States from attack inside and outside. So it's really quite simple. Yeah well Karen's gonna have to kind of leave us a little bit early. Karen you want to ask Nick some questions before I kind of wrap up our segment here? More than anything you know I just think it takes a lot of courage and a lot of strength to come forward because anyone in the kind of role that you have had working for various presidents, et cetera,

you're not isolated. You come with a community of peers and of people, mentors and people you have been a mentor to, I'm sure. That's just the way this is. And, and to take a stand like this is, is takes a lot of courage. Because you didn't just take it personally, and you could have easily just voted in quiet and done your thing, but you've taken it publicly. And, and I admire, I admire that courage. And I, you know, I always say to myself, I hope I would show that same courage if faced with it, when everyone in your circle is saying something different. So I just wanted to more than anything say that to you and others like you,

who have put their own careers on the line actually, potentially, by taking this sort of position. So, you know, it's a true public service and I'm just very appreciative and it's great to have you on the show and, you know, I want to, you know, whether it's you, whether it's Adam Kinzinger, you know, whether it's, you know, people like Liz Cheney, who I don't agree with any of her policies, but I respect so much what she did. There is a certain kind of strength that that requires. And Mike Pence too. And I know a lot of people just really say, Yeah,

you can't celebrate him for doing his job. I don't know. I think you can. I think you can. It's hard to do what you're doing and what others do. It's easy for us because all the people we hang out with agree with us, but if you have to do what you're doing, it's amazing. So really, truly thank you for your service, but also thank you for coming on our show

and being a part of this community Well, I really appreciate that I To all of us You know as you know every first of all The American people are united by the Constitution of the United States and all Officials take the same oath, the President's oath is a little different but everybody else, it's to support and defend

the Constitution against all enemies, public and private, foreign and domestic. And when Mitch McConnell said that what happened when Mitch McConnell said that what happened on January 6 was I don't have the text in front of me but he's he used the word terrorism and he called them terrorists and he said one man was responsible Donald Trump. Now, material assistance to terrorism is a very, very serious federal crime. And I suppose under the Supreme Court immunity decision, it would be difficult to get an indictment for material assistance to terrorism as described by Mitch McConnell, but for me it was, that's exactly what it was, and it was, as Judge Ludwig has said over and over again, insurrection against the Constitution of the

United States, which the President has sworn to uphold. So, you know, that's what I used to get paid the big bucks to defend them. I still believe in it. Yeah, I mean, for you, it also demonstrates, Nick, that, you know, we had an era where you could work for a Scoop Jackson as a Democrat, but be considered to be a statesman and somebody who is an adult and cross over into the Republican world and work for two Republican administrations. They didn't look at you and go, oh, you're not loyal because you came from the blue side, you're Democrat. We don't have that. I mean, I hear people, I had a debate with somebody yesterday, which was very depressing,

to hear how they frame things. And they almost suggested, I wanted to bring this up with you, they almost suggested that the reason that the country is involved in one way or the other with two different wars. The Russian aggression on Ukraine and Amas's attack on Israel is because of the democratic administration that's in office. Whereas when you and I were, you know, kicking around 30, 40 years ago, you rallied around a president during the time of war. You didn't blame the president, because it happened to happen on his watch, right? You didn't unless unless he's to blame for it. But

they, they so allied over that, and it becomes we didn't have any wars under Trump. and we've got wars now, ipso facto, it must be the Democrats fault, right? As opposed to the patriotism which goes with a sophisticated recognition that world affairs are sometimes out of our control. We may be the world's polic, but we're not the world's telepathic or wellian controller of outcome. Yes, that's true. It's very distressing.

I have a friend who's married to a Republican congressman. She wrote me that some friend of hers had said, how could you have so-and-so at a dinner party that person's a Democrat? I mean, how ridiculous is that? Yeah. And it's a very bad state of affairs. It's also very ignorant to think that Russia invaded Ukraine

for the second time because Joe Biden was president. That's absurd. He, in my view, Biden has done a better job on foreign policy than anybody had a right to expect. And he's been right on Ukraine, he's been right on Israel to give them time, and he's been right on Taiwan. And presumably presumably Kamala Harris has been right there with him. I agree. I think when Kamala, if Kamala gets elected, you know, where my audience position is, it's going to be a tough call, whether she, I mean, if I were her, I try to keep Lincoln.

I think Lincoln has done a nice job, very good job as secretary of state. I mean, I know there's gonna be a push to maybe return Hillary Clinton back, you know? She did a good job. Right, but I think Blinken's doing a fine job. Let me read for those that aren't gonna have access, although we will post it, we have posted it. Let me read some of the things from the letter

as we round out this segment. You had a bunch of bullet points that you signed onto here. Let me just read some of them out loud. We will vote for the, some page two and three of the letter. We will vote for Kamala Harris because we strongly believe that unlike Donald Trump and his MAGA movement, Kamala Harris and her administration, one, will respect the results of elections,

whether she wins or loses. It will not deny the results of a free and fair election by pressuring public officials to find extra votes or commissioning fake presidential electors to falsify the results that's ripped right out of the new indictment against Trump by Jack Smith, will oppose that she will oppose rather than encourage and pardon violence and physical attacks by political partisans, that she will not er than encourage and pardon violence and physical attacks by political partisans, that she will not erode our constitutional system

of checks and balances by claiming dictatorial power, that she will not undermine the First Amendment by demonizing the press as the enemy of the people, that she will not foment bias and disrespect among fellow Americans by demeaning Americans of immigrant heritage, women, minorities, and persons with disabilities. And this is one of my favorites.

That she will not undermine our fellow citizens patriotism and love of country by continuously trashing essential national institutions and by routinely comparing us unfavorably to foreign despots and autocrats or denigrate the sacrifices of our veterans and their families. And for these reasons, we endorse Kamala Harris and oppose returning Donald Trump to any position of power or trust under the United States. And then we've got the long list of signatories. Karen's right. It took a lot of courage for all of you to band together and do it from the vantage point of your unique perch in history. I wasn't ever in the White House.

I visited the White House. I'm there at a tourist pass. I've never served a president in that way. And there's a lot of heft and gravitas that comes when we have the mandarins of our institutions who love our Constitution stepping out and writing and signing on to a letter, one that has gotten a lot of attention, one that has joined in the chorus of Republicans and people who served Republican administrations calling for Donald Trump at the ballot box to not be returned to office. Let's leave it on this, Nick. What has been the reaction that you've been able to obtain from the letter,

and does it match what your expectations are? What were your expectations? What did you want to accomplish by getting this letter out, and what has so far happened in terms of the response to the letter? Well, the hope is that it might cause some people to think hard about how they're going to vote and why, and about Donald Trump's real record, not what he says it is, but what it really was, and his view of the law and the Constitution. But I've been pleasantly surprised by how much play it's gotten. It got more play than the first letter I signed of this kind back in 2020.

I also was one of the national security Republicans who signed a letter in 2020, many more people supporting Biden. But there were five of us in 2020 who signed the letter of this sort that was published in the Washington Post. And it sank without a trace, as far as I can tell. This, I think the the Harris campaign has picked up and spread it around. And so it's gotten notice. And friends of mine who are going to vote for Trump said, damn it, we should have taken the pen away from him.

Well, I'm glad you have a pen. I'm glad you're my partner and my friend, and I'm glad you agreed to rejoin us here on Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. Nick, always a pleasure. Couldn't think of anybody better to have to talk about this particular segment, especially as a prelude to Judge Ludig joining me tomorrow, one of your dear friends as well, and the reason, frankly, that Judge Ludig agreed to join me on, I've interviewed him now four times,

this will be the fourth time, is because you made that connection and contact between me and Judge Ludig, and for that I am forever grateful, and so is our three million strong audience. So, Nick, really great to have you here. We're gonna move on in our podcast to our last segment, which is going to be on the Georgia Democratic Party

and the National Democratic Party, who have now sued in Georgia to try to cut off at the knees the attempts by MAGA to try to take control of the election voting and certification process in advance of November 5 changed the rules of the game in midstream and the Democrats are having none of it and they're not sitting back idly by and Pondering their navel and wondering no wonder how that's gonna turn out. They are taking it to the courts And we're gonna talk about that next

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and use the code LegalAF to receive 15% off. After your purchase, they ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them LEGALAF sent you. And hence your every day with Viya. All right, we're back. I'm gonna do this one. It's gonna be like a hot take.

Like a version of a hot take talking about the new case that's just been filed in Georgia. I've got it right here in my hot little hands. Just got filed verification for petition for declaratory relief. What does it mean? There is, I feel like I'm telling a bedtime story. Must come from having a newborn. There's a state election board in Georgia.

Every state's got one. And this one just got controlled and dominated as appointed by Republicans. it's all MAGA. It's three to two MAGA. And they decided to get under the hood of the election laws and start screwing around with who can object to vote tallies and who can object to certification of election results in precincts and at the county level. And they tried to give, through new laws, they tried to give power to canvassing boards and election boards, a state election board, to do reasonable inquiries, look at all documents,

in order to, before a certification, a look. One of the books is a state mandated by its legislature, state mandated certification deadline. It is the Monday at five o'clock after the election, so six days after the election. And all the rest of this stuff is all bullshit. There already is a safeguard about fraud in the election. It's called the courts. And the courts have always and will always be the

place where if you want to contest the outcome of an election, like you're the losing candidate, you can file your contest with a judge, not some amateur vote counter who's just there as MAGA to try to figure out a way to throw sand in the gear of election counting, which is what is going to happen here. So the judge, the declaratory judgment means you're asking the court to declare something. And what you're asking the court here to declare is that they can't try to get involved with fraud. They can't undermine the contest rules to go to a court when you think there's fraud. And you can't undermine the deadline of certification by five o'clock the Monday after the election. can't undermine the deadline of certification by five o'clock the Monday after the election. Because Georgia, of course, is a battleground state and anything that is a barrier to entry,

a barrier to voting, a barrier to vote counting is just another version of voter suppression. That's all it is. Call it what you want. Whether you're doing it on the inbound or the outbound, it is voter suppression by no other name. The Republicans pride themselves on chanting, every vote will be counted. That's a lie.

They don't want every vote counted. They wanted every vote counted. They'd have extended hours for early voting. They'd have extended hours for mail-in voting. They'd have extended time for registration. They'd make it easy to register to vote, but that's not what MAGA states are doing. They're like, well, you say in your certification

under penalty of perjury that you're an American citizen, but prove it. Pull out your passport, pull out your birth certificate. Oh, you don't have that? Sorry, deadline's over, Can't vote, right? This is a version of what has made companies billions of dollars in gift cards and coupons. They don't really want you to use all the money

on the gift card. They want, you know how much billions of dollars of unused gift card money gets used because they make you jump through all these hurdles and then you forget about the gift card in your nightstand? Same thing with coupons. We'll give you two for one. We'll give you $10 back, but you got to go find the box and you got to get a pair of scissors and you got to cut out a zebra code. Then you got to stick it in an envelope and you got to mail it by the deadline. Oh, you were too late. Oh, you were too early. Oh, the zebra code was mangled. Sorry, no refund.

Oh, the zebra code was mangled. Sorry, no refund. Right? Same thing here. Make it hard. Make it so people have to wait in line from seven in the morning until seven at night in the heat, you know, wherever their state is, so they don't really vote. The Democrats have had it. And now everywhere that a state election board like this one, which Donald Trump in his own rally like this one, which Donald Trump in his own rally in Georgia called out favorably three of the MAGA on the state election board now sued in this case by name and called them pit bulls for victory. Now does that sound like an agnostic independent group, independent fair-minded group that's just looking to get to the bottom of certification or does that sound like a partisan bunch of hacks who are now in the Employ of the Trump campaign to try to get him elected and steal another election

Well Fulton County is going to be the subject of yet another fight for election integrity The prosecution of Donald Trump and the others may be put on ice Waiting for the appellate courts to make their ruling about whether Fonny Willis should have had a relationship with somebody in her office or not, whatever that means. But we have another case. We don't have a judge assigned to it yet. We don't think it's going to be Judge McAfee. He's really a criminal court judge, but it'll be another judge in Fulton County. We're not going to see the same actors again. We might see some of the same actors again. I would expect the state election board, even though it's been sued as a board, meaning the attorney general for that state usually takes over for that. But we'll see. We'll see who shows up as

lawyers or amicus, friends of the court. You're gonna see the usual suspects, all those kind of nutty maga lawyers showing up again back in Fulton County. But the Democrats have no choice because three months before an election, 60, 70 days, Because three months before an election, 60, 70 days, whatever it is before an election, the other side is trying to change the rules. They'll let you vote, but they'll tell you who won. And that just can't be. So we're going to follow this case. It's in its infancy. There's going to be some sort of hearing. There's going to be some emergency briefing, but this has to go relatively fast because

they want this ruling to impact the November election. So this judge has to give guidance in order to do that. Right after Labor Day, we're going to see briefing. We're going to see a hearing. We might see a mini trial and then we're going to get a ruling and then we're going to see appellate practice. It's going to be hard to get this done before November 5th, but I don't think that's an excuse not to bring the suit

because it's too hard. Because if Democrats didn't bring suits because they're too hard, and prosecutors didn't bring cases because they're too hard, then we might as well just give up. We'll just give up on our criminal justice system as a primary pillar and foundation of our democracy. All right, that was my version.

This is what happens when carrots not around. Then I can just go ramble on and do a hot take about a certain topic. So for those that tuned in a little bit later, no, this is not a Popok hot take. This is me cleaning up the rear and doing the cleanup here on an episode where Karen couldn't make it the whole way

for other reasons. So we really appreciate everybody who's joined us today. We're gonna do, this is the midweek. Saturday I'm joined by Ben Mycelis, my co-founder of Legal AF, where we'll pick up from these stories going forward with other developments. I'm sure the leaders of Legal AF do hot takes, kind of like what I just did, about every hour at the intersection of law and politics and the Midas Touch Network. You can follow all of us there. Remember the ways to support us. Free subscribe. patreon.com slash legal AF. That's helpful. Follow Karen on

Mistrial. Let me watch her here first, but then go to Karen on Mistrial. And you can go to the merch store. There's Mistrial. You can go to the merch store and get all the Kamala Harris gear while you're at it. Fly the flag of legal AF. So I flag of Legal AF. So I appreciate you being here. This is Michael Popok and also for Karen Friedman at Nifilo. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.