Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Unleashing the Kraken and the Prosecution of Trump

Episode Date: March 25, 2021

On Episode 2 of our new weekly law and politics podcast, Legal AF, hosts MT founder and civil rights lawyer Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and commentator, Michael Popok, take a deep dive into Trump lawyer and “Big Lie” shill Sidney Powell’s efforts to dismiss Dominion Voting Systems' new federal defamation case against her, including her eye-popping “defense” that none of her statements of voter fraud against Dominion were true, and that no reasonable person could believe they were “facts”. Next up, a discussion of MyPillow’s Mike Lindell’s hiring of Alan Dershowitz (we guess Rudy was tied up) to bring a defamation countersuit against Dominion, which could lead Dominion to one day owning My Pillow. Later, Ben and Michael explore possible future prosecutions of Trump and his family for sedition for advocating the violent overthrow of the Government, and the “pay to play” scandal surrounding Trump’s pardon frenzy in his waning days, including a link between Florida’s Aleph Institute, the Kirshner family, and the pardons granted. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to legal a app legal analysis friends, Ben my cell and Michael Pope pop Michael Pope who you can't see right now in Atlanta. Michael, how are you doing out there? How's Atlanta? I'm glad it's great.

I'm here visiting my giving away your secret bunker location, though. Now that you're hiding from people? Did I just give away a state secret? I am deep in my Georgia layer visiting my mom. But I've also had a good opportunity to meet a lot of people who live here in the last couple of days. And they are just thrilled and brought up

particularly the work that might have touched it to help senators mourn off and us off Warlock and us off get elected and We had a lot of conversations with local people here thrilled with the work that you and your brothers did and and I told them a little bit about what you and I did before with with Kelly leftler and they loved all that too So it is actually fun to see your hard work in action and have people really complimentary of that project. Oh, that is so great to hear.

This is Legal AFD, Midas Touch Legal Podcast. I am Ben Myselis. I am the managing partner at Garagos and Garagos. We have Michael Popak, managing partner at Zupano Patrichius and Popak. We are bringing you the law. We are bringing you the truth. We are bringing you the facts. If you want to know more about us, you can listen to our first inaugural episode of legal AF, but you know what, Michael? We got to get into the law right now, because that is what the people want to hear.

And the first thing that I want to talk about is the Sydney Cowell motion to dismiss in federal court, I believe it's filed in DC. It is the case, the defamation case brought by the Dominion voting system. Of course, Sidney Powell was one of the main spreaders of the Big Lie after the election, not just the main spreader of the Big Lie. She took the Big Lie and went off with it and went totally crazy with it. Cindy Powell is the one saying that the Dominion voting system had deals with Hugo Chavez and Venezuela and Hugo Chavez is no longer alive and that the Venezuelan government had a plot to overthrow the United States government

with the Dominion voting system. And so after this company dominion, which actually has paper ballots that even go with the electronic system, which was audited every which way and was proof that all of their counting was a 100% accurate. In the face of all these lies, this company took a huge reputational hit by the Trump sector of this country. Their executive suffered death threats, a horrible experience for this company. And they fought back, they

filed a billion-plus dollar defamation suit against a number of people, including Sydney Powell. We will also talk about the case that they brought against the My Pillow Guide because apparently he thought it was wise to, I suppose, counter sue them for defamation and just trying to escalate the crazy shit that these trumpers are doing. But let's get into what Sidney Powell is now saying as after being sued by Dominion, she has filed a motion to dismiss in federal court on two grounds, a jurisdictional ground, both jurisdictional venue, and then on a substantive ground, a motion to dismiss saying that the allegations and the Dominion lawsuit against her can't state a cause of action.

So maybe Mike before we get into it, very briefly for our listeners who aren't deeply embedded in the legal community. Maybe first just discuss what a motion to dismiss is versus a summary judgment style motion versus trial. Like what is this motion to dismiss procedurally? Yeah, I think that I think that would be helpful and we'll dive right into that through the Sydney Powell, the Sydney Powell lawsuit. Remember, she's the one that said she's going to release the Kraken. I think we have found, I don't know about Kraken, but this certainly is an odd defense that she has raised to dismiss and to answer your question for our followers.

When a lawsuit is filed, the defendant on the other side of the case can do a number of things in response. They can answer the suit, which is just file an answer. It's exactly what it sounds like. You go allegation by allegation in the complaint, and you say whether it's admitted or denied. And then you raise the fences in writing in that type of pleading, and you file it.

And then that's it. You have a complaint, you have an answer. It's, we now call that, the issue has been joined and the case can eventually be set for trial. Or you can file a motion against the complaint. To test the legality or the veracity of the pleating and you can do that in a couple of ways. First, you can do it as a motion to dismiss,

which again is exactly what it sounds like. You're asking the court to dismiss the complaint, or even the action itself, based on what has been filed initially and the initial complaint. And you do it on various grounds. You can say that the claims that have been brought against the defendant don't state a claim,

that they don't satisfy the elements required under the law to make out a claim in this case for defamation. The law says you got to you got to have three or four elements to make out a case for defamation and your motion to dismiss will say none of those elements are not all of those elements are present and therefore the case should be dismissed. You can also raise a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. You can argue that the court does not have jurisdiction over the matter, either the subject matter. So wrong court, this another type of court should be hearing this dispute. Or the person who's being sued, whether it's a corporation or an individual like Sydney Powell,

can argue that the court has jurisdiction, generally, over the subject matter of the case, but doesn't have personal jurisdiction over me, over the defendant. And there's a whole body of constitutional law, US constitutional law that defines when a court has personal jurisdiction over a person. And it boils down to whether the person, it through their activities or actions, should have reasonably believed that they'd be hailed into court in that particular courthouse in that particular district or whether their actions while maybe

having violated a law or contract and they can be sued, but they shouldn't be sued in that courthouse they should be sued in a courthouse closer to where they live. And so there is often a fight in a motion to dismiss. It's a common argument that's raised. I've been sued in the wrong courthouse. You should sue me where I live. I don't have enough contacts or nexus to the venue or the jurisdiction that the lawsuit has been filed. And the listeners might be saying, who cares? If they're going to get sued anywhere, anyway, who cares where they're sued? Well, the defendant cares because frankly, they always think it's easier for them,

maybe a home court advantage. If they're sued in their own backyard, Sydney Powell's backyard happens to be Texas. So of course, she doesn't want to be sued in the District of Columbia, in the DC federal, in the federal court, in the district of Columbia, where she thinks she's not going to get the right judge, maybe a Democrat, Democratic appointee, or the right jury ultimately, she wants, you know, home cooking for a Texas judge, and a Texas courthouse in the federal courthouse. So her, so that's the first argument that a lot of defendants make claiming lack of jurisdiction, and then they attack the elements.

And then summary judgment is sort of a different bird altogether. Summary judgment is generally brought after discovery is concluded, or after depositions have been taken, after facts have been developed in the case. You couldn't, you can bring a summary judgment early. If you say to the judge, judge, they're on the undisputed factual record. This case should never get to a trial.

There's no need for a trial because you judge as a matter of law on the record indisputed. You can decide this case right now. And a lot of defendants try that or even plaintiffs try that. It's an aggressive tactic. The way to defeat a motion for summary judgment and get your day in court in a trial is to argue that the number one way to do it is to argue that there are facts that are indisputed, that only the trial effect, either the judge or the jury, depending upon whether you have a jury trial right or not, has to decide, has to hear the evidence and sort it out. And then, and only then, can the

the the law giver, the judge or in this or the jury decide the case. And that's that's the typical way you defeat a summary judgment. But the Sydney Powell motion right now is a motion to dismiss against Dominion's lawsuit for defamation and just for the followers to pick up the pieces here. Dominion has contracts to operate about 40% of the voting machines in America

have the dominion brand on them. And so they are an important part of electoral process. They are, you know, when are the former cybersecurity head of the US elections came out early on and said, this was the fairest, most honest, most accurate election in history. He was relying on, in part, the paper trail, the audit trail of machines made by companies like Dominion, to show the public that for every electric ballot, electronic ballot, there was a matching paper

ballot and what they call an audit trail that auditors and recount people and officials can review to determine that when the machine says 14,000 votes for Biden and 9,000 votes for Trump, that the paper ballots match. And if they do, which they they did overwhelmingly in every place, for instance, Dominion's machines were used, then that's the reason that elected if election officials can say we had a fair a fair election. So Dominion having been torched by the big lie and Sydney Powell being a primary architect of the big lie that there was fraud in the election undermining their entire business model, potentially costing them billions upon billions of dollars of damage as sued as any company would. If the company

was Coca-Cola or Walmart or Apple, they would do the exact same thing if somebody with the impromotor of the president standing at a podium and giving Sunday morning interviews and filing lawsuits, claiming that Dominion's software is so corrupted that it was invented by communists in Venezuela to rig elections. I mean, what could be more damning to a election-based company, a voting company, than to be accused of having software created fraudulently in Venezuela? And then when she sued about it, she just says,

well, we'll get to it next. She just says, oh, that's just my opinion. No one should really have believed me. No reasonable person could have believed me. And that's also in her motion to dismiss. So long-winded way of giving you your answer, Ben, that's how we got to a motion to dismiss. And so it's a 42- page motion to dismiss. That again, is not based on discovery, meaning in the litigation process,

you'll have depositions taken. Document request. Depositions are when you'll speak to the other side or witnesses under oath. The motion to dismiss basically says, just based on what you're alleging in the complaint, either one, this case shouldn't be in this court, or two, based on what you're saying in the complaint,

you can't even state the facts that make this sufficient to even be a case. We can't even get to the next phase. And so this is a 42-page motion to dismiss. And I know our listeners out there often hear all emotion to dismisses, while this does that. But I want to really break it down on this podcast, like what specifically is in this motion and do it in a fairly brief but thorough way. And so basically what this motion starts off by saying on its very first page is one of the

reasons that the court should look suspiciously at the dominion lawsuit is because it is a law. It's a very silly legal argument that has no validity whatsoever. But in the very first footnote on the first page, Cindy Powell's lawyer say, the complaint is a hundred and twenty-four pages with over 230 paragraphs and sub paragraphs. over 230 paragraphs and some paragraphs. Not to mention 107 separate exhibits, constituting 230 megabytes of data. First off, you can tell that these lawyers are old, because 230 megabytes is actually not a lot of megabytes of data.

In cases that I do, I deal with eight like terabytes of data very consistently. So 230 megs, you know, I deal with eight like terabytes of data very consistently. So 233 megs, you know, I think that the lawyer was going over this while he was listening to his MP3 player, I'm talking about megabytes. So they first go off by saying, this is a very long lawsuit. And then Michael, as you said, you know, one of the bases to attack is jurisdictional. And so here what the lawyer argues for Sydney Powell is number one, the only ways there can be jurisdiction

in Washington DC over Sydney Powell is if one there is general jurisdiction. That means Sydney Powell has so much systematic ties to Washington DC. She lives in Washington DC or works consistently in Washington DC or has so much contact there that there should just be an exercise of general jurisdiction. Regardless of what it is that she specifically does in a specific incident, there's just

enough contacts with a jurisdiction so that a court can basically rule on her matter. And they argue that there shouldn't be general jurisdiction over there. My own view of it is I think general jurisdiction could be a tough call. She does live in Texas. She spends most of her time in Texas, but she was in Washington DC a ton for this election. She was in the White House a lot. She probably could be proven to have been there more than half the year at this point, based on all of the news reports that I've seen ever out there.

Right. She was certainly there, tons. So on the general jurisdiction question, I'll get to the next one where I think there's definitely specific jurisdiction. And then Washington DC has another statue if you commit torsious conduct and the results of the torts are felt in a specific state. But I think general jurisdiction could be to go either way, as my aunt.

I think you're right on the money about general, although I think she operated so much in Washington, DC that she really should have been admitted to the bar to practice there. I think she has another bar problem, because I think she was practicing law with that a license in DC, but I agree with you. I mean, the the standard for general personal jurisdiction is that the person's activity in the jurisdiction or such that she has made herself at home

in the jurisdiction so that when she gets sued there, she shouldn't be surprised. Look, I I think it's a I think it's a tough fall on general, but I think at the end of the day, you're right, the judge is going to come, the court's going to come down about whether they're sufficient connections and contacts to the jurisdiction through her use specific conduct related to dominion and to give the court the jurisdiction that it means. So the next question is when you're analyzing jurisdiction, is there specific jurisdiction over a defendant?

Here, Sydney Palace says there's no specific jurisdiction over her to have specific jurisdiction. You have to have engaged in the conduct and the conduct that you engaged in the jurisdiction is what's caused the specific injury here is a general recasting of specific jurisdiction. And I think for this case, they're clearly a specific jurisdiction because she was talking about it

in Washington, DC. The effects of the torsion's conduct were felt in DC, both from a government level, a policy setting level, and just a very practical level of the Taurus'es conduct were felt in DC, both from a government level, a policy setting level, and just a very practical level of the damage of the defamation was done in that jurisdiction. I mean, she was out there, you know, on the rallies, on the TV networks, consistently making the defamatory statements at issue. You don't get to go into a state, engage in misconduct in that state, and then say, you know what state? You don't have jurisdiction over me for me breaking the law in your state.

That's the basic recast thing of specific jurisdiction. You do bad deed in state. That state has jurisdiction over you for bad deed. Yeah. The constitutional due process analysis, which goes on for personal jurisdiction, is only to just determine whether it's fair that the person be held into court in that particular place. They're going to be in a courthouse.

This is not just for the listeners. She's going to get sued somewhere, whether this case got, you know, she had her grand slam home run and it gets transferred. It's only going to get transferred to a Texas court. So there's no issue related to whether she's going to get sued once, once, sorry. Live updates right now. Michael Popack is being asked a question during the live recording. Michael Popack live being asked a question during the live recording, Michael Popack live being asked a question from somebody.

But as Michael Popack was saying, she is gonna be subsoot somewhere. At the end of the day, whether she gets sued in Texas, whether she gets sued in Washington DC, or another state, this doesn't prevent her from getting sued. So, strategically, why is she doing this? She wants to get sued in Texas. She believes the Texas judge is going to be advantageous to her.

Yeah, so yes, thanks Ben. As I said, I'm visiting family here. We did have a moment of life intruding or interrupting there. So the issue, the issue, as you said earlier, is, can you go and stand on a box in a city or a state and do damage to another party and then walk away and claim there's no personal jurisdiction ever you to be sued in that very place? As you, as you noted, every interview she gave all of the, all of the Sunday Morning Talk shows based in Washington, the press conferences

of the White House with or without Trump present, the press conferences at the White House, with or without Trump present, the interviews with the epic times run by the Korean, who knows what, all done there. If she wanted to only be sued in Texas, it was very simple. All those press conferences, all those interviews, everything that she did, she had to do it from Texas. But once she ventured into,

and she, of course, she loved the celebrity, and she loved the publicity that came from being in Washington and rubbing, rubbing elbows and rubbing shoulders with all the, the Trump people and Trump himself. And then for her, you know, it's a pretty, you know, it's a lot of crocodile tears to then say, wow, why am I being sued in the place where I did all of these bad things? Yeah, I said that Hugo Chavez was a co-conspirator with the Dominion voting system to rig the US elections. I said in Washington, DC, you're suing me in Washington, DC.

How could that have ever happened? And then, and then, you know, so those are the jurisdictional issues. She makes another quick jurisdictional issue saying that there, it's an inconvenient form and that it's inconvenient for her to go to Washington DC, but I think that's just a totally bullshit argument. I mean, they're all bullshit arguments, but the fact is that it's an inconvenient argument when it's convenient for you to show up in Washington DC, like half of the year to make these lies and then say it would be inconvenient for you to show up in Washington DC, like half of the year to make these lies and then say, it would be inconvenient for you to have to then

deal with the repercussions of your action there as a bit absurd. So that's just for the listeners. That's her fallback argument that even if there were personal jurisdiction over her and she could be sued in Washington, she shouldn't be sued in these days. She should be sued in Texas. And the federal judge should transfer the case from federal court house, D.C. to federal court house, Texas, because of a concept called forum non-convenians,

which is the, here's the party saying, all of the documents, all of the witnesses, all of the, my lawyers and everything, they're all in Texas. By the way, I'm not sure her lawyers are even in Texas. And certainly the witnesses are her and Dominion and the public. So I don't think she wins on that. So you're right.

And that's usually a very weak tea that's argument that's brought up to, you know, a last gas buffer to get it to your home forum is to say judge, you Judge, the forum is inconvenient. Send it back to my backyard. And then finally, we finally get into some issues on the factual allegations. And then Michael, you were alluding to this before.

The basic argument is that this was political speech that Sidney Powell was making. It was her opinion and that no one should view those statements as factual statements that have objective bearings on whether something was true or false. And that it should just be viewed as tensions were high. I was a lawyer and I made a lot of inflammatory opinion statements, but nothing that I said should be viewed as actually saying that Hugo Chavez was a co-conspirator. That was just my opinion. Yeah, I thought it was remarkable, but frankly, it's really the only place she can go in a motion to dismiss is to have to argue and just to bring everybody up to speed here. Defamation is generally of a fact that the party that utters it knows is not true, which

causes damage or injury to the other person. So you make up facts, right, which we know Trump and his minions have been doing for years. This case, Sidney Powell says all sorts of crazy things about the dominion voting machines and how they're not reliable and they're fraudulent and they conjure up votes and all sorts of other crazy things. So she has to argue, oh, that wasn't a fact. That was my opinion. That was political rhetoric spoken in the heat of the moment.

And therefore, I should be given first amendment protection because at the core, if a statement can't be proved true or false, it's hard to prove defamation. If it's a pure opinion, it's almost impossible to prove defamation. So I get why she's doing it. But it is remarkable that in this, you know, back half of her motion, of her motion,

of her brief, she spends time saying that no reasonable person. So every Trump voter should hear that as them. No reasonable Trump voter could have believed that what I was saying, when I said the elections were fraudulent, when I said that the dominion voting machines can't be trusted because some Venezuelan Hugo Chavez supporter conjured up some software. That obviously was my opinion. That was rhetoric. No reasonable voter could have believed that, but we know that that's exactly the opposite of what happened. Millions and millions and millions of voters believe that and still believe that to this day, including the people,

and we'll talk about it later, who charged and insurrected at our capital and the cradle of our democracy and tried to overthrow the government. So words have power, words have meaning, and words can defame. And now she's trying to argue, you know, what? Me? That was just my opinion. Who in their right mind would follow me? Many, many people. Millions of people. And one of the things that could have been, you know, that she could argue is, as we mentioned earlier in the show, which is why I wanted to context them, what this motion is is she could have just answered the complaint, not filed a motion to dismiss, denied the allegations, and basically said, look, the truth is on my side. The biggest defense to defamation is the truth.

And so if she has the accurate information, she can say, I'm going to put forward the true facts. Here are the true facts that prove all of the things that I said. And I spoke the truth. If that's what she claimed she was doing when she was trying to interfere with and undermine a democratic election that she could say here's the true facts. But this is what, you know, so before giving you my mic, well, concluding opinion, I just want to think, what do you think the outcome is going to be here, Michael?

Yeah, I think the way you frames it is just, it's just right. She can't do that and her lawyers to their credit, even though I agree with you, I thought their opening footnote arguing, oh my God, this is too many pages. How are we ever going to figure out how to address it with silly? But they must have figured out early on, I mean, reading between the lines here, that there was no way because it's not true. There was no way they could claim truth as a defense of all of her crazy statements that were made against the minion and others because having interviewed her,

they must have concluded that she'd have to lie or purge herself if she were to say that any of that was true. So once they quickly had a quick session with their client and said, okay, let's line up the statements that are in the lawsuit, which of these are true, that you know and show us the facts you have to support them before we do battle on your behalf at a courtroom. And she looked at them, summarizing and said, none of them are true. Everything that I said was made up had no factual support,

despite me, despite my having said it with conviction and claiming that they were true during critical moments in our election process. So they said, okay, all right, got it. So we're not going to be able to use truth as a defense, so we're not going to answer the lawsuit. We're going to have to move to dismiss. Let's claim it's all just big fat opinion and you can't prove it true or false. Let's do that and that's what they've done I think at the end of the day and like I think she's gonna lose the motion I think it's gonna stay watching 10 DC and I think that she's gonna lose this case when it goes to trial and and it will go to trial I think ultimately for dominion it's gonna be bittersweet you could mark my words here and save the tape

She will declare a personal bankruptcy and she will try to delay it through saying that she's got no money. That's gonna happen in about two or three years. We'll then have the A podcast then, whether or not it is a dischargeable in bankruptcy or not, which I don't believe it is, but we'll have that discussion in a few years.

And she'll get this part. What she does then. And she'll get this part. And she'll get this part. When she does that. What do you say? And she'll get this part. Either because of this lawsuit or because of the future judgment that she doesn't pay, bar associations hate lawyers who don't pay money and don't pay judgments. And she literally can lose her bar license. It'll get yanked in Texas or wherever she's holding it at that moment because of this.

So I think Dominion's doing God's work here. They're doing it for their own purpose. I'm hoping they didn't have the damages that they claim, but if they did, you're right. They're never going to collect them against Sydney Powell, but they need to crush her in this lawsuit and put her back under the rock that she crawled out of. So she doesn't do mischief in the next election or anywhere else. Yeah, no doubt about it. And I think the one strategic mistake, I mean, there's a lot of strategic mistakes that were

made in this filing, but the big strategic mistake I think was that first footnote by talking about how long the complaint was from a, I think it, all in all, it's actually not a terribly written motion to dismiss. It's actually a pretty good motion to dismiss. It was not written by Sydney Paul. We know that. Not written by Sydney Paul. It's actually very well written. But here's the thing, when you go with that open and footnote, which basically winds about a complaint being really long. But then one of your defenses about why the defamatory statements were opinion is because of the momentous significance

of this being a presidential election and how significant of the discourse was to then have that disparity and basically say, well, the loss it was too long, but your defense being, this was part of a very long kind of conversation. It just to me diminishes your credibility. 230 megabytes is not a lot of megabytes.

And so to me, once I read that, the moment I read that footnote, everything else that followed that footnote was like, all right, this is bullshit. I mean, not even, you know, the moment someone winds about a long complaint is, you know, totally loses credibility on me. You know, with that on page one of your brief, if you want to be taken seriously, I also don't think, and for people that go, I think the Axias website has a nice copy of this motion for the listeners that want to go look at it. But I also thought that cutting and pasting screenshots

from the complaint to make their point actually made the point that the complaint was making. And I don't, I think sort of undermines their position. I don't think having these repeated shots of Sydney Powell with the titles underneath her helps their case. It only proves the point that she should be take people listening to her would have thought that these were facts being expressed by a quote former federal prosecutor, as she's identified a one screenshot or Trump campaign lawyer or whatever it was.

Not these are the opinions of Sydney Powell. No one should really believe what I'm saying. And don't sue me for definition. There's, that's not there. She's advocating on a daily basis facts that are not true. That is the heart of definition. So we did a deep dive there. We'll take less of a deep dive into some of these next cases.

So we did a deep dive there. We'll take less of a deep dive into some of these next cases, but I think it's always important to help both to those listening. Look, if you're in the legal community and you knew all that stuff, feel free to fast forward through it, and then we'll hit the other topics. But I don't think most people out there,

in 90 to 95% of our listeners truly know the processes and the intricacies that go into these motions and the inside baseball and really breaking it down there, I think is helpful. On the other side of the Sydney Powell, not on the other side, I should say, the same side of craziness. Michael Adele, the my pillow fascist,

conspiracy theorist, nut job. His strategy to the lawsuit that Dominion filed against him was he apparently filed his own lawsuit or threatened to file his own defamation lawsuit against Dominion. Well, well, and for your listeners, all that lead in that you just did nut job and fascist, you're protected because for two things, one, just as Sydney, the Kraken, Powell got sued. And his argument is, oh, I welcome that lawsuit. I'm going to bring a culture lawsuit because you've defamed me and my first amendment rights. And who does he find to be his lawyer, to represent him in this interest?

And we'll leave the pause here for your listeners to fill in the blank. And if you can't get Rudy Giuliani, you get Alan Dershowitz. So Alan Dershowitz, who we're gonna talk about later in the podcast, about pay-to-play related to the pardons and clemency process that the Trump administration used on the way out,

is the lawyer of choice for nutch-ups and has really crossed the line as that you know at one time he was a you know reasonably well considered constitutional scholar people might know him in from the OJ trial the trial of the century he was part of the the dream team that defended OJ and got him off but you know he's really gone dark into the other side. And now, every crack pot theory, like I said, if you can't get Giuliani, you get Dershowitz to your bidding. So apparently, LaDelle is hired Dershowitz, and they're going to bring a counter suit and all sorts

of discovery that you identified earlier, depositions and documents against Dominion. How he thinks this helps him in defending ultimately the suit that dominion has brought for billions of dollars against him. I mean, at the end of the day, if we're right about how we analyze Sydney Powell's liability, then we're right about Lidel going down also. And soon enough, with the next two years or so, if everything goes right, Dominion's going to have a pillow division because they're going to own my pillow. Yeah, unlike Sid DePowell, Mike Lindell actually has made money and is actually a depocket.

Although knowing the modus operandi of the Trumpers, he will likely, in my opinion, flee the country or declare bankruptcy. One or the other because that's just how they react to anything. Off to Venezuela. Exactly, off to Venezuela. And then he'll probably do the exact same things. He's accused other people of doing costly is what they're known for doing.

So let me be clear. The Mike Lindell lawsuit has a 0% chance there of succeeding. There are lots of laws that have been passed to prevent litigation abuse like that. You may have heard the term anti-slap or these lawsuits that are against strategic lawsuits, against public policy or against public speech. And lawsuits like Michael Endell's, which are intended to intimidate people

or groups for exercising their constitutional rights, their first amendment views, their bringing of litigation are you know are protected forms of speech and so a Michael and Dell lawsuit basically suing somebody because they sued you for gaging and defamation is a tactic of a bully but a tactic that does not frequently work or work at all in our system. Well, look, it's like the 40 or 50 cases brought by the Trumpers across the country to challenge elections. They all got, of course, dismissed early on through motions to dismiss

or otherwise by courts. And recently, you know, the Texas judge looked at some lawyers and said, not only is this case frivolous, I'm gonna sanction you and bring fees and costs penalties against you for having brought these cases. There are repercussions for prosecuting cases that have no merit. And I think-

I don't think people fully realize how almost impossibly difficult it is to lose on 70 separate motions to dismiss in about a two-month window. It is literally, it is almost impossible. I can't even imagine losing that much. The sheer impossibility with just different judges, different jurisdictions, different timing, all coming to the same conclusion that what you're bringing is completely frivolous. Yeah, it was like, it's like the old Harlem Globetrotters when

they used to play the Patsy team, the Washington generals, and they, you know, they go 70 and O in a year. I mean, it's almost impossible for, for a team of lawyers to lose every case at that sheer number. But not in this, not in this instance because they brought the same case, versions of the same case everywhere. And every judge wearing a black robe, worth their salt, took one look at the case, usually on the room and said, get out of my courthouse. Now they're throwing the book at them. And my point back with Lidel and what you raised as the anti-slap part is Dershowitz I'm sure is not properly

analyzed that he himself, along with Lidel, could be subject of could be the subject of penalties and sanctions in attorney's fees for having brought the case. It's not the case that every suit you're allowed to bring a counter suit depends on the merits of the case. And if you don't have any, and the reason you're doing it is to just, as you said, it's almost like malicious prosecution.

You're just bringing it in order to drive up the litigation cost for the other side, or to have some sort of a balance playing field. There's repercussions for that and there's sanctions for that and there's law and legislation that prevents just that type of activity. I think you're right on the money when you're talking about the anti-slap component of that suit. Moving from the civil components of what we were talking now, which may have some criminal dimensions, but moving into some criminal law, New York Times has been delving into the pay for play scandal involving Partens of the Trump administration and his inner circle, Jared Kushner and others

facilitating partens on a transactional basis, you know, for money and basically selling partens out of the White House. What can you tell us about this, Michael? Where do you think this is headed? Yeah, and to remind everybody that's following us, you know, it's on pretty good, pretty good report and pretty good evidence that Trump was this close to pardoning himself and every member of his family on the last day in the White House. I'm talking like hours before the inauguration. They were still trying to talk them out of it. There's been some good reporting of that. He was this close to pardoning himself and the entire family. I really expected it. I thought it 1158 on an inauguration day, we were going to see that. But what we did see in what the New York

Times has been doing a great job along with a couple of other investigative agencies of looking at is looking at every pardon and clemency and commutation of sentence that the Trump administration issued, especially in the waning days, to see why they did it, how they did it, what was the basis for it? And just to remind everybody, you know, you had Medicare fraudsters who ripped off the federal government for hundreds of millions of dollars who were pardoned. You had lots of white collar criminals who stole money belonging to taxpayers, who stole money belonging to the disenfranchised

and the fragile in our population. And they were let off scot free by this president. So the New York Times and others have asked the question, why, why, what's the connective tissue between the Trump organization and these people? Why did he pick these people? I mean, it's not just Kim Kardashian, having an interest in getting one person out of jail.

It went beyond that to ones that people don't understand until they looked at it. What they found is particularly, there is an institute, a charitable institute based in Bal Harbor, Florida, called the OLLIFE Institute, which is associated with the Hasidic LeBavitch movement. And they have been friends of the Kirschner family since the time that Jared Kirschner's father went to jail,

because he's a federal felon himself. And he has donated hundreds, and I think millions of dollars to the Ollef Institute. And now the Ollef Institute was responsible, the Times found for over 10 or 12% of the total amount of clemencies, pardons, and computations of sentences issued by Trump. And the pay to play aspect of it is, as you alluded to,

is that they found that if you make a big donation to the Ollef Institute, to the Chabad, to the shul of Balharba, a temple, a synagogue, in Balharba, Florida, then you can make your way onto the final cut-down list that ends up being given to Trump to sign, to have your pardon. There is a huge financial fraudster who ripped off the federal government

and taxpayers for hundreds of millions of dollars. There's a direct line of payment from him to the olive institute and him getting his pardon. And that's just one of dozens of examples. So you have a an alleged policy institute having outsized influence over the pardon process lining their pockets along the way. So make a donation of them and you can buy your pardon. And you have the Trump Organization connected to the Olive Institute through Kirschner and his father, who is their charity of choice

since he's been let out of jail himself. So that's the connective tissue that's so disturbing where you can just buy, I mean, it's what people suspect that you can buy your way out of these things if the wealthy can get pardons and the people who are wrongly convicted of minor drug offenses, the disproportionate sentencing of blacks under the guidelines for crack

when white people using cocaine did not get the same kind of crime. Those are ignored in the pardon process. But if you're a rich, wealthy, white collar criminal, and you have a connection to Jared Kushner through Olive Institute, you can buy your way out of that crime being on your record. Mike, do you think it's illegal?

Yeah, listen, it's hard on the illegality thing as distasteful as it is, because the president under the Constitution has given tremendous power to pardon anyone he wants at any time he wants. And as we said earlier, there was even a rumor he was trying to pardon himself. So that power is almost in violet. It's almost hard to undermine. If he would, but I think the linkage between the two, and he can't impeach him now, he's gone. I think we've already basically shown

that there's no appetite that the Senate's ever going to impeach anybody for things that happen, even while they're in office, if they're no longer in office, we just saw that with the Capitol insurrection charges. Certainly distasteful. I'm not sure it violates the Constitution that he did it. Could it have committed another crime, a wire act crime, a mail fraud crime? Probably, but the problem is there's no stomach

to prosecute at least in the Senate, this kind of crime. The question is, can Merrick Garland, as our new attorney general, appoint a special prosecutor to look into the matter, to determine whether federal charges should be brought to anyone in the Trump organization, including those who did not enjoy immunity for these kind of issues, if there's even immunity, that's going to be a question for our new attorney general. Yeah, the pardon power is based on article two, section two, clause one of the Constitution,

it provides that the president shall have the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. I don't believe our founders ever really conceived though of just the level of abuse where you would actually have a criminal president empower rewarding the co-conspirator criminals and not rewarding and punishing the people

who actually stood up against the criminal conduct during the presidency. It's one of those things that for hundreds of years, we've had these systems and these norms that we felt were always sacrilege, that were in violet that made sense and no one question it. And look, you would occasionally roll your eyes when you would see certain pardons being used inappropriately. I mean, I remember with even, you know, President Clinton, you know, he pardoned people at the end of the presidency that you would roll. They all do. They all do.

But the direct and overt they all do, but the direct and overt scale of it and the flagrant abuse of it and almost done in just such a haunting way like yeah I committed crimes with them and I'm going to let them off. That never really had taken that not really it's never taken place before. A lot of people are calling for us to re-evaluate the pardon power. I think we do frankly need to re-evaluate the presidential pardon power because at the end of the day in need to re-evaluate the presidential pardon power because at the end of the day in the United States, no man, woman is above the law, even the president of the United States. And the pardon power can be placed in the hands of a co-conspirator president to pardon other people engaged in his criminal plots. I can't even believe I'm saying that.

And there are ways, I think, to start that amend, to start that process early. I think one of the changes that can be made is, in cases where the president is a co-conspirator or later proven to be a co-conspirator, he cannot pardon and to the extent a president is there after determined to be a co-conspirator. He cannot pardon and to the extent a president is there after determined to be a co-conspirator, the pardon will be deemed void and voidable at the discretion of a federal court. I think that is one way to deal with it without totally abolishing the pardon power, but

it seems that the pardon power, which is steeped in still old kind of British royalty notions of kings partoting people like, I think we're beyond that as a society and especially here where we had a president who was willing to try to overthrow democracy. And that's another topic that I wanna get to Michael is the culpability here, the president did not pardon himself, again, the constitutionality of a president pardoning himself has never been tested.

Most legal scholars say the president could not pardon himself because the very essence of pardoning refers to doing it to somebody else and granting a reprieve. And you can't grant linguistically when you break it down. You can't grant a reprieve to yourself as how legal scholars basically cut it, but you could grant pardon over crimes that have not yet been committed, as was done with Richard Nixon, crimes that had yet to be convicted, that predate the impeachment work extinguished.

That was never challenged legally. So I think you could have actually had a situation where the Dixon pardons were legally challenged, but never were challenged. But again, Trump didn't part it himself, so we don't have to deal with that. But what is his legal culpability, Michael, looking for aiding and abetting the insurrectionists? And where is that investigation going? Yeah. of betting the insurrectionists. And where is that investigation going? Yeah, look, I think as you've laid out the Trump presidency pressure tested our democracy

in ways that the founding fathers probably never envisioned. As you alluded to them, I call them the guardrails of democracy, right? You've got all these guardrails and Trump took special delight in running the car into every guardrail where he could. He tested, though, he was like a child testing the limits of the authority of the Constitution to see what he could get away with and to see what his Senate cronies would support,

to see what those on the Supreme Court that share his political views and the Federalist Society's political views would support. And he was just like a drunken sailor doing anything he wanted at any given moment and pressure tested our democracy in a way. I don't think we've seen in the last 150 or 200 years. And you're right, I think there needs to be some constitutional amendments are tweaking to things that were put in place by the founding fathers. The charges against the people that participated in the insurrection at the Capitol, the attack on the cradle of the House and the seat of our democracy, really comes down to prior broadcasts, podcasts, sedition. And sedition, yes, it's a civil war concept, but it is based on whether someone is trying to overthrow

and violently overthrow the government. I don't think anyone who watched the footage that has now come out on the Capitol attack can call it anything other than people involved with the violent attempt to violently overthrow the government. When you're walking the halls of Congress and you're chanting for the names of individual legislators to come out so that you can hang them, draw them, quarter them, kill them,

shoot them, hit them with bear spray, hit them with a fire extinguisher causing death or injury. I don't think you can call that anything other than what it is. It is sedition. And the federal prosecutors and the one that was appointed by the Trump administration has now stepped down as a Friday. He'll be replaced by somebody by our new attorney general. But they've done a good job. They've got over 400 indictments that they brought, criminal indictments that they brought against people that participated. But it all runs back to who started this mess, who started this insurrection or this sedition.

And it comes back to Trump. And even that prosecutor, now that he's been sort of quit on Friday, he's able to speak freely, more freely than probably even before. And on the Sunday morning talk show this past Sunday, he said that even Trump is being evaluated by the current team of federal prosecutors as to whether he committed crimes for which he was not pardoned as we've discussed and for which he is liable. And he'll claim as we've seen it before, well, I was president, but presidents can commit crimes.

And presidents can be prosecuted. And ex-presidents can be prosecuted. And I think that if they look at the footage, and as this prosecutor said, the cause and effect connection between the statements that were made at the rally an hour or so before, which lit the fuse, which said, I'm going to march down the Capitol with you, which of course he didn't. He went the other way.

It went back to the White House, but he said to the people, let's go and use your second amendment rights and use and fight, fight, fight. Let's go. And that's exactly. It was like a coach in a locker room in a football game, getting the team all juiced up for the game. And then he then he opened the floodgates. And these people, literally violently attacked our capital in a way we have never seen in the history of this democracy. And there's a price to be paid for that. And those people that are being prosecuted

are going to spend the rest of their lives in a federal penitentiary taking big rocks and making them into little rocks. And it may go all the way to the president. Can he be indicted for this? Yes, will Merrick Garland and his team of prosecutors that are taking this over do it? And if there's political will for it, I hope so. There's no better person to evaluate that charge

and to decide whether to use prosecutorial discretion to bring it than Merrick, Ireland. I have no doubt about that. I do think that some of those statements that the president, but should the president be indicted absolutely was the president of Cokispariter? Absolutely. If he was not the president of the United States and he stood in front of a group of people and said, I'm going with you and we need to fight them and we need to go after them. And then they all did that.

And then there were all of the meetings set up before that went over the plan of what was going to happen that day. It's not even a close call to me, okay? Like the president clearly is a Coke and spirit and is clearly guilty of aiding in a betting mean. It's not even a close call to me, okay, like the president clearly is a co-conspirator and is clearly guilty of aiding and abetting the insurrection. You should go to jail for the rest of his life for it. Like, it's not a close call.

Any other setting, you know, that's what's going to happen. You know, I think the political pressures and the problematic nature of going after him for that is what will be the barrier. I think ultimately where Trump is most vulnerable are the illegalities he committed in his personal and professional, the quasi-professional, because nothing he's ever done is professional, but quasi-professional or life as a mobster

outside of the White House, because those issues don't have to deal with in any way him as the president. They're cleaner from a perspective of, here's the financial document, and here's the false representations that he said. He's got a lot of problems in Manhattan, sideivans, the district attorney, has hired the top people who are combing through those financials.

And in the next six months, I have very little doubt, very little a doubt. By the next six months, or I'll just say to give myself a little buffer. By the end of 2021, Donald Trump will be indicted, period from from that New

York side dance practice. Yeah, and just for everybody that that follows us. So, Si is decided after 10 years to step down as the Manhattan District Attorney. I know there's a lot of people in, you know, I work and live in Manhattan, and I know people that are close to him and they're disappointed that he's decided to do that. But he's just sort of after 10 years of being a crusader and taking over what is arguably one of the, or the best district attorney's office in the country. And for those that follow,

it's the model for all of the law and order series of television shows, was that office when it was run by Morgan Thaw. But Vance is not going to seek reelection. There's going to be a new, it's an elected position. There's going to be a new district attorney. And we're going to have an election related to that. But I would doubt none of them, none of the people running for that office are running

on a platform that they're not going to go hard on Trump. They're all going to continue the same blueprint that SIE put in place with this special band of prosecutors that he hand picked. I'm sure that the prosecution will be undisturbed even when SIE, you know, isn't sitting in the big chair in that office. And if he doesn't get them, and that office doesn't get him, the attorney general will of the state. The state attorney general is loaded for bear.

She has her own half dozen mortgage fraud, loan fraud, prosecutions, again tax fraud, all sorts of things that are under her jurisdiction. So between, you know, Trump is caught between this vice of the DA office in Manhattan and the Attorney General's office in Albany that are just rotating all of their pressure around him and the family. You know, don't think for a minute that that Don Jr. and the the daughters in law and Ivanka are also also in the crosshairs of these prosecutions because as you alluded to it,

the Trump organization is a criminal enterprise and it as as lots of people including Michael Cohen have testified to. And there were lots of people who benefited from that criminal enterprise, and they all had the last name, Trump. And we will be waiting with faded breath. We will be up to the minute on all of the reporting regarding that, those investigations and those potential indictments.

And we will be the first to break that news hopefully when that occurs. And we will break it down the way we've broken down all of these cases for you today. Really enjoying doing this podcast with you, Michael, it is a true honor to get to work with you in the courtroom, the virtual courtroom now, and doing these podcasts.

It was great, our first podcast last week. Got incredible reviews, did incredibly well. We thank everybody for listening. If you want to reach out to Michael and myself about your own cases, cases that your friends have, or you just have questions for us if we could be helpful. You could reach out to us, you know, each individually. You could find me and my contact information is on Twitter at my cell S-B-M-E-I-S-E-L-A-S-B

at my cell S-B and Michael Michael you want to give your contact? Sure, you can do through Twitter also. I'm at m I will at m s for Stephen Popak P-O-P-O-K or my email is m popak at zp law.com. Thank you for listening to this week's edition of Legal AF Your Legal Analysis. Friends, I'm Ben Mycelis. You've been listening to Ben and Michael Popak. We'll see you again next week. you