Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Wow: Manhattan DA could indict Trump BEFORE Jack Smith + MORE

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

The Midweek Edition of the top-rated news podcast, LegalAF x MeidasTouch, is back for another hard-hitting look at this week’s most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this episode, co-anchors national trial lawyer Michael Popok and former prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo analyze and discuss: the Manhattan DA’s office interview this week of Michael Cohen as part of their ongoing criminal investigation into the hush money Trump paid Stormy Daniels in 2016 while running for the Presidency; a new memoir being published by former special prosecutor Mark Pomerantz about his time investigating Trump while in the Manhattan DA’s office, and the office’s reaction to its publication; a Florida State Court Judge’s decision not to dismiss the case against DeSantis for using human beings as political props and spending Florida public funds to ship Texas immigration status seekers to Martha’s Vineyard while President Biden vacationed there, and the start of the Proud Boy seditious conspiracy trial in a DC Federal courtroom, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Green Chef: Go to GreenChef.com/legalaf60 and use code legalaf60 to get 60% off plus free shipping Miracle Made: Go to TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF to save over 40% and be sure to use our promo code LEGALAF at checkout to SAVE even more AND get 3 FREE TOWELS! Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the midweek edition of legal AF with your host, Michael Popuck, and Karen Friedman, Agnifalo-Sunny, Karen Friedman, Agnifalo for those that can watch us on YouTube. We have an action pack deep dive into the most consequential and influential issues at the intersection of law and politics. At the midweek we've specially curated this show for you Karen and me and and here we go we're going to go right into her her her old her old stopping grounds what is going on at the Manhattan D.A.'s office looks like we've awakened a sleepy giant for some reason and we got two issues that we're going to dive into with Karen who

who better to guide us through this as a spirit guide than Karen Friedman at Knifle over going to talk about Michael Cohen going in earlier this week to be interviewed publicly. Everybody knows about it. He even went on the Midas Touch Network and gave a news breaking interview to our co-anchor and partner Ben Mysalis about what happened with Stormy Daniels again, as if we don't already know,

but the new prosecutors on the team with Alvin Bragg wanted to have a formal meeting wanted to debrief and find out how Michael Cohen could help them about the $130,000 payment that was made way back when first by Michael Cohen and then reimbursed by Donald Trump to pay off Stormy Daniels while candidate Trump ran for office and whether there is a New York crime, a New York felony as compared to misdemeanor that may be implicated in that Alvin Bragg's team is looking at. Now we'll talk about that with Karen Friedman at Nifalo. And then we're going to talk about, you know, we've had a lot of conversation.

I'll put it nicely and chat off of our, and Karen's Alvin Bragg interview last week. Mr. Bragg kind enough to come on the show. And there's of course two sides to every story. And one side of that story is two now former prosecutors that were especially assigned to the case by Karen's former boss, Si Vance. And that was Carrie Dunne and Mark Pomerance. And Mark Pomerance has decided to write all about it,

write a tell all, and a memoir published by Simon and Schuster coming out next month, which is called People vs Donald Trump. We've always wanted to have that in a caption. And Mark Pomeran's gone one better and wants to write a book about it, but the Manhattan DA's office is not happy about it and has written a letter as a, I guess a precursor to a possible lawsuit and we'll talk about that because they think Mark Pomerance may reveal the secret sauce or comment inappropriately about witnesses and evidence about an ongoing criminal investigation

because yes, Mr. Pomerance left the case but the case didn't leave the office and is still going on and we'll talk about it from at least the next prosecutor's perspective. The Stent the Karen can talk about that. And then we'll shift gears from the Manhattan DA's office and we'll head south on 95 to Miami and to Tallahassee, Florida. And find out why Ron DeSantis is going to trial for his migrant dump off stunt where he took Texas migrants, not even ones in Florida, who showed up yearning to breathe free, yearning to be Americans,

and instead he put them on transportation and dumped them off as a stunt in different places like Massachusetts and the vice president's house and all of that. And he got sued over it by a Democratic State Senator from South Florida. And the Leon County, which is up in Tallahassee Judge, said, Mr. DeSantis, you're going to trial on this. We're going to find out whether you violated the Florida Constitution, the Florida rules and statutes related to how laws get passed, and how appropriations get spent.

You spent $12 million on this stunt. Let's find out if that violated the Florida Constitution. And while we're at it, let's find out if it violated the federal U.S. Constitution and the right of the U.S. government to be supreme in the areas of immigration. And then we're going to wrap it up with the proud boys, proud boys, proud boys, and their trial that's going on in front of Judge Kelly in Washington, D.C. At present, started earlier in the week.

We had opening statements. We'll talk about the defense angle, which seems to be trying to take a page out of the losing book of Stuart Rhodes. I don't know why you'd follow Stuart Rhodes, one of the Oathkeepers. He already got convicted of the very thing that your clients are now also being tried for. I don't know why you thought that was a good idea, but we'll talk about their openings. We'll talk about how the case is progressing from both a defense lawyer's perspective and a former prosecutor's perspective in Karen. Karen, I'm breathless already. How are

you in your sunny locale? I'm great traveling for business, but always have time for legal AF. So super excited to be here I love the new glasses popo. Thank you now that you're you're one of the few you're one of a handful But it does allow me to see you clearly on YouTube on our on our live our live And I know that you're in a nice sunny place and I'm happy about that. But once again, demonstrating that we don't sleep at LegalAF and we don't sleep at the Midest Dutch Network, our producer certainly hasn't slept.

Thank you Brett, my Salis for stepping in and helping us with the show tonight. So let's kick it off. Everybody doesn't want to know about where you're at and about my new eyewear. They want to know about what's going on in your office and talk about breathless. So let me frame it and then I'm just going to sit back and let you talk about it to the best that you can. Here's what we now know.

And we know this also from a breaking story that the Midas Touch Network was able to bring to you through Michael Cohen, our fellow podcaster, who when he wasn't a podcaster, also went to jail because of his involvement with Donald Trump and got out of jail because he was retaliated against when he tried to publish a book. So all of this comes full circle with Michael Cohen being brought in publicly to have, well, it's public as Michael told everybody about it and have an interview with the Manhattan DA's office with the, what appears to be a new set of prosecutors that have been brought in not done in ponderance who left last February very noisily we'll talk about that next. prosecutors for this and they're getting back down to the nitty gritty on stormy

Daniels, the $130,000 hush payment and back behind the scenes, this is where you can really bring it bring it bring it home. What is the crime the felony in New York state that they may be looking at related to the hush money as compared to you know listen you don't have to comment on it if you can't, but the reporting is that side vans took one look at the hush money issue and sort of said, hmm, I don't see how I ramp it up from misdemeanor to felony and I'm going to go a different direction. At least that's the reporting.

It could be totally wrong. I don't have insider knowledge. I didn't work in the office, but you did. So let's turn to you. Let's start with Michael Cohen going in. What does it mean? What happened? And what do you think it means for the future about whether Alvin Bragg and his team of

prosecutors is going to actually bring a felony prosecution against Donald Trump for the Stormy Daniels hush money payment? So Alvin Bragg has said now for a long time that there is an active and ongoing investigation into Donald Trump and at least one. And there could be several. But unfortunately, because most investigations happen behind closed doors, a lot of people thought or think that nothing is going on.

But I think what we're seeing is Alvin Bragg is clearly still investigating and potentially bringing charges against Donald Trump. And he confirmed it when he came onto our special edition interview podcast last week. And he said, yes, there's an active ongoing investigation, multiple investigations. And when I say multiple, I mean multiple different crimes because you follow the facts wherever

they lead. And sometimes they bleed in together to each other, sometimes they're separate. And this came on the heels of the really astounding conviction that he got against the Trump corporation and the Trump payroll. And Michael Cohen reported yesterday that he had met with the DA's office again because we all know he had met with the DA's office and had DA's office. I think he said 13 times over a year ago. And this was the first time he's met with the new administration with Alvin Bragg. Because last time it was Scy Vance and as you said, Kerry done in Mark

Pomerance. And he didn't tell us a lot because he promised them he would keep it quiet. I give him a lot of credit for that. I don't think you should talk about a pending investigation. It can actually hurt the investigation. And this actually bleeds nicely into our next topic, the book you mentioned, that Mark Pomerance is writing. And I have very mixed feelings about that for the reason that I'm just saying.

And so I give Michael Cohen a lot of credit for the fact that he is honoring their request to not speak about it publicly. Because frankly, he can't talk publicly if he wanted to, but they asked him not to, because it does potentially impact the case. And I respect him for doing it. He said that he spoke to them for about two and a half hours and that's about, he wouldn't

even tell us who the prosecutors are that he met with. So I tried to figure it out through my own back channels. The DA's office wouldn't confirm for me or tell me or give me any indication of who the prosecutors are that he met with. But I believe my best guess, just from, you know, what I can believe from everything. Here comes breaking news, carrot free misconduct. I don't know, I can be. I, I could be wrong though.

Let's just say, but my view, what I believe. You rarely are. Who is it? I believe that there's, so there's an executive ADA who was brought in for gun violence prevention. His name is Peter Pope. And Peter Pope is a long-term public servant, and he worked for Elliott Spitzer when he was governor, he was a criminal defense attorney, he also worked in the Manhattan DA's office for years. He's just been in, he was at the New York Attorney General's office in various roles.

He worked for something called the New York City School Construction Authority. He's done a lot of different things and he's a very senior, very well respected prosecutor. And although he has a lot of experience in gun violence and that's what he knows, a lot of us kind of raised our eyebrows a little bit that he'd come over just for that. So I believe he's also the lead prosecutor on the Stormy Daniels, Hush Money Trump case. I believe that's what he's working on.

And if that's the case, he's really an exceptional high level person who I think, again, you wouldn't attract someone like Peter Pope unless it was something really big. So I think he is supervising the case. And the other person who I think is on the case is a senior investigative prosecutor her name is Catherine McCaw and Catherine McCaw is very smart, very respected. She I think she went to Harvard. I think she was a clerk, you know, just a very good smart lawyer who works in the investigation division which means she's very experienced in white collar crime.

And interestingly, she was the lead prosecutor on the case that against Anna Sorkin, that the Netflix series, inventing Anna, was based on. So she was a favorite of yours. I know that was a favorite. Yeah, exactly. It was a favorite of yours. I know that was a favorite. Yeah, exactly. It was a great show. So she, first of all, she has a lot of experience dealing with both tricky defendants,

because Anna Storkin was not easy. She has a lot of experience dealing with high profile tricky defendants for that same reason. And obviously Trump is Anna Storkin on steroids, but she can handle that with Peter. And those are the two that I believe are on the case. And if that's the case, I will tell you, I don't know why people don't believe Alvin Bragg that he has a pending investigation that he's looking at, but it is clear to me.

You know, you don't put serious prosecutors and have them spend all of their career, or I should say all of their time, you know, doing this. And certainly they wouldn't do it if it wasn't a real prosecution, just like Jack Smith. He's another one. If there was no, you know, this isn't lip service. This is people who are genuinely looking at this and taking a hard look at whether or not you can ask you a question So let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. What are the crimes? Well, yeah, well, the first

Brett's going to put up a cry on the bottom that says, KFA predicts Peter Pope and Catherine McCaw are the prosecutors, which I love. Whether it's true or not, we'll find out, but it certainly is your best guess. I can't think of anybody making a better guess. So serious prosecutors for a serious crime. The crime of false records, which is, I paid hush money to store me Daniels, but in the Trump organization books, I listed it as some sort of other business expense

or something like that. Just so we frame the question, is a Mr. Meanor in New York? Yeah, it's filing a false, you know, it's falsifying business records or filing a false instrument. And yeah, it's a mystery. But it's up, it's up, it's a felony.

You gotta have, you gotta have a second crime that's being covered up. It has to be, yeah, it has to be concealing another crime exactly to make it a felony. That is correct. So what do you think, well, first of all, and you could say I can't talk about it, but I'm gonna ask it, because everybody on our podcast

knows you work for Side Vance. Do you know why he, say, at least if the reporting is correct, didn't think they had the second crime in order to elevate it to a felony? So I think at the time that he was looking at it, you have to remember there was a long protracted battle to try and get Trump's tax returns. And in fact, there was litigation for years and years and years.

Because if, so for example, he paid this money back to Michael Cohen that we know, he had Michael Cohen pay Stormy Daniels. And then he re back to Michael Cohen that we know so he had Michael Cohen pay Stormy Daniels and then he reimbursed Michael Cohen if he then Cooked his taxes, you know cook the books if you will So that it looked like that was a business offense or a business you know a business right off Which it actually would not count as one then that could be considered a tax crime. And so that could be could increase it to a felony. But if you recall, side dance didn't have those tax returns for a long time because Donald Trump was fighting that. And that woven its way up and down the state courts and the federal courts, all the way up to the United States Supreme Court,

where actually Carrie Dunn was the lawyer who argued this before the United States Supreme Court, and they were able to obtain Donald Trump's tax returns. Now, even though I was in the office at the time that we received the tax returns, I never saw them because we kept those, or they kept those and continued to I assume, under incredible lock and key secret,

certainly treated them like they were classified top secret, compartmentalized, whatever. Like they handled it so that nobody would have access to that unless you needed to, and I didn't need to, at the time. And so I never even saw them, but I would imagine that at this point, you know, and there were many, many, many, many, many pages because there are many, many years. So I imagine at this point, they have gone through them, and perhaps they have uncovered of something that makes it a felony, or perhaps perhaps not and it's still a misdemeanor

interestingly and I asked Alvin Bragg about this DA Bragg when he was on the show I said my understanding or my calculation of things is and this is just not this is just based on things that I've read and talked to people about is that the statute of limitations is running in May of this year. And some people might say, well, I don't understand because a felony statute of limitations is five years and a misdemeanor statute of limitations is two years in New York,

which means you have to commence charges within either five years of its felony or two years. If it's a misdemeanor and one would say yes, but these payments occurred, the Hush Money Payment occurred in 2015 and Donald Trump paid Michael Cohen back over a series. 2018. Yeah, over a series. I think it was 2016, but whatever it was. Right, okay. Yeah, I think it's 2015 into 2016. And so the statute of limitations will, would have run on both.

But there is an exception in the New York law that allows for a tolling of the statute of limitations or pressing pause on the statute of limitations. And that is when a person, a defendant, is out of the jurisdiction for a continuous period of time. So basically, if he's being charged, you know, they're going to have to do a math equation and prove and look, he was out of the jurisdiction. He was out of the state for a period of time because he was in Washington, D.C. while he was pregnant, excuse me, president.

And that would be breaking news. Sorry, sorry, I don't know where that came from or why that came out of my mouth. Anyway, but between these time in Washington, D.C. and in Bedminster. I think this calculation is that it pushes it out to May of 2023. And if that's the case, Alvin Bragg, the DA said, one way or another, if the guys indicted, the indictment will speak for itself. And if he's not indicted, he promised he would explain why. So it's very

clear that that is being investigated right now. One other thing I want to I want to also talk about about why this is a slightly trickier case to bring than just your average case, which is Michael Cohen is a double-edged sword for a prosecutor. He is an extraordinary insider. And he is an absolute fantastic witness. He will explain everything that happened in detail. The issue, however, is, and I think Scythans had this issue, and I think Alvin Bragg will have this issue, is a prosecutor has to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt, and Michael Cohen is going to have to be corroborated. Everything he says is pretty much going to have

to be corroborated, and that's because, not just because he has criminal convictions for some of the conduct that he engaged in with Donald Trump, but a little more tricky for a prosecutor is that he has also a criminal conviction in addition to the tax-fraud bank fraud and campaign finance fraud. He pled guilty to lying under oath to the Senate. About storm again, right?

That's tricky. Well, I think it was about building a Trump tower in Moscow, but either way, he has admitted to lying under oath. And as a defense attorney, you know, Popo, we would have a field day with him about your under oath now, etc. So, you know, he also has, you know,

a lot of strong feelings about Trump and, you know, and he went before you to the name of the book. He went to jail and got out because he argued, successfully, to a judge, that he was retaliated against by the Trump administration in terms of incarceration and otherwise. So yeah, he cut, look, we all like Michael as a podcaster and a person. And he certainly has paid his debt to society and we all believe he's telling the truth.

But I think what we're outlining here is that he comes with a little bit of baggage. And if you don't have, and maybe we'll turn next to Alan Weiselberg, if you don't have a second corroborating witness, the defense can try to inject and maybe successful to inject reasonable doubt into a jury's mind through Michael. Yeah, I hope, I hope if Michael is listening to this, he doesn't take offense to what I'm saying because I think Michael's, saying, because I think Michael is extraordinary.

I think what he's doing to give back to society for what he's done and continues to give back, I think, deserves a lot of respect. And frankly, prosecutors deal with and have witnesses with criminal convictions all the time. So I don't think that's the issue. I think it's his, look, he has a bias against Trump, you know? He, I think, I think it's in his book called Revenge, you know? I mean, he, he very much, there's just a lot that can be done. And again, the conviction for lying under oath, I think it's of a different nature than just committing

crimes. And so I think they're going to have to corroborate that and hopefully we'll see soon whether or not a case can be brought here. Look, the other thing that should be noted is is Michael Cohen pled guilty to federal campaign laws stemming from his role in this very payment. But the feds passed on charging Trump for it. And so it's a little tricky then to have, you know, for a state prosecutor to say, look, the feds, this is a federal election. And so it's clearly, if anything, a violation of federal election laws, not necessarily state election laws, and the state doesn't have jurisdiction to prosecute things under federal election laws, only state, and if the feds passed on it, it makes it a little harder for a state prosecutor to do it without more.

So we'll see. Let me jump in on that one and not to get to us or Terrick, and then we get to move on to our related metat and DA issue with Mark Pomerance. But if the issue is in order to get the second crime on the books to amp it to a felony, if your goal is to have a felony prosecution of Donald Trump, you need the second crime. And if the question is, can the second crime be a federal election campaign violation? As opposed to a New York state law, and the problem is him running for federal office and making that payment. Everybody's been sort of hard pressed to find that the New York state crime that is the second crime necessary to elevate this to a to a felony. If you're using the federal one, you go right back to the problem that you just identified Karen,

which is the federal prosecutors didn't prosecute that crime. And so you have a judge sitting in state court listening to these motions to dismiss arguments with what is, the whole day will be spent and briefing will be spent on. Is there a second crime here? Is it appropriate?

Is it the second crime that is required in a New York law or is it or is it not? And just to clarify or to do an editorial correction, you were right, I was wrong. It's 2016. I just saw it on my notes. So that was when the payment was the hush money. It's so long ago. It's hard to believe this is still kicking around. But all right, so look, this is a good follow up to your interview with DA Bragg. Look, in the future, we may have the other side of the story, and that other side of the story includes people like Carrie Dunn and Mark Pomerantz, who when Mark's not writing a

book, he's founding a new law firm devoted to public interest and all of that. But listen, not surprising everybody that's a lawyer that was somehow majorly involved with Donald Trump wants to write a book. So he's got the right to do that as long as he doesn't violate Matt Hatton, D.A. policies, ethics laws, and the like. And we'll get into that in a moment. So Mark Alfram, it turned it over to you. Mark Pemberance, who to remind everybody was one of the special prosecutors, picked and

appointed, taken out a private practice, brought in by Sive Vance, who to remind everybody was one of the special prosecutors picked and appointed, taken out a private practice brought in by side vans solely to look at basically all things Donald Trump along with another private lawyer carried done. And so, and you know, they didn't really get, they didn't really give Alvin Bragg much time to settle into his seat. Alvin took oath of office, Jan one of last year, by, carried on in Mark Palmer and sent it with a very huffy, noisy departure said, you're not going to prosecute this case after we recommended it. We're out. And that was it. And you know, the reporting at the time was Alvin didn't say no, he just said, I need more time. I want more evidence

developed. This is now my, you know, buck stops with me as the prosecutor on this, not you, you know, even though you were specially appointed for this. And it's like we're 30 days in, like what's basically the rush? I'm paraphrasing, that's my artist rendering of Alvin Breck. So, but it did happen in February.

We know the timing because you and I covered it at the time when they left with a letter that was written and now that letter is turned into a 304 page manuscript submitted to Simon and Schuster with the title, you know, the people versus Donald Trump with Mark Pomerance This is what the editor is telling the public Mark Pomerance will disclose why he thinks Donald Trump should be prosecuted and now the Assumption I think rightly so by by the Manhattan D.A.'s office is, are you, A, your information is sort of stale. You left a year ago.

You, we have an ongoing, this reinforces the point you made, Karen, at the top of the show. Why people are saying there isn't, or they don't think there's an ongoing investigation led by Alvin Bragg and his team against Donald Trump, there is, because they wouldn't send a letter, the cease and desist letter that they've sent this week, yesterday, to Simon and Schuster saying, you should not, cannot publish that memoir. Unless we take a look at it, he's violated internal policies.

He did not get the permission of the Manhattan D.A. to publish it. His information is stale. He's commenting about an existing criminal investigation that may be compromised by the revelation of whatever is in your book. We don't even know what's in your book because he never got around to sending it to us. So, stop. Now, they haven't taken the added step yet, yet, of filing a motion in New York State or federal court asking for some sort of what's called prior restraint order, which is hard to do. We'll talk about that at the end to stop the publication, but they did put

them on notice and put pomerancin notice. Of course, pomerancin came back with, I do everything ethically correct and there's nothing wrong with the book I'm about to publish. And there's two organizations, Karen, that came out that were interesting that when you're giving your overview of this and your own opinion of it, I'd like you to comment on, which is the two other entities that were CSEED on the letter by the Manhattan DA's General Counsel, who I assume you know, but you'll tell us that. One is the conflict of interest bureau, and the other one is the department of investigation, the D-O-I, which are also C-C'd on the letter to Simon and Schuster.

So that's a long-winded framing of the issue. Let's talk about it. You've been there in the office for over 20 years. I'm sure this is not the first book that was written. Maybe you're going to tell us it was the first book ever written by a former prosecutor while the prosecutor is still going on. What do you think?

Is Mark Pomeran's right to have published this book or about to publish this book? So this is a tricky one for me. So because, so let's just talk about Alvin Bragg for a minute. As you know, we had him on the show last week. And I loved the commentary that we got having him on the show because it was some of the liveliest commentary

that I've ever had on anything that I've done on legal. If maybe you guys have, you and Ben have had much more lively commentary. And there were people who had strong opinions about it. Some people loved the investigation. And other people thought that I didn't ask tough questions of Alvin Bragg and that I didn't ask him about exactly this, Carrie Dunn and Mark Pomerance and whether and about the case, etc. But what people

need to know is that I would never have gotten Alvin Bragg to come on the podcast if I asked any of those questions. He just wouldn't have come on because you don't talk about a pending investigation. And if I had, I actually agreed ahead of time that I wouldn't ask those questions. And I thought there was enough to talk about without that. So let's now talk about this book and what's happening here. So Kerry Dunn is someone who I worked with for a long time. He's a really, really smart, thoughtful by the book lawyer.

And he is, he's kind of a lawyer's lawyer, if you will. And he wasn't brought on, especially, to do Trump. He worked in the office for a while, under Sivance. And he was just an excellent general counsel, the role that Leslie Dubek, the woman who signed the letter you just talked about now has for Alvin Bragg. And Carrie Dunn, as the general counsel, was like the lawyer to the DA, and he advised the office on all things. So for example, I wasn't surprised that Kerry

Dunn, although he resigned, didn't leak his resignation letter because Kerry Dunn is a very by the book kind of guy. And I'm also not surprised that Kerry Dunn isn't on the Mark Pomeran's book because again, it's just not in keeping with who Kerry Dunn, at least the Kerry Dunn I know is. Although they are law partners, they just started a not-for-profit carry done in Mark Pomerance to handle, to hand pick and handle cases that are not kind of statement civil rightsy kind of cases about, you know, election interference, abortion rights, that kind of stuff. And I give them a lot of credit for what they're trying to do.

The Mark Pomerance, I don't know. I never really worked with him, so I don't know him as well. And he came on to the office as I was leaving. I don't, I don't, I might have overlap for a very brief period of time, but we certainly didn't work together. And, you know, he but was brought on as a special prosecutor to bring this, or to investigate and potentially bring this case, and he worked with Kerry, who was already on the case. And to bring him on as a special prosecutor, he had to sign a written agreement. And he signed this written agreement with the office

to be under an obligation, basically, to bind himself to that he would have to get prior written permission from the DA's office before making any disclosures relating to the existence, nature, or content of any communications or records or documents that related to this investigation. And that language was put in this letter that Leslie Duback wrote to Simon & Schuster

and Mark Pomeran's. And the reason that was put in is because talking publicly about an ongoing pending investigation actually hurts the case. And you need to be able to do these things in a way that witnesses can't tailor their testimony, that they're not going to hide evidence, that they're, you know, like we, I'm not a prosecutor anymore, prosecutors have to be able to do this. And so that language was deliberately put in there. And frankly, it's just not done.

Prosecutors, just when you are a prosecutor, in a million years you wouldn't talk about a pending investigation that could hurt the pending investigation. So I was just frankly kind of shocked about this. Has it ever happened? Has it ever happened in the 20 years that you were the number two in the office where a prosecutor special or otherwise wrote a memoir about an existing criminal prosecution?

Not that I know of, not certainly that I can think of and I don't wanna say no for sure because somebody is gonna say don't you remember when X, Y and Z happened, but not that I know of because it's just not done and you know frankly went when Kerry and Mark and I give Mark Pomerance a lot of Deference because he's with Kerry and I have so much respect for Kerry. So I've always sort of grouped them together But I have to say you know, whereas I viewed them as a little bit,

not, I don't wanna say heroes, you know, but when they kind of resigned in protest and they thought even if the case was a little bit hard to do, it was worthy of doing and they resigned in protest. And there was a little part of me that kind of felt like they were a little bit, like they were heroes.

But when you write a book and you benefit from it and you can hurt the investigation, I don't know. I no longer have to say, I just see it slightly differently at this point, given what Alvin Bragg has specifically said. You know, why don't I know one's believing him? You know, look, I never work for Alvin Bragg. I don't know that guy. You're not here to defend Alvin, right? Yeah, exactly. I've never worked for Alvin Bragg. I don't, no, I don't know that guy. You're not here to defend Alvin, right?

Yeah, exactly. I've never worked for him. I have no loyalty to him. Yeah, but let me ask you a question that people are good at. I said over and over again. Yeah. No, just he said over and over again. There is an active investigation.

And I don't know why people aren't believing him, but hopefully with Michael Cohen going in, they see that. I'm less worried about what people believe about Alvin Brack. I have, but I do have a question about something you've said a couple of times now about Mark Pomerance and others that would write a book like this. You said it could hurt the prosecution. So explain briefly to our listeners and followers how, how a year old, a book written when you don't know what's in it by a prosecutor who was on a team but left a year ago

while the criminal prosecution continues to develop under the leadership of new prosecutors and all, how could that hurt the prosecution, right? Make the argument for how that could hurt a prosecution. So because I don't know the facts of that case, I'm going to talk about a hypothetical case, okay, and one that I think would be easy for people to understand. So if you had, like, say, a high profile murder case, and it's all over the news, but you don't have anyone under arrest, what the police do is they deliberately hold back evidence and information. Because lots of people come forward and they say, I saw this or I didn't see this or confess to the crime, you know, some people will say that or that they know someone who confessed to the crime.

And the police and prosecutors will use this information that they've held back to hear what people are saying about the case. Because if they are saying, no, I saw this and I saw the guy was wearing red shoes, but no one's ever said that before. You know that that person has information that can be corroborated by evidence that you have that hasn't been spoken about publicly. Another thing is there are witnesses who might be sympathetic to a defendant, right, his family, his friends, etc. If they know what all the evidence is ahead of time, they can tailor their testimony so that it's that somehow it supports what what that what the you know the defense or prosecution, frankly. So you really want to not leak information.

The other thing that can happen is people can destroy evidence, right? If they know that that something is really important to a case, they could erase the videotape or throw out the documents or delete the emails, whatever it is, you know, there, there are ways to do that. And so it's important not to do, not to do those things, but also, you know, the thing is there are witnesses too who are very reticent to come forward. Think about, let's talk about Donald Trump. I mean, look what has happened to anybody who has come forward and testified or said anything or come into

his orbit at all. He unleashes a tirade and a fury against them. People's lives are ruined. Those poor poll workers, that nice woman, Ruby Freeman and her mother who literally lives are destroyed because he's so vindictive when he hears that anyone has done anything. So the minute anyone talks about, oh well, this person saw this or this person did that, you're not, if you had a witness that was maybe agreeing to go into the grand jury, but

doesn't want their life destroyed, the minute that all comes out, especially in a case like this, you've lost those witnesses. You, those people are not going to cooperate and they're not necessarily going to come forward. So there are many ways that can make a investigation. Go ahead. I'll give you one more. Why would you want?

We don't know what's in Mark Palmer's book. That's the problem. But if Mark Palmer's is giving a roadmap or any kind of blueprint for what the prosecution is looking at, what they thought about and discarded, what they're pursuing. You know, even if it's a year old, it'll help the defense in advance. And why, why showcase and why give out any information or intel? That's why you keep everything under wraps. That's why we don't know much about what's going on with Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice and Jack Smith, other than when he issues

subpoenas where people come in for interviews and the reporters are sitting around taking notes. There's a reason for that. And one of them is you don't want to tip off the defense either. So listen, we're going to have to see maybe one day we get to talk to Mark Pomeranse, he's going to be I guess very highly sought after. You know, do you think the Manhattan will leave it on this before we move on to our sponsor and to the next topic? Do you think that the Manhattan DA office, your old office, goes all the way and brings a injunction in court to stop its publication? But let me frame it this way before he answer it.

There is a constitutional body of law called the no prior restraint doctrine, which says that in a democracy and the founding fathers are very strong on this, the press, no matter really how they get the information, even if it's leaked to them, has the right to publish it and to let the public see it, to keep people accountable. And it starts with, you know, there's a 1931 case that actually kind of set it out near versus Minnesota, but then the case that everybody sort of remembers because it's also been portrayed in a couple of movies is the Pentagon papers, you know, with Daniel Ellsberg revealing confidential information that he obtained from

a source about how the war in Vietnam and Cambodia was going, not well, and different than the way that the generals and the president was saying the war was going. And he leaked that to the Washington Post in the New York Times, and they were about to run it and publish it, and there was a, you know, the government ran in to try to stop it. And that's where the US Supreme Court in a six to three decision. Basically said, our bedrock principle of First Amendment constitutional rights is that if a publisher, whether it's Simon and Schuster

or The New York Times or Wash Bow, has the right to publish this once it got into their hands. And even, I've seen cases along these lines, using the Pentagon papers as the foundation, even in the area where it could compromise an intelligence investigation, a criminal investigation, once it sort of gets into the hands of the publisher, it sort of has to be,

they have to be allowed to publish. So my question to you is knowing that doctrine, do you think that the Manhattan DA office goes in and tries to stop Simon and choose different publishing? So my understanding is what the letter, the letter isn't a cease-and-assist because of what you just said, because of prior restraint. And so my understanding is what the letter does is it basically asks them to give assignment and shoestr and mark pomerance to give the DA's office a copy of the book of the manuscript. And the DA's office specifically has said this is not a season to say this is what we're trying to do is protect the integrity of the investigation. And so I think what they want is to review the manuscript. They've promised

to do it in 60 days, so they're not going to hold up this publication for long, and let them know if there's anything that could hurt the investigation. Now 60 days from now also takes you closer to the statute of limitations. So maybe they can bring the case before that and then the publication of this doesn't hurt it. You know, we also don't know if the Stormy Daniels case is now bigger if the case that the Manhattan DA's office is doing is the hush money payments plus, right? We don't know what's happened to the last year.

And so it could be more than it could be the stuff that Mark Pomeranse was looking at. And you know, the other thing is the, the, there are two, there are two separate people in different, in different positions, right? There's Simon and Schuster and whoever their parent organization is who I think you're right. Once they have it, they publish it, I don't see why they wouldn't give the Manhattan D.A.'s office an advanced copy. I don't see how they are hurt by that and and allow them to review it. But I think there's also Mark Comerance and and what is his liability, right?

He's the one who went and wrote the book and so I think he potentially is And so I think he potentially is going to have a little bit of a problem if this gets published, right? You mentioned in the beginning that the conflict of interest board, which is also, you know, we call COIV, you mentioned that that's an issue, that they secede them, and that the Department of Investigation, DOI, was also seced. And that's because I think Pomerance has a few areas that, if I were him, I'd be slightly worried about. He's a good thing he has a law firm now to handle pro bono things, because I think they're going to say this is their first cause that they're taking on, right?

The putting sunlight on the Donald Trump case. And I think it's a noble cause. It is wanting to do that, especially if you don't think that Alvin Bragg is going to bring a case. But I really do think that Alvin has said over and over and over again that he's bringing this case. And I think Pomeran has to worry about a couple different things. I think he has to worry about the fact

that he didn't get approval from from the Manhattan DA's office ahead of time, you know, but I guess if they do give them a copy to review and the 60 days to review it, then I guess that would be getting permission, right? So I think that's one, but I think he has a few other, I think there's a few other areas that, you know, that he has to worry about, you know, Number one, most of the information that he got, don't forget was got by Granjury's, a Granjury, Sapina. And that's protected. That's in the criminal procedure law article 190.

And disclosure of that is a felony under the penal law section 215.70. And so, you know, if he discloses secret grand jury information, that's the problem. You know, he's also facing issues, you know, under the professional conduct rules for attorneys. You know, that's where he has to worry about the conflict of interest board. And, you know, there's a rule 1.6 and 3.6 that talks about the professional conduct rules for attorneys and him disclosing information about an ongoing investigation. Really, I think is going to put them in a tricky place. There's also, and I think there's a New York City charter provision 2604 D5,

that he is, that it's tricky. And I think that's why the Department of Investigation, the DOI was CSE because they want them to look at these various provisions of him disclosing, comrades disclosing information that could potentially hurt and ongoing, so there's two separate issues, right? There's secret grand jury information and that's one set of crimes. But then there's, he's just, he has a former prosecutor who, I mean, think about the role of a

prosecutor, right? You're given such enormous power. And so with that power, you have a great responsibility. And there are rules governing what you can and cannot do with that information. And he has to, you know, look, but he has to be very careful so that he doesn't, you know, he doesn't get in trouble because if he, if he ruins or, or, or, or somehow interferes with an ongoing and active investigation, that's a problem. And I think what Alvin Bragg said is you don't know whether what you said in the book, even if it's not secret grand jury material, you don't know whether you are information that you are saying in your book, whether that's going to hurt this investigation, because you don't know what our investigation is into because you've been gone for years.

Right, so it's, right, so it's still. But, but the good news. I mean, listen, I don't want to excoriate, I mean, listen, Mark Pomerance has his own cross to bear now. I think the issue that you've outlined perfectly is that even if prior restraint is okay, that okay is the publisher to publish it. It doesn't mean that Mark Palmerance is out of the woods at all in terms of these potential

violations. But putting that aside for a minute, and as we leave the, leave the segment, the good news is that Alvin Bragg's office is defending an ongoing criminal investigation related to Donald Trump. Because if the naysayers were right that he's not doing anything that he should have picked up the mantle from Donald and Pomerancy a year ago, a one month into the office, and taking them at their word on their evidence that they should have prosecuted or else. If there wasn't any criminal investigation to protect, I don't think she sends the letter, the general counsel for the TA, sends the letter to the Simon and Schuster, do they?

Right, so the good news is it's an indicator that there is a criminal prosecution. No, there's 100%, there's an active investigation. And it's different than the Stormy Daniels one. So there is more than one active, and these are different lawyers on the case, right? One other thing I wanna say about this is, you know, and I had second thoughts as I was saying all these things, I had I have second thoughts because I really,

when I sit tell you that Kerry done is an extraordinarily smart lawyer, I can't underscore that enough and he wouldn't associate himself with someone who wasn't equally excellent. And so part of me wonders if this is by design, if homerence is, you know, he's too smart in some ways, he's too smart to do the things that I said just now, you know, he might be doing. He's just too smart. And so I think he's thought of all these things. I think he's somehow figured out a way to to walk this, you know, thread the needle, if you will. And I wonder if he's doing this to push brag and to push brag to do the case a little bit, you know.

And so we'll see, we'll see, because I just can't, honestly, I, knowing the two of them, or I should say, knowing carry and then him by association, I just can't believe that they would do anything other than the right thing, the smart thing. You know, that's just not who they are. At least the ones aren't, you know, the they that I know, that's not who they are. So, yeah, whether Mark or others are in hot water or not, it'll be left for another

day. And we'll figure it out. I think you definitely have a honest and authentic opinion knowing at least half of that duo about where they're at and we'll continue to follow the story. Speaking of hot water, Karen, we're into our new sponsor time and this is where I get to take off my glasses. And we're talking about green chef and the second time they've been a sponsor for our show, green chef, is the number one meal kit for eating well with dinners that work for you, not the other way around. Green Chefs pre-made and pre-measured sauces and dressings and spices makes keeping a healthy lifestyle even easier.

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that you did not, you had just the right amount. And the onions that I had to cut the ends off over the lime after I squeezed it, I threw it in my loamy. And so I had no waste from my green chef. And I loved it. I love combining our sponsors. Right? I've become, you have no idea what these sponsors have turned me into. I have become, I am so into all of this. I love it. People should understand that we try the products. We like

the products. If we don't like the products, we don't allow them to sponsor on the show. So that's, that's, that's coming from the anchor's direct. Yeah, and I do, and I do research. Yeah, 1000%. So let's move on to our next segment that we've done, covered the entire waterfront related to the Manhattan DA's office. Let's talk about that other candidate for high office, potentially in the Republican Party, Governor Ron DeSantis.

And he, I guess he thought when he was doing the political stunts using human lives as his props, when he used Florida funds several months ago to divert Texas-attempted immigrants, in other words, people who wanted to apply from immigration status, they're often referred to in the process migrants, I don't really like that. I like to say people that would yearn to breathe free, they'd like to be Americans, they'd like to have legal status in this country. And they can't.

You know, at least migrants better than, you know, illegal alien, which is why the dissidentances of the world call them. Yeah, we're not using that term here, but those, those, those human beings, who by the way didn't want to go to Florida and certainly didn't want to go to the places that they were dumped off, whether it's Kamala Harris's house or Joe Biden's the White House or, or state houses in, in Massachusetts, they don't wanna go to these places. They wanna be embraced by a loving, forgiving, dignified immigration process and country and welcomed.

Instead, this is all not disputed. This can't be disputed. We'll talk about the legal issues in a minute, but the facts are not disputed. He used $12 million governor DeSantis in the Florida budget because he's got the Florida legislature by their short hairs over his, over his knee. They will do anything that he says because they genuinely reflect to the, to the idol of governor DeSantis. And he said, I want $12 million to reappropriate

it from COVID funds so I can use to do a political stunt. I mean, he didn't quite say it that way, but he might as well have to take $12 million to take flights and charter planes and take people not even in Florida. This is a problem, ultimately, from Texas and divert them to places where I can use human beings as human props for my political purposes. where I can use human beings as human props for my political purposes, and a very inhumane and despicable fashion. And the Florida legislature thought through that for a second and said, where do we sign?

And they did it. But, you know, lawsuits and the firewall of our legal system, I hope people have learned on legal AF is one place. We hopefully find justice and our democracy is saved and protected and preserved. So a state senator named Jason Pizzo from Miami, North Miami Beach, who sits in the legislature of the Florida, Florida brought a suit in his own name as any citizen in Florida can do. Challenging the quote unquote law or guidelines or whatever they were, the appropriation of the money by the governor because the governor is not, you know, just like the president is not, he's not a king.

He's not a Leviathan. He can't do whatever he wants, whenever he wants it, without oversight. And one of you, if your legislature isn't going to give you a checks imbalance, which this one is not because they just have complete fealty to, to, to Ron Santis, then you got to go into court and hope that the, a circuit court and then the Supreme Court for the state is going to do the right thing. So the actual legal challenge here, and then I'll turn it over to you, Karen, is that the appropriation, the use of the money according to the lawsuit filed in Tallahassee and Leon County, Florida was not appropriate because that amount of money is so substantial that it's basically a new policy and that new policy has to be at a separate

bill to be considered by the House so the public can weigh in and it be freely debated on the floor of the Florida legislature not buried like in Congress, the U.S. Congress, buried in some other bill by Florida Constitution and I was a lawyer as people know in Florida for 20, and actually practice in this area of the law, because my old firm represented a lot of local governments, and they often had problems with the state, and battled with the state, as this state senator is doing. So you have to have, by Florida Constitution, a separate, independent, stated law, or bill, or proposed law, so that it's people are hoodwinked. They don't wake up the next morning and go, wait a minute. They were doing something with drivers licenses and that made people that wanted to immigrate to this country end up in Massachusetts.

That had that happened. It shouldn't happen. And that is the challenge that it's violated the Florida Constitution. By the way, it was framed or the way it wasn't appropriately in a separate law. It violated, according to the lawsuit, federal constitutional law, the preeminency, the preeminent position of the federal government over issues of international immigration into this country. That's supposed to be a federal issue for the executive branch and others, not a state issue. And that's in the lawsuit. And to Sanctus didn't like the suit and move to dismiss it.

And we have a ruling by the Leon County Circuit Court judge, which frankly, Leon County, kinda trends being moderate to a little bit Democrat. It's always been a little bit of a thorn in the side of all governors of Florida, including to Sanctus. So what happened with this decision and what happens next from the suit, Karen?

So yeah, the judge refused to dismiss the case against DeSantis. He did dismiss it against the Chief Financial Officer. I think his name was Patronas or Jimmy Patronas as a defendant because he's like, I just wrote the check. I had nothing to do with this. I have a question for you though. Why did DeSantis need to do the, why did he have to get people from tech? Why did he have to other than the fact that he's clearly a co-conspirator with the other terrible governor, Abbot?

Why did he have to get people from Texas? And then he stopped in the panhandle of Florida so that they landed in Florida. Because I guess he must have known that they had to somehow set foot on Florida in order to be able to use this money. I just didn't understand why he had to go to Texas to pick people up.

I mean, it's so terrible, as you said, what they did using people as stunts is terrible and as props and it's just so dehumanizing, but why did he have to go to Texas to get to get to? I'll give you my view for 20 years there in the geopolitics of the area, because the people that come to Florida to find freedom are coming from countries that are also important just to Santhus for his voting block. So they want because the only Texas has got Mexico, which makes for great television optics when you're turning away poor

Mexicans from the border and there's a lot of them, millions of Mexicans try to get into this country in order to have freedom in America. So, A, you have a volume issue, right? You got more immigrants coming in attempting to come in through the Texas border. That's one. The ones in Florida, pardon me, the ones in Florida are from Haiti, from Cuba, and from other countries in South and Central America who all who have strong voting blocks of American citizens of that of that

ethnicity of that culture in especially a place like South Florida. So if you're going to turn away, if he took Venezuelans, Cubans, Brazilians, and Haitians, and did that, he would lose South Florida in a voting block. So it was another calculated, you know, to spick a ball decision. I can't use my own people that want to come to Florida because that'll piss off people that would vote for me. So let me take somebody that nobody cares about, which are people coming through Texas in Mexico and I'll ship them with my money. It's not even his money.

It's the taxpayers' money of the state of Florida and that is the problem. It wasn't even his immigration problem. It's terrible when Abbbot does it in Texas. But for, but he's now, he's now, Abbot is now exporting his, his immigration problem to other states and giving them up for grabs. It's just like slavery, giving them up to grabs

or any governor that wants them to use them as political props. These are human beings. Some of them were dumped off in the winter in t-shirts with no coats in front of Kamala Harris's house in the middle of the night. Not the exact group that the suit is over with the Santa's, but his might as well be. This, I mean, I can't, it just, I just get so is might as well be. This, I mean, I can't, it just, I just could so beside myself with it. And for people that say, I'm a Republican, and that's okay. I like a two-party system in this country. In order to say that, you have to, you take it all. Just like we have

to take it all as Democrats and the progressive side of the party and the left-left wing of the party, you've got to take it all it all. You gotta take abortion decisions against women's rights. You gotta take the anti-women position. You gotta take the anti-ethnic and immigration position because that's your party. And so that's a long-winded answer to your question because he wouldn't dare. He says you're a Republican pop-up.

He wouldn't dare do it to the voting block connected people that came to his own state. That's fascinating. Because he would say he's also a coward. He's also a coward. That's the other reason. Okay. So anything else you think on the dissantist, or can we move on to our next sponsor?

Yeah. Yeah. So just the judge put it over for January 30thth trial date, which seemed really fast to me. Yeah, this is going to, yeah, this was like a case that didn't get much publicity. I know Ben, our co-anchor did a nice hot take on it and they got a lot of it and I did one earlier, but no, this is going to trial.

The San, this is on trial, his stupid policy is probably going to lose and people might be saying, well, it just appeal, he's not going to be able to appeal to the feds. He's got to have to stay within the state system. And frankly, there's nothing to appeal right now because the way Florida's very unique a pellet system is unlike states like New York where you can appeal everything, a discovery order. I don't want to sit for a deposition.

I don't like to tie my judges wearing today. You can run into the pellet court, as you know. In Florida, you got to wait to the end of the case. Since this was not a final order and not like dispositive, they got to try this case. There's no place to go. Now, at the end, if they lose, they can go to the Florida Supreme Court, which is dominated by Republican-appointed people. But right now, strap it on. They're going to trial in an unfriendly place, in a college town up in Tallahassee, who I'm not sure what the jury pool is going to look like, but I don't think they're going to like this stuff. And the fact that public money was used to feather and to promote the career advancement of one Ron

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That was a great new sponsor. We love to have them on board. And thanks for doing that for us and giving us that rundown. And let's do now. Let's end our midweek with just an overview, brief overview of what's going on in another Washington, D.C. courthouse or courtroom in front of Judge Kelly this time with seditious conspirators or at least those that are accused, the proud boys. We've spoken at length in the past about the about the oath keepers. One half of the oath keepers

have already been tried and convicted of seditious conspiracy including Kelly Megs and Stewart Rhodes, the leaders of the Oathkeepers, but in this boy-band competition, there's another competitor for craziest unpatriotic group of people and seditionists, and that is the proud boys. They are led or had been led until they were arrested and jailed by Enrique Tario out of Miami, we're back to Florida again. And a group of other people and all the leaders of the proud boys and their connections, direct connections. This is undisputed. Whether the jury can fix them or not, we'll leave that for

another day based on the weight of the evidence presented by the prosecutors. But it is undisputed that Enrique Tario is very close and has always been very close publicly with Roger Stone, who is very close publicly with Donald Trump. So by the transit of property, Enrique Tario is very close with Donald Trump, right? His Roger Stone has always been considered the right hand of Donald Trump, right, the fixer, and this is his fixer. And so you have that connection. And they've already infiltrated not just the the Trump, the Trump organization and helping them cling to power by storming the Capitol along with the Oathkeepers, but they've also infiltrated politics

at a retail level. The Miami-Dade GOP, the Republican Party in Miami-Dade, has a couple of proud boys that made their way onto the executive board of the, I have lived there, I can't even say it out loud. Proud boys have served and tried to run for and almost got on the executive board of the Miami-Dade GOP executive board. And they've been very involved with like Latinas for Trump all these things they look like grassroots organizations, but they're nothing of the kind and they're all fronts for a violent group. Um who who flipped over and got activated by Donald Trump when he said to you might remember them two things he tweeted tweeted, come on Jen Sixth to the electoral count,

it's gonna be wild and they heard that as not even a dog whistle, they woke up and activated their sleeper cell of crazy un-American terrorists against America. And the second is, you know, you remember the debate? They asked Donald Trump, boy, blank, you know, how do you feel about the Proud Boys, you know, a group of white supremacist, boy, blank, you know, how do you feel about the proud boys, you know, a group of white supremacists, racist fascists, you know, violent people who marched

in West Virginia and all of that in Charlottesville, actually, I'm sorry, in Charlottesville, Virginia, how do you feel about them supporting you? And he said, I don't really know that organization, but I've heard good things, you know, I just say to them, stand back and stand by. Well, they did the opposite of standing back and standing by they they move forward and immediately attack the capital and they're on they're on trial for this uh... the opening statements have already happened their blame in donald trump

for their defense and they're taking a page out of the out of the steward road book which only got Stuart road's convicted so talk to us briefly, Karen, from a prosecutor's standpoint. How do you think the opening went from the defense that they're laying out to the jury? Because as trial lawyers, we can tell our listeners and followers that you write a check to the jury in your opening.

And if you don't cash that check during the course of a case by bringing the goods, by bringing in the witnesses you promise you would bring in, by supporting the defenses or the case that you have with evidence, with witnesses, the jury's gonna punish you at the end. We call it, you didn't cash your check. The jury listens to everything you say in open,

they write it down, which they should. And if at the end,'ll say remember that guy or that pop-up guy and he said all those things you can bring all his witnesses in he's he's gonna he didn't do any of that and so you have a credibility problem as as an advocate they made a lot of promises in that opening and what did you think about him as it relates to the defense and what you think about the prosecution and their opening and where that's where that where's going to go in terms of the ultimate outcome. This case is slightly different than the Oathkeeper's trial because if you recall the Oathkeeper's

stash weapons in Virginia in case they needed them and in a hotel, the proud boys aren't accused of being armed like the Oathkeepers were, but they are accused of engaging in violence and inciting others to violence. Others and a term that they use, which really bothers me and gets under my skin, but normies, I don't like that term. Like normal people, normies, this is very strange. And, you know, but those who didn't have ties to them

and so it's a very different type of case and the prosecution interestingly, And so it's a very different type of case. And the prosecution interestingly, the clip you talked about for the 2020 election, the debate with Joe Biden, when Chris Wallace asked Trump, you know, about not condemning white supremacists. And Trump said, the quote, the famous now quote

that you said, the, you know, proud boys stand back and stand by. Somebody has to do something about the Antifa left or and the left, you know, the prosecution actually played that clip in their opening, which I thought was a really excellent strategy. And basically the prosecution is saying, you know, that that they listened to Trump and they stood by. Then on January 6th, when Trump basically gave everybody the green, knowing that people were there armed and dangerous and gave them the green light and then pointed them to

the Capitol. That's all part of their theory. And so I think that's how they're using that. Is it okay, yeah, they didn't have weapons themselves, but they had a weaponized crowd that was at their disposal. The defense in this case is going to be, you know, basically Donald Trump told me to do it, but that hasn't really persuaded any jurors yet. So I'd be surprised if that works here. You know, they're gonna say,

we can't get a fair trial because everybody knows about this and this is, everybody, this is DC, et cetera, et cetera. So they're gonna argue that. They're gonna say this is guilt by association. We're being tarred with the actions of others who we had no ties to. You mean on peel after they lose They're gonna say well no because don't forget don't forget that well. Yeah, there's that too, but don't forget

They're gonna I think they're gonna argue all this stuff at you know, there's jury nullification right you can you can say to the jury Look, you know You're just taunting us with the the feathers of of you know others actions that we had no tie to. You know, you're going to look at all the text messages, recordings, social media, you know, because the prosecution did all of that, right? They did an extensive investigation. If I'm a defense attorney, I'm going to throw that in their face and say, go ahead, jury, look at every text message, look at every social media, look at every recording, and you're not going to see a single time a plot to engage in this. This was a spontaneous thing

that everybody just did. There was no organized plan to attack the capital. Can I ask you a question though? But they have cooperators. They have cooperators. Yeah. That is the reason I think I know the answer to this, but I'm really asking it for you for the for our listeners. They're making much in their opening and otherwise with the argument that it was all spontaneous. We didn't show up for this. It just, it just flipped over and tipped over and became herd mentality and all of this other stuff. They had some confidential informants that were embedded with the proud boys.

Of course, the proud boys didn't know. they were cooperating with the FBI sort of said something like that. But that, that, that's not a defense to most crimes. Like I showed up, I did all those really bad things, but like, you know, the crowd made me do it. Like that's not a defense. It, it's, is it a defense here because we're charging them with conspiracy and this addition's conspiracy? Is it the conspiracy that this is addressed to that I Wasn't nothing was planned. We just all showed up and in the spur of the moment

We just decided to attack our seat of democracy Is that because of the conspiracy is the prosecution? Yeah, it's the prosecution. Yeah, yes It's it's two things. I mean first of all Conspiracy requires an agreement between two or more people, right? So they have to have agreed to do this. If it's a spontaneous thing and everybody at the same time says, oh, I'm going to do this, you know, myself, it's not conspiracy. 900, 900 people, right 900 people each individually making a decision for themselves with no, with

no tacit agreement among them means there's no conspiracy or among among these people right I mean it might be criminal trespass right but which we don't want to do this can speak right I mean because that's a much lower crime without any you know without the same you know that this has whatever so it's it's a big it's a big deal and And that's why they're saying that. Did you notice that we're, we have complimentary clothes on today. Our wardrobe is very complimentary. We're wearing a very similar shades of black and gray. I don't know. Sometimes I just, I just, these things just pop into my mind and I feel like sharing it with people. But look, we're gonna follow proud boys. My gut is that we're gonna end up in the same place that this whole Trump made me do it.

And you know, even though I'm a proud boy and I'm a racist, and I make all these comments, and I've marched in Charlottesville, and I've attacked Antifa, and I'm a violent group. They're not gonna buy that they're, as they're defend, what of the defense lawyers said, because each one of them, there's five of them on trial. Each one as a defense lawyer,

each one gets to do an opening statement and a closing argument. And one of them said, it's just a drinking club. It's just a drinking club. A bunch of guys get together and shoot the shit with beer. No one buys this. Everybody knows the proud what the proud boys are. They've become, they may have started out as one thing,

but they've ended up at least under Enrique Tario as something completely different, and they've become the bodyguards of choice with the Oathkeepers. They might even be more violent to the Oathkeepers. I'm not sure you can, it's like two motorcycle gangs, like which is more violent, like the old hell's angels or the other ones.

I mean, they're all sort of of, it's sort of the same. And there was a lot of fighting. And we're going to have to follow this both on jury nullification arguments that will be made at the end of the trial and on appeal. There was a lot, unlike the judge Mata trial over the oath keepers, there were just crazy ridiculous arguments with the judge, almost with the judge, almost, I mean, it was this close to finding some of the defense lawyers in contempt pre trial before the jury was selected about evidence that was going to be allowed to be brought

in. I mean, two of them, two of the defense lawyers, it's reported, actually said, judge, if you let that piece of evidence, you let that video in, and the video is like of their guys, their defendants, you let that in, I'm getting out of the case. And the judge said, okay, stop. You're not trying to threaten the court with that if I let this piece of evidence in, you're going to try to leave the case. First of all, I'm not even sure I'd let you out of the case.

And that's a power federal judge has not to let people out of the case. But the fact that they even went there with the federal judge and started arguing and talking over him in a very disrespectful way shows that this is a renegade band of defense lawyers different than the defense lawyers in front of Judge Maitis courtroom. And this judge's got to get them under control.

Now so far, there hasn't been any reports of it coming out and bubbling up in front of the jury, but we got to keep an eye on it because this defense team does not like the judge and I'm in the sense that judges like the defense team either. Well, I was going to ask you a question. So this trial has really gone in fits and starts. You know, normally a criminal trial is very smooth, right? It's not you open, you put on witnesses, there's no interruptions. I mean, it goes, it goes very smoothly and quickly. But this trial, for whatever reason, keeps starting and stopping. And I was wondering whether it's by design

because some defense attorneys use that disruption as a tactic, right? To try to cause a mistrial, to try to throw the case in some way, and maybe they don't like the jury, maybe they don't like certain pieces of evidence, maybe I don't know, what do you think? You think it's just by design? I think you're right on it.

Oh yeah, I think it's right by design. I think they, it's like artificial intelligence. They learned from what happened in the oath-keepers trial. Just as the prosecution, same office, different prosecutors, just as the prosecutors learned from what happened with what to do better when they present the next oath-keepers case, and it's certainly filtered over to parabois, I'm sure prosecutors were talking to each other about things that happened.

The defense is talking, and they smooth and easy and quick, expeditious presentation of the evidence is not the defense's best interest and they saw what happened over there. So the more you can piss off the jury, you just don't want to piss them off so much they take it out in your client. You don't want to piss so much that they're like guilty, but maybe it's creating doubt, it's making it hard for the jury to follow, it allows the defense to catch their breath. You know, it's sort of like if you're a tennis, a professional tennis fan, it's sort of like, we all know they do it. It's like when one of the top five players or any of them

is having sort of a rough match, and they fall behind a little bit, and to sort of change the momentum, they take that 20 minute bathroom break that pisses off everybody, including the opponent, and then they come back and win the match. Sort of like that. And I definitely think that's a very good point that you're raising. I definitely think that's what's going on.

And I think Judge Kelly is not for whatever reason. It doesn't have them as under control. The defense team, the defense lawyers as Judge judge Mata has different group of people. Anyway, by the look, everybody's learning from all of these trials. We've already got reporting out that the the newest prosecutors, the joint Jack Smith, one of their first stops upon arrival on the team. The two people that Jack Smith just hired, including his former right hand person from his office in public in public corruption.

His first stop was to the courtroom for the proud boys to meet with the trial team there and to talk to them and to observe firsthand. So, you know, there's no grass growing under the feet of any prosecutor that's assigned to these cases and certainly not the ones that are working directly with Jack Smith, but we've reached at the end of another midweek edition of legal AF with Michael Popak and Karen Friedman Agnifalo in sunny someplace, but reporting in due to the way she does sunny someplace. But she's reporting in due to the way she does every week along with me. And there's a couple of ways that you could support this show if you enjoy it. One of them is to do what you do it now, which is to watch it with us,

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again next Wednesday, what do you got? I just can't believe how much news comes out every single day breaking, right? We might have to do a special breaking news at some point, you know. And we did, That's great. And just to compliment you and the Midas Touch Network, we have broken stories that nobody else has had

and had guests on that nobody else has had in real time, even before mainstream media. And that's because we're breaking through, we're using our contacts in the industry among our colleagues. And we're bringing it here, whether it's Robbie Kaplan who came on the show, we'd like to get her back again to talk about all things Donald Trump and what she does with her law firm or maybe one day who knows, Carrie Dunn and Mark Palmer and through Karen or maybe Sy Vance and then we had Alvin Brett, who knows, but just everybody needs to understand that when we talk about this show,

we don't just rip it out of a printer and get on here and start, we're talking about this show and how we can make it better and the guests that we can bring on to just bring knowledge and transparent information in our analysis to people every day, caring me, the men, the mightest touch brothers,

the mightest brothers, we talk every day, and, me, Ben, the Midas Touch Brothers, the Midas Brothers. We talk every day, and sometimes four or five times a day about how to bring amazing content to you. That's what we do for you. What you can do for us, listen, watch, subscribe, buy materials, buy t-shirts, and we'll see you on Saturday with Ben and me for the weekend edition of Legal AF and again on Wednesday next week with my co-host and friend Karen Friedman at Niflos, Michael Popebox signing off.

Bye-bye. you