The MeidasTouch Podcast - Ben Meiselas and Elie Honig on Trump INDICTMENT Watch

Episode Date: February 1, 2023

Ben Meiselas chats with former federal and state prosecutor Elie Honig about the latest breaking legal developments regarding the prosecutions of Donald Trump and more. Order Elie Honig’s new book Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away with It here: https://a.co/d/8bC50yl DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Paired: Visit paired.com/meidas to get a 7-day free trial and 25% off when you sign up for a subscription Zbiotics: Head to zbiotics.com/meidas and use the code 'MEIDAS' at checkout for 15% off! ZBiotics is backed with 100% money back guarantee. Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch 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

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I am Ben Mycelis, and we have a special guest for you live right now. We have Ellie Honig, who will be joining us in just a moment. But let me give you Ellie's background, because as a lawyer, when I look at Ellie's background as a lawyer, I'm going to be honest, I'm super impressed. So Ellie graduated from Harvard Law. He worked at Covington, a large law firm in Washington, D.C. By the way, who was on the opposite side of me, Ellie wasn't, but Covington was when I represented Colin Kaepernick in the grievance case. They are one of the most established law firms that are in the country. They've got a bunch of great lawyers there as well.

Ellie went on to become a former assistant United States attorney, a federal prosecutor out of the Southern District of New York, so knows a lot of these prosecutors who are still in the office, has a lot to discuss there. I'm going to grill Ellie on some of these cases that are going on now. What special counsel Jack Smith may be up to, what the DOJ is up to, what Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney is up to, what Fawnie Willis is up to. And Ellie's written a new book. It's called Untouchable, How Powerful People Get Away With It. This is a must read for everybody out there. So make sure you add it right now to your Amazon cart. I'm going to be talking more about this book in my interview with Ellie in a

moment. Again, it's called Untouchable, How Powerful People Get Away With It. Ellie Honig, welcome to the Midas Touch podcast special live edition. How about that intro, huh? Hey, I was just going to say, Ben, that was a remarkable introduction. I love being on your show with you and your brothers because you are a pack of three brothers. I am part of a pack of three brothers. And let's just put it out there, Ben. The oldest is always the coolest, right? The oldest not only is the coolest, has to set the tone, has to set, you know, and I think that's what our viewers love about the Midas Touch podcast, frankly, is me, is the oldest brother. Oldest brothers always carry everything. I mean,

you know, let's face it. But look, we have so many things, so many topics to talk to. And by the way, a lot of them just come up in my book, not by design. It just sort of happened that way. So glad to go wherever you want to go first. Okay. I'm going to throw a curveball where we go first, which is you prosecuted New York mafia, people in the mafia in New York when you were a federal prosecutor. Donald Trump's been photographed recently with the Philly mob boss, Joey Merlino, and Trump claims, I don't know why the Philly mob boss, Joey Merlino, is here. I mean, you prosecuted people with similar, I think you prosecuted Daniel Merlino in New York and some people there, but what do you, I mean, just thinking about it from just a common sense perspective that Trump's inviting

mafia members, people who you have prosecuted in the past, two Mar-a-Lago for parties, and this is a former president. What do you think about that? Yeah. I think he needs to get a little better at vetting who's coming in. By the way, it's funny that you mentioned that because I have another cooperating witness, a former cooperator who pled guilty to three murders named John A. Light. And I'll confess, I was trying to check up.

I realized that there is a very healthy mafia social media world out there. So I went down this rabbit hole of finding my old cooperators, my old defendants. And I found this one guy, John A. Light, who was a cooperating witness for us testified against John Gotti jr. And there he is with a big smiling thumbs up photo at some sort of eyes. Got sunglasses on. John, he liked us some sort of event with Donald Trump. And now look, it is, let's be fair though. You can't always assume that a president just shakes hands all day, every day. I mean, it's a little different, I guess, when they're

coming into your private club. So I, you know, I don't know all the circumstances, but I will say, and I'll tell you this for sure, because I stay in touch with some of these guys, Donald Trump has a high approval rating in the mafia. You can make what you will. Well, one of the reasons probably is because he praises them on his social media platform. This is what he said yesterday. He goes, because of the weaponization targeting and unprecedented harassment, I believe that I have more lawyers working for me on this corrupt law enforcement induced bill than any human being in the history of our country, including even the late great

gangster Al Capone. So he's obviously signaling to them. I mean, yeah, I know. I had not seen that. So my reaction here is legitimate stun. So he's obviously signaling. But when he attacks the Department of Justice like that, a place where you've worked and says, you know, Bill Barr and John Durham were aware that from Italian officials that Donald Trump was engaged in financial crimes. Not only did they cover it up, but they acted like those were the crimes they were investigating into the origins of the Russian inquiry. It's all projection, huh? Yeah. I mean, this is the subject of my first book, Hatchet Man, how Bill Barr, with a heavy assist or perhaps assisting Donald Trump, completely corrupted the Justice Department.

And I go through sort of the history of Bill Barr's DOJ and all the times that Bill Barr lied to us, played politics in order to protect Donald Trump, bent the rules, broke the rules. And the Durham investigation is just an utter and complete disgrace. It is everything that prosecution should never be about. It started as this investigate the investigators thing right after Mueller. And you know that because Donald Trump said it over and over and Bill Barr snapped the focus and put in John Durham and all John Durham. He has been there far longer than Mueller now. People complain Mueller's taken too long. John Durham is the longest serving special counsel maybe ever. I haven't checked everybody. And all he's got is a pile of acquittals, not guilty verdicts, a couple of pleas on low level offenses. And he's basically,

they tried to use him as a vehicle to just put all this stuff on the record that will fuel conspiracy theories. It's been an utter failure and really the opposite of what good prosecutors should do. Going from one book to the newest book, Untouchable, how powerful people get away with it. Your book mentions how the current Department of Justice, after Trump left office, considered prosecuting Donald Trump in connection with tax-related crimes relating to the hush money payment made to Stormy Daniels via Michael Cohen and how he characterized that money as legal costs. But ultimately, the current Department of Justice, well, the Department

of Justice under Merrick Garland, right, decided not to prosecute there. Explain what happened there. Yeah, this one is not on Merrick Garland, though. I am critical of Merrick Garland at other points in the book. So DOJ, the Southern District of New York, my former office here in Manhattan, had the hush money case. They got it from Robert Mueller. He sent it off to them. And there's two steps here. Step one is they're getting ready to indict Michael Cohen in 2018. And they can't indict Trump at this point because he's the sitting president, but they draft up a detailed indictment of Michael Cohen that goes into great depth on Donald Trump's involvement in this hush money scheme and essentially makes entirely clear that, in their view, Donald Trump is guilty

and should be prosecuted as soon as he's out of office. The problem is the bosses down at DC, what we call main justice, they got wind of this indictment and they stepped on it. They said, absolutely not. We're putting nothing next to nothing about Donald Trump in this indictment. And there was a heated back and forth that I detail in my book, a substantive, but heated back and forth that I think really takes you inside some of the drama and politics inside of DOJ. And ultimately, as much as the Southern District of New York, my former office, we pride ourselves on our independence. We are subject to the Justice Department.

And that language was taken out of there. And by the way, this is how Donald Trump became an individual one. And the interesting story there is the SDNY considered for a while calling him co-conspirator one. They on their own decided they wouldn't do that. Then they said to DOJ, we're going to call him candidate one. And DOJ said, no, that's even too much and made them come all the way down to individual one. Now that's part one of the story. Fast forward a couple of years, part two, January, 2021, Donald Trump's getting ready to leave office. And now the SDNY has to decide, well, now do we indict him? He's not protected by this policy anymore. And in the book, I detail this series of internal meetings that the SDNY had.

We know the outcome. We know they didn't charge him ever, but they did consider it as I report for the first time. And I sort of give what the balance of factors were there. I will say this much. They felt that their evidence was somewhere between chargeable, not particularly strong, but chargeable, and some others thought that it was quite strong. Yet, for various political and practical and pragmatic reasons, they decided against it. Now, here we are, suddenly out of the blue, this week, Ben, we find out that the state prosecutors across the street are reviving this case. I'm going to put it in front of the grand jury, which I think is a fascinating development that I don't quite understand why now.

But Alvin Bragg, the DA, has made this decision to do what Trump DOJ decisions usually are, which is to cover things up for Donald Trump, why couldn't when Mer say, okay, that's great that y'all did it, but there's a new sheriff in town and we don't agree with that decision because you did a bunch of other crummy stuff. We want to be law and order, so we're going to pursue that or pursue other crimes. So when it came to whether to charge Trump as the new administration came in, the SDNY made that decision on its own, that they didn't want to. That never went up to Merrick Garland. That was not any doing of the Trump DOJ. If you're talking about the prior decision, whether to sort of out Trump in the Cohen case, that was already over. The Cohen case was two years past. And I should say this, there is a famous sentence in Michael Cohen's sentencing letter that really hits Donald Trump hard. It's one sentence. It basically says, I'm paraphrasing here, but it basically says Michael Cohen acted for and at the direction

of Donald Trump. I mean, that is a straight shot at Trump. And I report in this book that DOJ actually went and put that in on their own. They didn't even run it by DOJ. I think that one falls under the category of better to ask for forgiveness than permission. They just were frustrated and they just said, that's going in there. You know, and Michael Cohen, of course, hosts a podcast right here on the Midas Touch Network, Mea Culpa. Cohen and I may have some news about something that he and I are working on together, but Cohen came on the show as well. And he talked about, he couldn't go into why he was specifically meeting with Alvin Bragg, although you could go read his books to find out why he wasn't. It was two weeks before. We just learned right now that Alvin Bragg is presenting evidence to

a grand jury in Manhattan. Explain to our viewers what that process is. I mean, presenting evidence to a grand jury, having it leak the way it did to the press, he's not doing that. There's always the expression that a grand jury can indict a ham sandwich or something, but it seems like he's on a path towards indictment, huh? I was going to start with exactly that expression, Ben, that a grand jury, a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. And let me tell you, I was a prosecutor for 14 years. There's a lot of truth in that. A grand jury is a one sided proceeding. And that's, that's not, I'm not saying that's evil or corrupt. That is by design.

The only people allowed to have any, there's some minor exceptions to this in some states, but by and large, the only people who are allowed to be in the grand jury, to speak to the grand jury are the grand jurors themselves, the witnesses and the prosecutors and the court. So just to be clear, in case the audience knows, you did not mention a judge in that. There is no judge. There is a grand jury. There is certainly no defense presence. There's no cross-examination. There's no defense evidence. There's no defense lawyer. And ultimately, grand juries, the standard is low. You don't need unanimity. You basically just need a majority of a quorum. You need about half of the, you know, more than half of the grand jurors. And of course a trial, the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt, highest standard we have. At a grand jury,

it's probable cause. So virtually any prosecutor who wants to get an indictment can ask a grand jury for one, can present the case in a way that you are virtually certain to get it. So sometimes people say, oh, but an independent fact-finding grand jury made this independent decision. Let me give you a little dose of reality. That's nonsense. It's whatever the prosecutor wants. You know, prosecutors have a lot of responsibility, but essentially they will sign off on virtually

anything that you give them. There's a minimum of scrutiny attached sometimes. So this will really, in my mind, come down to not so much what this group of however many, usually 23 grand jurors want, but really what the DA, Alvin Bragg wants. Did you know Jack Smith or did you hear of Jack Smith by reputation before this appointment? No. So the funny thing is we all knew there was going to be a special counsel in the media. We're all getting ready to cover it. I'm waiting to go on and we're like, knew there was going to be a special counsel in the media. We're all getting ready to cover it. I'm waiting to go on.

And we're like, who's this going to be? I'm thinking, I'm definitely going to know this person. He's going to be an SDNY person. He's going to be a law firm person. He's going to be someone from DOJ. And when they said Jack Smith, I just started getting texts from everyone like, who is this guy? I mean, even the name sounds almost like John Doe.

It's almost like a made up name. I don't know him. He was a prosecutor across the river in Brooklyn, the Eastern District of New York. I know people who know him and I've seen a bit about his record. I mean, all indicators are that he's a straight shooter. He's not partisan. He's aggressive. So that's really all I know about him. But it's important to remember, Jack Smith will make his recommendation. He gets the first cut at it, but ultimately Merrick Garland has to sign off one way or the other. He's supposed to give Jack Smith's recommendation great weight, but ultimately

it's going to come to, on both special counsels for Biden and Trump, it's going to come down to- So what's your take on Merrick Garland? I mean, there are portions of your book that are critical. There have been times where I've been critical of Merrick Garland. And on the one hand, while the prosecution of Trump so far is non-existent, and while that investigation seems slow, I then balance that by the fact that the undertaking of prosecuting close to 1,000 insurrectionists and the fact that the DOJ is batting 1,000 in conviction rates in their jury trials. And I go, that's a pretty significant undertaking, two seditious conspiracy trials with guilty convictions. We got the Proud Boy trial. So to me, on balance, when a lot of our

listeners and viewers express the frustration in Merrick Garland, what I tell them is, I get it. I get it. And ultimately, if there's no prosecution of Trump, then I totally get it. But I always still have said, look, let's be a little patient because some of these other moves have been very strong, sophisticated, savvy moves. And look, compare Merrick Garland to John Durham, and you see a difference between LeBron James or the Lamborghini and someone who's not even in AAA. You are the first person ever to compare Merrick Garland to LeBron James. I just want to start with that. Visibly John Durham. Let me give you the pro... Yeah, right. Exactly. No, it's all relative. Let me give you the pros and the cons. Here's what I think Merrick Garland has done an admirable job of. One, restoring the integrity of the Justice Department. Sad to say, but it's necessary to say, he deserves credit, Merrick Garland, for not lying to us. He's been honest. Now, you shouldn't have to praise an AG for that, but after Bill Barr, we do have to say that. So he's done a good job of that. But after Bill Barr, we do have to say that. So he's done a good job of that. I think he's done a good job of preserving and protecting the institutional interests of DOJ with respect to

Congress, with respect to the White House. There's been times when he has snapped back at the White House when Joe Biden said at one point that he thought people should be prosecuted for contempt for defying subpoenas from the January 6th committee. Garland issued, I applauded him, a statement saying, we don't take orders from the White House. I said, good, good for you. I also give him credit, as you do, Ben, for the prosecution of the people who stormed the Capitol. That's a huge undertaking. They've done a good job. They have come under criticism, including by at least three or four federal judges in DC for at times being too lenient. But by and large, I think DOJ has done an admirable job of those. Now, the criticism is Merrick Garland has been too slow

and he's been too myopic in the way he has approached these investigations. It is not one thing or the other. Merrick Garland has virtually limitless resources. Yes, it's been an enormous undertaking to go after these 900 or maybe we're at 1,000 now people. I do not know any reason why Merrick Garland could not have also focused on the higher level players. What I say in the book is Merrick Garland could have gone for the jugular. Instead, he poked at every capillary. And here we are, we're two years out, two plus years out,

and nobody in any meaningful position of any political power. I know the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, they've done a good job. Those people have no political power. Nobody in any connection with the pre-January 6th coup attempt, the attempt to steal the election through pressure, through lawsuits, through fake electors, has been charged with anything. That might change, right? I don't predict the future here. That might change. We don't know. But I argue in the book, here's the problem. It's already too late because, look, let's say Merrick Garland or any of these prosecutors drops an indictment tomorrow. That's not the end of the ballgame. I know there's a lot of people on indictment watch who are going to pop the confetti once there's an indictment. That's just the beginning of the struggle. You've got to then turn that into a conviction. That's a heavy battle. It's going

to take at least a year. With all the appeals that are going to come on this. He's going to try to get the case thrown out to get this thing to trial. You're going to try Donald Trump in 2024 when he's a leading candidate, maybe the presumptive nominee. There's nothing legally barring that, but you got to get all 12 jurors. And as much as Donald Trump is very unpopular, he's also very popular. You get one holdout juror, it's a mistrial and you're screwed. You can retry him, but I don't think we're going to go through two trials of Donald Trump. So I think Merrick Garland has moved way too slowly. And people say these things take time, be patient.

They don't take this much time. I have a good sense of how long investigations take. DOJ we've seen move with remarkable, remarkable speed when the circumstances demanded it. If this was the biggest threat against our democracy, as Garland has insinuated and Joe Biden has said, you would take it down. You wouldn't let it sit out there for two plus years. So I am critical of Merrick Garland in that respect. But interestingly, politically, Merrick Garland may have his rep saved if some of these state and county level, the Fulton County DA or the Manhattan DA indicts, because I think that'll serve as a bit of a

pressure valve release because all the people who are frustrated with Garland will go, well, at least we have this. But separately, Ben, there are legal problems potentially with county level DAs indicting a former president. And let's get into some of that. But the book for everybody just tuning in now is called Untouchable, How Powerful People Get Away With It by Ellie Honig. Make sure you check out this book. It's available where all books are sold right now. An incredible book. You mentioned some of these county prosecutors. Let's go south. Let's go to Fulton County, where Fawnie Willis has impaneled, previously impaneled a special grand jury there. There was a hearing last week where she told the court that don't release the report by the special grand jury

because charging decisions are imminent. What do you make of that? I won't give you the leading question. I'll give you the direct question. Yeah. I think all indicators are that Fannie Willis intends to indict Donald Trump, but you know, you always have to be careful when you read the tea leaves and make predictions, but everything I can see in the public record, everything she said in court and to the media, not a great idea, tells me that she is, she has her mind made up that she's going to indict Donald Trump. But again, Ben, if anyone is focused on an indictment and will sort of want to have a confetti party when there's an indictment, you're missing the boat because that's not the trick. Because what if there's an indictment and

then Trump beats the case? What if there's an indictment and then the case gets thrown out or he gets a hung jury? Those tables, either side, love Trump or hate him, want an indictment or dread an indictment, they could turn. And I think there's going to be, and Trump or hate him, want an indictment or dread an indictment, they could turn. And I think there's going to be, and this goes for both, well, doesn't go for New York because this doesn't touch on the presidency. If Donald Trump gets indicted in Fulton County, his very first move is he will run to federal court.

He will ask the federal courts to take over the case, which there is a legal mechanism where they can do it if they find that the case relates to his official duties as president. Prosecutors will argue this had nothing to do with his official duties. This was illegal. But Trump will argue it did touch on my official duties. I was trying to make sure that the laws were faithfully executed. And he will ask the federal courts to throw the case out. He will say we cannot have a system where local, elected, partisan, county-level DAs,

we have over 2,000 of them in this country, some of them in 90% red districts, some of them in 90% blue districts, can just indict a former president or federal official for anything touching on their federal office. And I don't know how that will come out, but I think that could go either way, and they are going to be in a very conservative federal judicial district. So there's a chance that if there's an indictment, it never even sees a trial. If it does get to a trial, look, Fulton County is a blue area, but 26% of Fulton County voted for Donald Trump. And you're virtually assured given those numbers of having one and probably up to

three or four Trump jurors on your jury. And you're never going, you're just not going to convict him. If that's the case, I don't think. Especially in the spring of 2024 when he's on the verge of maybe being the nominee, maybe being the front runner. So I think Fannie Willis, like Merrick Garland, has wasted an inexplicable amount of time.

We're two plus years out. And I think that will come back to her. And I think she's going to have a major And I think she's gonna have a major, not saying it's impossible, but people need to be clear about how difficult it's gonna be to turn that into a conviction. One of the difficulties there, you mentioned the federal court system.

It would be, there would be at least a filing in a federal court in Georgia, right, to take over. And then the appeals would go before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals previously ruled against Trump as it related to his theft of the records, but that was an absurd case. Let me jump in on that. They rejected Trump's arguments on the special master. This is so, so different. The special master was a speed bump. All that the special

master meant was that before DOJ could use these documents, it had to go through this annoying process where a special master had to review it. And if they weren't privileged, they would go to DOJ. And if they weren't privileged, DOJ shouldn't be using them anyway. That's no big deal to throw that out. But to say, here we are, the 11th circuit, this notoriously, probably the second most conservative circuit in the country to say, go ahead, local elected democratic DA, you have a trial of a former president on our turf and go right ahead. And that will set the table that if the next Joe Arpaio, I know he was a sheriff, but if the next Joe Arpaio wants to indict Barack Obama or Joe Biden or the next democratic

president, that's what we're going to, I don't see the, I'm not going to make predictions, but I don't know that the 11th circuit will. Okay. Trump's special master that all of that was probably, you must be thinking from the perspective of a prosecutor, like, all right, keep on writing stuff. Like, you know, normally you would invoke your fifth amendment and you would just shut up and you wouldn't say all of that. I mean, that was so damaging to him in a good way because there were so many admissions in those documents. It was like the stupidest legal strategy you possibly could have done. But I'm happy about it. You're totally right. Totally backfired. Everything he says, everything he writes is self-defeating. He must be an impossible client.

He can't help it. It's what he does, but he is hurting himself every time he speaks politically and legally. What do you think though, when the way he attacks Jack Smith and Jack Smith's wife, and look, even in your prosecution of mobsters, they were, you know, smart enough, if we want to use that word, not, you know, granted there was no Twitter around or social media in that way, but they would be smart enough to shut up and hire a good lawyer and just let the lawyer do the arguments for them. His threats against Jack Smith so directly, calling him a terrorist, saying that he's a savage, saying these things about his wife, where does the line go from like, one, is all that going to be used as evidence if there is a trial, number one? And number two, could that be its own count of obstruction or threatening a prosecutor?

Where does it cross the line? Boy, it is 10,000 miles over the line. I mean, and this is, Donald Trump has done this from day one on Mueller, lashed out at Andy McCabe, who is a friend of mine. If I'm talking about a friend of mine, I will say so. That includes Alvin Bragg too. Lashed out at James Comey, who I don't know. Lashed out at all the Mueller prosecutors. Lashed out at a juror. People may not remember. I actually have a little bit about this. A juror in the Roger Stone case, a juror, a civilian doing her civic duty. Judges. Does it cross the line to obstruction is a difficult call. It depends what he says. You are allowed to criticize prosecutors. It is a constitutional right. You're not allowed to threaten them. You're not allowed to try to incite violence against them.

So that's where the line is. I don't think he's doing himself any good. I'm not sure whether, I mean, anything that a person says can be used against them in a court of law, as you know, from watching the show. So none of this is helpful, but let's not get numb. Let's not let this become anywhere near the norm. The fact that he's president of the United States, was president of the United States, and now is a former president and lashes out this way at career law enforcement is outrageous. It's incredibly damaging. And you get numb to it because he just does it so many times, but it is completely unacceptable. career law enforcement is outrageous. It's incredibly damaging. And we get, you know, you get numb to it because he just does it so many times, but it is completely unacceptable. Needs to be condemned. This is what he said about your friend, Andrew McCabe,

the former deputy director of the FBI. Oh gosh, yeah. Not a fan. He's not a fan. This is what he said yesterday. He goes, remember in Helsinki when a third rate reporter asked me essentially who I trusted more, Presidentin of russia or our intelligence low lives my instinct at the time was that we had really bad people in the form of and then he lists names including andrew mccabe um and then he goes who would you choose putin over these misfits and referring to andrew mccabe as one of the misfits i mean the fact that you have put me down for m cave, by the way. That was the layup question. But you look at something that's so treasonous on its face,

and to think when you went to law school, when I went to law school, when we embarked on this journey, I can never have fathomed to be in a position where I'd be having this conversation with you. It's absurd. If you had shown me any of these tweets, and I mean the dozens and dozens of tweets like this one or Truth Socials when I was in law school and said, a president is going to say this, I would say that is a moment of utter infamy. And you're right. And people use the expression all the time, boiling the frog, which has become a cliche, but I actually, I think it applies to a large extent. We just get so used to this. And honestly, I haven't even seen some of these truth socials because I can say at CNN, we do cover Donald Trump. We have to, but clearly we have determined, and I think this is the right thing. we're not going to immediately report on every true social and every wild statement that he makes.

So this is his brand. I don't expect him to change. And I expect it to only increase in intensity if he is ever indicted. Let's go through. Fonny Willis, you believe that there will be an indictment there. Alvin Bragg with the grand jury, you believe there'll be an indictment there? Well, I'm a little confused by this one. I go away, but Alvin and I were in law school together and we're friends and we were at the SDNY together. What I can't figure out is why now? I mean,

this conduct goes back to before the 2016 election. That is six and a half years old, this conduct, the payoffs. I mean, some of the payments extend beyond that, so they may be okay in the statute of limitations. But why now? And what's different? Because the SDNY looked at this and decided they didn't quite want to bring the case. The only thing I can think of is that your friend and mine, Michael Cohen, the SDNY rejected him as a cooperator. In the same sentencing memo that you referenced earlier, they say, while he did provide us some information, we did not find him fully forthcoming. He would not answer all of our questions fully and honestly. I'm paraphrasing. It could be that Alvin Bragg has now made a contrary determination that he's willing to

trust and bank on Michael Cohen. That might be a game changer. That's risky. I've said this to Michael Cohen himself. He has been convicted of crimes. He has a white hot hatred of Donald Trump that agree with it or disagree with it will certainly undermine his impartiality at trial. Just play some of the clips of Michael Cohen going on his patented rants about Trump. And the jury will go, this guy just despises Donald Trump with his whole being. So other than maybe Alvin Bragg deciding I'm going to roll with Michael Cohen, I can't understand why now. I have one theory and I'll get your view on it. The ease at which Alvin Bragg defeated the Trump organization at that trial, The jury hated the Trump lawyers. When you heard the jury speak afterwards, every ass, it wasn't even close. It just took them whatever it was, four hours to just read

the paperwork before they convicted him. So it's kind of like the Teflon Don concept was like, wait a minute, I could destroy these people. Maybe Bragg's having regrets too about shutting down the Pomerantz and the- You ought to work for Alvin Bragg. You ought to be Alvin Bragg's new PIO, public information officer. I mean, that's a great theory, but I completely disagree with that. First of all, this trial against the Trump org is not a win. That isn't a bad, I mean, it's a barely, it's not a bronze medal. It's whatever's six levels down from bronze medal. Look, I give them credit. They tried to flip Alan Weisselberg, right move,

didn't work. And then they go with this half-assed, half cooperation where Weisselberg can testify against the org, but he doesn't have to testify against any individuals. They convict the organization and they get $1.6 million in fines. I mean, that's nothing to this organization. Over 16 years, you're talking about $100,000 a year. This is not some, oh my God, we've arrived. We can conquer these people. This isn't like Joe Montana hitting Dwight Clark in the back of the end zone.

Like the Niners dynasty has arrived. I don't know why I chose an analogy from the team that my team just dispatched from the playoffs, the Philadelphia Eagles. So no, I don't agree with that. And even if Bragg was suddenly emboldened because they won this trial against the corporate entity, I don't think that changes you from not interested to now we're going to indict this guy. I don't see that as being – if Alvin Bragg is plenty confident, rightly,

in his own skills and talents of his own people. He didn't need to win this corporate criminal trial in order to convince himself. If I were to take Alvin Bragg's side of this debate, I will quickly lose my podcast from that. Alvin's a good friend of mine. And I criticize. He understands. We have different jobs now. He ran for public office.

He's subject to criticism. I'm in the understands. We have different jobs now. He ran for public office. He's subject to criticism. I'm in the media. I deliver criticism. One of the hosts on our legal podcast, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, was Cy Vance's number two at the Manhattan DA's office. And we had her interview Alvin Bragg

before we learned about the decision to impanel the grand jury. She actually did a really good interview. And Alvin doesn't go out and do like a ton of interviews. So it was great to have him here, but I'm not going to take debate and take his side in this debate. So 50-50 that Alvin Bragg indicts, you believe Fawney's going to indict. What are you sensing based on Jack Smith's progress right now?

If I had to guess, I would incline towards that Jack Smith is going to recommend indictment. Probably on Mar-a-Lago, I think January 6th is a toss-up. There's a separate question, though, whether Merrick Garland will sign off. Now, the law says that Merrick Garland has to give great weight to whatever the independent counsel or the special counsel recommends. And Merrick Garland is nothing if not a rule follower. And so it'll be really, I have no idea. On the one hand, I can see Merrick Garland just saying, look, my job here is to look for whether Jack Smith completely screwed up. And if he didn't completely screw up, then I have to go

his way. That's sort of what the law says. On the other hand, I don't know. I don't know whether Merrick Garland has the spine to do it, to pull the trigger on an indictment of Donald Trump this far out. So if I had to bet, I would bet Smith is more likely than not to recommend an indictment on Mar-a-Lago. I think he's less likely than not to recommend an indictment on January 6th. And then Merrick Garland has the final say. I can't read Merrick Garland's mind. So the book is called Untouchable, How Powerful People Get Away With It. Make sure you all buy it now by Ellie Honig. And Ellie, so I guess the current answer is, yes, powerful people are getting away with it, but are the wheels of justice at least turning in a way that gives us hope? Final question.

Yeah. I mean, I do want to make clear Donald Trump is the primary person featured in this book, but there are so many other examples that I bring in again from real life mob cases, from Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, other crooked politicians, corrupt CEOs, financiers. Will Donald Trump get away with it? I guess it depends on how you define get away with it. I think when you take all these investigations, I think it is quite likely that he will get indicted. And if you consider that, not getting away with it, then there you go. If you believe that it's not full justice on Lesson until he's convicted, I think that is substantially less likely. So there's a lot to

come here. I do think this book will be really helpful in understanding all these legal battles that are, I think, about to break out in the next month to six months. I mean, someone said to me earlier today, could we have a scenario where Donald Trump is indicted twice or three times in the course of a month? I mean, it is possible. It is a wild scenario, but they all seem to be sort of moving towards a conclusion. Finally, you know, look, overlay the fact that he's a candidate for the presidency and that he's a former president. This is going to be unprecedented. Ellie Hunnig, thank you so much for joining us.

Everybody get the book. It's called Untouchable, How Powerful People Get Away With It by the national bestselling author, Ellie Hunnig of The Hatchet Man. Go get that right now. I think you'll find it very interesting, illuminating, and it's probably the most important book right now that you can read. What I like about this format as well is that we could have a conversation like the one we just had, have a little debate, spar a little, 36 minutes. It's not your usual talking heads here, two people, five minutes. It's a bit liberating, huh? It's great. It's great. And I'm really a fan of you and your brothers. We still have to have our three on three basketball

game by the way, Honig brothers versus my Salas brothers, you guys probably beat us. My other brothers have fallen out of shape. But listen, I it's great what you guys do. I'm a fan and I cheer you on as you build your media empire. Appreciate it. You got to check out the video

of Jordy beating the governor of Pennsylvania, of the Commonwealth, one-on-one. Yeah, Jordy beating him one-on-one. Shapiro one horse. Okay. Which they play Gov, G-O-V.

Who cares about a horse? Yeah, no, you got it. The one-on-one. One-on-one is way more important than a horse. Eli, thanks for joining us. We appreciate you. And everybody, thank you for tuning in to this special edition of the Midas Touch Podcast Live.

Make sure you hit the subscribe button now and check us out at patreon.com slash Midas Touch, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com slash Midas Touch. We are not funded by any outside investors at all. So if you want to help fuel this 100% independent pro-democracy media company, check it out at Patreon.com slash Midas Touch. I'm Ben Mycelis from the Midas Touch Network. Until next time. Thank you all. The best part of waking up? Maga tears in my cup. Check out the new Maga Tears mug available now at store.midastouch.com. That's store.midastouch.com. It's 100% union made right here in the USA.

I know I'm not tired of winning yet. How about you? Get yours today.