The MeidasTouch Podcast - NY Judge Quickly CUTS THROUGH BS on Trump TRIAL

Episode Date: March 17, 2024

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas and Talking Feds host Harry Litman report on the letter order by Judge Juan Merchan in the Manhattan DA criminal case against Donald Trump. Subscribe to the Talking Feds YouTube Channel:  YouTube.com/@TalkingFeds  Thanks Miracle Made! Go to TryMiracle.com/meidas and use code MEIDAS to claim your free 3 piece towel set and save over 40% off! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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wow in the past 48 hours or so there's been a lot of developments in the manhattan district attorney criminal case you know earlier in the week trump filed that frivolous claim of absolute immunity that judge mershon was basically going to laugh him out of court as likely not going anywhere. Trump was going to try to do some Hail Mary before the United States Supreme Court, but no one really took that seriously. Although with all of his moves, you never know with the current composition of the Supreme Court. But then there was this issue that hit with a thud where Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg gave this notice that apparently on like March

4th or 5th, there were 73,000 new documents turned over by the DOJ. And then this past week, there was 31,000 documents turned over. And then on Friday, an additional 15,000 documents or pages being turned over. So not an insignificant amount, two weeks before a very, very, very serious trial as well. Bragg said, look, I'm good with a 30-day adjournment, but this shouldn't be delayed more than that. Bragg's like, it's not my fault. We requested this a year ago. He blames the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York of only responding to Trump's subpoena from January 18th of 2024. And then of course, Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanch, was going to respond. That's not a shocker saying basically,

now this trial should never take place, do a 90-day adjournment or dismiss this thing, or we should never have this trial at all. Judge Mershon then responded quite differently than the types of response that we saw with Judge Scott McAfee, where it became this big circus-style hearing. Judge Mershon seemed to be far more surgical, give me very specific timelines of what happened here. Judge Mershon issued a 30-day adjournment, so that puts it at April 14th, but that's a Sunday, so technically April 15th. Now set a hearing on all of these issues of when trial was supposed to start on March 25th and said based on the hearing and the factual issues, basically we'll see,

is this case going to go April 15th? Will it get kicked later? But there needs to be this threshold hearing. So, Mershon moving very differently, Judge Mershon, than McAfee. What do you make of where we are kind of right now with Judge Mershon's letter setting this hearing for March 25th? Obviously, you know, deep frustrations with whatever the heck happened with these documents. I mean, how in the world does that happen? But let me get your perspective as a former top federal prosecutor. Yeah, a few things. First, I just got to say,

Donald Trump is like the luckiest son of a bitch in the Western world. Just the Fulton County mass had nothing to do with him and this also, but he's just the beneficiary of it. First, you're right. Something funky happened. We don't know. Maybe we will know. I'm sure there are two sides to the debate. The SDNY would always have its side. They did ask a year ago. Trump asked January 18th. And, you know, a little inside baseball thing for listeners is when you get a request like this and you're the federal government, you have certain procedures called a TUI process to make sure that you can turn over things. So it's less that lapse than the prior one. But for whatever reason, yeah, here it comes in late. And just as you say that from what we do know,

I guess there's been a quick canvassing of what came over, maybe even a little bit of leaking, God forbid, but we don't think there's that much that's really important or incendiary there, maybe a little bit. And there's going to be yet another little data dump coming quite soon, maybe tomorrow. So yes, that should be, Bragg is prudent to come in and say they can have 30 days. And Trump's lawyer, Blanche, is predictable in coming in and say, oh my God, now we need at least 90 days,

et cetera. Merchant seems to be sensible about this. I'll just say when your whole focus is delay, the basic strategy is just keep getting yards on the delay field. So move it down and then hope more good things happen. And I'll just mention that this hearing is gonna be held in the shadow of the Supreme Court hearing on immunity. So maybe Trump or Blanche say, come on judge, let's just wait a few days. Of course, it won't be a few days because they have to have the hearing,

but then they have to decide the case and then they would have to decide how the case applies. But that's one thing. And then potentially does it come into the sort of scheduling issues that merchant has shown itself to be sensitive to with the chuckkin case depending on what happens anyway you know trump i the the main thing the other three cases now i fear more and more are are all of them, you know, the odds have declined, if not to zero. But there's still, I think, a decent hope with the January 6th case.

But they're all going Trump's way in terms of delay. This is the one that was solid. I don't think anything has happened to make us doubt that it will happen. But, you know, that's, it's the wrong direction, not the right direction. And yeah, we can definitely expect Blanche to say, oh my God, we need more time. That might entail an appeal, by the way, as best as I can tell, maybe you've got your own sources here, Ben, that shouldn't be a big clock eater. That is the, something like this. They do the so-called Article 78 proceeding, but if the New York Appellate Division and even the Court of Appeals, which is the name they give to the New

York calls, their lowest court, Supreme Court and their highest court of appeals, go figure. But even if they okay it, it shouldn't be a long process to let Blanche argue, oh, God, we need even more time. So, you know, the bottom line isn't so worrisome yet, but the trend is all, you know, in that same bad direction. And then, as you say, we'll know one day what exactly transpired between SDNY and NYD and New York DA's office. There does seem to be just under the surface of the press reports attitude just as you say seems to be in line with this to to keep it fairly constricted and still go to trial in april did you know that your temperature at night can have one of the greatest impacts on your sleep quality if you wake up too hot or too cold i highly recommend you check out miracleacle Maid's bed sheets. Inspired by NASA, Miracle Maid uses silver-infused fabrics and makes temperature-regulating bedding so you can sleep at the perfect temperature all night long. Using silver-infused fabrics inspired by NASA, Miracle

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bacteria can clog your pores causing breakouts and acne sleep clean with miracle go to try miracle dot-com slash Midas to try it today and we've got a special deal for our listeners save over 40 percent and if you use our promo midas m-e-i-d-a-s at checkout you'll get three free towels and save an extra 20 percent miracle is so confident in their product it's backed with a 30-day money-back guarantee so if you aren't 100% satisfied, you'll get a full refund. Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made. Go to trymiracle.com slash Midas and use the code Midas to claim your free three-piece towel set and save over 40%. Again, that's trymiracle.com slash Midas, T-R-Y-M-I-R-A-C-L-E dot com slash M-E-I-D-A-S. You know, it doesn't seem like the subpoena that's at issue that the DA says was sent a year ago and that Trump was seeking on

January of 2024. It doesn't really go to the heart of the issues in this case. So I think that's one of the issues. And by the way, it's not clear to me, they sent a subpoena, the DA's office did, Trump did. It might've been more like a document request or is it? I don't know if it was, but anyway, go. Yeah. You know, it could have been, it could have been a formal request pursuant to whatever the local comedy type rules are. But regardless, I mean, it seems to go to issues of kind of the grand jury proceedings regarding Michael Cohen and things that were happening. That's a huge point that a lot of people admit.

I'm sorry, go ahead because this is your point, not mine, but explain, because you're so right. Yeah, and so it goes to i guess the way trump would characterize it although i don't think it would be this like potential brady material so that he could use to impeach cohen during cross-examination of cohen you got caught in the mob the sdny and and uh you know paid for So that's right. I'm sure they have stuff on them. would be a witness against Trump here by the DA about Trump's overall catch and kill schemes. And so it really goes to, I think, those types of issues and proceedings. And so, you know, if you're the DOJ, if you're the SDNY and you get something like that, you know, there's potentially

first an instinct that that stuff is grand jury material and it's privileged and why are we even turning that over to there still may be some active investigations or things that are taking place or whatever that may make them not want to you know turn that over um three i think sorry go ahead yeah let's do that you know when mershawn ultimately when these documents are revealed for what they are, I think it will probably be clear that they're of minimal value. I could be wrong anyway, even for impeachment purposes, because mostly all of this stuff is going to have been known anyway. So that's why I think Mershon probably finds no prejudice when we get to a level of granularity, but we don't know. But I think that's what we're talking about. What are these documents? I think they relate to that. Yeah. I think you're dead on there except I would add,

as best we can tell, that's the important 50 pages of documents of the 600,000 or whatever it is. I think a lot of it is copies and et cetera. So that's the chunk to look at. And they've looked at that pretty quickly. It's, it's not hundreds of thousands of pages of that. It's hundreds of thousands of pages that include, you know, a little slice of that. Yeah. You know, copies, email, things that I would, would probably guess that 97%, 98% probably has nothing to do with anything. But nonetheless, as I've said in other hot takes, I'm like, look, I could think that Trump should be brought to justice, held accountable. I also believe that any criminal defendant, even if your name is Trump, is entitled to look through discovery, is entitled to get it on a timely manner and should have the opportunity to review it. I don't think this should merit some

wildly long delay, but nonetheless, go review the records. I think Mershon is handling it well. Yeah. And as we insist in Mar-a-Lago, a subpoena is a subpoena, a lawful process. It would be ironic if he were brought to justice by the corner cutting of the procedures of justice and due process. So I'm with you all the way, Ben, and hats off to you for your, you know, overall integrity and faith in the system. Scouts honor, as we like to say here on the Midas Touch podcast, hit subscribe. You'll have to watch all of the Harry takes in mind to get the inside jokes. And to really understand the inside jokes,

make sure you also check out the Talking Feds YouTube channel. They're on their way to 250,000 subscribers. They do some incredible hot takes. They get into real, real detail there. And you got some of, you got Harry's hot takes and you got a nice crew there too, that Harry interviews. So make sure you subscribe. Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time. See you next time.

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