The MeidasTouch Podcast - Special Edition: MeidasTouch Presents 'Legal AF', Episode 10

Episode Date: May 30, 2021

On Episode 10 of LegalAF (#LAF), MeidasTouch’s Sunday morning law and politics podcast, hosts MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, examine why in Ben’s world the “scales of justice” (?) move so slowly (inside joke alert) while discussing the looming criminal indictment of the Trump Organization, Trump and his family by a New York state special grand jury based on Trump tax records obtained through a divided, 5-4 Supreme Court ruling. While Ben and Michael are at it, they discuss in detail the special qualities of the grand jury process in the American legal system. Of course, no #LAF podcast would be complete without a deep dive into Rudy Giuliani and his 18 cellphones and laptops about to be closely reviewed by a special master to be appointed by a federal judge to determine if any of the materials are protected by the attorney-client privilege from disclosure to the prosecutors investigating him for his role in the firing of the US Ukrainian ambassador. The “Legal Analysis Friends” next discuss former Ambassador Sondland’s attempts to have former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Federal government pay the $1.8 million in legal fees he racked up testifying to the House Intelligence Committee that Trump illegally withheld millions of dollars in US aid to Ukraine in order to force them to open an investigation into Joe Biden’s son Hunter during the Presidential election campaign, that later led to Trump firing the Ambassador. Hooded Justice and Velvet Hammer then turn their attention back to, where else, Florida, and explain why Governor DeSantis has the First Amendment and its protections exactly backward with his new law prohibiting social media companies, like Twitter, from banning (i.e. deplatforming) users for bad behavior like Trump. Ben then takes the #LAF listeners through the law of Presidential pardons leading to the SDNY prosecutors and judge having no choice but to drop Steve Bannon’s criminal prosecution arising out of his fraudulent “build the wall” charity. Finally, and ending on a “politics makes strange bedfellows” note, Ben and Popok discuss why the current Department of Justice is arguing in federal court that that even though Trump’s forcibly removing protestors from Lafayette Park to allow him to have a “clean” photo op on his way to a nearby church holding an (upside down) bible was a bad thing, a court should not interfere with decisions by the Executive Branch around how to provide security and protection to a sitting US president. Easter egg alert: Ben drops a little “Federalist Papers” knowledge on Popok, and Popok reminds Ben that scales of justice don’t move forward and back, wheels do. If you enjoy MeidasTouch Podcasts, please rate the show 5 stars on the Apple Podcasts app! Get your Meidas Merch at store.meidastouch.com. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/meidastouch/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Welcome to the Midas Touch Legal AF podcast. Ben Mycelis of Garagos to Garagos joined by Michael Popak of Zupano, Patricius and Popak. If it's Sunday, it is Legal AF. I am loving Sunday Legal AF's, Popak. I think the suits who we were perturbed with for moving our Wednesday podcast to Sunday, I think they knew what they were talking about, huh? Yeah, there was a lot of hand-wringing over that. But more importantly, that we love Sundays now and drop it on Sundays.

And I love the new bumper there. If it's Sunday morning, it must be legal AF. Our followers seem to like Sunday. And how do we know? Because they're getting a lot of downloads off of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. So I'm in. I'm fully down with our following in the footsteps of historic news shows, newsworthy shows on Sunday. And John Oliver

on Sunday night, we'll slot ourselves right in there. People want the law raw, injected into their veins on Sunday morning. And Popak and I are happy to be your law junkie enablers. Let's get into it. I want to start, Popak, by talking about the federal judge in New York who ordered something called a special master, weird words, but it's a legal term, but ordered a special master to review Rudy Giuliani's electronic devices. Let's just rewind briefly a few weeks or months. It all blends into me back. But sometime fairly recently, the feds raided Giuliani's apartments. We saw his son doing the Don Jr. routine in the press conference saying it's totally unfair that the feds have raided my daddy's home and took his cell phones and took his records, but they didn't take Hunter Biden's laptop.

And of course, you know, we joked about Rudy Giuliani's son being a complete fool and buffoon. But there are serious records at play there. The investigation is into Rudy Giuliani's interactions with foreign governments, including but not limited to Ukrainian individuals, to try to set up Biden, to try to get information favorable, acting as an unauthorized foreign agent and probably not just limited to Ukraine, to try to influence and tamper with elections in the United States. So the feds conducted a raid in connection with that investigation. The investigation is probably into other illegal conduct, too. But what does it mean now, Popak, that there is a judge ordering a special master? What is a special master? What does this mean? Yeah, we're reopening the legal AF law school program right away. Top of the show, special master. Let me separate for our listeners, because you've got to have a scorecard to follow

all of the Giuliani prosecutions. There are actually two that are going on in New York, one in the Eastern District of New York, U.S. Attorney's Office, which is based in Brooklyn, and the one we're talking about here, which is in the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. They're similar, but not exactly the same investigations. The one in the Southern District of New York focuses on what you and I referred to the last time around or a couple of shows around as pay to play. And the question is whether, as you hit on, whether Giuliani was a unregistered lobbyist for the Ukrainians in their efforts to remove the then U.S. Ukrainian ambassador who they hated because, you know, she was an adult and she wouldn't do their bidding and she wasn't in with the Trump program. So the question in this investigation, that was the subject of the 6 a.m. raid that caught 18 cell phones and computers. By the way, Ben, how many cell phones and computers do you have? You have 18 cell phones and laptops?

No. I think individuals with two sometimes raise red flags to law enforcement and significant others. But that's another story. And so that's the investigation Southern District. The investigation Eastern District is slightly different. It just started or was just announced a few weeks ago. That one is whether Rudy Giuliani was an unwitting stooge or a willing participant in the Ukrainian slash Russian effort to influence the election results and tip the results towards Trump. So that's the investigation. So now we've got Judge Oatkin in the Southern District of New York, who's faced with the Giuliani lawyers saying, it's unfair. There's 18 devices. Plus they caught cloud. They went into the cloud about a month or two before the raid,

apparently, and got all of his cloud, all of Giuliani's cloud-based materials. So the lawyers are, of course, apoplectic on behalf of their client because, well, he's a lawyer and he was a lawyer for Trump and there's attorney-client privilege and confidential information that may be buried in there. We don't want the prosecutors to get it unless somebody else takes a look at it. So the judge usually does one of two things. He either does or she does what's called an in-camera review of the material, where the judge, him or herself, actually looks at it, reviews it, and then makes a decision in confidential, in secret. It's called in-camera. Or they turn it over to a special master, which is what you're alluding to. And here, the special master is appointed by the court,

it's deputized by the judge to serve a discrete purpose, in this case, reviewing all of the materials that are on the 18 cell phones, laptops, tablets, and whatever, and in the cloud for Giuliani. Plus, there's a lawyer that worked with Giuliani who hasn't gotten a lot of publicity. Her name is Victoria Tansing. Her phone was caught in the raid as well. That phone's going to be reviewed. And the special master here is usually a very preeminent lawyer in New York, in this case, because we're in New York. Could be a retired judge. Or a retired judge. And there's a number of retired judges, including Judge Gleason,

who was very involved recently in other evaluations like that when they were thinking about dismissing charges against one of the Trump co-conspirators, one of the former general or colonel. And so it'll either be Gleason or it'll be another retired judge. There's a number of them in New York. They're with law firms. They bring in law firms to help them. And so that's gonna be done.

They're gonna report to the judge directly about what they found on those things. The lawyers are gonna be able to argue for or against it being provided to the government. But let's just bottom line this. This material is going to the government and then is going to be used in the prosecution, likely of Rudy Giuliani and others.

This special master process was also famously used in the investigation related to Michael Cohen, who at that time was Trump's lawyer. Now, there could have been two paths here. There could have been two paths here. There could have been the search warrant path or the government could have subpoenaed Giuliani. The search warrant being issue are based on judicial findings of probable cause supported by detail affidavits, which are under oath statements to believe that evidence of violations of specified

federal offenses would be found at the locations to be searched. So that information is seized by the feds. And the objection that Giuliani's legal team here is raising is Giuliani is a lawyer. So you've sucked up too much information. There may be attorney-client privilege information. So we think that the documents that you've received should not be reviewed by the government unless some neutral party looks at it. Well, to be clear, the Giuliani party didn't even want a special master. What the Giuliani party and his lawyers were asking for was they were saying that really the warrant should be quashed or what should have happened here is that Giuliani should have just been subpoenaed, that Rudy Giuliani

should have had the opportunity himself. Trust Rudy Giuliani is what Rudy Giuliani's lawyers essentially were arguing here. Let him look through his 18 cell phones and his 32 laptops and let Rudy Giuliani turn over to you, the government, what Rudy Giuliani claims is relevant and responsive to your requests. And the government, obviously. Yeah, if you put it that way, it sounds really reasonable. So I wanted to break it down for those listening to see what the real kind of dispute was here. And the judge, federal judge, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Oaken in Manhattan basically said, no, we're going to do the special master process. And again, one of the things the special master is going to look for, too, as we mentioned this on a previous legal AF, there are exceptions to the attorney-client privilege. One, you waive that privilege when you start, you as the client waive it, when you talk to third parties or when there are people

copied on emails who are not lawyers. And then there's also something called a crime fraud exception. The lawyer can't be the criminal. The lawyer can't help you with your crimes. And then you claim an attorney client privilege. And by the way, just to break down what attorney client privileges, attorney client privileges means that if I'm representing a client, the presumption is, is that not a very strong, sacred presumption is that those communications are completely confidential. The other side, third parties, the media, the government is almost always not allowed to delve into communications between a lawyer and their client. As long as the communication is for the rendering of advice, if I'm shooting the shit with my lawyer, or it's not ultimately for the rendering of advice. If I'm shooting the shit with my lawyer or it's not ultimately for the rendering of advice, that's another exception. Now, courts hate that one, but that is the way the attorney-client privilege runs. Yeah.

And also, though, you waive the privilege as well if you are engaged in the criminal conduct. So what the special master is, it's this neutral person who looks at the documents, who's not the government and not the subpoenaed party or the party that's subject of the search warrant, in this case, Rudy Giuliani, and the special master looks at it and makes rulings and basically says, these documents are not subject to any privilege or these documents are subject to certain privileges and shouldn't be produced. So we will keep you updated on that investigation. And, you know, my own prediction is, unfortunately,

the scales of justice, the scales of justice move slowly, but they do ultimately move in the right direction. And that's the fortunate part here that I think Rudy Giuliani will, again, be subject to a robust prosecution. Let me clean that up for our followers. The wheels of justice move a certain direction. Scales of justice probably go left or right. But I think your point is made. You know, when I said scales, too, I was thinking to myself, too, as I said the word scales, I thought I was talking about like, I'm like, is scales like, am I talking about snakes? Like it was a very, I was trying to think if that was even an expression.

And I was thinking of snake scales because Rudy Giuliani so inspires. Before we leave to go to our next topic, just to remind our listeners, this office, the Southern District of New York, which is prosecuting the U.S. Attorney's Office, you know, it's already in an awkward position. Rudy Giuliani used to be the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York before he became the mayor of New York and before he became whatever it is he's currently, which is none of those things. But but, you know, it's it's I can't think in modern history, at least in the last hundred years, where a former United States attorney is being prosecuted by his own office. I completely agree. But we're also in a situation where we had the former guy for four years who was running a racketeering operation from the White House. And so strange changes have emerged since the days of Federalist Paper No. 64, when Alexander Hamilton opined that the president so chosen will always be someone whose reputation for integrity inspires and merits confidence. You like me just throwing out Federalist No. 64 references? I had to redeem myself after scales of justice are moving in a slow direction to reassure listeners that the captain is still in charge of this flight. So listeners have learned two important things. They've learned about attorney-client privilege, right? They've learned

about special masters. I should say three things. They've learned Giuliani inspires me to start thinking about snakes. But let's move on and talk about former U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, who has sued Mike Pompeo, former secretary of state and big piece of shit, for one point eight million dollars in impeachment legal bills in this federal filing, Ambassador Sondland says that he was promised in connection with testimony that he was given that the you'll talk about what that is in a bit, that he was told that the government was going to cover his legal fees. He claims those legal fees are one point eight million dollars in legal fees, which we'll talk about. That seems like a high number to me, even though I do think Sondland should be reimbursed for some legal fees. But Popak, tell us what's going on here. Yeah, let's remind everybody who Gordon Sondland is. He's a wealthy businessman, owned a chain of motels and hotels in the Pacific Northwest, I believe. Which, of course, renders him qualified

in the Trump administration to become the ambassador to the European Union. And not like the ambassador to Liechtenstein or something. This is the ambassador to the European Union. It's one of the top three ambassadorships. Can they send them to like, you know, Swaziland or something? It's crazy. Anyway, he he obviously was not that qualified. He was a Trump acolyte at one point. But look, he got caught up in the whole Trump-Ukrainian-Hunter Biden-Burisma scandal, which to remind our followers, Trump held back a few billion dollars in aid to the Ukrainian government in return for them agreeing to open up an investigation in the Ukraine against Hunter Biden's involvement with the oil company in the Ukraine called Burisma. So it's called the Burisma scandal.

And the question in the testimony before the House Intelligence Committee that Sun Lin testified to as an ambassador, as a sitting ambassador, was whether there was a quid pro quo. See now, Ben, I can bring out some Latin in my part of the segment. So quid pro quo is, has there been an exchange for one thing for the other, you know, in this transaction? Was something a quid pro quo? So the question for the House Intelligence Committee is, was Trump holding back the aid money to the Ukrainians in return for them agreeing to open up an investigation against his rival in the election, Joe Biden and his son. And Sun Lin was in on phone calls and had conversations with Trump and was in a perfect position to testify truthfully about whether

there was a quid pro quo. So he got up on the stand 17 hours in the Senate or in the House giving his testimony. And he testified that in his view, there was a quid pro quo, that there was a trade-off if the aid would be released when the Ukrainians would play ball with Trump. Of course, Trump hated that testimony. Sondland had tried to avoid giving the testimony for as long as he could.

He forced the House to subpoena him. But finally, he sat in a chair. He was prepared by lawyers, apparently some ridiculous amount of time, because he testified 17 hours. And if they charged him $1.8 million for preparation for two days of testimony. That is an ungodly sum of money. I think it would come out to Popak if there was about 120 hours of legal services rendered to prepare him, which is a lot of hours to prepare someone for a 17-hour hearing. That would be about $15,000 an hour to a lawyer. Now, granted, what happens in these situations is that the law firms ultimately have multiple lawyers who are in the room. But at the end of the day, you're really paying just to have

three or four schmucks just sit there, you know, doodling their thumbs, you know, in a room. I mean, there's only one person usually who can talk at a time for conversations to be civil. But here's the thing, Popak. I do think at some point that there is this idea of indemnification. We've talked about it, I believe, on prior podcasts. But generally, the idea is sometimes there's indemnification in contracts and sometimes there's indemnification is that certain types of workers or people who are doing something in furtherance of their superiors, an employer, a government entity, in furtherance of those acts who is sued because they're engaged in furtherance of the acts, either contractually or of the employer or the government, that the government will cover their fees and in many cases even cover judgments or verdicts or things,

because if they're being told to do these things or if they're acting in furtherance of it, the law or contracts would view, hey, it's kind of unfair that they should pay. Or let me take it one step further. Certain positions would not be filled unless the people in those positions were given indemnification for future suits. For instance, members of boards of director them, they want to be or they incur expenses in that official role. They want to have that entity, the government, the corporation or whatever, the other company pay for the attorney's fees. And that's how we ended up here. And when I, you know, talking about indemnification, sometimes there are not already laws or presumptions of indemnification. So often when I'm doing contracts for my clients or high profile clients, whether they're doing books or movies, or they're involved

in commercial enterprises, I will want to make sure in my contract that I have the other party, the corporation agreeing to indemnify my client for the wrongs and negligence if things are happening with if a product doesn't turn out the way the product is supposed to be. You know, I will say corporation, you need to be the one who is responsible for paying if in fact my client ends up being sued. But I think it's also worth reflecting here. People go $1.8 million. Well, you probably have seen when you're going through any major metropolitan area,

these names, they're often two names, such and such and such and such. And you see them and I'm not gonna, I don't wanna trash any specific firms here. Although I would fucking love to, but I'm not going to do it on this podcast. I worked at a few of them. And you see them when you're in the city. They often have their ranges on the low end, $500 an hour with partners now charging $2,500 an hour

and sometimes more, putting a ton of lawyers on a case like Ambassador Sondland's, and then just doing a ton of stuff, whether it's billing for research, but the research is people reading, having associates just read books all week that talk about the history of ambassadors. And I'm not saying this is what happened here, but this is the type of shit that actually does go on. You'd have a partner assign the associate, read me all of the books about ambassadors and the history of ambassadors. You assign another associate. I need a complete memorandum on the history of the. You sign another associate. I need a complete memorandum on the history of the European Union. You tell the third associate, I need you to give me every example of indemnification since 1776 in United States history. And that's how you get

absurd hours. So really, when you talk about the one point eight million dollar fee, you're probably talking about an invoice that from whatever these law firms are that reflect thousands of thousands of hours, which, you know, is crazy. And so, look, at the end of the day, I don't like fucking Pompeo. I think Pompeo is one of the biggest criminals out there. I'm not a fan. That's my opinion of Pompeo. But at the end of the day, to me, the 1.8 million seems like an overreach for what took place. I mean, if you told me that Sondland should be reimbursed 300, 400K, I would still say that's high, but I would say that makes it, that would make a little more. Let's do a plug for us early. If it was the law firm of my Salas and Popak,

we don't undercut my fee Popak right now. We would don't undercut. I would do it cheaper than 1.8. How about half? Half of the 1.8. You and I could do it in half of the 1.8. And he was, he would have been as, as well prepared as he was by this law firm and their 10 associates. But let me just connect one last missing dot before we leave this segment to connect provide indemnification in order to induce or incentivize people to serve in those positions. The government doesn't generally indemnify. The U.S. Constitution does not talk about indemnification.

And there's very few, there are a few federal statutes that allow for it, but the ambassadorship is not one of the positions that automatically gets indemnification, which is why the case is Sondland versus Pompeo. Why Pompeo? him a personal promise that his attorney's fees would be paid for if he ended up testifying. And as a fallback, just in case Pompeo comes in and proves under a contract theory or some other oral agreement theory that he did not make that promise or he's not authorized to make that promise, Sondland has also sued as a fallback the U.S. government, which is the current U.S. government, because he'll say that Pompeo was an agent of the U.S. government.

He promised him that he relied on that promise. He incurred the $1.8 million, which he's already paid. It's in the lawsuit. He's already paid his law firm the $1.8 million. He's seeking to have reimbursement from Pompeo out of his own pocket or the federal government as a fallback. That's just so, I mean, the 1.8 number is really, I need to delve deeper into the law firm. And I want to report back to our listeners. I don't just want to start talking

shit about large law firm without knowing specifically who built this guy. One point eight. I have some ideas, but I'm not throwing them out. And if you're a U.S. ambassador, you have not. I have not indemnified Popak on this show, so I'm not going to start guessing which law firm was was was responsible in the future. If you're a U.S. ambassador, reach out to the Velvet Hammer and Hooded Justice. It will help for less. Exactly. Moving on to a tech group which has sued Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida over, the headline is the social media bill, but it's really an unconstitutional trash law that Governor DeSantis pushed through Florida legislature and signed, which is to retaliate against private companies, private social media companies, for enforcing their own terms of service by not allowing people on their platforms who engage in hate speech or otherwise violate the terms of service. When this bill was passed, Popak and I said we thought this bill was unconstitutional.

We thought there was going to be a lawsuit because guess what? I thought Republicans have always been the ones saying that the government should not intrude on private businesses and people's ability to enforce their own private rules. But sure enough, the new GQP party is all about government intrusion into the lives of corporations, into the lives of women, into the lives of families, you name it. They want to get into your home and tell you how you need to act. But there was a lawsuit that was filed. So we were right, Popak. So tell us about this lawsuit. Right. Yeah. Republican, you're right on the Republican thing. They're always in our bedrooms, but not in our boardrooms. And there is a

tremendous breach between the Republican Party and big business right now, which is remarkable. We'll talk about it on other shows. You know, this whole attack on woke companies like Coca-Cola and now Home Depot and other companies who have decided that what the Trump administration did and has done, especially January 6th forward, is just wrong. Federal. Yeah, if you're a company and you go, we do not support Trump's insurrection. You've got the Ted Cruz's and the DeSantis saying, all right, really? We're coming after you corporations. We're not going to give you those tax breaks anymore. I mean, they just say it blatantly now. They only like the gut. They

only like big business when big business was quietly just funneling trillions of dollars into the Republican Party's coffers. But when they also had what we call social responsibility or corporate social responsibility, which now have them take positions against things like Georgia and Florida and Texas's voting restriction and voter disenfranchisement laws, now the Republicans are all up in arms about why aren't they just quietly giving us money and staying out of policy. So now we move forward. DeSantis, Governor DeSantis has gotten the First Amendment exactly backwards. He believes that the First Amendment means that he, to promote the First Amendment rights of the citizens of Florida, can tell private social media companies, which are the equivalent of the press, of publishers, and the like.

At least that's how most Supreme Court cases and other cases come out. And he's going to tell them who they can be in business with, who they can allow, and what they can and can't say on their own social media platforms. He has it bass-ackwards. The First Amendment protects the social media companies as if they were publishers, as if they were newspapers of old, from government interference, telling them what they can and can't say, whether it's under the doctrine of prior restraint, which we'll talk about at another time related to media, where you can't have a chilling, a law that has a chilling impact on the power of free speech held by social media publishers or newspapers. So that's what this law does. And to sum it up, the law that he just signed, which he claims is against censorship of big tech, he's framed it as Silicon Valley versus

the Florida citizen. And it does a number of things that are really chilling, which are really fascist in their approach to private enterprise and private social. Basically trying to shut down. Let's be clear. He wants to shut down Twitter because it banned Donald Trump. By any time you ban anybody or you, you know, or you do not allow hate speech on the platform, they want to, as the government, censure, punish, penalize Twitter $250,000 or more for each violation and basically try to put social media companies out of business. And quote, the act is a full frontal assault on the First Amendment and an extraordinary intervention. I don't know if I actually said full frontal. The act is a frontal assault on the First Amendment and an extraordinary intervention. I don't know if I actually said full frontal. The act is a frontal assault on the First Amendment and an extraordinary intervention by government in the free marketplace of ideas that would be unthinkable

for traditional media, booksellers, lending libraries, or newsstands, according to the lawsuit. And think about that. Ignore my full frontal. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking there. But but let's get really into what they were saying. Could you imagine a government saying we don't like that book? That book is not saying the things that we want to say. That book is critical of Trump. Let's get rid of that book or of a traditional media saying we don't like the way MSNBC is talking about, you know, these ideas and giving, you know, and giving opinions. We want them totally removed. And so that is what is that issue. Now, this is what was particularly chilling Popak as well.

DeSantis's press secretary, Christina Puchaw, on Thursday said the following constitutional to support in support of the bill. She goes, constitutional protections are not a one way street. OK, that's exactly what constitutional protects. They legitimately are one way streets. They are to protect us, the people from the government. It is to protect people from government overreach. In many ways, those constitutions or protections are one-way streets. Well, that's why I started my part of the segment with he's got it completely backwards. We're supposed to be protected from overreaching of the government, whether in state or federal form, related to our First Amendment expression, in this case, the social media First Amendment expression. And again, not to belabor the point, but that press secretary is

backwards. The ultimate evaluation tool that the Supreme Court of the United States is going to use against a law like this is what we call strict scrutiny. It's the highest level of justification analysis that the court uses when it sees a law that burdens a fundamental constitutional right. In this case, there is no higher constitutional right than the First Amendment, as far as I'm concerned. So strict scrutiny is that DeSantis and his attorney general for the state standing in front of a Supreme Court one day is going to have to argue some overarching policy that overcomes, which he doesn't have, which overcomes the free expression of the First Amendment. This is all political theater. This is, as you said, this is him bowing and genuflecting

to the idol of Trump, because Trump got banned. You know, I just saw a stat yesterday, his blog, which is the replacement for Twitter, is pulling less than PetSmart or PetFlow, one of the pet or dog blogs. So he's doing terrible in his replacement social media. So this is just DeSantis with Trump's hand firmly up DeSantis' backside like a puppet, you know, doing his bidding so that he can set himself up for the race in four years. It's really it's such a waste of Florida taxpayer dollars to have to defend this indefensible case, which is the chilling impact of fascist impact on our First Amendment rights. What's up, Midas Mighty? Ben Mycelis here with my brothers, Brett and Jordy Mycelis.

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you've been vaccinated. Get them for yourself, get them for all your friends, get them for your community, show everybody that you're following the CDC guidelines. And hey, they act as good GQP repellent. So you can get your merch, get your free Vaxxed wristband when you spend $50 or more through Monday, Memorial Day. Check it out right now at store.midastouch.com. And it's super simple because it literally just adds it to your cart. So yeah, check out store.midastouch.com. That's store.m-e-i-d-a-s-t-o-u-c-h.com. Get some gear today. Know where I want to see Trump's hands, Popak?

Firmly up where? Not firmly up anywhere. It's not an image I want in my mind my mind, my my pure mind. I want to see him behind his back. Yeah, I want to see it, sir. You are. Is that Trump does this, sir? Someone came up to me and said, sir, it was a honor. I wanted I want to say, sir, you are under arrest. Put your hands behind your back. And we are getting closer to that day. Based on the Mycelis Harpo analogy, the scales of justice move slow because they're scales and they're not supposed to. But the wheels of justice here certainly are moving. And we learned this week that a criminal grand jury has been impaneled in connection with the Manhattan D.A.'s criminal investigation into Donald Trump arising out of his tax fraud, his potentially racketeering

operations, also arising out of his fraud and and deceitful tax returns and his misreporting of income and just generally lying about everything his entire life. I mean, we could basically overcomplicate what these charges are. But at the end of the day, Donald Trump has lied about everything. He's lied about how much money he has. He lies about the money he has for insurance claims. He lies on his taxes. The whole thing has been a whole fugazi and a scam from day one. And Trump's kind of that made off white collar fraud Ponzi schemer age right now where the chickens always come home to roost for these, you know, these low life scum, you know, financial criminals. And Trump's at that age anyway. But certainly all of the, you know, it certainly took on a higher profile to have the president of the United States, to say the least, being Bernie Madoff. But things are the walls are closing in on Trump. And we hear about this grand jury and impaneling a grand jury. So to be clear, Pope, I want you to go through this with us a bit. But at state and local levels, criminal charges can

be brought by either a grand jury indictment. And here a grand jury has been impaneled. An indictment has not issued yet or by something called an information, right? According to the Manhattan DA's website, a grand jury must determine that evidence is legally sufficient and that it provides reasonable cause to believe that the defendant has committed the crime before it can issue an indictment. The specific grand jury at issue here is composed of 23 citizens, 16 of which must be present for it to hear evidence. 12 of them must vote to indict. In Manhattan, special grand juries are convened to hear evidence on particular long-term matters and work for longer terms than routine grand juries. Vance's special grand jury is set to

meet here three days a week for a period of six months, and they can vote to extend. And according to Vance's former chief assistant, Daniel Alonso, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, quote, special grand juries are common when state prosecutors get to the point where they are ready to seek an indictment, but the evidence may be too complex or lengthy to present during the normal four-week term. Vance's prosecutors have already reportedly notified at least one witness to prepare for grand jury testimony. And I want to give a shout out to The Hill, particularly Kimberly Well, an opinion contributor who helped lay out a lot of that information. Popak, where are we?

All right. So let's tie it all together with some of our other podcasts, including last week. We talked last week about the New York State Attorney General joining forces with the Manhattan District Attorney in an unusual joint investigation. So Letitia James's, the Attorney General James's office has loaned two lawyers, two prosecutors, two, I'm going to call it the Manhattan District Attorney because Cyrus Vance is soon to be replaced. We're having an election here in about a month. But that office, Manhattan DA's office, is leading the special grand jury process with the help of two colleagues from the New York Attorney General's office helping them put it on.

And as you said, they could have skipped this whole process and just indicted Trump by way of what's called the information. But frankly, at this complexity level and with the high profile targets, the entire Trump organization, which means the entire family and Trump, it really is best practices for a prosecutor like in the Manhattan DA's office to put his evidence or her evidence up in front of a jury, a grand jury, and let them help decide the proper charges and how the evidence is going to be presented. It also helps the prosecutor's office long term to do a sort of a pressure test of their evidence in advance so that they're stronger in prosecuting the ultimate case at trial. That's why grand juries are often used instead of the much easier information process. The special grand jury in New York is, as you just mentioned, Ben, is distinct from the regular run-of-the-mill garden variety grand jury that sits every few months and just, you know, prosecutors run on there with,

you know, less complicated, less high-profile matters, and they walk out, you know, in most cases with an indictment. There's an old joke that a prosecutor can probably get an indictment against a ham sandwich if it's done properly. So if this, this bodes terribly for the Trump organization that they've now moved to a point where both prosecutors, state, the New York attorney general, and the Manhattan district attorney, believe that there's credible evidence that a crime has been committed. And all, remember, you know, the wheels of justice or the scales of justice or the feet of the chickens coming home to roost, move slowly, whatever we're going to say today. Vance's office, the Manhattan district attorney, got the tax returns for the entire Trump organization like a year and a half

ago through multiple processes with the U.S. Supreme Court. You know what, though, Popak? I looked at that and what shocked me, too, I forget this, was how close Vance was to not getting those records. And if Comey Barrett was in place, then if she had been appointed to the Supreme Court, Vance would not have gotten those records. I went back and I read the opinions and I read the dissent. It was five four at the time because Ruth Bader Ginsburg was alive. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the the opinion of the court. The way the way it works is when there's a majority vote, there's one writer who often writes the opinion of the court. The way the way it works is when there's a majority vote,

there's one writer who often writes the opinion of the court. There's often then dissenting opinions that are written. Some of the other judges may want to put forward to some other ideas and either give concurring in parts of opinions, dissenting in parts of the, you know, of decisions. Why do judges, Supreme Court judges do that? What's the point of doing a dissenting opinion? Well, you write dissents hoping that you get the majority and you're setting forth what you want the opinion to be. This was always the crazy part to me about the law. It's really shocking when I think you break it down this way. When there is a five to four opinion on a legal issue, what that technically means is that four of the smartest people, or they're supposed to be to become in the Supreme Court. But four of our most exalted jurists

have a view of the law that is wrong and unlawful. Okay. That's just the shocking thing about law, because people want to look at law like it's a science. But when we talk about law as a practice of law, that's one way of looking at it. It's a practice, but it's also part of power, part of the evolution of who we are as a people. It is not a foregone conclusion that you have the rights that our constitution affords us. You look at other societies and other extreme examples of the Taliban, the laws in Saudi Arabia, the laws in other countries. Those are laws that are made by people too, where their top jurists reach five, four, well, they probably don't even have opinions. They make decrees, but they reach opinions on facts of the way society should be. So when we talk about a 5-4 opinion, it's four people are wrong and are of a 5-4 decision of the U.S. Supreme

Court concerning that election. Gore is not president because he didn't get one more vote on the U.S. Supreme Court. And I'm sorry for interrupting your flow there before, Popak, but when I went back to look at that opinion, you have Justice Alito writing for the dissent, whose basic opinion is, is that the president, a sitting president, not only should never be charged with the crime, but shouldn't be subpoenaed by states because according to Justice Alito, in that opinion, that would be harassing the president. According to Justice Alito, in the opinion, the president of the United States never sleeps. And so a subpoena is distracting the president would be totally improper. That was what four people, Alito and Thomas, that's what they said in the opinion. This about a president who spent 275 days at his golf courses all around the world. But also to bring it home, that same Supreme Court,

while it allowed Manhattan District Attorney to get a copy of the millions of pages of tax returns, which was the beginning of the end, if Trump goes to jail, the beginning of that process, the first nail in the coffin was that Supreme Court decision, allowing the accountant, forcing the accountant to turn over all of the tax records. But in the same breath, that Supreme Court denied the ability of the House Investigatory Committee to obtain almost the same tax records because that they went with. They found a way to distinguish. But I think it's certainly worse for Trump. That was a real Pyrrhic victory for him to say, yay, my records aren't going to the House and the Congress won't drive me crazy. But boo, it's going to a a state prosecutor in the state of New York who's looking at crimes. That was worse for him. No doubt. And, you know, people have said Congress, you know, that's a

political process. True. But Congress, of course, did have the right as part of its impeachment powers to preclude federal government office holders from holding governments again, which is not purely political, you know, which when you have a criminal racketeering president like Donald Trump, that is something you'd want to impose. But now it's in front of a criminal process. It's in front of a criminal grand jury. And it would be my expectation, Popak, that when a grand jury is impaneled like this, the outcome, we kind of have a timetable now, right, for when the outcome is going to be. I think we should all mark our calendars, you know, right now it being, you know, May of 2021. So what we got June, July, August, September, October, I count on my hand. What do

you say? Did I forget a month? No, no. We'll get an indictment within the next six months for two reasons. One, they impanel these special grand juries for about that length of time. They're going to, just for our followers, that grand jury, which is citizens, who have jobs, who have lives, who have families, are now going to have to commit at least three days a week of their lives, eight hours a day with a lunch break, to sitting and listening to evidence presented by the prosecutor. The defense team is not in the room.

The defendants are not in the room. The targets, the Trump family, is not in the room. It's just the prosecutors and the grand jury and a judge who just sits and keeps an eye on things procedurally. But it's the grand jury which serves the purpose of vetting the evidence. And they will do that three days a week for the next straight, for the next six months or so, before they'll be asked by the prosecutor to return an indictment on a number of fraud charges against Trump and other members of the Trump family slash organization and employees. And the big difference, just to sort of end it on this, inside baseball for our followers that love this kind of stuff, is that there's a big difference between the state grand jury process and the federal grand jury process. A federal prosecutor gets a little bit of a pass and he's able or she's able

to present evidence, including hearsay evidence, to that grand jury to get an indictment. So somebody can say, I didn't actually hear somebody say that, or I didn't actually read that document, but I was told by someone else that this happened. That's okay in federal grand jury world. It's not okay in New York State special grand jury. All evidence has to be presented by firsthand knowledge, what we call precipient witnesses who have firsthand knowledge because of their five senses of that event have to actually testify live in front of that grand jury to support the evidence that's being presented for indictment. A lot of our listeners asked, why is it going to have to take six months? Can you explain it to us? Why do we have to wait in the six-month process? Can it happen already?

Trust me, we want it to happen, but remember the scales of justice. Remember the way those scales, you know, the scales of the scales of justice. If the analogy is to shedding scales, I could see that being the appropriate analogy here. Yeah, well, do it this way, because I know we're going to get Twitter, Twitter comments, tweets on us. Think about this. As I just said, if the prosecutor has to, and they do, present firsthand witness knowledge testimony to a grand jury, given the size and scale of the potential criminal enterprise, the enterprise fraud that they're going to charge Trump and all of his family members with, you're talking about dozens and dozens of witnesses that are going to have to come in and testify against, a lot of them against their will. They're going to be subpoenaed, criminally subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury.

Some of them will be prepped by the prosecutors, but mainly be prepped by the prosecutors. But even them, many of them are not going to be willing participants in this process. So maybe you get one witness a day. Maybe you get two witnesses a day. You're also talking about hundreds of thousands, if not more, of exhibits, documents that are going to have to be presented to the grand jury up on screens and in hard copy. This is a trial. It's a one-way trial.

It's a prosecutor gets to do it without any pushback from a defense team on the other side, because that's the way our system of justice works in terms of indictments. The defense has to wait until actual trial to put on their case. But they're going to have to, the prosecutors, dozens of prosecutors are going to have to put on dozens of witnesses and hundreds of thousands of documents in a six-month period of time. It sounds like a long period of time. It really isn't. And if this goes the way every court watcher, including Ben and I, think, there's going to be an indictment of one or more Trump Organization members, including the former president, for fraud, whether it's mortgage fraud, loan fraud, insurance fraud, some fraud. And if they tie all the frauds together and they get three frauds within a time period, then they'll bring what's called the little racketeering act case against Trump on top of all those fraud claims, which gives the prosecutor even more criminal punishment,

more fines. And so that's the racketeering angle, which the prosecutor may attempt to get the grand jury to return a racketeering charge against the entire organization as a corrupt enterprise. Yeah. And the racketeering charges were famously brought against mobsters, mafioso, and that's how they are treating the Trump organization, as though it was a mafia. It's a podcast, Popak, but now I see our listener. Yeah, I see you. I see you smiling now. I know that segment has made you pump your fist. You have a big smile on Sunday. And this is why you love legal AF. But we're not selling you bullshit here. At the end of the day, this is real. I'm telling

you, Trump is going to be indicted. Trump is going to be indicted. Happy Sunday. And here's what Trump said. Here's how you know he's angry. He projected in response to news about the grand jury, Trump said, this happens in failed third world countries, exclamation point on his stupid blog. The most incredible thing is just the way he projects, because he's the one who turned first. I don't like the term third world countries. I think it's very pejorative. So I want to put that out to begin with. But he turned our country into a third world country. The images that you see across, you know, in certain countries across the globe, mass deaths and, you know, depravity and government corruption. That was Trump in a nutshell. So while I've got you smiling and

before we go on to talking about some of the final other cases of the week, this is always the time where I like to plug my own law firm and Popox law firm. And we've been getting a lot of comments and we respond to all of them. All of the emails that you send us, if you ask us legal questions, we do our best to respond to answering legal questions. But where we really want to respond and where we want to be helpful is to let you know, and we always let you know this, you know this now by listening to us, we are practicing trial attorneys who handle high profile, top level cases across the country. And so if you are a victim of sexual harassment, if you are a victim of police brutality, if you know someone who is, if you've gotten involved in a catastrophic injury, that could be a car accident. It could be being rear-ended. It could be something horrific and horrible that happened to somebody that you know in a workplace incident or any type of injury.

These are the cases where I help victims and I help them get their justice on a day-to-day basis. And that's what Popak does, too. We handle business disputes. I represent founders and companies who are removed from their positions, who are owed money for their shares, who don't get it. I have a love for representing someone who's being bullied by a larger, powerful organization, represented victims in Catholic church, sexual assault cases, and corporate cases where CEOs or executives did horrible things to people who work for them. So feel free to reach out to Popak and I if you have a case,

if you think your friend has a case, have your friend reach out to us, have your family member reach out to us if you think that there is a case and we will respond. We'll let you know our thoughts. We do medical mal know our thoughts. We do medical malpractice cases. We do negligence cases. We do class action cases. My email address is ben at garrigos.com. That's B-E-N at G-E-R-A-G-O-S.com. Send me an email about your case. I'll let you know what I think. Popak, plug your email address. Okay. It's M for Michael. Popak is my last name. P-O-P-O-K at Z for zebra, P for Peter, law.com. And just to reinforce, I think that's what sets this legal and political affairs podcast apart from our competitors is too strong of a word, the other podcasts out there. Ben and I

practice law for a living. Ben and I are trial lawyers, national trial lawyers who've handled high profile and other types of cases on behalf of people who need justice. And we're not just academics. We're not law professors. We don't take this from an esoteric approach. We take it from a real life, roll up our shirt sleeves. We've been in the courtroom. We've been against prosecutors. We've been in front of juries. We've been in front of judges and arbitrators and have gotten tremendous results on our behalf. And I think if you like our show, you'll love what we do when we're actually handling a case for you, because we're not only tremendously focused, but we bring this combination of commercial and business background and extraordinary depth of legal training and practice and a track record of success. And people know who we are when we're on the other side of the case. So, you know, I think this is a great opportunity for us to not just, we love sitting here for an hour talking about all of these things. And it's as thrilling

for us as it looks like it is for people that download us. But we work for a living. And Ben has accurately described, you know, our practices. And a lot of times he and I work together. And we look forward to continuing to do that through this show and otherwise. Let's take a trip back to Southern District of New York. It's not a coincidence that we go to Southern District of New York a lot. It's in Manhattan. A lot of stuff goes down in Manhattan. A lot of business is conducted in Manhattan. So there's a lot of jurisdiction that's based in Manhattan. That's one of the reasons that you have so many cases out of the biggest, most high profile criminal cases. One of those cases,

of course, was the Steve Bannon money laundering case on August 17th, 2020. A grand jury in the Southern District of New York returned an indictment. See, now you're listening and you know what a grand jury is. You know what that process was. It means a group of people were impaneled. They went through the evidence. And on August 17, 2020, in New York, they returned an indictment against Brian Colfage, Steve Bannon, Andrew Botolato, and Timothy Shea, who were the defendants alleging they conspired to commit crimes of wire fraud in violation of federal law and money laundering in violation of another law. And the indictment sets forth what took place to remind you in December of 2018

through a crowdfunding website, these individuals initiated an online funding campaign to generate approximately $20 million to build a wall along the southern border in the United States. Guess what? It's all bullshit because all of these people in Trump's orbit are bullshit. It was a money laundering operation. And Bannon and all these individuals were involved. Well, on January 19th of 2021, when Trump pardoned all of his inner circle and cronies. One of those people who were pardoned was Stephen Bannon. I guess the irony here is that none of the other individuals were pardoned for doing the same exact things that Bannon was accused of.

So Trump left Brian Colfage, Andrew Badalato, and Timothy Shea completely on the hook for the same exact acts. But Stephen Bannon was pardoned. So as a result of the pardon, the power being an absolute power enshrined in the Constitution, Article 2, quote, the president shall have the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. In a case, United States v. Klein back in 1871, confirming that the power is, quote, granted without limit, and therefore the executive can reprieve or pardon

all offenses after their commission, either before trial, during trial, or after trial, by individuals or by classes, conditionally or absolutely, and without modification or regulation by Congress. And of course, in the pardon of Nixon, there wasn't even a case filed. So you could pardon somebody when there's no even case pending for crimes that were committed or potential crimes that were committed before the pardon was ever issued. And so in this specific case, because Bannon was pardoned, the government had to concede that the case had to be dismissed against Bannon. The government and the Biden DOJ didn't want to dismiss this against against Bannon.

And by the way, it wasn't the Biden DOJ who brought the case against Bannon. Actually, it was the Southern District of New York. It was actually during the Trump administration, the SDNY, who brought those underlying charges. There was some kind of procedural maneuvering here where the government just wanted Bannon dismissed, but not the underlying indictment against Bannon dismissed. The government just said, look, we could take away Baden as a defendant. We agree he's dismissed. But symbolically, judge, just don't dismiss the underlying indictment. And the judge said, I can't just remove somebody's name from a docket as a defendant without I have to dismiss the case. So I'm sorry, government. But what the judge did say and did make clear is that by pardoning someone, it does assume or infer that the person was guilty because there's no need to pardon somebody if they didn't commit an underlying crime. And they cited a specific case in New Jersey, Cook versus Freeholders of Middlesex, New Jersey. This was a New Jersey case and a Supreme Court case as well, which basically stand for, and this is what the New Jersey Supreme Court noted, pardon implies guilt.

If there be no guilt, there is no grounds for forgiveness. Popak, did I just steal your thunder? Did I sum up this Bannon case? Is there even anything for you to say anymore about that? It's so funny. We were doing this for so long. I'm thinking, what has he left me in this description of this Bannon case? But I think I got it. So look, the Southern District of New York, which we've talked about, which is my backyard and where I practice, you know, as we've talked about, there's really two or three places where you and I are always going to talk about cases coming out of. litigation type matters. And then the Southern District of New York, because generally they are some of the finest prosecutors sit in New York and sit in the Manhattan DA's office, or in this case, the Southern District of New York. And that's where people get prosecuted if there's a connection to that jurisdiction. So Judge Torres certainly made the right decision. She had no

choice given the pardon power and the pardon to reprieve and to pardon somebody. But I do think it is interesting that Trump either threw a mistake, because you remember there was this crush of pardons, literally his last week or day or hour, I think he was pardoning up until the night before. There was speculation he was going to pardon the whole Trump family and pardon himself. And there was a whole scholarly discussion, including with his own lawyers, as whether he could pardon himself and that of his family for, as you said, crimes that had not yet even been indicted, like the ones that are going on in the special grand jury in New York State against the Trump family. And they ultimately concluded whether he could or he couldn't,ically, he wasn't going to. So it's really weird that he did not also pardon

the three other people, Kolfage, Baldilato, and Shea, because the case is just going to live on. The only thing I got to think of in terms of evil genius when it comes to Trump is that if he's going to continue to act like he's going to be a candidate four years from now, which he will, he'll keep that flame alive to give himself some relevancy to do these rallies and all of that. He'll try, I guess, to use the continued prosecution to argue for his immigration policy against Biden and the border issues. So one part I thought, oh, that was really sloppy on the part of the pardon committee that worked with Trump, that they didn't throw everybody in there. But I think at the end, he probably is just going to try to use it to his own political advantage, the continued prosecution of the others who put money in their pocket instead of,

quote unquote, building the phony wall. So, you know, again, it's just another corruption, a corrupt act on behalf of Trump that hopefully when the scales of justice continue to grind forward, it will lead to his indictment. I want to talk now just about the this is our last topic, or is it our last topic? It is our last topic. Just got to keep the listeners on their feet, Popak. I mean, they could probably look at the timeframe and predict this is the last topic, but got to always be the wild card here. That's what hooded justice is always about, right? I mean, why else would you have the name? This is a interesting one where the DOJ is seeking to dismiss lost the current DOJ under Biden, seeking to dismiss civil rights lawsuits filed by protesters against Donald Trump and other kind of federal law enforcement for what took place at Lafayette Square. And of course, we know those scenes where Trump ordered law enforcement, you know, his protection detail, the military to attack peaceful protesters at Lafayette Square. We saw those horrible images

so that Trump could go out and take that photo op in front of the church holding the upside down Bible. He believed that was to protect strength. I mean, as I even talk about that, you know, I think about, you know, all that was happening about a year ago to this day. You know, just thinking about last year, man, from the pandemic to the uprisings, it was a really, really crazy year. And just even talking about it now, I think about it, I get chills. You know, the hair on my arms.

But look, let's look at the silver lining. If there was no pandemic, I don't think there's a Midas touch. There's definitely not a Midas touch. And if there is no Trump administration and all of the post-Trump criminal prosecutions, I think you and I would be doing a 10-minute show once a month called Legal AF.

I'm not sure under boring Biden, which I say as a compliment, I'm not sure we have a show. You know what, though? I would gladly, and I say this as much as I love Midas Touch, much as I love our show, I would gladly have no Trump, no authoritarianism, no Marjorie Taylor Greene's and QAnonismism and just be the anonymous not the i wasn't fully anonymous i mean i i had high profile cases before but things were quieter and that you know you me might as touch those listening we had to answer a call because of this crazy shit that was happening in our world.

And, you know, never thought in a million years I would be a political person or that, you know, we would be having these types of conversations every day. Never occurred to me, you know, 18 months ago. But here we are. And I'm glad that you, me, touch those listening. Answer the call. So, Popak, why here is the Biden DOJ seeking to dismiss a lawsuit against Trump? And I would say, here's my initial hint. I know you know the answer. I shouldn't be calling it the Biden DOJ. It was called the Trump DOJ because Trump had a different view of the DOJ than what the DOJ has been historically. It is the DOJ. It's Merrick Garland, our Attorney General's Department of Justice. And here's an example, and lawyers like Ben and I talk about this a lot, sometimes cases make bad law, or they have the possibility of making bad law. And even though I'm sure

the people in the Department of Justice find it odd to be, in a way, defending the prior administration seeking the dismissal of a suit against it related to the security measures that were taken in Lafayette Square. They're not worried about that. They've made two arguments. They spent an entire day in front of this judge. And just to bring, for those that want to follow it more online, the bad law that the DOJ is worried about making

relates to the security that's provided to a president. And while I don't think anybody who watched the imagery of the U.S. military, including one of the joint chiefs of staff, being present in the clearing of Lafayette Square, which is that park that sits, for those that know Washington, between the Hay-Adams Hotel and the White House, there's a park in the middle. And it's a park of public square. It's a place where people often go to protest, to exercise their First Amendment rights. They were doing it on that day. It happened to be the day that Trump wanted to do political theater and go with, as Ben said, with an upside down Bible over to the historic church, the church of, I don't know,

30 presidents that sits next to the park, adjacent to the park. And so he used in a heavy handed fascist way, a combination of black helicopters, local police, Capitol police, to clear the square from the protesters and First Amendment rights exercisers because he wanted to have a clear shot, a walk, a stroll to the church uninterrupted so he could use it for his campaign purposes. That's not what the DOJ today is worried about in terms of law being made. And they argued in the motion to dismiss before the judge, that's not their worry. Their worry is that what should be preeminent is the ability for the federal government to protect the president and not have groups like the ACLU and others sue to interfere with what they would like to be a reasonably

unfettered right to protect the president. So this is about protecting the president, not the former occupant, but any occupant into the future. They've also basically told the judge, this suit is sort of silly because Biden is not Trump and these things are not going to happen again in the future. So you don't have to worry about like an injunction to stop future bad acts because under this president, there aren't going to be future bad acts. So that's another grounds to dismiss. But that's why. They're just worried about bad law that they'll get stuck with off of the Trump, you know, heavy handed trying to get to church conduct. And they don't want to get stuck with really bad law and not be able to protect President

Biden or future presidents in the future. Yeah. And look, Trump would tell Barr what to do. Use the DOJ as the Trump's personal law firm. And they would pursue criminal investigations at Trump's behest. They would pursue civil lawsuits as though they were Trump's personal injury lawyer. I think they sued individuals who would write unflattering books about the Trump administration and seek monetary damages from them. But that was a very busy law firm.

It was a very busy private law firm at taxpayer expense. You know, and it was a very disgraceful period in a DOJ, Department of Justice, that had a proud tradition. We talk about Trump projecting, I mean, him turning a independent, well-run, proud institution into his own deep state, his term, his own little mini fiefdom that would attack political enemies, going back to what I said before. This is what happens in third world countries. That's literally what happens when you look at other countries using the law and law enforcement as an arbitrary tool of power, irrespective of constitutional protections. In other countries, yeah, they call themselves democracy or constitutional democracies, but

the Constitution don't mean shit. And in the United States, the Constitution always did. And that's why it was discouraging, though, to be a lawyer, frankly, during the Trump administration, because everything you studied in law school didn't matter anymore. There was no real precedent. There's no real laws. It's all bullshit. And you go, whoa, what did I study for? What is this? All you have to do is be on the right side of power in a particular situation. And that's the law under the Trump administration. And thank gosh that Trump was no longer here. Because I'm telling you,

while there was an ability to stand up to him, four more years, it would have been totally destroyed. There wouldn't have been a legal AF, Khopak. You and I would be political prisoners. No, we'd be like the social media influencer in Belarusia who was who was intercepted, right, intercepted by the Byelorussian government and on a flight and kidnapped off of a hijacked off of a plane. It would be like that. But, you know, just to tie it to your to your brothers and your show. I know you like to have multiple personalities and today you're Ben Legal AF. But I know during the week you do a lot of great political things, political commentary

with your brothers. It's not that I'm worried about now that Trump is out of him getting reelected. I don't think he gets reelected. He may try to run, but it's one of his acolytes, somebody who's been kissing the ring or the backside of Trump to try to get elected, whether that's DeSantis or one of these other people that feel beholden to Trump. And Trump was so out of his mind and so violative of all of our norms, constitutional norms as a president, and really like a child just tested the limits and went beyond the limits and the guardrails that were set up in our constitution that we're having difficulty even now recovering from. I don't want somebody else in that chair behind that desk who feels

that Trump is his role model for how to misbehave as a future president. So I know we just got Biden elected along with Kamala, but our work is not done. And if we allow either at the midterms or beyond, including for the next presidential race, if we don't get Biden, Kamala, or whoever's running them, I assume it's going to be them, if we don't get them reelected and we allow a Trump follower, a QAnon follower, to get elected again, we are going to be right back in the pickle that we just got out of. So Midas Touch listener, you've learned today about special masters, indemnification, attorney-client privilege, attorney fees and the way large law firms are structured, Federalist Paper 64, grand jury processes versus information and what the grand jury process is looking like

in the Trump grand jury assembled by Cy Vance, the First Amendment constitutionality and the law going after social media by DeSantis and other GQP members, concurring and dissenting opinions in the Supreme Court, the Racketeering Act, parted power, the way the DOJ operates. Not a bad, might as touch legal. And the scales of justice move and grind. Yeah, I'm going to get a lot of crap for that one for some time. But in the meantime, I want to also wish on this Memorial Day weekend, I want to thank our service members for their sacrifice. People that I think early on, I've shared this, but one of uh, friends and every Memorial day I see his posts.

Um, and I also reflect on that and the sacrifices by our service members, uh, here and abroad who, um, sacrifice daily and those who have lost their lives, um, fighting, uh, for our freedom, fighting for our, uh, democracy. And, uh, my heart goes out to all families that have lost loved ones in war and in combat. And my grandfather was a B-29 tail gunner and the B-29s. And growing up and hearing his stories, hearing those brave soldiers who fought with him and who lost his lives. I reflect back on those childhood memories in Florida where he where he lived at the time and what he would tell me about. My dad was Army. So go Army. Harvey. And so may all of your Memorial days spent with your family bring you happiness,

but also make sure you take the day as well to reflect on its core purpose, to remember our service members who have lost their lives fighting for our freedoms. This has been another edition of Midas Touch Legal AF. Ben Mycelis, Michael Popak, thanking you for making Midas Touch Legal AF the top legal podcast in the country Popak, thanking you for making Midas Touch Legal AF the top legal podcast in the country. Thank you so much. We'll see you same time, same place next week.