The MeidasTouch Podcast - Special Edition: MeidasTouch Presents 'Legal AF', Episode 9

Episode Date: May 23, 2021

On Episode 9 of Legal AF (#LAF), MeidasTouch's end-of-the week law and politics podcast, hosts MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, examine the looming indictment of the Trump Organization by the joint prosecutor task force led by the NY AG and the Manhattan DA. Ben and Michael then reopen #LAF University Law School, and teach a mini-course on criminal statutes of limitation and how that may speed up the Trump indictment, unless a tolling agreement is entered into. The "Legal Analysis Friends" next take on the possibility that Florida Governor DeSantis will attempt to prevent the extradition of Trump back to New York, should he be indicted and what a Federal judge would say about that.  Speaking of Florida and bizarre events, Legal AF takes a deep dive into the federal conviction and plea deal and cooperation of former Seminole County (FL) tax assessor and Congressman Matt Gaetz's main "bro," Joel Greenberg, and what it means for the likely indictment of Gaetz. Easter Egg alert: Ben and Popok explain why Greenberg was a "queen for a day" and it's not what you may think. Next up, the co-hosts discuss Sidney Powell and her misuse of fundraising money to pay for her personal legal defense against the defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. A LegalAF episode would not be complete without Ben getting special delight out of "Cyber Ninjas" and their inept "fraud-it" in Arizona, that is now leading to the State considering, ironically, throwing the 400 voting machines they examined because of possible corruption of the equipment by Cyber Ninjas. Finally, and in somber tones, Ben and Michael examine SCOTUS’s decision to revisit Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose under the guise of examining a Mississippi federal judge's decision to stay an anti-pro-choice law banning all abortions after 15 weeks. It is an ominous sign that a Republican majority court (6-3) is now doing a full-frontal assault on what had been a constitutionally-protected right of privacy. Please consider rating this podcast 5 stars on the Apple Podcasts app and share it with a friend! Get your pro-democracy 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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or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome to the Midas Touch Podcast. Legal AF, same lawyers, new time. Ben Mycelis of Garagos and Garagos joined by Michael Popak of Zupano, Patricius and Popak, your legal AF analysis, friends. So the big wigs over at Midas Touch thought in their infinite wisdom, it made sense.

Suits, just typical suits. They started off as three brothers, you know, who were doing this from their couch. And then they've become suits. They just think, Michael, they could move you and me wherever they please. And so they put us on a Sunday. They tell us the ratings will be better on a Sunday because the brother podcast airs on Tuesdays and Fridays and people want legal news on the weekends. That is to be determined. I think, I think, and I know one of the suits here and I, and your brother, Brett wrote

me side, you know, a side channel and said, am I the suit? And I said, Brett, do you even own a suit? I don't know. I don't mean your bar mitzvah suit. You own a suit. Then you can be the suit. When I do Midas touch legal AF, Michael, I totally disassociate myself from the other Ben. This is legal Ben. Whoever that other Ben is with the brothers, I don't like that decision-making pushing us to this weekend.

But you know what? At the end of the day, you and I need to work out a better contractual agreement with the brothers so they can't move us to what they want. It was a funny joke that I put on. Some people knew I was joking, Michael. Some people didn't fully realize I was joking. You went on the Stuttering John podcast before coming on this podcast. And I tweeted out, quote, somebody did not look at their exclusivity agreement with Midas Touch. And I'm not sure if you've seen it yet. And some people wanted a brief explanation their exclusivity agreement with Midas Touch. And I'm not sure if you've seen it

yet. And some people wanted a brief explanation on exclusivity agreement. First off, there is no exclusivity agreement here, but in certain performer contracts and certain talent agreements, they have what's called exclusivity clauses that would prevent the talent or performer for performing for a competitor or for performing in any other competitive area during the term of the contract. And so Michael and I practice various areas of law. We've described that we do lots of litigation. We also do transactional law, and that is contracts. And we look out for talent. And in these talent contracts, sometimes they're as short as a page. That is rare.

More frequently, these talent engagements for things like singing at a concert, performing at a comedy show, being part of a movie. These agreements sometimes are 50, 80, 100 pages of very small, fine print language. And you got to read them carefully because if you don't realize there's an exclusivity clause or other things prohibiting you from doing things, you may wind up with a letter, you know, or a tweet from me saying, hey, you're not allowed to be doing that. So I don't think the text you sent me in December saying, hey, let's launch a legal affairs and political thing together. I'm not sure that's my contract. But in any event, I actually took it a different way when the suits decided from a programming perspective to move us. I think we've generated so much momentum and so such good ratings and people downloading Legal AF that Midas Touch wants to wants to draft behind us.

They want us to be the lead, the opening act that leads into their Tuesday show. What do you think about that? I think that is a good read of it. And we want to thank you, our loyal Legal AF listeners. Your feedback is incredible. And what Michael Popak was saying is true there. I mean, we get, I think, probably the largest listenership of almost any legal podcast out there. It's funny. My law partner has a podcast called Reasonable Doubt that does very well also. And so it's funny though, that we did not even have any association there, but it's coming to a point where he may be our biggest competitor, but we will get there when we get there and we'll see how that all shakes up. I will say that the last time I talked

to Mark on a case, he did answer the phone by saying, and it sounded a little bit, he had a little bit of an edge to it. He's like, legal AF. That's how he answered the phone when I called him. I'm like, okay, we're getting attention. That is the first stage of the evolution of attention. So we will leave it there. Let's get into legal AF and your stories of the week. We learned this week that the New York State Attorney General Letitia James has turned her civil investigation into the Trump organization, into a criminal investigation. Michael, tell us what's even more unique. Let me explain to our followers and our listeners that when two different prosecutorial agencies, in this case, the state of New York's Attorney General, Letitia James's office, and the Manhattan District Attorney, they almost never get together and do anything collaboratively because they fight over the same territory. They're really rivals when it comes to prosecutions, but they have taken the unusual step of creating a joint investigation. It's so joint that Letitia

James's assistant state attorneys have been assigned to work, at least two of them, directly in the office of the Manhattan District Attorney to coordinate all of the prosecutorial efforts against Trump and the Trump organization. So that's the first thing that is not usual. In fact, it is highly unusual that they would join forces like that. It's a terrible sign for Donald Trump and the Trump organization that these two powerhouse prosecutors have decided to join forces. The other thing that is terrible for him and great for us and the show followers is that the Trump Organization has been informed as of last week that they are now a target of a criminal investigation and prosecution. They're no longer a witness. That changes the calculus completely

for the interaction between the organization and its lawyers and the prosecutor. And now they've been told, yes, the bullseye of criminal prosecution is on Trump organization. And what does that mean, Trump organization? We're not talking about IBM or Oracle, where there's like 50 executives somewhere and an independent board of directors and publicly traded company. When you hear Trump organization, it's Trump, it's Don Jr., it's Eric, it's the daughter-in-laws, it's Ivanka. That's the Trump organization senior executives. That's who's out there. So that means all of them are also under criminal investigation, if you will, both personally, and we're going to talk about the

CFO for the Trump Organization, Weisselberg next, and as part of the overall investigation. That means grand jury are impaneled. They're looking at the Trump Organization and they're looking for the criminal prosecution that goes along with that. So tell us strategically what's going on here. We hear the name Allen Weisselberg, who was the Trump organization's chief financial officer. We hear that the prosecutors are looking at him, at Weisselberg's family, at his former daughter-in-law. I think her name is Jessica Weisselberg's family, at his former daughter-in-law. I think her name is Jessica Weisselberg. And I think strategically, we're seeing them look at how these individuals were

reporting income and whether they were receiving certain gifts and free benefits as part of the Trump organization that were not ultimately be reported. But that's really getting in the weeds, Michael. So why is this? Why do I care if I'm listening to this? If Weisselberg was staying in an apartment rent free, what does this have to do with the investigation of Donald Trump? Why am I hearing about his daughter-in-law? Or that Weisselberg's grandchildren had their private school prep tuition to the tune of half a million dollars paid by Donald Trump. Why does that matter? And just for our listeners, you know, you and I don't do any dress rehearsal before you and I get on and do this. This, you know, you and I are trial lawyers.

We live in a world of one take. This is one take. We talk topically about what we're going to discuss. But before you and I got on the show, we talked about this particular issue. And the prosecutors, to their credit and their talent, you're watching professional prosecutors at their highest level of ability use techniques and tactics that were developed in the mob prosecutions and the mafia prosecutions in the 70s and 80s and beyond against the Trump organization. What does that mean? It means they're going after these satellite people, these lesser known employees and witnesses, and they're trying

to squeeze them like grapes in order for them to turn on Trump and the family. And this is classic prosecutor technique. And we're seeing it. I mean, hats off to the prosecutor. So who are they going after? To get to Trump? They're not going after Don Jr., although Eric did give a deposition, which didn't get really reported about four or our media references, pop culture references, and the Untouchables, you saw how they went after Al Capone's accountant. And frequently, prosecutors go after the accountants and the financial people in order to get to the bottom of following the money, because the money trail is going to tell you if a crime has been committed. So who better to know the money trail of the Trump organization than like the 30 or 40 year CFO, chief financial officer, Weisselberg. So how do you get to Weisselberg? This is what the prosecutors are saying in their conference rooms, in their

offices. Well, let's go after the daughter-in-law. No, better, the ex-daughter-in-law, right, whose ex-husband works for the Trump organization, doing what? He manages the ice skating rink in Central Park, and he makes a couple hundred grand. So your listeners, our listeners might be thinking, well, who cares? Who cares is through the ex-daughter-in-law, through the son-in-law, they are now prosecuting Weisselberg himself for tax fraud related to payments made by the Trump organization to his grandchildren's private school, which is Columbia Prep for those that follow private school hierarchy here in New York. And why was that payment made? And why wasn't that reflected on somebody's tax return as income? Why are they doing that? Do they really care about what the little kids,

what private school they go to? No, but if they squeeze Weisselberg hard enough and they say you're facing jail time for your own tax fraud, turn on your boss, turn on Trump. That's what those in the know think is gonna happen. The daughter-in-law has gone on CNN and MSNBC and said she thinks her former father in law is going to cave and going to testify against Trump.

And woe be Trump when that happens, because you're talking about the CFO that knows where every financial body is buried in the organization. And this is Jennifer Weisselberg, the former daughter-in-law. She was married for 14 years to Barry Weisselberg, was the son of Weisselberg, who for two decades managed Trump organizations, businesses contracted out by New York City and Central Park, which I always found really weird, Popak, that when you went to Central Park, there's like a random rink there that just is called the Trump ice rink. And I'm like, why in the world is this even there? Can I give Trump one ounce of credit? Not really. I used to give him credit. I don't

give it to him anymore. That ice rink was falling down and falling apart. And the city of New York at the time couldn't figure out a way to put children on the ice. And Trump stepped forward because he wants to put his name on everything. And he said, I'll donate the money and I'll fix it. Just give me the contract. That's how it happened. I was really interested in having little kids learn how to ice skate. Trump was interested in putting his name in the middle of Central Park. One of the other real strange things here is that Jennifer Weisselberg, just the vast quantities, 25 years worth of bank records, credit cards, and tax records in her possession that she brought over to the deal. Ben, don't you have millions of pages of tax records for your future father-in-law? Don't you?

Why not? I just sitting in my garage. No, I think I have two of those expandable tables that turn into an outside table. I got that. I've got a few basketballs and I got my car. That's all I've got in the garage. Unfortunately, not or fortunately not 25 years worth of bank records. I said to you, I think I tweeted this a few weeks ago when I heard

that this ex-daughter-in-law was in the crosshairs and cooperating. I said, this is the beginning of the end of the Trump organization, because there's no person that cares less at that moment about her family than the ex-daughter-in-law. And if she is now cooperating, I mean, that is a potent weapon against the Trump organization, especially one that has all those tax records. And so another issue that arose that was discussed at length, as I think we are nearing closer to this Trump indictment, I think that Trump will be arrested at some point in, I think in 2021 is my own view. How about a week before the midterm election? That would be perfect. That would, but I think that, I really think it's coming sooner than later. I think it's happening

in 2021. I think that prosecutors would be wary of politicizing it by doing it that close because these people genuinely want the conviction. And I don't think they want the, Hey, was it politically motivated or, you know, I give you another reason you're right? There's a statute of limitations. And Cy Vance's office, the Manhattan District Attorney, is concerned about the statute of limitations on some of these crimes they're indicting. And they don't want to give him a pass by accident by letting the statute of limitations run. And so I think it's a good point there maybe to pause for a second and talk to our listeners about statute of limitations and what that means. A statute of limitation is the time period within which a claim can be brought against

an individual, a company, an entity. Now, statute of limitations exists on criminal prosecutions and criminal claims against people and entities, and it exists in civil. There are statute of limitations. Who sets the statute of limitations? Well, they are set by law. People, people make up what the statute of limitations are. There are legislation, legislatures meet and they set forth within their state constitutions or their state laws arising from their state constitutions at the federal level within federal law, what the statute of limitations are. Sometimes in federal courts, if there are state-related claims, the federal courts will borrow from what the state statutes of limitations are. But statute of limitations are very important because if you file that case, if it is a two-year statute of limitations, and you file your case two years and 30 seconds after two years, you don't have a case. Your case is thrown out. In almost every circumstance, there's almost no way to say, oops, I made a mistake there. And so one of the interesting things, and I don't want to go on a full tangent on statute

of limitations, but it's worth discussing with our listeners is how powerful interests or interests that have the ability to lobby legislators can often insulate their own industries with shorter statute of limitations. We often hear in medical malpractice cases, for example. Like in California, a medical malpractice case needs to be brought in one year from the date of the incident. Same thing with a legal malpractice case in the state of California. And here's another wild one. And it shows you that state legislatures passing law for the benefit of state legislatures. If you want to sue the municipalities, the government officials, with state law claims, you have six months to give notice of your intent to bring a claim. Now, unless you're like a true professional, how would you know if you went through some traumatic and catastrophic event six months from the date

of your incident that you need to hire a lawyer to bring claims against the government official? Yeah. So two things that I want to round it out on the criminal statute of limitations. So to your point, if our listeners go through the statute of their state and look at the various statute of limitations, you can tell which lobby groups were instrumental, why something's one year, two years, three years. If it's long, it means there wasn't a lobby group that lobbied hard for shorter statute of limitations. If it's short, it's because there was. Now on the criminal side, most of the things that Trump would be charged with would fall in New York under what I think would be like a three-year statute of limitations.

What prosecutors will do when they're up against the clock, because they have an event that happened three years and three weeks ago, and they're about three weeks away from the statute running and not being able to charge that crime, at least that incident, they will go to the defense lawyers and they will say, you got a choice. You either enter what's called a tolling agreement, which is where we agree to stop the clock on the statute of limitations, both sides. And we tell the judge that that's okay, or we're going to indict his ass on time in the next two weeks, your call. And that usually scares the crap out of the defense lawyers. And they will enter into tolling agreements because they don't

want to force the prosecutor to go run and indict their client. So in the real world, what's going to happen is as Cy Vance's office, and he's now going to be leaving the office, and as the New York attorney generals get really close to that statute of limitations, and that's coming up soon on some of these events, they're going to be in dialogue with the defense lawyers to enter into tolling agreements. And if the defense lawyers say, pound sand, we're not doing it, the indictment's really going to come out soon. And we'll be talking about this in three episodes from now. And a tolling agreement is a contract at the end of the day. It is a contract where two parties or more than two parties, but usually two parties agree to extend the length

of the statute of limitations, not necessarily extend it, but to stop it from running so that it does not expire. So that was our brief foray into statute of limitations. That's what I love about the show, Michael, that we have no preconceived idea that we're going to get into statute of limitations when we plan the show. But I think it's important that we hit on it. One area that we did want to talk about, though, is there was a lot of news about, well, if Trump is in Mar-a-Lago at the time he gets indicted, what if Governor DeSantis, who's a big Trump ally be moved, extradited to the other state to serve justice in the other state. Now, there are extradition treaties at an international level that are far more complex and sometimes more difficult, especially with non-ally nations, almost impossible sometimes

with non-ally nations, to extradite someone in a foreign country and bring them back to the United States. We could think about some of the difficulty even with extradition treaties with Mexico and how difficult it is sometimes for the United States to extradite some of the drug lords in Mexico and how it was such a significant event when El Chapo was extradited from Mexico to serve justice in the United States, where he was prosecuted in federal court in New York. And there are challenges with foreign extradition. Now, I think it was overblown some of the fears here stating that Governor DeSantis is not going to

prevent that from happening. Because I think when you break down the Constitution itself, and you literally look at Article 4, which is the extradition clause, I think it really sets forth that there's not really the discretion that some people claim. I agree. So Florida is a participant in the Interstate Extradition Act. When you are a participant in the Interstate Extradition Act, it says that you as a governor are going to respect the laws, of course, of the U.S. Constitution, the federal laws, and the laws of the Supreme Court of the United States. In a case in 1993 between the governor of Puerto Rico and the governor of Iowa, where the governor of Iowa refused to extradite a felon back to Puerto Rico, part of the United

States, the Supreme Court said, in essence, you can't do that. You need to turn over the felon, in this case, someone who's going to be indicted, to the state that has the interest in prosecuting that person. And so under all of that precedent, there's only one thing this governor can do. Florida has on its books, chapter 941 of the Florida statute, which says that if a governor would like to, it could separately investigate the request or the demand for the turnover of the citizen who happens to be in the state through its Department of Legal Affairs, who will issue a memo to the governor. But while all that is going on, the New York Attorney General and the Manhattan District Attorney goes into a federal

court in Palm Beach County, Florida, in West Palm Beach, where it sits, and convinces under all the precedent that we just cited, a federal judge there that this turnover should happen immediately. And the judge will issue what's called a writ of mandamus, which is an order of a federal judge that a governor or a sitting elected official be forced to do his job and turn over, in this case, the felon or the indicted person, if you will, in Trump's view. The other reason this is much ado about nothing is if it happens soon, Trump's not even in Florida. Trump has already moved. It's been in the media. He's already moved to Bedminster, New Jersey, and his other golf course. So the governor of New Jersey, Murphy,

is not a Trump supporter. He's a Democrat. He's going to turn over Trump in a heartbeat without having to go through a federal court process. But I think it ends with a federal judge ordering a governor, in this case DeSantis, to turn over Trump in whatever state Trump happens to be found in at the moment of indictment. I agree. You know, and oftentimes for someone like a Trump, his attorneys will probably work out in advance what choreographing the arrest and what that looks like to kind of avoid the scene of literally being, you know, you know, dragged out. I mean, you can say Trump's not like that, but he is a very vain man. I mean, it's an obvious point. Yeah, when push came to shove, he left the White House and was not dragged out because

when it comes down to it, he's a real wimp. Look, he would rather and his and his defense lawyers at the moment when if if the prosecutors give them the benefit and the luxury of telling them that and not pulling them out like Saddam Hussein out of a sewer pipe. But I'm not sure that they don't you and I in the criminal world call it the perp walk, the perpetrator walk. They may want the perp walk related to Trump in order to scare the crap out of all the other Trump people. And they may pull him out of wherever he's at at 6 o'clock, 6 a.m. Dawn raid a la the Giuliani subpoena execution. I'm not sure they're going to allow him to self-surrender

and come in on his own in the back door of the Manhattan DA's office or the jail at Rikers Island or wherever it's... By the way, that's where it is. I want to make this clear. This is a state prosecution, not a federal prosecution. He has to be booked ultimately as any other criminal. That's going to be through Rikers Island in New York, not even the federal detention center. I mean, that's no that's no paradise either. But Rikers is really bad. And if that's where he's going to have to get processed like any other criminal, there's no ex-president, you know, you know, dispensation.

You get to go and have it done at the Plaza Hotel. You get to do it right where every other criminal or potential criminal gets booked. I know that Trump and Rikers Island probably brought a huge smile to the faces of all those listening to this podcast. What's up, Midas Mighty? Thank you for making the Midas Touch merch store one of the, if not the most popular destination for pro-democracy merch from t-shirts to mugs, and of course, the best-selling vaxxed wristbands. I can't wait to be out in town getting coffee, getting dinner, whatever it is, and seeing people rocking their wristbands. These wristbands are amazing because it's an easy way to let people know that you've been vaxxed and are following CDC guidelines.

They say Midas Touch right there on them. You know what we like to call them? The perfect GQP repellent. That's exactly what they are, Brett, because it lets people know, to your point, that one, you're vaxxed, you're making a safe community for the folks around you. And two, maybe even more importantly, right up there, you're not a Fox News watcher. That's what these wristbands let people know. And let's be real. It's just a matter of respect, right? We're all going out. A lot of people are going to be kind of uneasy being around other people after being locked in for a while. And lot of people are going to be kind of uneasy being around other people after being locked in for a while. And it's an easy way to just let your neighbors know,

let your friends know, let your overworked barista know that, hey, I followed the guidelines. I'm vaxxed. You don't have to worry about me. We're all in this together. And so you could get your vaxxed wristbands at store.midastouch.com. If you're still masking up, you can get your Vax and Relax masks at midastouch.com. We got all Vax and Relax gears. We got koozies, which are going to be great for summer. I'm excited for summer right now with the Midas Touch merch. And I've seen people showing us photos that they're receiving their tank tops and everything. So go check out store.midastouch.com.

Get your pro-democracy gear today. That's store.midastouch.com. Get your pro-democracy gear today. That's store.midastouch.com. Talking about the perp walk or the perv walk, we have, of course, the guilty plea of Joel Greenberg, the tax assessor out in Florida who was a former Matt Gaetz associate-build parties with Greenberg and using online apps to solicit and pay for prostitutes on a regular basis. I mean, at a political level, Matt Gaetz has far more support of the Republican Party than Liz Cheney. Like, let's just say that and how crazy that concept is.

I almost fell out of my chair, but you're right. Even if you removed what we're about to talk about, Matt Gaetz is a fucking idiot. This is not a smart human being. This is an ideologically dumb, philosophically empty, just hollow, immature, dumb man, dumb person. And then and then we get to the fact that what we definitely know, what the Republicans definitely know, setting aside the criminal stuff we're about to talk about. I believe it is an undisputed fact. Gates, hookers, cocaine, that was just normal doing business for essentially the leader. He's a leader of the Republican Party in the House. They're not even talking about that. This is why I'm happy being a Democrat. Sometimes it frustrates the shit out of me being a Democrat. I mean, we have a case like where a Democrat, Al Franken, right, a Democrat

senator who took a stupid photo where he was joking in the photo while he was a comedian, not as a politician. And Democrats say, get the fuck out of our party. We don't want that in our party. And the and the Republicans pound in and they go, that man should that that that should go out to, you know, he should leave. And Democrats, you know, get rid of someone like that. Like to me, that's how extreme the litmus test is. And then the Republicans say they're the family value parties for the Democrats. That photo was like we want a progressive champion to get out of the party because 25, 30 years ago, he took that photo. party in two seconds if there was a congressman who engaged in anything that looked like this. We would have an investigation. We would force him to resign tomorrow. And that's why we should proudly proclaim as Democrats we're the family value party because the Republicans, they support

this guy. They support Gates. Yeah, I was going to say, I've got a New York governor who's under double the prosecution investigation backed by the New York Attorney General dashed because of this stupid photo when he was on Saturday Night Live performing for the troops. But instead, the Republicans, you know, Gates and Marjorie Taylor Greene are out on some tour, Make America great tour. I mean, if this was like in a movie from the 1990s, you click it off immediately. Like this is so bizarre that the party would support these two people as their leaders and then throw Liz Cheney, who's the daughter of somebody that would have been on Mount Rushmore for the Republicans just seven or eight years ago. They throw her out of the tent. They throw her out of the

tent. They throw her out of leadership. They say, you're not our kind of Republican because you won't endorse the big lie that Trump lost the election or won the election. And they support these people. This is why we're going to win the midterm elections, by the way. Trump won't go away. And that's a good thing because it's great for the Democrats, because the independents, it's not you and I. We know you and I know who we're voting for already. And it's not the Republican, the real true conservative Republicans. They know who they're voting for. We're aiming for the independents. And the independents have got to be scratching their head and rolling their eyes over the Republican Party right now and its leadership. Yeah. And I want to say that a lot of the quote unquote true Republicans are not Republicans anymore. This Republican Party is Lincoln Project did a good ad on this. They're like the Republican Party is you mentioned that tour with Gates and Marjorie Taylor

Greene. We learned from the Dominion voting lawsuit, and I just want to touch on it for just a brief minute, that Sidney Powell, according to Dominion, was diverting a ton of this money that was purportedly for the election in her support of the big lie, devoting that to her own personal coffers so that she could defend herself and basically pay herself in some of the accusations by Dominion. And what's crazy about the Sidney Powell tour, she's speaking, I think, in Dallas soon, is that they're selling VIP tickets and regular tickets going for $500 per person, VIP tickets, $1,000 to $5,000 to see these QAnon. There's a guy who calls himself QAnon John. And QAnon John and Sidney go up there and they spew these absurd, bizarre conspiracy and lies. But I'm going on a tangent

here. This is becoming like that brother podcast that people like. Let me bring it back to the legal side of it. What does this guilty plea from Joe Greenberg mean for Matt Gaetz? Okay. So you got Greenberg on one side, former Seminole, Florida, Seminole County, Florida tax assessor. The feds brought 27 charges against him focused on sex trafficking. And what we referred to at our last or a couple of podcasts ago as the Mann Act, which is transporting a young woman across state lines for commercial purposes, in this case, a commercial sex act. They got it down to six really bad federal crimes that Greenberg was forced to plead to. He's now a felon. They include the sex trafficking. And, you know, in the 100-page

report that went with his plea deal, or the plea deal, I think it's 86 pages. They talk about how he participated in this sugar daddies and sugar babies, you know, kind of wealthy type white guys trying to get underage women to to not only hang out with them, but have sex with them. So we're talking rape, right? Rape in exchange for something of value, which is where the federal crime also comes in. And the problem for, the big problem for Gates is if you read the sentencing or the plea deal, I mean, they don't mention Gates by name, but they do say that Greenberg will ultimately testify and has testified to them, to the prosecutors, about other men who have participated with him in giving something of value to a woman under age for sex, and including that it happened in the middle district of Florida, which is where Orlando is located. And we do know from Gates

and from Greenberg that they took some of these women, of all places, to Disney World and the amusement parks there, if you can believe it. And so Gates is in big trouble. He's in bigger trouble because Greenberg has an obligation under his prosecution deal to cooperate and give evidence and testimony at future prosecutions of other individuals. He can then take the jail sentence because what he's looking at with the six counts that Greenberg has pled guilty to is about 10 years of a minimum sentence. But that can go up or down depending upon his level of cooperation. If he gives up Gates and anybody higher than Gates or another elected official, you'll see ultimately Greenberg will get sentenced in two or three months

to maybe two years, maybe a year and a half, maybe probation. It depends on how much he's given up. And we're now going to introduce a new concept to our listeners of queen for a day. The prosecutors meet with somebody, usually who's facing indictment or has been indicted, and they let them speak without threat of future prosecution. They give them what's called a queen for a day pass. You're queen for the day. Tell us anything you want to tell us about people's criminal behavior. And even if you were involved in it, we won't prosecute you based on what you tell us. We may prosecute you independently from evidence that we've developed independent from your

queen for a day interview, but we won't prosecute you. And a lot of defense lawyers want to put their client in a situation of getting what's called qualified immunity or queen for a day because they get it in exchange for something. In this case, dropping 21 counts from the indictment against Joel Greenberg. The reports are that Greenberg was queen for a day at least half a dozen times in interviews. And so he's given up the goods on other people like Matt Gates. Matt Gates should not be out on tour. He should be hunkered down somewhere with his defense team because he's probably going to be indicted and arrested. And that will be a perp walk. They're

not going to allow Matt Gates to self-surrender somewhere at some middle of the night without reporters present. He's being taken out bodily by wherever he's sitting. It just shows you the entitlement and privilege and just lack of self-awareness of this current GQP where Matt Gaetz is out and about. When we're talking about minors, as you mentioned, Mike, we're talking about rape. We're talking about sexual assault. And we have these GQP members who are out and about and they are partying it up, living it up. I mean, we talked about Liz Cheney before and the main congressional candidate I tweeted about this got a lot of attention, my tweet, but the story got a lot of attention because it's so fucking baffling what's going on there the main congressional candidate um uh to replace liz

cheney out in wyoming he raped and impregnated during the rape a 14 year old girl who he then married because of what transpired. They divorced. She committed suicide. She died of suicide a few years after that. The son that they had is currently facing charges in California for sexual assault and rape. And this is an individual who goes and runs for Congress. This is an individual who puts himself out there as the prime candidate for the GQP and says, hey, I'm here.

This is someone who thinks that that's not even an issue because he thinks that he can get ahead of that. Yeah. Because in his party it isn't you any any sane dignified human being first of all any sane dignified human being wouldn't have raped a 14 year old girl okay they certainly wouldn't think hey here's a good idea i'll run for public office i'll just i'll just acknowledge it like I don't know. I'll get in front of it. That's the way I get in front of the story. I'll admit that a poor woman was raped by me and committed suicide.

And my party and that electorate will still support me. That is I mean, what does that say about your party? And here's the thing. Here's the thing. Then people from the party came in and said that he is qualified because she didn't have an abortion. That's what people actually said who are leaders in that party after he came out and said that. Mostly all of the same people, same people, same people, people looked at that, you know, and said, what in the fuck is this? But that GQP, that base, they're all supportive of it. And Popak, that's why you're right.

That is why Democrats are going to win in 2022. Oh, yeah. Because there are there is a group of normal people and we're not out there dressed as fucking barbarians at the gate. We don't wear horns on our heads. We're not fucking, you know, holding thin blue flags, you know, out and out and about.

We're not taking our Jeeps in propaganda parades in Beverly Hills. Like we don't do shit like that. Okay. We're doing work. We're in offices. We're raising families. You know, we're in relationships. We're trying to be happy. We're doing yoga. Like we're out doing crazy shit. And, you know, I think there is a larger population, but where we can't be is quiet because we see historically we see when you look internationally, the the problems where the majority of normal, the majority of progressives of human rights allows a small minority of crazies to take over. It's not too dissimilar to the Taliban. It's not too dissimilar, you know, what happened, you know, in, you know, in Iran, you know, and how the government took over there. I mean, there this it's not too dissimilar, you know, in Iraq with

someone like a Saddam Hussein, you know, who's able to take over the larger population. I mean, unfortunately, we've seen over the past four years, we're susceptible to authoritarianism, to fascism in our country. So we have to be vigilant. But I agree, Mike, there's more normal people. Talking about the Greenberg case just briefly, and then going to pivot away from that. It has a mandatory minimum sentence of Greenberg of 10 years. But based on the queen for a day, based on the cooperation, Popak, that you just discussed, there is a way to do a downward departure if prosecutors recommend that he receives less than the minimum, even though there's a mandatory minimum there. That brings us to the Derek Chauvin prosecution, Michael, and there something different's happening. Yeah. So we've talked and we've touched on a couple of podcasts, the

minimum, the sentencing guidelines, right? Every state and the federal system has a sentencing guidelines that are developed by criminologists, ex-judges, lawyers. They sit on committees and they create these rule books, if you will, that go to judges and judges have to use. And the reason for it is, just to bring it around to public policy, is that we used to live in a day where judges, depending upon which judge you got, which state you were in, what color you were, that was going to determine how big of a sentence you got. And there was a disproportionate, which comes as no surprise, there was a disproportionate sentencing for Black and Brown and other ethnic groups that white people were not suffering at the

hands of judges in the South and in other places. So to sort of make this more level, like if you smoked crack or you got caught with a crack pipe in Idaho, why was that two years? And if it happened in Alabama, why were you going away for 30 years? So these different court systems through their governments created sentencing guidelines. And they sound like they are guidelines, but the judges have to really follow them. It's almost mandatory. Don't be fooled by the word guidelines. And they look it up on a chart. Okay, this crime, first degree murder, third degree felony, sex trafficking, whatever the crime is, they go to the book, they run their finger down one side, they go across the other, and it says this is the minimum sentence for that crime. However, there's always aggravating factors and

mitigating factors. Mitigating factors are factors that go towards departure. We talked about with Greenberg, things where you're helping the prosecutor, you're helping him get bigger fish. Therefore, you're going to get less than the minimum. But if you do things that make your crime really bad, that's called aggregating factors. In the case of Minnesota and the judge there looking at the trial of the Chauvin trial, the judge has determined based on an application by the prosecutors that there's at least four aggravating factors that he is going to find are present in order to allow him to ultimately sentence Chauvin for more than the minimum. The minimum looks to be about 12 and a half years. Again, our followers are going to say 12 and a half years for

killing George Floyd and how it happened. That sounds ludicrous. And the judge has said, I have listened to the evidence because I want to remind the listeners, we talked about this a couple of podcasts ago. Chauvin waived the right to have the jury sentence him or have the jury determine the factors. Frankly, he was, I'm sure, afraid that if things went south for him, which they did, and he got convicted on every count, that that same jury would also nail him on the factors. And he figured, well, let's take a little time off and let's see if a judge, we can do better arguing the law in front of a judge. So he waived the right to have the jury decide these things. So the judge, Cahill in this case, is, he said, judge, I trust you. You decide the four factors or the five factors. The judge came back and said, okay, I listened to the evidence. And I think beyond a reasonable doubt that you,

that four of the factors are present and there should be an upward or increase in your sentence. And just to go over the factors, the judge found that on a beyond a reasonable doubt, that Chauvin inflicted gratuitous pain and psychological trauma, not just on Floyd, that obviously happened in crushing him to death, But in the bystanders, all those witnesses that testified that when they were filming what happened on their cell phones, they felt powerless to intercede and stop the murder from happening. That poor woman who testified that she can't sleep at night because she thinks about George Floyd every day, that she didn't step in and try to fight for police officers off and save his life as if

that would have worked. Those bystanders were also psychologically traumatized and damaged. And the judge said that's a factor that's going to increase the sentence. He also said that because these were police officers, there's been an abuse of trust. And so he found the abuse of trust factor present. He also said there was more than one person involved in committing the crime. That would be the other three officers that were involved. So you take all of that together and it looks to me, and we'll have to see when the sentencing happens, and it's now been delayed until after I think the federal civil rights trial takes place, but that judge is probably going

to throw the book at Chauvin, rightfully so. And it could be a 30-year or 40-year sentence. It will never be a life sentence. So I want to prepare and manage expectations for our listeners. It's not going to be a life sentence. It's not going to probably be sentences that are added together, like 30 years for the murder and 20 years for the manslaughter and 10 years for the reckless homicide, it's not going to happen that way because the presumption is under the Minnesota sentencing guidelines that you put all these things together and you sentence it on one concurrent sentence. So the most he's going to get is 30, but let's get to 30 at least and not 12 and a half where he gets out

after eight or nine for good behavior. That's what's going to happen when the sentencing happens in a few months. So based on the second degree murder conviction, if there was not a upward departure, if there were not these aggravating factors, then Chauvin would be serving max 12 and a half years. Because of the existence of these aggravating factors, it is likely to be significantly longer than that. Let me clarify that because some of our listeners do do their research and then they start tweeting to us. Second degree murder in Minnesota is 40 years, but a first time offender, which is what it is. Now, some of us say, who cares if it was his first time he murdered somebody. But a first time offender for a crime is given a little bit of a

pass. And that's where Ben's coming up with the 12 and a half. But it's 40 for second degree murder. It's 25 for third degree murder, and it's 10 for the manslaughter charge. But Ben's right. It would be 12 and a half based on first time offender, unless there's these upward departure aggravating factors, which the judge has now found present. Derek Chauvin is 45 years old. So a sentence up to, you 30 years would be a significant sentence. I think anything above 20, I think he should serve life in prison. But knowing that it was a 12 and a half years presumptive based on everything you've discussed, 20, 30 years would be a positive result in that state, given the guidelines taking place. I want to talk briefly about cyber ninjas. I like our cyber ninjas update. I want to talk about Roe v. Wade

and whether the recent case that the Supreme Court will be taking really poses an existential threat to Roe v. Wade. And before doing that, though, I'd like to plug my law firm and Popak's law firm, because I really genuinely appreciate that we're actually getting a lot of emails, phone calls, particularly emails, though, from Legal AF listeners. Honestly, feel free to email us. I mean, there will be lots of people to tell you, we genuinely respond to these emails and if we can help, we'll try to help. And if we can't help, we, you know, we, we will tell you that we can't help, but you have probably gone through something or you have a family member or a friend or a colleague or someone that you know who's been injured. And that injury could be a car accident. That injury could be an issue at work, a wrongful termination. It could be a breach of a contract. It could be a corporate dispute.

It could be a defamation. It could be a number of things that you're going through. And that's the kind of stuff that Popak and I handle. Particularly, I do lots of cases where I represent victims of sexual assault, victims who have been sexually harassed in the workplace, corporate environments, other environments, people who have been harassed from religious institutions, you name it. I handle those type of catastrophic, very difficult, challenging, tragic, sad cases. And so if you need legal help, and if you're looking for a lawyer, you're not happy with your existing representation,

just feel free to reach out to me. My email is ben at garrigos.com. That's ben at garrigos, G-E-R-A-G-O-S, Ben at Geragos.com. And Popak, you want to give your email address? Yeah, it's Mpopak at ZP, Z like zebra, P like Peter, law.com. I guess the only difference between our two practices is I don't do much of the catastrophic injury or accident type cases. Products liability. Sure. I'm more of the business dispute, business tort, employment law cases. That's where I have a national trial practice. And that's where I do business consultancy related to that. Other than that, I think there's a lot of overlap between

Ben and my practice, which is why we do cases together. Yeah, email us both. You'll get both of us. Going to Cyber Ninjas, the Cyber Ninja story. I say I love talking about this story only because I like them. You just like Cyber Ninjas. They're the least ninja group in the world. Ninjas are supposed to be careful, fast, discreet, all of those things. And this would be like if cyber ninjas, I have a lot of jokes and I don't want to offend any individuals out there, but cyber ninjas would be if someone who does not know how to use computers. So there's no cyber aspect and someone who's incredibly slow so that they're not ninjas and incredibly incompetent. That would be what cyber ninjas should basically be.

And from the outset, we've told you they're conducting a fake audit in Arizona. It's a complete embarrassment to the state. They're supposed to be focused on Maricopa County. This group called Cyber Ninjas, they're based out of Florida. That shouldn't shock you that they're out of Florida, but they've never really done any election auditing before. They have no clue what they're doing. So of course, the Arizona Republican Senate just says, hey, group that has no clue what they're doing. Why don't because we've made up fake concerns about the integrity of elections. Why don't we just give you the voting machines and just here you go.

You tell us you can get this done in a short period of time. Oh, absolutely. Just take our take our voting machines, cyber ninjas. Oh, no one else that actually has done this work before wants to do it because they know it's all bullshit here. Cyber ninjas just take our voting machines. And look, a lot of even Republican Arizona county officials, election officials, you know, we're saying don't give them the machine. They're the Arizona secretary of state.

Yeah. Don't give them the machines. They're going to they're going to fuck up the machines like and you're going to just ruin all of the equipment because these people have no clue what they're doing. Sure enough, the group has no clue what they're doing. You know, they have no tactics. They have no real handbook. All of everything that everyone warned was going to happen pretty much came true. It's all made up fugazi, not bagazi, but fugazi, just weird bullshit. They talk about analyzing for bamboo and having certain cameras try to detect bamboo traces. Just very weird, bizarre QAnon conspiracies. It's not exaggeration. That's what they're analyzing. And weirdly stereotypical. Everything that comes from Asia is going to have bamboo on it. Exactly. It's just so, so strange, but here's what we we've also, so a few things

have happened. Um, they did not complete whatever they are trying to do in the time period. So they've had to move out of those facilities. Um, so there's equipment in random locations right now, which is incredibly problematic. And then also the Cyber Ninja Group did not handle the chain of custody in any appropriate manner or any manner at all. And so the machines that had to be turned over are, in the eyes of the Secretary of State and election officials in Arizona, completely corrupted now. So all of the things that the states do to actually protect free and fair elections, all of the certification processes and things that serious people do, literally the GQP just destroyed in their fake support, well, in their support of the big lie

and support of their fake issues. So I want to know who's going to. So you're right. And the secretary of state, who's a Republican of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, she's now made the decision that 400 voting machines are going to be decommissioned because she doesn't believe because they weren't properly, as you said, a chain of custody. They were tampered. She doesn't know if they were tampered with. There's no record keeping being done by cyber ninjas. She doesn't know what they've done to them. So she's not going to allow those machines, which are the heart of the voting process, to be used in the future because she can't guarantee that they haven't been tampered with by the cyber ninjas.

Who's going to pay? Is it the Republicans of the state of Arizona? I hope to God it's it the Republicans of the state of Arizona? I hope to God it's not the taxpayers of the state that are going to pay for the 400 new machines that have to be acquired in order to replace those. Republicans in the Senate and the House in Arizona are just going to say, oh, sorry. Sorry, we just, we screwed the pooch and, you know, destroyed 400 machines in effect. We're not paying for that. I mean, this fraud it. I know that's what they've been calling it on Twitter.

This fraud it in Arizona. For what purpose? And the scary part then, is I don't know if you caught it a few days ago, there's a rumor that other states are gonna hire cyber ninjas to do the same fraud it there because Trump is forcing them to do it. Why this guy continues to

hold sway over the party when he's a dead bang loser in the election? I don't know. It's great for us. It's great for the Democrats. It's great for midterm elections. The more Trump won't go away, the better it is for the Democrats to attract independent votes. That's why even, you know, they, of course, the Republicans don't want the, the January 6th blue ribbon panel to investigate what happened because they don't want it on, they got to start helping to protect the brand, but the brand's in tatters because of cyber ninjas and the Matt Gaetz's and QAnon. And, you know, why would any self-respecting patriot want to cast in their lot right now, the Republican Party? But I want to make one thing clear, because you and I talked about legal affairs and political affairs and the intersection

between the two. I want, and so do you, I know it, a healthy Republican Party to be on the other side. I want to live in a world of a two-party system where there are diplomats and statesmen and patriots on both sides, and we can agree to disagree in a civil discourse and restore values, patriotic values in America. I want to live in that world. And there is one party that continues to occupy that space. It's the Democratic Party. We don't have another party on the other side. The other party on the other side is in bizarro world. And this is why they're going to lose national elections time and time again. However, they are winning state houses.

And that's where our listeners have to have to take up their take up the cause, because state houses and state governor races are really, really important when it comes to election law and voting and ballots. That's where it support, that the result is going to be basically the United States version of the Taliban taking over the United States. Even if that basically means that by creating the appropriate two-party system, that there's no need for Midas Touch to sound the alarm. I think I would be ultimately okay with, I mean, I would definitely be okay with that because we originated just out of the view that there's fascism, that our country can legitimately be destroyed. And before that, we had some bad Republican leaders, really horrible people. I dislike 99.9% of the things that Liz Cheney says when you really start breaking it down.

It's some crazy shit. But at the end of the day, I'm not worried that she wants to literally destroy our constitution, our laws. I'm not afraid that she literally wants to turn the keys of our country over to Vladimir Putin and to the Russians and to have our country literally be taken over. And with this current GQP, I genuinely feel that way. The explanations are twofold. These are incredibly, horribly weak, thin-skinned, dumb fucks, number one. Or two, they are legitimately foreign assets. That's it. And sometimes you think that, wait a minute, they must hate the country with all of the things they're doing. They don't want a January 6th commission to do an

investigation. Wait a minute. Weren't these the people who claimed on January 6th and they've been saying that the agitators were Antifa? Well, if that was your lie, why wouldn't you want the investigation to take place if that's what your claim was? I thought the news story was now they were just on tours like any other tour of the Capitol. Well, that's the thing is that it's just such phony, disingenuous garbage that comes from this other party, this GQP party that is anathema to the law, anathema to what we studied in law school, the rules, the upward, downward departures, constitution. It doesn't matter to these GQP because what they want is a white supremacy, authoritarian, Hitler style, fascist version in the United States. That is what they are hungry for. You know, pivoting to our, yeah.

Yeah, good. Before you get, before we get to Roe v. Wade, which is really important. Look, you know, we'd like doing some pop culture references. In the 1960s, during the Cold War, there were a series of books and movies that anticipated your very set of fears and observations. You know, Manchurian candidate and movies, you know, starring, you know, Charlton Esther to Burt Lancaster, where presidents went crazy and try to take over the country with despotism and fascism. And you watch those movies at the time. And I was a big fan of those movies as they were so interesting. And you watch and you're like, oh, that'll never happen. And, you know, we're on the cusp. We were on the cusp

with the Trump administration of entering into the world of fascism. We were going to have a group of people in the United States that were not going to allow the peaceful transfer of power. And instead, we're going to fight their way through to make sure against the Constitution that somebody sat in that chair and served as president. There's no more chilling event in my lifetime, in my lifetime, and I've been voting for 40 years, than what's transpired over the last four. It is beyond chilling and why the fight must continue. I want to conclude the podcast by talking about Roe v. Wade. We talked last week about precedent and the view that the Supreme Court would follow precedent. And if there were departures from precedent, make a very detailed finding and explanation why. We spoke last week about a case involving guns where the Supreme Court had overturned existing precedent to allow the proliferation of more guns without giving any nod or explanation to why they did it, which was unheard of. We knew that this Supreme Court that now has six people who tilt Republican,

not tilt, six people who are diehard, five that are diehard Republicans, Roberts, on abortion rights issues and some other social issues, has tended to vote with the justices who were appointed by Democrats. But we have at least a 5-4 here, almost automatic, of judges who are keen on overturning Roe v. Wade. These are the ramifications of the last election. And to a lot of people who called themselves progressives, a lot of people who supported the right of a woman to choose, who refused to vote or thought Hillary Clinton was not the perfect candidate for them or who criticized her for this, that and the other. I believe Roe v. Wade will be overturned. I don't want to just that simple. There's no nuance in my discussion, the court, Supreme Court, recently granted a review in a case called Dobbs versus Jackson's Women's Health Organization,

which is a challenge to the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that with limited exception bars abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. Under Roe v. Wade, that law in Mississippi would be unconstitutional, period. And under Casey versus Planned Parenthood, the related case to Roe v. Wade. And Dobbs v. Jackson will find, in my view, the Mississippi law to be constitutional, and it will say states have the right, have the right to pass these laws. What do you think, Michael? Yeah, this is one where I'd rather not agree with you, but I'm going to probably have to. Just the fact that the Supreme Court, with its six to three composition, with Coney Barrett now and Cavanaugh and Gorsuch, which is a completely different

court than even 10 years ago. The fact that they even took the review, because they could have, they could have refused to call the case up to the Supreme Court. They could have just said, no, the law of the land is Roe v. Wade as modified by Casey versus Planned Parenthood. And, you know, we're not, you know, the lower court already decided that the 15 week, no abortion after 15 week rule in Mississippi was unconstitutional. That's what the lower court said. Because it was following the precedent. So I want to make it clear. It's not that a Mississippi federal court took a look at the law and said, no, that seems fine to me. Outlaw abortions. That sounds good. The trial judge did the right thing. That the Supreme Court is calling it up to be heard at the Supreme Court level bodes terribly for Roe v. Wade because it's obviously, to court watchers like you and I, it's obviously a signal that there are enough votes on the Supreme Court of the nine to reconsider the fundamental precepts and underpinnings of Roe v. Wade and the fundamental right to choose of a woman. they wouldn't have called it up. And they look, they've been trying to find a test case,

the quote unquote conservatives for years so that everyone knows as soon as Kavanaugh, forget Coney Barrett, as soon as Kavanaugh was put in his chair, state houses, Republican state houses around the country started passing stringent anti-abortion laws. All of them. I mean, there's like 15 or 18 that came out of the box because they had Kavanaugh. Then they got Coney Barrett. And now another five or six fell into place. So you've got like 23 states in the country that have tried in the last year to pass the most stringent anti-abortion laws in the country. If successful, just to put a fine point on this, right now, statistically, a woman anywhere in the United States is within one hour of finding an abortion clinic if she so chooses. If these laws are upheld and it basically becomes a two, we become a country divided where there's 15 or 16 liberal states, if you will, that allow abortion and 23 other, all the red states that don't.

That a woman's going to be three to 400 miles away from being able to take advantage or to use the services of a clinic. And that will change the top of the list. And the next step is going to be that they will then criminalize a woman leaving their state to get it done in another state. Well, then now you're in the world of barely fiction on television, you know, in a state preventing, I think that's against the Constitution, but a state preventing somebody from leaving to get an abortion. If that happens, you know, this is the ramifications the Supreme Court has to consider. And what's problematic here is that although Roberts has been, in the last time they looked at abortion, in the majority to support Roe v. Wade, the center will not hold here because the tug of war is so firmly over on the other side, on the conservative side, that even Roberts is not going to be able to hold this together. He'll just

be in a 5-4 loss unless he convinces, it's probably, to be frank, it's probably Gorsuch. If he can get Gorsuch, who's had some liberal decisions about gay marriage, if he can get him over, he's never going to get Coney Barrett, the Catholic from University of Notre Dame, who's already talked about life and the Roe v. Wade decision before she got on the court. She's never going to go with the right to life group. I'm sorry, the right to choice group. So he's got to focus all of his attention and all of his political capital, if you will, as chief justice on Gorsuch. If he can get Gorsuch over the way Kennedy used to go over, then there's a hope that Roe v. Wade survives. But if not, I agree with you, it's dead. And we're going to be letting

the states handle this. And the weird thing is, just to leave it on this, the weird thing is that public perception of a woman's right to choose has been growing over time since 1973. It's not like we've gotten more conservative as a people and we're against abortion or a woman's right to choose. If you look at the statistics, people are in favor of it. But if you do it state by state and Republican statehouse by Republican statehouse, we're going to end up in a two-country solution. It's no solution at all, sort of like Brown versus the Board of Education, where we have apartheid of abortion in the southern states and it being allowed in the northern states. Well, we will keep you updated

on the progress of this particular case, Dobbs v. Jackson. We will keep you updated on all of the legal developments coming up. And we appreciate you tuning in to Midas Touch Legal AF Analysis Friends with Ben Mycelis and Michael Popock. Please let us know what you thought about the podcast, what you thought about our new time on Sundays. We hope you like it on Sundays. We'll tell the suits that we either want to keep it on Sundays or we should move it back during the week. But this has been my Celis and Michael Popak again, thanking you so much for your support. We hope you've learned something new today and we hope you will go out there and fight

with us for our democracy. Thanks for listening.