Legal AF by MeidasTouch - BREAKING: Trump Criminal Trial gets MAJOR UPDATE in New Hearing

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

Michael Popok of Legal AF reports on today’s breaking news in trump’s criminal trial in New York. The court set the criminal trial date for the middle of republican primary season, and told Trump to his face that he (and his family) are prevented from posting the documents and evidence the Manhattan DA gives him for his defense to any social media platform, while what trump can and can’t say about the trial was also discussed. This is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://BetterHelp.com/LEGALAF today to get 10% off your first month and get on your way to being your best self! SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Michael Pope, like legal AF. You know what today is? Big red letter day on Donald Trump's calendar. He's got so many of them. Today's the day he had a beam in by video into a New York criminal courthouse and courtroom for Judge Juan Mershon to be read aloud the protective order

that Juan Mershon entered on the eighth of May and have him acknowledge under oath that he understood everything the judge was telling him in reading him the riot act about the use of information and documents. He obtains as as part of being a criminal defendant. There's so many firsts with Donald Trump, you know, first president to ever be twice impeached, first ex president to ever be indicted. And now we have a new first today.

It's like watching a perverse evil LeBron James. Every day he takes the court, he sets a new record. Donald Trump, first ex president to ever appear in a video or any other type of hearing with a criminal court judge about his own indictment. That's what we had today. Big news though, and I'll, is not only the reading of the protective order by Judge Mershon and the whole theatrics of Donald Trump with a couple of flags draped behind them with his lead criminal defense lawyer, Todd Blanch. You thought I was going to say Joe Takapina, right? Not Joe Takapina, Todd Blanch with his other lawyer, Susan Neckless, in the courtroom. We'll talk about the the the the the atrix of that of this former disgrace defraught former

president twice in peach now indicted acting like he's still a president in inside of some sort of oval office setting at Mar-a-Lago. But that aside for a minute. But the big news, we got a trial date. We have a trial date for the criminal trial. Another first criminal trial of an ex president. It is going to be March of the 25th, 325, 24 if you're playing at home. And guess what else just happens to be happening, then, um, he primaries. It's the primary season. So while Donald Trump or any other candidate would normally be preparing for the electorate in the primaries to go to the polls in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio, Donald Trump's got to get ready for a criminal trial.

And there's no way around it because that calendar is known by the judge. The judge told the parties pick a date that works. This is the date that the two parties, the prosecutor and the defense came up with. It's gonna be a two or three week trial. I'm sure starting March the 25th. So put that on your calendars. Now, for those that are interested,

and I think it is interesting, I'm gonna read for a minute the highlights of the order interesting. I'm going to read for a minute the highlights of the order that Judge Mershon issued on the 8th and red to Donald Trump to have him acknowledge today, just the highlights, please. So the court found that there was good cause exists for an order to restrict, defer, and make such order with respect to disclosure, which is documents provided by the Manhattan DA and inspection of discoverable materials and information. And basically it says that any documents that are provided to Donald Trump go through his defense counsel, most of the documents, they have to babysit Donald Trump and sit

there while he reviews the materials, because we all know what happened at Mar-a-Lago with documents that suddenly disappeared into his hands, sticky fingers in his hands. So that's not going to happen again, and the court's going to hold the lawyers for him responsible if anything goes missing or is disseminated to anybody else. And this is what the court said on that. It is ordered that any person who receives the covered materials, that's you, Donald Trump, and his lawyers shall not copy, disseminate or disclose those materials in any form or means

to any third party except to his defense lawyers, including but not limited to by disseminating or posting those materials to any news or social media platforms, including but not limited to truth social judge actually put truth social into the order so that there be no mistake or confusion by Donald Trump and Facebook Instagram WhatsApp Twitter Snapchat or YouTube without prior approval from the court. Also the disclosure, it is also order that that the disclosure of the names and identifying information of New York County district attorney's personnel other than sworn members of law enforcement, assistant assistant district attorneys and expert or

fact witnesses shall be delayed until the commencement of jury selection and the people of the state of New York shall be permitted to redact that information. So the judge is protecting the identity of those people that work in the Manhattan DA's office. And they're and all of, except for the fact witnesses and the expert witnesses, because those are gonna be publicly provided to Donald Trump and we're all gonna know about that.

Then there's a subset of materials that Donald Trump can only look at through his defense lawyers because nobody trusts Donald Trump. Today's legal AF is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's so easy to get caught up in what everyone else needs from you and never take a moment to think about what you need from yourself. I know in my own life I'm dealing with a lot of different pressures. Family, friends, my podcast colleagues and work.

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dis abuse everybody of one kind of concept that was going on around there around around out there. There is no gag order. We'd like one, but the the judge kind of weighing the equities of, you know, a guy running for office against, in his own First Amendment rights to defend himself with his constant abuse and destruction of societal and judicial norms, and the way he came up with it is this. Donald Trump is not to say things that would lead the reasonable person to believe

it would cause civil unrest like Jen Sixth. But short of that, he's going to be able to bash away just like he did the day after the protective order was just was originally issued on the 8th of a May. And he went out and gave a speech where he attacked the judge as being a Trump-pating judge with a Trump-pating wife and a Trump-pating daughter and all of that. I mean, that was right after he got the word that the protective order was issued. And so he's, you know, like a child putting his hand on the stove. And that doesn't work, putting his face on the stove.

That's where that's what Donald Trump is going to do. And the judge is going to be patient and sober and not let his blood pressure go up and not let his heart skip more than the regular amount of beats when Donald Trump acts crazy. And the crazier that Donald Trump acts, the more calm Judge Mershon is going to act, which is really what you want from a judge, right? You want temperate, judicious, salamonic, all those good things that you want from judges. You don't want the Trump equivalent of a judge, right? You don't want two Trumps. I mean, I would take special delight in

that. That's like Lex Luthor and Superman, and we know which one Donald Trump is. But that's not really what I would expect from Judge Mershon given his history either. Now remember, or I'm telling you for the first time, if you're just following along, there is a current other hearing in federal court, right? That will decide whether this case gets taken away from Judge Mershon, and that's going to be decided in about another month or so. Right? That's with another judge, another month or so, right? That's with another judge, judge Hellerstein, a federal judge, Southern District of New York, right? Clinton appointee who's going to decide whether that case criminal belongs in State Court or federal court. Now, if you follow legal AF, the podcast at the intersection of law and politics that I co-founded, Co-anchor on Wednesdays

and Saturdays, you'll know that my co-anchor, Ben Myselis, and I predict that that's going to be a failure in that case of staying in state court. Even if it left state court, the Manhattan DA state prosecutors stay with the case. It's not going to go to the federal prosecutors, and that would be America, Ireland anyway, but it's going to stay either way. But everybody believes it stays with Judge Mershon. Even Judge Hellerstein in his own order said, until I make the decision at the end of June, Judge Mershon, you got this.

Continue with all proceedings. And so we have that as a backdrop, but we have a trial date. And if it stays in state court, that's going to be the trial date. Frankly, if it goes to federal court, that's going to be around the trial date because, you know, Donald Trump doesn't pick up anymore rights or procedural abilities. He just wants to be in federal court, hoping to get a better jury pool because the federal jury pool is broader than the Manhattan based jury pool for a state court case. That's why he did it. Hoping he'll go, you know, maybe to the second circuit, which is the appellate court for federal, which is not going

to be favorable to Donald Trump, nor is the judge that oversees the, um, the federal courts, uh, from the Supreme Court level, which is judged so to my or it. She's not going to be favorable to him either. So that's where we're at as of right now. Protective order read aloud. Donald Trump sitting there with Todd Blanch is new criminal defense lawyer in Mar-a-Lago. Wearing a dark blue suit with a frown on his face with his hands folded, some sort of document in front of him, some sort of phony, oval office, West Wing set that he's sitting on. you know, in a down at Mar-a-Lago Susan necklace is lawyer in the courtroom.

Joe Takapina, I like to call Joe coloring book Takapina. He looks like he's doing nothing. He wasn't even in the courtroom. That doesn't look good for Donald Trump. May have lost another lawyer in the case. And prosecutors are there. Trial date set, protective order read aloud, Donald Trump acknowledged the existence of it,

zoomed out, clicked off, hearing over. We will follow everything that happens in that courtroom, all the procedures between now and March that will happen. It'll go by like that. And of course, the other backdrop that will follow is the other set of criminal indictments, the other Manhattan DA prosecutions. If Donald Trump thinks the only one he's going to face in Manhattan is the ones related to Stormy Daniels and the Hush Money payoff.

He's got another thing coming because Alvin Bragg is leaning on the 50 year long time chief financial officer Alan Weisslberg, fresh out of prison to get him to flip on Donald Trump for bigger and batter crimes. To be prosecuted in New York, while Fawni Willis, the Fulton County Georgia DA, is going to be seeking her indictments against Donald Trump and others at the end of July, with an announcement on the streets of Atlanta in the mid beginning to mid August. That's the calendar that that is the buzz saw of a calendar Donald Trump and his various lawyers coming and going quitting and arriving have to face. We'll keep track of it so you don't have

to. I sit at the intersection of law and politics for these politically charged litigation matters. And I report on them about every day on hot takes just like this one. If you like what I'm doing, you like this kind of content. Give me a thumbs up, leave some messages and comments. I do read them. And you can follow me on all things social media at MSPOPOC. This is Michael Popoc, LegalAF reporting. Hey, Midas Mighty. Love this report.

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