Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Indictments against Donald Trump are IMMINENT and MORE

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

The top-rated legal and political podcast Legal AF is back for another hard-hitting look at the most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this midweek’s edition, anchors national trial attorney and strategist Michael Popok and former top prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo, discuss: 1. Jaw-dropping developments in the Special Counsel’s Mar a Lago criminal investigation, including reporting that Mark Meadows cut a deal to testify against Trump and plead guilty and in return the DOJ will give him a limited immunity deal and favorable sentencing recommendation, a second Grand Jury is hearing witness testimony in Florida including of key Trump aides, and the DOJ looks into the possible intentional destruction of key video evidence, 2. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, not being outdone by the Feds, as she prepares to seek a Racketeering (i.e. organized crime-like) indictment against Trump and others and expands her case to possibly include the rest of the Battle Ground States, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! GREENCHEF: Head to https://GreenChef.com/LegalAF60 and use code LegalAF60 to get 60% off and Free Shipping! HIGHLAND TITLES: Use the discount code LEGALAF to get 20% off at https://HighlandTitles.com PURIDY DEBT SOLUTIONS: PDS DEBT is offering free debt analysis to our listeners just for completing the quick and easy debt assessment at https://www.PDSDebt.com/LegalAF 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

A big episode of Legal AF Today, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office has signaled that criminal charges against Donald Trump are likely and are likely to happen soon. We'll discuss. A New York federal judge has ruled that evidence of Donald Trump's past sexual assaults can be shown to a jury during next month's federal trial in the defamation lawsuit brought against Donald Trump by E. Jean Carroll. We will break down the federal court's ruling. Donald Trump's senior 2020 campaign lawyer, Jenna Ellis, kind of embarrassing just

to even say that sentence, entered into a stipulation with a Colorado legal disciplinary judge, the presiding disciplinary judge that is admitting that she lied repeatedly about her claims that the election was stolen and election fraud and she stipulated to a series of lies that she made. Well, discuss and in the New York Attorney General's civil fraud lawsuit against Donald Trump and his adult children seeking at least $250 million in damages from him and his adult children at least one of those adult children Ivanka is apparently throwing the rest of the family under the bus Yep, you heard that right in a new legal filing Ivanka is saying look if anyone engaged in this misconduct if anyone

Prepare the statement of financial conditions, it's them not me. Let me out of this or at least delay the trial as it relates to me. We'll discuss that here on this episode. And finally, Jack Smith, the courageous special counsel and his stellar legal team attended a hearing in Washington, DC federal court this week seeking to compel more testimony from Donald Trump's lawyer Evan Corcoran based on the crime fraud exception for his involvement in potential obstruction of justice relating to Donald Trump's theft of government records. And at the same time, Donald Trump is seeking to preclude or exclude grand jury testimony given by some of his other former lawyers. This is legal AF. And do

we have a great show for you? Action packed would be a understatement here. Popo, popo, tell us about the glasses you're wearing and tell us about this episode. If I wasn't a co-anchor after that lineup, I would be so excited to listen to what we're going to do today. And we have a special guest. We're keeping in the wings at the appropriate moment. And you'll know why they're on for that. I was doing Ben as a practicing trial lawyer. I was setting up with my team, my own trial calendar. So of course, I looked at the trial calendar for Donald Trump, forget the campaign calendar. Let's look at the thing that matters.

We have a April defamation case going to trial in her civil fraud and rape case involving Eugene Carroll. We have another civil fraud case against the entire family seeking the death penalty that's going to trial in October. We've got one we haven't talked about too much, but we will a little bit today. The death penalty to the Trump organization. What did I say? Death penalty to Donald Trump? Stays in the pot. Stays in the pot for sure. All right. So we've got April defamation. We've got October civil fraud. We've got a January trial now, January 2024, in the AC and multi-level marketing pyramid scheme

against all of the same suspects, all of the same Trump family. That's in Southern District of New York federal court. We haven't talked too much about that. And then still to come, we've got Mar-a-Lago, what we're talking about today, Georgia election interference with Fawney Willis. We've got the other grand juries about Jan 6th and Money Laundering fraud using Trump's

pack. And maybe, maybe, maybe in the month of March, we might have an indictment of Donald Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush money, hush money affair. So, wow, that's a trial calendar that I would not want to wake up in the morning too if I was Donald Trump. Or when you say the hush money affair, you know, Donald Trump's, I guess, defense that he's been testing out. He had Alina Habago on TV and he's been saying it is no affair, no affair actually happened and as I said on my social media platform, I was like, I was like, look, thankfully

he's got the dumbest lawyers in the world. He's going to, he's going to go with the defense that he never, well, he had 2.5 seconds of sex with Stormi Daniel. So maybe that does not constitute a fair, but if he's going to go with, there was no sex and she was extorting him, That seems to be the defense that he's setting up because he's saying that and his lawyers are saying that, wow, is he going to lose very, very, very quickly there. Let me comment on that because this has gotten conflated in the press and also it doesn't matter under the elements of the crime or

the civil case. We're not claiming and the appropriate plaintiffs, lawyers, are not claiming and the prosecutors don't have to prove that there was an affair, whatever that means. The charge is he had sex one time in Las Vegas in 2006 with Stormy Daniels. Whatever he did with Stormy Daniels, doesn't really matter. You don't have to prove that.

But there is indefensible, immutable facts that he can't even argue with about the payment of the $130,000 through the National Inquirer, brokered by Michael Cohen with the lawyer for Stormy Daniels. That got paid and recorded on the books of the Trump Organization

as a legal expense and bonuses to Michael Cohen. Those are facts already developed by the Feds in prosecuting Michael Cohen related to that. These are facts he's not going to be able to get away from. He may not like the timeline, but that is the timeline that will ultimately lead we hope to his indictment in the month of March. Well, to break this down for us in more detail, who better to talk to us about it than Karen Friedman Agnifalo, our co-host on the midweek edition of legal AF. And of course, a fan favorite contributor here on the Midas Touch Network. And for those just tuning in before joining us here on the Midas Touch Network. And for those just tuning in before joining us here

at the Midas Touch Network and becoming a very successful lawyer and private practice, Karen Friedman Agnifalo during the Sive Vance 10 year was the number two in all of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. So she was basically one of the people running that office. So there is no one who knows better what is going on in the Manhattan District Attorney's office than her Karen Friedman Agnifalo. Welcome. It's great to have you here on the weekend edition. We love seeing you on the

midweek edition. And could you break down what's going on with the breaking news this week coming out of the Manhattan DA's office? Sure. Yeah, really big news happening at the Manhattan DA's office. So there's been confirmation that Donald Trump was given an opportunity to testify in the grand jury. So what that means is in New York, when you charge someone with a felony, you can either start by charging a criminal complaint or you can go straight to the grand jury either way to proceed on a felony you have to be have the grand jury has to charge you with a felony. And so in long-term investigations they often just go straight to the grand jury which is what they're clearly

doing here. And in a case like this they give you the one of the very last things they often do is you give a potential defendant the opportunity to testify because that way he could explain if he wants his side of the story, he could give his defense and to Grand jury still has to vote one way or another. And that was done here. And so what that means to me is they are very close to charging him. I would say within two weeks, we are gonna see an indictment of Donald Trump

by the Manhattan DA's office, Alvin Bragg. Now, let's talk a little bit about whether or not we think Donald Trump's gonna testify in the grand jury. I would probably say there's a 0% chance that he's gonna testify, but it's always possible. What would have to happen in New York when you testify in a grand jury, when anyone testifies in a grand jury in New

York, they're given what's called transactional immunity, meaning they're immune from prosecution from that that particular matter that you're testifying about. So obviously they're not going to give that to Donald Trump since he is the potential defendant. What instead he would have to happen is he'd have to wave immunity. And so you go in with a lawyer, the lawyer doesn't get to talk. You get to tell your side of the story,

and but you have waved immunity. And that's why I think there's no way that he's going to go in and give his side of the story because any statements he make can then be used against him at the trial. So that's where we are. At this point, they're going in the grand jury. They already have some witnesses who've gone in the grand jury. There's going to be more witnesses. I could see an indictment coming as early as

next week, but my guess is it's within the next two weeks. The charges that I think are going to be are going, sorry, about Bougogie is wanting a little attention here. We embrace the justice pups on the Midas Touch Network. Yeah, he's just like why aren't you petting me during all of this so help say hello to the people. Yeah, I disagree. I think what he wants to know is when Donald Trump is going to be held accountable, I think that the pup is really excited when you said two weeks, potentially even as early as next week. And one of the things here that we've been saying by following the data and those who watch legal AF know this. And I think it's been a bit of an unpopular opinion that we've held here, though, is that the Manhattan DA is going to be the first

to indict. Popack thought Fony Willis, so I'll call him out, but I've been saying the Manhattan DA's been the first to indict, but Fony Willis got a little bit delayed, a little off track. It seems recently, but I think she's ultimately going to indict as well. But look, we followed the data. Karen, you had Alvin Bragg here on the minus touch network, and he couldn't say a lot, but we could put together the data points. What else do you think our viewers should know? Yes, so there's a couple other things. So, yeah, you read Alvin Bragg came and he assured us that he had an open, tending investigation, despite what the two prosecutors who left in a huff,

you know, we're trying to let people believe. Bragg said it, and here we are. He worked clearly in the grand jury and about to see charges. And it's going to be on the Stormy Daniels Hush Money Payment, as you guys talked about already. The crime, however, that he's going to be charged with, I believe, is falsifying business records,

which is a crime in New York. Falsifying business records in New York is a misdemeanor. And the element of it is that you have to prove is you make or you cause a false business entry into a business record, or you omit something or you do something to cause that entry in a business record to be untrue. And that's a misdemeanor. That's penal law section 175.10. A felony is a falsifying a business record is when you commit the crime of falsifying

a business record in the second degree, what I just said, that you make or cause a false entry in a business record. And when the intent to defraud includes an intent to commit a crime or aid or conceal the commission thereof, that's still just an e-fellany, which is the lowest level felony in New York. There's no mandatory jail time, but he can get up to four years, and he could get no jail time. But that's going to be what the

crime is. And so there's been a lot of speculation about what that crime, that the prosecution's going to prove that they're intended to commit, that other crime or conceal. There's been a lot of speculation about what that crime is going to be. And there's been a lot of discussion about it because one of the legal, the tricky legal issues is, for example, would a federal election crime count. And one thing I want to point out to everybody, we don't know exactly which crime it is that they are going to out to everybody. We don't know exactly which crime it is that they are going to allege that they were trying to cover up. But there might be many. There might be multiple charges. There might be New York election law violations. There might be federal election law violations. There could be other money-related violations. One thing to think about is it doesn't say who committed

the crime that they're concealing. So it might not be Donald Trump. It might not be the intent to cover up or conceal a crime that that trumped it. So one thing to think about, for example, is Michael Cohen already pled guilty in the Southern District to violations related to this hush money payment. Maybe that is going to be the crime that they were intending to conceal. So it's interesting. Stay tuned for what that is going to be, but I think you're going to see multiple charges on multiple theories, because this is an untested legal theory about some of the crimes that they will be alleging. And so to cover their bases, I think they're going to have multiple theories in the indictment.

But you're going to see an indictment coming up soon. It's going to have language in it that's going to explain what a lot of this is. And I think it'll be, you know, it'll be very interesting to see Donald Trump who's going to be charged, who's going to be charged by the Manhattan D.A.'s office in the next two weeks. So, I don't think anyone's going to, you know, show up to his, to his, you know, home in Mar-a-Lago and put handcuffs on him. I think they'll give him an opportunity to surrender, it's my guess, and then he'll have to go before a judge, and it'll be very interesting. So, and I don't, don't expect guess, and then he'll have to go before a judge. And it'll be very interesting.

So, and I don't expect anyone, don't expect them to be put in and held in on bail. This is not a bail eligible crime in New York. So even if you wanted to set bail, a judge is not going to in this particular case. So, Karen, let me follow up on some things you and I did a hot take on this and then it got updated because Michael Cohen's going in on Monday to testify. And you and I, it's speculated and mainly you that they probably have the case already wrapped up for the indictment level, even without Michael Cohen saving Michael Cohen. Now for last, because they've already had just to remind our listeners and followers,

they've had a series of witnesses up to six that have already testified about this relatively finite series of events. So we've had Kellyanne Conway go in to obviously to confirm a discussion that she had with Michael Cohen confirming that the payment got made, which links the payment back to the campaign, because Kellyanne Conway in 2016 in that the payment back to the campaign, because Kelly and Conway in 2016 in that period was working for the campaign and not for the president, because he hadn't been elected yet. So you have that.

You had David Picard, David Pecker, and his colleague over the national inquirer who went and testified that they basically operated a, what was called a catch and kill program on behalf of their friend, Donald where whenever somebody and there was multiple women Who all came out against candidate Trump saying that they had sex with him while he was married Affairs that they were paid off as a result and Picard on the behalf of his friend Donald Trump would go seek out these stories and pay them off It was called a catch and kill. They would catch the story and they would kill it by paying.

And that 130 to 150,000 seemed to be the going rate. The market rate, Donald Trump was willing to pay for that for stormy Daniels was a little bit different. But car testified about how he broke. I'm sure because it's already been publicly reported. How he brokered the deal to pay stormy Daniels through her attorney through Michael about how he brought, I'm sure, because it's already been publicly reported, how he brokered the deal to pay Stormy Daniels through her attorney through Michael Cohen, slightly differently than what he used to do.

He used to just pay them directly on behalf of the national choir. This went through this chain and here we go with the crime. So he testified, the other national choir guy testified. The executive assistant for Donald Trump, who I'm sure was involved with all of this, she testified. So you had all of these people, and now Michael Cohen's going to go in as the cherry on the top. He's already pled guilty to the crime involving Stormy Daniels and the hush money payment as Karen, you just pointed out, which could ultimately be the second crime necessary to amp this up to a felony, which is punishable up to four years.

It's not mandatory, but it's punishable up to four years if he is convicted. So the arrival of Michael Cohen, I think for me, on the heels and on the back of all these other six witnesses, um, shows that, that Alvin Bragg is exceedingly confident about the case that he has presented and now has decided at the end to bring in Michael Cohen. Um, and, and all of the credibility issues that Michael Cohen may have because of his prior convictions, but that's okay. Given, I think this signals how, how a secure Alvin Bragg and his prosecutors feel about the case that's presented.

You pointed out a great thing in the hot tick that we did a couple of days ago, which was you think that Alvin's actually using, and his prosecutors is using, a higher standard of proof that while they could use a probable cause standard to get the indictment, that they are actually presenting evidence as if they were in a courtroom at the much higher beyond a reasonable doubt standard, right Karen? Yes, exactly. So, a grand jury only needs a probable cause, standard, a reasonable cause to believe that a crime was occurred.

But many times in homicide cases, really serious cases are here where you're charging someone who used to be the president of the United States. There's no way you're going to bring a case with only probable cause. You're going to bring this case only when you can prove it at trial, and that standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. So that is often in larger cases involving serious people, serious crimes, serious, you know, offenses, allegations, you're going to make sure that you can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. So that completely signals that that's where Alvin Bragg and his team are on this case. Your second crime analysis is dead on and so different than mainstream media.

Every time I read about this case in the mainstream media with people that consider themselves legal advisors, it always starts with people that consider themselves legal advisors. They always it always starts with the same hand ringing. Oh, how is Alvin ever going to prove the second crime that's necessary? Because if it's the federal election crime, then he's jumping from state over to federal, and it's really hard to make a state election case because this was a federal campaign. I'm not even sure that's the way to go. Let's let's look at the crime. Let's look at the crime.

Let's look at the crime. It wasn't just $130,000 that was paid to Stormy Daniels. Michael Cohen has testified that he got another $300,000 in bonuses. So it was a $430 or $450,000 series of payments that got recorded falsely and fraudulently on the books of the Trump organization by a combination of Alan Weisselberg to CFO

and the controller of the company. Under the auspices and approval of Donald Trump, as legal expenses and a retainer to Michael Cohen for which there's no retainer agreement and Michael Cohen has testified that was all a ruse and a sham to cover up the stormy Daniels payment and him getting a bonus for having participated in that That then gets recorded as an expense, right? We're back to the taxes

Which who knows better than Alvin Bragg the tax fraud of the Trump organization because he got a 17 count Conviction of the Trump organization for tax fraud and Alan Weiselberg is spending his his Golden years or at least a large portion of them, five months of them, sitting in Reikers Island, 12 miles off of the coast of the Manhattan D.A.'s office, cooling his heels, waiting to testify somewhere. And so that, if that is a fraudulent tax deduction, business deduction, you know, $450,000 worth, that's tax fraud, money laundering. I mean, we could go on and on. I don't think Alvin Bragg has a problem with the second crime. Totally. And the other thing that I look at is the statute when you read the statute, it doesn't

say who had to commit the crime. So in other words, it doesn't have to have been Donald Trump that committed the crime that they're concealing or covering up. So just keep that in mind. Karen, I have just two questions for you. So, does filing this set of criminal charges based on the hush money payments, that doesn't waive the fact that Alvin Brag can still bring other criminal charges. And Hasn't he said that he's still investigating other financial crimes that are being committed by Donald Trump? They're just focusing on this hush money payment for the immediate criminal indictment? Yeah, 100%. I mean, one of the frustrations that people have with prosecutors

understandably is they speak through their court filings. They don't typically speak publicly about open investigations. It's not really appropriate and ethical to talk about ongoing investigations. Not only can it affect the investigation and witnesses, etc. There's ethical rules about what you can and cannot say, taunting a person with a potential crime when they haven't even been charged. So there's all sorts of issues surrounding that. So prosecutors typically don't speak about pending investigations, and so what people do is on the outside, as you speculate,

and you read the tea leaves, and you try to figure out what's going on. And there was a big, huge public resignation by Mark Palmerance and Kerry Dunn, a few months into Alvin Bragg's tenure, as soon as he was elected, because they had a long, ongoing investigation into other financial crimes by Donald Trump involving the valuation of various assets that he had.

He was inflating the value when it suited him and he was devaluing or deflating the assets when it suited him depending on which number he helped him. You know, if he needed it to be worth more to borrow money off of a certain property, he'd say it was worth more, or if he wanted it to be worth less, so he could pay less taxes, that's how he did it. And there was a long investigation under Sivance. Sivance, however, didn't choose to go into the grand jury. He left it for Alvin Bragg to make the decision.

And I think that's significant. So when Alvin Bragg came forward as the new DA and he was talking to the team about the case, he decided that it's a good case, but he wanted more. There wasn't enough. And the two prosecutors in the case, I think were frustrated and disagreed with that decision.

And so one of them leaked his resignation letter to the press and now has written a book and is on a tour basically saying, you should have listened to me. Alvin Bragg has said all along, that investigation is not over. I was just still pending. I just wanted to get more evidence. And if that case was so strong, by the way, the Southern District would have indicted it

based on the evidence in that book and what Mark Pomerant said. So there's more than one prosecutor who has passed on the evidence as he had it. But for the last year, since they resigned, the investigation has continued. I'm sure Bragg and his team have much more evidence. At the appropriate time, when they feel they have enough to prove that case beyond a reasonable doubt, there could be charges relating to that as well as other charges. Don't forget the D.A.'s office, Underside Dance, went all the way up to the Supreme Court to litigate the issue of getting Donald Trump's tax returns. And so they've had those tax returns that for years, and now they're going through them,

and charges could still come based on that as well. So yes, there are potentially other matters. Alvin Bragg has said those cases are pen are open, the investigations are open. We just don't know what he has going on because he rightfully can't talk about it. And here, one's about to happen. So I don't know why people were skeptical of him so far. He has been completely transparent and honest about when something is still happening. And we have an indictment that's about to happen. It's imminent.

And we can tell based on the fact that what we can see being reported in the press, we can see that that is actually happening. And I definitely do understand though the initial skepticism and where it comes from because it looked like Si Vance was doing all this great work that Si Vance had this team. And then, you know, people rightfully, it's all in front of us, Donald Trump's crimes and his fraud. And every single day, he kind of just flagrantly mocks our justice system. So any more feeling like justice is being delayed after the trauma that Trump has caused this

country, it's a visceral reaction that I think lots of people have. But I think what we've always tried to do here on the Midas Touch Network, Enleague LAF, is simply present what the data was reflecting. And to me, the data had always reflected what Alvin Bragg's strategy was. First, you know, you get your first kind of win, call it your single. If you will, if you want to use a baseball analogy, regarding the Trump corporation, the Trump organization, 17 felony convictions there, get the top, get the CFO in Rikers for, not a long time, but a month or two, and show that you mean business there.

You're not waving anything else. It's five months. Next week, spending five months in Rikers is not an easy thing by any means. But then you go on to the next case, which is the one that's being pursued now, which is, you know, a jury's going to hear these facts about Donald Trump having sex with stormy Daniels while his wife just gave birth to their first kid and he's given hush money.

I mean, people are going to hate it. He's going to hate this guy like they did in the other case. And they already do, of course. And I think he's going to be convicted. And you know, as you said, it can be up to four years in in jail. I mean, is he ultimately going to serve that amount of time? No, but I think he will see could and will serve some prison time in this conviction. And then you're not waving your grand slam case. And by the way, you've got New York attorney general, the Tisha James, pursuing the civil case, which is Popeyes said at the outset, is basically the death now for the Trump organization

to do business if and when she prevails on that, where Donald Trump's pled the fifth over 400 times during the special proceeding there. And now Alvin Bragg could get the wealth of the information from the New York AG's office. So there's a lot of strategy going on. My final question to you, though Karen is, you know, when Trump is calling Stormy Daniels horse face repeatedly, who is a key witness in this case, obviously the one of the key witnesses here. And also now saying that she extorted him, which he's lying about. When does that

become even potentially witness tampering? I mean, you don't normally see that in any type of case where somebody being pursued is calling the main witness in the case, horrific names, and it is starting to feel criminal, frankly, those accusations. I mean, what do you think from your perspective as a prosecutor? Look, that's a fine line, right? And he's good at walking that line. I think he starts bullying her. That's where it becomes a problem.

And he's starting to bully her, especially if she starts to get things like threats or other, you know, other kind of things that happened to her that as a result of his comments. So, and, you know, he has to stop attacking her. So, you know, his attacks on her, I think at a certain point, could be considered witness tampering. So, you know, we'll see if he continues to do it, but witness tampering is, you know, a little tricky. It's a little tricky because obviously he can say what he wants, you know, publicly about her. Karen Friedman, I know you want to thank you

for sharing your wealth of knowledge there. Before we cut to a quick commercial break, I do want to read this quote because this is what we're going to talk about right after this commercial break. This is what a federal judge just wrote in the e gene carol case about allowing evidence into that case about prior acts by Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. This is what a federal judge wrote. In this case, a jury reasonably could find, even from the access Hollywood tape alone,

that Mr. Trump admitted in the tape that he in fact has had contact with women's genitalia in the past without their consent, or that he has attempted to do so. We're going to talk about this bombshell order after this quick break. And now let's take a quick break to talk about our next partner, MiracleMade. Did you know that your temperature at night can have one of the greatest impacts on your sleep quality? If you wake up too hot or too cold, I highly recommend that you check out MiracleMade's bed sheets.

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And now back to the video. Welcome back to legal AF. It was so great having Karen Friedman Agnifalo share her perspective as someone who led the Manhattan District Attorney's office about what this breaking news means and you're never going to hear a better analysis about what is likely going to happen than from anyone other than Karen Friedman Agnifalo. And you heard what she said. She said that these indictments can happen as soon as a week.

She predicted two weeks. And let's just say Karen Friedman Agnifalo does not make predictions like that unless she has a great degree of confidence. We still have a lot of show for you. We got to talk about the ruling that just took place in E. Jean Carroll's defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump, which is set to go to trial next week, regarding evidence of past sexual misconduct

being allowed into that trial and what that means. We got to talk about Donald Trump's top 2020 campaign lawyer who just stipulated that she lied essentially about everything she said about Election fraud and that Donald Trump won and she stipulated before a Colorado disciplinary authority Basically like their version of the state bar. We got to talk about the New York Attorney General Civil fraud lawsuit and of course Jack Smith So a lot of shows still left. Popack, I want you to tell us though about this big ruling by judge Lewis Kaplan, federal judge in New York and the E. Jean Carroll matter. Yeah, this is, this is not something that we should, we should under sell.

This is a major development in the case of E. Jean Carroll, civil rape and defamation lawsuit that is brought by Roberta Kaplan on behalf of E. Jean Carroll, former gossip columnist and journalist who says in her allegations that she was raped by Donald Trump in the dressing room of a department store in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996.

And we reported a month or so ago about motions that Donald Trump had brought, not by his lead lawyer, Joe Takapina, who we're going to talk about as we get into a little deeper into the podcast today and some other cases. But by Alina Habba, Alina Habba only, she's the only name that appears with her partner on the motion that was filed to do two things, to exclude two sets of evidence that they hated. And they think will ultimately be a terrible impact on the jury for them at a trial. So of course, they want to keep it out. One was the Access Hollywood tape from 2005. They got revealed in 2016 on the campaign

trail, in which Donald Trump, what he thought was a private conversation, but turned out to be a hot mic and recorded with Billy Bush, then the host of Access Hollywood, in which he bragged about his numerous sexual conquests, a number of them being without consent, talked about being how a star can do anything. And he considered himself a star, including touching a woman's genitalia without consent. He talked about, you know, not just women in a misogynist way, which of course, nobody's surprised by that. But went further in this, you know, secret tape showing his motive here back in 2000, and back in 2005 about how he grabs women by their genitalia because he can as a star.

Before you give the analysis, would you mind if I just read the portion from the judge's description of the tape? If you allow me to say, yes, you allow me to say one thing. When I, you want to say the thing first, then I'll, yeah, yeah, because it's going to lead into your thing. I've read a lot of federal orders in my day, but involved with a lot of federal orders. But the fact that Lewis Kaplan, the judge, and you're about to read it went into verbatim exactly all of these terrible sexual misogynist comments by Donald Trump without any bleeping

out without any reduction against a former president is unprecedented. And then we're going to tell you at the end, it all went against Donald Trump in the ruling. But why don't you go through each of the comments that were made by Donald Trump that the judge then reported in his decision and his analysis? Yeah. I mean, the reality is it's so disgusting that I just don't want to read them all. I guess I think you'll get a flavor of it, but this is what the judge wrote, federal judge writing in a federal court order

about what Donald Trump said. The first italicized portion of the access Hollywood tape, excerpts, evidences, Mr. Trump stating that he, quote, moved on a woman named Nancy, quote, like a bitch, that he, quote, like a bitch that he quote, tried to fuck her. The second italicized portion evidence, his Mr. Trump said that he just starts kissing beautiful women.

He does not first obtain consent that the women just let one do it when one is quote a star. And that quote, a star can quote, grab beautiful women by their genitals or do anything that quote the star wants more over he testified in his deposition that he considers himself to be a star. That's from a federal court order. Oh, you've been kind to Donald Trump because we'll and we'll put it up on the screen. There were and we can make a link to it on our various Twitter feeds of what the federal judge felt he had to write

in order to properly analyze and lay out the case. But let me finish my thought. There's two buckets that were Donald Trump wants to keep out from the jury. One is everything related to the Axis Hollywood tape, part of which Ben, you just read. The second is at least two other women at various times who say that Donald Trump touched them without their consent, kissed them, touched their genitalia and the like. One woman while she was on a plane traveling and just happened to get, this is a terrible twist of fate.

Jessica leads. Jessica leads, happy to get upgraded from economy class, the first class sitting next to Donald Trump and says she was groped by him. That is non-consensual sexual touching as the criminal law lays it out. And Natasha Stoynoff, a reporter for People magazine who was sent to Mar-a-Lago to do a puff piece on the marriage of Donald Trump and Melania. And as soon as Melania left the room, Natasha Stoynov says that Trump pinder against the

wall, tried to kiss her and demanded that she enter into an affair with him. So those, he doesn't want that. He doesn't want those people testifying. And the ins, let's get to the legal issues because this is what the judge is doing, right? He's not just sitting there, you know, with his own. Well, these are all fascinating issues. He's got to look at it from a legal perspective. And the two, the two rules of evidence

that the judge, Kaplan, has to balance and did balance to find that those two women are gonna be able to testify. And all of that access Hollywood tape is coming in in front of the jury. It was a rule of evidence we call 403, because it's numbered that way. And a rule of evidence we call 415. And there's a balance between the two of them. 403 is the general rule of evidence that says that even if something has

probative value meaning it tends to prove or disprove a fact in the case, we call that probative. If the prejudice or other factors outweigh the probative value, the judge can rule that it'll be excluded from the jury. So you have that. But 415, as amended in 1994, says that in the case of sexual assault

being claimed right if sexual assault in a civil context Not a crime not the prosecution the civil context Then you actually are allowed to bring in evidence of past bad sexual assault acts To prove that the person this this case Donald Trump, had a propensity, meaning he had a, it is more likely than not that he committed this particular criminal sexual assault against E. Jean Carroll because he did it in the past. And the reason that the federal rules amended, were amended in 1994 is because they recognized that in child molestation cases and in sexual assault cases involving victims, it's adults. It's often he said she said or he said

child said and there needs to be the ability to bring in and to balance the evidential scale. There needs to be this other type of evidence in a civil context, to well, because they wanted to see justice done when it related to it. Donald Trump has walked right into this and his tweets, this is a special comeuppance that our followers and listeners will find particularly interesting.

His tweets and his denials and calling it a hoax for E. Jean Carroll that it never happened. And she's ugly. That I look at her. I never would be I would never do these things to her. Art. It was part of the analysis that Judge Kaplan used to bring the evidence in the more he squealed

and and defamed her about this sexual assault. The more the judge felt it was under four, 15 of the federal rules, it should come into the jury. So so there again, Donald Trump killing his own case, one tweet at a time, one press conference at a time, and a judge calling him out on it. There's only three steps the judge had to do in this 20 page or 25 page opinion. One is the case that E. Eugene Carroll has brought both the defamation case and the civil rape case.

Is it at its essence and alleged sexual assault? Yes or no? And the judge says, it is because whether I combine the two cases and he hasn't yet decided, it's hard to believe we're in March and the case is going to trial in April, but he hasn't yet consolidated the civil rape case and the def is going to trial in April, but he hasn't yet consolidated the civil rape case and the defamation case where he denied that he ever attacked her together in before one jury. But we all think he's going to ultimately, but he said it doesn't matter because even

the defamation case, which is technically the motion, uh, the motion was brought by Ha Ha Ha in the defamation case portion, right? I assume Takapena is taking over for the civil rape portion. But even there, the essence of the element she has to prove, Eugene Carroll, is that, is that a rape occurred? And that is a sexual assault. So we have the sexual assault present, a present and under the four, 15 evidence analysis two, is this other evidence, the two women who will

testify about similarly being sexually assaulted by him and the Axis Hollywood tape, does that go to other sexual assaults? And the judge having listened to the tape as you've repeated part of it then on the show today. And of course, the testimony, the proffered testimony of the two women said, yes, they had that all involved sexual assault. He said, grab them by the P word on the tape. That is a sexual assault in every state. And what happened to miss to Natasha Stoynov in Florida, because it happened at Mar-a-Lago, that is a crime in Florida, if it is true. So he's got the second element. This is a sexual assault case, those were sexual assault evidence, and then he's just got

to do the last balancing test, which is the 403 balancing test. Does this overwhelmingly below the minds of the jury, so it's so prejudicial? And he said under 415, which gives the benefit of the doubt to the, to the civil sex assault victim who's suing over it, and looking at all of the doubt to the, to the civil sex assault victim who's suing over it. And looking at all of Donald Trump's denials and calling it a hoax and calling her a fraud and all of his tweets, I find that all of this evidence is coming in. So now, whether it's Joe Takapina or it's Alina Habba, they've got, let's just put it this

way, they're hands full in front of a New York jury. That's not only going to hear about first witness up on the stand is E. Jean Carroll, who's going to go over all of her knowledge of exactly what happened to her leading to the sexual assault in the Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. You may hear from Donald Trump. I assume they're going to call him even as a hostile witness. Donald Trump, I guess, says it's all a lie. And of course, he's going to then be confronted by, uh, E. Jean Carroll's lawyer, Robbie Kaplan, on video in his testimony with all the places that he crapped the bed in his deposition

testimony, where he couldn't recognize E. Jean Carrollole and Mistooker for Marla Mapples, one of his former wives, which totally undermines the argument that he wasn't attracted to her. That's why he didn't rape her, which is not a defense, just to be clear. And all the other stupid things he said in deposition. So he's going to get destroyed in deposition. People already hate Donald Trump in New York. So it's not going to be hard to tip that over. And then you bring in these, you run the Axis Hollywood footage with Donald Trump as New York. So it's not going to be hard to tip that over. And then you bring in these you run the access Hollywood footage with Donald Trump as as the witness and he says well, that's not what I mean Oh, it was just locker room talk all the stuff that worked for him on the campaign trail But will not work for him in a court of law and then you bring in the last two witnesses

Which are the other women who said meet me to this happened to, sexual assault. And then you turn it over to the jury. And I don't know, Ben, what do you think? By lunch time, by lunch time they bring a verdict. And well, let's geek out here a little bit because there's one part about what you said that I made disagree with. So we should have a little debate here. I do believe that E. Jean Carroll is the first call.

Give me your order of who you call as witnesses and then I'll give you mine. Oh, it's not Donald Trump. He's just too dangerous. And I want to, if I'm trying this case and Robbie's trying the case, I think she puts on E. Jean Carroll because in the opening statements, all they're going to hear about is E. Jean Carroll. You could put her last, but I think she's such an effective witness that you want it, you want it, recency in time to the opening statements.

She's gonna take a little bit of a hit in the opening by Joe Takapina or whatever. And then, and then I think it's the order that I laid out. What order would you do it in? I would have the two women first, because I'd want to establish the pattern and practice of Donald Trump and what he engages in. And you'll see two people who will be reflecting a very similar story. So then I think the jury will rightfully at this point completely hate Donald Trump.

And then you're going to have Donald Trump up there. And I would call the two women first, then I'd call Donald Trump. And then I'd have E. Jean Carroll last. I think that and I want to have E. Jean Carroll get comfortable in the court. And perhaps having her as the first witness, she's been waiting two or three years. And the confidence sometimes, I think my own client and witness will get Seamy Cross exam in Donald Trump. Trump's going to, I think, do horrible. And Trump's previous deposition testimony, he's already basically called everything that he just doesn't like, which is true, a hoax. So you'll have these two, you'll have these two victims first, you'll have Trump. One of the other things that's not really being talked about in that order, though, which I think is still important

is the judge said that the judge is reserving a ruling on all of these statements. Donald Trump made during the campaign about the women where he mocks the women and says these horrible things about them until trial takes place to see if Trump opens the door, which Trump will do. So then you play all these videos of Trump then attacking the victims and then you have, you know, then you have E. Jean Carroll. And I think by the time you have E. Jean Carroll at the end, she's confident, the jury hates Trump, and then you try to close strong. So that's my order. I like it. And in both cases, the both presentations

would win the case for E. Jean Carroll. I'll tell you why I think I'll just one last thing on mine. Jury's get a little bit impatient. They know why they're there. They know why they're there. They know either they're there after jury selection and what we call the voidier, which is the process in which, even in federal court, although it's limited, the process in which you start selling a little bit of your case in the jury selection process. So they know why they're there.

If they live in Manhattan and they don't know about E. Jean Carroll, I'd be shocked. So it's going to be very hard to get any jurors off or prospective jurors off because they don't have any knowledge of the case or Donald Trump. So that's not going to be the standard by which the jury is going to be selected. So they're going to sit in the box. It's a relatively sophisticated jury. I've tried cases, of course, in the Southern District of New York. The last one I tried a year and a half ago had every, every member of the jury was a college graduate and half of them were professional

in some way, including with advanced degrees. That was the jury that gets pulled in Manhattan in the Southern District. So I, it's going to be a very intelligent jury. I think they're going to want to hear from her first and my fear is that if she takes on a little bit of water with a very deafed cross examination, because it's not impossible to cross examine her, of course, whether it's Joe, it'll have to be Joe Takapina because Alina Hobb couldn't cross her way out of a wet paper bag, but Takapina will have to be careful, but I think he'll score a couple of points here and there on

some of the story when it happened. Why it took her so long to report the lack of the DNA evidence that's now we've talked about in the past, she'll take on a little bit of water. That's better to take on early on in the case than like right before jury deliberation. So my my thinking is because of the nature of all the timeline dating back to 1995 and 1996 and all the delays related to it I start with her I end with the other two just to put the nail in the coffin But this is gonna be fun you and I are gonna watch it and say you were right

I was right we both were wrong here. They started with Donald Trump the The other thing I wanted to mention about about the cases Robbie Kaplan I was gonna nerd out on her for one more moment We've had around the, Karen and I interviewed her. It ended up being about the Dobbs decision because it happened that day, but we brought her on to talk about E. Jean Carroll. And she did something extraordinary. I don't even know if you've got this, Ben.

She wrote, she's handling multiple cases against Donald Trump. And she's afraid, and rightfully so so that Donald Trump is playing all of the judges against each other to try to get delays in the various cases. We're going to talk about the civil fraud case in Ivanka in a moment and the delays that they're trying to execute there in those with those judges and those lawyers. And so that all the judges know what's going on and all the inconsistent positions that the Trump organization and Donald Trump have taken in front of different judges about, I need a delay because pointing to this trial and then going to that trial and saying, I need

a delay because of the other trial. You know, it's like asking mommy for permission without daddy knowing. So so Robbie Kaplan took it took it upon herself to write a letter to all of the judges that are being played by Donald Trump saying, here's a filing judge that he just filed in the other case. Some of the cases that she wrote and she's not even before those judges. She just wrote a letter to and go on in the civil fraud case to let him know that he's being played about a potential delay there that they're seeking because they want six more months, even though the judges said we're going to trial on civil fraud, hell or high water, October, second, that hasn't stopped the new lawyers from coming in and

saying, we need six more months. We got to oppose Michael Cohen in this case and Deutsche Bank and everybody else. So Robbie Kaplan wrote a letter to all the judges saying, you're basically being played. Don't let it happen. Keep your trial dates where they are and don't let him play you. I love Robbie Kaplan. I think ultimately in the in the match between Robbie Kaplan and Joe Takapina as good as a lawyer as Joe Takapina is.

And he's so much better than Alina Habba that I think in front of that Manhattan jury, this is going to be a win for E. Jean Carol and for justice. Couldn't agree more with you and talking about a win for justice or perhaps a little bit of just a slight thumbs up for justice, not a total win, but having Donald Trump's top senior campaign lawyer from 2020 stipulate that she lied. That's what she did. She's now claiming that didn't happen, but she did. And being publicly censured by essentially the equivalent of Colorado's state bar authority,

I think is very important for a lot of the cases that we're talking about and will actually have impact beyond just this genitalis stipulation. I mean, genitalis is a complete and utter clown. She's a phony. She has a law degree, but let's face it. She's, you know, not a good lawyer at all. As I've said, I mean, she's the worst lawyer. I said, Alina Habba's a worst lawyer and more dangerous because Alina Habba actually takes her being a bad lawyer and steps into

courtrooms. At least Jenna Ellis realizes she doesn't go into courtrooms, which is why I think Jenna Ellis was only publicly censored and didn't actually lose her license, even though I think that she should have at least had her license suspended because, you know, these mega Republicans, they lie about the lies that they admit to, like, it is always lies. There needs to be accountability, but the fact that she admitted that she lied in a public document that other lawyers can take judicial notice of and point to in cases, whether it's Jack Smith, whether it's New York Attorney General,

whether it's the district attorneys, whether it's Fawney Willis, whether it's whoever to say, look, this is Trump's lawyer admitting that she was lying. And look, she admitted in the stipulated facts and argument. It's an opinion approving a stipulation. And just for those who know what a stipulation, wanna know what a stipulation is, it's an opinion approving a stipulation. And just for those who know what a stipulation, want to know what a stipulation is, it's an agreement.

So this is something that Jenna Ellis is admitting to. That's why it is a stipulation. So what it says here is that Jenna Ellis is stipulating that she repeatedly made misrepresentations on national television and on Twitter, undermining the Americans' public confidence in the 2020 presidential election. It's an illegal document. She stipulated it to it. This is what it says. And then it says that she is stipulating specifically to 10 public misrepresentations that she made in

November and December 2020 in her capacity as counsel for then-presidents re-election campaign and as personal counsel, while also advertising her status as a lawyer. So within the course and scope of her official duties for Donald Trump She is stipulating that she has lied on his behalf She may not she may not realize that's what that means But that's I think she does but she's saying that she's lying on his behalf by admitting that it was in the course and scope So then here are the 10 misrepresentations that she made I'm not going to read them all because a lot of them are basically redundant, but I'll

just give you an example. Respondent meaning Jenna Ellis agrees she made the following 10 misrepresentations. So for example, on November 20, 2020, Jenna Ellis appeared on mornings with Maria Baderoma on Fox Business and stated, quote, we have affidavits from witnesses. We have a voter intimidation. We have the ballots that were manipulated. We have all kinds of statistics that show this was a coordinated effort in all of these states to transfer votes, either from Trump to Biden to manipulate the balance, the ballots

to count them in secret. That was a lie. She stipulates she was lying when she said that on November 20, 2020, responding appeared on Spicer and Co and stated with all those states, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, Georgia combined. We know that the election was stolen from President Trump and we can prove that she is stipulating that that is a lie And how do we know that it says it Jenna Ellis made these misrepresentations? She's saying that she did

Respondent made these misrepresentations on all of these the locations and all these networks and on social media and The parties agree that by making these misrepresentations She violated the Colorado rule of professional conduct, 8.4c, which provides that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation. And then it says the parties also asked the court to approve their stipulation to publicly censure, respondent for misconduct under the ABA standard, the American Bar Association standard, 5.13, which provides that public censure is generally appropriate when a lawyer

knowingly. That's what it says, knowingly engages in any non-criminal conduct that involves dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation that adversely reflects on the lawyer's fitness to practice law. So you may be saying, well, what's a public censure? Well, most lawyers care about their reputation. So when this gets posted on your state bar profile, that's usually very, very, very problematic to your ability to practice law when you admit that you are a liar. But for mega Republicans, they don't care. They don't care about their reputation because

they're so far down the conspiracy rabbit hole, their reputation doesn't even matter. So this is what Jenna Ellis says, after the stipulation that I just read to you, I just read to you a stipulated court document that she filed. And then Jenna Ellis goes, the politically motivated left failed miserably in their attempt to destroy me. They're now trying to falsely discredit me by saying, I admitted I lied. That is false. I would never lie. Lying requires intentionally making a false statement. I never I lied. That is false. I would never lie. Lying requires intentionally making a false statement. I never did that nor did I stipulate to or admit that. As has become sadly typical, the opposition controlled media is intentionally twisting the truth, conflating

the full RPC standard with actual stipulation. The standard reads dishonesty fraud, deceit, or, she emphasizes or, or misrepresentation. I mean, POPOC, this is the thing, like fax matter, you know, and when you have a stipulation like that, when there's a public censure, when you admit it, this is the same kangaroo court stuff that she did before. It's why I said she needs to have her license removed or at least suspended because she's a menace. She's a menace to this great practice of law that you and I love when someone goes around like it makes me angry. You know, by the way, she blocks me on all social media, which is just so carefully.

You know, and it's not like I attack her all the time. I mean, I did point out that Rudy Giuliani farted on her, you know, but everybody did that. Um, but this, this is the exact opposite of what it means to be a lawyer. Like this is just as despicable as you get. What are your thoughts? Well, Jenna, well, Jenna, I'm going to do my analysis backwards just to back up what you just said. Jenna Ellis is not a constitutional scholar and she's soon not going to be a lawyer and all the things about lying and not being truthful. You know how I know that what we're saying is true because even someone like Ann Coulter, yes, that Ann Coulter believes that Jenna Ellis is full of you know what? Because she posted off of Jenna Ellis's spin about her stipulated censure stipulated admission

that she knowingly made false statements about the election on media and on Twitter. Antculture wrote, do the Trump die hards enjoy being lied to talking about Janet, they do. So even anter has left the Kool-Aid line in detaching Jenna Ellis. Let me talk about Jenna Ellis from it. Let me talk about public censure for a minute. It's not just on the website, Ben. I was, I was not involved with the case, but I know somebody well in Florida who I won't name, who happened 25 years ago. He's a name partner at a major firm in Florida. He got publicly censored off of something. And I don't know how exactly it happens in

Colorado, but I'm sure it's very similar. You go live to the Supreme Court of your state. And you stand there at that star chamber, you know, in the dock, in the well of the court. you know, in the doc in the well of the court and they read aloud the public censure. I mean, it's very, um, Salem witch trials, but it happens. And that guy, who is a tough guy normally, told me on a private moment that it, it buckled his knees. And she can tweet all she wants, but eventually she's going to be standing. I believe at the Colorado Supreme Court in front of the entire panel and publicly denounced and centered for what she did. Now the reason she went the fast track, whereas Rudy Giuliani ignored the bar, the bar

regulators in New York and got suspended basically because he didn't put up a fight and he put up a minimal fight in DC. Same thing happened to him. Jenna Ellis and her lawyer decided, let's come up with stipulated facts. I'll admit to knowingly doing these 10 really bad things, knowingly doing them. And let's see if I can get out from under a bar suspension or a disarmament. The reason that she was able to do that is because the judge, and I think he was right about it, in analyzing the rules of professional conduct. For those that follow the show, and Ben and I talk about being professionals and how proud we are to be members of this proud profession, when you see other lawyers out there who go

out and do the things like Jenna Ellis and Alina Habba and Sydney Powell and Lin Wood and everybody else that we've ever talked about on the show. And we're embarrassed to have them be part of our profession. We are governed by the rules of professional conduct. It's almost the same in every state. Some states call it the rules of professional responsibility, but it's basically the same code that every state is governed by. And if we don't have it in there, the American Bar Association has standards that lawyers have

to live by. And lawyers get sanctions and penalized and disbarred every day at every state for all the bad things that they do. So it is a self policing self regulating entity that does it through the application of the rules professional conduct. The judge concluded based on the stipulated facts and the judge said, it's the only set of facts I have. He didn't take testimony. He didn't have documents. This was a stipulated set of facts based on those facts and those admissions. I believe that this is a, this goes to the integrity and the duties that are owed to the public at large, not to an individual client. In other words, he doesn't think she committed a rule of professional conduct violation related to her representation of Donald Trump. She believes

it undermined the integrity that lawyers should always promote to the public. And once he went to that and then analyzed that this, he had to then say, is this intentional conduct involving dishonesty, fraud to see or misrepresentation? Or is it reckless, meaning at least knowing? And the judge concluded that it was reckless. She knew or should have known, but knowledge is part of the element. meaning at least knowing. And the judge concluded that it was reckless. She knew or should have known, but knowledge is part of the element,

but he didn't find it went to the level of intentional. Because if it went to intentional, this sounds like we're splitting hairs, she would have probably got disbard. And maybe she wouldn't have gone through this route. She would have maybe put on a bigger case. So I think this was sort of arranged beforehand that the the the sentencing organization,

the regulatory organization entity would seek her public censure and not seek her disbarment. And that's how they kind of cook this up and deliver it to this judge or this referee for these issues. She then went out, I don't think she should have done this because I think she'll get herself in trouble again, but that's good. And she went out on the tweet that you just said, basically trying to split hairs between. I never said it was intentional. It's knowing. It was reckless, but it wasn't intentional. I don't think this matters at all to the public. She lied knowingly and or recklessly

about a series of facts about the election being fraud, that there were 500,000 false votes in Arizona, that there was, that they had affidavits in hand about voter intimidation. She lied knowingly lied. That's enough for me. He just didn't take it to intentional, the judge, to disbar her. But that's how we got to public censure.

I think it starts with an arrangement or an agreement between the bar regulators and Jenna Ellis's lawyers to do it on stipulated facts and that they wouldn't seek ultimately disbarment. They'd only see public censure and that's where that judge went. Lastly, for her to start bragging about it, you did a really great hot take on it. For her to start bragging about it, could give rise to another series of charges that could be brought against her. We like talking about these entities that bring plaintiffs cases or what we call them, artificial turf groups. But I love the name of this one.

The group that went against her, which are going against all the former lawyers for Donald Trump, is the United, the States United Democracy Center. They filed the charge and they're going to file another charge based on the tweets that you just read. And you and I in about three or four weeks are going to be talking about another charge against Jenna Ellis and maybe, maybe the judge or referee scraps the deal and says, I don't like the way you then went out into the public because you're undermining public integrity. Once again, I think she just bought herself another bar charge. What do you think, again, I think she just bought herself another bar charge. What do you think Ben?

I think she did buy herself another bar charge and that's why I said when I read the initial stipulation before she even made those comments. I said, you can't just publicly censure these people and the reality is I think why it took the public censure direction is because even though she has a law license she's not like a real like like she doesn't like go she didn't really go into court for Trump she like held the fake court appearances where she got farted on

with Giuliani and held the press conferences you know and and I think, you know, it was kind of to the disciplinary authorities were like, look, she was kind of just playing make believe lawyer here and holding these weird oppress conferences and she hasn't actually, you know, performed like the surgical operation, like she didn't go into court, she didn't prepare the legal documents, but I think that's a flawed analysis because the damage that she causes to the integrity of the profession and the disinformation that she consistently spreads even after the center undermines the institutions in a more profound way

than even it would be if she signed her name to a pleading. Still have a lot to discuss here on legal AF, including Ivanka Trump throwing her family under the bus as the Trump family seeks to delay their pending trial where they are a defendant in the civil fraud lawsuit brought by Latisha James. I will give my take and why the Pope will give his. I think we both will share the same take that we don't think Judge will give his. I think we both will share the same take that we don't think Judge Arthur

and Coral are not sure is going to be moving the child. Oh, well, well, well, no, no, that I agree with, that I agree with, but just before we go to wherever we're going next, you and I think are gonna disagree about the throwing under the bus thing. I don't think that's what Ivanka's doing. We're gonna talk about it.

We'll talk about it right after these quick messages. And now let's take a quick break to talk about our next partner, Fume. Be smart, don't start, kick the habit, put it out before it puts you out. All phrases we've heard a hundred times, yet we still continue to have bad habits. Now, as you may know, I have a horrible habit of grinding my teeth that just drives me up the walls. Well, our sponsor FUME is on a mission to accelerate humanity's breakup from bad habits that consume far too many of us. FUME is a natural diffusive device that uses plants and behavioral science

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There would also be injunctive relief as well that the New York AG's office is seeking, which basically would shut down the ability of all of those individuals, the Trump's adult children, Trump, the Trump organization from doing business in New York, just shutting down their ability to do business because of their decade plus long scheme and it probably lasted longer than that, but the New York AG's only reach into what the statute allows, fraudulent valuations of their properties

to gain all of these improper benefits, just complete fraud at every level and every layer of that business cases set to go to trial October 2nd of 2023 judge Arthur and Goran had previously said come hell or high water that Case is going to trial in February judge Arthur and Goran reiterated that to trial in February, judge Arthur and go on reiterated that because smartly, all these lawyers know Trump schemes now. So whether you're Roberta Kaplan, whether you're the New York AG, whether whatever, the lawyers are now saying, look, judge, we know that Donald Trump is a vexatious litigant.

We all know the pattern and practice here. They're bolstered by all of these rulings now that have existed in the past few years confirming Donald Trump essentially as a vexatious litigant. So they go, look at his pattern and practice. Look with all these federal justices have said or judges have said about him. And basically, Donald Trump's, you know, normal schemes have not been working. But here yet again, Trump tried to request a six month delay from the trial. That's going to be ruled on by Justice Arthur and Goran, who I don't think is going to grant it.

And then shortly after Trump requested the extension of time and the reason Trump requested it, I need more time for discovery. I want to take these depositions. We don't have all of the documents, dude. They're your documents. They're the Trump or documents. They're your own. The whole discovery is your records

and your accounting records. So it's not one of these cases where they need a lot of discovery. It's their own files that are being shown to a jury. But then shortly after that, Ivanka filed a motion, court record, court document with Justice Arthur and Goran, basically saying in it, look, I had nothing to do with the statement of financial conditions. My family did that. I wasn't responsible. I haven't been associated with this organization since 2017. I shouldn't be, I did nothing wrong here. I disagree with her. I don't, I don't believe her. I think that she has been involved. She's on trust documents. She's been a member

of this criminal family and has been involved in the criminal workings of this family going before 2017. I don't believe her that she has no involvement. I don't believe anything that comes out of the mouth of Ivanka or Donald or his children at all. But it has been reported that that was throwing the family members under the bus by saying if anyone did it, they did it. But you may have a different take on it, Pope. I do hope this is not the first, the Vaughn, Ivanka Trump filing. And I think it all fits together. We reported a couple of months ago that Ivanka was successful in getting out from under the financial monitor that was in place, alleging that similar

to what she's alleging in her attempts to get out from under the trial and to buy herself more time and to get herself a little further away from the bond blast, which will be her brothers and Donald Trump, that why me, if you go through the 200 pages of filing of the complaint that was filed two years ago, there's very little mention of me, Ivanka Trump, having anything to do with the fraud that's being alleged, which is, by the way, as you've already alerted our listeners and followers, untrue. If you go carefully through the 222 pages and all of the hundreds of allegations, there is plenty of direct allegations naming Ivanka Trump in financial fraud, including in properties in Florida, in properties in Chicago, in relationships with banks and insurers, and all of that. So that is untrue. There is, and I gave a speculation, my own personal speculation,

personal speculation based on my review of the of the of the filings that something was going on between her lawyers and and Latisha James and that she was being treated differently in their negotiations than the lawyers and the clients of Donald Trump, Don Jr. and Eric. And I think we're seeing that born out again here. We thought maybe Ivanka was going to flip and be a little bit more cooperative with the Attorney General than Donald Trump and the brothers have been. And that still may be the case. But I think this is not throwing under the bus yet. I think this is a coordinated strategy between Donald Trump's lawyers, some of which overlap with Ivanka, and Ivanka's private lawyers to try to both slow down this trial, buy more time, give Ivanka more time for

her own defenses, which she claims are unique and different than that of her brothers. But the ultimate complete Trump monolithic goal, whether you're, Devonka, Don Jr. Eric, or Donald, is the same, which is to delay, to separate, to divide, to conquer. So I don't think this is like Donald Trump opened up the New York Times and said, oh crap, my daughter is throwing me under the bus and is going to claim that it's just my financial statements that are wrong. She wasn't involved.

He knew this was going to happen. The lawyer's coordinated it. This is a well-coordinated, to my view, effort, coordinated effort between all of the lawyers to accomplish the exact same thing. With the caveat that I do believe that if Donald Trump could save one of his children from the civil fraud impact and bomb blast of all of them, it would be Ivanka and he's probably given the thumbs up to these kind of filings. But it's also coordinated around something we didn't really talk too much about even in hot takes. they have to march 21 to, according to the existing

pretrial order to complete all depositions. Of course, the defendants are now just, they haven't done any depositions in the two years of this case, although they had two years to do it and the new lawyers and all of that. So they're now claiming, wait, judge, there's 11,000 hours of material that have to be reviewed. You had two years to do it, so what? We have 30 more depositions that we wanna take. We can't do it all by March 21.

Yeah, but you had two years. And they've thrown out names just to give you an idea of where they're gonna go in this case. Michael Cohen got served the deposition. I'm sorry, a subpoena for deposition. He says he's going to move to Quasit, but they want to get the Deutsche Bank banker, who was the lead banker. This is their theory that nobody was victimized by the fraud that Leticia James' process is going after. So they want that. They've got three dozen witnesses they want to try to do. So that's what's up with the judge on the Don Jr. Eric Donald side.

We need more time. We need more depositions than I think that loses, but we're going to see what judge Angora undoes. And at the same time, almost at the same moment, Ivanka says, why me? I'm so different. You let me out from under the financial monitor. I wasn't really involved. Yes, my name's on things and I was the president

of certain parts of the organization, but I'm not responsible. If it was any, I didn't know about those financial statements being fraudulent and there's nothing alleged in the complaint that says I did, which is also false. There's plenty of places. So I'll have to see the next thing is gonna be the filing

by the New York Attorney General against these papers and then a hearing by Judge Angoran, which is not private, which is not confidential, which you and I will be able to report on. But that's the only place where you and I are maybe the mainstream media disagree. I don't, it's an easy headline, it's an easy grab. G-throws brothers and father under the bus. I don't see it that way. I see it.

These guys are too smart and have been fending off lawsuits and criminality for too long. This is the family business and this is a coordinated opportunity for the lawyers to drive Latisha James nuts and the judge nuts all at the same time. I think it could be both. I think it could also be coordinated,

but I think Ivanka, when push comes to shove by putting it in a court document that it was the others who engaged in it is separating herself from the family and saying, well, they did it. I undo it. So, but at the same time, also hoping that it causes delay, I think that Letitia James filing should start off by saying, we told you this would happen, period. That's how I would start.

We told you, period. This is exactly the modus operandi, you're aware, we know he's gonna do this. And now they wanna, after two years of having the opportunity to do all of these, this discovery and all of these depositions, now they wanna play the games and call in Cohen and call in all of these people.

Look, they have their opportunity to do that. They can do that at the time of trial, call your witness, and they'll have the opportunity to cross-examine. And in terms of discovery, you don't need them in discovery. Cohen worked for you. So, you know, during the relevant years, he worked for the organization. So you know what he was doing.

You have the records. You control the emails. It's the Trump organization data set. If anyone needs more time, it would be the New York Attorney General's Office to go through all of the different LLCs and everything that Trump created, which by the way the New York Attorney General's Office did. And finally, look, mostly all of the the Trump witnesses are going to invoke their fifth amendment rights anyway. They're not gonna testify. Donald Trump's not gonna testify. How do we know this? Because in the special proceeding that was the precursor to the filing,

he'd pled the fifth over 400 times when asked the most basic questions. Yeah, the tough guy, the tough guy, Donald Trump. What was the value of Mar-a-Logel? I plead the fifth. What's the value of Trump tower? I plead the fifth. Real tough, real tough. We can't even answer a question like that. You know, you should be, you should be bragging about it. It's, it's worth billions of dollars. Go brag about it. But you know, you're not going to do that because you would be incriminating yourself. And by the way, in a civil case, that's an adverse inference, unlike a criminal case. So here, New York attorney general, a Tisha James, can say to the jury, hey, you saw these statements that Trump made where

he invoked the fifth when I asked these very basic questions You can infer based on that that he was concealing the fact that if he actually answered those questions He would be admitting to the wrongdoing that's at the center of this case We'll keep of course all the legal a efforts Updated on what's happening there But I think that we both don't think that the judge is gonna grant any extensions I think this is in October 2023 trial. And finally, I want to talk about special counsel, Jack Smith, an update there because his legal team attended a oral argument before judge barrel Howell seeking to compel more testimony from Evan Corcoran, Donald Trump's lawyer under the

crime fraud exception, the proceedings that take place in criminal grand juries and federal court, like mostly all state courts take place in secret. So we know from the reporting, though, what transpired and the claim being made by Jack Smith is that the attorney client privilege between Evan Corcoran and Trump does not apply here because Smith, because Smith argues that Corcoran and Trump does not apply here because Smith, because Smith argues that Corcoran and Trump were engaged in obstruction of justice, a crime, and that the communications and information that is at issue when Evan Corcoran refused to testify previously before the grand jury asserting attorney client privilege that that information was in furtherance of the crime of obstruction of justice. And therefore, this information should be

divulged by Corcoran or Corcoran can invoke his Fifth Amendment right, but not the attorney client privilege here. And we've seen before other Donald Trump lawyers like Johnny, Simon and Voka attorneyerni, Client privilege and that be overruled because of the crime fraud exception. And we saw that happen in the Central District of California. But look, this show, special counsel, Jack Smith is moving methodically and aggressively there. Jack Smith is also still, of course, compelling the testimony or seeking to compel the

testimony of former vice president Pence and others. And also at the same time, you have Donald Trump filing all these motions in a panic trying to exclude testimony that was previously given by Pat Zipaloni, Patrick Filben, and other of his legal team, where previously the judge in DC compelled their testimony over Donald Trump's objections.

And the grand jury's already heard their testimony. So it's like, it's kind of moot at this point, but Donald Trump thinks that that's worthy of his time, but it's more obstruction, obstruction obstruction obstruction by Donald Trump, both in the criminal sense and in the more colloquial sense of like just delay, delay, delay. So Popeye, what are your thoughts on this one? Yeah, this is the waning days of barrel howl as chief judge. Jeb Bosberg takes over later this month, the Department of Justice. I think wanted to cram a few, few more of these in front of Barrel Howell.

Although I don't have any reason to believe that Jeb Bozberg, when he's running the grand juries, is going to do anything differently based on the precedent that Barrel Howell has set on how to analyze these things. She took the corkour in series of motions by the Department of Justice to compel him to testify again. He already testified in January January asserting the attorney client privilege. This is successful and it's been successful like five other times in front of Barrel Howell

to prove that the crime fraud exception would require him to drop the attorney client privilege and it's all the privilege he has about his role in Mar-a-Lago, the obstruction of the documents, the obstruction of the Department of justice in their execution of the search warrant or in the subpoena or all the false statements that were made through Christina Bob. Quarkin has a lot of explaining to do. And I think that crime fraud exception just as it has successfully stripped away from people like Pat Sipalone, Christina Bob, Eric Hirschman, and others is going to be stripped away against

Korkren and we're going to get a ruling and we're going to know the result of that ruling because when we see Korkren go back to the grand jury, having already been there once, that's got to be because Barrel howl ruled against him. The interesting battle that we're going to watch and I'm going to do a hot take on this one has been little reported is Jim trusty who we sort of poked fun at when he was arguing at the 11th Circuit about the bar law of documents that got his keyster handed to him. There is a relationship, a professional and a friend relationship between trusty and Jack Smith that dates back to when they were both bureau chiefs, one handling what trusty

handled, which was like gang violence and one handling other things, but they were like lunch buddies. And so there's if there's of all the lawyers that are in the constellation of lawyers of Donald Trump, the only one that I believe has any credibility whatsoever to sit across the table from Jack Smith at the appropriate time and have a conversation. I don't know what that conversation is yet. It is Jim trusty. Jim trusty was in the courtroom, along with John Rally, his co-counsel and Evan Corcoran,

litigating these issues with with Jack Smith's people. One day, there is going to be a sit down with with former friends, Jim trusty and Jack Smith about all things Trump and we'll report on it. We will report on it here and things are definitely heating up as you see, like we could be potentially talking about a indictment on our next legal AF or certainly in the next few legal AFs, something that we've all been waiting for because we all care about justice here and that's why we do this show. We talk about the wheels of justice. We talk

about process and procedure though as well because it is important to understand what is really going on here without the spin, without the theatrics, without the yelling, without the occasionally yelling is okay. But without that as the lead driving force, we got to lead with the facts. And we got to look at what the court documents say. That's why we read the court documents and we show you what the people are arguing and you can judge for yourself, ultimately here.

And that's what this show is all about. Of course, Michael Popak and I have opinions, but our opinions are rooted in facts. And we hope that's something that you come away with after watching or listening to this legal a f. Hey, do me a favor wherever you listen to or watch legal a f. Make sure you're subscribed to all of our legal a f platform. So if you're watching this on YouTube Make sure you subscribe to the audio legal AF podcast. Just search legal AF Wherever you get your podcast after the show ends and subscribe there and listen to it because I think it's important

There's a lot of material to unpack here to listen to it both on video and audio. And if you're just an audio listener, check out the MidasTouch YouTube channel. Just search MidasTouch, subscribe to the MidasTouch YouTube network. We are marching to one million subscribers. Wow. It's really, really exciting to try to hit that one million subscriber mark in the month of March. But yes, we are marching to one million subscribers. Also, check out store.mitistouch.com for the best pro-democracy gear and legal AF gear store.mitistouch.com is the only place where you can get the official legal AF podcast gear 100% union made 100% made right here in the USA. Check out patreon.com slash might as touch PAT or EOT and dot com slash might as

touch. We have a lot of exclusive content there, including exclusive zoom chats we do with our patreon members. We posted a video about one of those interactions earlier in the week, but check it out patreon.com slash Midas touch. And those are all the various places. Check out all the other Midas touch podcasts as well. And of course, keep checking out Popeyes hot takes right here on the Midas touch network as well. Popeok, I have a ton of fun doing this with you. And most importantly, it is so fun to share this with all the Midas mighty the types of conversations that we would have offline we have right here special thanks to Karen Friedman Agnifalo for breaking down the Manhattan district attorneys big news that Donald

Trump was called to speak with the grand jury there and its implications of imminent criminal indictments against Donald Trump. Thank you, Karen Freeman. I'm going to thank you to the Midas Mighty. Thanks to the legal a efforts. None of this is possible without you. We are so grateful for this vibrant legal AF community of pro-democracy loving people. And when Pope A can I speak offline,

we're always just so motivated by the thoughtful comments that you make, and by the fact that we know that you're taking this information and spreading the importance of true facts and democracy to everybody you know. So thank y'all so much. I'm Ben Micellis joined by Michael Popo. Thank you for watching this episode of Legal AF and of course a special shout out to the Midas Mighty.