Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Jack Smith ARRIVES in DC Amid McCarthy Speaker CHAOS

Episode Date: January 8, 2023

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF is back for another hard-hitting look at the wheels of justice in “real time.” as they analyze and discuss this week’s most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this week’s edition, the anchors break-down and analyze: Special Prosecutor Jack Smith’s adding two lead prosecutors to his “A Team” as he gears up for possible indictments and trials of Trump and his posse; the DOJ gets another win before the DC Circuit Chief Judge overseeing the “Mar a Lago” grand jury and Trump is forced to reveal the identity of the people who allegedly searched for classified documents; the late Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick’s estate suit against Donald Trump for wrongful death; the NY State judge presiding over the New York Attorney General’s $250 million civil fraud case against Trump and his children and his denial of their motion to dismiss as the case heads to an October trial; and the legal ramifications of the failure of the House Republicans to pass a rules package and its impact on future governing and their future attempts to shut down the government, and so much more. Shop LegalAF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Special counsel Jack Smith arrives back in Washington, DC from the Hague. A new trove, a treasure trove of documents that he's subpoenaed in the criminal investigation of Donald Trump while he was in Europe awaits. And he has also been greeted by a new staff. He has hired some of the top lawyers who he's worked closely with in the past and some of the top lawyers in the country. We're also learning that a charging decision or decisions by special counsel Jack Smith may be imminent or at least coming in the next few weeks.

And special counsel Jack Smith's investigation got a very good ruling this week in the federal criminal grand jury proceedings in Washington DC in the criminal investigations of Donald Trump when federal judge Barrel Howell ruled that Donald Trump must turn over the names and the identities of the so-called private investigators who had searched Mar-a-Lago to determine if there were more stolen documents at the property. And the estate of deceased Capitol Police Officer Brian Siknik filed a wrongful death lawsuit

right before the expiration of the statute of limitations against Donald Trump and two insurrectionists for the murder. It's a civil murder case in essence. That's what a wrongful death case is seeking monetary damages based on the conduct that took place during the January 6th insurrection. And New York State court judge Arthur N. Garan denied Donald Trump's motion to dismiss New York Attorney General, Etisha James, $250 million fraud lawsuit that was filed back in September. So that matter will now proceed to trial the first week in October. And not only did Judge Engoron deny the motion to dismiss,

but he also sent an email informing Alina Haban, Trump's other lawyers that their motion was just so bad that he was considering sanctions ultimately didn't grant the sanctions and just set this pretty much expedited trial date but warned Trump's lawyers stop with the BS you are going to trial and speaking of BS and chaos and mayhem and incompetence, all of those things we saw in full display in the House of Representatives not by both sides but by the Maga Republicans who just humiliated themselves and the institution over this past week. There was 15 roll call votes in the speakership race over four days of failure for Kevin McCarthy.

Eventually, I guess the 15th try was the charm. And Kevin McCarthy became the weakest speaker ever to preside over the House of Representatives late Friday night into Saturday, depending on where you were watching it. And the Republicans still don't have the votes, though, to pass a rules package, meaning we don't have a functioning house of representatives. We didn't have a functioning house of representatives this past week. What are the legal implications of the rule package? Or shall I say the lack thereof? And how will that impass be solved, given that they couldn't even pick a leader?

I'm Ben Myself. implications of the rule package or shall I say the lack thereof and how will that impasse be solved given that they couldn't even pick a leader. I'm Ben Myself is joined by Michael Popak. You are watching legal a F those are some headlines, huh? Michael Popak as we kick off the new year. To don't be fooled by my smile I'm a little bit depressed and disappointed this morning for the tour today. smile. I'm a little bit depressed and disappointed this morning where the tour today Okay, I understand that

Yeah, you know, you want to know why I like to know why a man a few words a rare a rare Papakian quality tell us I just got through binge watching 15 episodes of McCarthy trying to become speaker and I'm depressed that it's over but I understand it's been renewed for a new season and it starts on Monday. So I'm feeling better. Isn't that season two of the squid games? I can't tell. I can't tell what let's get right into it. Like that one, Popeye. Bam. Let's get right into it with special counsel Jack Smith. He's arriving back from the haggleak while he was in the Hegelick. He was recovering from a bicycle accident But he was doing a lot of work there subpoenaing state and local election officials and now as he arrives in Washington DC He's got a trove of new documents that actually the January 6th committee didn't even get

And that the DOJ previously didn't get. These are some documents from Milwaukee County, as well as Clark County, and they also subpoenaed a bunch of other states because one of the things he's investigating, in addition to just what happened on the day of January 6, is Donald Trump's illegal conduct in his illegal pressuring, unlawful pressuring of the state and local election officials,

as well as the fake elector scheme, not to mention special counsel, Jack Smith's also engaged in the criminal investigation relating to Trump stealing thousands of government records, including top secret, sensitive compartmental records. And Jack Smith's staffing up, huh? He's bringing in some top lawyers who are now in private practice,

who he worked with in the Department of Justice, specifically, he's hired Ray Halcer, who previously led the Justice Department's public integrity section, and David Harback, who previously served as counsel to a Trump adversary, former FBI director James Comey, and they both had very high-profile jobs at the Department of Justice, very successful careers

in private practice, and all of those signs point to a charging decision coming soon. In fact, that's what Bloomberg News reported this week. They said in a few weeks, I think I still think that's ambitious. My timeframe is more April or May, but what say you, Michael Popak, as Jack Smith arrives in DC? Yeah. If all that he's done is from the hey, look out with Jack Smith, getting two feet on the ground in Washington, DC. Yeah, if if all that he's done is from the hey look out with Jack Smith getting two feet on the ground in Washington DC. I mean, the momentum that he already has, he made he made a calculated decision at the very beginning, Ben, to use the existing and respect the existing line prosecutors

at every day prosecutors that were already in place under Merrick Garland and rather than throw them out and start a new with his own people, having being a lifelong DOJ person, if you prick Jack Smith's arm, it bleeds DOJ blue. He liked those prosecutors, but he needed to add additional ones and the first two real top prosecutors that he's added bolted on to the existing group of 20 or 25 or so prosecutors that are already in place that he inherited. That he is now cracking the whip and driving. The two new ones are really great for justice because of their close relationship with Jack Smith. He trusts them implicitly. And because of their career record of going after people, just like Donald Trump, in positions of power and taking them down. For instance, Ray Holster was known in his time in the public integrity unit of the Department of Justice as Mr. Fixit, but as real claim

the fame was, he was the number two and the right hand of one Jack Smith when Jack Smith was the head of the Department of Justice public integrity unit under Loretta Lynch. And then took over that office, the public integrity investigation unit, after Jack Smith left. So there's nobody who's closer, professionally or personally, than Ray Holster to Jack Smith. And then they bring along Harbach, who Dave Harbach, who was currently at O'Melvin and Myers, a very large well-respected law firm, but also had been counsel, as you said, to the FBI director, Comey, and has a lot of

involvement. And these three together, or at least Halcer and Harbock have gone after Senator Bobman and Daz in a corruption trial and indictment, Governor Bob McDonnell, to Virginia, and Senator John Edwards. Now, not all of those turned out with perfect convictions, but it shows you these people know exactly how to pull the levers in a very intense high profile position, especially with somebody who is an elected official, a current elected official, or running for office. So really great that the first two picks that we can see of Jack Smith adding his own people are these two people. Now, I think that as you've said, there are at least three, if not four work streams, feeder streams,

that Jack Smith is supervising the prosecution of and the grand juries related to it. Mar-a-Lago, yes, fake electors and all the states related to the fake electors scheme in the battlegrounds, the election interference of Donald Trump in the battleground states, at least seven battleground states. And then for me, those are like the three main work streams that are going on here. And the question is, where are the indictments going to be coming and how soon? I don't think it's a matter of if anymore. I mean, Jack Smith doesn't bring these last cherries on the top of the Sunday prosecutors. If he's not getting loaded for bear to try a case against Donald Trump and others. And these people don't join him just for the, the folly of,

hey, it'd be kind of fun to come back and hang out with Jack Smith for a while. That's not what they're doing. They're doing this because he's trying to get his first chair trial team in place, right? His A team, his dream team of prosecutors to try cases against these key people, including Donald Trump. And I agree with you.

I think several weeks is a little ambitious, but I would think in the end of the first quarter or the second quarter of 2023, we're gonna see indictments. What will be the first, you and I will handicap. Will it be Mar-a-Lago? Will it be Georgia, the Georgia interference case? Will it be the Nevada interference case by Donald Trump?

He made phone calls to those places as well that we've now learned through all of the new work by Jack's people. And what the DOJ under Jack are currently doing, people might be wondering, what are these 25 prosecutors and 100 investigators doing every day? Well, part one group is looking and scouring the Jan 6th committee 1000 plus witness statements. A, to match it up with witnesses that they've already brought into the grand jury to make sure there's no gaps in testimony or there's no circular firing squad between witnesses. This witness like Rona McDaniels or the RNC says Trump did know this other witness says Trump didn't know. They've got this is part of the factoring of whether they're going to prosecute this case

and what the case looks like both their own evidence and the competing defense evidence that would be put on as they evaluate the strength of the case. So they're doing that. They're scouring those 1,000, bringing new people into the grand jury. They're not done there at all for these various grand juries that we've identified. And they're getting the documents that you and I have identified over the last month or two. Since before Thanksgiving and before Christmas, that were subpoenas that were sent to all

the battleground states to election officials, secretaries of state and local chairpeople of Republican parties in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, and the like. And they're now getting those documents. Those offices have reported that they've a lot of them have reported. They've turned in documents to Jack Smith. So he's got a prosecutor team that's looking at all of those emails and text messages between Donald Trump himself.

People close to Donald Trump, putting pressure on elected officials to participate in the fake electors scheme, to throw out absentee ballots, to participate in lawsuits, challenging the electors, and the like. Because what Donald Trump thinks is just his innocent exercise of First Amendment rights as a losing candidate to challenge the outcome of the election, to a prosecutor is criminal interference with an election and the peaceful transfer of power. And that's the divide between Donald

Trump and all those that still cling fealty to him, including Kevin McCarthy, who we'll talk about later, who already is on record as saying, thank you, thank you, President Trump, because I wouldn't have gotten the speakership on those last few votes without your phone calls. So the people that think Donald Trump and you and I have talked about it has now shrunken down to size and really doesn't hold any power or sway among a large group of Republicans. He does. And so, you know, the challenge for the prosecutors remains the same. He's got, they have an incredibly popular among the Republican-based person running for

office that they're going to have to make the decision to indict. When you talk about shrunken down to size, well, Trump maybe has in shrunken down to size in the Republican party. The Republican party has shrunken down to side to zero integrity at all. I mean, what Donald Trump was doing during the proceedings was posting cartoon memes of himself sticking his tongue out. You can't get more embarrassing and humiliating than that.

And Kevin McCarthy looks at that and goes, well, that was actually very helpful at a time when Americans are yearning for normalcy and humanity and a government that functions. The Republican Party is just the exact opposite. But when we talk about function and functioning and working, we have to give credit here to Merrick Garland and the seamless transition from Garland

to Special Counsel Jack Smith. With you mentioned, about 20 of those lawyers basically who are already on the investigation, pivoting to now work for Special Counsel, Jack Smith as part of these special counsels roles. Meanwhile, Jack Smith is then bringing in his own team to buttress that. And let's give a special shout out here to Merrick Garland because I know that he has a lot of haters.

I think over time, people as the truth managed to permeate from a lot of the disinformation silos of people who would just reflexively attack Merrick Arlet and I get the frustration of wanting it to move quicker, but let's not forget that there have been close to 1,000 arrests of insurrectionists and approximately half of those individuals have already been either found guilty in jury trials or pled guilty, the Department of Justice on insurrectionists in terms of their trials is batting 1,000.

There may be specific claims. There's ten and a half. They have never lost a trial yet, including trying very difficult, seditious conspiracy claims, charges against the Oathkeepers. Now they will be trying those claims against the Proud Boys. And so you have a perfect record. You've climbed the ladder now. You've reached the point where you've passed the baton over

to Special Counsel Jack Smith, essentially the LeBron James of prosecutors who's building out the dream team of other prosecutors. There's no better textbook way of handling it other than to say I understand the fact that we all wanted it to go quicker. However, sometimes the quickness of something is not necessarily equated with the carefulness and the diligence that is needed. And speaking of diligence, one of the things that Merrick Garland was doing, and now special counsel Jack Smith is doing, is having to continue to fight to get documents and information in these special grand jury proceedings.

The presiding federal judge in Washington, D.C. judge, Barrel Howell, she also presides overall criminal grand juries and thus she presides over the Trump criminal grand juries. We know that there is at least two, maybe three or four. Right now in Washington, D.C., currently engaged in criminal investigations of Donald Trump. These grand jury proceedings are secret, and they're always secret, and there's a lot of reasons why grand juries are secret. One, you want to, one, there's a presumption of innocence.

So with all of these documents are flying around in the public, people who are being criminally investigated. We're not just saying Donald Trump, it's anybody. Their names would be out there and associated with the criminal conduct being investigated and not necessarily the charges. And it's also to protect the investigations themselves

and keep the investigation secret so that the Department of Justice and the FBI can do their work appropriately without leaks damaging their investigation. But inevitably there are some leaks. So for example, we know some of the victories by the Department of Justice in these grand jury proceedings. For example, Donald Trump has tried to assert executive privilege to block the testimony of his top former lawyers like Pat Zipaloni and Patrick Filman and former vice president Pence's former top staffers as well like Greg Jacob and Mark Short Greg Jacobs was Pence's former general counsel and Mark Short was a former vice president, Pence's former chief of staff. All of those individuals were forced to assert the executive privilege, frankly, against their will because Trump was the one who held,

who holds the privilege, and he was asserting it. And the Department of Justice, we previously have reported this. They prevailed there, got that testimony of all of their communications with Trump. By the way, the January 6th committee was not able to get that information because of the legal challenges by Donald Trump and by the other witnesses which dragged it on until the expiration of the Jan 6th committee.

But Jack Smith has those. The only thing different is that the Jack Smith grand jury is just not public. So we're not seeing necessarily what's going on, which I think would give people a better deal of confidence if they could see it, but there are very important reasons why they are secret. And now, and by the way, that takes time. And I've done this before on the show where I was just like, if you called up someone like Pat Cipollonia as your witness and you didn't break the executive privilege if you didn't challenge it

before and then you had to call a critical witness in your in front of a jury and now you can't get the testimony you're going to look like an idiot and you're going to lose the case and unfortunately these grand juries they only meet a few times a month. By the way they're picked from the same group of jurors that are for regular juries as well, except someone's commitment to a special grand jury because it could take many, many months at a time. Usually you get a certain kind of group of people who can do that, who don't necessarily have the same commitments, let's just say. And so, you have these proceedings going on before the special grand jury.

It takes time. And now, we have all of the information that special counsel, Jack Smith-Neeze, but Poopock, there was another good ruling by Judge Barrel Howell in addition to the ones they just mentioned. Maybe you can talk about that. Yeah, talk about functioning branches of the government, the judiciary branch is functioning

reasonably well, especially in the DC circuit and under Chief Judge Barrel Howell. So you may have, people may remember from who regularly listen to Legal AF and Watch Legal AF with you and me, that there is still a battle going on between the Department of Justice who does not believe, neither does the National Archive, that Donald Trump has complied with the subpoena to turn over all classified information that belongs to him. The one skirmish that everybody remembers is Mar-a-Lago, but that wasn't the only place that the subpoena that came out of the Grand Jury was not tied to Mar-a-Lago. It was tied to Donald Trump. And Donald Trump had to, had to, and as an obligation under criminal penalty, to turn over all documents

responsive to those subpoenas, no matter where those documents are as long as they're under his care, custody, and control and knowledge. So Marlago was one place because the Department of Justice knew that Marlago held a large cache of these documents because they had witness cooperating witnesses that told them that. They went there first. After a series of requests, man's letters in treaties,

negotiations broke down, they finally had it, went into a magistrate judge in South Florida and got a search warrant and went and executed on it, led us to Judge Cannon, and we all know what happened after that with the 11th Circuit, and eventually the Supreme Court throwing the book at Judge Cannon

and making sure all those documents got back into the hands of the Department of Justice for their criminal investigation. But that's not the only place these documents existed. Trump is notorious in public that he lives in Trump Tower, his main primary residence on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. And also he spends an anordinate amount of his time at a golf club in Betman, Sternu, Jersey, which is very close to Alina Habas office, which is how they met. So, the Department of Justice has always had a working theory and a lack of trust in their negotiations with Donald Trump's lawyers that they're not all the

documents aren't returned, all top secret documents don't return. And they brought that mistrusting feeling to Barrel Howell. And if you'll recall, our listeners and followers, there was a motion for contempt hearing that was held. And at that time, a month or so ago, Barrel Howell hadn't reached the red line yet of finding Donald Trump and his lawyers in contempt for not turning over the all the documents, but she did suggest, of finding Donald Trump and his lawyers in contempt for not turning over the all the documents,

but she did suggest, and very, I'm sure very strongly worded suggestions from a judge, really, instructions, that Donald Trump needed to go back to the drawing board, do a better job of searching all of these places and making a full report back to her and to the Department of Justice. That resulted in two more documents,

top secret classified, being found in West Palm Beach in a government facility that Donald Trump had because as an ex-president you get certain resources. One of them is a storage unit. So he had a, he had a classified, or a, he just had a government storage unit for a lot of his things and two more documents were found in there. Who were they found by? Donald Trump said that he hired a private investigative team, some private people to go search these places and make their

report. Well, the Department of Justice doesn't trust Donald Trump for very good reason and doesn't trust these as of this moment unnamed, unidentified quote unquote private investigators who may or may not have, you know, been incentivized to properly search these places because even at this moment, even as late as October, Ben, you may recall, the National Archive reported to the Jansick's committee that they still believe that there are more top secret and classified documents that have not been turned over by Donald Trump. And nothing's happened between October and now January to change the mind of the DOJ that there's still a cache of documents somewhere that Donald Trump hasn't bothered because

he doesn't want to be bothered to go look for. So Donald Trump came up with some sort of compromise where he said, well, your honor through his lawyers, well, your honor. I'll, uh, the Department of Justice can talk to my private investigation, uh, investigative team and get all the information and debrief them about how they did it. But we don't want their identity revealed at all. It's not even redacted. They just didn't want the Department of Justice to like know who was on the other end of the call. not even redacted. They just didn't want the Department of Justice to like know who was on the other end of the call. And the Department of Justice said, no dice, no way. We want to know who these people are, what they did. We want to be able to background check these people, know what their qualifications are for even doing this. Is this cyber ninjas

part two? Who is this group that's been hired? And the fact that Donald Trump thought he could actually convince Barrel Howell that he could tell the Department of Justice that they could have access to these people, but not know their identity was not happening. So the Department of Justice went back to Barrel Howell in the reporting. And on Wednesday, the judge ruled that Donald Trump has to turn over the names and the identity of just who it was that did the search for the classified documents. But one last thing before we move on to the other things I know you want to talk about. The Jack Smith special prosecutor led team against Donald Trump and all the Janssick stuff. We're not even done. We keep giving the stats of 950 people arrested, 450 plus people convicted either by trial or by plea and

more to come. They're not even done with their investigations. I don't know if you caught this, Ben, just this week, the FBI and the DOJ sent out yet another wanted poster, if you will, because they're still looking for leads to who put two pipe bombs in front of the DNC, the Democratic National Committee, and the RNC, the Republican version. They still don't know who did that. So they're still trying to track down Jan 6 in Syracianist and defendants and bring them to justice even one day after the two year anniversary of January 6th.

That's what our department of justice in proper hands does. I hear they're giving a $500,000 reward and they may want to post that wanted sign in the House of Representatives in the Republican caucus room. Maybe maybe there's some inside there. I don't know. I'm just saying. Let's talk about the wrongful death lawsuit brought by the estate of the deceased Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. It was filed on January 5th. the lawsuit was brought by Sandra Garza, his long-time partner who brought this individually and as a personal representative of the estate of Brian Siknik, it is a wrongful death lawsuit. And in a wrongful death, it is a civil lawsuit.

It's not criminal, meaning that what it seeks is monetary damages. The defendants in this matter are Donald Trump, Julian Cater, and George Tanios. Cater and Tanios are insurrectionists who have already pled guilty. They were not charged by the Department of Justice, though, with murder. The Department of Justice got them on, of course, other charges as well. Brian Siknik passed the day after the insurrection during the insurrection. He suffered multiple

strokes based on the conduct by the insurrectionists in a wrongful death lawsuit, what you're alleging is that as a direct and proximate cause, as a cause of the conduct by the defendants you are suing, that caused the death. And it was foreseeable, and it caused the death of an individual. And so that is what is being alleged here. And in this case, the estate of Brian Sickiknik is alleging that Donald Trump is someone who caused the death of Brian Siknik. It's a 47 page complaint. It's very, very, very powerful. I'll just read for you one paragraph here where it says, the peaceful transfer of power is a sacrament of American democracy. Defendant Donald Trump, together with other co-conspirators, defiled that orderly transition through a campaign of lies and incendiary rhetoric, which led to the ransacking of the United

States Capitol as part of an insurrectionist effort on January 6, 2021 by defendant Julie and Cater and George Tanios and many others. The attack on the United States Capitol, cost the U.S. Capitol Officer Brian Siknik, here and after Siknik, who was bravely defending the cradle of democracy, his life, it goes on to seek monetary damages. The case was filed on January 5th. And so the statute of limitations for wrongful death

in Washington, DC, as was filed in DC federal court, the conduct occurred in DC, is a two-year statute of limitations. So it was brought right before the expiration there of the statute of limitations. And ultimately, this case, I'm not sure if it's been assigned to a federal judge yet, but you may recall we've spoken about here on legal AF, the case brought by other Capitol

police officers and members of Congress that was filed against Donald Trump and others. That case was before federal judge Amit Mehta, whether this case will get related to judge Amit Mehta, but judge Amit Maita was presented with a motion to dismiss filed by Donald Trump, claiming that he was entitled to absolute immunity because it took place during the time while he was the president. And Trump argued that he was effectuating his constitutional responsibilities. Not so said Amit Maita there. In fact, Am meet Maita

says, this had nothing to do with your responsibilities, quite the contrary. It was undermining what it is that a president is supposed to do. You are not effectuating your constitutional duties to protect and defend the Constitution. And this was about installing yourself in power as a dictator. And it had nothing to do with you being a president and everything to do with your campaigning and your packs and your other conduct as not acting in your scope as the president to overthrow our democracy. That case went on appeal for those new legal a efforts. Go back and watch some of our past episodes because we covered oral argument before a three-judge panel in the DC Circuit where there was one Obama judge, one Clinton judge, and one Trump judge who made up

that panel, that three-judge panel there. One development with that panel as well that you should be aware of, they asked for on December 20th an amicus brief, which is a friends of the court brief, to be filed by the Department of Justice so that the Department of Justice can give its view about whether or not they believe there should be absolute immunity here or not. It will be interesting to see what the Department of Justice does. The DOJ's responses do sometime in mid-January, because normally the DOJ would want to protect

executive branch power, but here, where it was undermining our democracy, and where the Department of Justice on the criminal side is involved in criminal conduct. Granted, there are different standards and different things that would ultimately apply to civil immunity versus criminal conduct. I think the Department of Justice is also going to be very careful, though not to take a position that could undermine what's going

on in the criminal proceeding. So why am I mentioning that at all and what's going on with Judge Amit Mehta and the DC Circuit because ultimately there, that will be dispositive on this Brian Sikne case. And by dispositive, I mean, if for whatever reason the DC Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court dismisses that other case that was filed by the other Capitol Police Officers, in this case, will almost certainly be dismissed as well if the absolute immunity applies. And you may be saying, well, of course he doesn't have absolute immunity.

Well, there's a few different cases on this. I mean, the one case is this case is the early 1980s case with Nixon and Nixon unlawfully terminated someone and retaliated someone for giving congressional testimony and they are the Supreme Court held. Look, when you're the president, even if you're doing things that may be unlawful, if it's still within the scope of what a president does,

we're just, we don't want civil lawsuits to be filed against United States presidents for better or for worse, because they're supposed to be trusted as being responsible and whatever while they are the president. So, but then you had this Clinton and Paula Jones case where Clinton was sued while he was the governor and that was on the other end of the spectrum.

It predates him being the president and they are the Supreme Court said, it's not conduct during the presidency. This is an interesting one because it falls within the Nixon aspect of it occurred while he was the president, but clearly the conduct was to undermine the Constitution. And so even as we talk later with what's going on in the House of Representatives, this has been such a mass this fascism from these Republicans and from Trumpism and MAGA has been such a stress test

Republicans and from Trumpism and MAGA has been such a stress test to all of our institutions and our laws and the constructs that we had that were based on these norms and based on the naive view that no, this can't happen here. This can't happen here. Popa, anything to even add to our night is nail it. I almost left the podcast. I'll let you take all of the next one. No, no, no, no, we're not, we're not, we're not doing that. Just a couple of comments. This, this case also has another hurdle because the, um, the autopsy for

Brian Cicnic, who died a day after Jan 6th of a heart attack or Or of natural causes is what the forensic autopsy revealed although it said a contributing factor was Jan 6th Brian Siknik was sprayed with pepper spray So you got the issue of natural causes So you got the issue of natural causes. There were, you know, five law enforcement that died either on Jan 6, thereafter, many by suicide for those that forget, but they are no less victims of Donald Trump and the Jan 6 insurrectionists than if Donald Trump strangled them himself. And I think Brian Siknik falls into that category as well. I don't think

a healthy 42-year-old who's serving as a Capitol police officer dies on January 7th of natural causes. If he wasn't sprayed in the face repeatedly with with pepper spray and also attacked and then died the next day. I think that blood is on the hands of Donald Trump. And the others, the way they framed it in their lawsuit is that as you read from the paragraph, the death, his death was the direct and foreseeable consequence of Trump's actions, including his tweeting encouragement

during the attack and fomenting that attack. And then to see that as a juxtaposition the split screen of what Trump's representative said after hearing about the filing of the lawsuit, they actually, I don't want to laugh, they actually said that all Trump did was peace is asked for people to peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard. We know that's a bald face lie. We know from all the Gen 6 testimony and witness statements. We know from the video evidence of what of what he who that they needed to fight they needed to Fight for America fight for democracy go down to the Capitol I'll be there with you

Basically, it was a bugle call to attack the Capitol No less so than an army, you know had the you know the person in the front with the bugle and the flag attack And that's what he did and did and lit that flame and fired that missile at the Capitol. So to now say, but this is the delusion of Donald Trump and trying to defend himself in civil and in criminal cases by saying, all I did was exercise my first amendment rights on the ellipse. I never told him to attack the Capitol.

This is the same guy that wants to give, if you ever get's back into power, God forbid, who wants to give pass and give presidential partners to anyone that was anyone, no matter what they did, he'd ever distinguish it by attacking people to capital or trying to assassinate members of Congress. So I'm glad she filed it. I don't know what took her Congress. So I'm glad she filed it. I don't know what took her so long. I'm glad she did it. It doesn't really matter whether it's filed on the first day of the Statue of Limitations

or the very last moment of it. It's in under the wire, but it is under the in under the wire. It's funny. I have a case I'm filing actually on Monday that's going to be right at the wire of a two-year Statue of Limitations. I got the case sort of late and I have to scramble to get the case filed because if you don't, you are just out of the box and you will be easily dismissed on the papers on a statute of limitations. So they did it. They brought it. They're seeking $10 million per defendant, including Donald Trump. And we'll have to see who the judges

assigned to it. But yes, I agree with you. There's going to be a fight over whether presidential immunity under the Westfall Act and the line of cases that you cited is going to apply to this particular case. If Judge Maitaget said, you know, the answer to that is no. And everybody pay attention to what's going on in the court of appeals there. The Department of Justice will submit its amicus or friends of the court brief that was invited by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in the next week or two. And then we'll probably see a ruling. My guess would be about mid-February. Of course, we'll cover it here on legal AF. And we've been covering here on legal AF, the

$250 million fraud lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General, the Tisha James, back in late September against Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, Trump's adult children seeking at least $250 million. There's also an injunction that would basically shut down the Trump Organization from conducting further business in New York. The Tisha James has already succeeded in getting a preliminary injunction in that matter where a retired federal judge, Barbara Jones, she is serving as basically an independent monitor.

She's reviewing or she has the power to review material transactions by the defendants in that case other than Ivanka Trump and she got a brief carve out that we covered in another episode of legal a f But here Donald Trump filed a motion to dismiss He was utterly humiliated a few months back in the preliminary injunction hearing where the judge in the case, the New York State Court judge, and in New York, it's weird because the lowest court, the trial court is called the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court is basically called the Court of Appeals. It's just a quirky thing, so I'll

just refer to it as the State Court or the trial court judge. But Judge Arthur Engoron said in his ruling regarding the preliminary injunction. Look, you haven't provided an IOTA of evidence, not like a declaration, not a document, and in the special proceeding before Tish James filed this lawsuit, you pled the Fifth Amendment during your deposition over 400 times. So you're not giving me any evidence. And Donald Trump previously tried to make arguments to dismiss the matter during the special proceeding. And he tried to make these arguments again

during the preliminary injunction. And he keeps arguing that the New York Attorney General has no jurisdiction. It's always like a jurisdictional argument, because he doesn't want to actually share or show any evidence or actually grapple with the facts that he is just a massive criminal and he's involved in a massive fraudulent enterprise. So he goes, there's no jurisdiction and the New York Attorney General's statue doesn't allow this to take place and he filed

like the same motion over and over again. And here, Judge Arthur Engron was just like, okay, you've made that argument and I've rejected it over and stopped bringing the same argument. You're not going to get a different result here. And in fact, because you keep bringing the same argument before me and then obviously you're doing it, whether just for your press release or just to attack me, he didn't say this specifically, but it's the subtext in this email that they sent and the court sent an email through the clerk to Trump's lawyers saying, we're considering sanctioning you because your motion to dismiss is so frivolous.

Ultimately, no sanctions here were given, but the message was sent. And look, Arthur N. Growns, someone who's not afraid to sanction Donald Trump. He previously in the special proceeding held Trump in contempt and was like finding him over $10,000 a day while being held in contempt of court. So N. Growns, not afraid. And this was N. Growns saying, if you keep doing this stuff, I'm going to do it again. You're going to be sanctioned and to send the message, stop. You are going to trial in October. And this is an existential threat, this trial to the entire Trump organization. And we've seen that this isn't a Teflon Don anymore. He just lost in another New York State court

proceeding. This one is a one I'm now talking about is the criminal proceeding, the New York Attorney General case, though that I'm mentioning before that is the civil case, New York Attorney General is the civil case, the Manhattan District Attorney is the criminal case where the Trump Organization was found guilty on 17 felony counts and they just looked horrible, disorganized, their legal team got trounced by the Manhattan DA's office. And this civil case, which would have, I think even bigger implications, frankly, than the criminal case, because it would shut down the Trump organization from doing business in New York. It's going to trial in October, the motion to dismiss, D9, no sanctions given yet, but

Ngaron's going to sanction them if they keep up this graph. Boba. Yeah, I agree. I think you covered it all. Is there a guy I can add? Really? I mean, it wasn't that big of an event. Popo. Yeah, I agree. I think you covered it all. There's another guy can add. Really? I mean, it wasn't that big of an event. He did either motion to dismiss. No, you covered everything. Let's move on to McCarthy. Popo. You left me speechless. You're sometimes you're in your Pac-Man mode. You cobbled it all up. I got nothing to add. I like it. I like it. All right, Pac-Man. Let you, I'm

gonna pass the little Pac-Man piece to you right now. I'm gonna lay the trail for you Pac-Man and eat those Pac-Man piece. Are they peas? What are those circles? Are those peas? Strawberries, berries. I don't know. I was Miss Pac-Man. I was more of a, I was really more of a uh, centipede uh, player for those that are really old. Centipede, Pac-Man, all right, Popoq. The chaos may and bedlam picked your word in competence by these Maga Republicans. We were covering it all live here on the Midas Touch Network, one of the most watched destinations for what was transpiring this week. watched destinations for what was transpiring this week. It was the first time since 1923 that someone seeking the speakership with their party in control did not secure it on the

first roll call vote. We went through 15 roll call votes by the time we reached Friday or into the early hours of Saturday morning depending on where you were watching it. McCarthy didn't know how to count. He thought he secured it on the 14th row call vote, but with Gates voting present, he did not have the votes. Then the Republicans called for an adjournment, then voted against their own adjournment. And then they secured the votes because McCarthy had to literally sell shares of himself.

I mean, he gave up everything. He will be the weakest speaker, the 55th speaker in the history of the United States. McCarthy had to literally sell shares of himself. I mean, he gave up everything. He will be the weakest speaker, the 55th speaker in the history of the United States. He will be the weakest in history. And rather than trying to form a deal with Democrats and actually govern, he's made these concessions. Let's create select committees

that are going to attack the Department of Justice and that's going to attack the FBI. We want our own select committee that's going to do that and then attack the January 6th committee. We are going to make sure that we can default on our debt that was a big one. So your Medicare is at risk, your Social Security is at risk, Your 401k is at risk based on the concessions to allow the United States of America to default on our debt. When we have to discuss the debt ceiling hike, and I think that this crew, based on what we've seen, is going to do that.

They're going to cause the United States to default on its debt, also giving major committee assignments to all of the extremist, Marjorie Taylor Greene becomes essentially the de facto speaker of the House on one hand and Matt Gates, the de facto speaker of the House on the other. And one of the other concessions is that one single member can make a no-confidence vote, which can then result in a roll call vote to remove Kevin McCarthy. So the exact thing that we just saw, if Gates wakes up one day and goes, you know what?

I want to do a roll call vote right now. That is now part of the rules. And then McCarthy can be ousted right away. And it appears that there are certainly enough votes, more than enough votes, to oust Kevin McCarthy in that situation. And so there's just going to be more chaos. And on Friday night, early Saturday morning, they were supposed to put together a rules package. They didn't have the votes to even vote on the rule package.

But, you know, what happens then? I don't think there's any moderate Republicans anymore. they were supposed to put together a rules package. They didn't have the votes to even vote on the rule package. But, you know, what happens then? I don't think there's any moderate Republicans anymore, but what happens, one of the major concessions as well as to defund the military, about a hundred billion dollar in military cuts because one of the things the Republicans want to do is make sure they punish President Zelensky

and they want a fight to make sure Ukraine loses the war against Russia. That's not hyperbole. That's what they want to do. They want Putin to win. And so one of the concessions that McCarthy agreed to is defunding the United States military. You can't make this stuff up. It is chaotic. It is fascist. It is weird. It is dangerous. I hope America is paying attention.

I was glad that so many people were watching our stream because the large media networks want to say, well, if a moderate Republican can do this and the conservatives are doing that, these people aren't conservatives, okay? They are fascist, they are crazy, they are radical, they are extreme, do not call these mega Republicans conservative. And Kevin McCarthy is weak at the whole ordeal was frankly utterly, utterly disgusting. And to your point, Popak, while I enjoyed seeing the chaos at some point, some level, as it proceeded to like the third of the fourth row call, I was just getting very, very angry. Talk to us about it.

Yeah, and insecure about what it, what it demonstrates to the rest of the world. I mean, it's no it's no um, understatement to say that the rest of the world looks to America as the beacon of the hill, beacon on the hill for democracy. They do. And they, they, they put their hands in their, they put their head in their hands. When they watch things like Jan 6th and, and there was no lost irony that all of the tumult and chaos and almost violence, a fist fight almost broke out on the house floor by the Republicans, all the chaos on their public inside, all of the unity and a unified galvanized, arrayed maturity was on the other side of the aisle. So that's good news. But it all almost broke out and devolved into a

Lord of the Flies survival movie. Just one cannibalist act short of a horror movie on Jan 6th. And none of that, Jan 6th, other than in a couple of nominating speeches, was not really acknowledged at all by the Republicans. How could it be when most of the people, it's the same overlapping suspects that brought Kevin McCarthy to his knees and weakened the institution of the speaker of the house for a long, long time, at least for as long as they're in power for the next two years. And they did it all, they did it all on Jan 6.

Those same people are the same people that allowed the attack on our cradle of democracy, on the people's house as they like to call it, the same chant that went up by the insurrectionists themselves. So the fact that Marjorie Taylor, Green, Gates, Bobert, and the others, that were all co-conspirators in my view, in most of our view, in what happened on Jan 6th, in the attack on the Capitol and the almost assassination of elected officials. The fact that they are in charge, that that Kevin McCarthy has conceded the leadership of the House. I don't care what his title is. The real leadership of

the House are these six lunatics, unpatriotic lunatics, who have now in their hands the bomb making ability to blow up the house on a given on any given day, any given, there was an old movie about football, any given Sunday, any given day, one member, as you said, of their caucus, of their of their Republicans can, can fell McCarthy to his knees again and make him do their bidding. For, for those that take some kind of cold comfort in the fact that there is mature people in charge at the Senate in the form of the Democrats, and that no bill will get passed.

Any of these crazy bills that they're considering will get passed without the rep of the Democrats and that no bill will get passed. Any of these crazy bills that they're considering will get passed without the reput the Democrats in the Senate approving it. Let's also remember from civics class and from schoolhouse rock that all spending bills have to originate in the house. All things related to the debt ceiling and the functioning and the financing and the funding of the government have to originate in the house, all things related to the debt ceiling and the functioning and the financing and the funding of the government have to originate in the house. Meaning the Senate is powerless to do anything about funding and debt ceiling and if the majority, which it looks like they're going to do, based on the fact that it took them 15 rounds in the 12th hour and almost a fist fight

to elect their speaker. You can imagine what that means for them governing. If you love that, wait to, if you love that preview, wait to see the movie because starting Monday, if they ever get around to passing the rules package, which if they don't pass and it's not done yet, they still can't govern. Yes, they have elected officials now, because now they picked the speaker, and everybody got sworn in, including one George Santos. But they can't do anything until they get the rules package passed.

And that sausage making is not done. And they're not done taking, not only a pound of flesh, body parts in organs out of Kevin McCarthy in order to, um, in order to get the votes to pass the rules package without which he cannot govern and there cannot be any governing. So they're going to do what other past Republican majorities have done unsuccessfully despite that it's been unsuccessful. They're going to do it again. They're going to bring the government to its unsuccessful, they're going to do it again. They're going to bring the government to its knees.

They're going to do a shutdown. They're not going to approve the increase in the debt ceiling. They're in order to extract all of their small government anti-Ukraine, anti-woman policies and procedures. If they don't get what they want, which is to have ultra ultra right wing MAGA conservatives on checking you. I'm checking you not. I know. I know. I'm still using the old language, the over necker, having those people hold the gavall in committees, subcommittees, special committees and and blue ribbon panels. That's what's going to

happen. You people are rubbing their eyes and shaking their head today. Wait till they see what Marjorie Taylor green gets in terms of a gavel, Matt Gaetz, the others, and what policy tries to come out of there. And when they're not, so they're really, they got two, they only have two major. It's going to be a very binary process for their publicans now. They've only got two things that they can do. It's like a child who's given one of those play school driving kits to sit next to their mom and dad

and act like they're driving the car with the gears and buttons that don't really work. They've only got two. They can efforound with the debt ceiling and shut the government down because they're not going to approve spending bills. That's a big one. And they can open up all sorts of investigations against Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Jill Biden,

you know, Dr. Fauci and the like and while away all their time doing that. The problem is for the Republican Party, not for democracy. The problem is this is a losing strategy to get reelected and keep the House when Joe Biden wins his reelection in 2024, because that is not the takeaway from what happened at the midterms. The takeaway from what happened at the midterms is that America wants its democracy back and they wanted their democracy back and they gave the Senate back and even stronger to the Democrats and they wanted their democracy back, and they gave the Senate back, and even stronger to the Democrats, and they gave, barely gave the Republicans a majority. They didn't give the Republicans a majority.

The governors of states that handled the gerrymandering of electoral maps to make states like New York, which were always reliably blue, cough up a few red seats, like George Santos, that gave them just enough of, I mean, the most slender of majorities. And you see what happens when you have a slender majority, but you have a broken party that's really in factions. And the factions start fighting with each other and cannibalizing each other in public on Seasman, on my best touch network in front of the world to see an electing. You think electing the speaker was was rough. Wait till Monday, wait till Tuesday,

wait till, wait till debt ceiling. And the rest of the world is holding their breath collectively because of the tremendous impact America has on the economy and the democracy of the rest of the world. There's an old, there's an old joke, and I'm sure you know it. When America gets a cough, the rest of the world gets the flu. And if we're gonna screw up and put our country into default and to fault on all of our Treasury bonds and notes and payment on our debt, because they wanna give Joe Biden a terrible economy

for which to run from when he runs for office again in a year and a half or so. That just shows you how un-peatrigotic they are. They don't care about America. They don't care about democracy or our ideals. They just want to stick it to Joe Biden. They are un-patriotic. I mean, they're horrible. They're horrible traders. They need to be called out for who they are. Four points I want to make. One you mentioned the economy. 223,000 jobs in December, beating expectations.

3.5% unemployment, the lowest rate in 50 years. 4.5 million jobs in 2022, one of the best years ever behind 2021. In terms of inflation, this is from the Wall Street Journal. Inflation in the second half of the year has run vastly lower than in the first half. In fact, and this is astonishing, it's almost back down to the federal reserves, 2% target, even more astonishing, hardly anyone seems to have noticed. We'll be noticed here on the Midas Touch Network. And when you pass an inflation reduction act,

and when Congress works for the people, it actually takes action to address situations. You get results like that. And what we're also seeing, as we head into 2023, is a number of those provisions in the inflation reduction act and some of the other legislation that a working government past, we're going to see reduced prescription drug prices. We're going to see the fact that pharmaceutical companies can't raise prices at rates higher

than the rate of inflation. We're going to see bridges being built and infrastructure being built and Wi-Fi brought to towns and communities across the country. Now, second point and it's related to that is what was going on in juxtaposition to the chaos and bedlam by mega Republicans in the House of Representatives. You had President Biden in Kentucky with Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell looks rational and reasonable compared to these mega-republic and chaos agents. I mean, how bizarre is that? And he's not. But relatively he is because that's just how crazy lunatics these mega-republicans

in the House of Representatives are. But you have McConnell praising President Biden. And both of them just talking about the importance of infrastructure, showing that bridges are actually being built. They were at a place where a bridge was being built, and infrastructure was being built. And the importance of bringing jobs here to the United States of America. So our economy is bouncing back stronger than ever after the Trump debacle. And this is a time to your point, Popok, where the Maggi Republicans want to hurt the United States economy.

That's my second point. My third point, George Santos. George Santos is like that whole George Santos drama. George Santos being an utter complete fraud and him being embraced by the Maga Republic of Paris. He seemed to have found his crew hanging with Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gates. And he was showing people like memes of one of the memes he was showing people was the one where it says McCarthy picked the speaker.

And there's a bunch of speaker graphics. And the actual speakers are there. But the McCarthy head was not being checked off. He's like showing people that. He's like apparently throwing out the white power symbol. There's like photos of him doing that. He's being peppered by questions and running away like, it's just humiliating to and weird

to have someone like George Santos there. and they don't give a crap the Maggi Republicans. I mean McCarthy needed his vote. We see how close it came that Santos's vote was pivotal to McCarthy and that they have to embrace. They have embrace that is the party, someone who's lied about every aspect of his life, including that his grandparents or Holocaust survivors, that his last name is Zobrovsky, that his mom died in 9-11, that his mom survived 9-11, that his dad survived 9-11,

that four people who worked for him died in the Pulse Night Club shooting that he went to this college and he worked here. And everything the guy said is a lie. And he's there basically sitting around like with like poop in his pants. And nobody around him's like, dude, you smell like shit. Like he just sitting there like Santa's like,

whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And it's like, what is going on? And I couldn't help but make the observation that it's like, you got Santos, you got McCarthy, you got them literally throwing punches at him, you got Santos, you got McCarthy, you got them literally throwing punches at you, you got fist fights breaking out. And then you have this image of Katie Porter on the other side, just like reading a book, you know, and Democrats all there all voting together, all giving speeches about how they want to advance the economy, protect the

rights of women over their bodies to focus on the economy, to focus on equality. Like it was very policy driven and things that mattered to the American people. And then you just had the MAGA Republicans give these like horrific speeches. They're just so bizarre and weird. That brings me to my fourth and final point, which is H Ha-Kim Jeffries, the Democratic leader, the minority leader who would said to become the speaker of the house.

He looked like the real speaker of the house yesterday or in the early hours of today. That's for sure. Kim Jeffries gave an incredible speech where he gave all of the contrast between Democrats and the MAGA Republicans. Alphabetically, he went A to Z, and it was one of the greatest speeches I think I've ever heard in my life, equal to maybe better than the Obama Convention speech in 2004.

It was that incredible of a speech. And to have a leader like that with real power, really focused on the issues of American people. That's why I'm proud to be a Democrat, not arbitrarily because I want to own the the magas. I know. I want adults in the room. I want to have people who I may disagree with on certain issues, but ultimately, I know that they are adults, that they are focused on actually issues that matter to the American people, that everything is in a lie or a trick or a scam,

or trying to enable lies, tricks and scams to help a weird oligarchical, mega world, no, but what a help. People get jobs and make those jobs better paying and then give them healthcare and make the working conditions better. And lower prescription drug prices and give people access to education

and make education affordable and accessible and build up our infrastructure. And when our veterans not defund the military, when our veterans come back from a broad fighting courageously for our country. We want to give them the best health care that we can give them rather than fist bumping each other and celebrating the fact that we're denying them health care for exposure to toxic burn pits like the Republicans did a few months back. All of that is horrific and heinous. And in 2023, one of the other observations I said for I'll leave you with five and then give,

and let you have the final word. Popo, though, is the importance of independent media. Couldn't be more important now than ever. I noticed that so much when we were doing our stream, and more people were watching our streams now, than watch the large media networks, because the large media networks that both sides the issue, oh, they're extremes on the left and extremes on the right. You're not really no.

There's the whole Republican Party is a fascist extremist party. Then you have adults on the room, on the Democratic side. When you say there's an extremist, what? Someone who wants to invest more resources into climate change, which is real and trying to address it. The media doesn't have the language, and they're too corrupted by their investors or whatever it is to actually use the right language. And in fact, to perpetuate narratives that are very detrimental and then actually aid

and abet fascism, not to mention destinations of fascism like Fox that simply spread propaganda and injected into the veins of those who watch it. So independent media is more important now than ever, which is why we tell you, please subscribe to this YouTube channel right now. If you're not subscribed, it's free. And spread this video, spread the message, tell friends, family, colleagues, co-workers, whoever you know, even people who may disagree with you. Share this YouTube channel, share Legal AF with everybody, share the Midas Touch podcast

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Michael Popok, I'll give you the final word. Okay. I have a nine point plan. I'm going to go one at a time. No. I want to, I want to connect January 6th, and I want to reflect on it for a minute, because I wasn't kidding when I said it was shocking and to crave to watch those that allow Gen 6 to happen and deny that Gen 6 was what it was, were in control of the house yesterday in selecting their speaker, with showing no irony or remorse. And even on the graves of those who died on Gen 6, and there are many of them,

they were fighting on the house floor, showing the lack of decorum and dignity and leadership that should go along with that job. But there's something else that I'll remember Jan 6th for. You and I founded this show about six months before January 6th, but it was January 6th, and everything that's happened after it and all the coverage that we've done, that is so solidified and galvanized our vision for what this particular show, the lane that it would occupy, really came together around that same time.

I'm not saying that we wouldn't be where we are without Jan six. I'm not Chris. What I'm saying is we found an audience and we resonated with an audience. And we found what distinguished us from everybody else out there coming off of Jan Sex and Beyond. It's been two years. It's not lost on me that you and I are here having

this conversation once a week. We have it with Karen Friedman-Eknifelo on Wednesdays. And we do other things throughout the week to support the cause but that it comes on the heels and we stand on the shoulders of those that protected the capital on January 6th and so it's a moving day for me and it's one that got completely lost. It's become so political that when Joe Biden our president commemorates Janth. It's sort of lost in the food fight and the jello throwing that was going on by the very people that caused Jan 6th to happen or allowed it to happen over on the, on the house side.

And we should be commemorating Jan 6th, those that lost their lives, those that protected the Capitol, as if it were any other memorable in commemorative day in our history, whether it's 9-11, whether it's December 7th and VJ Day at all the rest. But you can see already it's getting trampled on. The memory of it is getting trampled on by the Republicans who want to ignore it, bury it, forget about it, minimize it. And I don't, and you don't. And the people that follows this show won't. Michael Popuck, well said.

Wanna thank everybody out there for tuning into this edition of Legal AF. We so appreciate you. This is more than just a network. It is a community. And we are so grateful for all the hard work that you put in each and every day, supporting our democracy here and abroad.

You are our inspiration. Again, check us out at patreon.com slash MidasTouch. You can also check out our merch at store.mitusTouch.com. I think you'll love the MidasTouch merch. And especially the legal AF merch you can find there. That's store dot mites touch dot com. We will see you next week. Popoq and Karen Freeman and Nifolo will see you during the midweek. I'm Ben Mycel is joined by Michael Popoq. This is legal AFD most consequential legal news of the week. Shout out to the mites mighty. week shout out to the Midas Mighty.