Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Jack Smith CALLS OUT Trump's Threats as Prosecutors CLOSE IN

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

Michael Popok & Karen Friedman Agnifilo are back with a new episode of the midweek edition of the Legal AF pod. On this episode, they discuss: new motions filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith against Trump seeking an anonymous jury for their protection, and to protect their identity information and a motion to make Trump waive his attorney client privilege right now if he wants use the “advice of counsel defense” at trial; Developments in Georgia as the court system prepares to try the first 2 of Trump’s co conspirators on 10/23; week 2 of the Trump Fraud Case of the Century with more insiders testifying against Trump including his criminal Chief Financial Officer; George Santos’ plea bargain discussions collapsing and in response the prosecutors filing a new indictment with 10 more felony fraud counts against him, and more breaking news at the intersection of politics law and Justice.  DEALS FROM OUR SPONSOR! Beam: Get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to https://shopbeam.com/LEGALAF to try Beam's best-selling Dream Powder! Miracle Made: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGLAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. AG1: Go to https://drinkAG1.com/LEGALAF and get 5 free AG1 Travel Packs and a FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D with your first purchase! SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop NEW 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 Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Salesforce, we're all about asking more of AI. Questions like, where's the data going? Is it secure? Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure? Get answers you can trust from Salesforce at AskMoreVai.com. At Public Mobile, we do things differently. From our subscription phone plans to throwing a big sale right now when no one else is. Well, maybe they are, but who cares? Our sale is better. And it's on right now.

No waiting necessary. You have the latest phone. Now, take advantage of a great price on a 5G subscription phone plan. It's the perfect deal for anyone who could use some savings right now. Subscribe today at publicmobile.ca. Different is calling. Day, different is calling. Special Counsel Jack Smith is ready for trial in the DC election interference case against Trump's set for May. To pick a jury, to protect the jury from Trump's sadistic attacks, and to call Trump's bluff on asserting a good faith reliance on council defense at trial. We have a flurry of new motions filed by the prosecutors that will get Judge Chuck

Gyn's attention as she is about to have a hearing on whether to gag Trump once and for all. Week 2 of the New York fraud case of the century against Trump and all the Trumpers continues with a riveting testimony of another Trump money man insider, 50 years CFO and convicted tax cheat, Alan Weiselberg as the office of the attorney general aggressively puts on their case in chief, relying on hostile witnesses that work or worked for Trump who've already admitted to tax and business record fraud by Trump and were only eight days into a hundred plus day trial. Not to be outdone by Jack Smith, Fulton County DA Fawni Willis and her team

prepare for the October 23rd trial of at least Ken Chesbro and Sydney Powell with disgraced former New York City Police Commissioner and unindicted for now-coconspirator Bernie Kerrick, signaling that he is ready to dump on Powell if given immunity. As the court considers a fresh round of last-minute motions, filed by Ken Chesbro to avoid trial or to at least suppress evidence.

And Alex Jones rears his ugly head again and threatens to take the fifth of his subpoena to testify against Ken Chespero. Finally, George Santos is in the news again for all the right reasons this time. Plead deal talks have apparently fallen apart, and instead the Eastern District of New York prosecutors have filed a new superseding indictment to bring the felony charges against him to a whopping 23. With the new indictment using information and confessions, obtained by his former treasurer, that they stole money from the credit cards of donors,

lied on federal forms about obtaining donations, and loans from an almost bankrupt Santos at the time, and lied on election forms as well. His defense, according to his statements, is the shaggy defense. It wasn't me. It was the treasurer. All this, and who knows what else we'll cook up

on this midweek edition of the Legal AF podcast with your anchors, Michael Popok, and Karen Friedman, Agnifalo, reporting and analyzing at the intersection of law, politics, and and justice Karen. Are we going to be able to get all this in today? I don't know. There's so much going on. It's so hard to keep up with it all and decide what we're going to spend time on. Yeah. I mean, you and I, you know, just some people, I think they

like this kind of stuff. You know, we start texting each other probably the day before what we, well, when we're going to record just the sort of subject to, we say subject to a development that we have to then update our entire list for like Trump just got indicted Trump just kind of rested you know whatever. But we start that and then the rest of our team and our production team and the brothers on the we'll start catching things in the news and updates so that we really try to be as up to date as we can But also give you a coherent analysis of What we think is going on you know before we get to the show

So you know, we're texting back and forth and have you seen this and somebody grabbed me that court filing and let me read it And let me pull a letter and by the time we're done, you know, it takes a village We have you know, we've done our own crowdsourcing, crowdfunding of the information that we need. And then it's up to you and you and I to stand here and deliver. You know, it's after week. It strikes me though that legal AF in some ways is more important than ever right now, just because completely understandably in the mainstream media is almost exclusively about, you know, the atrocities and the stuff happening in Israel.

And so it makes sense that that's all that the news is reporting on that. And the fact that the Republicans can't get out of their own way and elect a speaker so that the House can get back to work. And so you almost will miss what's going on in the legal world, right? The all that's going on with Trump or that's going on, you know, George Santos was his superseding indictment, the fact that we're about to start a trial, you know, in Georgia, etc. So I think legal AF is more important than ever right now. Yeah, yeah.

And let's dive right in. Let's start. Let's kick it off with Jack. And I'll kick it off with some framing and then I'll turn it over to you for your observations, having been in his chair, having shared a chair with Jack Smith in the past when he worked in your office when you were both young prosecutors.

So we've got a flurry of activity by Jack Smith. And then what I like to call it, and I call it on a hot take, a little make-weight by Donald Trump where he was like, oh, we got to file something too So they filed something and we'll talk about that in a minute But Jack Smith as as Ben and I predicted on last week's show of the weekend We knew that the attack by by

Trump on and judge and go on in the civil on Judge Angora in the civil broadcast that we're going to talk about a little bit later in the podcast and attacking his law clerk by name and doxing her and accusing her of being in a romantic relationship with Chuck Schumer and all the rest of that would be picked up by Jack Smith and he would find a way to slide it over to Judge Chutkin in a filing. Now I thought it may be in the form of a supplemental filing while the judge is about to consider whether to gag Donald Trump once and for all so that he doesn't continue to pollute the future jury. Hold that thought. We're going to talk about the jury process next. And also to continue to attack and try to intimidate witnesses,

prosecutors, their staff, and their families. And that has already been fully briefed. There's going to be a hearing on that around the 16th of October with Judge Chutkin. And having now watched what Donald Trump has done since the last time they were all together, Judge Chutkin has ordered that the lawyers actually appear in court for this one. Trump doesn't have to appear and likely won't in order to discuss the gag order that the prosecutors have submitted. So I thought, well, here he is.

Here's Trump attacking again, trying to intimidate people and court staff in this case. And how do you get that in front of the judge? And the way they did it was there's, you know, basically, Jack Smith and his team, you know, Tom Windham and the other is sitting around the room saying, well, are we filing something soon about the jurors and protecting the jurors? Let's slide it into that one. So they did.

They filed a motion to protect the jury and to use a jury questionnaire in the selection process. You did a very nice hot take on that one. It's a motion for protective procedures over the jury. And what they're arguing in this motion is that we, in order to have an efficient jury selection process, we should use a jury questionnaire that's developed with you, Judge, in your inherent authority to protect the fair administration of justice in your courtroom.

You have the power to do that. We think one thing we should do, even though the jury process is a few months away, may trial of 2024, but let's get there now. Let's have potential jurors fill out the questionnaire that's developed. Let's have you judge, take a look and decide if for cause any of these potential jurors should be stricken. So we don't even have to deal with them in the courtroom on jury selection day in advance. But also all that information should be anonymous.

The future jury potentially should be anonymous. They're laying the groundwork for, they've told the court that there is already enough evidence that you should not only make the jury anonymous, you should consider sequestration, putting them up on a hotel and not letting them go home to their loved ones for many, many months.

I don't think they're gonna go that far, but they basically reminded the judge ringing the bell that Trump's a bad guy, and Trump has attacked viciously and violently prosecutors and their families, judges and their families, staff and their families, FBI and the rest and their families and potential jurors and grand jurors. And he should not be given any leeway here to continue to pollute the jury.

So they did it. I found it great that they were able to slide in the attack on Judge Engoron's law clerk that happened during trial, which led to him getting, Trump getting gagged by the judge during the, during the trial in the two and a half days that Trump was there, using that and putting that back in front of Chuck and Chuck and took it seriously on the questionnaire and said, um, and the jury selection process and said, let's have quick briefing on this and then which will line me up for a, um, a quick decision. Why don't we start before we move to the next motion that Jack Smith filed about the attorney client, the reliance on council potential defense of Donald Trump and its impact on document exchange.

But why don't you first comment and critique the filing by Jack Smith on the jury protection issues and then we'll turn to the document and the defense issues. Yeah, well, so this is, you know, issues and then we'll turn to the document and the defense issues. Yeah, well, so this is, you know, what kept going through my mind when I saw this is, you know, some a phrase that that prosecutors have to do or do do in any time they get ready for trial. And you have to declare yourself ready. You have to say you're ready for trial. And so we used to say, you know, in New York, you say the people, not the government, it's the people at the state of New

York who you represent as a prosecutor. So we'd say the people are ready, you know, and that's a momentous event because you have to answer ready and go to trial. And Jack Smith is essentially answering ready here. He's essentially saying, we are that close. We are picking a jury. And so let's go into jury selection, judge. And he files a motion where he says, let's do this so that we can save time, streamline this,

and set guard rails up so that everybody knows exactly what we're allowed to do and what we're not allowed to do. So for example, it's common for lawyers to do jury research, right, and to look up information about potential jurors in addition to what they say in court. But those have some pitfalls because what are the rules? Are you allowed to look at only open-source things? Are you only allowed to look at public facing things? What about asking to friend someone, say on Facebook, or asking to follow someone on Instagram or, you know, does that count as what about communicating with jurors, potential jurors, etc. And so Jack Smith really says, look, you know, in order to allow for the open source research, because that's what people do, let's just make sure

we all know what the ground rules are here. And that, you know, judge what we propose is that you, is that, you know, is that you tell both sides that you, that you can only look at public facing things. And that, that any kind of contact of them by asking to friend or follow, et cetera, will be considered an ex party communication. So, so things like that. And the other thing that Jack Smith asked for was a jury questionnaire. Now, jury questionnaires are not done in every case. In fact, they're not done in most cases. Usually, what happens is you just call the jury panel in and the judge asks questions, but in a big case where you think you're going to call in many, many, many, many more people than you would in a normal case.

And the reason for that is there's a lot of people who are going to have a lot of strong feelings about this particular case. And even if you are a fair person or an impartial person in your daily life, you might not be fair and impartial for a particular case because of some personal feelings that you have. And so in a case like this involving Donald Trump, people have very strong feelings on both sides, right? People who are the never-trumpers who couldn't possibly listen to the evidence.

And if the government didn't prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, could say not guilty. Because in their mind, he's guilty, you know, he's definitely guilty of something. So I'm not going to hold the people to their burden. And that's not fair, right? That's not fair to the defendant. And similarly to the prosecution, there are people who will stand by him no matter what and not look at the evidence and not convict if the government, I keep saying the people

I apologize, such habit. The government proves their case beyond a reasonable doubt. So it's really, it's hard to find people who haven't heard about this case, for example, and who can be fair and impartial. And so that is going to require a lot of people to be called in. And to do that, oftentimes, what judges do is they do jury questionnaires. And it was done in several of the Jan 6 trials, including the proud boys.

And certainly in high profile cases, that's how it's typically done. And in the federal government, the Vardier process, which is called, jury selection is called Vardier. And that's the kind of term of art, the Latin term. And the voidier process is done by the judge exclusively. The defense attorney and the prosecutor do not get to question the jurors.

Again, totally different from the state, where the prosecutor and the defense attorney do all the questioning. So really, what happens is if you want question asked to a particular panel of jurors, you would ask the court to ask that question. So here what they're proposing and what Jack Smith is proposing is this way,

we can give a list of questions to you, Judge, that we would want to ask and so can the defense, and you can decide whether or not you would ask this. And ultimately, what we will do is we will then have a jury questionnaire that we will start and ask certain questions. And, you know, and this will be a proposed questionnaire. And this, the motion that Salty just put up there that you just saw, it's actually titled an opposed motion, right? So what Jack Smith is saying is that the defense actually opposes this procedure. So I'm not really sure why they would oppose this, but they do oppose it.

But so and and judge Chetkin already within hours said, okay, Donald Trump, you oppose this motion. You have until October 25 to answer and say why you oppose this, because this is so sensible, right? This is extremely sensible to do this and have, it's just, you're agreeing on a procedure on how it's going to go. And what Jack Smith's team has proposed

is that you have people fill out the summonses in advance of the trial, send them out around February, early February, and then have people start sending those in and the parties would meet before then, and they would jointly submit lists of jurors who they agree should be struck for cause. Now, there's two kinds of challenges that a lawyer can make when it comes to a jury. It's called a for cause challenge or a preemptory challenge. And a for cause challenge means there's something that you have said or something about you that makes you unfit you, you know, that by law, you are not suitable as a juror. So there are some pretty easy ones, you know, so let's say you're not a United States citizen or, you know, because you have to be United States citizen to sit for a federal case.

Or let's say you live in a different jurisdiction than the jurisdiction in that you've been called to. That would make you not disqualified, or let's say you have a physical ailment that does not allow you to hear even with an enhanced listening device, or you can't see exhibits, or even with accommodations, or that you don't speak English, and so you won't understand what's happening.

Things like that are the easy things that would come out in a questionnaire that both sides would likely agree on would disqualify somebody to sit for a particular case like this. But then there are other things too that could disqualify a person for cause. Somebody who, somebody who would say kind of what I said earlier, like, I could never ever be fair. I could never, ever listen to evidence about Donald Trump and not render a guilty verdict, no matter how thin the prosecutor's cases. Couldn't do it. I just, I think he's, you know, somebody who's guilty, no matter what. That person, believe it or not, would be a

for cause challenge because they are not fit to, they won't listen to the evidence. And so you get the picture, right? There's a million scenarios you could come up with that would create a for cause challenge. Now there are a second kind of challenge called a preemptory challenge, which are those are the those are the challenges that lawyers get to make because they have decided they want people who you know maybe you want people who have families or people who have you know who have steady jobs or I don't know you people lawyers make all sorts of all sorts of judgment calls about the type of juror, based on mostly stereotypes, etc., that you would want.

Or maybe just answers that they gave that you don't like. They seem hostile towards you when you're asking questions and they sit with their arms crossed. There's all sorts of reasons a lawyer might strike someone from the jury. Perumptory challenges, you're given a certain number depending on the charge, and each side is given a certain number, and you can exercise those preemptory challenges, and you can basically do it for any reason,

except it would, there is, you cannot do it based on race, or any other protected characteristic. So if you do do that, you will be challenged by the other side and then you'll have to give a neutral reason of why you exercise that challenge. So that's a little kind of one-on-one on jury selection. But so this is the type of thing that Jack Smith wants the court to lay out in advance and say, you know, we can all decide based on the questionnaires who is, you know, will identify for you, judge, which ones we think are four cause challenges that we all agree on, and then we'll also give you

our lists of the ones we don't agree on that are four cause challenges, and we can weed people out that way. And then when you get, then when you whittle it down to the people who aren't challenged, four cause, then you'll bring them in and that's when the judge would start asking questions.

And it's just a way of streamlining things and making it much quicker. And that's what this motion was. And as you said too, you know, the big, big part of this was how that, you know, that the court needs to protect yours too, that, you know, look, this is, this is another reason to do questionnaires is to protect the identity of the jurors, right? We wanna make it so that judge, we should order both parties

that they shouldn't put the names of the jurors anywhere, that if they conduct research, you know, on them, that again, you will, that if they're talking about it in open court, they will shield the identity of the person and only refer to them by a number and to really be clear and careful about how to protect the jury and jury. And there was a paragraph in the motion that I thought was great and then I'll turn it back over to you,

where Jack Smith's team said, there are good reasons in this case for the court to impose restrictions and enforce the district standard prohibition against publicizing jurors' identities. Chief among them is the defendant's continued use of social media as a weapon of intimidation in court proceedings.

I mean, how powerful is that, right? That he's using social media as a weapon of intimidation in court proceedings. In addition to the record before the court, so in addition to the record, in this case, in front of Tanya Chetkin about Donald Trump threatening the judge and Jack Smith and others, just last week, the defendant escalated his conduct about Donald Trump threatening the judge and Jack Smith and others. Just last week, the defendant escalated his conduct and publicly attacked the trial judge's law clerk in his pending civil fraud trial in New York State Supreme Court. The defendant did so by reposting on his true social account, which is 6.4 million followers, a photograph of the law clerk and a United States senator with the baseless caption,

senators, girlfriend, and then the clerk. And so they are running this case against me, how disgraceful. So this case should be dismissed immediately. That's what Donald Trump posted on Truth Social. Jack Smith goes on to say in his motion, as a result, the judge in that case was forced to issue an oral order that no party speak publicly

about members of the court staff, given that the defendant after apparently reviewing opposition research on court staff chose to use social media to publicly attack a court staffer. There's cause for concern about what he may do with social media research on potential jurors in this case. It's therefore necessary for the court to employ the limited restrictions described above, even before the defendant's most recent concerning conduct of threats to the court and grand jurors in Georgia. He also goes on to cite E. Jean Carroll, which had an anonymous jury as well. So all the things that we've all talked about, Jack Smith is

listening and he made it all part of the record here. Popok. He made it all part of the record here. Popoq. That's a good overview of the Jerry Selection process. We know why he opposed it because he wants to be able to continue to intimidate. Future jurors, he doesn't like the alleg... Usually when you're being asked to consult about emotion, generally the other party sends the motion over. And there's a lot in this motion that Donald Trump's lawyer

so obviously, good and agreed to, including being called out for the gag order up in New York that Judge Angora had already put in place. And suggestions that Donald Trump, based on, as they said in one of their footnotes, ample evidence for the judge to not only anonymize the jury, make them anonymous, but also sequester them. That's a pretty bold statement, which is also backed up by evidence for the prosecution

to make that the jury needs to be protected from Donald Trump. We already have it in out of mystery in Georgia. We had an anonymous jury in a civil defamation and rape case by the judge that went unopposed by Donald Trump. And so he's going to get another anonymous type jury, not anonymous to him or the defense, anonymous to the rest of us and to the public and not allow him to out the jury or dox the jury, because all it's going to do is lead to jurors not wanting to be jurors, people not wanting to serve and give their civic duty, and it will reduce the jury pool to either

true believers of Donald Trump or those who are just so completely out of it in terms of their knowledge of news that they don't know about these things, and you don't want either of those to be overwhelmingly a part of the future jury. So let me turn to the other motion that's getting a lot of attention, and we'll break it down from a legal standpoint that Jack Smith filed, which is to call out Donald Trump and his constant refrain through his lawyers on Sunday morning talk shows and in other places that they're going to use the advice of council defense.

I don't want to talk about that for a minute. First of all, let me just explain what that is. If you, it's not in the federal rules of criminal procedure, it's a, it's a judge made defense. It's what we call in the, in the business, a affirmative defense, meaning the burden is on the defendant, not on the prosecution, to make out the defense. And the defense is,

I, my criminal conduct that you're alleging happened, I did in reliance upon council, reasonable reliance, we'll talk about that, upon lawyers, which the argument therefore goes'll talk about that, upon lawyers, which the argument therefore goes, I can't have criminal intent. I can't have men's rea in my mind or in my heart because I was following the direction and advice of attorneys.

And there's a number, as we all, as we know, there are a number of attorneys that have been indicted in Georgia that are also unindicted co-conspirators in Georgia and unindicted co-conspirators here in the DC case of election interference. Lots Donald Trump was lousy with lawyers giving him all sorts of hair brain advice that he followed or didn't follow or he got what he wanted. You know, he only listened to people that told him what he wanted to hear.

And therefore you have people like Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, Ken Chesborough, Jim Troopers. And I could, I could spend the whole show. This could be one of those skits on Saturday night live where the names just scroll from the bottom and it just keeps going through my entire presentation here. And you know, Donald Trump used to collect generals and put them in his cabinet or his chief of staff

physician until he fell out of love with them. And he also likes to collect lawyers, especially ones that didn't tell him the truth. He had a group of lawyers that were on the government payroll that did tell him the truth, like the attorney general, except for the last couple, all the people that are acting as attorney general, deputy attorney general's White House counsel, deputy White House counsel, and most of the brass of the Department of Justice

told him and his Homeland Security advisor, and we could keep going on, that there was no fraud that was determinative of the outcome of the election. And so instead, he turned Donald Trump to those who told him what he wanted to hear, pillow guy, overstock.com guy, supported by Sydney Powell, indicted, supported by Ken Chesboro, indicted, supported by Rudy Giuliani, indicted, supported by Jenna Ellis, indicted, supported by Rudy Giuliani indicted, supported by Jenna Ellis indicted, supported by Jim Troopers should be indicted.

So whether Georgia or Jack Smith and his special counsel, the lawyers are front and center, either because they're co-conspirators indicted or otherwise, or he's saying that I have a defense. Very hard to have a reasonable reliance on people who themselves have been indicted for criminal activity. I think that sort of undercuts the argument. But that hasn't stopped Donald Trump's lawyers from going on television and saying that obviously Donald Trump relied on brilliant constitutional scholars. I guess that's Ken Chespero who's now indicted in Georgia and John Eastman who's now indicted in Georgia for his belief.

And we're going to argue that. All right. The reason that's important to Jack Smith and why he wants to know it now and not wait around until either December when Donald Trump has to identify his witnesses and documents for the trial or some other later period is because if Donald Trump is going to rely on advice of counsel, then he has waived his attorney client privilege, his abilities to assert the attorney client privilege as it relates to his communication with these lawyers and these other lawyers to the government have asserted on Donald Trump or the Trump campaign's behalf the attorney

client privilege because the privilege sits with the client, not with the attorney. The attorney has to do things to protect the privilege, but the privilege is wavable and waived or not by the client, Trump or the Trump campaign. And these lawyers like Eastman, Giuliani, Ellis, Powell, Chessbroke have refused to produce documents, just as they did a lot of them to the Jan 6th committee that we'll talk about later under the guise of attorney-client privilege. Well, there is no attorney-client privilege. It's waived.

If Donald Trump is going to rely on defense of counsel as a defense at the trial, the government wants to know it now because they're going to be fighting to get those documents from each of those people. It's a lot easier if the judge has already ruled there's been a waiver. If there's not been a waiver, then we're going to have to go through what happened in California with Judge Carter in the Central District last year when John Eastman alleged that his documents and communications with Rudy and Trump were all privileged and the judge after reviewing the evidence decided that there was a crime fraud exception applicable.

Because the lawyers, at least the client, Trump was trying to commit a crime because the lawyers at least the client a Trump was trying to commit a crime using the lawyers, the legal advice as a cover, and there's an exception to the attorney client privilege. It's called the crime fraud exception, which is exactly what it sounds like. This is the second judge, federal judge, that found that die was more likely than not

the Donald Trump committed a crime. Judge Barrel Howell having decided based on the evidence presented to her that he did commit, it was more likely than not that he committed a crime at Mar-a-Lago and therefore, attorney client privilege was waived and that's how they got all of Evan Corcoran's notes and videos and audio tapes of his representation

of Donald Trump for Mar-a-Lago. Judge Carter went first and ruled that Johnny Smith and Donald Trump were involved in a fraud and crime and therefore waved the privilege and got the documents there. So, Jack Smith just wants to know how many hoops he's going to have to jump through in order to get these documents or if it's all going to be solved because Donald Trump is going to be made by the judge that declared now once and for all whether he's going to assert the Reliance and Advice of Council at trial. They don't want to wait until trial to find out because there's a lot of discovery that they need to conduct to get these documents from these people. That'll be a lot easier if that happens. So that's now been filed. The other

side will brief it and the judge will make the ultimate decision. So I guess Karen for you is, do you think the judge, Judge Chutkin, is going to find the crime fraud exception applies and or waiver? And more importantly, do you think Donald Trump is going to say, yes, I'm going to assert that privilege or that defense or no, we haven't decided yet, Judge, just to make Jack Smith work for it in getting these documents. So, I thought a lot about this wondering why did he go with the, you know, tell me if

you're going to use the advice of counsel defense, like you go on TV and say it in every talk show, right? That's one of the things he called them out on and totally spelled out all the different TV shows he and his lawyers have been on saying, oh, advice of counsel, advice of counsel, advice of counsel, and Jackson Smith is basically like, okay, yeah, easy to say it on TV, but why don't you put your money where your mouth is and actually say it in court as opposed to on TV, because on TV you're just saying it because you're trying to get people to believe you, but to say it in court and prove it

as a whole other thing because you would have to at least provide some proof of it in order to get the jury charge that says, you know, it's okay to rely on, you know, it could be okay to rely on the advice of counsel if it was in good faith and if you gave them full information. So, and so I was thinking to myself, why is Jack Smith going with the tell us now, if you're going to advice of counsel, so we can get all the documents and all the discovery, as opposed to the crime fraud exception,

as you so eloquently just described what that is and why. I have a slightly different take on it, that is just a little bit easier to do it on this way. I think the reason he chose to do it this way, because he really could have gone either way, right? He could have said, I want all these documents and information through the crime fraud exception. I think he would have gotten it. I think, to the way the other two judges found it, I think it's pretty clear. The reason though is because what Jack Smith said,

there's at least 25 different people who this, including family members, who this would apply to, if you were to say, I'm going to rely on the advice of council. And I want their information to, because there are going to be lots of people who provided the information to lots of different lawyers. And I don't know that all the lawyers helped engage in sort of the crime fraud exception

or all the family members or all the other people. So it'll be interesting to see, you know, but they don't all fall necessarily into the crime fraud exception, right? Some advice might have been in good faith, you know, little pieces of it, some might not have, or some people might have given information to the lawyers that weren't necessarily Donald Trump. And so, and so I think that the reason it was done is so that A, he has to say it, and then the discovery process would open it up to all of these individuals, whether or not they fall into the crime fraud exception.

Like it's very clear that Ken Chesbro would fall into the crime fraud exception, or Rudy Giuliani or Johnny Sman. Those are very, very, very clear. But I think that I just think it's a little cleaner to do it this way as opposed to trying to get everybody's documents that are tangential to the actual lawyer and the crime fraud exception.

So I think it's also for notice reasons. Jack Smith said, this way we know what we're going to ask in Vardir. We're not going to use that defense, or you are going to use that defense, it'll impact what questions we're going to suggest that are asked. So, you know, that's another reason he asked for it, but they did say at least 25 witnesses with held information and communications based on the attorney client privilege. And so, you know, and so we'll see, we'll see if we can get all of that.

Do I think to answer your question, do I think that the judge is going to do this? I think it's tricky because the rule 12 of the federal rules of criminal procedure spells out when you have to give notice of certain, when it's required to give notice of certain defenses. So number one, rule 12.1 is alibi notice or number 12.2 is insanity, defense notice,

and then so on and so on. And there's a list. And the advice of council defense is, you know, Congress, I think they might say, look, Congress, if they wanted to rule on this and make it so that you had to get noticed, Congress would have done that. And they didn't.

And so, you know, if the, I'm not gonna make the defense do something and then, and then all they have to do is say, well, I'm not ready. I don't know. I haven't decided. And then what you can't preclude it, you know, you can't really preclude them from raising this if they decide to do it later. So I don't know. I think this would be one of those times where the judge might actually suggest it, ask it, but not require it. but not require it. That's where I think she's going to fall on this one. Jack Smith is asking for specific information like the identity of each lawyer that provided advice that you relied on, the specific advice given

whether it was oral or written, the date, the information that the defendant Trump communicated, that information that was caused the attorney to render the advice. I don't think the judge is gonna order him to do that because it's really, it's not in the rules. And so as a result, I think she's gonna say, it's discretionary when he decides what he's doing, he'll do it.

Yeah, I think she might make him disclose whether he's gonna rely on it, but not, but maybe this is the way, the third way, but not required to get all of this discovery information that the government would normally be entitled to at this particular moment. But we're impressed with Judge Shuttkin, how she runs her courtroom. She and Judge McAfee are making us proud to be lawyers and operate in courtrooms like this one.

And there's just intellectual honesty about her rulings and her decision making. And we may not agree with it, but we understand where she's coming from, the case law she relies on and her analysis. We're going to talk about what's going on in Georgia with with Judge McAfee and Fawni Willis. We'll talk about George Santos, who's now having not struck a plea deal, obviously, which was reported last month by the government in a court paper. Has now been hit with a new indictment bringing to a total of felonies against him to 23 as some House Republicans from New York are trying to pass a resolution to have him bounced from the House. And then we'll talk about week two and some bombshell testimony in the civil

fraud case of the century against Donald Trump in New York brought by the office of attorney general. But first, a word from our sponsors. Did you know that poor sleep can cause weight gain, mood issues, poor mental health and lower productivity? Sleep is the foundation of our mental and physical health and performance in our days. Having a consistent nighttime routine is non-negotiable. I know in my own life when I don't get enough sleep, not only my irritable and grouchy, but my performance in work or in life suffers greatly. Introducing Beam Dream. You know we've been raving about Beam's Dream Powder, their healthy hot cocoa for sleep. And today, our listeners get a special discount on Beam's Dream Powder. They're best-selling

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AF to treat yourself. Thank you, Miracle made for sponsoring this episode. I was very excited about that sponsor. I hope I was good at that. Popalk. I'm so impressed. Believe in our sponsors who believe in our I agree. I agree. I'm the progressive democracy. I'm so happy winning you on your enthusiasm. Thank you. Let's turn to Georgia. I'm so happy for winning you on your enthusiasm. Thank you. Let's turn to Georgia. If I felt like singing, I'd start singing different tunes about Georgia.

We like what's going on in Georgia. Another place for intellectual honesty in the courtroom and the administration of just this whole sway, being led by Scott McAfee, who I learned a lot about and did a hot take over who likes to play the cello, including Jimmy Hendrix style cello playing. There he is there likes to like to quote Monty Python in his skits when he's denying Ken Chesperos quotes by paraphrasing or or calling his arguments, the dead parrot. I've got I've gotten corrected already because I hadn't seen the dead

parrots get in about 20 years. And I had it a little bit backwards about who was proposing in the pet shop that the parrot was dead or alive. But we know what the judgment, which is your argument is dead, stop dragging it around like weekend at Bernice. I think we'll see a reference to that next. This is a law nerd who has a lot, this is a law nerd in judge McAfee who takes special delight in very efficient and succinct orders. One page, two page, three page, four page. That's all it takes for him to make an anonymous jury to dismiss or deny all the motions to dismiss or to suppress evidence. And he's currently dealing with a couple of things right now, in particular, that we want

to talk about new things. As we get to the October 23rd trial of at least Ken Chesperot and Sydney Powell, two of those lawyers that we talked about in the earlier segment, Ken Chesperot, as he so eloquently put it in his own papers, he was only responsible for the alternate, or what we like to call fraudulent electors or fake electors And she because now he he's with crates like that t-shirt. I'm with crazy and crazy Sidney Powell who he wants to get about as far away from As possible she was involved with all of those losing lawsuits and and and captive team crazy and the break-in and coffee county of The election equipment and the tampering with election equipment and downloading of voter data.

That's her. That's not me. He said that is outbapers as the why he shouldn't be tried with her, but he is being tried with her. And maybe with a few others, we'll see exactly who on the 23rd and on the 20th of October, we're going to have jury selection as we gave a little breakout legal a f session here today with Professor Karen Friedman at the FLO have jury selection as we gave a little breakout legal a f session here today with Professor Karen Friedman Kniffelow on jury selection process. Now we're going to have the state equivalent of that with a jury that's going to be picked from a panel that starts at 900 potential jurors

being brought down at I don't know 50 at a time until they get a jury in the box. So as we like to say and in the interim The judge and Foddy Willis the fault in county DA's got a deal with continued motion practice primarily by Ken Chesboro Ken Chesboro is arguing that Some of the evidence against him like the memos. He has three major memos That is the basis of the indictment that he wrote these legal legal cockamame memos, that's a legal term, for half-baked constitutional analysis about when the real date is, the needs of the law, and we gotta have the alternate electors in place

by December 14th, and we gotta have these lawsuits ready, and then forget all of that. Let's just pressure Mike Pence and submit these alternate electors, and if that doesn't work, and then, you know, each memo, he, each memo, he got crazy or in crazy or in the funny part I learned in preparing for the show today is he lost one of the memos in a hotel. I've been in a lot of hotels recently that's, I'm pointing to a hotel painting behind

me. And he lost something, you know, I had to retype the memo from scratch and send it to Rudy Giuliani. And he doesn't like the fact, Jess Burrow, that is emails and his memos that he considers to be attorney client privilege. We're back to that again, are gonna be used against them in a court of law. So he's moved to suppress them,

meaning have them precluded from being presented against him and used by the prosecutors and evidence. And so Scott McIvey is gonna have to deal with that. And Fanny Willis filed her papers to say, I don't really understand how you get the attorney client privilege. First of all, the object of the conspiracy is the very things that you've done. And these memos that you wrote on these various states, the December 6th memo, and the 18th of November memo, and the 9th of December memo and the 13th of December memo, that's the crime.

The crime is that you were giving fake and false hope and advice or counsel and it was political in nature. Her argument is twofold. It's either political in nature or not legal in nature. You don't get the attorney client privilege when you sort of step out of your role as counsel and you're starting to give political strategy advice. And I understand that. I've had plenty of situations where I've fought over documents where the lawyer seems to

have slipped into business, a business role and not a legal role. In order to get the attorney client privilege, you have to have a client. Client has to hold the privilege, have the privilege, not wave it. And the communication that you're having has to be about advice on a legal nature. If you also are, let's say, you're an accountant or you're also a business position in a company, but you're also a lawyer. Sometimes you're going to be attorney client privilege. Sometimes you're going to be you're an operational person with no privilege.

And so courts have to sort that kind of thing through. Her first position is you can't suppress the evidence. It's the object of the conspiracy. And he was being political, not legal. So the privilege doesn't even apply. Her fallback argument is the one we talked about at length on this podcast and on other hot takes and podcasts, which is crime fraud exception, because you can't use as the attorney client privilege, the very crime that you're being charged with to stop that evidence from going into the jury. I think this is a loser of an argument, but you know, this is like the ninth motion that Ken Chesborough has filed. All of them have lost in front of Judge McAfee, who's currently also considering whether Ken Chesborough gets

the benefit of the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution to avoid his indictment or going to go in a trial, which I don't really see how that's going to work. I get that there's federal aspects of the election that are in play, but the states are responsible for the administration of their election process and the states are responsible for who gets selected as federal electors, which is the basis of the conspiracy. So I think that also will quickly die on that. And then lastly, and then I'll turn it over to you, lastly, you've got Fawney getting her ducks in a row and getting her witnesses Ready to come in including a series of subpoenas that she's issued to get people from out of the state To come in and testify now the process for that's a little more complicated if they're Fulton County or Georgia people

And there's a whole bunch of those she can just subpoena them herself as an officer of the court. If they reside in other places like Alex Jones in four wars, who has a close relationship with Ken Chesboro, the guy who's on trial. So close that they, there's video of them touring the Capitol together. I just happened to be Jan 6 when they decided to take their walk about about the Capitol while the insurrection rage behind them while he wore Ken Ches Burrow a mega hat, you know, that kind of thing. So you've got Alex Jones who's lives in Texas, meaning she's got to take her trial subpoena, take it to Texas and have a Texas court system, recognize it, and then compel him to

testify back in Georgia. Now most states, this would be a no-brainer. Federal or state, most of the states in the union, mainly the blue ones, will recognize through something called comedy or the fact that we give recognition to our sister states when we do processes like this. And they will enforce it and make that person appear in Georgia through a subpoena.

But Texas, whole different thing. When they try to get Sydney Powell in and others, the Texas courts were like, no, we're not gonna recognize for the grand jury in Georgia. You know, we're not gonna recognize, this is me to a Texas, I don't know why I'm using that voice, but I have. We're gonna know why I'm using that voice, but I have We're we're gonna not recognize the validity of that particular speaking up for that grand jury Now this is a trial subpoena meaning a judge is behind this

So I think it's a little harder for Texas to deny it at that time Alex Jones's lawyer The delightful norm patis said that he's not going to satisfy. I love the combination, both misogyny and just complete disrespect when he said about phony willis. We're not going to satisfy her fantasy by having Alex Jones come into court and testify. Because he'll just take the fifth amendment. I don't know what he's going to take the fifth amendment about.

No one has been arguing that he should be prosecuted. Jack Smith has an indictment. No, he's not even listed as an unindicted cook and spiritual anyway. And you can't put up the fifth amendment just because it seems convenient to you. You got to be actually subject to a potential criminal exposure or prosecution in order to assert that. They're also bringing in Ronin McDaniels, who is not only when she's not Mitt Romney's niece, she's also the chairman chairperson of the Republican National Committee and they want Ronan McDaniel to come in. They want Boris Epstein who is the insider Consulieri fixer for Donald Trump who's connected to everything related to the fake electors, they want him to come in and testify. Is he gonna take the Fifth Amendment?

And he lives in New York or Florida, and they're gonna recognize this Texas subpoena, and Lynn Wood, another crazy crackpot lawyer that is apparently cooperating. I believe with Fawney Willis, but she's getting ready. We are only 13 days or 12 days away, 10 days away from picking a jury.

And the first two of the co-conspirators for Donald Trump are going to be tried in front of a Fulton County jury. What do you make right now, Karen, of all the feverish activity on Fonyside and on Chesperoide and the witnesses and all that from a prosecutor's standpoint? What are you seeing? Yeah, so Fonysville is doing these subpoenas, these out of state subpoenas now, because they take time. It takes a lot more time than if you're just subpoenaing

someone in your local jurisdiction. So that's why she has to do that now and why we're hearing about it now. I think it's very interesting. It's obvious why she would subpoena, Rona, or Rona McDaniel, because she's the one who received a phone call from Trump and Eastman and, um, and was told about the importance of the fake electors.

And you know, she would provide that testimony, that important testimony for Fanny about Trump and Eastman and Chesbro, et cetera, and all of the fake electric communications. The Alex Jones one is a little trickier because it's funny when you say, what's he gonna take the fifth bet? I would say he has to take the fifth bet everything because he's a walking criminal. Every word out of his mouth is a lie and a crime.

I mean, he's just one of the most horrific people that is out there. With what he was saying about Sandy Hook and that whole thing was just, it's so upsetting, he denied that, you know, these poor little babies were viciously shot and killed in a mass shooting. He really, you know, caused a lot of harm in addition to these families losing their children, a lot of harm, and a lot of threats, et cetera. And just really, he's just, you know, to use a Ben Myceles word. He's truly one of the most despicable people there are in my opinion on the, on the just filth and lies

and just vitriol that he spews on his, on his show info wars that went into bankruptcy solely so he didn't have to pay defamation, defamation damages to some of the Sandy Hook families. But, you know, he was, he is a very important witness for Fanny Willis, but boys, he fraught with peril because he's such a despicable person. But look, he used a bullhorn on January 6th, walking around, saying, this is the second American revolution. And that's the guy that Chessbro decided to hang out with on January 6th, while he had his MAGA hat and his bullhorn saying it's the second American

revolution. And if I was the prosecutor, my summation would be he wants you to believe Ken Chesbro just wants you to believe that he's just an appellate lawyer writing memos, you know, and he made a mistake. Well, I'm sorry, if you're marching alongside Alex Jones, you know, essentially marching in the march that is talking about a revolution, you're not a lawyer anymore. You are part of the insurrection. So I do think it's a bold move to subpoena him, because she also could just put the video on of Alex Jones saying the exact same things with Ken Chasbro right by him so she can get the

same evidence by just putting that video on but she's calling him as a witness and that's very bold because he is very tricky but she's made that determination and she's getting ready, it's getting very close to trial. So they're getting down to the nitty gritty on Tuesday that had a hearing, you know, this week, basically regarding the attorney client privilege issue that you talked about. And, you know, it's a two and a half hour hearing and, you know, they're going back and forth between whether or not Ken Chesbro can assert the attorney client privilege vis-a-vis

some of the fake electors and whether or not she's going to be able to use that evidence. And so they're close, but as you said, it's like 12 days away. Yeah, we have a lot to cover and we're, we're fortunately the Midas Touch Network, except for the falling equipment. See, stays in the pod. This is what happens live recording. The Midas Touch Network is gonna do a live feed. Georgia is one of the few states

and McAfee has made it clear from the beginning that this is gonna be posted in real time on either the court's YouTube platform or otherwise we're gonna get the feed and we're gonna do commentary during the day, pre-game, post-game, you know, for the entire length of that trial. Well, let's figure out where exactly because it's going to be a lot of days, but we will

figure out a way to bring it to you and then bring you the updates that you need. Speaking of updates, let's turn quickly to what is going on week two, the start of week two, of the fraud trial of the century in by the Office of Attorney General for the New York, against Donald Trump, all the Trumpers, most of the kids, and all the executives, and a very interesting tactical move by Latisha James's office, which I think is paying dividends already, we have a, this will be over 100 day trial. There was a lot of action and a lot of the Trump circus as Letitia James likes to call it left town after two and a half days. The Trump show left town, but this is a 100 day trial or more of methodical presentation of evidence and witness and checks and bank statements and appraisals and tax returns and loan documents.

That would normally bore the bejesus out of a jury, but fortunately we have a judge because it's a bench trial, meaning the judge is going to make the decision. And judge Angora is hanging on on a reward in the trial. He's already kind of had a little bit of a back and forth with the lawyers primarily for the defense about speeding it up, stopping so histrionic and theatrical. There's no jury present. Move your testimony along. And some people might say, oh, that's, you know, Angoran's being mean to Donald Trump. By the way, same thing is going on with Judge Kaplan, who's presiding over the Sam Bankman-freeed FTX crypto fraud case. He's been telling the, and they have a jury there. He's been telling the lawyers for the defense, move it along. I don't like that question.

Try it again right in front of the jury. We don't have a jury here. We have Judge Engoron. The first week, they decided right away because they had at least two witnesses for Donald Trump, former or current Donald Trump employees sort of in the palm of their hands. That is Jeff McConney, the controller, which is a financial control position in an organization in a company that reports usually to the chief financial officer. But Connie already got immunity to testify against the Trump organization. There he is there. People might think that's Captain Kangaroo, but it's it's it's McConney.

And he testified last year in a criminal case against the the Trump organization and their entities in which a jury convicted them of 17 counts of tax fraud. He got immunity from the prosecutor there, your old office, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, Karen, and now consistent with his testimony there and with a full transcript of what he said, they put him on as witness number three, meaning they reached across. he's also a defendant in the case. He's listed as a defendant, because he is a defendant in the very case that he's now testifying in the case

and chief for the prosecutor. You usually, for those that don't do trial work, the way you and I do, Karen, you usually want your witnesses to build a certain momentum in your narrative, and you usually want your witnesses to be friendly to you because you can control the testimony you've already rehearsed with them, you've practiced with them, you've gone over it, you've prepped them to within

an inch of their life to testify as opposed to, let's grab a legal pad and see what this guy has to say, which is often what happens, especially in federal criminal cases as well. I've been there as a defense lawyer where it's like, who's the witness coming up in the afternoon? Quick, get me a pad and a document. I got across examine this person. So, here, she's decided that in order for her to make out her case for fraud, letitia James, and the fraud, the persistent fraud that's required, and the intent, the fraudulent intent, not criminal, but fraudulent intent and materiality that she's got to establish for these six claims,

the six counts that are remaining in front of Judge Angkoran, that she needs help from the defense. So she's got Makani who testified for two and a half days. And in this week, she led off with Alan Weiselberg, the disgraced 50-year plus CFO, here he is there, who served, I don't know, three or four months on Rikers Island because he's got 17 counts of tax fraud conviction. He didn't have immunity with the Manhattan DA's office, but he got a little leniency in his sentencing because he did ultimately testify, knowing what these guys were going to say or hoping they knew what they were going to say, they called them in their case in chief and called them as what we call hostile witnesses, meaning they could cross examine them in your main case.

Generally, you don't cross examine your own witnesses. You direct examine that, meaning the witness has to testify. You ask the questions open ended. They have to answer a question. Cross examination leads to a yes or no answer. You did doctor the books, didn't you? You did fail to file your tax returns on time, didn't you? Yes or no? And then the judge can actually compel a yes or no answer to a question that has a yes or no response. So that's what they're putting up there and they're disciplining these witnesses who have already testified, both McConney and Alan Weiselberg, that tax fraud happened under their watch at the

direction of Donald Trump. They've already testified to that. The second week of a trial, it's going to go on for months. And they had to because they already testified to that under oath in the criminal case. McConney said he would have been fired if he didn't doctor the books and pay out the bonuses fraudulently and conducted other things that were improper in the persistent fraud case that she's making. And Alan Weiselberg has been a little bit more reticent to throw Donald Trump under the bus, but he's had to admit that information that Donald Trump gave him that was financial and nature was incorrect and erroneous and that Donald Trump was involved with the preparation of his financial statements and his statement of financial condition so that Donald Trump can't blame al-Weisselberger McCoddy alone. And so you had a couple of outside auditors for mazers,

which was the long time auditing firm and accountants for Donald Trump personally and for the company and the others, testify about fraud in the organization that they were not aware of until later, which led mazers to depart and fire the client and declare to the world that they were, their financial statements

were no longer reliable. And then she followed it up because you're trying to build momentum as you present your case to a judge or a jury. And then it's like, okay, let's grab the two defendants who either already testify, we know what they're gonna say, and we'll play that risky gamble

that they're gonna come out with compelling testimony. The person that's nowhere around anymore, because I guess the circus left town, is Donald Trump. He's not sitting there trying to intimidate McConee. He's not there for Alan Weisselberg, and he's been gagged by Judge Engoron about doing certain things, including attacking the staff. So he's been a lot quieter since he's left town

following that. He also dismissed the Michael Cohen case, so he didn't have to give a deposition there. We'll see Donald Trump maybe, I don't know, three or four more times in the next hundred trial days, but that's about it. But how do you think, Karen, the so far with the first four witnesses, we're about halfway through Alan Weiselberg today. How do you think the case is going for the office of attorney general and therefore for Donald Trump? Oh god, it's going great. I mean he they're just methodically presenting evidence whether it's through the as you said Hostel witness or friendly witness the numbers are what they are and It's hard to it's hard for them. It's going to be very hard for them to walk away from that, right? You know, there was a

Deutsche Bank lender who testified and talked about how, you know, he, they relied on the statement of financial condition because not just collateral for to issue these loans. And so they were able to get that testimony out. They got, you know, Alan Weiselberg at first didn't want to say anything about Trump or didn't want to go, you know, say, basically talked about it being him and only him. And once again, trying to protect Trump, but later ultimately had to admit that, yes, every year, they would show Donald Trump

these financial documents and he would approve them. And you know, it's just interesting how they're still trying to circle the wagons, but they can't deny certain facts that are key. In addition to the objectively verifiable lies that we've already talked about here, the most obvious one being the square footage of his penthouse that he tripled and made it 30,000 square feet instead of 10,000 square feet what it actually is. So I think Latisha James is doing a great job as New York Attorney General in terms of methodically proving their case that these were fraudulent, that

they were intended to be fraudulent, and that it was material, this information was material that he wouldn't have gotten these loans or these, or you wouldn't have gotten a lower tax amount if you didn't submit this information. I mean, I don't know how he's going to get around this stuff. So I do think it's been very well done. I think it was very bold to call a hostile witness as witness number three in the very beginning of your case because that could have gone sideways,

but it didn't. They have control over their courtroom. And I just think that it's gonna be a painstaking case as you said, but I think it's going to be one that they're going to prove by doing it as methodically as they are. So it's interesting, because even though it's civil, I like to say it's quasi-criminal because she's using her enforcement, her enforcement powers, and she doesn't have as broad of enforcement powers as say a district attorney in New York. The New York state is comprised of 60 counties and each county has its own district attorney.

So right now Alvin Bragg is the Manhattan district attorney and it's only for the county of New York, which is also known as Manhattan. And she doesn't have jurisdiction, for example, to enforce laws in any of the counties, in less that it is specifically statutorily given to her, or if she's gotten permission to exercise that authority. And so it's very limited. Her enforcement authority, the attorney general in New

York is mostly civil enforcement. But here, this is civil, but it's like fraud. And so and it's very specific in the executive law. And I think she's doing a great job in her methodical presentation of this huge sweeping case. A lot of attorney generals around the country have more criminal powers than she does, but nobody has more power when it comes to stopping fraud and obtaining relief for the people of the state than the person that occupies the attorney general for New York and her powers under 63-12 of the executive law. Let's we're going to talk finally tonight about George Santos efforts to remove him again from the House, hard to believe he's still there. And having plead deal,

a plead deal discussion, obviously having fallen apart, that was previously reported by the prosecutors as ongoing about two or three weeks ago. Now having the treasurer, his treasurer, obviously has been, has pled guilty and has turned for a witness with the prosecution. We have a new indictment of him adding 10 more felony counts. Karen and I will talk about that, but first a word from our sponsors. Our next partner is HG1,

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Check it out. All right, we're back on legalaf. Thank you to our sponsors without which and our support of our legalafers and might as mighty. We would not be on the air. That's how that works. Speaking of somebody that should be off the air, and we shouldn't have to ever talk about

again, but unfortunately we do. Representative George Santos from the, I don't know, the fighting third district, I don't know where it is exactly. Miss a section that overlaps Queens and the L Island in New York. He got himself elected on false pretenses and he's been, he's about to pay the consequences for that. There was a plea deal in place. He pled not guilty back in May to the at the time 13 count indictment. Now the prosecutors have flipped the treasurer

for Santos. They're still, I guess they're still working on Sam Mealy, who's another guy that worked with Santos. And the focus of it is the financial and fund raising fraud and the subsequent election form filing fraud because he's required to file certain elections forms and certificates saying that he's raised a certain amount of money who he's raised it from. If he's made a loan to his if he's made a loan to his campaign, how much is the loan? What's the source of the loan and those types of things? Well, George Santos just made up all those numbers. And or he grifted them. And or according to the new indictment, he used his some donors credit card information

without their knowledge and kept hitting it over and over again for tens of thousands of dollars of donations, some of which ended up in his own personal bank account, some of which ended up supporting the campaign so that they would show numbers on a quarterly basis that were required or that he could get help from the Republican National Committee because he raised, let's say, $250,000 in a given period. If he didn't raise it, he wouldn't have gotten their support. And suddenly, miraculously, a guy that had like $7,000 in his bank account made a $500,000 loan to his campaign fraud.

And therefore, I think they were trying to cut a deal where he would plead guilty to a felony. I don't think the prosecutors in the Eastern District will take less. And they were in talks. They told the judge last month we're in talks with Santos and his co-conspirator Mealy. And with the treasure, treasure, Plagulti is cooperating. Those deals fell apart, and the prosecutors as prosecutors are want to be,

they filed a super seating, or what we call an amended indictment, which lists 10 new felonies against Santos. I'll read them off quickly just for completion. One count of conspiracy against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of false statements to the federal election commission, two counts of false records to the federal election commission, two counts of aggravated identification theft, one count of access device theft, and of course the big tools for the prosecutor's wire fraud, which is usually an email or some other or

wire or money transfer that is using electronic transfer methods and that becomes wire fraud. So that's pissed off not the entire group of New York Republicans. Yes, there are New York Republicans in the house. And a handful of them have brought a resolution to the House floor at present, like today, to try to remove George Santos. Absent from that group is Elise Staphonic, who the wannabe speaker of the house, although she was not part of the group, apparently, as between Scalice and Jim Jordan, that is being considered. But she's been the number three in the house leadership. She's no, she's been very open and obvious that she wants the speaker position one day, but she's not part of the group that wants to lose Santos because they're

already having enough trouble. They're not governing as it is with Santos giving them one extra vote. Lord knows what'll happen if they lose another Republican vote. And so just that of sure, a pure, you know, greed and unadulterated lust for power, they're holding their nose and keeping Santos in his chair, despite the fact that the guy's going to go away to jail for a long time for all of these things. Karen, from your perspective, and then we'll sort of wrap up the show for today, what do

you make of the plea deal falling apart, the response by the prosecutors, and what do you think ultimately is going to happen with one George Santos? Well, George Santos, if he couldn't get any lower, this new indictment boy, is this really made it? So I don't think he has any wiggle room whatsoever. George Santos is really a terrible person and he, what he really stole from the American people is the right to vote for a person and have them serve you.

He is a complete fraud, everything about him is a fraud. He's lied about everything from, you know, whether he's, you know, the grandmother is a holocaust survivor and, you know, that he had certain jobs, that he has certain degrees, that he, he's just lily lily lily, his entire resume is a bunch of lies. He's just not who he says he is Not who he held himself out to be in the voters didn't vote for the person they thought they voted for But much of that is believe it or not not a crime It's just makes him a phony and

So when you get to what is it that he did that was a crime some of of it can be very technical, right? Some of it can be a federal election laws that require donor disclosures above a certain amount. Are you a pack, a super pack, or an individual, et cetera? And that can be a little bit arcane and sometimes technical. And I worried a little bit about that with indictment number one, but oh my god, the superseding indictment is just unbelievable in what it's alleging that he did. I think the biggest thing that is just he can never get away from

Is he stole money from people? Just flat out stole money. He didn't lie and say, oh, you're going to give me money for this, but I'm going to use it for that. He actually stole money. When they, when they, when they, he got a hold of their, their identifying information, their, their financial information, their credit card numbers. And he just charged them without permission and took the money and used it to finance his luxury lifestyle. That's just theft. That is bald face theft. So I mean, that to me was just crazy that that is in this new indictment. And he's already saying, oh, it wasn't me.

Somebody else did it, you know, of course, another lie because he, you know, he, he, he, um, because that one you can't get away from, right? You can't, you can't steal money. And then somehow say, oh, I thought I could do it or, you know, it's a technical thing. I mean, that's just like I said, that's just pure theft. So, so he's going to try to blame somebody else for that. Um, but I don't think he's going to get away from, get away from that whatsoever.

But, you know, the, the rest of the indictment also just showed the extent of what his fraud was. It talked about how, in addition to stealing people's credit card and bank information and stealing money from them, he also lied about how much money he had in documents in order to get matching funds from the Republican National Committee. And he just would make up numbers. On pieces of paper, he'd say he had $500,000 in a bank account when he had $7,000. And that's going to be easy to do to prove that that's either true or not true. Sounds like Donald Trump. You know, the reverse engineer numbers, like, how much do I need in order to get that bank loan?

Four billion in net worth and then put my numbers down as four billion and let's jack up the price Santos how much do I need in order to get the support of the RNC? 250,000 this quarter put it down. I'll put put down a loan. You don't have that money. Doesn't matter Put it down. We'll figure it out later You know, they're they're two p's of the pods and they use the same language s is like it's a witch hunt. It's not a witch hunt if you're actually a witch. If you're then it's just a hunt. And that's where we are with George Santos. But I don't think the Republicans, first of all, the five New York Republicans that seem to have grown a conscience who are bringing this motion, it's going to go down in flames.

There's no way they can can't even pick a speaker. They're not gonna throw George Santos. It got some press. It was interesting before we went on the air to read about it. It's not gonna go anywhere. He's gonna, until he's indicted and taken away in handcuffs and for pretrial detention or whatever it's gonna be.

And, or he is defeated, which he's bound to be defeated by this district. I can't imagine this district voting for this guy again. I mean, I think anybody could run there and win, but... I think Ben's from this district. Yeah, we should make... I don't want Ben to leave my touch, though. I mean, we keep saying Ben, Ben for Congress, Karen for President, Pope-Oc for Attorney General.

It's great. I like what I'm doing. I don't want to do any of that. I want to do what I'm doing here with you every week and midweek. So we've reached the end of this midweek edition of Legal AF as I run to try to catch a plane to return to New York, finally, I bet on the road for the last week and but having a blast though, doing these remote locations and I think it's the second midweek I've done with you while I've been on the road, but I'm returning home

and I'm looking forward to it. So Karen, always a pleasure, friend, colleague. I can't wait for our Wednesdays to roll around. Saturday, join Ben, my cellist, and me, as we do the weekend, wrap up for legal A. And of course, along the way, we've been for those that don't have the stamina to listen to an hour and a half of legal a f we've been dividing our podcast into clips

we call them little potlets and we've been putting them up to get a new audience for people that are or do and might as touch but they don't really know about legal a f there are people that don't know about legal a f surprised but this gives them a little taste segment by segment of what Karen and I have been Karen and I do. And so we're doing that. You might see that. It's not new content necessarily, but it's really for different audiences. For people who haven't had a chance to see our entire podcast or missed a segment or want to learn more about us. If you want to support what we're doing, it's really, really easy. We start with the sponsors and their products because they're advertising because they're

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Every time I wear a shirt that has a legal auff on it, even if they don't recognize me, it starts a conversation and usually a positive one about our democracy. It's funny, I was leaving on this note, I was traveling, I've been traveling and I was sitting having a lunch at a place in California, and I heard another table, I wasn't even dropping,

they're just sort of talking right next to me. And it was interesting how they analyzed, really right on the nose, the things like Hunter Biden and the focus on Hunter Biden. And why aren't we going after the Trump kids and just listening to them? I don't know if they're on the might as such network or legal AF But you know what we're doing is important because it starts a conversation and lets people have a healthy dialogue and Conversation which is what we're supposed to be doing in this country

It's not supposed to be that's my enemy. It's supposed to be that's my fellow American who has a different opinion or political view than I do, but we can have a conversation that's respectful at the end of the day. That was the social contract that I signed up for as a young adult and that I'm going to continue to try to re-install, reestablish here on the Midas Touch Network. We sort of have lost that. That is not your enemy wearing red. That is your brother and sister or fill on the blank that believes something differently. The problem is the other side often doesn't feel the way that I just said, but we've got to get back to loving patriotism and loving this country and keeping it together and not finding ways for political

a benefit and political advantage to see the other person demonize the other person. It's easy for me to say it. I'm up against the headwinds on this network of Donald Trump and those that want to cling to power because they want to divide this country. But we'll just do our part every week on the Midas Touch Network on legal AF. I'm bringing you facts, analysis that we believe in good faith as intellectual honesty and we don't blow smoke or sunshine. So until the next episode of Legal AF, midweek, end of week, hot takes by Karen, me, or Ben, and a shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers

is Michael Pope, you care for your nickname and if you're not signing off for today. you