Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Jack Smith Secures BOMBSHELL Evidence as Indictments LOOM

Starting point is 00:00:00 We have updates to the Manhattan DA prosecution of Donald Trump with a March 2024 state court trial set in the Stormy Daniels Hush Money Cover-up trial. Alvin Bragg's office is fighting back against Trump's efforts to get the case out of state court and Judge Bashan and over to federal court, declaring in his motion for remand that the case should stay put because Trump was not a federal officer nor acting as one when this local business record state law crime was committed. And he can't use the federal officer removal provision to drag his case away from a Manhattan jury in judge. This one, KFA and I may disagree on. While at the same time, Karen's old office

Starting point is 00:00:42 just made its first disclosure and production of information to Trump's defense team about the evidence against him, including at least one audio tape between Trump and an unnamed witness. I wonder who that could be. Here's a hint, it rhymes with Schmeichel Crowen. And two, we turn to new information that indicates that this may be the last legal AF where we talk about a Jack Smith indictment without having one. At least as it relates to Mar-a-Lago, espionage, and obstruction case, with new evidence that

Starting point is 00:01:13 Trump intentionally and knowingly misled his lawyer at the time, Evan Corcoran, and his sidekick, Christina Bob, about the location of national security and classified documents he was hiding. Telling him to only look in the storage room and don't play with their open daddy's desk or office as Trump gave instructions to his personnel valet to move documents in and out of that room before a corkburn met with the FBI and searched the room to respond to the May subpoena. Missing video clips, boxes packed in an SUV driven thousands of miles to Bedminster, New Jersey,

Starting point is 00:01:49 a maintenance worker, Trump probably doesn't even know the name of who's cooperating with Jack Smith's team. This case has it all. It's like a bad John LeCarré novel. And finally, the other of Jack Smith's at least four grand juries, other than Mar-a-Lago, is now looking at Trump's public firing of his then-head of cybersecurity, infrastructure, and security agency, Chris Krebs.

Starting point is 00:02:15 That's an agency that Trump himself created to focus on foreign interference. That's like having the Fox set up security for the chicken coop. Because less than two weeks after the election, Krebs declared that the election was secure, there was no fraud or election interference. Smith's team is focused on that and what it may prove about Trump's criminal mind and intent as he cling to power.

Starting point is 00:02:38 This is the midweek edition of Legal AF only on the Midas Touch Network with your co-acres, Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifalo back again to play Traffic Cop at the intersection of US law and politics. Oh, I'm breathless. Hi, Karen. You're good at that. I like your openings. Thank you. I work on them a little bit. How are you? I'm pretty good. I'm, you know, the official and the unofficial start of summer, right, after Memorial Day weekend, and, you know, interestingly, I was walking around and I saw that yesterday

Starting point is 00:03:12 was the 21st anniversary of the end of the 9-11 search and recovery, you know, at the World Trade Center when they were trying to collect remains and all of that. They stayed for a long time. Yesterday was the 21st anniversary of the official end of that, which I was just surprised. I didn't realize they had gone on for so long. I'm glad you mentioned that. As people probably know, I work for Cantor Fitzgerald who lost 658 people on 9-11. And so that tragic event was part of the fiber of that company and was thought about and is thought about every day

Starting point is 00:04:00 by the people that worked there. Of course, I joined many years after, but it still is something that resonated there. And course, I joined many years after, but it still is something that resonated there. And I'm glad that we never forget. And we talk about these kind of hard matters here on legal AF. But let's jump in, right? And let's kick it off with your old office. I like saying your old office, where to remind people, if Karen was in that office still, she'd be running the show against Donald Trump. So listen closely to her insider knowledge because it's based on some real, real credible experience and professional judgment that was developed.

Starting point is 00:04:33 So what do we have? We've got two ways to talk about the Manhattan DA and update our audience, Karen, on what's going on there. First, we've got Alvin Bragg responding to Donald Trump's attempts to drag the Stormy Daniels hush money cover up 34 count business fraud case out of Judge Mershon and a Manhattan jury's hands and bring it across the street literally across the street to a federal court in the Southern District of New York. And when that's done, just as a little breakout legal AF law school session, the attempted movement

Starting point is 00:05:11 or transfer is called removal. You do it with a notice of removal or a filing. The petitioner does that, the party that wants to remove it. You have to have grounds to remove it. Your grounds are really one of three. You either have, you argue that there is a federal question that is involved, meaning something that arises under a statute, a law, or the US Constitution, that at the heart of the case that belongs better in federal court, or there is a

Starting point is 00:05:37 case or controversy between two people of different states, or a foreign country in another state, or two foreign countries or two states. And that has to go to federal court under what's called diversity, your diversity jurisdiction, depending upon the amount at issue. And then lastly, if you happen to be a federal officer, which I'm not sure anybody believes that the president of the United States at the time was, then there's a special federal officer removal provision that says, if you were a federal officer and you were doing something

Starting point is 00:06:08 under the color of your position, like within the course and scope of your duties as a federal officer and you're being sued over that, you get to take that to federal court too, even if it started in state court. And then if you're on the other side and you don't want it to go, you want it to stay where it was in state put. Then you file a motion for remand to have the case remanded back. During that process of this sort of ping-pong or shuttlecock between remand and removal federal court and state court, the case stays in state court. Even though the federal judge has taken over limited jurisdiction to decide the issue,

Starting point is 00:06:44 the case remains where it is until, and unless and until it is dragged across successfully by that party into federal court. That's why Judge Mershan is still able to make rulings and decisions and interpretative orders and enter a trial date because the federal judge hasn't taken complete jurisdiction over the case and may not.

Starting point is 00:07:03 We'll talk about that next. That's the framework. And then may not. We'll talk about that next. That's the framework. Then the second part we'll talk about, Karen, is what's going on in the state court proceeding in the meantime, which is the finally, because the protective order is now in place and been read aloud to Donald Trump at his fake West Wing oval office set at Mar-a-Lago. When he beamed in by video into the hearing a week or so ago. We now have, okay, protective orders in place.

Starting point is 00:07:28 Manhattan DA is starting to turn over the discovery that's subject to that protective order, the information that they need to turn over as a prosecutor to a defendant in order for them to defend themselves or know what the case is against them. And one interesting disclosure that was in there that you and I can talk about. Let's go back to Remand Federal Court and you have a very strong opinion about this. So I'm going to turn it over to you, kind of take it from there and then as needed, I'll weigh in. Well, look, my strong opinion is that it's not a no-brainer to me that this stays in state court. I think there's a legitimate question, and I think the federal judge is going to weigh

Starting point is 00:08:11 this strongly about whether or not to remove the jurisdiction or the prosecution of the case from the state court where it is now under Juan Mershon and Alvin Bragg is the prosecutor to federal court which would be in front of a federal judge and Alvin Bragg would still be the prosecutor. It would just be in federal court. So I just think there are many people who say oh there's no grounds this will definitely stay in state court. I think I could argue it both ways and I think we need to be at least paying attention to the possibility that it could go to federal court. And the reason I believe that is for two reasons. Number one, when there was a case involving, I can't remember if it was Trump the Vance or Vance V Trump,

Starting point is 00:09:07 because there were several cases where Sye Vance, the prior Manhattan DA, who I worked for, trying, they were seeking Trump's tax returns while he was president. That was pursuant to a state grand jury subpoena and in a criminal case. And it was to a different, it was to his accounting firm, the Maeser's firm, not to trump himself. And because he was sitting president and you can't really sue or have any jurisdiction as an honest sitting president while they're president. And so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, it always is a grand jury subpoena grand state court judges in New York and and elsewhere routinely rule on whether a grand jury subpoena should be followed through with or not and there's a motion to quash if somebody doesn't want to do it, but you handle that in state court and so

Starting point is 00:10:20 and so basically that Trump said should be removed to federal court and made very similar motion, practice, and arguments. And we all said, this isn't even to Trump. This is to measures. How is this even a question that this is, and this is a state court proceeding, etc. And the federal court, the federal judges, they're actually removed the case and brought it to federal court. Now, Siveance's office continued to enforce

Starting point is 00:10:54 the subpoena in federal court. It went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Ultimately, they got the tax returns from measures. And that's what led to the indictment of the Trump Organization a few months later, where Alvin Bragg actually prosecuted the case, ultimately, or tried the case, I should say, and they had a 17-count conviction. So that's reason number one why I think it's very possible, because this wasn't even regarding Donald Trump, it was regarding his tax returns.

Starting point is 00:11:25 And there, the federal judge very liberally read the law and said this belongs in federal court and construed it because it was so unique that it was involving the tax returns of our president. So that's reason number one why I think it's possible that they could really stretch the law and read it to say that that it should be federal. And the second reason I think is because when you look at what the elements of removal are, there's three requirements for federal officer removal under 28 United States Code 1442.

Starting point is 00:12:06 Number one, the person has to be a federal officer. Number two, they have to be facing criminal charges for conduct arising under the color of their office. And number three, they identify a colorable federal defense. I think you can make an argument for all three of those. I don't think it's slam dunk in all three of them. And I know that the submission that Alvin Bragg just wrote for Remann, the 40-page submission that was just filed,

Starting point is 00:12:31 makes a very strong case as to why Trump doesn't meet any of those three, let alone all three. And they also argue that you need all three. It's not enough to have one or two or three of those. But they argue very convincingly that all three don't apply. But I think you can make an argument that all three do apply. So for example, they say he's not a federal officer

Starting point is 00:12:57 and that it typically a federal officer is defined as someone other than an elected president or vice president. But I'm sure you were called under the E. Jean Carroll case where it was Carol versus Trump, you know, that particular case where where they ruled, this is Carol one, right, that's still being what, that when he made the defamation claim while he was president, the question was does the Westfall act apply? And they said he was a federal employee.

Starting point is 00:13:29 Now, as a federal employee, the same as a federal officer, probably not, but you could see a federal judge say, you know what, he's federal officer number one, right? They could say that. And it wouldn't be crazy for a federal judge to rule that. So, but the Manhattan DA's office in this filing is very certain that he's not a federal officer. I think it could go either way.

Starting point is 00:13:58 Number two, he's faces criminal charges for conduct arising under the color of his office. Now, they say in their filing that this had nothing to do with when he was president, it was all before he was president. And, you know, again, I understand that is the case from a timing perspective, but there's two issues that I think have to, that kind of go in favor of it potentially being going federal, which is number one, he wrote all of the checks to reimburse Michael Cohen while he was president.

Starting point is 00:14:38 He was, it's not like this all occurred before he was president, and then Manhattan D.A.'s office acknowledged that, number one. But they could say, okay, but it was still private, even though it happened while he was president. It was still his private conduct. But I really think that, you know, when you're president of the United States, that's very much a 24-7 job. And there is no doubt, even under the people's theory of this case, this was all about him

Starting point is 00:15:02 securing a federal, the federal presidency in a federal election. That was the whole point of this, right? So the whole point of this crime was so that he could secure this office and become president. And so I just think that, again, they can make an argument that this entire thing, although yes, it was a fraud perpetrated on the American people, frankly, it had to do with him becoming president so that he could then be president and exercise all of his duties under the color of his office. So I think again, that's an argument that could be made.

Starting point is 00:15:44 And number three, it identifies a colorable federal defense. I mean, to me, this is the one where they're going to say, look, you know, this was about interfering with a federal election. How is that not a federal crime? And where there's a federal election crime and a state election crime, they're going to argue preemption, meaning the federal law preamps the state law, and so therefore the state law attempting to commit a crime can't apply because it's preempted, it should be federal. And so again, does it have to be a winning defense? No, it just has to be a colorable federal defense. So to me, if the judge wants to, can say, look, it's very unique to have a president who is being

Starting point is 00:16:27 charged with a crime. I don't want to open up the slippery slope of having all states bring charge, all local DAs can bring charges against a president that they don't like. It's politically motivated. Oh, and the final area that Trump argues that I also think is again somewhat I can make an argument that is persuasive is that he says there's something called protective jurisdiction and and it's a concept in a federal court that there is no such thing officially but it has been alluded to in in certain court opinions and in Dicta and in concurrence and

Starting point is 00:17:06 a sense of other decisions that it's a concept that exists, that there's a protective jurisdiction of the federal court if a state court a prosecution is politically motivated. So basically what the Manhattan D.A. says is if there is such a protective jurisdiction, even though we don't think there is, he doesn't meet those elements either because there's nothing here that says this is politically motivated and Judge Mershawn, although Trump constantly says he's hostile towards him, I don't think that there's no evidence, et cetera, et cetera. And then the final, just one thing I'll say about their submission is they say, even if any of these things apply, Trump's motion papers, his submission, his notice, failed to specify any of these elements, essentially saying his lawyers suck and don't do a good job and don't put the necessary things out there

Starting point is 00:18:07 that are needed to find any of these. But I don't know. I just think, I look at all of this. This was the first time a former president of the United States has ever been indicted criminally, and it was while he was president. And I just think that for those reasons, the fact that some of this happened while he was in the Oval Office, it could, it could, there could be witnesses that,

Starting point is 00:18:37 worked for the president that have to be called, et cetera. I don't know, I just think here, I think it could go either way, and we'll see what the federal judge does. But what do you, I want to hear your thoughts, Popeye? Yeah, I agree with Alvin's position. I don't, his first argument with the Manhattan D.A.'s office is this particular individual

Starting point is 00:18:58 is not even a federal officer, so he doesn't get to use the federal officer removal statute because there's case law and an analysis under other federal statutes that even though the president is considered as I like to joke employee badge number one as an employee of the federal government doesn't mean he's an officer, a federal officer as those terms are used in statutes, including in this one, not in the Constitution, but in a federal statute regarding the jurisdiction of a court, in this case, the federal court, which has at its essence limited jurisdiction. So I like the argument that he is not as the president of the United States, as slightly counterintuitive as it may sound, that he's not a federal officer,

Starting point is 00:19:46 as that term of art is used in the statute. Their fallback argument is, even if he was a federal officer, he was doing nothing more than garden variety, business man, Donald Trump, at the time that he was doing the cover-up, the hush money, and the repayment of the hush money, whatever happened while he was in the oval office, certainly wasn't part, colorable, colorable part of his official functions as the president

Starting point is 00:20:10 of the United States. It was a private affair, no pun intended, a private contract, a private agreement between him and Stormy Daniels through through the lawyers and the payments as such. And then I love the fact Karen that in the brief itself, they used tweets from Donald Trump at the time back when he was on Twitter at 6.58 in the morning, 6.59 in the morning, 7 o'clock in the morning on the same day saying, this is a private agreement,

Starting point is 00:20:39 a private contract, a private thing between me and Stormy Daniels and the, and the non-disclosure agreement. Yes, we agree. This is their point. We agree with Donald Trump's own words that this was not Donald Trump, qua president of the United States. It was Donald Trump running Trump organization and hiding the affair from his wife and the American public. So I think he fails on those. I also don't think, and I agree with Alvin Bragg, that they have, that this arises out of federal, at its essence, at its core, what we call the gravament, right, in our business, of the, of the case is a run of the Millguard variety, state case, of crime, business crime,

Starting point is 00:21:22 as you once said on the podcast, charged every day and every way, by the by the Manhattan DA and other DAs, this is local crime. And there is a body of law on the federal side that says that federal courts should stay out of what is and and and and not interfere with what is state local police power, immutable power. So that's argument number two. And on the defense, I really don't see it. We already know that the executive privilege has been stripped away from him.

Starting point is 00:21:52 I don't know of any other immunity or uniquely federal defense to what is at essence state claims. The federal election claims that are being used in a 34-count indictment. Yes, they're being used to ratchet up and give the double crime requirement to get it to be a felony, but they are uncharged.

Starting point is 00:22:16 They're not a charged set of federal crimes. They are a charged set of state crimes where there is an uncharged underlying crime, which I believe can stay uncharged throughout the entire time. And so they're not preempted. I know they're going to make that argument at some point. So I think he fails.

Starting point is 00:22:34 Boom, boom, boom, not a federal officer, certainly not a federal officer performing a federal presidential function when he's doing the cover up or even the repayment to Michael Cohen and certainly doesn't have a unique federal defense. He's got to have all three. He's got to run the table. He's got to have all three in order to have federal jurisdiction. Otherwise, federal courts or courts have limited jurisdiction.

Starting point is 00:22:55 They shut the door, lock it to people if they can't satisfy this jurisdictional thing. He can't argue that he's not going to get a fair shake because you know, his other organization, the Trump organization has already been tried in state court successfully, successfully for the state, been prosecuted and convicted. There is a place for him to get justice. He just doesn't like, then we just remind everybody that people might be thinking, why is he doing this? Why is Donald Trump doing this? Is it for delay? Not really, because federal courts, first of all, when they pick up cases that are criminal cases that are already in the mix, in the flow,

Starting point is 00:23:34 you know, hellerstein doesn't have a lot. He's a senior status judge. He doesn't have a lot on his plate. He can set a trial that matches the trial date the judge of Rashad set and make it for March of 2024 as well. And then you just pick up some federal rules. But this is state. This just to remind everybody and Karen, you mentioned it earlier,

Starting point is 00:23:54 state prosecutors going to stay. The state claims state law violations are going to stay. These are not going to be converted by fit of alchemy into federal crimes, okay, to allow for a future federal pardon by a president named Donald Trump or otherwise. These are state claims with a state prosecutor. The only thing that's different, it's going to be the judge in the courthouse. Everything else, the rules, the rules of evidence, I think will probably change to federal, but that's not a big thing. So why?

Starting point is 00:24:26 People will think, why is he doing this other than just to be contrarian? He's probably doing it because he doesn't like the jury pool. You and I have talked at length about when you're in Manhattan, which he just was for the 17-count conviction, the jury pool is pulled from everybody that lives in Manhattan. For those that don't live in and around this area, when we say Manhattan, we don't mean New York City. We mean the borough of New York, Manhattan, just the city top the bottom, right? You know, upper Harlem lower, low down to down to the battery or whatever it is.

Starting point is 00:25:00 That's it. And that trends liberal blue Biden. If you go to federal court, even though it's just across the street because it's a different system, federal system, it pulls from a broader, a voter, a broader base for the jurors, including counties, I think there's eight or ten of them, Orange County, Putnam County, Westchester, some of them went Trump, some, most of them didn't. But he was competitive in some of those counties. So Trump, I believe, is hoping to God

Starting point is 00:25:29 that out of his nine or 12 people on the jury and Alvin Bragg's got to run the table and get all nine or all 12 votes beyond a reasonable doubt that he picks up one or two or three Trumpers, country club Republicans, whatever, that hold out and find reasonable doubt. That to me, and I want to hear your opinion, why is he doing this?

Starting point is 00:25:50 Why is Trump doing this? Look, I think that's definitely part of it. I think there's, I think it's delay. And he fights everything, right? That's his MO. He wants to just cause chaos and cause havoc and delay things and So I do think that's part of anything he's judge-shopping. I think he's hoping to get a better judge He doesn't care for Juan Mrchon to say the least. I think he's also just trying to you know mess with Alvin Bragg

Starting point is 00:26:16 And force them to be answering these are you know what while they're running around Answering these arguments and going back and forth to federal court. I'm sure in his mind He thinks then they can't be continuing their investigation While they're running around answering these arguments and going back and forth to federal court, I'm sure in his mind he thinks that they can't be continuing their investigation. There are other investigations that they have into me, the financial, the one about the valuation of assets. He's also, as you said, for a better jury and a better judge, right?

Starting point is 00:26:39 Like those are the things he wants. He just, he doesn't like what he has, and so he just looks for a way to disrupt delay and get something different. That's what I think. Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's, I think it's a combination of both those things. Let's, before we leave this segment, let's touch briefly on the, now the protective order is in place by Judge Mershon. Remember, we're staying in state court unless it until it is sucked across the street into federal court. And Judge Mershon remember we're staying in state court unless it until it is sucked across the street into federal court. And Judge Mershon is setting trial dates and entering protective orders and the Manhattan

Starting point is 00:27:10 DA is now ready to turn over these different categories of information, some of which pursuant to the protective order. Trump can only look at with his lawyers in the room. They have to babysit him because they nobody trusts Donald Trump. Some can be shown to him without his lawyers. I think it's a very small group. And now is the opportunity that I want you to take it from your experience where they filed what is referred to as the automatic discovery form listing broadly, really broadly,

Starting point is 00:27:41 the evidence that they have for the 34 count business record fraud case against Donald Trump. And then without mentioning names, saying, and one of them is a recording and probably other recordings between the defendant and another unnamed witness, which means Michael Cohen. I think we played Michael Cohen's clip a number of times on hot takes in legal AF. Walk the audience through because they really like this part. I think your experience about what just happened. Why does the prosecution, let's start the basics.

Starting point is 00:28:15 Why does the prosecution have to turn over this material? And why do they have to do it so soon? Why can't they sandbag the defendant at trial and whip out witnesses and documents and evidence? Wouldn't that be better for justice? And you can talk about why they have to do that. And what is being accomplished now? What does the reference to this kind of audio

Starting point is 00:28:33 or video or electronic evidence mean? And when can we expect to hear about, if ever, more disclosures coming out of the Manhattan DA's office to the defendant. Karen Friedman, Tegnafala. So there's something in the law called discovery. And that occurs in both criminal and civil cases. In civil cases, discovery is much more mutual.

Starting point is 00:28:59 You have to turn over. You ask for things and you have to turn over things. You ask questions. You have to answer them. And you even get to do things called take depositions and interview people. But in criminal law, every state is has its own criminal discovery statutes and it governs the timing of what gets turned over, the content of what gets turned over, and just how all of that works.

Starting point is 00:29:25 And for, there are certain states that have, in criminal cases, very liberal discovery, meaning, or they call it open file discovery, where you have to give everything. And there are certain states, and I think Florida might be one of them, where in criminal cases, you even get to, the defendant gets to deposit or interview or take testimony from the victim in the case prior to, you know, or the witnesses in the case prior to the trial. New York was one of the states up until recently that had one of the most restrictive or conservative

Starting point is 00:30:01 discovery statutes that people complained about and the defense bar complained about because They felt that it was sandbag justice or you know this this sort of where where things didn't have to be turned over Believe it or not witness statements didn't have to be turned over to the defense until after the jury is sworn At trial and right before the and before the person testifies. So there was a lot of hide the ball prosecution happening and that's, in look, 98% of cases don't go to trial. And so part of it is just for economy sake, right? If you prosecute 100,000 cases a year

Starting point is 00:30:41 and 98,000 of them don't go to trial, you don't have to collect all that discovery and gather it and photocopiate and then categorize it and turn it over and redact it for sensitive information, et cetera. And so you only have to do it for the 2,000 cases that go to trial, which is much more manageable. Well, the defense bar had lobbied the New York State government for a very long time, saying it's just not fair, and it's not the way things are done anymore. And across the country, in fact, most jurisdictions allow for much more discovery. You know, there's wrongful, we know now that so many people are wrongfully

Starting point is 00:31:23 prosecuted because most people whofully prosecuted, because most people who are prosecuted are people of color, this isn't fair, it's racist. All of the persuasive arguments that changed the law in 2019. So I think it was January 1st, 2020, is when the discovery laws changed. Don't forget what else happened two months later. We went into a global pandemic. So the New York State criminal justice system went into kind of havoc at that time because now you're turning over discovery in all 100,000 cases. And you know, all of New York State had challenged to try to now

Starting point is 00:32:05 you have to gather all that information in every single case, and you have to turn it over fairly quickly. The law, it says 15 days from a rainman, but it gives you an extension of another 30 days if it's a complicated case. So within 45 days, you have to gather everything, literally everything.

Starting point is 00:32:23 And it doesn't sound like that's very much, but in today's cases, that is enormous. Okay, it's every email, it's every text message, every phone recording, every video, every piece of electronic evidence that you could possibly get with digital, you know, fingerprints that people leave behind everywhere they go, you know, they go to a hotel, you've got a card reader that goes when you do your hotel key, or whatever, the video going in, whatever it is, there's the Metro card, your credit card records, whatever it is, and in white collar cases,

Starting point is 00:32:59 like this one, it's even more. So you have millions of documents, you have terabytes of documents that have to be turned over. And just the mere gathering of that and to have to turn that over to the defense is just an enormous task. And it's really, I would say prosecutors are saying that it is game changing and the hardest part of their job now now where it was not even really an issue before. You also have witness safety and privacy concerns. You have to redact it.

Starting point is 00:33:31 You have to go through it all yourself and you have to redact anything that you're supposed to redact. When it comes to someone, and I'll tell you, now that I am a defense attorney, I recently tried a case where on this side of the aisle, I love open file discovery because, you know, you get the whole case. There's no secrets anymore. I can't imagine preparing for a defense and trying a case as a defense attorney without having the

Starting point is 00:33:55 grand jury testimony and all of the evidence that the prosecution has. And frankly, it's the more fair thing. It surprises me that we did things this way for so long. It's so much more fair this way. I mean, there shouldn't be any secrets. You should be able to win a case based on the merits of the case, not by playing some games and playing hide the ball with your evidence. So that's Discovery Primer 101. So this is a case So that's Discovery Primer 101. So this is a case where you have millions of pages of documents and they had to prepare to turn it over and they had to give it over to the Trump team.

Starting point is 00:34:37 This case though, there's a protective order, as you said, which means Trump doesn't just get it because they're afraid he'll abuse it and frankly hurt the case by trying it in the court of public opinion as opposed to just court. And so there's a protective order saying you're allowed to look at it but you're not allowed to tweet about it or truth about it or whatever his fake Twitter account is called. You're not allowed to use it only to prepare for your defense and you're

Starting point is 00:35:07 only allowed to look at this stuff with your lawyers. And so the way that gets turned over is with a discovery, I guess they call it an automatic discovery form, but it's really just a list of the documents that are getting turned over. And here we saw there was a recording. And it's a recording that we think is a recording that Michael Cohen made of conversation with Trump about this payment. I think that's fairly significant.

Starting point is 00:35:35 And I think that's going to be a very powerful piece of evidence. Did I answer your question, Popok? I think so, but why is it significant? Why is that significant from a prosecutor's standpoint? Because it's the words of the defendant, right? If you don't get to depose him in a criminal case, you don't even get to talk to him or get his statements unless he testifies. And we don't know if he'll testify or not in this case. But here, the jury will get to hear

Starting point is 00:36:00 his own words, his own voice, his own planning of the crime, his commission of the crime, you know, that's a very powerful, it takes away some arguments depending on what it says, right? Or what he says, can he say he didn't know or he didn't plan it or he wasn't involved or what it was about? It's very much a window into his mind and into his brain and into his words at the time. Yeah, yeah. And also one other thing about the recording, just to remind people that it is legal in New York to record somebody with only one person's consent. So if you and I are having a conversation,

Starting point is 00:36:38 I can record you without you knowing or you can record me without knowing, putting aside ethical issues because we're lawyers. If we weren't lawyers, there'd be no issue whatsoever. But we are a one-party consent state. There are other states in the U.S. that are two-party consent states where you cannot do that. You can't record a conversation with someone unless both people agree. So you can't surreptitiously record someone.

Starting point is 00:37:04 But New York is a one party consent state. So there's nothing wrong with Michael Cohen recording those statements and keeping them. Thank God he did. And then just a final wrap up and then we'll move on into our show today. The reason that there was a payment to story me Daniels that came through Michael Cohen, and

Starting point is 00:37:25 this is the reporting and investigative reporting about testimony that's been given by David Pecker, the National Inquirer publisher, disgraced publisher, who participated in the catch and kill, devised the catch and kill program to catch people and stories that claim that Donald Trump had had affairs and sexual relationships with people outside of his marriage and paid them off. Said that he was buying the stories for the national inquire, what all he was doing was was paying off these people, making them enter into forced compelled non-disclosure agreements, NDAs, and then never publishing the stories. That

Starting point is 00:38:03 was the catch and the kill. And that people were involved in that decision making Donald Trump, Kelly and Conway, Michael Cohen, Alouiselberg, and the like. The reason that that, because the first test case before Stormy Daniels was Susan McDougall, who was a former Playboy playmate, who was paid $150,000 directly from David Pecker on behalf of Donald Trump. She entered into an NDA, which she later tried to get out from under and the whole cat got out of the bag related to that one, then story of me Daniels and her $130,000 payment.

Starting point is 00:38:40 That one was made by Michael Cohen on behalf of Donald Trump because David Pecker testified that he got screwed by Trump and didn't get repaid and so he wasn't gonna do it again for Stormy Daniels, which is why it went instead of going Pecker to the person it went Michael Cohen to the person's lawyer Michael Cohen having to get reimbursed by Donald Trump through a series of payments and bonuses under this false entry in the books and records, hence the 34 accounts of legal retainer, legal services rendered and that type of thing when it was really just a repayment of the hush money.

Starting point is 00:39:23 We're going to talk about, um, to really a big huge bombshell. We keep using that word, but it's really true developments in the Mara logo, Jack Smith investigation and prosecution with a, with the lead lawyer now former ex lawyer testifying that he was misled by Donald Trump and others when he did his search that led to the 34, that now infamous 34 documents shoved into an envelope instead of the 100 or more that were being still hidden by Donald Trump next door in his office. That's Evan Quarkren, and then we're gonna talk about

Starting point is 00:39:59 why Jack Smith is interested in the firing of Chris Krebs, the head of the cybersecurity and infrastructure, Homeland Security Department that looked at fraud and said there was none during the election. What does that say about Donald Trump's men's reya? Well, we're gonna do both of those after a word from our sponsor. Did you know that the best tasting honey

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Starting point is 00:42:33 Little side bonus for Manacura. We like them as a sponsor. So let's move on to Evan Corcoran. We've talked a lot about Evan Corcoran. He quit as a lawyer four months ago for Donald Trump. We know that he got stripped of his attorney client privilege or Donald Trump did because it's the client that holds the privilege Because then chief judge barrel howl of the DC circuit court ruled in a secret hearing about the secret grand jury proceedings by a presentation by the prosecutors that there was likely a crime or fraud the prosecutors that there was likely a crime or fraud perpetuated, committed by Donald Trump himself in the way he handled or mishandled these documents after he left the White House

Starting point is 00:43:12 and how he interacted with the National Archives, how he interacted with the FBI and the Department of Justice and having found this crime fraud exception, she stripped Evan Corcoran of all of his attorney client protection or Donald Trump of it, forced Evan Corcoran of all of his attorney client protection with Donald Trump of it forced Evan Corcoran to testify to the grand jury about every deep dark secret and private conversation. He I would Donald Trump and for good measure, this was the one that was a real headscratcher at the time because we heard about the the fact that he had had to turn over all of his attorney notes, which like sent a shutter down the spine of any practicing

Starting point is 00:43:45 lawyer like you and me, he was like, oh my god, my notes, which are privileged generally, have to be turned over to the other side, the prosecutor. Oh boy, and Evan Corcoran apparently took really copious notes about Donald Trump's facial expression and reactions and things that were said to him or not said to him and interference with his job as a lawyer by Walt Nauda, the personal valet for Donald Trump and Donald Trump himself. We heard about the docs, but not about what was in them. And then we heard about the testimony,

Starting point is 00:44:15 but we didn't quite know what it was. But now every day it seems, there are strategic weeks coming out of the prosecutor's office at the very end of Mar-a-Lago about evidence that they have. And when I want to talk to you as a former prosecutor about why you think we're hearing about these things and what does it mean for the case or their squeezing certain witnesses. On Evan Corcoran, Evan Corcoran will apparently testify that he was misled by Donald Trump and those around him about the location of that National security material and classified material that Donald Trump was hiding and storing against law

Starting point is 00:44:55 You know as a crime at Mar-a-Lago. He was told emphatically and Donald Trump never did anything that disabuse him of this thought that all all of the White House material were in a storage unit at Marlago, which is where he, Evan Quarker and Christine the Bob did their quote unquote, diligent search, which is what they certified under penalty of burgery when they signed on that form and handed it to the Department of Justice. What Evan Quarker now knows and has told his closest confidants and the government is that Donald Trump had other documents in his desk and in his office that Evan Corcoran

Starting point is 00:45:36 was told was off limits to him. Now I don't know how as a practicing lawyer under the ethics rules, you would allow your client to mislead you. If I'm doing it, I've done searches for documents at a client in discovery. And if a client said, yeah, yeah, don't go to that locked door. That's exactly where I want to go. Don't look in that filing cabinet. There's nothing there. I want to go confirm that. Don't go play in Daddy's desk and go looking Daddy's, Daddy's drawers. That's exactly where I want to go. But Evan Corcoran, like many of the lawyers around Donald Trump, took Donald Trump at his word for some reason and just said, okay, everything's in the storage unit. This is my artist

Starting point is 00:46:13 rendering of Evan Corcoran. Okay, I'll just stay in there. And then Walt Now to the personal valet for Donald Trump, who apparently still works for Donald Trump, try to sit in on the review session. These are like classified top secret materials. And Evan Carcler said, no, no, I got it. I don't need you in here. What Evan Carcleron did not know, but we now know from other reporting and other leaks strategically, by the prosecutor, is that there is video evidence of Walt Nauta moving in and out and taking boxes in and out of that storage unit, just before the June second meeting, a range between Evan Corcoran and the FBI, J. Brat, the head of counterintelligence, to turn over what Evan Corcoran led the government to believe was the entirety of the perloing document,

Starting point is 00:47:07 34 shoved in a taped seal, vanilla envelope with a certification by Christina Bob. What a coward, Evan Corcoran had Christina Bob sign it and say under penalty of perjury, this is what they found under a diligent search when they knew or should have known that the lock door next door and in the desk drawer, there were at least a hundred other pieces of material that should have been turned over. They have the video, they subpoenaed it from the Trump organization, they see Walt Nauta,

Starting point is 00:47:35 they see the date, but then there's gaps and they're trying to figure out if there's criminality between the erasure or the failure of the videotape to pick up other key moments. They also see and they have cooperating testimony from a maintenance worker at Mar-a-Lago, because Jack Smith rightly believes that it's the maintenance workers, the housekeepers, the kitchen staff, the silent worker who sees everything. And they brought in, for instance, a housekeeper for two deep briefings and interviews,

Starting point is 00:48:06 a maintenance worker who now is his own criminal defense lawyer, who's cooperating closely with them. He helped Walt now to move the boxes, not only in and out of the storage unit, the storage room before June 2nd, but moved them out to an SUV, awaiting SUV, packed to go 1,500 miles north to Bedminster golf course, and the government, as of right now, doesn't know it's in those boxes.

Starting point is 00:48:31 So we could see another search warrant up at Bedminster because they've never been returned. I don't think the government has any confidence in the information they're getting out of Walt Nauta because they think really he's lying to them and he won't cooperate further so the reporting is unless he gets immunity and then he'll turn it over. It means on a maintenance worker is turning over photographs of this is the storage room. Here were the boxes that I moved. I want you from, that's the data points, that's the facts.

Starting point is 00:49:01 I want you from a prosecutor to tell our audience why Jack Smith is interested in this and how do you make your case or the elements of a crime based on this new information, why the focus? So, Evan, so Corcoran is clearly suspicious of Trump from the jump, right? And so the fact that he took such detailed notes about every little thing in facial expression, in his mind, he's saying, one day, this is, I'm going to be, it's going to be me versus him. I'm not sure I trust him. And so I want to make sure my notes are crystal clear. He also, as you said, didn't want to sign that affirmation, and he had Christina Bob do it. And she added that little bit, you know, I was told, or to the best of my knowledge.

Starting point is 00:49:53 Again, he clearly had his suspicions when they said, no, don't look here, look there. So he's doing, he was, he from the beginning, you can tell. He is not one of these completely, you know, Trump all the way. I'm going to be loyal to you to the end. And, you know, I'll do your bidding for you and with you. He clearly had some kind of a suspicion or skepticism, not saying he's a national hero by any means either, but I'm saying there was,

Starting point is 00:50:24 there was a little bit of, I'm gonna think of myself, not just of Trump, you know, I'm gonna look out for myself here. And so I think that's why it's very clear that Jack Smith is interested in him, because he was a lawyer for Trump, so therefore Trump would have spoken to him hoping thinking that he had a

Starting point is 00:50:45 tranny client privilege, right? So he might have information that that would be normally you would not get. But here you get it because it's the crime fraud exception. Number one, number two, Evan Quarkran was the one who can say who did what when with respect to these documents. And don't forget lots of other people had documents, that's his defense, Biden had them, Pence had them, everybody had them. What makes it a crime isn't having classified documents because that's not even the crime, right?

Starting point is 00:51:17 It doesn't matter if they're classified or declassified. Don't forget, this is under the SB&AJ Act, which just requires that it be national security material. It doesn't have to be material that is classified top secret any of that. It doesn't have to be anything. It's just involving national security That's the that's the crime that they're looking at the other crime. They're looking at this obstruction of justice So okay, we know you have it, but are you holding on to it when you're not allowed to have it? And so, that goes to state of mind, and it's very fact specific, some of this stuff. And Evan Quarkran can give those elements of the crime that are so specific, and that's why Jack Smith is interested in it. If it was just

Starting point is 00:51:59 a matter of possessing classified documents, right, that, you don't need any witnesses for it. You either have them or you don't. But that's not at all the elements of the crime that he's being investigated for. Again, it's whether or not this is national security material and what was the purpose for him having them. So for example, there were certain material, there were certain documents that they had that he had that Trump had that related to various countries, right? China, Turkey, you know, I can't remember some of the others, you know, Middle Eastern countries, and you know, and it was, it was, there were, and it's going to be looked at was this, were these records, were they were these ones that were places where Trump was doing business

Starting point is 00:52:48 and that he was going to look to buy property or he had property or he was having business dealings. And he's going to use these materials, these national security materials to his own benefit. Those are the types of things that they're looking at. And Evan Corcoran is going to be able to talk about that along with Tim Parlatore. They're going to be able to provide that information to Jack Smith and turn this from a just straight possession case. And so if Trump declassified these things in his mind,

Starting point is 00:53:24 which he's not allowed to do or can't do, again, under this crime, under this statute, it doesn't, none of that matters. He could have mentally declassified them, and it wouldn't matter because it involves national security. So I think that that's why these witnesses, including Calamari, you know, his, his, Calamari junior and senior, you know, who, who have been long-term, close, you know, close advisors

Starting point is 00:53:56 to Trump are all of interest to Jack Smith because they can talk about the, was this a deliberate attempt to obstruct justice and affect national security or was this just an accident that everyone does it and you know we packed up quickly and left. And it's these little breadcrumbs it's this kind of information that is going to help Jack Smith build this case right. He's going to be able to talk about the fact that you know that that as you pointed out, this maintenance worker, you know, who had a photo right before and then right after the, the meeting and the date, you know, the metadata that will be in that photograph about the timestamp and the date stamp and the location

Starting point is 00:54:36 of that, of that photograph will really help kind of talk about how this was a deliberate attempt to evade the FBI, right? You move boxes the day before they get there and then you move them back after they leave. I mean, that's, you know, right there, consciousness of guilt 101. And, you know, you've got certain, you know, people who are going to be able to provide those various elements, you know, the Kalamari's, you know, who are going to be able to talk about the security and the video of Mar-a-Lago. And again, whether or not that was an accidentally deleted or deliberately doctored or, you know, the Housekeepers, you know, who have been interviewed, the kitchen staff

Starting point is 00:55:16 who have been interviewed, you know, all of them are going to be able to put the pieces together to build this case and tell the story about what went on and who did what. I think in addition to Trump, we're going to see Boris Epstein also potentially as a defendant. He was very much someone involved in this interference with the records at both Mar-a-Lago and then at Bedminster. And the FBI has Epstein's cell phone. And again, he's somebody who will do whatever it takes and say whatever it takes. There is no line that he, Giuliani, and certain others are willing to cross for Trump. At least Evan Corcoran has his own personal, he's going to save himself.

Starting point is 00:56:09 Alan Weiselberg so far hasn't been willing to save himself. He'll go down for Trump. I think Epstein and Giuliani are two other people in that similar vote. So, you know, those are, I think those are the reasons why this is so interesting, you know, to Jack Smith so that he can, he can prove the elements necessary for the national security espionage case and the obstruction of justice case. Yeah. I think they're going to do this case with or without Walt Nauta, but they're pressuring Walt Nauta hard to testify against Donald Trump so hard that the reporting is the Walt Nauta's lawyer won't go forward with continuing to talk to the prosecutors. We've already made it clear

Starting point is 00:56:54 they don't think that Walt Nauta has been honest and truthful with them unless he gets an immunity deal. And then I guess he would spill the beans about what Donald Trump, his client, because he was the personal valet. What is that, by the way? What is a personal valet? I mean, it's the old phrase that they used to use in the White House for the Butler. I was going to say other than Downton Abbey, you know, like a... At least the Colt was worse. They used to call it the Butler. I mean, everybody that's seen, you know, the movie, The Butler understands what was going on in the White House and who served in those roles, you know, from, you know, not great standpoint.

Starting point is 00:57:32 It was usually African-American gentlemen and women that served as housekeepers and butlers in the White House for white presidents, white male presidents. And they converted that politically incorrect term into valet at some point. And then now it's like it's like an assistant. It's like a real exclusive. It's always with the president.

Starting point is 00:57:52 Sometimes they call it the body man. I think they are because the person carries like on his body, everything, you know, nasal spray, hair dye, orange tanning, self tanning lotion, whatever. And yet this after when he leaves, you get to keep your valet. No, but he pays for himself. I mean, we don't pay for it. But he has a guy. And the guy's name is Walt Nowda.

Starting point is 00:58:14 And if Walt Nowda doesn't play ball, he's gonna end up being prosecuted a lot with Donald Trump in all things related to moral law. It's amazing just what people of a different, you know, socioeconomic stature, you know. It's a matter of, you don't have a body man. I don't have a valet. You don't have a valet? No, valet. My close-by-side com is when I valet park my car every once in a while, which I can't remember the last time I did that either, but anyway, sorry. So, that's okay. Let's move on to our final segment today, which is a talk about the what at the time was a

Starting point is 00:58:49 watershed moment in what we all thought was the corruption of Donald Trump, which is which is that he fired his head of cybersecurity infrastructure security agency with the ungangly name of CISA, which was a department under the Department of Homeland Security, the Donald Trump invented, and Chris Krebs was pictured there. He was the first head of CISA. I'm not even sure if there is a current head of CISA, but he was certainly the first head.

Starting point is 00:59:17 He was the inaugural person in the job. And if by all accounts was a man, a person of integrity, a person, one department of Homeland Security person upon hearing about his, his unceremonious firing after he got opposite Donald Trump about the safety and security of the election said there is no finer public servant that I've ever worked for, or more competent person, or talented person than Chris Krebs. He was very highly respected, almost a political in his position, which I'm sure rubbed Donald Trump the wrong way, a person who looked for loyalty tests at every place he could get it, who can forget the conversation he had with the then FBI director, Comey, where he looked for a blood oath loyalty commitment

Starting point is 01:00:08 from Comey back to him as a loyalist, I'm not understanding the position, or the role of the Department of Justice. And so Chris Krebs was fired nine days after the election because he had the temerity of announcing in a tweet as the CISA head to assure the American public that this November 3rd election, because he had the temerity of announcing in a tweet as the CISA head to assure the American public that this November 3rd election, just nine days earlier, was the most secure in American history.

Starting point is 01:00:33 Right now across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the results. And that was his declaration on the 12th. Well, Donald Trump didn't like that. And later on the same day, Donald Trump fired Krebs. He said, and I'll read this aloud for those that don't watch us on YouTube. The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate in that there were massive improprieties and fraud, including dead people voting. Poet watchers not allowed into polling locations. Glitches in the voting machines,

Starting point is 01:01:10 which changed, do we have more of that? Votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as director of CISA. And Chris Krebs fired back with a one line tweet that said honor to serve. We didn't write defend today secure typo tomorrow. Hashtag protect 2020. Chris Krebs was right. Donald Trump was wrong. Donald Trump was wrong about everything on November the 12th that he listed there. He was told he was wrong by his advisors. He was told he was wrong about all those items

Starting point is 01:01:47 by outside consultants, two sets of them that he hired and paid for over a million dollars. He was told he was wrong by lawyers within the White House Council about every one of those things. Yet he fired Chris Krebs for doing his job and saying what was true. At the same time as a split screen of democracy yet he fired Chris Krebs for doing his job and saying what was true.

Starting point is 01:02:05 At the same time, as a split screen of democracy, as we continue to be the conscious of democracy, at the same time Chris Krebs was saying that, on Fox over at Fox News, Sydney Powell and Michael Flynn was telling the American people that they're, and I'm not making this up. I know when people think I go into some of this, the Pope Box got to be making this up, they're not making this up. I know when people think I go into some of this, the Popeyes got to be making this up.

Starting point is 01:02:27 I am not making this up. They told the American people that there was a secret supercomputer, a secret supercomputer that was flipping votes from Biden to Trump. This is what they told the American people against which Chris Krebs had a respond about all of these things.

Starting point is 01:02:43 And he said point blank, we've respond about all of these things. And he said, point blank, we've looked into all of these things. They're either unsubstantiated or highly dubious or technically impossible. And that's the end of it. My impromotor is on this as the head of CISA. This is the job I was hired to do. And without politics or favor. And this is what I'm doing. Now, why does it matter? Because I mean, here's, here's a great quote. Thanks for reminding me, Salty. Then you had Joe DeGionova,

Starting point is 01:03:14 another lawyer for Donald Trump no longer with him that went on newsmax and said the next day that Chris Krebs should be taken out at dawn and shot and drawn in courted for defending the election chris crebs then pseudonal trump and joe de anova de jenova for defamation and he got an apology a complete retraction apology from joe i don't know what happened to the case

Starting point is 01:03:41 it was hard to find what happened to that case and chris is moved on to a consultancy that bears his name. But now we have reporting that Chris, Chris Krebs firing and the aides that were involved in that decision making around Donald Trump have now caught the interest of one Jack Smith who has subpoenaed those aides to come in and talk to him to find out Smith who has subpoenaed those aides to come in and talk to him to find out what Donald Trump knew and when he knew it. Why did he write that tweet? Why did he fire Chris Krebs on the opposite of evidence and no evidence at all? And how does that go to the state of mind, intent and knowingness of Donald Trump to convict

Starting point is 01:04:20 him of a crime? What do you think from a prosecutor's standpoint, Karen? What do you think if this evidence is born out, where do you think, Chris, where do you think, Jack Smith is going with it? So, you know, there was a lot of post-election, fishing-ness, criminal activity, et cetera, that Trump engaged in, including,

Starting point is 01:04:41 don't forget removing Bill Barr, right? After the, after he lost the election, including don't forget removing Bill Barr, right? After he lost the election, he told Trump was trying to get Bill Barr to do his bidding and look into Georgia and all the election fraud, all his theories that he had decided we're happening and Bill Barr refused to allow the DOJ to engage in that

Starting point is 01:05:13 and in fact stopped allowing a certain Trump loyalist, her name was Heidi Sturrup, to be able to, she was supposed to be the White House liaison between the White House and Department of Justice They stopped letting her in after you know, she was she was basically banned from the DOJ After the 2020 election because she was trying to get sensitive information from the DOJ officials You know while she was hunting for this election fraud and you know Trump was trying to use the Department of Justice inappropriately. So he, don't forget, he bar resigns and then he puts Jeffrey Rosen in after the fact and then wants to take Jeffrey Rosen out and put Jeffrey Clark in, which he didn't do

Starting point is 01:06:01 thankfully. But he wanted to. There was all this post election. These people should be lame ducks helping the transition. There shouldn't be new appointments or new positions. There should be acting people. I mean, it's crazy what he was doing after the election. And Krebs, I think, is exhibit A of his criminal intent, essentially, of both what he knew and then what he was trying to do. He this is you know, as you said Chris Krebs entire job was about cyber security and he comes out and he says

Starting point is 01:06:38 Look, this is the most secure election in the history of you know elections. There's no evidence that any voting system was deleted, or I'm sorry, that they deleted or lost any votes or changed votes in any way that it was compromised. You know, like, you know, that he was very clear, right? That, that, you know, the integrity of the election was not compromised. And, you know, that he was doing his job,

Starting point is 01:07:03 he was calling it like he saw it and Trump fired him and you know it's it's I think it goes to the fact that he knew about it and he also goes to the fact of what he was trying to do it goes to his intent again. Remember if Trump just genuinely believed that he lost the election. It's a very different case than if he knew he had lost the election and didn't care and tried to overthrow the government. I mean, it's a totally, it's a difference between

Starting point is 01:07:38 as committing a crime and making a mistake. And I think Krebs is important because it goes to, like I said, what he knows, but it also goes to what his mindset was. It was your disloyal, because you're not gonna do what I say, even if it's a lie, and so you're gonna be fired. And I think it's powerful information.

Starting point is 01:08:00 I agree with you. I think Chris Krebs getting before the grand jury and testifying and having his day before the grand jury to tell a story about, and I think he would be a great witness in front of the grand jury. Just as they had brought in election experts, Fawney Willis in Georgia to teach the special purpose grand jury in the future grand jury about election law and how elections work and how technology works and how voting works. And that was really helpful to the special purpose grand jury to fit within that framework, all the evidence that they were hearing to make them sort of, you know, fast experts on this issue, which they have to be in terms of being the trial of fact, going through and sort of sifting through all the

Starting point is 01:08:42 evidence here. I mean, the grand jury hearing being able to hear from Chris Krebs, who's considered to be one of the leading experts on cybersecurity and the security and sanctity of an election process and technology related to that. And he'll look them in the eye and said, there was no hacking. There was no vote flipping. There was no secret supercomputer that operated by the deep state to flip votes. There was no fraud that would have overcome the outcome of the election. There's always some voter fraud.

Starting point is 01:09:11 There's always some dead person voting. There's always somebody that votes in the wrong district or precinct. There's always somebody that tries to vote for their mom, you know, dead or alive. And that gets caught and sometimes that gets prosecuted. So it's not that. It's just against a hundred million votes or whatever our vote count, 50 or 80 million votes. It just does, it's not enough to overcome the overwhelming,

Starting point is 01:09:37 the overwhelming amount of votes in battleground states. You'd have to have, you'd have to have the thing that everybody, Sydney Powell,, Giuliani and others claimed that there was, which was massive voter conspiracy among state voting officials, voting workers, software manufacturers, hardware manufacturers to flip millions of votes from Biden to Trump. I mean, it's just, it's just, that's not even saying it, no reasonable person could ever believe this,

Starting point is 01:10:11 and that's why the case against Donald Trump is so strong, because even if he says, no, I really did believe it. It's not, if you use a reasonable purpose, reasonable person standard, which we'll talk in another podcast about the Supreme Court trying to move away from reasonable person standard, which we'll talk in another podcast about the Supreme Court trying to move away from Reasonable person standards. There's no reasonable person that would ever believe that any of that was true. And so Donald Trump's not going to be able to get away with that. And then Chris Krebs would look the

Starting point is 01:10:37 Grand jury and the eye and teach them what they need to know about the lack of election fraud. And then they match that up against all the facts about despite that, despite 70 lawsuits Donald Trump lost in and around the country despite being told by his own consulting firms that he paid a couple of million dollars for two separate ones besides being told by the cyber ninjas hired by the Arizona Republicans that there was no fraud being told by federal judges and state judges that there was no fraud to overcome the will of the people You can't bury your head in the sand and we call it in the law willful blindness and say I don't care I believe I won the presidency. It doesn't matter. It's like him continuing to say I don't care I would not a sexual abuser of eging Carol. Well, a jury of your peers through a process just like of a court

Starting point is 01:11:30 announced it, announced that you are. And so you don't get to say that you're not any longer. You can say I disagree with the jury's finding, but you can't say that it didn't happen. And that's his problem. And every time we hear about these, what I call strategic leaks, because remember for the longest time, it was a lot of you and I talking like speculating about, well, what do you think Chris Corcoran said when he went into the grand jury? Hey, Karen, what do you think, you know, this lawyer,

Starting point is 01:11:57 or that lawyer said when they were stripped of attorney-client privilege and had it testify? But now, but now it's getting leaked because I imagine the prosecutor wants to put ultimate pressure and pain on people like Walt Nauta and other witnesses to come clean to get on this freight train, or they're going to get run over, or as I heard, one legal commentator say that, you know, that he's just lining up the nails in front of the hammer. And if you're not going to get on board with Jack Smith, he's going to hammer you. And I think that's why we're here and more and more about it.

Starting point is 01:12:34 And that's why Donald Trump's freaking out by sending this ridiculous letter on Jim and Jim Trusty's letterhead, thank you, salty, to Merrick Garland, wrong person, saying, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, why don't you investigate Hunter Biden more? Oh, pretty please, can we have a meeting? I mean, it was silly, I would have been a barris as a lawyer to send that letter. And it really also demonstrates

Starting point is 01:13:03 that it seems that there is not anyone on the Trump side of the ledger that has any credibility or ability to pick up the phone and call his friendly neighborhood prosecutor and arrange a private meeting to try to resolve something. I had thought wrongly, and I'll admit I was wrong. As I say on my Twitter profile, co-anchor of the almost never wrong legal AF. I was wrong. I thought Jim trusty, who was once a colleague and a friend of Jack Smith, would be the one, if there was one lawyer in the bunch, in the gaggle of lawyers, I don't know what you call a group of lawyers like this, I call them a gaggle, in the gaggle of lawyers representing Donald Trump.

Starting point is 01:13:49 If there was one that would be able to use his prior relationship to Donald Trump's advantage to try to get a meeting as every other criminal defendant tries to do at some point, it would be Jim Trusty. But Jim Trusty is busy writing these ridiculously dictated letters from Donald Trump instead of picking up the phone and calling Jack Smith. And this world is a small world. Before we leave or ending the podcast, Karen, talk about two other colleagues that you know well and how they're related to Donald Trump will throw up a picture of that one.

Starting point is 01:14:20 Who's that? Who's that? Yeah, so you've got on the left that's highlighted in white, you know, amongst the yellow, that's Jack Smith, and on the right is Judge Mershon, and they were colleagues at, that's the class of 1994 at the Manhattan DA's office, and there's always a class picture, I was the class of 1992. And so they were in the same class, which I thought was really, you know. And I know that you've been talking to us about that for a while. You thought, I think they're in the same class, not just that we were all Manhattan D.A.'s together,

Starting point is 01:15:00 which you were as an illustrious group at the time headed by, well, were you there for Market Thaw? Was that site? It was Market Thaw. No, that was Market Thaw. Robert Market Thaw, for those that don't know the original model for the, for the district attorney on all things law and order was modeled after Robert Morgan Thaw. And then Sive Anson, now Alvin Bragg, all elected, all elected by the citizens of Manhattan

Starting point is 01:15:22 because they choose who they want their prosecutor to be. And that's what they did. And that's a great photo. And it just shows you how if Donald Trump and Republicans and Maga and lawyers all have some sort of incestuous overlapping history, so do the prosecutors and the judges. And I'm sure that keeps Donald Trump up at night. It doesn't mean that Juan Moshan's doing anything wrong. In fact, we think quite the opposite. And certainly everything we've heard about Jackson Smith since he left that office is that if anything, he's the most A political, even Jim trusty in interviews has said that that Jackson Smith's always been A political. He's not somebody that's going after somebody. And that's why he was chosen by Merrick Garland for this particular

Starting point is 01:16:04 thing. But Donald Trump doesn't care about these things. Donald Trump continues to attack judges. He continues to attack prosecutors and their families because he thinks the judges are not going to fire back, which he's probably right because they are above it. And they need to act like they're above it. So he's going to get a lot of political hay out of bashing Judge Hellerstein when Judge, if Judge Hellerstein rules against them

Starting point is 01:16:27 on the removal of the case to federal court, he's getting a lot of hay with his constituency and money by attacking Judge Kaplan and the E. Jean Carroll case. I mean, I, I, I, this is like so beyond what I've ever experienced with a client attacking the judiciary, because that's not going to lead them to give you good orders that are in your favor. But this is what Donald Trump does, and this is what you and I follow every week on the

Starting point is 01:16:55 legal AF midweek edition with Karen Friedman, Nifalo and Michael Popak. We do it again, and we collect and curate other stories for the Saturday edition with then my cellus and me and then we do hot takes throughout the day, throughout the week when you add them up it's like hundreds and hundreds of hot takes on this intersection of US law and politics and then people often ask yeah we have sponsors yes because somebody asked me why do we have sponsors because because might as such network has like eight podcasts and does hundreds of videos a day and You know listen, we're not socialists you know People that help us with this show have to get kind of have to get paid. They're not volunteer in their time

Starting point is 01:17:38 They're making this their career And so that's why and the other way is most of the ways that you can support us are completely free. And it really helps. I can't overemphasize how much when I'm about to lay out as a blueprint if you want to help us as an audience. And if you stuck with us already for an hour and 10 minutes, you obviously like what we're doing.

Starting point is 01:17:58 And this is how you can help us. You can give thumbs up here. Literally a thumbs up on the YouTube, if you're watching it on YouTube, and you can leave a comment. Karen and I read the comments. We've been known to open a dialogue with you off the comments if that's important.

Starting point is 01:18:12 And it helps the show and the content and have it come to you that way. We dropped this video as an audio podcast, a traditional audio podcast, about five o'clock in the morning, Eastern time. You can get it everywhere you get your podcast. In some places, I hadn, Eastern time. You can get it everywhere. You get your podcasts in some places I hadn't even thought you can get your podcasts from, but you can get it from Google and Spotify and Apple. And you can get it from I Heart Radio.

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Starting point is 01:19:32 I promise we'll get to you. You can reach out to us. People have. You can do it on social media. Karen and I are both there. She's at KFA Legal. That's easy. I'm at MSPOPOC.

Starting point is 01:19:44 We're both on Twitter and we're active there. You can find us there And that's it man. That's how you can support legal a F and what we do and We're always looking for ways for us to improve you don't know the amount of time that Karen and I and Ben and Salty and the rest of the production staff spend in just trying to get it right. In just talking through the stories, we're texting each other throughout the day. We're getting on phone calls. Did you see this? Did you see that? Can you follow up on this?

Starting point is 01:20:12 Can you grab that? We're trying not to do it by the seat of our back sides and the seat of our pants. And hopefully you think that. You think that we're not doing it by the seat of our pants and last minute because Because we're not but we're so pleased to have you here legal a furs and the mightest mighty and always the last word for the show goes to Karen Friedman Agnifala I've ever told you my jacks miss story. No, but I want to hear it. So So jacks so I was prosecuting a case many, many years ago.

Starting point is 01:20:49 And it was, the case was a guy, a taxi driver goes to get gas, puts the gas pump into his gas tank. And while he's standing there pumping the gas, a defendant jumps into the car. He left the car on in the keys of the ignition and takes off. And he ends up doing a high-speed chase around Manhattan, which is very long and very big. And he hits a bunch of cars. He's the police are chasing him and he ends up in a head-on collision with a police car. And two police officers are injured, one has broken ribs and the guy I ended up prosecuting the case and the guy had eight different felony convictions from eight different states. He was a career criminal and he refused to get fingerprinted

Starting point is 01:21:38 and he was, he even attacked the police officers in a rainment and he was just a very violent terrible guy. Anyway, fast forward to the fact that he is going to trial. And he was so difficult at trial that he ends up getting thrown out of court by the judge because he kept disrupting the jury. He even fired his lawyers so he was pro-say. So there was nobody cross-examining witnesses. It was the craziest thing. The case gets, he, very long story short, I, by the time this case does go to trial for the second time for various reasons, I was heavily pregnant with twins and he started

Starting point is 01:22:22 threatening me and I couldn't try the case. I mean, number one, I was high risk pregnancy. So this was in 1996, 97. And it was also he was threatening me, right? It was very uncomfortable to say the least. So 1996, 97, a second year ADA, very nice, very kind of up and coming earnest, well-meaning, you know, very busy, had lots and lots of cases, saw that I needed help and steps in and says, I'll take it a case and try it for you.

Starting point is 01:23:00 And who was that? It was Jack Smith. And Jack Smith ends up trying the case. And it was during that trial where the defendant attacked his lawyer and his lawyer, fired his lawyer, attacked his lawyer, tried to attack the jury. That's why the judge sent him out. He was disruptive and he was very, very difficult and violent. And Jack Smith took the case, he tried it, and he got a conviction. And it was upheld on appeal, despite the fact that there was nobody

Starting point is 01:23:30 cross-examining witnesses, because the defendant is the one who caused all of that. Anyway, I forgot that that that that Jack Smith did that years ago, but it just really goes to show what a good guy he is. And that was a really serious case. And so for a second year, to be able to get that case and try it successfully with a defendant like that, it also shows how much faith people, the supervisors had in young Jack Smith to give him such a serious case at such an early time. But again, it just shows

Starting point is 01:24:01 you what a good guy he is. That was a difficult case. It was a annoying case. You're getting threatened and whatever. And he just stepped in and said, I'll do it, you know, involuntarily. And it always stuck with me. What a good guy he is. So that's my guess. Tiger doesn't change his stripes. Leopard doesn't change his spots. I mean, you are who you are. I mean, I like to think, and I'm sure you do too, that the essence of who I am as a 50-something-year-old lawyer was there when I was a 25-year-old lawyer. The person is the person. Character is not what you do when everybody's watching

Starting point is 01:24:33 characters, what you do, and nobody's looking. And nobody was looking. He didn't have to knock on your door. He didn't have to offer to do that. And he would have been just as highly acclaimed at the office and success. But look at the impression that he made on you. And that's the type, I mean, I don't know what's higher

Starting point is 01:24:49 than an eagle scout in life, but this guy is like in every report I've ever seen except through MAGA. He's just read, he has just led an exemplary life in public service as a prosecutor. He could have made a lot of money doing other things with his brain and his legal prowess. And he's time and time again. He's chosen to live on a government salary and go to Kosovo and prosecute war criminals. And go after, you think it's popular? And maybe not his household. You think he didn't, this wasn't

Starting point is 01:25:26 a big major family and political career decision and personal family decision for Jackson Smith to go after and be the special counsel written in the history books against the former president. It is. And that, there's plenty of people that revolved, revolving door their way out frequently to go get several million dollar a year jobs heading up the White Collar Department, the White Collar Crime Department of major law firms, and that's not Jack Smith. And he should be given tremendous credit and kudos for that. And he wouldn't any other society and not one where you know we have to constantly fight off the the the jet propeller the buzz saw of

Starting point is 01:26:11 whatever maga feels like talking about on a given day and that's what you and I and Ben and the brothers and might as touch network try to do. I heard a really great phrase I'm gonna keep using it because I like it which is the federal judges in the district of Columbia have become the conscience of democracy in the way they're handling the JAN-6 cases from the grand jury and the chief judges related to that, to the line judges that are handing out and are trying the cases of the JAN-6 defendants and handing out their sentences. And in our own small way way not to compare ourselves to that

Starting point is 01:26:45 We try to be the conscious of democracy in what we do every day That's why I get behind another microphone at another moment to do another hot take or jump on and prepare for a Podcast with you. I know you do the exact same thing You know, we're practicing lawyers. We have other lives But we're committed to being here because if we don't do it We don't witness this In real time as it happens then we've seated We've seated it over to the other side and they will fill that vacuum and that void as we have seen

Starting point is 01:27:18 With misinformation anti-American rhetoric anti-democracy rhetoric and we can't let it happen again, never, again. And I think that's one of our mantras here on Legal AF. And we appreciate, because otherwise, it's just Karen and me and Ben and Karen talking to each other. And if we don't have an audience, we don't have you committed to being here investing your time, taking away what you learn and

Starting point is 01:27:45 using it in your life and in your relationships. However you see FET, you can just keep it to yourself and make yourself feel better. I've had people write me and say, you make me you and the group Karen and Ben make me feel better. My anxiety is lower because of what I learned on legal AF and that's good. Some people say I use it over the dinner table with my right wing Republican fill in the blank and that's good too Or I use it in the street in a conversation with my co-workers. I was just in one yesterday with a I was I was at a car dealership and I was just with a guy the finance director was a Republican

Starting point is 01:28:22 But he was a moderate and I was able to have a conversation with him. And we had a whole, a whole sum conversation, the way I used to have with, because you know, we get caught up in the Mago world. 30% of Donald Trump supporters are going to support him come hell or high water. They'll only vote for him. It's always Trump for 30% of the Republican party. And that's not going to change. And that's why he likely wins the primary.

Starting point is 01:28:45 But there's the hearts and minds of the other 70% of Republicans, right, that are still out there that aren't maga, right? That may or may not vote for Trump, but they're not maga and we can't give up on them. And I don't want them given up on me because they think every Democrats are socialist. Okay, nothing wrong with Democratic Socialists, but I'm not one. And we have a lot of different colors in the crayon box in the Democratic Party in every way, shape, and form, including political things.

Starting point is 01:29:19 And I'll mention this. They did a really good map in the Guardian, an interesting chart of where people fit socially and fiscally. And a lot of people like to say, well, I'm socially liberal, but I'm fiscally conservative. So all vote Republican. And the actual group of voters that fit into that category

Starting point is 01:29:40 is very, very small. It's almost a unicorn. People say it all the time, but when they vote, that's not really where they're voting. What they are is the opposite. They are fiscally liberal. Bring on the free money. Bring on the stimulus. Bring on social security. Bring on healthcare. Bring on roads and bridges and infrastructure and all that. That's liberally socially liberal or fiscally liberal, sorry, but socially tight as a drum conservative, right?

Starting point is 01:30:10 And which is what the Republicans, their MAGA Republicans and others exploit. And so we try to bring it all. I don't expect everybody on this podcast to fit ideologically exactly where I'm at on the spectrum. I don't, but we try to make it a place of safety and whosomeness for Democrats and Independents and others. We have Republicans listen to this show to feel like this is a welcoming tent for them.

Starting point is 01:30:38 When we make our presentations of what's happening at the intersection of law and politics, we're going to do it again next week with Karen Friedman-Ignifalo. I'm gonna shout out to the legal A-Fers and to the Midas Mighty. Good night everybody.

Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Jack Smith Secures BOMBSHELL Evidence as Indictments LOOM

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