Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Jack Smith Secures MASSIVE WIN and MAJOR Trump Indictment Updates

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

The midweek edition of the top rated legal and political podcast Legal AF is back for another hard-hitting look at the most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this special midweek edition, anchors national trial attorney Michael Popok and former top Manhattan DA prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo, are joined by co-founder of Meidas Touch/Legal AF and civil rights attorney Ben Meiselas to discuss: This week’s major developments in the Manhattan DA’s criminal investigation of Trump for the Stormy Daniels’ hush money coverup including the delay in indicting Trump as the prosecutors bring in new witness testimony and shape what Trump’s future looks like, Jack Smith’s win against Trump in having an emergency DC Court of Appeals uphold the trial court’s finding that it was likely that Trump committed a crime as it relates to his mishandling of the Mar a Lago documents; this week’s developments in the Fani Willis Fulton County criminal investigation of Trump for election interference, including a motion to dismiss filed by his lawyers, and her office seeking to speak to Trump attorney Christina Bobb; and major developments in two major civil cases against Trump in New York, including the judge denying his attempts to postpone the $250 million dollar civil fraud case against him and his children, and a Federal Judge ordering that the E. Jean Carroll civil rape and defamation case pick a jury on April 25th, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! ZBIOTICS: Head to https://zbiotics.com/LegalAF and use the code LEGALAF SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 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 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's Legal AF Midweek, these topics, legal and political stories ripped from the headlines, but analyzed and explained. What is happening with the Manhattan DA's criminal case and grand jury against Donald Trump? For the crimes arising out of the Stormy Daniels, hush money payment and cover-up, is the grand jury meeting this week again to finish? Are there more rebuttal witnesses? And if so, why? And if they indict, when can we expect surrender, arrest, and arrangement? Then we're going to turn to speaking of Trump's latest crimes,

what does the DC Circuit Court today upholding the chief judge's Friday ruling that Trump likely committed a crime related to the moral logo secret secret documents that he withheld destroying attorney client privilege around his conversations with Evan Corcoran and compelling Evan Corcoran to turn over his notes and maybe recorded phone conversations he had with Donald Trump. He had recorded phone conversations with Donald Trump. What's that about and what will Trump do next? Then we're going to talk about Fawney Willis. Down at Fulton County, Georgia facing some headwinds seeking to recall or remove her and

a new motion to dismiss filed by Trump's latest attorney team of little and fendling or fendling and little against the special purpose grand jury and all their work, but she's going full steam ahead with calling Christina Bob late of Mara Lago who needs another criminal defense lawyer because she's a witness regarding Trump's infamous Let's Find 11,780 votes phone call and other events around that. And we thought her lying to the Department of Justice about how many classified documents were hiding in Mar-a-Lago was bad enough. And then finally, we're going to talk about, well, criminal cases may put Donald Trump into

a jeopardy of losing his liberty. But what Trump fears the most is how about financial ruin. And we're going to talk about two cases that are going on now that have major updates. One of them being the New York Attorney General's $250 million corporate death penalty case that is going to trial in October and a judge just this past week denying efforts to buy another six month of time by Donald Trump's team to help define witnesses and documents that they couldn't find during the last seven months. And then finally, Judge Kaplan, the federal court in New York threw the lawyers for a loop, but not just this, by telling the lawyers for E. Jean Carroll's civil rape case that they're picking a jury on April the 25th period. And that's going to be the case of

a civil rape that she claims happened to her in the department store, dressing room, and the defamation case related to that. All that. And so much more on the midweek edition of legal a f I'm Michael popok. I'm joined by my regular co anchor Karen Friedman, Ignifalo, who's sitting either in CNN, MSNBC or somewhere else, but she's exclusive to us at legal a f tonight. And because we can't go man to man to cover all these breaking stories, we can only go zone. So I asked the co-founder of LegalAF and my weekend anchor buddy Ben,

my cellist of joynness for today's ride Karen and Ben, thanks for being here. Good to be here. Good to be here. Great hanging out with you. I think I like Popoq your intro's better than mine because my intro's take about 10 minutes and then I actually say everything that happens.

I just get so excited talking about and geeking out about the law that I just basically say everything that's going to happen. You kind of give it a tease though. You say stay in there. We are going to explain to you. You know where I learned teasing from Ben, my cellist over the last two and a half years, no better tease or related. So you have to give context.

You can't just say that in terms of you have to. We better teaser related. So you have to give context. You can't just say that. In terms of you have to. We go lay off. In terms of the headlines that we post on YouTube. So just be very grateful. Yes. Agreed. Now while we have Karen and literally she's about to step into her fifth or sixth major network show tonight as a legal commentator, because who better to commentate about all things Donald Trump in the Manhattan D.A.'s office than the former number two in the office, Karen. So let me kick it off and turn it right over to Karen. Here's what we know from the last show and from all the hot takes that the three of us have

been doing almost hourly about everything that relates to Trump. That's how fast the wheels of justice, the velocity at which they are moving. So in the Manhattan DA's case, we all predicted that there was gonna be in a indictment this week. And I'm not saying there's not going to be. We also said that a grand jury meets on certain days

and certain times it doesn't meet at other days and other times. But I think meet at other days and other times. But I think we just threw that out the window. So we have an update that the grand jury is meeting Thursday, which is they're not a Thursday grand jury, but they're meeting on Thursday, that there may be other witnesses. I want to talk about Cohen versus Castello and maybe bring Ben in for that as well. And then if there is an indictment this week, but again, all signs are pointing to it, but Karen's going to tell us what she thinks. Then how do

you sequence indictment, surrender and arraignment to, you know, not have mass chaos in Manhattan? And of course, Karen's going to give us a sequence on that. So Karen, let's kick it off. What is going on with the announcement that there's going to be a tomorrow Thursday session of this grand jury? What do you think it means in terms of the indictment? And then we'll backfill with Castello versus Cohen as witnesses, maybe another witness. And then that sequence of indictment, surrender and arrangement. Go ahead, Karen. So if you remember, this is a special grand jury that was called, because this is a long-term investigation. And that's a common thing when you have a long-term investigation to create

a special grand jury. And the only difference is they sit for a longer period of time because grand jury's regular grand juries are normally two weeks or four weeks. And so this, they apply to a judge, they get an order that they can sit for whatever it is, six months, eight months, a year, depending how long they think that it will take to present evidence. So this is a special granuary, unlike the Fannie Willis Fulton County special granuary,

this granuary can indict, so they can bring charges. So what happens is with special grand juries, is they usually meet mornings or afternoons. This is an afternoon grand jury. We know that because we know when Michael Cohen testified and they usually meet three days a week. And we've always known they met Monday and Wednesday based on witnesses. We didn't know until recently was the third day is a Thursday afternoon. So that's sort of how the third day is a Thursday afternoon. So that's

that's sort of how the grand jury is set up. So we also knew that they were nearing the end of the grand jury when they at the grand jury presentation I should say when they gave notice to Donald Trump and gave him an opportunity to testify because that's about the last thing you would do once you've already started presenting evidence. And they so they gave him notice and he decided not to testify and instead what he did was he asked to have Robert Costello, Michael Cohen's attorney come in and testify. And a defendant has a right to ask that a particular witness or particular evidence be presented to a grand jury in the way it works, a prosecutor goes in, they ask the grand jurors, they say, look, you know, Donald Trump has

requested that you hear from my Robert Costello. Are you interested? Would you like to hear from him? And then you step out and you let them, they actually vote on that question. And if they vote yes, that they want to hear from them, then the prosecutor goes back in and says, okay, we'll have him come testify. So he came and he testified on Monday of this week. And from his own account, we've learned that he testified for about two plus hours. I think it was two hours and 50 minutes roughly. Now, grand jury presentations, it's a lower burden of proof.

It's not like a trial where you have to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt. There's also no opening statements. There's no summations. There's no cross-examination. And it's a lower standard, which is a reasonable cause to believe that a crime occurred or a probable cause, which is like, you know, it's more likely than not. And so it's a lower standard of proof. And so as a result, prosecutors,

when they put evidence in a grand jury, they normally do what's called a bare bones presentation. They don't do a full-blown evidentiary presentation like they would a trial where they put all the evidence in, all the details in. But in this particular case, it looks like this was a much deeper grand jury where they put lots of facts in. And here, I think they had to because there were some positive facts and there were some negative facts about this case. Michael Cohen comes with some baggage. And so as a result, they had an obligation to bring that out in the grand jury.

And they also had an obligation to corroborate him. So this was a very thorough grand jury presentation. But Costello testified for about two hours and 50 minutes, almost three hours, and that's a very long period of time for a witness to testify in the grand jury. So he had an opportunity to say whatever he wanted. I can't imagine that there was anything else he wanted to say that he didn't get to say. And so that happened on Monday, and then there was a lot of speculation knowing that the grand jury doesn't meet Tuesdays. There was nothing going to happen on Tuesday. And so today happened on Monday, and then there was a lot of speculation knowing that the Grand Jury doesn't meet Tuesdays.

There was nothing going to happen on Tuesday. And so today was the day everybody was waiting for it to see what's going to happen. And we heard that the Grand Jury was asked not to come in today. And they're not meeting, but they were asked to be on standby and potentially come back tomorrow. And that just tells us that they weren't ready to do anything today. And the question is why? Why didn't they do anything today? And I think if I were to surmise what's going on, I think it's two things. I think number one, they wanted to at least consider putting in a rebuttal witness, someone to rebut what Costello said, and my best guess

would that be Michael Cohen. They may put them in, they may not put them in, but I'm sure they're considering it. And so that makes sense that that's what they're doing right now. They're considering whether to put them back into rebut certain information. And so I can imagine seeing him testify tomorrow. Now the question is, will they vote tomorrow? Now too, you don't just then walk out and vote. What happens is you then charge them on the law and then you ask them to

vote and deliberations can take time. Sometimes they vote right away, but they actually deliberate. It could take minutes, it can take hours, it could take days for them to deliberate. They need a majority. There's 23 granders and they need a majority. And so we'll see. Now there's been lots of questions about could Alvin Bragg be changing his mind and not seek a vote. I find that highly dubious. I think he will ask them to vote. And frankly, if the grand jury does not vote and the evidence is such that the prosecutor couldn't get an indictment here, it's better to know that now. It's better to know now that the case has problems and it's better to know now that you can't, because if you can't prove the case, you know, with this lower standard, you certainly can't prove the case beyond to reasonable that. So the third reason though that I think we might not have a vote tomorrow is because if I were the prosecutor, what I would be thinking of, I'd be talking to law

enforcement about security because there's a lot of security concerns here, keeping both Donald Trump safe when he surrenders, but also keeping New Yorkers safe. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has been calling for protests and we saw what happened when he called for protests on January 6th, and there's a lot of that kind of language here. And so we have to be careful about how this goes down. So law enforcement is making arrangements right now with the Secret Service both because of Donald Trump's schedule

but also for security, what would be a good day and time to have him surrender also with the court, right? When can the court hear the case? And whenever that date is, I think you work backwards from there and you ask them to vote the last possible time before that date, at least that's what I would do because I wouldn't want a lot of sunshine between the vote and him coming in because there's a lot of stuff that he can, that he can make happen. He's a troublemaker and he will drum up a lot of

potential violence. And so if I were law enforcement that that's what I'd be thinking about. And so I would consider holding off voting for a period of time. That that certainly wouldn't be an unreasonable position to be in if that's what happens. So let me unpack some of that. Then I want to bring Ben in about Michael Cohen versus Castello and his thoughts on that. So I agree with you completely. There's no way Alvin Bragg has gone this far and he's not going to try to count to 12, which is the majority of the of the people that is the makeup the grand jury to try to get an indictment. If they run into a little bit of headwinds on one witness and they always knew, they're no fools. Alvin Bragg was built for this job based on his past and having gone after Donald Trump when he was at the New York AG's office, which is part of his career, his body of work.

He knew Michael Cohen was, there were going to be some issues with Michael Cohen's credibility, and they were ready. You know, Robert Castello was not a surprise to them that the grand jury may have asked for that. To clear it up, some people suggested and Trump tried to jump on this man wagon, that they demanded that Alvin Bragg bring Robert Castello in as a witness. And that's why Robert Castello came in. It's not why Robert Castello came in. Robert Castello came in because it came up there as Karen explained during the grand jury process that this was something to counterbalance it.

What did you think about Castello like taking the podium and giving a press conference about what he had testified to, upon immediately, upon concluding his testimony. What you think about that? Are you asking me or you're asking Ben? Yes. No, no, I'm asking you. I'm asking you.

I'm asking you. I'm asking you. It's a Ben about Michael. I mean, look, you know, all the rules are out the door here. You know, if I, if I were the prosecutor in this case, I wouldn't be happy that Michael Cohen is talking in the press and creating statements. But that's what everyone's doing here. Everybody's is trying to,

they're trying their case both in the court of public opinion as well as in the actual work. I also love your sequencing, because I don't think you're seeing this at any other program, at least exclusively to Midas Touch, is the no daylight between indictment, surrender and arrangement. Let's put aside extra edition for a minute.

I don't think we're going to anybody believes now that Donald Trump, who looks like based on reporting, he's looking to have handcuffs and do a purplock in his bizarre, adult way, narcissistic way. He wants the purplock putting that. So let's say that also means he's going to self surrender and they're going to arrange it as Karen laid out. I love that analysis that Karen gave, which is no daylight, quick indictment, right to surrender, right to arrangement.

And let's try to manage this outcome, shape this outcome that will inevitably happen with trumpers and protesters and whoever and who and and bomb scare people and all of that. Ben, let me bring you in because you've got a you've got a daily relationship with Michael Cohen. I don't know what his opinion is about Castello. I've heard it in the press here and there. What do you think about what's going on about tomorrow indictment, Michael Cohen versus Castello and anything else that you can think of? Well, look, I have no inside information regarding one way or another, the answer to what I'm about to say. But look, Cohen was there on Monday after Costello finished his testimony to serve as a

rebuttal witness. What we know publicly is that he was at least told on Monday afternoon his testimony was it needed. I don't know if Cohen's subsequently been told something different that he's going to need to go back there on Thursday, but let's rewind for a little bit and just remember who Castello is in relation to Cohen. So Castello was a legal advisor to Cohen in the 2018 period. And during the Mueller investigation, when ultimately the FBI raided Michael Cohen's office, you had Castello send this infamous email to Cohen,

which is talked about in the Mueller report, in volume two. And Castello said, quote, And Castello said, quote, sleep well tonight. You have friends in high places. And then he later told, I think it was the Daly Beast sometime in March of 2018, that he wasn't talking about Donald Trump, but he was referring to a Garth Brooks 1990s song, friends in low places. He later changed that and said, yes, I was referring to Donald Trump. And let's not forget that in volume two of the Mueller report, it says the following about

that interaction. In analyzing the president's intent in his action towards Cohen as a potential witness, there is evidence that could support the inference that the president intended to discourage Cohen from cooperating with the government because Cohen's information would shed adverse light on the president's campaign period conduct and statements. So this is who Castello is. Castello is also somebody who's represented. Steve Bannon, Castello is an extractively intertwined in Trump world as one of these kind of shady Trump lawyers who are engaged in bad acts when Cohen had his mea culpa

and said, I don't wanna deal with this world anymore. It was a rejection of the Castellos of the world. So Cohen definitely does not have anything resembling a positive view about Castello, and I think Castello's credibility just based on his statement about the Garth Brooks lyrics tells you all you need to know about who Castello is. That said when Castello goes in there on Monday and has kind of free reign to say whatever, do you want to clean that up? Whether it's with Cohen or someone else, do you want the last witness if you will up there to be a Trump person saying all of those things.

I think that's ultimately one of the considerations. And look, we thought the fact that they didn't call Cohen on Monday was a sign that Castello's testimony was not impactful. That still may be the case. We don't know what's going to be happening on Thursday. But I think ultimately when we find out, and again, I don't know what's going to be happening on Thursday, but I think ultimately when we find out, and again, I don't know at this moment, if Cohen's going back, Cohen's been very careful, though, in terms of his public statements, what he said and what he hasn't said.

He's only talked about things that were already publicly available, and he's been very, very, very careful to that extent. So ultimately we'll see, but I wanna give you that color in terms of the dynamic to who Castello is and who I like that. And I wanna get Karen's opinion, is it reinforces what Karen said earlier, which is there's no cross examination.

He just goes in and gives his narrative, and do you wanna end on a low note if you're the prosecutor? Okay, prosecutor Karen, do you wanna end on a low note? What do you think? Okay, prosecutor Karen, do you want to end on a low note? What do you think about Ben's theory that one of the reasons they want to bring in a new capstone person to end the process is because they don't want to end on a Castello note? Yeah, I'm sure that's it.

And I'm sure he raised some points that if it turns out they weren't true or they were you can prove that factuallyually you're going to want to rebut that for sure. Yeah, so this is what we're following and I see a lot of things, you know, we're watching the chat tonight, we're live live. So a lot of people are like, well, I remember said this and maybe they're not going to end tight. I think it's exactly the way that Karen laid it out for us.

It could happen tomorrow at the conclusion of whatever witnesses they may or may not take in. It may take them longer because they really do deliberate. It may take them longer to deliberate. There's still that prosecutorial discretion that has to be exercised by Alvin Bragg about whether he's going to go for the indictment. I think that's sort of a fate of complete. He's gone this far. We think it's a felony, of course, not a Mr. Meener, and then if it comes out, and you and I, the three of us are all scrambling to get back to our laptops and microphones to give a hot take or a collective new show about the indictment and what happens next, that timing is important.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, if I were the prosecutor knowing Manhattan right now on a Friday, which is sort of empty or empty or I would try to type it so that all these things sort of happened on Friday and they were maybe using a little bit of the weekend for the surrender and the arrangements on Monday Tuesday, perfectly sequenced the way Karen laid out. Are these the exclusive, can I say this from the thing,

of course. The media narrative though, let's recall before was that the Manhattan District Attorney was never going to indict, right? I mean, we would always look in the chat and Ari Melbers said this or this person on MSNBC said, there's absolutely no way Alvin Bragg is going to indict. Look, we've always here on Legal AF, on the Midas Touch Network, have had a very steady

hand. We followed the data. We're not just going where, hey, there's an advantageous leak from one side. We're following where the data is. We remain kind of calm and confident in what we are predicting. And let's not forget that these median narratives, whether it's the red wave or whether it's Alvin Bragg's never going to do this or this person, let's also reflect for a moment that the very reason

why we have the Midas Touch Network, why we have Legal AF is because these media narratives have this kind of ping pong back and forth of kind of outrage and salacious. You know what I love about the show, and the reason I joined it early on and you and I got together for LegalAF to found it, we don't have a narrative. There is no narrative. The narrative is what are the facts today that need to be unpacked and analyzed

and presented and curated by the LegalAF team and by the mightest touching. That's the narrative. Yes, we come from a progressive standpoint, but it's exactly the way that Ben just laid out. Karen, can you stay with us for a little bit? Literally, you're in a green room waiting to go on another network.

I can't believe there's a, I can't. I know, look at this hair and makeup. I don't normally look like this, you know? The fans on chat are very, very happy that with whatever's happened today with you. I think, it's all fake. It's all fake. You always look great.

And you want to do a shout out to some children who are having a birthday today? Yes. Today is my twins 26 birthday. So Sophia and Alexandra are 26 today. What kind of number is that? You're throwing around. Be careful with it. 20 sounds that even possible.

But we're glad. But this is, but seriously, look at the dedication and devotion of the people like Karen to the show and to justice and what she's doing with us today. So let's spend another couple of minutes talking about something else while we still have the benefit of our former prosecutor colleague in Karen. And let's talk about Mar-a-Lago and a recent development talk about a high velocity locomotive of an appeal. It literally went from a ruling that related to whether Evan Corcoran was going to testify against Donald Trump effectively, being stripped of his attorney client privilege for all

things Mar-a-Lago and the documents. Be stripped naked by the Department of Justice, including having his pockets picked of all of his attorney notes of all of his, apparently, this is the way I read it, I wanna hear Ben and Karen's perception, whether he was recording phone conversations with his client and there's transcripts of those, that's what I've read,

and that needs to get immediately turned over, per barrel Howell, who was on her last day of being a chief judge for the DC circuit court. Don't worry, people, she's not going anywhere. She's just going back to being an everyday trial judge handling cases like Rudy Giuliani's defamation case. So she's still very much in the thick of things, but she, you know, it's a term of seven

years or seven year term is over. And Jeb Bozberg is coming in. We shouldn't worry about him either. She makes the ruling on Friday. There's an immediate attempt at an appeal or an appeal by Donald Trump's team over the weekend. And the three judge panel all democratically appointed to Biden appointed no less. They decide, yeah, you want to have an appeal? Let's put an appeal on it. But let's do it in hours, not months. So we'll give the Department of Justice nine hours to file their,

I mean, Trump nine hours to file his papers and we'll give the Department of Justice seven hours to file their papers and we'll have everything fully briefed literally by 6 a.m. today, this morning, with some briefs that were due at midnight the day before. And then eight hours later, the appellate court ruled and ruled against Donald Trump in favor of the Department of Justice, finding that that the finding by Chief Judge Howell that there was a likely, likely crime committed by Donald Trump on a primafaceous standard, it related to the Mar-a-Lago documents and one step further that he created a criminal scheme dating all the way back to the initial interactions with the National Archives.

He was at the heart of that scheme destroying all attorney-client privilege between him and people like M. Evan Corcoran, who was his ringleader about Mar-a-Lago and the documents from the National Archives through the Sabina process, through the search warrant execution in August. And Christina Bob being brought along as a sidecar along for the ride in also signing declarations and sworn statements that Department of Justice that were incorrect. The trial judge said, I don't know if there was a conspiracy with the lawyers, but at the very least they were unwittingly a part of the crime committed likely by Trump. No, no attorney client privilege going to court tomorrow and testify to the grand jury.

Mr. Quirk, and take your documents with you and give them to the department of justice. So the three judge panel comes in and Ben, why don't you jump in with the result of the three judge panel. And then we can get Karen's perspective of why are we going so fast? Is this, is this a sign that we're on the five yard line with Mar-a-Lago prosecution with Jack Smith? I don't want to hear from the prosecutor, but Ben, why don't you tell everybody what, what happened? We judge, three, three judge panel immediately affirmed Judge Barrel Howell and just to go over what Pope Park said, Judge Barrel Howell made the ruling that Donald Trump had committed

criminal violations based on the evidence that's presented. Again, it's a lower standard at that point. It's not actually proving having to prove the case in front of a jury, but Judge Barrow Howell made the finding that a criminal scheme took place. Donald Trump appeals that. It's a rocket docket like I've never seen before, which raises other questions that I wonder from Karen what she suspects is going on here. I mean, I've seen briefing schedules

get back to us in 48 hours, even 24 hours. They wanted full briefing by the DOJ and Donald Trump's lawyers, basically totally within a span of, essentially, 12 hours and then immediately rejected Donald Trump's arguments, a firm judge, Barrel Howell, and we're talking about documents that could not just be the smoking gun, but like the smoking smoking gun. We're talking about potential audio recordings between Evan Corcoran, Trump's lawyer and Donald Trump about Donald Trump's statements about what he was doing or what he knew about these classified records that were being concealed at Mar-a-Lago. I mean, this is big folks, and the timing and the quickness

within which this is moving is big. Karen? The only other place I've ever seen this kind of timing is on my other job where I'm the legal advisor for long order. This is like TV time, right? You know, where you do things so quickly. One episode.

It's crazy, right? I've never, ever seen timing like this before. And what that tells me is one of two things is going on either there's some kind of national security issue, right, in happening, but that doesn't seem likely. But that's possible. Those are the types of things that make things like this happen. Or the other possibility, actually, there's two other possibilities. The second possibility is I think judges are getting fed up with Trump's delay, delay, delay, appeal, appeal, appeal. I mean, it's ridiculous at this point.

He's all of these things have taken so long because of his MO of delaying everything. And I do think judges are losing patience with that and getting a little bit frustrated. But finally, yes, I think it really means that Jack Smith is nearing the end of his case and he's basically pressuring the court saying, our grand juries here, and look, grand juries don't sit forever, right? They are called for a period of time. And you can always extend it, but you need to kind of wrap things up. And Mar-a-Lago documents, that's an obstruction of justice and that whole case. That's a fairly straightforward case. That's not as sweeping and vast as the Jan 6 election interference case, which is much

bigger and will have many, many, many more witnesses and more facets and will take a very long time to present. This is a pretty straightforward case. It's not that complicated. And this I think shows us that we are very close to hopefully seeing a grand jury vote in that case. That's what I think. I think it is we're on the one yard line with Jackie's given the signal to the judges

involved that they want to wrap this up. It's not like New York where you have to, or traditionally give the target, the opportunity to come in and drop it in the community. They're not gonna offer Donald Trump the opportunity to come in and talk to the grand jury. They don't need them, they're not gonna use them. And they've exhausted all their other witnesses. I mean, how many lawyers are gonna be stripped bare

without their privilege in front of a jury to testify? How much immunity are they gonna give people to come in and testify? We've always said, and Ben and I originally said, that the Mara Lago case before there was a January and paneling of the New York case, which took on a whole nother velocity that I've never seen you have, Karen, from January to March, maybe we'll push to April

and March for an indictment. That is law and order episode style stuff. But for Mar-a-Lago and a federal style, we said there's like 30 facts that need to be proven by like 10 witnesses, and it's not that complicated. And so that we thought of all the various grandjuries that Jack Smith was handling and inherited from Merrick Garland. That would be the quickest one to go.

And then we talked about Fondi Willis at one point because she kept saying imminent. And that through us for a loop, we thought imminent meant like imminent. And so we were left with everybody kind of catch it up to Alvin, who would have thought, who would have thought we would have said this? Everybody's catching up behind the slipstream

of Alvin Bragg to see who's going to be number two in terms of the prosecutors that are prosecuting. But I think you're right about that. And can I say this, Popeye, and everyone's catching up. And we knew this all along with a superstar Karen Friedman, Agnifala, who is, and it's so incredible. We're so fortunate to have her as a co-host of Legal I.F. because, you know, we've been doing this together for a very very long

time now and to see Karen Friedman Agnifolo on all of the media networks sharing her expertise. I mean she led them in Haton District Attorney's Office. She's the number two deputy there. So there really is no bigger expert ever than Karen Friedman. And in addition to that being a great person. I'm going to tell a great person's story for Karen before she has to leave because I never told this origin story. So so Ben and I wanted to do another another episode of legal IF. And we talked about having a different voice than then you know he and I are a private practice more. And we need we were looking for a different voice. And so I had a friend of

Karen's in mind who ended up getting a big job with the governor. And so I was kicking it around with Karen. Karen said to me because that person became quickly unavailable. She's now got a big job with New York State. And Karen said, what about me? And I just met Karen. I just met Karen, but I liked her immediately. I mean, I don't know if you remember the event we met at. And I was, I do.

We were standing on the street. We were up in corner standing on the street. In front of your office building. You had any ideas? And you jumped in. And I do. We were standing on the street. We were at the corner standing on the street. You had any ideas? And you jumped in. And you jumped in. And you jumped in and said, what about me? And I instantly said, what about you? That sounds like a great idea.

I think the next week we launched LegalAF midweek. And that's how it happens. I will say, I remember that exactly. And I will say for all the women, the young women in women out there, it's all about speaking up for yourself and leaning in as they say, right? That book. And so that was my, I just left my job of 30 years. I wasn't sure what I was doing with myself, but I did say what about me and Popoq? The rest is history.

Here we all are together. And look at you. All right, Karen, we don't want to, well, you're literally going on multiple networks tonight. So I think we're in left. I'm on, I'm going on MSNBC with Alex. Everybody stay with us, Ben. Yeah. That is that you can watch her on tape, repeat, but for Karen, thanks for joining us in the

middle of everything. We really appreciate you. We'll see, see you probably in the next few hours. All right. Thank you. And now is a perfect time while we're kind of switching gears here with Karen leaving to go to her other night job to talk about one of our sponsors, Zbiotics.

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t-shirt and v-neck exclusively at store.mitustouch.com. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Salti our producer threw me for a loop on that one. I wasn't ready for that last lock up. I wasn't. Same thing on the podcast. I do with the brothers the first time I saw it. I just fell out of my chair.

All right, Salty, keep us on earth. Well, let's keep that honest toes. We got two left and I'll let you pick them. You want to do what's going on with Fawney Willis and Georgia first? Yeah, let's start off with Faw the willis donald trump and his team they filed a motion to quash uh the report by the special grand jury and to disqualify for any willis and also to essentially disqualify the judge it's kind of right out of trumps playbook right the judge engaged in improper conduct, the district attorney engaged in improper

conduct, the special grand jurors engaged in improper conduct. Look, here's the thing in terms of what the report is or what the content of it is that's prepared by the special grand jury. Guess what? We don't know because it's still sealed. We don't know what's being recommended in there. And so remember, the process in Fulton County, Georgia, that Fony Willis, the district attorney, availed herself too, was a two-step process. First, it went before a special grand jury, unlike the grand jury in

Manhattan. The special grand jury does not have the power to indict the special grand jury in Fulton County. Does not have that power. It just has the power to indict the special grand jury in Fulton County does not have that power. It just has the power to prepare a report making recommendations. Now that report can be taken to another grand jury. The time frame for one grand jury is meet in Fulton County and meets in early March. There's another one that meets in May. You can take that report and present it to the Fulton County actual grand jury that has the power to criminally indict, but without even knowing

what's in the report, Donald Trump is saying, my rights have been prejudiced. He cites, for example, one of the special grand jurors who spoke to the media, Emily Kors, he cites how Judge Robert McBernie spoke to the media. He's attacking the judge. That's one of the kind of common themes we see with Donald Trump just attacking the judges, attacking the district attorneys. He also attacks Follani Willis, as that she engaged in improper conduct, and then also said that the very essence of the special grand jury procedure in general is unconstitutional. And so for all of those reasons, he's saying before an indictment even takes place, we got to quash the report.

Just destroy it basically. And there's, you know, there's really no. And beyond that, one other thing is I saw fiddling on Ari Melber. I have a new test. If you can't get over being cross examined by the talk show host, like George Stephanopoulos or Ari Melber, you have no place in a courtroom. It's not just, it's not just, they're both very good. They are very good.

I agree, but they're like eviscerating these people. But one thing I want to be, before I let you go right back to your rhythm is it's not just the report. They are challenging the whole process, all of the witnesses that came, they don't want her to be able to use the witness testimony, you know, all the people they brought in, just she have to do it all over again. But of course, it doesn't even reflect,

she never needed to use a special purpose grand jury. She could have gone directly to a regular grand jury, but now of course they want to set her back and make her do it all over again while attacking Mick Bernie, the judge that was presiding over the whole thing. Sorry, Ben, keep going. No, one of the things we know about Fony Willis as well is that she's had success before using Rico or racketeering charges. Basically in gang cases where the head of the gang often kind of speaks in code and doesn't really directly issue the order but can do it just based on kind of a pattern and practice and everybody kind of knows where they fit in the kind of gang structure, but you're able to basically charge

all the way up to the top of the gang through a common pattern, course of conduct and conspiracy. One of the things that we're learning as well from various sources and reporting is that she's considering doing a Rico racketeering case here with Donald Trump. And so Trump is absolutely terrified by this case as well for his conduct relating to election interference. We're also learning that there was more than just the one phone call to Brad Raffensberger where he threatened Raffensberger to find him the 11,780 votes. There was also a phone call threatening the late speaker of the house, a Republican speaker of the house, Ralston. And then even one other phone call to the late speaker of the house, a Republican speaker of the house, Ralston,

and then even one other phone call to local election officials. So there's actual, to investigate, to investigate, to try to get her off the trail. So there's actually three recorded phone calls taking, you know, that had been presented. Which is where Christina Bob comes in, because now faced with all these headwinds,

and by the way, you don't think she's going to get recalled or removed because of this, this, these laws that are trying to be passed by, by the Republicans. And here's the thing. Look, here's the, I don't. This is a frivolous motion. And here's the thing. Donald Trump, if he wants to bring that type of motion, if he believes there was prejudice or prosecutorial misconduct, which I absolutely don't think take took place. Here's what you do. You bring it post indictment. You get indicted. You file a motion with the judge based on prosecutorial misconduct based on Brady violations, the concealment of exculpatory evidence is a Brady violation or intentional, you know kind of spoliation or destruction of it or hiding it

You bring it at the appropriate time like there are set procedures for when things take place and when you make these challenges So despite the fact that these challenges are frivolous even if they're brought at the appropriate time This very idea of challenging the constitutionality of the very existence of special grand juries, it's the improper time, it's going nowhere. But it's showing that, look, Donald Trump is terrified and his playbook is just paper, the crap out of things, cause confusion and then maybe we don't.

Let me remind everybody. The thing that they're attacking to move to dismiss is not even a thing that leads to an indictment. It is a process by which it guides, it guided the prosecutor who ultimately has to still exercise her own prosecutorial discretion. And that's what's taking everyone's like, why didn't she just run right into the regular grand jury in March, which is there's one in March and there's one in May, we'll talk about that next and just get the effing indictment.

It's because it's one thing to make a presentation before a special purpose grand jury. And we've heard about some of the process that went on there, you know, a little bit informal at times. It's another thing, as Karen has described, to go into a regular grand jury, which is an inditing body in which you can, you know, you have to bring in your evidence. Sometimes you have to bring in the recipient witnesses with knowledge, bring them before the grand jury. Maybe you could read some transcripts that come out of the special grand jury process. Maybe you can't. But she's, you know, that was just the beginning. That was just the starters

pistol for for a faulty willist for her team to say, okay, now, how do we patch all these facts together that we developed in seven months, put it with a charging document, ultimately, with actual counts and claims under Georgia law and maybe a rico civil conspiracy thing and pull that all off. But I love about Faudi Willis. She's like, she's not deterred by anything. She's not deterred by the white members of the legislature

going after her in a racist way and all the other black prosecutors around Georgia. She's not concerned about that. This motion to dismiss is really just a press conference masquerading as a motion for fendling to be able to get on to Ari Melbur and start pushing whatever BS they have. And then she's just Christina Bob, come on down.

Let's talk about what you heard when you participated in the infamous 11,780 vote phone call with Brad Raffinsberger, because she was on the phone. And while you're at it, why don't you talk to us about the time you were in the West Wing with Mark Meadows in that office, where he has that fireplace that burns documents illegally. And he was hosting Lindsey Graham. And Lindsey Graham said, and you do a much better Lindsey Graham than me,

but I'll try. Lindsey Graham said, can you just show him the five dead George of voters? You can just show him the five dead George Georgia voters or something I can go on television with anything. What do you got? And they didn't have anything because there was it. It's a good impression.

I'm known for my, I'm known for my Mike Pence impression. You're very good at Mike Pence. I'm a Christian. Yeah. But your face also contorts into Mike Pence, which is also an I'm a Republican in that order. So if you want to kill me, just tell me you're a Republican and you can kill me. So all right, that's why people come here. They come for the analysis.

They stay for the impersonations. But look, the good news and what we're trying to report and analyze it as Faudi Wells' is full steam ahead. But imminent and less people in Atlanta and in the news media aren't following things the way New Yorkers follow things with grand juries, it doesn't look like she is presenting a thing to the March regular grand jury. The next regular grand jury in Georgia in Fulton County is May. Right.

So May is going to be the time it looks like she's going to present her case. So if it's May, she's going to be behind Alvin Bragg who's going to get it done in the next 10 days. She might even be behind. It doesn't really matter who's behind. This is just like competitive gaming that you and I are interested in. It doesn't matter. Justice will be done in the time that it takes at the moment it is right for that particular

case. And nothing's going to move. If we've seen anything about these prosecutors, is that they are not influenced by each other. They are influenced by where the facts developed in their case leads them. And they will not prosecute a case before it's time or seeking indictment before they are ready, regardless of what you, me, you know, are 14,000 people on the chat with us tonight. Think it's just going to go at its own pace.

And, and, and we're just here to follow it on a, on a daily basis. So that's it for me on Fony Wells. Anything else before we move to the civil cases? No, look, I, I, I don't think that Donald Trump should be prosecuted simply because I think he's a horrific person, which he is. He's a, he's a trader, which he is. He was the horrific president. He should be prosecuted because he's a criminal.

And he has spent his entire life engaging in criminal conduct to try to destroy our country period. This is not a normal Republican. It's not a normal Republican issue about taxation or small government. Quite the contrary, the Magga Republicans want to use government to attack prosecutors, right? We saw that with the House Judiciary Committee run by Jim Jordan, which is just even horrific for me to say that, you know, sending letters to try to interfere with the Manhattan District Attorney's processes, trying to interfere with New York Attorney General, Letitia James, which we're about to talk about as well, trying

to interfere with all these prosecutions. Yes, so the people who are for states' rights want to use the House of Representatives to try to tamper with criminal investigations by local and state prosecutors. It's all a bunch of BS nonsense by a political party that has become a cult. And what we're seeing now is basically what the last days or what should be the last days potentially of this looks like if we all can just have the fortitude to say enough is enough.

I know the Republicans are two week right now, the Maga Republicans that is to stand up to Donald Trump to call out this behavior, but folks, this is the emperor with no clothes. This is as bad as it gets. He writes posts, he puts things in capital letters. At the end of the day, he's a coward. He's a coward. And not only is it coward, he's a criminal. And yet he got a conference. He's also losing it. I mean, if the reporting

is correct, he's walking around Mar-a-Lago, like some scene lost, forgotten scene from citizen Cain, relishing the day when he's given his own perplac and wearing handcuffs. This is from the New York Times. Plus, he's done things that talk about unhinged, that even he doesn't usually do, like he's attacking barrel howl, the then chief judge of the DC court of a circuit court, while she still sits over many cases that matter to him, like the Rudy Giuliani defamation case related to the election workers in Fulton County. So he is, how do I put this in a legal term?

He's losing it, which is all par for the course because we've seen this is the dark side of of Donald Trump and his narcissism being played out writ large. And speaking of the emperor with no clothes, let's talk about the civil rape case because the media in its first reporting, the mainstream media got it wrong. All of the headlines, and that's why I jumped in and did a quick hot take. All of the headlines were judge rejects motion to consolidate trials, civil rape and defamation case indefinitely postponed. That is bad reporting is no other way to put it.

You have to be able to read if you're going to do legal analysis, you have to be able to read orders from a judge and understand what they're talking about. And let me explain and then I'll turn it over to Ben. Eging Carroll originally filed a case about defamation because the adult survivors' statute had not yet been passed in New York allowing her to bring a civil, sexual, battery, and assault case because the statute of limitations, except for the passage of the new law, had already run on such a claim, and it certainly run on any kind of criminal claim related to that allegation. So what she had at the moment that she filed in 2020 was a defamation case, but at that

moment was tied to a defamatory statement of Donald Trump denying that he knew her, denying that he raped her, denying that he was in the Bergdorf Goodman department store at that moment, calling it a hoax, saying that she wasn't his type and all those other disgusting things. But he did it while he was president. And so there was a battle that broke out an academic jurisprudential battle about whether a president within the course and was within the course and scope of his employment as president because he's government employee number one, um, when he made these the family statements at a press conference. To us, it's simple. That's where you draw the lie.

Even Joe Takapina, when he wasn't Donald Trump's lawyers thought you're not allowed to be the defammer in chief, quote, from Joe Takapina, you can look it up when you are going after this poor woman who claims that she was raped by you. Now, so there was a whole battle. It went up to the second circuit court of appeals federal in New York. It even bounced out to a, not a state court, but a territory court. The district of Columbia's highest court for that territory, that district is an appellate court because they needed to have a question answered about whether something was inside or outside the scope of the president's duties to which that panel said, why are

you literally I'm paraphrasing, why are you bringing us into this second circuit? We really don't want to answer. They did. We really don't want to answer this question and they kicked the can down the road. Okay, this would all be interesting if that was the only case. But just this past year at the November deadline, in fact, they were the first case to file under the Adult Survivors Act. Robbie Kaplan, the lawyer for EG and Carol EG and Carol filed a new civil rape case on the very moment that they could file it. There was a one year window that was opened for all adult survivors

of sexual assault and battery and abuse to come and file their cases. And she filed the first one in New York in front of the same judge and they always ran parallel to each other. She also added a second defamation claim related to not when Donald Trump was president, because that moron said the same types of defamatory things on social media when he wasn't president. And you were the first one to say because we're doing we were doing legal AF at the time that guy just just bought himself another defamation claim because now it has no protection whatsoever So she filed that second suit that first suit for those that are watching on YouTube tonight putting my hands next to each other for those two suits Rand parallel to each other in front of the same judge and discovery, which is the obtaining of information between the parties in civil cases. They were running parallel to each other the whole time.

The issue of whether the first case was going to be barred by a immunity doctrine that gives immunity to government workers for things they do within the course and scope of their duties, which we call the Westfall immunity. That became really not interesting at all after the new case got filed. And once the judge ruled that the new case wasn't going to be dismissed, it was going to be tried around maybe the same time, but not consolidated. So so while we were while the judges ruling about all these things, like is the access Hollywood tape gonna come in? Are these other women who claim to have been sexually assaulted gonna be able to testify? The parties, because you know, you and I try cases, we're like, hey, I got another question.

How many cases am I trying in April? Is it the civil rape case plus defamation one and two? Or is it something else? And so they wanted to force the issue. So the, it's hard to believe that Alina Habba agreed to anything with E. Jean Carroll's lawyer, but they filed a joint letter, and they said to the judge, we got an idea.

Let's combine all the cases in front of one jury at the end of April, because Donald Trump, you know, he's not a total moron. He doesn't want to have two civil rape cases going and two defamation cases going, what's one? Right? So we'll try them together, judge, and we'll send a letter to the appellate courts and tell them to hurry up and let us know by the 17th of April.

And that's what we want to do. And so what did the judge do? Where's the black robes and makes all the decisions been? I want to hear, your heartache is too good. All right, I give you, I'm enjoying watching you too much. The judge said, I wear the black robe and I got a much better idea. Why do you want me to buy an appellate problem,

and this is my paraphrase, my artist rendering of the judge, and why do you want me to pressure courts that are basically, including my bosses at the second circuit, when I don't have to do that? The cleaner case here is the second case that you filed, the one for civil rape and the one for defamation after he was president.

I don't have the appellate problems. I don't have the problems of waiting to see with the second circuit or the other courts gonna do. I've already said the civil rape case is going forward. And frankly, why do you even need the first case that you filed? Because if you win on the second case with civil rape and assault and defamation after he was president, isn't that all that you need?

You may never even have to try the first case. So I think you're totally wrong lawyers on judicial economy. I think you're totally wrong about two separate cases because there's a concept in the law that we call Race, Judicata or Calateral Estoppal, which means if you try one case involving the same exact parties, issues and facts that are developed there can be used in other cases that involve those very same parties. And so he says, so that's it. We'll develop facts. They may even apply to the other case if and when we even have a second case.

And I got a better idea. We try one case, it's the civil rape case and it's April 25th. Now Ben, why did everybody get that wrong in the first reporting and scare the crap out of everybody? Well, I think it is actually very confusing with three cases because look, what's very confusing with three cases. Because look, what's what's what's very confusing about it though is that you have Donald Trump fighting to dismiss the first defamation case based on

defamatory statements that he made in 2019 during a press conference while he was in office under, you know, this presidential immunity that he believed he had. He had the United States government substitute in his name. You know, he had the full weight of the DOJ and Bill Barr's DOJ behind him. You know, and to be clear, while I thought it wasn't within the course in scope, I thought that was obvious, he at least had a decent argument not based on the merits, but based on the unprecedented nature of how despicable he is to use the auspices and offices that he has to engage in that conduct. But then after taking on that fight for like three years,

he then goes on his social media platform and posts word for word after he's out of office, the exact same statement. And so what I said to you and what we did on legal AF, I said, they're going to file based on that on that post because it's the exact same statement. And they don't have to deal with the immunity issue. So you've got all of that add to it. The fact that New York has this adult survivors act so that it revives the statute of limitations for a one-year look back period for sexual assault victims and I get why it would be confusing.

I've been very, very, very, I've applauded Roberta Kaplan, E. Jean Carroll's lawyer. I think here she almost made a mistake to be honest that Lewis Kaplan fixed. And I think that she misread that judge Kaplan just wanted to see things streamlined and coordinated and consolidated. And I think she didn't think Alina Habba would ever agree to it. And Alina Habba would want to delay, delay, delay, which they were trying to do. But what I do think Trump and Alina Habba are good at, and what they realized is if they could get Trump won the first 2019 case in the mix with the two cases that are unassailable on appeal, they could put a poison pill in there

and basically try to take down any ruling on the merits based on the underlying sexual assault and the defamation out of office based on their appeals to the kind of first case. That's why Alina Habba was willing to agree to it because Trump won or E. Jean Carroll the first case. Carol won from the 2019 could actually be a poison pill when combined with the other ones. And it was the right ruling by federal judge Kaplan here that basically says look if he defamed you

here in 2022 and he said the exact same things in a case that has these Constitutional issues that are being created because of how despicable Trump is, why are we gonna grapple with these constitutional, we don't have to focus on the underlying rape, which is essentially the first element in the defamation case, because you have to prove that Donald Trump committed the act to then show that he defamed you by saying that it never happened

in the first place. So you have to prove that the rape happened in the first element. And then if you prove the defamation, you've proved all of the cases and your damages are basically the going to be the same anyway. So it was actually the right ruling. But here's the thing too. And when we talk about the other case in New York, what all these judges are saying is, and literally this is Justice Arthur and Goran said this,

which is, come hell or high water, we are going to try. Well, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me,

let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, talking about a jury that was selected in a federal courthouse in New York on a civil rape case against Donald Trump. That's going to be what we're going to be talking about that night, along with the indictments and all the backfill that we're going to do. I got one last question for you. Then I want to move on to the other big bomb shell, which

is not only is there going to be a civil rape case on April 25th, but the same, some of the same lawyers just let over to judge Engoron to try to get a six-month delay of their case. And I won't talk about that. But here, I got a merchandise idea for the Midas Touch merchandise store. Used to be on the back of milk cartons when children went missing. Where is Joe Takapina? Because Joe Takapina has been busy running around. He thinks he's Karen Friedman, Igniflo, appearing on every show that he can,

that he can possibly. Oh, don't even However, there's a difference. Karen's a practicing lawyer Takapena makes these initial entrances Sturrs up the pot and then he's not he's nowhere to be found He was supposed to be the lead trial lawyer because he said so in the E. Jean Carol case He hasn't filed anything in the last in last couple of months He wasn't on the recent letter that was submitted or even even carbon copied. See seed on the letter to the judge.

It says if he miraculously puffed disappeared and one other thing just to make people feel more comfortable. The judge for good measure, judge Kaplan, not related to Robbie Kaplan, the lawyer said, Oh, and by the way, all those rulings that I made about access Hollywood tape and the two women who are going to testify about being previously assaulted by Donald Trump. Yeah, they're coming into the April 25 case. So there's no confusion about Carol one and Carol two. That evidence slides over in slides and he made that ruling a couple of days ago as well. Ben, why don't we talk about this other attempt by Alina Haba and Chris Kies remember Chris Kies took the $3 million and we barely see him anywhere, but he showed up again

and judge and Goron's chambers to try to argue despite the fact that the judge in February said, and his, his words, hella high water, you're going to trial in October 2nd on this $250 million dollar or more. Civil fraud case brought by the New York Attorney General. And I don't want to hear it. Any entered in order related to it, you better hurry up and get your discovery done. If that's seven months, let's go. Get your witnesses, get your documents to your depositions, hurry up.

Let's go. And so that was February. So they run into court and march. And they say, oh, we need six more months. We got 30 more witnesses. And we haven't done any depositions. And we haven't looked at any documents. And, you know, like they haven't done jack for the last seven months.

And therefore, they want to be given a do-over and given another six months, despite what the judge has said. And what happened, Ben? Well, that got rejected. And the judge says, it is etched in stone. That's a direct quote from justice and Gorat. And he had a number of other zingers there. That trial will happen October 2nd, 2023. I am not moving this case at all. And by the way, New York attorney general,

Latisha James is seeking at least $250 million in damages. I'm sure she'll probably ask the jury for the billions of damages against Donald Trump and an injunctive order, which would basically shut down Donald Trump and his adult children and some of the other defendants there, really from ever effectively doing business in the state of New York again, which ultimately have the effect of potentially just shutting down the Trump Organization and Donald Trump and his children from doing business there one other point I wanted to make before So New York attorney general attisha james knew that Donald Trump was going to make this move and try to delay She warned the judge perfectly as soon as this thing was filed back in September of 2022,

she said to Justice Engoran, here is what Trump will do. He's gonna try to delay it. Do not countenance that. We just wanna preview for you what's gonna happen, which forced Donald Trump's lawyers to basically say, no, we don't think we're gonna need to do that. And then they were basically caught lying.

I just wanna read these zingers right here from Justice and Goran. These are things that he said during the hearing that took place this week. By the way, after Trump was rallying against New York Attorney General, Leticia James, there was a bomb scare, which temporarily delayed this hearing and the ultimate order denying the delay request by Donald Trump. You see the real world consequences of his threats. But this is what Angoraan said, the judge, quote, this case is complex, but it's not complicated. It all boils down to whether the statements of financial condition are true.

And the rest as Rabbi Hillel famously said is all commentary. By the way, I love Angoraan Zingers and I love his quote of rabbi, he'll help the dog bring up rabbi, he'll help and Talmudic commentary while he's handling this kind of Donald Trump. That's an extra way to get under the skin of Donald Trump. And just just a few more and go on quotes and I'll toss it back to you. And go on also said quote, I don't want to move

this trial, not only because I said I don't want to move it, but that it is not necessary. And then in Goran also said, in terms of like why this case isn't complex, he said that, look, your defenses, Trump and Oregon Trump organization and your adult children are limited under New York law. And he said that the defense of, quote, everybody else was doing it. And those parties could reach their own conclusions

are not legal defenses. Nor is saying no one was harmed by me is a defense to these claims. So it just shows you where Justice and Goran is here. He's had enough. And Donald Trump invoked the Fifth Amendment over 400 times in the special proceeding, which is an adverse inference in the case, meaning that you could have a situation where New York Attorney General, Patricia James, tells

the jury, you could infer adversely against Donald Trump that the reason he didn't answer these questions is because if he did, he would be admitting to the allegations against him. And so this is a devastating case that Trump and I agree. And the other person that tipped off Engoron was Robbie Kaplan from E. Jean Carroll who stepped out of her show into another. It was like, it was like, she was like one of these cross-sporter shows where people appear on other shows.

She wrote letters to three different judges telling them, get ready, Donald Trump is going to try to push your case in a 2024. And then in 2024 is going to say, how convenient I'm now a candidate for office, for the president and I need to have everything delayed. Don't do it. Hold your ground, stay where you are with your relative cases. And wherever you would think you should try it, try it. Don't let him push it into 2024.

She wrote a letter to Angoran, even though she's not before him in this case. She wrote another letter to another judge. You know, we don't talk much about it, but there is another civil fraud case, class action brought against Donald Trump and his children. This is why he's in so much financial jeopardy, almost as much as legal jeopardy because between, between the 250 million, and it could be more than that. 250 million dollars plus

interest, which in New York runs at 9% a year. Okay. It's, it's the best investment around right now. So you got that pre-judgment interest, attorney's fees, that case, a civil fraud case involving a multi-level marketing company that he and his children promoted when he was on celebrity apprentice. That's also going for hundreds of millions of dollars. You know, you add all these things up and him being out of business in the state of New York, if the corporate death penalty is given to him, all the things that criminal cases can't do. I mean, everybody was

upset when Alvin Bragg on the one hand got 17 convictions of a Trump entity for tax evasion, but the fine was like a buck and a half. They were like, what? They were fine. That because fines are not criminal justice. Fines are civil, generally.

And so then you go look at Latisha James and all the great work that she's doing. But this is what we're following. So Ben, it's hard to believe that we have reached the end of another midweek edition of legal aaf. It's hard to believe it because between you, me, and Karen doing hot takes, it used to be on a day, I used to say on my hot takes, I do these about every day. Now I'm saying I do them about seven or eight times a day or an hour, depending about what's happening. And that's what that's another commitment that we made as anchors of legal AF to know and you were the you were the pioneer on it, not just a way to round

for Wednesday and Saturday, which we thought was more than enough, but given the velocity at which things are operating for us to be able to do it in real time and to analyze and distinguish things that mainstream media, whether they're former lawyers or not, are just not equipped to do. We are. So we do it. So if you like what we're doing here and 14,000 people in live chat with us tonight says that you like what we're doing here, there's a lot of ways to support us and they're all

free. Okay. One of them is if you like watching us on YouTube, go pull and free subscribe to the Legal AF podcast everywhere that you can subscribe to podcasts and follow us there and leave a five star review. And then advice first, across pollinate. If you'd like to listen to the podcast, go check out and click the subscribe button for Midas Touch.

We are so close to one million subscribers on the Midas Touch network. Well, we are close. We are so close to one million subscribers on the Midas Touch Network. Well, we are close. So go there, help contribute to that. I feel like we're out of Jerry Lewis' telephon right now. Go, go add another 1000 or 5,000, whatever we need. Then, so do that back and forth. That's free.

It's all free. Everything's free. We've got a merchandise store. That has some great merchandise. Maybe Salt the R producer. I'll put up a clip of. That has some great merchandise. Maybe you salt the art producer. I'll put up a clip of the legal AF stuff, might as touch stuff that you can get. And then, I'll surprise Ben on this one.

There is Patreon. If you want to be a Patreon, if you want to be a patron, you can subscribe to things related to might as touch. It keeps this whole big thing kind of going. And Ben has threatened me that he may bring me on so that I can address some of the Patriots and a special legal AF breakout show and we'll do that as well.

But that's it, man. That's how we are supported. We are completely grassroots. 99% of what I just outlined for you is free, totally free, but keeps us on the air in the rankings, knocking on the doors of the big guys and all the rankings. I mean, I pinch myself every day. I look at what just Apple pod ranks us in terms of news and news analysis, you know, top 10, top 30.

I mean, just ridiculous numbers that you and I invented this show in a garage two and a half years ago. And here we are now. Ben, final word. I pinch myself every day that I get to do this with you, that I get to do this with Karen Friedman Agnifolo, that I get to do this with my younger brothers, that I get to do this with all of our incredible contributors.

And last but not least, that I get to do this with all the mightest mighty out there. None of this, and I mean none of this is possible without you. This is truly a grassroots media network. This isn't some top-down, high-archicol, you know, sterile network. This is a movement that you all have created. And it's an honor every morning to wake up, talking about justice, but frankly, doing justice for you. You deserve the facts, you deserve the truth. And unfortunately large media networks have just not risen to the moment. But that's why each and every day, we'll continue to work so hard to make sure

that we're not just giving you opinions, we're not just yelling, we're certainly not both sizing the issues. This is about going through the court filings. This is about having the top experts in the country on these issues. And in some cases, the top experts in the world breaking down these issues for you so we can cut through BS narratives and give you the facts in ways that you appreciate and most importantly that you

deserve. Popak, I'll give you the time. You're so polite. When I was a kid, I'm gonna date myself here. McDonald's literally on their sign would change the numbers for how many hamburgers they sold. Who remembers that out there? They eventually started writing billions and billions of billions

and now they don't even do it at all. But when I was a kid like in the 70s, I would like when it would go from 1,738,000 hamburgers. We are according to the chat tonight. We are less than 20,000 away, which based on Midas Touchtime is like two weeks away from one million free subscribers on the Midas Touch network on YouTube.

It's hard to believe that. What do you think? Two weeks at the rate we're coming? Well, we're going? Well, it's we're marching to one million subscribers. So for me to do the march, we're trying to do it in March. All right. So we want to set those ambitious goals.

So please subscribe right now if you haven't seen it. Do as this favor, send the YouTube channel to friends, family members, co-workers, colleagues, tell them to subscribe if they haven't already subscribed and help us get that goal. That would be great. Popok any final final work? No, no. Except for one thing. See you Saturday and Lord knows what it'll accumulate between Wednesday and Saturday and see you every hour on the Midestouch LegalAF Network. Wait, there's something else? There's something else? And? And?

The audience knows it. And? What am I doing? Shout out to the Midest Mighty? What am I doing? Shout out to the Midest Mighty. Shout out to the Midest Mighty.