Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Judge RUINS Trump’s Day with SCATHING Discovery Order

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Judge Chutkan in a new 50 page order just slammed the door on virtually all of Trump’s hair brained defenses in the DC Election Interference criminal case against him, denying him the bulk of the ��16 categories” of irrelevant material he seeks from the prosecution. Michael Popok analyzes it all and also reveals why this means that the judge’s immunity decision will be delayed until well after the election. Miracle Made: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Join the LegalAF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/legalAF Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BDC, financing, advising, know-how. This is Michael Popock, Legal AF. We've got a new order from Judge Chutkin, 50 pages broadly against Donald Trump and his efforts to try to obtain loads of irrelevant information from departments that are not related to the prosecution against him in the DC election interference case and Judge Chutkin is putting a stop to it and into it. He wanted Donald Trump by way of a discovery motion, that's information that he's entitled to or he's seeking as part of his defense. He sought from nine different additional government entities outside the Department of Justice,

including those in the intelligence community, including those at other departments of the Department of Justice, not prosecuting him. He wanted 16 additional categories of documents. Now here's how it works under the rules. And the judge reminded Donald Trump of that. I'm going to read from portions of the 50 pages in a second. A defendant in a criminal case has basically three different rights to information. One we call Brady material. These are all named after cases. Brady material

is the government's compelling obligation throughout the course of a prosecution, even all the way through trial, to provide to the defense all inculpatory information or evidence tending to prove the guilt of somebody or exculpatory documents or information tending to prove the innocence of somebody has to be provided. It's called Brady material. It's got to be turned over. And the judge has reminded the prosecutors that they have a continuing obligation or it's subject to reversible error and a dismissal of the indictment if they don't provide Brady material. Now, they have provided the Brady material, but she wanted to give them a little bit of a warning that she complies with Brady. That's one type of

material. Two more types that a criminal defendant is entitled to in our system of government in federal court. The second one we call Jenks. It's named after another case. Jenks material are documents or information that go to a potential witness against the defendant. That witness related material, Jenks material, that's gotta be turned over.

And then the third category has to go through the judge. That's what we call Rule 16 under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and that's information that the defense wants in order to put on its defense independent from the information that the government is required to turn over. The defense has a right to conduct its own investigation and come up with its own defenses. And so that's what this motion is about, rule 16 and Jenks type material that has, that Trump claims has not been turned over. Now, when you go through those 16 categories, the judge went through a very methodically at 50 pages. She gave Donald Trump a couple

of small victories, but by and large, she said, the information you're seeking is neither material. It doesn't go to your criminal mind or a fact in the case. It's irrelevant. It has to do with another election or another investigation or you haven't met your burden because the burden is on the defendant to show a link between the material that he's seeking and the need to have it produced. She went through the 16 categories and said, yeah, I don't think so. These go you know, these go down to, oh, all the communications between the prosecution team and Joe Biden and the Biden administration. Judge was like, not material. I've already ruled on that, that there's no vindictive or retaliatory

prosecution. So you're not getting those documents. Documents related to Mike Pence. Well, it depends on what those documents are. Some may be relevant and I'll turn them over to you. Some won't be. documents are. Some may be relevant and I'll turn them over to you, some won't be. Documents related to General Mark Milley's conversations with Donald Trump about whether the National Guard was sufficient or they had enough guards called up in order to protect the Capitol on Jan 6. Now, that one she said, all right, well, that one seems sort of interesting. Mark Milley is a likely witness, so that's Jenk's material. And you also have this conflict about whether Donald Trump did or did not tell the Joint Chiefs of Staff head and his Department of Defense head, Chris Miller,

to have enough people prepared for the attack on the Capitol prior to the Capitol, prior to Jan 6th. That one, she says, all right, well, to the Department of Justice, if it's in your care, custody, and control, go give him the Mark Milley stuff, but everything else is denied. Let me just read you, I'll start backwards. This is the conclusion and order. This is her order, and then I'll tell you how we got here. One, the government shall conduct a reasonable search for and if located, produce the following, the materials that the Director of National Intelligence reviewed before he was interviewed

with the government. Because the Director of National Intelligence is going to testify that he gave frequent briefings to Donald Trump that would have dispelled any of his mental process that he believed legitimately that there was fraud in the election. Not after he spoke to the DNI and got briefed by him, he wouldn't. No normal person would have. And that goes to criminal mind, mens rea, we call it in the law. So, since he's likely to be a witness, that falls into the Jenks material bucket and the judge says, if you got it, give it to him. On the D&I interview, this is,

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Thank you Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. Also any records concerning information about security measures that were conveyed to Trump during his meeting with General Milley and the acting Secretary Miller of the Defense, turn that over. And then third, evidence relating to any unauthorized retention of classified documents by Pence. Why is that an issue? Remember when they found the boxes of documents in Joe Biden's garage in his house and whatever, and he turned them over after Mar-a-Lago voluntarily, Joe Biden did, Joe Biden's council did, and then we're off and running on an investigation against Joe Biden where he was

primarily cleared. Other people started to look in their garages and under their beds and in their drawers and like Mike Pence and said, I've got a couple also. You know who didn't have any? Clinton or Obama. But the rest seemed to have a little bit of, oh, that was in my box. I didn't know that. So I don't know how that's at all related to Jan 6th or to Trump's culpability for a crime. And I don't think the judge does at all related to Jan 6th or to Trump's culpability for a crime. And I don't think the judge does either, but she's like, all right, if you have any documents about the information that Mike Pence took, in other words, is he biased against Donald Trump because he's being investigated for his own sticky fingers around classified documents?

Makes no sense. But she's's gonna give him that one. The government's obligation to search for all relevant materials, the judge continued on page four, this is all on page 48 and 49, is deemed to be within the control of the prosecution team. She's expanded the prosecution team to include the special counsel's office and law enforcement officers

who are working on this case right now. She's also expanded it. Remember, Donald Trump wanted nine more categories of entities to be defined as the special prosecutor so that he could get access to more of their file cabinets. And she says, I'm going to give you a couple of them. Here's what she gave them. She said, I think what's also included within the scope of the prosecution team, meaning the scope of documents that were required to turn over to Donald Trump includes personnel that participated in the investigation in the past who may not be working on it now and their files, that makes sense.

The files of United States Attorney, the Office of the Attorney General in District of Columbia, so the DC office of the US Attorney's Office, if they worked on Jan 6th prosecutions, but only for those files that were actually transmitted between the DC Attorney General, the US Attorney's Office and the special prosecutor. So between Jack Smith's office and the DC branch of the US Attorney's Office, there was communication as the US Attorney in DC prosecuted the Gen 6 cases. Maybe there was some sharing of information. Turn those documents over. I'm not suggesting that there were, but the judge said if they exist, give it over. Also, there's an Inspector General for the Department of Justice. Every department or

division in our government has an Inspector general that looks at fraud and waste and gets to the bottom of scandals and ethical problems, that kind of thing. And she's telling the prosecutors here, if there are case files related to any investigation by the Department of Justice of the Inspector General, including the files of personnel who have worked on it previously, turn those over. Also, as to the files of Washington field office personnel who had

previously worked on this case but are no longer working on it, they should turn over materials as well. These all seem eminently reasonable. Then, as to the other requirements, she's giving Donald Trump until the end of October. So at the end it says finally on page 50, finally it is hereby ordered that to the extent Trump believes that the government has improperly withheld immunity-related discovery, things related to his immunity defenses as she sorts out which of the allegations and counts and acts of the superseding indictment fall into which bucket to determine whether anything or all of it is immune. She says, if you think you need discovery related to that, then you got to file that by the 30th of October. What that means to me is she's not going to be ruling on the immunity

decision before the election because she's not even going to get Trump's discovery motion until the 30th of October, then the government has to oppose it now or beyond the election and so on. Now there's other documents that aren't going to be filed until after the election too. Donald Trump asked for permission to file his opposing brief to the 165 pages of evidence against him filed by Jack Smith a week or so ago until after the election. And the judge says, sure, you want to do it after the election? Go for it. The Department of Justice has two major pieces of evidence and packages against Donald Trump,

one the brief and the other one coming up with a massive public disclosure of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages of evidence and witness statements against them, which we're all going to get before the election. Donald Trump wants to do his work after the election? Go ahead. So that indicates to me in reading this document that she is not going to be ruling on anything related to the immunity until after the election.

And then we'll have the natural appeals all again after the election. And then we'll have the natural appeals all again after the election. Let me just conclude this hot take by reading from a couple of pages of this so you understand where the judge's head is at in this particular order. She says on pages 14 and 15 of her order, remember 50 pages, as it relates to Donald Trump wanting the 2020 election, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security report about the integrity of the 2020 election. She says, I don't know why you want that document. It doesn't help you. Here's what she said on page 14. Despite this finding, the report found, let me read the report's finding. The report found no evidence of any foreign government affiliatedaffiliated actor preventing voting,

changed votes, or disrupted the ability to tally votes or to transmit results in a timely manner, altered any technical aspect of the voting process, or otherwise compromised the integrity of voter registration information of any ballots during the 2020 elections." In other words, the election had integrity. Despite this finding, the judge says, Trump argues that the report's classified details will support his defense that he had good faith concerns about the integrity of the election. But while defendants cite snippets from the report, the judge says, indicating that its

authors considered several potential threats to the election's integrity, Trump omits While defendants cite snippets from the report, the judge says, indicating that its authors considered several potential threats to the election's integrity, Trump omits that the report refuted all of them. For example, he highlights several incidents when Russian, Chinese, and Iranian government affiliated actors materially impacted the security of networks associated with or pertaining to U.S. political organizations or campaigns during the 2020 election. Broad Russian and Iranian campaigns targeting multiple critical infrastructure. But," she continues, he ignores that those efforts did not materially affect the integrity of voter data, the ability to vote, the tabulation of votes, or the timely

transmission of election results. Likewise, defendant relies on the report's acknowledgement of multiple public claims that one or more foreign government manipulated the results, but he does not offer anything beyond speculation. And therefore she's not giving him this. She also says, Judge Chutkin says on page 15, the larger problem with this request though, is that it once again,

defendant has not proffered any indication that the report's classified details would have affected his state of mind. What does it matter what this report has to do? How does it go to any element in the case of the crime or of his state of mind? Similarly, she talks about, let me just get one more page here that I think is very interesting. And again, another judge frustrated with Donald Trump trying to rewrite the indictment. Here's what she said on page 25 of 50. Defendants' theories of materiality do not withstand scrutiny.

The superseding indictment does not allege defendant's criminal activity to be that he created an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger and eroded public faith in the administration of the 2020 election. Indeed, the indictment stresses that Trump had the right to speak publicly about the election and even to claim falsely that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election that he had won. And it identifies, this is the judge now, where defendant's conduct crossed the line. In addition to whatever effect those claims had on the national atmosphere, quote, Trump

also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results. Those unlawful means are the crimes with which defendant is charged, including several criminal conspiracies. The difference matters, the judge continues, whether defendant sought to undermine public confidence in the election to legitimize or otherwise further his criminal conspiracies does not depend on whether

other nations also tried to achieve similar results for their own purposes. I mean, you can't put it any more bluntly. The conspiracy, the criminal conspiracy alleged against Donald Trump is that he tried to take your vote, rip it up, and throw it in the trash can. That's what we say to disenfranchise voters to substitute their legitimate vote all the way up to the electoral college for the illegitimate vote of the fake electors to steal the election and turn it over to the state houses to pick Donald Trump as president would be to rip up your vote and throw it in the trash can

and that of a hundred million other people who voted and that's what she's saying the crime is reminding Donald Trump and the public of what it is now what's what is the upshot of this filing? As I said, we're gonna get a new motion by Donald Trump. He's gonna probably file something complaining about this. He can take this issue up on appeal. He can take he has to file his immunity motion on discovery by the end of December, end of October. And we're just waiting patiently on the new data dump that's coming into the public about all the evidence against him that will be made public in the next few hours. So if you like what we're doing here on Legal AF,

it's a podcast Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time. And we're spreading our wings. We formed a new Legal AF MTN from Midas Touch Network YouTube channel. We're at 220,000 subscribers in less than 28 days. It is all on you. It's all because of you. Go over there. I'm the chief curator. I'm curating an amazing collection of content, five videos every day that you're going to love, including from outside contributors like Court Accountability Action, one of the leading investigators of fraud in our court system. We have everybody from the Midas universe that you know and love. All wear Legal AF MTN. Come on over.

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