Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Ketanji Brown Jackson Shines Amid Racist and Misogynist GOP Attacks

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

The midweek edition of LegalAF x MeidasTouch, the top-rated podcast covering law and politics, is anchored by national trial attorney and strategist, Michael Popok and former prosecutor and leading criminal defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo. On this week’s episode, they discuss: (a) the attacks on the next US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing; (b) Trump’s win some/lose some week against Stormy Daniels and a former female campaign worker; and (c) the prosecution’s victory against a Jan6 insurrectionist who was also an elected official at the time. Follow Legal AF on Twitter: Legal AF: https://twitter.com/MTLegalAF Karen Friedman Agnifilo: https://twitter.com/kfalegal Michael Popok: https://twitter.com/mspopok Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Midweek edition of Legal AF. I'm one of your anchors, Michael Pope-Pock, and I'm joined by... Karen Friedman Agnipola. Hey Karen, how are you? I'm good, how are you today? We're doing great. I'm really, I'm really rare to go and dive into tonight's podcast. I think I think people are going to find it fascinating. It's got a little bit of Trump, a little bit of Cowboys, a little bit of Supreme Court confirmation hearings, and we're going to talk about a case involving religious freedom and what it means for the future of the Supreme Court and their rulings. Let's kick it off with Cowboys for Trump. We've got yet another example of an elected official.

In this case, a New Mexico County Commissioner, Kui Griffin, who decided to join the Janssick's insurrectionists and go from a tour of the Capitol to an attack on the Capitol. So in the case, we had a Trump appointee Trevor McFadden who decided after a two-day bench trial that former New Mexico County Commissioner Griffin was guilty of entering a restricted area and he'll be sentenced later. But I want everybody to be sort of, I don't want them to be disheartened by this.

You know, there are over 200 people that are gonna be tried for the Jans X. And they're out of order. It's not gonna be the big fish and the little fish. It's gonna be whenever the case is ready for trial and whenever the defense and the prosecution say, ready and the trial judge has time. That's when the cases are going to come up. So I don't want people to say, oh, another potential, Mr. Meener for a, for a entering and

a restricted area for what happened on Jan 6th. Yeah, because this particular guy didn't do much more than enter an area where Mike Pence was being held. But what do you think about sort of the order of the way the prosecutions are going and whether we should read anything into what comes up when and who's being sentenced when? Yeah, I mean trials go when all parties are ready, when the witnesses are ready, when the lawyers are ready, when the evidence is processed, and when there's a judge that's ready. And in this particular case, it was a bench trial.

And it's a lot easier to fit a short bench trial, and then a jury trial is just take longer. And do you think we should explain sort of how it works? Why sometimes there's bench trials and why there's jury trials? Yeah, it's part of legal AF law school. Tell us about the bench versus the jury. So in criminal cases, there's a right to have a jury of your peers. It's a constitutional right of a jury of your peers. But a defense attorney, a defendant actually can waive that right and ask to have their

case heard by a bench trial. And that right belongs to the defendant. And it's a calculation that is made. If you think for whatever reason that it's going to, you're going to fare better in front of just a single judge being the fact finder as opposed to full jury, a jury of 12 people, or sometimes fewer if it's a misdemeanor. But it's an interesting calculation. And here, as you said, it was a Trump appointee. So perhaps they thought the facts here are so inflammatory. And in all of these cases, they're so inflammatory.

You see people coming into the capital. You see members of Congress cowering underneath furniture. You see violence. You see windows breaking. I mean, they're pretty dramatic and that can be very inflammatory to a jury, but to a judge, you would hope that they can sort of leave their emotions behind and just look at the cold hard facts and hope that hope that maybe they'll be somewhat sympathetic to this guy because he is low level, as you said, and he is sort of far down on the food chain in terms of culpability, that maybe he'll go a little bit easy on him, but that's how it's sort of... There's all sorts of reasons why people choose bench versus jury. But that decision versus jury. Judge versus jury as the fact finder and the ultimate law giver. That's done early on in the case, right? Not necessarily.

It can be a last minute decision. And it's, yeah, no, that's not necessarily the case in a criminal case. It's usually a game time decision. Oftentimes in criminal cases, you don't even know who your judge is going to be until it's trial ready. Sometimes, in certain jurisdictions, the trial judge is different than the judge who sort of allows it to kind of, you know, here's the motions and et cetera. So you don't always even stay with the same judge.

And so oftentimes, at least in New York State, where you have, where, you know, the way it works in New York City, I should say, is you find out who your trial judges sometimes on the eve of trial, and that's sometimes when a game time decision is made. Well, I think we need to look at the docket and see either he was influenced potentially by Guy Reff refit who had the book thrown at him by the jury and decided, hmm, maybe I'll take my chances as you just said, Karen, with my Trump appointed judge and see if I'll fare better with a two-day

bench trial, given the relatively limited charges against them. Or they made the decision earlier, we can check the docket. I think it's actually fun. We'll check the docket and see when the decision was made, because that would have been some sort of filing or announcement in court, right? To say you're gonna wave your right to jury trial and go to the bench.

Yes, absolutely. And interestingly, if it had been early on, I would argue that's one of the reasons it went sooner rather than later, because they could just get it done quicker. Yeah. So that's, we're keep following these we keep following these trials, and no matter where they lead, and no matter what the charges are, and they're going to be out of order,

and I think everybody just needs to be patient. The more complicated cases, but I won't even say that I was about to say the more complicated cases will go, will go later on the docket, but we just had a very complicated case with Guy Reffett, go case number one. So as you said, it's whenever the cases are ready and plea negotiations have fallen apart and both parties say ready and the judges ready because you need a judge to be ready in these court houses. You got a poll, a couple of hundred jurors for the panel and all of that if you're doing a jury trial. You can imagine you could have a case case where the defendant had a GoPro camera and they

want to show that footage, but they can't get into the camera and they have to do a search warrant and they have to do all kinds of technical things to get into the camera. That could just delay things. And so that case for no other reason that it's just taking more time to get into some sort of technology that case could take longer. Yeah, I think the refit case was an attempt by the Justice Department to do a little shock and awe as a message to the rest of the holdouts that aren't pleying or an entering plea negotiations that really you want to see the full weight of the US of the of the Department of Justice against you. Keep an eye on the refit case because that's what we're going to do to you. Yeah, I had a similar bit of shock at all. Yeah, I had a similar reaction to that case that that case had everything that case had had everything. And I think they

they picked one of their better cases for that reason, hoping it would encourage others to plead guilty because- Because think of it the other way, as a former prosecutor, they bring a case that they think is a slam dunk and it goes poorly and they lose case number one. Then everything is going to go to trial. Nobody's going to plead guilty. Right. That is a terrible universe that they

would occupy. That's great. Yeah. So fortunately for them, that did not happen. And the jury came back in four hours. But let's, let's move on to one of our favorite litigants. Unfortunately, the former president, the former 45 Donald Trump, who had an interesting week, he had, he, he won and he lost in the same week. I'll talk about the Stormy Daniels versus Alva Johnson case. So in the Alva Johnson case, we talked about it on the weekend edition with Ben Micellus that I do with Lee Laf. That she was a campaign worker and campaign, you know, future president Trump going door to door during the election

season ended up in a trailer of campaign workers. And she claims that he inappropriately grabbed her and made advances towards her and tried to kiss her and all that. Had a federal case in the middle district of Tampa, that case ultimately got dismissed with prejudice, sorry, without prejudice by the by-alpha by the plaintiff, meaning without prejudice, meaning she had the right to refile the case at a later time, probably because of the discovery of a video in the trailer that may be undermined a bit of her credibility on what really transpired. And she elected to discretion as the better part of valor. She decided to dismiss the case. Trump not leaving well enough alone decided to go after her because she violated

a non-disclosure agreement that every campaign worker was forced and compelled to sign, saying anything you see or hear about anything related to Trump or my family or his family, is you're not able to talk about it and certainly not able to file a lawsuit about it. Unfortunately for Trump, he brought that in arbitration, which he had to because there was an arbitration provision in the NDA. And the former federal magistrate that was the arbitrator said, you know, those NDAs have been found to be unconstitutional, almost on exactly the same

facts. And I'm going to dismiss your arbitration because you're wrong on the law. And once he did that, that same NDA that was illegal had an attorney's fee provision, which he awarded attorney's fees for $350,000 or so in favor of Alva Johnson, the same person that probably would not have won her federal case against him. She won the attorney's fee award in arbitration because he was stupid and decided to sue her there. And that was what we talked about last Saturday. Then this week, he wins $400,000 in attorney's fees against poor, stormy Daniels.

Yeah, I felt sorry when I saw that. I felt sorry for her. Why should she have to pay his attorney's fees against poor stormy Daniels. Yeah, I felt sorry when I saw that. I felt sorry for her. Why should she have to pay his attorney's fees? I mean, that's just, that doesn't make sense. And she told the trial court, and she told the ninth circuit, which is in California, and usually is favorable for these kind of things, but it just goes to show you.

She told the ninth circuit, I didn't even know this lawsuit was filed. This was filed by Michael Avinati, who was just recently convicted for having stolen $300,000 from Stormy Daniels, of which money she has not seen, I mean, maybe one day she'll see it back in some sort of victim compensation fund, but he stole $300,000 of her money. And according to her, file the lawsuit. She didn't even authorize that lawsuit, which was based on, I don't know if you saw this, Karen, it was based on a tweet that Trump made about stormy

Daniels. Did you see that in the reporting? I did. I'm curious to hear what you think about this. Do you think she can go after Avonati for legal malpractice in this matter and make him responsible for the attorneys fees? It just didn't seem fair that given that what we know about Avonati, he's a criminal. He's stolen from her. He's done so many things that are so terrible to so many different people.

She didn't know about it that she would be responsible. I was very surprised by this ruling and I was really felt bad for her, frankly. Yeah, I did too. No, I think she needs to go after Avonati. A, I'm not sure given his financial woes where he overspent by large portions the money that he earned as a trial lawyer at some point. I'm not sure he carried malpractice insurance. If he didn't, if he didn't carry the premium from malpractice insurance, he doesn't have his Ben and I like to talk about.

He doesn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. I'm not sure where she gets the money from. She'll just be a judgment creditor. She's already a judgment creditor against them or a victim compensation creditor because he stole 300 grand from her. She tweeted just to wrap up that part of the story. She did tweet today and I do, I do admire her moxie that she would rather go to jail than to ever pay Donald Trump a penny. So, you know, we'll have to continue to fall. Yeah, good for her. We'll have to continue to follow that story. And then Trump is also, you know, I want you to lead on this one, Karen, because it's right in your wheelhouse, you've got Donald Trump and the Trump organization and all the little Trumplets, the kids being both investigated by Alvin, you like the Trumplets?

Alvin Bragg, you know, you're, I want to say, it's your former colleague because I don't think you worked together, but in the Manhattan District Attorney's office, at the same time it, in a joint investigation that we've talked about before, with Latisha James, the Attorney General for the State of New York, and she's on the civil side and he's on the criminal side. And we've already talked about, we've had our Twitter spaces about what Alvin's doing about the case and who he's putting charge now with prosecution. But this is all about Tis James and her investigation.

And she struck a deal, as we, you and I reported, she struck a deal about three or three weeks ago, four weeks ago, which she said, I'll delay the judge had ordered the trial judge in New York State Supreme in Manhattan, had ordered Trump and the kids to get deposition testimony in the civil case. And they agreed by, you know, Tish said, you want to appeal?

All right. I'll hold off on enforcing the order until you have time to take your appeal because he was going to take the appeal anyway. So he took the, he is now filed an appeal. I assume to the first department, which is the first level appellate division right below the Court of Appeals, which is the highest court in New York, on the issue of that he, the kids, the, the, the, the trumplets don't have to testify because of the existence of the criminal case and the grand jury.

You want to talk about what their argument is and the transactional immunity provision and really open up a class today for the legal a efforts. Yeah, this one was sort of, this was very interesting because so as you said, this is Donald Trump and two of his kids. I think it was Ivanka and Don Jr. filed this appeal, basically saying that the lower court er aired in denying their motion to quash the subpoenas. And what happened was Tish James subpoenaed them to give deposition. And they didn't want to. They said they shouldn't have to. And what they said was interesting, they will only give testimony under oath in the grand jury. And it's sort of a, I hate to use this word,

but it's sort of a brilliant move on their part because if you testify in a grand jury in New York State, you get something called transactional immunity, which means you can never be prosecuted for the crime or for the offense that you are testifying about. Now, we all know that the Tisch James civil matter is almost identical in terms of what they're looking at

to the Manhattan DA's office criminal matter that's been widely reported that it's based on similar issues, the over-evaluation, and in some cases under evaluation or just the improper evaluation of properties depending on what they're doing it for. So they really are related matters. And as a result, the Manhattan DA's office and the Attorney General's office, they joined forces a while back and actually did a joint investigation. And I have to say the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, really kind of screwed Trist James here

by saying that the criminal investigation is still open, even though everybody knows that case is dead in the water when the two prosecutors resigned to mean prosecutors resigned very publicly recently. But by her saying that that's still open, that the investigation is still open, it allows Donald Trump to make this argument and to say, look, I can't possibly give a deposition because it could be used against me in a criminal matter. And there is a criminal case that's still pending, but they said,

you want my testimony? Put me in the grand jury, and then I have immunity, and then I can never be prosecuted. Now, the judge here said that you can, you still have to sit for testimony. You just should invoke the Fifth Amendment, you know, the way the way Eric did in his 20, 2020 deposition. But the problem is they don't want to do that either because that trial, the jury can draw an adverse inference against them. So the jury can hold that against them. In a criminal matter, a jury, for example, if you choose not to testify, or if you remain silent, a jury can't hold that against you,

but in a civil matter, if you invoke the fifth, they certainly can. So that's what's going on here. And I have to say, every time I look at anything involving the trumps, it's like the Teflon Don. Once again, he's somehow getting away with yet another. He's just using the legal system, and he's using it to just never, ever be held accountable for anything.

But let me interrupt for a minute. So you got the first department. You think the first department's going to rule that if there is it, there could no longer be joint investigations overlapping, but joint investigations where you share resources between the civil, the Attorney General's Office, civil division, or the Attorney General Office being civil.

And the New York Attorney General's Office, that's going to be the new law in New York. You can't ever have that because you can never have witnesses who only testify on the civil side. You have to bring them into grand jury with transactional immunity. Well, I don't think that's gonna be the case, but at the same time, what this could allow

is that any time an agency has a criminal case and they want to, an agency that can have seat. So let me back up. Manhattan DA's office does not have civil jurisdiction. They only have criminal jurisdiction. But so the fact that they joined forces with the attorney general, now there's civil and criminal jurisdiction.

And what you don't want is you don't want any time in a criminal matter that they want to compel testimony, but they can't, because people have a fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. Oh, okay, I'll just open up a, I'll just partner with the Attorney General and open up a civil case and compel them that way. You so, so you're right. It shouldn't go that way,

but it can't go the other way either. So it'll be interesting to see how, how this ends up. I mean, I, I, in 30 years of being a prosecutor, I can only think of maybe a handful of times that there was a joint civil and criminal matter involving the same transactions, involving the same matters. I mean, that is somewhat rare that this were to happen. And so I don't know that the floodgates are going to open up here. But if it does get ruled one way or another, but I can see both sides about why it's an

issue and why it's a problem. Yeah, it's not uncommon on the federal side. I mean, you have federal regulators, DOJ and others working hand in glove with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the commodities and futures trade commission, CFTC, SEC, you know, working at several DOJ, criminal DOJ, working next to each other. And then you're right, the, the, the, the targets, the witnesses who may have criminal exposure have to make a decision if they're being investigated first by the civil side of those cases, as to whether they're going to testify, but they don't get to go to court and say, oh,

the only way they can make me testify is through the criminal process. And we're going to have to see how this plays out with the state court, which you know, so intimately well. And we'll follow this case very closely. Yeah, I think I, if I had to predict, I think what they're going to say is just you're going to have to say, you know, a, you're right, Pope, it's not going to be that, you know, you're going to go before the grand jury and get transactional immunity because that is ridiculous. They're just going to have to invoke the fit, you're right. Popo, it's not going to be that, you know, you're going to go before the grand jury and get transactional immunity because that is ridiculous. They're just going to have to invoke the fit, you know, the way anyone else doesn't. Right.

Yeah. And then, and then what she doesn't need their testimony, she's always expected, I'm sure, that they were going to invoke the fifth amendment and then she'd be able to argue for an adverse inference in the, on the civil side, which is what happens when they walk down Fifth Avenue, as lawyers like to say. I think the attorney here is also asking for a hearing on the scope of the joint investigation, which they just want to know what's going on.

They want the details. Yeah, so we're gonna follow that one. Again, that one's right. Right in the corner of law and politics, right on the corner of things that we like to talk about. So let's wrap up our classes in session, midweek classes in session with something right from the headlines. And let's talk about Katanjee Brown-Jackson and her confirmation hearing, which started on Monday and really got hot today when all the masks were ripped off or some people

would say the hoods were ripped off some of these senators in the way that they were questioning who will be and there's let's leave no doubt. Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the next associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. And all these Republican inquisitors are doing is it's backing up on them in an undignified fashion that they would treat a 10 year federal judge. She's been a judge for the last 10 years in this manner, a woman, and a woman of color. What did you think about it from your perspective so far? So interestingly, I had a court appearance this morning up near the Canadian border, which is 330 something miles away

from New York City. So I was in the car for many, many hours today. And I listened to the hearings. I've never been able to spend as many hours listening to confirmation hearings during a work week before. And so I have a lot of thoughts. I have a lot to say about what I thought. First of all, I love her.

I don't know how else to say. I absolutely love her. I was yelling at the radio and she, you know, she would pause at some, at some of the questions, you could tell she was taking a, taking a beat and, and taking a deep breath, but... Hiding her tongue. And, but she just has the demeanor, the temperament, and the, um, it's just the perfect, should be the, really be the perfect judge. I'd love to appear before her. But I was, so, you know, I was surprised by the hearings, frankly, and I know I'm gonna make myself sound a little naive,

but I was just surprised at how little questioning there is and how much speech giving there is. It's, it's, they don't really want to hear what she has to say. They just want to use their time, the Republicans in particular, to attack her and to make speeches about her and to over and over again, harp on the same thing. And you know, you always talk about Popeyes. You always talk about the dog whistle. And here, this, there was no dog whistle.

This was, this was blatant misogyny and racism. I was so angry. And I don't get angry very easily. I was so angry that the way they spoke to her, because she's black and because she's a black woman, this entire day, I mean, especially Ted Cruz. I was so appalled by Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley were the two that I was just absolutely appalled by. Just how blatant it was like really would you ask somebody else all of

these questions? Just because she's black, you know, you're asking her all these questions about about race and about, you know, just the way they spoke to her was appalling and the other thing they were doing really. How about Marsha Blackburn? You know, some the way they spoke to it was appalling. And the other thing that we do, I really have a Marshall Blackburn, you know, some of the other ones like Marshall Blackburn. You have a secret critical race theory agenda to prove your point. And then I want to get back to your comments about the misogynist and the race system on the Senate Judiciary Committee of which unfortunately there are many. You know, to prove your point about it all, they don't care. They know she's

getting confirmed. So they're just using it as talking points to gin up their base and motivate their base for the midterm elections that, oh, look, the radical left, the AOC left, critical race theory left. Child predator loving, defense criminal loving left has gotten their way. And that is Katana G. Brown Jackson. It's also pay back a little bit. And it was blatant by, as you said, no dog whistle. Siren by Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham started asking you all these questions about her religious convictions.

And then he said, I don't think you need to answer these questions either. But I didn't think it was right. And he got it. They didn't even care it. Right, right. And didn't he get up and walk out? I was so disappointed. I was so disappointed in so many of these people that I just couldn't believe it.

I mean, how many times are you going to make our answer the same exact question, which is critical race theory, never factored into a single decision that I made. I don't think any child should ever have to be made to feel less than or somehow that they are less than or worse than or bad. And she had to say that over and over and over and over again. And it's like they just, and at a certain point, it was offensive, actually.

You know, if you ask it once, if you really want to know what the answer is, it was offensive at how they basically were accusing her of having certain views that she doesn't have. Well, let's do it this way. They did treat Amy Coney Barrett that way. At all. They let her off with a pass. Every time they asked her, every time a Democrat asked her, how she would rule in a certain case, they let everybody let her have a pass on it. When they asked about her religious issues, you know, she answered it and moved on. But so you're right. The extra element, it was misogyny for sure on display. But the extra element of race in a way that Amy Coney Barrett was not subjected to. It's almost like some of them, even though they weren't on the Senate Judiciary Committee back

then, Biden was, but they weren't on their own. Clarence Thomas was put through the mill understandably so for his issues and and the sexual assault and discrimination issues that came up during the Anita, Anita Hill, it's part of me, portion of the confirmation hearing, but it was almost like just total payback. They know, they don't have the votes. They know she's going to be confirmed in like three days from now. But why would you now have, you have to look at this person in the face. You see them at the state of the union addresses. They're going to be on the court for a long, long time. Things might be tightening up on the court for all we know.

The same week that she started her confirmation hearing, you know, Clarence Thomas had some flu-like symptoms and heart palpitations. I'm not wishing anything on him, neither is the show or the podcast, but these Supreme Court justices are old. I didn't expect, no one expected, Anthony Scalia to kick it after a hunting trip with Dick

Cheney or whatever he was doing, but he did. And suddenly 6 to 3 becomes 5 to 4. And why do you want your legacy as a party to be that you beat the crap out of, as you said, so eloquently, in a misogynist and racist way, the first black woman in 200 years of the US Supreme Court, the first public defender on the US Supreme Court. Why would you want that to be your Wikipedia page when you do that?

Yeah, it just, you know, I obviously don't know what it's like to be a black woman in America, but you know, the way I felt for her, and again, this is just me imposing my own feelings. It must be hard enough to go through life and having just racism in just the whole, the way she's in the minority, you know, there's always going to be racism and microaggressions and things about her. She's faced in her whole life.

She has to have, you know, whether she's brilliant and she's wonderful, but just because of the society we grew up in. And to then have to have accomplished what she has accomplished. To, I mean, her credentials are so impressive. Not just the school she's gone to, but the work she's done, the opinions she's written,

she's obviously brilliant. and so much smarter than most people. I know. And most people on the Senate judiciary committee. And in that, and the way they spoke to her and the things that accused her of by just asking the questions over and over and over again, it just must be so exalt. Not just exhausting, but just, I don't know how she has the energy to put up with that. You know, I just think history is gonna look back at this moment in time and we are gonna cringe. We are going to cringe at how she was spoken to

and how just blatantly racist to me it was. And I, you know, I just I just felt so, I was so appalled and upset by it. You know, you know, you know, it motivates her and keeps her going because in the back of her mind, she knows she's going to be on the United States Supreme Court. And none of the people that are asking your questions are. So I'm sure she's like, okay, Senator, take your best shot. But like next week or when Breyer, who said he's gonna go out till June, I think, retires, I'm gonna be sworn in as the next

and first woman of color, first black woman, and all of that. And just to make it clear for those that are distorting her record, she comes from a family, a really successful family and people that have pulled themselves up from the bootstraps. comes from a family, a really successful family, and people that have pulled themselves up from the bootstraps, and we say that phrase too much, it becomes hackneyed, and have been firsts

in their respective professions. Her uncle, her father's brother, her mother's brother, forget which, I think her mother's brother, first black chief of police for the city of Miami, where I used to call home. And I remember him. I wasn't there exactly overlapping, but I remember him.

And what he did as a, the legacy that he left behind in that city. Father studying for his entry into law school, night school, sitting on the kitchen table. She talked about this in her own speech. When her own speeches went by nominate her, watching her dad become a lawyer, her going to a top high school, one of the top high schools in my area where I worked, Palmetto high school. And then being, I don't know if she was valedictorian,

salutatorian, she was one of them. Then Harvard Law School, where she was on law review, I'm not sure she was the editor in chief of the law review, she might have been, but she certainly was on law review. And then all the right clerkships and then all the right preparation, except a two-year stint doing God's work,

defending federal criminals, I'm sorry, accused, not criminals yet, some of them aren't, but those of them were not. As a federal public defender, and I have friends that have served as federal public defenders, I'm not sure which office she was in. I have friends that were in the Miami office and in the New York office.

I'm not sure where she actually served, but she was there for two years. And then on the Sentencing Commission, and then a federal judge. And there are very few of these judges that are on the Supreme Court, these justices. There are very few that were sitting trial judges. Some of them were appeal. Some of them were not judges at all.

You know, Kagan, we love Kagan, but she was never a judge. She was like acting solicitor general for a bit. But she's got, as I said before, she has credentials, Katangi Brown Jackson, that far exceed almost all of the other people she will be serving with on the Supreme Court. And yet she is subjected to the misogyny and racism that you would tell. Yeah, I mean, and it's just interesting. You know, women have always been held to a higher standard.

You know, women just, it's so interesting to me that women have to prove themselves 10 times over. The fact that someone I forgot who asked for her LSAT scores to get into Harvard, you just don't ask questions like that. You just don't ask questions like that or even have those thoughts about men. It's just different. Women in society in general just always have to, I just always feel like they have to prove themselves twice over just

to get to the same place as their male counterparts. And it was just on full display today. And I will say the Democratic senators did a really good job at when they were specifying because everybody gave speeches instead of asking questions, but they rehabilitated her and really put things in context and put things in perspective

and showed things like the fact that the fraternal order of police and the international chiefs of police and all these police organizations that represent many, many hundreds of thousands of police officers have written letters on her behalf saying she is, is more than qualified. They, they endorse her without reservation. They say wonderful things about her. I mean, she really does have support from so many different, different places. And then you've got people like Ted Cruz, you know, just focusing on critical race theory books that are being taught in the private school

where she's on the board. You know, and it was a private school, the Georgetown Day School, I believe it's called. And what they made it seem like, you know, that babies are being taught about, you know, about critical race theory and toddlers. And, you know, he made her seem, you know, like she was, that she was, this was a thing that she was doing. And in context, what she said was, you know,

the Georgetown, this particular school in Washington was created in the 1940s when segregation was, not just legal, that was the law in Washington and blacks and whites could not go to school together in the public school system. And so three white Jewish parents and three black Jewish parents got together and created this school.

So their kids could go together, go to school together. And so this is in the fabric and foundation of the founding of the school. It's a private school that people choose to send their children to, to learn about race and and progressive issues. And so it's just when you hear the context of this and she was fully prepared to say it and the way she said it, it just really put the whole issue in perspective and made you think, wow, what an amazing, wonderful place.

I'm so happy she's on the board of that. The other sort of thing that really made me crazy was this, they made her seem like she was an advocate for sex offenders and child pornographers and, you know, and it just, it was, it was just appalling, you know, she sent us to have. Well, it shows, it shows a fundamental misunderstanding, intentional, misunderstanding makes it sound like they didn't know it, they know it. Of a way our, our justice system works where you need zealous advocacy on both sides.

As I've said before on this show and otherwise, no matter how heinous the crime, and we could describe a really heinous crime with our imaginations, I still wanna live in a society where that person is represented zealously by council to put on the best defense possible and to put the prosecution to their proof

before the ultimate penalty of taking away somebody's liberty or life is imposed. And that's just the way it is. And believe me, none of these people, it's all bullshit. None of these people that are hawking their wares at the Senate Chair and Committee on the Republican side want to live in a country where there's, you know, like today, Navalny, the Russian anti-Putin,

who's led the opposition to Putin, who came back to his country when he should have really stayed for safety reasons abroad. Navalny by kangaroo court was really no defense. It got nine more years. Nine more years, I couldn't believe that. In jail.

And you know, you got to love him. I tweeted about it today. He's a, even though he's Russian, he's a fan. And he got poisoned by Putin. He was attacked by Putin and poisoned by Putin. And that's been established. He quoted the wire, that famous television show, when he said to quote one of my favorite characters

from the wire, there's only two days in a sentence. The day you go in and the day you go out. And the day you come out, yeah. And he said he wanted to wear that on a t-shirt at that trial. So that, if people want to see what it looks like not to have Katanji Brown Jackson as your public defender in a judicial system that respects zealous advocacy and the adversarial process, then move to one of those countries. But we don't live in one of those countries and you should honor and celebrate public defenders.

I mean, you were a person in your life. Yeah, well, interestingly. What's your view of public defense? So, I'll answer that in a second. Interestingly, the criticism of her when it came to the child prerograffers was not as a public defender. It was her sentencing as a judge. So, what they were saying was as a judge that she didn't sentence harsh enough.

And so, and even though she sentenced people very, I think, I think along with the Democrats put in context, something like 70% of the judges all sentenced in her range for those cases. But they just, you know, would describe these horrible images and these horrible people and, you know, how dare you only give this amount of time. They were criticizing your sensing, but to answer your question about how I think about public defenders or defense attorneys in general, I mean, you can't have an adversarial, you can't have a criminal justice system without a criminal defense attorney. And it's part of the checks and balances that are put into our system. And it's, you know, I, I, not just respect and admire

them, I consider them to be an integral part of our justice system. And it's important. It's important that our evidence get tested and that witnesses get cross-examined. And as a prosecutor, I used to embrace the better the defense attorney. I'll never forget actually a trial. I had a trial with a very famous criminal defense attorney who was very arrogant and kind of a jerk, frankly. And he comes up to me and he just, you know, it was right before the trial and I was junior, I was young, you know, sort of eager,

you don't really know what I'm doing very well, but I was totally, you know, totally gung-ho about my case and he comes up to me and he's like, do you know who I am? You know, and you know what cases I've tried and he was trying to intimidate me. And I just remember looking at him going, but I have the facts and the evidence on my side.

I am not afraid of you. And you know what? And if I can't win against you, I don't deserve to win. You know, like there is a standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. And if I can't meet that group, I shouldn't win. And so no matter how good you are as a defense attorney, it shouldn't matter. You know, the prosecution has a burden to prove their case

beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's very, very important that we get it right because if God forbid somebody who's innocent, you know, innocent gets incarcerated, that is about the worst thing that could possibly happen. So I'm a huge fan of defense attorneys in general. I happen to be married to one. So I love, I love criminal defense attorneys.

And frankly, I am one myself now, you know, I now represent people. So, so I, you know, I have no issue whatsoever. I love the fact that Biden in one year has nominated more former federal public defenders to federal the federal bench than the last four presidents combined. And that includes Clinton and Obama. Combined, he's nominated eight federal public defenders. That's not by accident. That's by choice.

That's back to the criminal justice reform that you and I talked about from the inside with the judges and the icing on the cake cherry on the on the Sunday is Katanji Brown Jackson former federal public defender first time ever history being our next associate justice the United States Supreme Court Karen I love our Wednesdays I do too I really really do it really fun. Let's let's do it again next week. What do you think? I would love to do it again next week. I want to go back to mailbag. I want people to ask us. All right, we're going to do it. So fun. You're going to do mailbag next week. That's a promise. That's a good reminder for doing that. But we've reached the end of our Wednesday edition of of legal AF, tune in on the weekends and you'll see Karen in the chat,

along with Ben, Macellis and myself. We do the weekend wrap up, we do eight or nine stories, just the way you heard us do it today. And listen on all the platforms where you take your podcasts from for Legal AF midweek edition and weekend edition, shout out to the Midas Mighty and the legal AFers. We'll see you next week.