Legal AF by MeidasTouch - NEW Indictments LOOM as Jack Smith SHREDS Trump’s Defense
Episode Date: July 16, 2023Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast Legal AF is back for another hard-hitting look... at the most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this weekend’s edition the anchors discuss: 1. Developments in the Mar a Lago criminal trial of trump, including the DOJ reminding the Court that she has to set a trial date under the Speedy Trial Act, as the investigation turns to indicting other Trump employees for destroying evidence, 2. The DOJ focusing on destroying Trump’s defenses in a future new indictment related to his preventing the peaceful transfer of power, including having former First Son in Law, Jared Kushner and his former communications director testify along with mark meadows to the grand jury 3. Attorneys General in 5 states cooperating with Jack Smith’s special prosecution while the Arizona Attorney General commences her own criminal investigation against Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani; 4. Trump’s new filing to have the new Georgia grand jury quashed to avoid being indicted; and 5. Rudy Giuliani being sanctioned and threatened with contempt and a default judgment by a federal judge in a defamation case brought by 2 Georgia election workers, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! RHONE: Head to https://rhone.com/legalaf and use code LEGALAF to save 20% off your entire order! MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGLAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. EIGHT SLEEP: Go to https://eightsleep.com/legalaf and save $150 on the Pod CoverHENSON SHAVING: Visit https://HensonShaving.com/LEGALAF to pick the razor for you and use code LEGALAF for 2 years worth of free blades! GREEN CHEF: Head to https://GreenChef.com/LegalAF50 and use code LegalAF50 to get 50% off and Free Shipping! POLICY GENIUS: Head to https://policygenius.com or click the link in the description to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. 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 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 MAGA Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Let's get into it and let's start with the pending criminal case against Donald Trump
and his co-defendant, Waltean Nauta, in the southern district of Florida before Judge
Eileen Cannon, where Trump and Nauta were indicted back in June for willful retention
of national defense information and violation of the espionage act making
false statements conspiracy and obstruction of justice this week. Special counsel Jack Smith filed
a response brief to Donald Trump and Nauta's request to delay the trial in that matter to some
in that matter to some undetermined time period after the 2024 election.
Jack Smith says Trump's legal argument
about the Presidential Records Act borders on the frivolous
and should not be a basis for delay.
And that Trump's other grounds for delay
are entirely without merit in the case,
should be heard in December of 2023.
We will discuss in the same pending criminal action relating to Trump's theft of these
government records.
Can we expect Michael Popok to see more indictments of other Trump Coke conspirators who are other
Trump employees, special counsel Jack Smith has sent at least one target
letter informing an additional Trump employee that he could be criminally indicted soon
for obstruction of justice relating to those surveillance tapes, some of which seem to
be tampered with or missing the ones at Marlago. Who is this employee? When can we expect to see
this additional indictment next? Let's head to Washington, D.C. where a grand jury has been in
panel. This part of Special Counsel, Jack Smith's criminal investigation into Trump's 2020 election interference crimes, two big updates in that criminal investigation.
First, it's reigning Secretary of State cooperation, Secretary of State from Michigan,
Jocelyn Benson, from New Mexico, Maggie Tollos Oliver, from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
Auschwitz, and of course, we previously reported about Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Rapidsberger.
They've all met with special counsel Jack Smith's team and are cooperating, of course, against Donald Trump.
And second, we learned that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, testified before that criminal grand jury in Washington, D.C DC last month. All right, from Florida to Washington, DC,
let's head next to the great state of Arizona
where Democratic Attorney General Chris Mays
has opened up a criminal investigation
into election interference in Arizona,
a big departure from the previous
Magger Republic and Attorney General Mark Bronovich,
who covered up reports that he had commission showing that there was
no election fraud capable of overturning the election while he spread the big
live for Donald Trump. So for those keeping track right now, we've got the New
York AG who filed the $250 million civil lawsuit against Donald Trump set to go
to trial this October.
You got the Michigan Attorney General Dana Nestle who opened up a criminal investigation
into election interference into her state back in January 2023.
You've got the Arizona Attorney General has now opened up a criminal investigation.
And the Manhattan District Attorney has filed a criminal case, of course, against Donald
Trump for those 34 felony counts of falsifying business records for paying hush money
payments to an adult film actress.
But let's not forget about Fulton County District Attorney, Fony Willis.
Of course we can't forget about Fony Willis.
Let's head to the great state of Georgia to Fulton County where the grand jury hearing evidence of Donald Trump's election interference in that state
That grand jury was empaneled this week on Tuesday after a three-hour selection period a grand jury of
26 people were selected. They've started to hear evidence against Donald Trump and Trump's co-conspirators
to hear evidence against Donald Trump and Trump's co-conspirators. We expect indictments against Donald Trump and his co-conspirators anytime from the end
of this month through August.
And Donald Trump appears to be pretty terrified about the looming indictments from Fulton County
Georgia.
Donald Trump filed what may be Popak, his mostivolous, legal document yet. It's hard to believe, I'm even saying that,
that's even possible with all of the frivolous things
he's filed, but Donald Trump and his lawyers
just like made something up.
They filed something that they're calling
an original petition for Ritz of mandamus and prohibition
and they filed it directly with the Georgia Supreme
Court, like skipping all of the other courts and just like making up a name for this thing
that they're filing.
It's like knock, knock Supreme Court.
Georgia, here you go.
I'm Donald Trump.
So you have to listen to it.
Not the way it works at all.
We'll talk about whatever this thing is that he filed.
And finally, Giuliani sanctioned $90,000 for discovery abuses in the Ruby Freeman and
Shea Moss defamation case.
He's been threatened with contempt by the federal judge in that matter for his conduct.
And also, it's the footnote, Kerry Lakes lawyer sanctioned $122,000 by a federal judge in Arizona.
Popock, a big week for democracy, a big week for justice.
You can see just the buildup right here.
And look, there's going to be a lot, a lot going on over the next few weeks.
That's for sure.
Four minute, four minute intro, and I have my question, which is, how does 30% of the
Republican Party believe that Donald Trump should be elected the next president of the United
States?
Given just what you just read to start our show, I don't know.
Listen, I just to say this, I get it.
You might think you might be able to escape one or two of these things,
but run the table in five separate criminal investigations and potential indictments
or more in state and federal court all across the country while fighting off civil fraud
cases brought by other attorney generals. This ain't happening. I don't know what planet
that group that's not generally watching our show, although they should. But I just don't know what planet that group that's not generally watching our show, although they should.
But I just don't get how this is the best hope for democracy the Republicans have to offer.
You know, I was just speaking with my brothers yesterday and I said, like, what is this Republican convention going to look like?
You know, they're going to have all their speakers spreading
the hate and the culture wars. You know, you've got Trump doing what he did with all of his
business, like financially bankrupting the Republican party in all of the states, like
the Republican party is a shell of its former self. And we've covered on the Midas Touch
network, like what's going on in certain states,
also where they've basically just lost all of their money.
They have these QAnon conspiracy theorists
running the different states,
so what's that gonna look like?
Like who's his VP candidate going to be?
And you're going to see the biggest contrast
between just normalcy, real
law and order and actually trying to get things done and getting things done on the one hand
and then whatever this Trump, MAGA, Republican thing is it was on stark display and then
let's get right back into this, you know, in this FBI hearing with Christopher Ray, you've got Christopher Ray, the FBI director, someone who graduated Yale Law School, say
what you want to say about his politics.
He's someone who's imminently qualified for that position.
He's someone Donald Trump appointed in 2017.
This is a Republican.
This is someone who has identified as a conservative his whole life
And you've got these Republicans, Maga Republicans in the House of Representatives saying so you're covering for the Biden family
Aren't you and you're discriminating against conservatives and you got Christopher a this lifelong Republican this lifelong
person who's identified as a conservative saying like he says this he goes
Do you know how insane that sounds given my background? And it sounds that way because it is.
And that is part of what we cover here is the insanity confronted though by facts and evidence
and law and order. So let's get right into it. And by the way, Pope Bach, I didn't even mention
in the intro the fact that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has stayed that Trump appointed Judge
Judge Terry Dowdy's order that 155 page order that issued this injunction against the Biden administration from talking with social media companies to provide accurate information about COVID to provide accurate information about vaccines to provide accurate information about COVID, to provide accurate information,
about vaccines, to provide accurate information, about elections, and to rebut this information
that Trump appointed Judge issued an injunction preventing the Biden administration from doing
that.
And the DOJ prevailed in getting this stay from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
So that Trump appointed Judge from Louisiana Judge Terry Doudy's injunction is blocked. Let's get right into it though. Special counsel
Jack Smith filing this response brief, Donald Trump and his co-defendant Waltean Nauta
requested that trial be in some indetermined undetermined time, sometime in 2024, sometime after the November 2024 election didn't even
provide like a date just said, we can talk about trial after the November 2024 election.
Trump gave a number of excuses why he said first there's really novel and complex legal
issues here about the presidential records act to which
Jack Smith basically responded.
It's not complex.
It borders on frivolous.
What are you talking about?
This whole Clinton socks case thing that you talk about.
That isn't a real thing.
The presidential records act is not a criminal statute.
The criminal statutes are what we file.
And then Donald Trump made a number of other excuses, right?
Popochi's too busy running for office, his lawyers and Walton.
Now, those lawyers aren't available.
There's so much discovery here that they can't even handle at all.
PopoCounted Jack Smith deal with this in his response.
Well, he did it the way that we would expect it in an elegant, efficient way by telling
the court and the public that there's something wholly missing.
I mean that WHOLY, L-O-Y, not wholly, but it is wholly missing too,
from the papers filed by Donald Trump and Walton Outa. And that is any proper analysis under the one statute that matters
and the Supreme Court, another precedent that goes with it,
which is the Speedy Trial Act, the STA of 1974, is amended
in 1979, coming out of a Nixonian corruption period in American history, 18 USC 3161, and
there's a body of case law that says that the trial judge faced with a criminal defendant
in front of them, both because of the criminal defendants'
own 6th Amendment constitutional right to a speedy trial and due process, pardon me, and
a fair trial.
And the public, because the public is a stakeholder in the criminal justice system in America, it
has rights as well, that the court is supposed to be acknowledging and upholding for the integrity
of public justice.
And the public's a stake in this is to see that defendants are given a speedy trial
that they get an opportunity in a court of law in public to make their defense.
And if they're innocent, go free.
And if they're guilty, go to jail and go to prison.
And that's the public has that issue.
And Speedy Trial Act tries to balance through Congress's passage of this, to implement
the Sixth Amendment rights of people constitutionally.
Congress has made that balance already for their judges.
The first thing a judge has to do, one of the first things is set a trial date.
The judge in this case did that.
August, it was then up to the defense or the prosecution to ask for a different date.
The defense, the prosecution did.
It said, we like wear your heads at judge in August.
We get the 70 days, which is the requirement of the Speedy Trial Act from indictment, but
we think given the classified and confidential documents issue in this case and some and some other issues that we've identified for you
Not having to do with any of the doctrines that are in play not the espionage act
Which is very easy to interpret not the facts here which the government told the judge and the public are relatively
Garden variety and straightforward except the guy the guy's name on the defense sheet happens to be Donald Trump.
But the issues are not complex. We should do this in December before the new year,
and here's our proposal. The papers that were filed by Todd Blanche and Chris Keiss and Sasha Dayton,
the Fort Pierce lawyer they dragged into this case to stand in front of them,
as local, stand with them, as local counsel. It has to focus on one doctrine, and that's the one
doctrine that's barely mentioned anywhere in their filing. And that is the, it's the ends of justice continuation, that the judge can, under
the Speedy Trial Act and Supreme Court President, can grant a continuance from the date that she
originally set, which is August, if she finds that the ends of justice require it.
In other words, that it would be a manifest injustice to the defendant,
to the prosecution, and to the public to have this go at some time, you know, at the time
that she set, which is August. She already laid down that marker. What you're supposed to do
in response to that is argue for some other date, not no date, not create a thing, a doctrine that doesn't exist, which
is the presidential election period, you know, PEP, that doesn't exist, the PEP.
And let's push this out to almost 2025, judge, because why not?
You know, we can't pick a fair jury because people will be all tied up trying to figure
out if Donald Trump could win the presidency.
By the way, no.
Okay, doesn't matter who the defendant is, just as it's supposed to be blind, the Speedy
Trial Act doesn't say there's no exception for former presidents who are treasonous and
commit acts of obstruction and espionage violations.
There's no accept.
This has to apply to everyone equally, right? And so they
were supposed to argue in their papers, judge, give us an end, a ends of justice continuation
until at this other date, because no, they didn't say that. They said, no date. Let's deal
with that another time date. Well, that's not the statute. And that's the first attack
that Jack Smith made in his papers, which is basically, and I'm paraphrasing, that's not the statute. And that's the first attack that Jack Smith made in his papers, which is basically, and
I'm paraphrasing, did you fall, F and asleep during law school and they taught you about
the speedy trial act?
You're criminal, you're criminal defense lawyers.
Come on.
You know, you have to at least start with that.
And then the Supreme Court has added on to that.
And it said that a truck is we're all worried about Judge Cannon, right?
And what are the guardrails that are going to keep her on the straight and narrow and not screw
up again like she did when she tried to interfere with a criminal investigation, when it was
just at the search warrant stage and got slapped twice by her bosses at the 11th circuit.
So what is going to stop her? Well, the act itself and the case law around it, the leading
case that everybody's going to have to ultimately rely on, although it is not cited at all in the papers filed by
Donald Trump or Walten Outer is the Zedner versus United States case, ZED NER,
547 US 489 for those that are playing law school at home,
2006 case in which the court, the Supreme Court said, the judge has to make findings, oral or
in writing about why there needs to be an end of justice, continuance in the case.
And they go through factors, but that it has to be rid, the trial date setting has to
be quote, rigidly structured because that is what balances sort of an open ended ability of a trial judge
to push a case further away from where it needed to be, which is the 70 days from the original indictment.
So the buffer for that, the Supreme Court has recognized, is that there has to be
rigidity in the structure of the court setting, the trial date, that's the trigger event.
So you can't pull the trigger,
which is what they want her to do,
and not have it because that is the very thing
that controls the entire speedy trial act process.
And I just find it remarkable, Ben,
that like nowhere, except for one passing mention,
and almost at the end of the brief,
that even just say the magic words,
end of justice continuation.
That is going to be the heart of the discussion.
The list of things that they cited as grounds are all as Jack Smith and his team so put it
are not grounds at all.
This list of, well, it's going to be really hard to pick a jury.
Why?
Why?
Because people are also voters.
There's no case law to support that.
That there's a significant legal issues, as you said earlier in the opening, because
oh, we got to get to the bottom of the intersection between Presidential Records Act, a non-criminal
statute, and the Espionage Act, the criminal statute for which he's been indicted, to which
Jack Smith responded, there is no intersection. There is no then diagram in the world
where those two things intersect at all,
because one has to do with what are the records
that are considered presidential,
that he has to use as part of his job,
and what are the national defense, information,
and security documents that he took with him
and hid from the government and federal judges and obstructed justice along
the way, which we're going to talk about later in today's podcast, the various other avenues of
investigation by current grand juries who are, I mean, they are ready to pop with new indictments.
We're going to talk about them today, but it starts with, you know, this issue of there is no link. And everybody hears
it. I want everybody, and I know you do too, Ben, prepared for their conversations with
their friends and families and others about the talking points that have been given to
the MAGA president, say, presidential records act, say presidential records act, that'll
help. It doesn't help. I know it's like beetle, juice, beetle, juice, beetle, just they
think the whole thing is going to disappear. if they keep saying it over and over again. It's not going to happen. A Jack Smith is going to,
now, what we're worried about is that canon who is not strong mentally, judicially because we
saw how she interpreted things months ago at Mar-a-Lago with the search warrant. These should be fundamental
precepts and concepts that she and her
law clerks understand, but we've seen that she's been distracted by shiny object, you know,
doctrines in the past, and we know that they're going to try to mislead her. And they've
cited a couple of cases that are actually misleading. And I think Jack Smith is going to call
them out on her has already in their brief to say, oh, it's hard to pick a jury when
there's a lot of publicity out there.
We should delay things. Those are not speedy trial cases. Those are not cases that go to the ends of justice doctrine that is the fundamental part here at all. And so she is going,
even though we said on the midweek of this issue with Karen, maybe she'll be able to punt.
Now, having looked at the case law that the DOJ has cited, she has to set a deadline.
Now, one caveat to manage expectations. There is case law out there because I found it. I'm
sure you did too, Ben, it's tumbling, you know, getting ready for the show, that where end,
ends of justice continue, continuances have been granted for like three years. There's one case
in particular that went up to the Supreme Court.
It was like 1200 days of continuance were granted,
and the courts were okay with that.
So she has to set a date.
She can keep moving the date if she finds
that ends of justice on findings that she makes supports it.
But I still take comfort for the fact she said August.
Here, August, and now tell me why it's not August.
And if she's wrong, the Department of Justice, if she doesn't
set a date or sets a ridiculous date, they can then move to
the 11th Circuit and say she violated the doctor and she
violated the Zettner case, the Supreme Court precedent.
And it's too far away or she believed them hook line and sink
her and it didn't set a date and the public the public is entitled to a date.
One last thing Ben that I thought was fascinating to do in the research. When
you look at the Speedy trial act, it actually says that one of the when you
look at the congressional legislative history, it's actually not only for the
benefit of the defendant to get a fast trial so that
he can clear his name, but it's also to stop defendants who are who can commit other
crimes during a longer period of time waiting for the next trial. So I love that for Donald
Trump. Like that's another factor. Hurry up and try him on this one because if you give
him a year or more,
he'll commit other crimes.
Well, I have no confidence in Judge Eileen Cannon whatsoever, but I do have a huge amount
of confidence in special counsel, Jack Smith's team. And Jack Smith's team has forced this issue
right away to your point, Popak, if Judge Eileen Cannon makes the incorrect
ruling here to go directly to the 11 circuit court of appeal, to potentially even seek
a disqualification, to have her overturned again on another issue, which would be the third
time that she would be overturned.
I mean, look, the reason she set that August date was because
she had to. She had no choice whatsoever. Under the speedy trial act that you mentioned,
which interprets the sixth amendment, she had to actually set a date by law automatically
within that 70-day period or whatever. So that's why a date was selected right away. But it was always viewed
as a placeholder date. But Jack Smith strategically did not wait for Donald Trump's team to file their
motion for a continuance. Special counsel, Jack Smith's team, like within a very short period of time,
said, we're ready to go. Let's make it December of 2023 to really force the strung-cated
briefing schedule. So these issues would not wait and be delayed, but these issues would be
addressed immediately. And now special counsel Jack Smith and his team of the top espionage prosecutors
in the country, they're going to wait to see what Jajeleen can
and does. And that's going to indicate their next moves. As we've talked about on prior episodes,
there's been discussions about a possible superseding indictment against Donald Trump,
a potential indictment against Trump in another state like in New Jersey where bedminsters located because of course in this underlying
indictment it relates to the willful retention of national defense information, but not necessarily
the transmission of the information.
A lot of that took place in bedminster when Donald Trump was just showing strangers basically,
hey, you want to look at this classified information?
Doesn't this make me look cool?
Are and I the winner?
I mean, he actually said that.
That's not me mocking him.
He held up our classified information of our country
to strangers, basically.
And said, oh, this is gonna make me cool.
R and I better than General Millie.
So there's also mocking him too, which is good.
I'm I'm also there's also there's the tone is mock the words.
The words are true.
The words are true. But also who will special counsel jack smith indict as well in addition
Uh to Donald Trump and there was a report that a target letter was just sent to
special counsel special counsel jack smith just sent a target letter to one of Donald Trump's
employees um and I want to talk to you about who this employee
could potentially be. ABC describes the employee as someone who was familiar with the surveillance footage
at Mar-a-Lago. It could be two people in my mind, just so everybody knows the kind of time frame here.
in my mind, just so everybody knows the kind of time frame here. Back in 2022 in May, the department, this was before Jack Smith was appointed, special
counsel, Jack Smith was appointed, special counsel in November of 2022.
So in May of 2022, however, the Department of Justice after Donald Trump continued to
lie about stealing all of these records that
the Department of Justice knew that he stole.
They subpoenaed Donald Trump from a grand jury saying return the classified information,
return all of the government records that you have.
The top counterintelligence official for the Department of Justice, Jay Bratt, who's
actually the one litigating this case as well right now, for the Department of Justice, Jay Bratt, who's actually the one litigating this case,
as well right now, for the Department of Justice.
He and FBI agents show up at Mar-a-Lago
on June 3rd or June 4th, right around that of 2022.
But the day before they show up, Walt Nauta,
whose Donald Trump's co-defendant,
is moving the boxes away from the storage facility into other rooms, and he's Walt Nauta, whose Donald Trump's co-defendant, is moving the boxes away from the storage
facility into other rooms.
He's Walt Nauta is taking things at Donald Trump's request and hiding that.
How do we know that Walt Nauta was doing it?
Walt Nauta lied when he spoke to the government in May of 2022.
I don't know anything about the boxes.
I just walk around with Donald Trump.
I'm just Donald Trump's body guy. I don't know anything about the boxes. I just walk around with Donald Trump. I'm just Donald Trump's body
guy. I don't know anything about it. But what the Department of Justice did and what Jay
Bratt realized when he went to the storage facility on June 3rd of 2022 is that there was a surveillance
camera right in the hallway and he saw it when he was there. And there was some investigative work
being done. So then they immediately subpoenaed their surveillance footage, like almost as soon as
they left.
They got the surveillance footage and they saw Walt Nauta moving the records.
But they also saw Walt Nauta with another individual named Carlos D. Olivearia, the head of Mar-a-Lago's
maintenance.
So they called Carlos D. Olivearia and and say, hey, what do you know about it? And
Dioliveria basically said, I was the maintenance worker. I don't know anything about it. I
saw Walton out to moving these heavy boxes. So I just wanted to help him. That's my job
to help people move boxes and things like that. That's what I do. But I had no clue. There
was classified information in this box. But the story with Diolivaria gets a little bit more suspicious because the next month,
right around the time the Department of Justice issues the subpoena for the surveillance
footage, Carlos Diolivaria almost immediately calls Yusul Tveris, who's Yusul Tveris.
He's the head IT worker at Mar-a-Lago responsible for
the surveillance footage there.
How do we know that call was made because the Department of Justice, Sipine, is the phone
records and they sipine all of that.
So they're piecing all of this together, doing incredible investigative work here.
And so Carlos Diolavaria calls you Sulta Varris right around there.
And the Department of Justice thinks that's a very suspicious timing,
calling the guy who handles the surveillance footage
right after we subpoena the surveillance footage
when you probably realize that you're on the surveillance footage
to Trump tell you to make that call,
where you're doing that in concert with Walty Nauta,
what's going on.
And then in October of 2022, the Mar-a-Lago pool floods, and the pool flooding goes into the surveillance
footage room, and it damages the surveillance footage, cameras, and damages the room. Now,
Trump's people say that didn't affect their ability to turn over surveillance footage, but the
Department of Justice continued to subpo a surveillance footage through that time period, you know, through September or October.
So it was within the relevant time period also when there was a
Preservation request where they were not supposed to do anything that could cause damage or destruction in the room.
And again, diolivaria was like, you know, that was an accident that has nothing to do.
So it's already starting to line up the various, like how suspicious this is.
So then usal tavaris is called in
before the grand jury recently.
And I think usal tavaris in the past few months,
the head IT worker went before the grand jury
and was asked the number of questions about this as well.
But usal tavaris represented by Stanley Woodward,
who's also the lawyer of Waltean Nauta.
You see, Trump hires through his political action committees,
the same ones that pay his wife,
Melania, $155,000,
hires all of the lawyers for them.
And so they're all represented the lawyers for them. And, you know, and so they're all represented
by the same people here.
And, you know, there's a lot of suspicion taking place
whether or not they knew what they were talking about,
what their conversation was.
And so the question really is, Popak,
is it Carlos Dioliveria? Is it
useltoveris? Is it anybody else? But they're zoning in on these surveillance. I want to get
your take on who you think it can be. But first, let's take our first quick ad break of the day.
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Sorry
What you wearing
Travel Rome Welcome back. You know what I'm wearing what you wearing my travel Rome
Of course of course you wear around I like that there are different polpocchi and looks in the different in the different ads
You can really see that I
I enjoy that and you know you're giving Jordi a run for his money
Jordi I still think is our best ad reader, but I would put you as a close number two there right there
But where we last left off before the break we were talking about
Special counsel jack Smith sending a target letter to at least one other Trump employee
informing that individual that
He may be indicted
We know it is a he we know it's someone who's worked with the surveillance footage, so
we're kind of narrowing down the list on who it could be, Popeye.
Well, let me, yeah, I'm going to back into that.
Let me first say a couple of things off your reporting.
One, Walt Nauta is either going to go to jail for the amount of evidence that's against
him and or flip against Donald Trump.
He's gonna have a choice here.
He's either gonna have to flip
and he's gonna have to flip on his,
I call him the buddy and little and the skipper and little buddy.
Little buddy is gonna have to flip on the skipper
or he's gonna go to jail for a long, long time
because just the video evidence that you talked about
of 64 boxes being moved by Walt Nauda at the wrong exact times when search subpoenas were
issued, when DOJ was about to arrive, as you noted, as search warrants were about to come,
and the DOJ was trying to make a last-ditch effort to convince Donald Trump to turn the documents over.
That's why Jay Bratt and others went there before the search warrant.
They didn't want to execute the search warrant.
I know that Jordan and Maga like to talk about the weaponization of the Department of Justice.
This is the last thing they wanted to do was to have to go with FBI jackets and knock on the door
and go in there and go grab everything out.
They gave them one last chance. The problem is Walt Nauta, the maintenance worker that we're
talking about here, D'Ala Vera, and Yussel Tavares, they've got their own criminal liability and
exposure. Now, I want to unpack a couple things because you and I have talked about, you know,
in this continuum. We've talked about maintenance workers before. We are not talking about the maintenance
worker who is cooperating with the Department of Justice who has not gone into the grand jury,
but gave the Department of Justice things like photographs of the storage room at the end
of the using and the indictment. That guy is on the right side of justice and is cooperating. He
has an entirely
different set of lawyers not connected to save America, pack, not connected to Stan Woodward,
the lawyer representing both Walt Nauta and Yusil Talavera. I'm going to talk about that in a
minute because I'm not sure that's's gonna be able to go forward much longer
Because I see a conflict of interest between representing
Walt Nauta and representing
Tala Veris to Veris because I'm not sure this lawyer in a criminal justice process can represent both of them because I think they have competing interest and
Fingerpoint pointing opportunities to each other. So we will see another Save America pack,
Donald Trump funded lawyer appear,
but I'm not sure Stan Woodward is long for this world and representing both,
Walt Nouda and Tavaris.
I originally, when I heard the reporting,
but didn't really dive into it to prop with you for the podcast,
I thought, oh wait a minute,
Trump organization people dealing with video cameras,
that's Matt Kalamari, senior and junior,
the head of security, long time head of security,
and COO chief operating officer for the Trump organization.
I had forgotten that Trump puts everybody
as an employee of the Trump organization,
even maintenance workers and line cooks
and housekeepers at Mar-a-Lago
are Trump organization employees as opposed to
what normal people do in business.
They set up a new entity like Mar-a-Lago LLC
and hire people, but not Donald Trump.
Everything runs through the Trump organization.
So first I thought high level,
then I read the reporting as you did
and you did some hot takes on this,
that it was a lower level person. And then yes, from what I could see from prior reporting, even in the New York Times in March and April,
that the focus is on this unholy relationship, unholy alliance alleged between the head of maintenance,
Carlos, the aloe vera, and the IT guy, Tavarice, these two.
And why they're phoning each other, as I said before, just the wrong times.
After the DOJ saw the video, after they asked for the video to be turned over to them.
So now they know what they should have done if they're, you know, if they were smart,
but they're not, is they should have took that camera down a long time ago and just eliminated having video out there, but it was too late.
They always had video out in front of that storage unit.
And the IT head, I'm sorry, the head of maintenance, Carlos the Oliveira, who's represented by
John Irving, who's also paid by Save America Pack.
He's also the guy that put the lock on the door and all of that. So this focus on the missing closed circuit TV video security footage is a problem for these
guys.
And that's why I think you're right about who it is, especially to Paris.
And that why is there a gap?
Forget the pool flooding into the room.
That didn't create the gap. Somebody,
unless it was, you know, it would be just their bad luck if it just happens to be a legitimate
good faith computer glitch or video glitch that created the gap because what it looks like
is that somebody intentionally deleted certain video showing Walt now to moving boxes with date stamps on the bottom
at just the wrong time.
So they're, and they've now, what the target letter means to explain something we've talked
about as a concept, is that this person went from witness to subject to target in DOG vocabulary,
meaning they went from, we wanna talk to you
to you're a person of interest, you're a subject,
you were involved with something we're interested in,
to you are a potential criminal defendant,
which they have to tell them,
because of course they're trying to interact
with their lawyers, and the lawyers have a right to know
whether they're client as a target, a subject, or a witness. And now they've elevated, it looks like to various to target based on the fact that
they think he lied to the to the grand jury. And how do they figure that out? As you said, through
painstaking research and investigation techniques getting from multiple sources. For instance, they subpoena directly from the third party
video camera footage company that's not controlled
by Donald Trump per se, other than fact
that Donald Trump organization is a client
and got, like let's say, unedited material,
whatever they could get from there.
And plus, there's a whole bunch of other people
like the Good Maintenance worker who's cooperating with the Department of Justice. And he's not
the only one. We know from prior legal AFs that we've reported on then that we've talked
about in the past that other maintenance workers, housekeepers, kitchen staff have gone
in multiple times. We presume on these very issues and of course we already reported that Matt
Colomari senior and Matt Colomari junior about the video camera issue have also gone into the
grand jury. So when you piece together what we know about the known knowns and put it together
with the known unknowns of the stuff that the FBI and Jack's team are also focused on that we
don't even know about. They have concluded that the guy perjured himself and they basically, they're going to give
them, this is the deal.
You're either going to cooperate with us and stop effing around and tell us the truth.
And we know more than you do, right?
That's the informational asymmetry that the government uses in their investigations when they're
against a defendant.
We know more than you do. We are going to tell you why your defenses make absolutely no sense.
Here's document one, document six, document nine. Here's clip one, clip two, clip three. You're
going to still hold onto that story or you want us to go further, right? I've had, listen,
I have had clients
just to bring in our own practices
in the white collar criminal defense field
where they have tried at the beginning
to bamboozle the lawyers, including me,
with some cockamami made up storing
that they think is gonna hold water.
Like, let me try it out on Popoq in the team
and see if this works.
And we sit there, we're like, okay,
we nod our heads. And then at the end, when they're done with their BS, we tell them, okay,
here's what really happened. And I'm now going to pull the thread on your story. And when
we do that, you see the facial expression, which is usually some sort of, you say, okay,
we did that in two minutes. What do you think the federal government is gonna do when they get ahold of you?
Now, stop be asking your attorneys.
If you don't start telling us the truth,
you're never gonna get out of this mess.
So that is what happens,
and that is what is happening
with the Department of Justice with these witnesses.
And if Taviris doesn't cooperate,
he is going to get indicted.
We've talked about what we expect to be a superseding
amended indictment with many more counts against many more people.
If Donald Trump and Walt Now does lawyers thought
that this thing was going to stop Mar-a-Lago
with the indictment on these counts against these two people,
they are in for a rude awakening.
This is going to be a larger, more sprawling
set of indictments for Mar-a-Lago with lots of cooperating witnesses, including Mark Meadows,
who went in several weeks ago to the grand jury. Not just, I'm sure, not just to talk about
Donald Trump's clinging to power and all the ways he tried to stop the peaceful transfer,
but also at Mar-a-Lago and things related to that.
So his former chief of staff, Trump's former chief of staff and every member of his staff at Mar-a-Lago
and a Trump organization involved with this are going to testify, have testified, or are going to be
sitting next to him in the dock because they're going to be intited. A big hearing will be taking
place this upcoming week on July 18th.
The first big status conference, it's
called a SEAPA status conference under
the classified information procedures
act. The defendants do not have to
appear, but the lawyers will be there.
So Trump's lawyers will be there,
special counsel Jack Smith and special counsel, Jack Smith's team of prosecutors will be there
and will keep you updated. If ultimately a trial date is set. And if there's any other
major updates there, but heading from the criminal case filed in the Southern District of Florida
to the criminal investigations, still taking place into Donald Trump's 2020 election
interference before a Washington DC grand jury, some big
updates to report this week. Perhaps the biggest update
this week is that we learned that last month, Jared Kushner,
Donald Trump's son-in-law, and the senior advisor that nobody
in America asked for or wanted,
someone who failed to get a security clearance, someone who profited at the White House along
with Ivanka to the tune of $600 million, grifting off of the position that he was given by Donald Trump, his father-in-law, and
then left the White House after running the pardon office in the White House. Essentially
every other office in the White House, he was appointed to do by Donald Trump, pardoning
all of the criminal co-conspirators of Donald Trump for their various crimes and then took $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund.
And now we see things like the live golf tournament
run by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund
at Trump properties, its corruption,
staring us in the face, but I digress there.
And let's talk about, it's the fact that Jared Kushner
testified before the grand jury, the implications of that
it's been reported by the New York Times that the focus of a lot of the questioning was
on Jared Kushner's impressions of Donald Trump's state of mind about whether Donald Trump
truly believed there was fraud, about whether Donald Trump understood believed there was fraud about whether Donald Trump understood
that he had lost.
According to the New York Times article, Jared Kushner told the grand jury that he had
sincerely believed that Donald Trump didn't realize that he lost, which surprised me.
I guess nothing surprises me about these liars and and and
grifters, the Kushners and the Trumps. But you know, Jared, if that's true, I
mean, that's just what's being reported in the Times article. But Kushner
testified before the January 6th committee. So we saw what Kushner said there.
And Kushner said that he and Kevin McCarthy and others were telling Donald
Trump that mail-in ballots were not
fraudulent that they were allowed and permitted and it's I don't know
What what what your take is Popeok but even though the New York Times says that's what the questioning is
I don't really believe that that's what Jack Smith cared about from Jared Kushner
I think he wanted to see what Jared Kushner was going to testify to,
how Jared Kushner would present as a witness, if called by Donald Trump, kind of what you and I
would do in a civil deposition to just get a flavor of that. And also to ask Jared Kushner,
open-ended questions to see if Jared Kushner is going to lie and commit perjury. What would you
think about Jared Kushner testifying before the grand jury?
I agree with you, with a caveat.
I agree with you.
There is no way that he went into the grand jury
for several hours and the only thing that asked him
was about the mental state of Donald Trump,
whether he believed or didn't believe
that he really won or lost the election.
The reason that's sort of important is,
and you could see where we're coming here
with impending indictments is that Jack Smith is still trying
to nail down and lock down once and for all,
showing the jury, the criminal mind, the mens rea,
the corrupt intent of Donald Trump in, in clinging to power,
which is the requirement, an element of the crime, is to show that you didn't do something
with a good faith belief.
There are plenty of people though that are sitting in jail
in prisons who have tried to use that defense,
which is I have a good faith belief
that what I did was not illegal,
and therefore that destroys my criminal mind, my men's reya,
and you can't convict me.
There are men and women sitting on death row,
writing out petitions on toilet paper
that bring up that very point every day
and it doesn't work in a courtroom generally
and it doesn't work.
It's not gonna work for Donald Trump, however.
In order to anticipate, because we know from Donald Trump
this prolific social media poster,
I mean a year, he posted 12 pages in which he outlined like a trial balloons of what
his defense would be, apparently written by Evan Corcoran.
That was reported a year ago.
And one part of it was, I truly believe fraudulent, stolen from me, I was just going through
a litigation legal process because I had a good faith.
And the reason he keeps saying this mantra of good faith, good faith, didn't believe is because he's
trying to undermine that key element, that first element requirement for any crime which is corrupt
intent. I wasn't corruptly intending to do anything. I truly believe that I was the winner,
where there was fraud or dead people were voting in Arizona, or there were, you know, Chinese ballots that were
fed in through software and hardware and smart.
I believed all that.
And the problem what you do is that's a prosecutor's, you then line that up with all the things
that Donald Trump said to people that are inconsistent with that now newfound approach.
You know, right, he found religion, but before he found religion,
here's what he really told people, and they're going to do that in the opening,
because that is one of the most effective ways.
Shout out to a buddy of mine who was quoted in the New York Times article, Dan Selenco,
who's a phenomenal white collar lawyer with Crowley Maureen, and he said,
there it is on screen, he said, there it is, on the screen,
he said, words are incredibly powerful, and white collar defecase is because the defendant doesn't
testify in general. We're not going to hear from Donald Trump himself. So having the words put
in front of a grand jury, or a jury, sorry, jury gives them more importance and makes them more
consequential because that's, that is the guy testify guy testified and so what I then link that to the other part of the reporting then
that you and I are on which is that the view co-host talk about life
imitating art and art imitating who knows what Alyssa Faragriffin who was
there she is the was the communications director in the after Jan 6 so that all the relevant periods
She testified also to the grand jury at the same time. She reported I don't know if it was on the view or otherwise
She reported that she was
Surprised that she was asked a lot of questions about her testimony to the Jan 6 committee and which she told them people will may remember this
That she was told by him. She was told by him.
This is back to Dan Zalenko's words that I can't believe I lost to this F and guy. And
I'm being polite, meaning Joe Biden. And she said to the Jan 6th committee that she
doesn't think that's going to criminally bring Donald Trump down. Now, of course, that
was a long time ago. I have a lot of evidence to go, but she said, I don't think it'll criminally bring him down,
but it does inform the public.
This is her words to the J.
Sixth Committee about a man who lost and was not going to allow the peaceful
transfer of power.
If she thought she was helping him, I'm not sure that really helped him.
And if she testified to that and other things
at the same grand jury that Jared Kushner testified to,
then I suspect that one, at least one,
topic among a dozen or more,
asked if Jared Kushner was to repeat
or to drill down on his testimony
to also to the Jan 6th committee,
which was I, and this is, this is, this is what we got at a
Kushner back in Jan 6th, that, um, that, that Trump believed, believed that the election was stolen from
him. It's not that Kushner believed that Trump believed. It's that he testified that he at least
believed, or he at least thought the Trump believed,
I guess I am saying that, committed,
that thought the election was stolen.
And that he looks like, if he sticks in on that,
now that was to Jan 6,
which really didn't overly cross examine him,
at least from what we could see
from the video clips at the time.
Grand jury, now a year and a half, a year later,
a lot more evidence developed
to put in front of Jared Kushner. You know, what about this statement? What about a wonky statement?
What about the other comments he made about the lost election? And then you marry it up then
into our audience with all the other evidence, which is inconsistent with a person who believes in
good faith that the election was stolen from him. For instance, he went out and hired
not one but two separate consulting firms, right? To go out and look out all independently,
all of the quote unquote fraud in the election in all the battleground states, all seven battleground
states, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and so on. And both of them independently,
after he spent millions of dollars
through Save America Pack to buy this information,
told both the campaign and Donald Trump and Meadows in the White House
that there was no fraud.
There were no dead people voting.
There were no people voting out of district or precinct.
There were no fraudulent ballots being fed into machines,
flipping votes or, or software flipping
votes from Biden to Trump. None of this was true. That was told to them in late December,
mid to late December. So he could not, and this is what the jury is going to be told, you
can't bury your head in the sand. It's called willful blindness. You can't cover your ears
and your eyes to
independent facts and information that are being provided to you, that are counter to your belief because that makes your belief not good faith held. And if your belief is not good faith
held, then the prosecutor can prove corrupt intent. So putting that reporting together,
I think Jared among a lot of other things
as you rightly identified,
including let's find out what Jared is like as a witness.
But combined with a list of Farah Griffin,
I guess it was pretty public about it,
on the view or other places,
I think the real takeaway for the audience here today
with us tonight with us is that we're at the last thing that
I think that the prosecutors are trying to prove to anticipate the good faith defense of Donald
Trump to try to eliminate his criminal mind. And that's the last of this testimony, which will
I guess roll out through July and fits in spurts. But then, I want to ask your opinion.
Fannie Willis, we're going to talk about later in the podcast.
Fannie Willis has already announced her indictment season
and the week it's going to be for the unceiling
of the indictment, assuming this jury that starts on
grand jury, that starts on Tuesday with 26 Fultonians
looking at evidence related to him.
Jack Smith knowing, we're all, everybody has has eyes and ears knowing what's going on with
Fony Willis.
For all we know, his office has called her office to get a little bit of a love between
prosecutors.
Do you think he, he indicts and there's a pressure on him to indict before Fony Willis
indicts?
No, he doesn't care.
The feds, the friendship between the feds and state is state.
Great. You want to share her information with us.
Where the feds, we take priority over you.
And that's just the mentality of federal prosecutors in general.
So ultimately, all of the state cases would give way to the federal case and
that's the position that Jack Smith and the Department of Justice are going to take. I mean
he may be curious just in the sense that they don't fall on literally the exact same day.
So that would be somewhat problematic. But so there may be some coordination there. But
Jack Smith is going to say I've got priority here.
Yeah, I agree with you, especially since Fawney, Fawney's, it's been announced that her
investigation, and I think rightly so, has expanded beyond Georgia to look at the other
battleground states, because Georgia was one piece in a puzzle, and the puzzle was running
the table for Donald Trump, because he didn't have to flip just Georgia.
Yes, he was trying to interfere and find 11,758 votes,
but he was trying to find 10,000 votes in Arizona
and whatever votes in Michigan
and whatever votes in Pennsylvania
because in order to beat Joe Biden
who won by 7 million votes and a lot of electoral votes,
he needed not just one Georgia, he needed five or six Georgia's.
So hers is very sprawling, could be very sprawling, but I pardon me, but I don't think that
Jack Smith, for instance, is going to Bigfoot, Alvin Bragg in New York for the sort of unrelated
Stormy Daniels cover up Hush Money Affair, which is on track for a state court, not federal, state court trial in March of 2023,
sorry, 2024 in New York.
I haven't gotten any reporting or sense,
especially from Karen, who's our colleague,
who was in that office,
that there's gonna be a delay in that case
because of Jack Smith.
Yeah, she led that office.
Also, and worked with special counsel, Jack Smith,
when he was in that office as well.
Also special counsel Jack Smith in connection with his criminal investigation into Trump's election interference has been meeting with the Secretary of States or in the case of Pennsylvania,
the Secretary of the Commonwealth. Those meetings seemed to be taking place. This past March is when
they really started. You may recall early
January of 2023, the attorney general of Michigan, Dana Nesl, was like, when are they going
to talk to us here? We've got a lot of information about the fake electors games and election
interference in Michigan. Turns out that those conversations took place in March and were
then kind of continuous communication. So Jococelyn Benson the Secretary of State from Michigan spoke with special counsel Jack Smith
Maggi Oliver the Secretary of State from New Mexico
The from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Auschwitz who by the way is a Republican
You may also recall that he was the former Philadelphia city commissioner who was the recipient
of all of these death threats from Republicans.
He gave that very compelling testimony before the January 6th committee about his life and
his kids and his wife's life being threatened by all of these Trump supporters who came up
with these deranged conspiracies that 8,000 dead people voted, which was just completely
false. And just an interesting point there, that governor Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania appointed Al Schmidt, the Republican Philadelphia City
Commissioner to become the Secretary of the Commonwealth.
But he spoke with special counsel, Jack Smith.
And of course, we previously reported how Brad Raffin's burger also like Al Schmidt, a Republican, test spoke with special counsel, Jack Smith. And of course, we previously reported how Brad Raff and Spurger also like
Al Schmidt, a Republican, test spoke with special counsel, Jack Smith. So when you think about
presenting a compelling case, you're going to have the secretary of states, like some of
the top political leaders in the states on a bipartisan basis, not just talking about
the election interference in their state,
the threats that they receive from Donald Trump and Trump as aides to the state, but also
directed at them personally and how it impacted their personal family lives and how they were
the subject to these death threats.
So it gives it that extra personal touch as well.
And again, elections matter, elections have consequences.
There was all of these election deniers
who were running, unfortunately,
mostly all of the election deniers lost to 2022
because there'd be a very different situation
in Arizona than there is right now
where you have pro-democracy
secretary of state and Adrian Fontes by the way I should have mentioned that
Adrian Fontes I don't believe has spoken directly with special counsel
Jackson Smith because he wasn't directly involved in any of the threats by
Donald Trump at that time he wasn't in that position but Adrian Fontes from
Arizona Secretary of State was providing documents and information,
just about the Council, Jackson Smith.
But just think about the state of Arizona,
how that would have looked if you had like,
carry lake, and you had all those election deniers
and all those positions.
But you've got pro-democracy people in Arizona right now,
and that includes the attorney general, Chris Mays,
and major, major difference
right here between Bronovitch. I want to talk about that, but first let's take another
quick break.
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Welcome back to Legal AF where we last left off. We're
talking about Arizona attorney general Chris Mays initiating a criminal investigation into
election interference, a massive shift from her predecessor, the MAGA Republican Mark Bronovich. Tell us about that, Popo.
Yeah, we just did, I just did actually a hot take on it.
And note to the audience, we're doing playlists,
the lists each of the hot takes that Ben, me, Karen,
and the other content providers are doing separately.
You can find it there.
And you'll find one I just did on this,
but let's talk about it.
Chris Mays, who I like a lot lot not just because she converted from being a Republican to being a
Democrat and ran in one the Attorney General Office in Arizona sweeping into power in Arizona as a
result of all of the MAGA right-wing policies and election denying events, a whole group of people into leadership positions
in Arizona government who are pro-democracy. And Chris is one of them. As you said, Mark
Bronovitch, the predecessor to Chris who ran an unsuccessful campaign for US Senate, thank
God, it was determined by Attorney General Maze when she took office that Mark Branovic had buried a report that
had shown that the Arizona election process as an integrity was intact, that there was no
voter fraud.
He actually buried that report, should have revealed it to the people of Arizona, and instead
he told the exact opposite that he had
graved doubts about the election
process. Because that was the
talking point that Maga and Donald
Trump needed him to say and he was a
puppet. Unfortunately, he lost and
when Attorney General Mays got in,
just like Carrie Hobbs, the former
Secretary of State, a pro-democracy
who became governor
and beat Carrie Lake.
As you mentioned, she released the report that was prepared at Mark Bonavitch or Prenet
Sessers' behest and showed that the Arizona election process integrity was intact.
But she's doing one better now.
She's decided from a purely Arizona top prosecutor perspective that it's not
enough just to give off and refer matters over to Jack Smith and Marik Garland originally
the Department of Justice, which is what the attorney generals of, as you mentioned,
a lot of them in your rundown to this Michigan, New Mexico, and Wisconsin did in saying,
here's referrals, here's fake electors, that fake
electors scheme that happened in our state. You take it,
feds take it.
Chris May's Attorney General May is taking a different
tact. Her tact is these are purely also our
zoning type issues to give the public confidence in the election process, and we
can't ever let it happen again.
And here in the way you don't let it happen again, is that you investigate potential crime
in the election process, even if that leads you to former President Donald Trump, Rudy
Giuliani and others, especially if it does.
And so she, we heard in May that she had opened the investigation, but it sort of disappeared.
But now there's new reporting in an update, including from her chief of staff, that the
Attorney General's office is deep in a fact-gathering phase related to Donald Trump's attempted
interference with the Arizona election.
Now we already know from other reporting coming out of Jack Smith's prosecution that Rusty
Bowers, the speaker of the House of Arizona, has gone in and talked to the Department of Justice,
and I'm sure we'll talk to Chris Mays' office about the phone calls he received from Rudy
Giuliani and Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump trying to get him to both interfere with the election,
and Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump trying to get him to both interfere with the election, set up fake electors, not recognize the legitimate electors of Arizona, and somehow stop the
peaceful transfer of power to which now former Secretary of State, Speaker of the House
Rusty Bauer said, I have a constitutional, I took an oath to the US Constitution, I cannot
do that, and I will not do that.
He'll testify. So Giuliani has a big problem, we'll talk about him later in the podcast about his
other series of big problems. You know, it seems like every week we're either talking about him having
his bar license, yanked, paying a fine, being subject to a default judgment for bad conduct and misconduct or being a target of and trying
at the very last moment to avoid his own indictment at the hands of Jack Smith, which I think
will be unsuccessful, unless he really flips, stops screwing around, as I said earlier in
the podcast, and starts telling the Department of Justice what they want to hear without any editing, without any
holdback, without any self-defeating comments or any kind of deception on the behalf of
Giuliani.
And so Maze is focused on that.
She's got a dozen fake electors.
She's got parts of her own, the state's Republican apparatus that has, that participated in the
fake electors scheme that are going to be part of her investigation.
I like the fact that she's, she's really the only attorney general that's currently
conducting her own criminal investigation.
She's also reached out, apparently, according to reporting, to both Fawney Willis' office
who we know has reached into Arizona in her own investigation,
and Jack Smith's office. We don't know the result of that, but we're back to the prosecutors and
attorney generals talking to each other for democracy and justice, and then sorting out,
right? How all these planes are going to land. But whatever our reporting is, because I've seen
some people in the chat, and in the chats in prior podcast that have said, I'm getting, I'm getting defeatist.
I feel like, you know, the more we talk about it, no, nothing's going to happen.
That should not be the takeaway from the podcast like you and I are doing this weekend or
during the midweek.
That's like the opposite lesson.
Everything is opposite.
But people are saying, and I know if you've caught it in your chats on the, on the brothers
podcast, they're on our own. People are saying, and I know you've caught it in your chats on the on the brothers podcast, they're on our own.
People are saying, POP, give me hope.
This is hope.
Everything we're talking about is another pin pinning down Donald Trump.
These are indictments we're talking about.
We're now you may people may be frustrated with the pace of the criminal justice system,
but these things are going faster than probably any case
you and I have ever been involved with in our own practice
in terms of criminal cases at this complexity
or this type of notoriety going to trial.
Jack Smith has been in his office,
is it less than a year?
I mean, and what he has already accomplished
and will through the hot indictment
summer continue to accomplish have absolutely and absolutely look you've got the department
of justice even doing things like where an Obama appointee judge Amit Maita sentence, the
leader of the Oathkeeper Stewart words to 18 years, which is a pretty stiff sentence, but
the Department of Justice
was asking for 25.
Merrick Garland leading the Department of Justice appealed that, just appealed that this
past week to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, that and seven other of the Oathkeepers who
got serious sentences, but the Department of Justice said, no, they got to serve the
max and we are going to appeal it
So you've got an aggressive department of justice doing everything that they can
And really making sure that law and order prevails in these cases involving insurrectionists and those who try to undermine our
democracy this is going to be looked back on as one of the most, if not the most significant, most
impressive coordinated by the DOJ effort across all different divisions and departments within
the DOJ to ensure democracy prevails.
But let's go and talk about what's going on in Fulton County, Georgia, where the Grand
jury there was in panel this week. This is the Grand jury that is ultimately
going to be voting on the indictment of Donald Trump. This is the fourth
term of the Fulton County Superior Court. There's different terms where Grand
Juries are selected. They don't just hear one case, grand juries often hear lots
of cases, although it's possible.
This specific grand jury given the weight
of what this case is may only be hearing this one.
I don't know specifically the, you know,
grand jury proceedings are shrouded in secrecy,
but also often a grand jury hears lots of different cases
at a time.
There were two separate grand juries
that were selected in this term. One is hearing the Trump case. The other is going to be
hearing other cases. And the one hearing the Trump case, as I said, may still actually
be hearing other cases as well. Just sometimes people ask, well, what is a grand jury? You
get a letter that says you got show up to jury duty You show up their selection the same way you'd be selected if you've sat on a civil jury or a criminal jury before you get selected for it in
Fulton County, Georgia. There's 26 grand jurors
Three of those are alternates 23 are actually the sitting
Grand jurors with plus three alternates equals 26 there has to be 16 grand jurors present to have a vote on an indictment and it takes 12 grand jurors to vote for the indictment for the indictment to actually be officially voted on an issue. the quorum, you'll recall that over the in the past there was a special purpose
grand jury that has a different function in Georgia. It's a unique process
within Georgia, a special purpose grand jury. Fulton County District Attorney
Fony Willis did not have to use a special purpose grand jury. She could have
just went to a grand jury, but she elected to go to a special
purpose grand jury, which is like a criminal investigatory grand jury where she presents
all of this evidence. There's like 75 witnesses that testified. Lots of documents are shown
to the grand jury. That grand jury prepared a report and recommendations. Most of that remains
still under sealed. Small portions were unsealed, but you really can't get any sense of the recommendations of who was
indicted. Although we could infer that Donald Trump was one of the individuals
who was recommended for indictment as well as Donald Trump's inner circle. But
you can't say that for certainty. And that's going to be important in a minute
where I talk about what Donald Trump filed before the Supreme
Court of Georgia, skipping all of the other courts in Georgia and filing this made up motion
that doesn't exist before.
Now before the grand jury that's in panel, Fannie Willis, Fulton County, D.A., she can
show that grand jury the report that was prepared by the special purpose grand jury and say,
hey, here's a report that they made in Dite.
We're not going to show you other witnesses.
Fulton County District Attorney doesn't have to show the report
and recommendations at all.
Just she could redo the whole process with the grand jury
and just be informed by who are the key people.
Or what I think is going to happen,
if Fawney Willis will do a hybrid,
will show the report and show witness transcripts
and give the new grand jury all of the information
and then maybe call additional witnesses
who are some of these additional witnesses.
We've reported that a lot of these so-called fake electors
who have affixed their names to fraudulent electoral
certificates to be sent to Pence
to be counted on January 6th. Many of them are now cooperating and have been offered immunity deal
So I think we're gonna see their testimony whereas they didn't testify before the special purpose grand jury
And in terms of the crimes in Fulton County, Georgia
We're talking about the fake electors signing their names to fraudulent electoral certificates for Trump
these mega Republican loyalists to Trump who met and submitted their names as signatures
saying that Trump won.
There is theft of election data at the coffee county, Georgia election offices where
a MAGA Republican let in Trump hired forensic people, and they basically stole election data
from the coffee county election offices.
I mean, they were let in by the Magga Republican,
hey, come in, take the data,
and then they manipulated the data,
but that's totally illegal.
And then also the threats taking place
to people like Brad Raffinsberger,
the Republican Secretary of State,
find me 11,780 votes or else.
And I think we may see other potential crimes relating
to money laundering and other financial crimes, campaign finance, type crimes and things like
that. And I think ultimately the framework within which a phonywillis will file these charges
will be re-co-charges, charging this widespread conspiracy all the way up to
the top when it comes to Donald Trump.
So the grand juries now in panel, grand jury will be hearing evidence what is Donald Trump's
response, Donald Trump files in the Supreme Court of Georgia, something called an original
petition for Ritz of mandamus and prohibition.
It's 36 pages. If you just even go to the motion that was filed or this petition
that was filed by Trump, it even explains that it says petitioner has identified no case
in 40 years where the court has accepted jurisdiction of an original petition. By original petition, it means that it's just being filed directly with the Supreme Court.
It's not being filed like the normal process as it goes through the trial court and then
an intermediate appeals court.
And then finally up to the Supreme Court, if the Supreme Court wants to take the case
and they have no obligation to.
So just so you understand how ridiculous and frivolous this is,
this would just be like any one of us,
just like annoyed at something,
like going to your local,
I mean, going to the Supreme Court,
just driving with your family
and just handing them a letter and saying,
hey, Supreme Court, I think I'm a very important person
and I want you just to ignore all jurisprudence
and please help me out.
Can you do me a favor, George is a Supreme Court?
That's why I said this is probably the most frivolous motion that he's filed.
Then basically what Trump's asking for in this Supreme Court filing, this made up petition
that he's bringing in, is the usual Donald Trump stuff.
He wants the prosecutors bias, the judges bias, the special purpose grand jury was bias.
So you have to remove all of that, remove the special purpose grand jury report.
By the way, as I said before, Donald Trump doesn't even know what's in the report.
It's under seal.
And it's just recommendations.
It doesn't have to be
filed followed by the grand jury at all. So I mean, it's not even an
actionable issue on that basis. But then Donald Trump also says,
Fannie Willis is biased, judge Mick Byrdny, that presiding judge over the
grand jury is biased. So just remove everybody, get rid of all of the judges.
It's the typical Donald Trump stuff right there.
Donald Trump filed a similar type of motion
that's still pending before Judge McBernie
to disqualify himself, to disqualify Voney Willis
and to quash the special purpose grand jury report,
which hasn't been ruled on yet.
And Donald Trump also uses that as an example to say, look, they're biased against me.
Judge McBurney didn't respond to the massive amounts of paper that I filed with random
arguments that make no sense immediately.
And so therefore, I'm being treated unfairly.
It's just the typical Donald Trump whining stuff.
And Popeye, I know I hit a lot of it there, but anything you want to add.
Hot Take by Ben Myselis here on the middle of Legal AF.
Yeah, let me see what I can do.
So Drew Findling, who's the hashtag billion dollar lawyer, represents people like you
might have heard of Gucci, Maine, and TI represents Donald Trump here.
He's been trying to get publicity to try to cast shade on this prosecution from almost the beginning.
His co-counsel is Jennifer Little.
You may recall, Jennifer Little has her own Jack Smith problem because she's been brought into the grand jury.
The federal grand jury, led by Jack Smith,
and his team, related to, we're not sure exactly what,
but it could either be Mar-a-Lago,
Jan Sixth interference and or cleaning power.
But, you know, this is typical make attorneys,
get attorneys, Jennifer Little, how to testify.
She used to be a state prosecutor,
she infindling her node for sort of bare knuckle brawling
kind of cases.
We usually take whatever they file with a grain of salt.
They're not happy that they filed a very similar motion.
It's called a motion to quash or a quashal motion with Judge McBernie, who was then the
chief judge and is now just a regular old Fulton County judge who supervises that particular special purpose grand jury actually swore in the new 26 person
regular grand jury although he's not going to be presiding over that grand jury. There will be,
we'll find out on Tuesday when that grand jury actually rolls up its shirt sleeves and gets to work
concerning the presentation of evidence by Fawni Willis, Fawni having introduced herself and her team to these two
grand juries. One, as you said, we'll be handling all the regular crime that happens in Fulton County, you know, and whatever happens. And then the one that's dedicated twice a week to listening to evidence
for Donald Trump. As you said, the
for Donald Trump. As you said, the unique to Georgia,
there's some other states that allow it.
New York doesn't.
Fonney's allowed to bring in,
Fonney well is allowed to bring in with her team.
Here's say evidence, meaning she can read,
she can take comments that were made somewhere else,
even if they were under oath,
like the 75 witnesses who testified
in the original, in the original special purpose,
not inditing
advisory grand jury. That's a mouthful. And she can do all that and bring that in without
having to bring those live witnesses in. But as you said, then, to kind of mix it up and not
board a death to grand jury with having somebody from her office reading question,
did you, did you take a fake electric certificate and put your stamp on it and send it in?
Answer.
Yes.
I mean, this could really, it's mind numbing.
And I've been involved, of course, you have to and with trials, and what you read, you
have to, you have to retranscripts of testimony.
And jury's usually check out at that moment and you don't want that to happen.
So she'll mix it up with this presentation.
Drew Finling and Jennifer Little have hated that process. It's the very beginning. And in March, sorry, yeah,
March, they filed with Judge McBerney at the same motion. The motion to quash the special purpose
grand jury to get rid of Farnie Willis because she participated in a fundraiser for an opponent, and you know, she's a Democrat or whatever.
They're all, they're all, news flash,
all, all, district attorneys,
and prosecutors, and DAs, and whatever,
state attorneys are party people.
They're voted in by people,
they're elected officials, they're elected officials,
and they represent one party or the other, newsflash.
Okay, doesn't make them bias or grounds to have them removed.
I found it fascinating that little and fendling felt
they had to tell the Georgia Supreme Court,
which is nine members all appointed
by one Republican governor or another in Georgia.
They were either appointed five of them were four of them were appointed by Governor Deal.
Four of them were appointed by Governor Kemp, the current governor, and one was an election,
but he's also Republican. So nine Republicans, it's split, male and female.
So, you know, I guess they think, Republicans, it's split male and female.
So, you know, I guess they think,
well, that's a good audience for whatever we're gonna file.
But even fendling in little in their own papers
Ben and the first paragraph said that in doing their research,
the petitioner, which is Donald Trump,
has identified absolutely no cases in 40 years
under Georgia Supreme Court precedent where the Georgia
Supreme Court has accepted jurisdiction of an original petition like the one we're submitting
now.
So we hint hint we know it's a long shot.
I mean, that was in the first paragraph because they couldn't cite a case that supported
them skipping McBerney and go and waiting for his ultimate ruling, which
he has not done yet, and going right now while or at the moment that a grand jury is
empaneled before hearing evidence, before an indictment, and have the Supreme Court
step in and go, yeah, we don't like the way this looks.
Stop the investigation, which is what a grand jury does.
They're not going to do that. Even I mean, I could be wrong in this nine group, whoever the panel is for this, I guess
it may be the whole Supreme Court, but they have no jurisprudence, no precedent, and
it's acknowledged by Trump to support them jumping in now, before as an original petition
and a motion to quash,
rid of man, daimas, pro-abition to stop all these things,
throw out, fawny, throw out the special purpose
grandjuries, work for seven months, don't let them use it,
it's tainted in some way, start all over again on Tuesday
with a new prosecutor, this is not happening.
And they're upset because McBernney's been sitting on this thing,
sitting in their view since March,
and the regular grand jury starts on Tuesday.
So they actually said that they're stuck
between a rock and a hard place,
or as they refer to it.
So eloquently, there's stuck between a supervising judges,
protracted passivity, and the looming grand jury and possible indictment.
Look, if they got a problem with process, there is a place for them.
It's once the if and when an indictment happens, if they get an indict, if there's an indictment
against Donald Trump and others, which we all, which we all expect, then that's assigned
to a criminal judge in Georgia and he can move Donald
Trump to dismiss the indictment because of all of these procedural or other constitutional BS
things that he's claiming. But not now. This is exactly the equivalent to keep our lesson plan
straight of what Donald Trump tried to do in Mar-a-Lago before he was indicted
when they went to Judge Cannon and asked her to eat, and it was illegal that they did
this and the Levin Circuit told her this, to interfere with the ongoing criminal prosecution,
sorry, investigation before indictment and stop a search warrant.
It's the exact same thing.
This is not the role of judges.
The grand jury has a role.
You let it play out.
And if there were errors,
it's somewhere in that process through appeal
in motion practice, it is addressed,
but not pre-indipement.
Because first of all, there is a chance,
although I don't think so, and neither do you, Ben,
that the regular jury,
the regular indicting jury doesn't indict.
And then why are we stopping a grand jury from doing its work?
That's going to be a loser.
This is another press release for Donald Trump
to be able to say his act of lawyer has done something
on his behalf.
Tuesday, that grand jury is meeting.
It's not going to be enjoyed.
I don't think by the Supreme Court of Georgia, and they're going to do their job over the
next several months or the next several weeks to reach an indictment stage.
Absolutely.
And the key thing is there is a process for these things.
You know, Donald Trump in keeping with his nihilistic, destructive nature just wants to destroy
all of the process. To your point,
it's not to say Donald Trump doesn't have a remedy, but all of these arguments that he wants to make,
he can make him the way it happens is an indictment would issue. And then he can say there's
prosecutorial misconduct. There was a tainted special purpose grand jury process. File all of those
motions that you want to file and a judge will hear it. And if you win, you win. If you
lose, you lose, you go on, you go before a jury, you make regularly gal arguments. But
Donald Trump knows that he's guilty. He knows that he did it. This is what a desperate criminal does, right? And that's what we're seeing,
a desperate criminal lashing out. He's funded by all of these packs that he runs, that again, he gives
the most recent one we learned that Milani had got $155,000 for in December of 2021, you know, and he pays these lawyers whatever from the money
he grips off of his followers.
And he files all these frivolous motions, and he's been sanctioned consistently.
And federal judges have called him out for it, using PAC money to engage in this abusive
process of our judicial system.
That is what he does.
He's an abuser in everything he does in life.
And speaking about abusing process,
in a Rudy Giuliani, just sanctioned close to $90,000
for his discovery abuses in a defamation case brought
by Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss in Federal Court in Washington,
DC.
My only complaint about the sanction order
is Judge Barrel Howell, the judge who presides over
that defamation case brought by those former
Georgia election workers.
She writes her minute orders in like point two font
and it's really hard to read it.
And so I need a magnifying glass to read it.
But I've read it, I brought out the magnifying glass. It basically
said that over the course of a year, Rudy Giuliani was lying to the court and lying to the plaintiffs
counsel about turning over documents. Giuliani made every excuse. It's clear that he didn't search
the devices and didn't turn over the documents. He was supposed to turn over. He's lied consistently, and therefore,
the only appropriate remedy is this $90,000
a sanction amount, including, by the way,
Rudy Giuliani claimed that he was going to try to resolve
the sanction amount and then fail to resolve
the sanction amount.
So the judge just stepped in and said, okay,
I'm just gonna look at what the plaintiffs request is, $90,000. Juliani, you're here by sanction, $90,000. And in that very
small font order, pull it up one more time, salty. Again, I just get a kick out of reading it.
The judge threatened Juliani with serious additional sanctions, including contempt and a default judgment to your point,
Popock.
Last week, we talked about how Rudy Giuliani
was recommended for disbarment in the state
and rather Washington, D.C.
He had previously been suspended in the state of New York.
So Giuliani is in the find out stage.
And with the sanctions to Rudy Giuliani, we also learn
about sanctions to carry lakes, lawyers carry lake filed a frivolous federal law, a ton of
all our lawsuits are frivolous. A frivolous federal lawsuit, though, back in April of
2022, challenging the Arizona voting procedures, claiming that Arizona only has electronic voting, even though it has
electronic with paper backups, and she claimed that they were susceptible to hacking.
She sued all of these election officials, including Maricopa County Board of Supervisors
Republicans.
Federal Judge said, it's just patently false these allegations.
She lost that case back over the summer and August, I think the motion to dismiss was
granted.
These sanctions were rule 11 sanctions were granted about nine months ago, but what's taken
so much time before the amount was affixed is that Alan Dershowitz was one of her lawyers, but he was represented
as even though he did what's called prohawk VJ. He went into the case. It was listed as
of council. So Dershowitz for all of his going on these right wing media networks like spreading
these big lies about the election. He claimed that he was actually not her lawyer, even though his name was on
the filings.
And he said he was just serving as a consultant.
And so he was saying the other lawyer should be sanctioned, but not him, such a typical
bag of thing to do, blame all the other lawyers.
And ultimately, the federal judge said, look, we're sanctioning the lawyers 122,000.
You're saying Dershowitz that you were just a consultant and didn't do much, but we're
going to sanction you 10% of the overall sanction.
So you got to pay 12,000.
Totally, the lawyers are responsible for 122,000.
So, I think every week we're seeing, again, the find-out stage for all of these MAGA Republicans. And our court system has been stress tested.
Our democracy has been stress tested.
Our constitution has been stress tested.
It continues to be stress tested with the right wing
Supreme Court, with federal judges like Judge Dowdy.
We'll see what Eileen Cannon's going to do in the Southern District of Florida.
But some of these other Trump appointee appointed judges.
It's why elections matter.
And it's why it's so important that we talk about all of this legal
news together to arm each other with the tools to have these
conversations with family, friends, co-workers, colleagues,
neighbors, whoever is in your orbit.
Here's the truth.
Here's the evidence.
Here's the facts.
Here's the legal filings.
And that should inform everybody how important our democracy is, how important real law and
order is.
And that's why it's just so important you know, it's so important. This community
right here on Unleagalaf. It's why Michael Popak and I love doing these shows. We don't
look at the clock, whether this is an hour show or an hour and 40 show or whatever. We
love spending this time with all of you. And we are so grateful for this community. And one of the ways you can help grow this independent media network, this media community,
you've all seen the emojis.
And so one of the things you can do is click that dollar sign on the bottom of the YouTube
channel and become a member of our YouTube channel, the Midas Touch Network YouTube channel.
If you're already a member, you can buy memberships for other people. If we hit, I think Johnny said, Johnny
want, Johnny is going to get mad at me if I don't say this. If we hit 100 new memberships,
we will get a new emoji, at least of the brothers. We have the Popok emoji. We will get a new emoji of the brothers.
When we hit 250 new memberships,
we will make sure we get that Karen Friedman
and Nifalo emoji and know everybody wants the Karen emoji.
I could substitute the order of it's okay.
Karen can go with the 100, we could go with the 250,
however we want to do it.
But if we had 250 memberships,
you'll get both Karen and brother emojis coming soon. So get it, get a membership, gift memberships and
no worries if you can't. The best thing you can do is just spread the word about our
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Audio listeners subscribe on YouTube, YouTube watchers subscribe on audio
it's free to subscribe on audio also go to store.mitustouch.com for the best
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So check that out. And again, thank you everybody for watching. We are so grateful for you. None of
this is possible without you. And Popak, as always, love spending the weekend geeking out on the
law with you and the Midas Mighty and the Legal A.F.R. So thank you all so much
and Popeyes any final words before we go?
Nope, I think let's make it a wrap.
Alright, shout out to the Midas Mighty.