Legal AF by MeidasTouch - NEW Trump INDICTMENTS Loom and NEW Trump Trial STARTS
Episode Date: April 23, 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 week’s edition, the anchors discuss: the resolution of the Manhattan DA’s NY Federal injunction suit and appeal against Jim Jordan and his congressional committees and the plans for former prosecutor Mark Pomerantz to testify in May; the appearance just 72 hours before trial of a new trial lawyer for Donald Trump to defend him in the NY Federal civil rape and defamation trial brought by E. Jean Carroll that picks a jury on Monday; Jack Smith and his team interviewing Trump’s lead attorney Boris Epshteyn who was a leader of the fake elector scheme and in the Trump “command center” on January 6th at the Willard Hotel; Fani Willis gearing up to present her criminal case against Trump, the Georgia Fake Electors, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani and others to the regular Fulton County Grand Jury in May, and the Supreme Court allowing, for now, women to have access to abortion pills in states that allow abortions, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! MIRACLE MADE: Head to https://TRYMIRACLE.COM/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF HENSON SHAVING: Visit https://HensonShaving.com/LEGALAF to pick the razor for you and use code LEGALAF for 2 years worth of free blades! AG1: Head to https://athleticgreens.com/LEGALAF to get a FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D and 5 FREE Travel Packs with your first purchase! SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
A federal district court order an appeal and a settlement in the Manhattan District
Attorney's lawsuit against Magga Republican Jim Jordan and the Republican controlled
Judiciary Committee over Jim Jordan's interference with the Manhattan District Attorney's criminal
case against Donald Trump.
All of this happened in one week.
We will break down what took place.
Special counsel, Jack Smith interviewed Trump's lawyer,
Boris Epstein, for two days.
And Jack Smith himself was present for the interview
on at least one of those days.
This has more evidence emerges of Trump's direct
role in having operatives breach local election offices to steal election data after the
2020 election.
Down in Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney, Fawni Willis filed a motion to disqualify a lawyer representing 10 of the fake electors
who could all be criminally indicted for their role in the 2020 election interference on behalf
of Donald Trump.
But even more fascinating than the relief being sought in the motion itself is some of the
new facts that we've seen in this motion as it highlights that
Fonney Willis is getting some of these fake electors to flip on each other and things are
heating up as the grand jury is set to be in paneled in May. Let's discuss what's going on there.
E. Jean Carroll's civil trial against Donald Trump in a New York federal courthouse for rape and defamation
is set to start next week on April 25. Donald Trump's lawyers are flailing the federal judge
presiding over the case continues to reject the bizarre letter briefs and requests being made
by Trump's lawyers. And a new lawyer has joined Donald Trump's legal team there
as Joe Takapina was clearly not ready for prime time. Will Donald Trump even show up for this trial?
I don't think so, but I get your take on that, Popak, and a win for common sense and decency
and the right of a woman to control their bodies.
The Supreme Court stayed or paused the ruling by the Texas Trump appointed federal judge
in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that could have banned the FDA approval of Mifapristone.
This stay order by the United States Supreme Court will be in effect at least through
the appeals process takes place in the fifth circuit
court of appeals and potentially if the supreme court then hears argument on certiary
there after depending on how the fifth circuit court of appeals rules.
But what the ruling means in the short term is that Mipapristone remains approved and
accessible.
Michael Popak, this is legal AF.
How are you doing? I'm doing great, Ben. You
know, I read all the papers. It's hard to believe. We just did a rundown. We're going to talk
about on this podcast where two thirds of it is talking about substantial criminal liability
and exposure for a former president at a civil rape case that starts picking a jury in federal
court on Monday. And the lead story in the New York Post, the Rupert Murdoch paper, was not the settlement Fox News ad with Dominion.
It was that Joe Biden has given less press conferences than other presidents over the
course of his tenure. That's what they've got. Okay. You got and and de Santis' numbers
are going into the toilet because Donald Trump's going to be apparently
the nominee for the Republican Party,
despite all the things we're gonna talk about here
on the show today.
It's remarkable that there's the world that you and I
operate in and those of our followers and listeners
and there's the Bizarre, I'll upside down world,
that MAGA and Republicans reside in.
Yeah, I like to live in the real world.
And while of course the right wing extremist media likes
to try to pull people into their propaganda-filled world
of hate, and while large media networks
like to both sides the issues and just act like,
hey, there's just a lot of complicated things going on here.
And everybody's just a bit crazy.
So whatever, that's not what we do here at the Midas Touch Network.
It's not what we do here on legal AF.
We focus on the facts.
We focus on what is actually being said in the court rooms, in the court filings.
We focus on the words.
We focus on the intent, and we focus on the implications.
So let's get right into it with a lot of developments.
A whole course, a whole life cycle of a case took place this past week in the Manhattan district attorney's lawsuit against
Maga Republican, Jim Jordan, the Republican controlled judiciary committee,
the most imminent issue that the Manhattan District
Attorney had to deal with is that Jim Jordan
and the Maga Republicans subpoenaed Mark Pomerance
for testimony before the Judiciary Committee
and set a return date where Pomerance had to show up
without any extensions on April 20th.
And so that clearly created kind of an emergency situation just to even figure out the logistics
there. Now of course, Jim Jordan has sought to pry into an interfere with the criminal investigation
in other ways and will continue to try to do so in
other ways as the case against Donald Trump proceeds.
But in the short term, that was the key issue, right?
Mark Pomerance was an especially assistant district attorney under side vans.
Pomerance got very upset at the way Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, when Bragg
took over the office, was pacing the investigations.
Pomeranz wanted the financial fraud case
to go before the falsification of business records case.
Pomeranz thought that Donald Trump was even more guilty
of these other crimes than what Bragg was focused on.
And Bragg's view was, look, I'm focused on the corporation first, get
those 17 felony convictions, move on to falsification of business records, charge Donald Trump there,
let the New York attorney general have the civil case against Donald Trump for the financial
fraud, let let let let let the Tisha James take Donald Trump's deposition, the Manhattan
District Attorney's office will then still investigate
Donald Trump for those crimes, but then potentially look to him panel a grand jury later there. Mark
Pomeranz, who's not the district attorney, felt very strongly, though the district attorney was
pacing it the wrong way, resigned publicly, did a interview tour, wrote a whole book about it, which made him susceptible
to this subpoena because the Maggary publicans can say, hey, if you wrote a book about it,
you should be able to testify publicly over the objections of the Manhattan District Attorney's
Office, which says, you're invading state sovereignty. You're invading grand jury secrecy.
And so on that basis, you have
the Manhattan District Attorney file a lawsuit against Jim Jordan stating that there was
no legitimate legislative purpose to all in Mark Pomerance. And unfortunately for Manhattan
District Attorney Alvin Bragg, they drew a judge appointed by Donald Trump in the Southern
District of New York.
Popoca, as I told you on the last episode, I said, look, the Trump appointed judge is going
to find a legitimate legislative purpose and order Mark Pomeran's to testify.
That's not what she should do, but that's what she's going to do.
And she did, and she found a spurious legitimate legislative purpose in an order compelling
Mark Pomeran's to have to testify.
And she said, look, Jim Jordan's just telling me that he may want to pass a law that past presidents
can't be prosecuted. And no one is above the law. So therefore, Mark Pomeran has to be deposed by
Jim Jordan. Wait a minute. The judge says, no one is above the law. Mark Pomeran's has to testify
while saying the legitimate legislative purpose is Jim Jordan saying he wants to pass a
Donald Trump is above the law federal law saying it passed president can't be prosecuted.
So ultimately there was an appeal process, but I'll let you take it from there, Popok,
in what happened thereafter. You were right, and I was half right.
It went to the second circuit.
What did they say half right is wrong, but I'll let you say, yeah,
I was, I was half right, but here's what happened to carry forward
in what you just said without being repetitive.
Alvin Bragg did the right thing to bring the case immediately and
file for an injunction in federal court to try
to stop the subpoena and challenge the investigative powers of Jim Jordan.
There is no doubt in my mind that that was the right move, it was an aggressive move, and
it's one, and I did this in some reporting on one of my hot texts.
It's one where he took a page out of his own book.
He and the General Counsel for the Manhattan DA's office, Leslie Dubekek both worked together at the New York Attorney General's office people think
Where do Alvin Brad come from?
He didn't work in the Manhattan DA's office when he got elected the Manhattan DA, but he does have a long history of being a prosecutor and being on a
On a side of the New York Attorney General
So he worked in the in the office of Latisha James now occupies,
but he worked for a predecessor,
a sort of disgrace to Attorney General name Eric Schneiderman.
Eric Schneiderman started an investigation
that Alvin Bragg was responsible for
against Exxon Mobil, an oil investigation,
and was moving down that path.
When the GOP led Congress to help big oil try to pull Schneidermann in just the way they
try to pull Alvin Bragg and Mark Pomerancin to a congressional hearing.
They filed a similar case, Leslie Duback and Alvin Bragg in federal court, and eventually
those subpoenas went away.
It didn't get all the way up to a judge having to make a ruling, the GOP backed off and they framed it almost identically as a fight over state sovereignty,
federalism and state sovereignty, right? The federal government and the oversight committee or
the judiciary committee doesn't have a role, doesn't have the power to cross over and interfere with
the sovereignty of New York and its municipal and home rule
powers and its criminal justice powers.
I bet what it's amounts to a local crime committed by Donald Trump with the prosecutor just
doing his job.
So that's where they got the playbook from because now, you know, Alvin brought Leslie
in to be the general counsel, Manhattan, DA.
When they lost, because unfortunately, there are many, many very good judges in the Southern
District of New York who are more democratic leaning, they didn't pull one in the random
assignment.
They got a judge who's more Republican leading.
So, we followed it at the time.
We talked about it on Wednesday.
It was a very hot bench, mainly for Alvin Bragg's lawyers.
Who frankly, I didn't think did a tremendously great job of linking the field trip hearing
that Jim Jordan gave this show, you know, gimmick that he did where all they talked about was
local crime and murder rates and bail reform, which Congress has no role over whatsoever.
I didn't think he did a great job.
The judge jumped on the lawyers for Alvin Bragg, the outside council, right away, and they
never recovered.
We've all been in situations where a hot bench jumps on you, and you have to figure out
a way to survive.
It's almost like a rodeo.
You got to hang on for eight seconds during the hearing.
I didn't think he was able to make all of his arguments, but the judge was predisposed.
You'd already written her order. She issued it a little bit later. The appeal
that was taken also great moved by Alvin Bragg and the Cross appeal by Jim Jordan. The second
circuit, which is ultimately overseen by Justice Soda Mayor at the Supreme Court for the second
circuit, the second circuit entered in immediate state. Like, you're
not, Pomeranc, you're not going in to give your testimony until we sort this out with
briefing. That gave Alvin breathing room to negotiate what he was comfortable with and
not have to see with the second circuit where the Supreme Court was ultimately going to
do with it. The breathing room where both sides were like, hmm, maybe we'll lose at the
second circuit, put them into a bargaining position.
And so Alvin was able to obtain the following.
Pomerance is going to go in on the 12th of May.
It's going to be closed door, but under oath, Leslie Dubek for the Manhattan DA's office
is going to be there.
The lawyer for Pomerance, he's got his own defense counsel, is going to be there.
They're going to be able to object.
He's going to be able to not answer questions, although the congressional Republicans will
be able to pillory and attack him if he doesn't answer questions.
But pomerance will be able to sort of pick through the minefielders, we like to say, dance
through the raindrops without getting wet.
Because he said, oh, you're putting me in a bad position.
I can either commit a crime by testifying or not.
Now, look, this is what I think the focus is gonna be on.
I know your, I saw your hot take.
Yes, when he can, he's gonna dump on Donald Trump,
mock primerance and say, I thought the case was even bigger.
I thought the case is about criminal fraud
and hyperinflating, all the stuff that's going on
in the New York Attorney
Generals case.
And I thought Stormy Daniels was a tale, and this was the bigger case, the dog.
But they're going to use him to go after Michael Cohen, because there are parts of the
book that he wrote, People vs Donald Trump, in which he attacks Michael Cohen's credibility,
and he uses Alvin Bragg to say, I will never, this is the quote in the book, Alvin Bragg
said apparently to Pomeran's, I will never try a case where Michael Cohen is the lead witness.
Now of course, Alvin Bragg got right with Michael after meeting with him and all the
times that Michael went in and talked to Alvin Bragg about Stormy Daniels.
But they're gonna, this is Jim Jordan running
interference for his leader, Donald Trump, to try to attack Michael Cohen before Michael Cohen
ultimately testifies in that courtroom. No way, no way shape around it. And he'll take the hit,
right? Jordan will take the hit where where pomerance can and counter punches him. No, there's
a bigger case against Donald Trump. That's the reason I quit.
Yeah, he'll get that out,
but they'll get out.
What was your thought about Michael Cohen?
What was Alvin Bragg's thought about Michael Cohen?
All this stuff you normally can't do
in a criminal prosecution to find out about
how a prosecutor once felt about a lead witness.
Look, I think even Michael Cohen would say,
if you asked him, he said,
I don't view myself
as the lead witness.
I believe the documents are the lead witness.
I believe that there are many other witnesses there.
What I can do is I can corroborate what the documents state and what I was doing at that
time was on behalf of and in service of Donald Trump.
So if you want to throw me under the
bus, remember who it was that I was working for at that time. And you know, you don't just
have to trust me. Everything that I say is backed up by the documents there. But I do also
think one of the areas that Jim Jordan may also be trying to pry into as well. You know, is was there bias before the investigation
took place by Pomeran's?
Did Pomeran's harbor feelings, like the rest of us
that see Donald Trump engaged in open
and obvious criminal conduct, and that Pomeran's
went to the office with the goal to achieve the end of bringing Donald
Trump to justice versus going to the office with the view that he's going to let the evidence
lead wherever the evidence leads.
Now, the problem with framing it the way I think Jim Jordan wants to set it up is that
all of us have eyes and ears, you know, and anybody who can be told or or or or through whatever
communicative means learn anything about Donald Trump that you're able to utilize, you
will uncover that Donald Trump engages in criminal conduct.
He does it in open and obvious ways.
So the fact that somebody would harbor a predisposition that the person bragging
about their crimes is a criminal doesn't, doesn't bother me in any specific way there.
Let me comment on that too as being a New Yorker who was there for both the campaigns of
Latisha James running for New York attorney general and for Alvin Bragg. They were different.
Latisha James pardon me, Tish James ran on a platform
that she was gonna go after Donald Trump.
There's no, there's no two ways about it.
She was very public about it.
She said, I'm gonna bring him to justice.
This was her campaign platform.
When you see her in her speeches,
when you see her in her debate,
this is what she said.
That's Tish James.
Alvin Bragg was not like that.
Alvin Bragg, when you know him or know of him,
he's a very sober person.
He's not a political person.
Yes, he ran as a Democrat in New York and got elected
as the Manhattan DA.
That's an elected position.
But the only time he ever really commented
on the pending case with Donald Trump,
because everybody needs to remember,
Sy Vance, who decided to retire, who we've talked about at length on legal a
F who who are co-anchored Karen Friedman Eknifalo served under was his number two when he decided to retire
There was then a group of people there was up to eight people that ran for that office look between all of us
Karen thought about running for that office
But she didn't and Alvin did and Alvin broke out of the pack
and eventually became the leader in the polls,
but he had a debate with the others.
And Sivance had already gone after Donald Trump's tax returns.
It was well known that there was a grand jury
that had looked at certain aspects of Donald Trump
and that the office was investigating him.
So it naturally came up in the discussions
and in the reporter questions
and in the moderator
debate questions about everybody on the panel, you know that the office is looking at Donald
Trump. What is your view about the continued investigation or prosecution of Donald Trump?
Sure, they could have said, listen, we're not going to comment on something that's currently
going on until we get the job, but each one of them felt like they had to say something.
And Alvin was very sober and and
circumspect he said yeah
The office is looking at it and if there's a crime to be investigated
I'm gonna follow the facts where they lead and all if that's where it leads
We will go after Donald Trump if I'm in charge of the office. That's it
That is not a political vendetta
Democrat going after Donald Trump or running on a campaign of political bias
They're not if they're looking for what I'm trying to say is, if you're looking for
political biases, the motivation for Alvin Bragg to bring the case against Donald Trump,
one that had been percolating for five years by his predecessor, they are not going to
find it and they're not going to find it through Mark Pomerance.
No doubt about it.
What do we say that? Maga stands for here on legal AF.
Make attorneys get attorney special counsel.
Jack Smith interviewed Trump's lawyer, Boris Epstein
this past week and then down in Georgia,
Fulton County District Attorney, Fawni Willis,
filed a motion to disqualify
a Maga lawyer Kimberly
Burrow's DeBro for a unwaivable conflict of interest representing 10 fake electors all
pointing the finger at each other.
We'll talk about that in more right after this brief break.
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Welcome back to legal AF and my sellers joined by Michael Popak, where we last left off,
we said, MAGA. What is it stand for? Make attorneys, attorneys and by this time all of these Trump lawyers,
these Maga lawyers know that and for whatever reason they don't know the law of halls,
they keep on digging and digging and digging. And here are some of the newest exhibits,
are some of the newest exhibits exhibit 10,534 special counsel jack Smith interviewed Trump lawyer Boris Epstein.
Two days Jack Smith showed up himself to be there.
You know, Jack Smith's got a big team.
So he's not always there.
But Jack Smith wanted to specifically be there for this interview.
Popak, I'll let you break it down. But before doing that, I do want to mention
this about Boris Epstein. He went to Georgetown law where I graduated from.
He graduated before I got there just before I got there.
And I didn't know him. I'm glad I didn't know him.
But it just goes to show you that we both probably
took the same con law classes.
We both probably took the same criminal law classes.
We probably both took the same overall kind of class
structure.
Yet you see, we took different lessons from it.
You see, I view that we have to follow the Constitution.
I believe that our democracy matters. Boris Epstein, not so much, not so much Popeye.
What what happened here?
Yeah. As the difference is, you thought con law and new con law stood for constitutional
law and Boris Epstein thought it meant con law. And that's the big problem there. Yes.
I mean, listen, I was going to, I was going to review a little bit and I we talked about it in the pre game
preemptive you I know I saw that coming, but I'll I'll preempt me
My one of my most famous alarm of Duke of Duke law was was Richard Nixon
Okay, and so I got Nixon at least you got Boris Epstein who hopefully history will be at the trash bin of history when this is all done
But let me let me just tell everybody because we've talked about Boris Epstein for a long time on legal AF
But he's becoming a bigger bigger character and he's really been involved with so many things
He's like the criminal Zelle he shows up in so many different rooms and so many different
Places where he's pulling the strings for Donald Trump.
Who is he first? Let's start there. Then we'll talk about him. He's on the far right.
It's hard to believe that Ben and him are within three years of each other. He's the ball-ding guy
with a three-piece suit. He looks like, actually, he looks like Ben's dad, but he doesn't.
He looks worse than he's older. But that's Boris Epstein. Boris Epstein is a self-president. He looks like a Wario version of me.
That's good.
That's a very good super Mario Wario.
So Boris Epstein is a self-proclaimed investment banker, lawyer.
That's why he's sitting at council table because he went to Georgetown,
a long graduated and became a member of the bar.
He's the person who invented the F Joe Biden, the FJB crypto.
That's now worth nothing.
So just to show you how much he's
drank the Kool-Aid for Donald Trump,
he was in the Willard hotel on Jan 6th
with people like Eastman and Giuliani
and Banan planning the overthrow of the government.
That's for sure. That has been established. He's one of the architects and implementers of the fake
electors scheme. He worked with Giuliani and filing the cases. I don't know if his name was on the
cases, but he was certainly in the background in all the cases that were filed all the fake
electors the phone calls made to
And we'll talk about some of them in Georgia when we get to Fony Willis
Made to state legislators to try to get them to not certify the election in their home state to pressure Mike Pence for a
Epstein was involved with that
It's amazing. He once worked at a legitimate law firm in New York.
When I go on and tell you the more things he was involved with, your eyes will pop out of your head.
He had his phone picked up in September of 2022 under a subpoena by the Department of Justice.
And they've been looking at his phone, I'm sure, related to the fake electors and the
related to the fake electors and the willard hotel involvement.
He, um, he's also a main lawyer, consulieri for Donald Trump.
That's why he's sitting at council table.
He's the one that brought in the new lawyer over Joe Takapina,
oversooza necklace for the 34 count felony indictment of Donald Trump.
They've got a new lawyer, a new trial lawyer.
We're going to talk a lot about new trial lawyers today.
Trial lawyers that are in trouble and trial lawyers
that are now coming in to jump into the frying pan
for Donald Trump.
And to Boris Epstein brought that lawyer in.
That's how much Donald Trump trusts
Boris Epstein's thought process.
He also was in charge of Jewish outreach for the White House.
He was a communications
director. It's amazing the list of things. He once was the chief operating officer,
chief legal officer for a company that got barred by the federal regulators for securities fraud.
And yet he's in the inner inner inner sanctum of Donald Trump. And so he just got through with two, not one,
but two full days of giving testimony
to the grand jury about all the things
that I just talked about.
And I believe, Ben, you tell me,
tell me if you think, is that one of the lawyers
that got stripped of attorney client and executive privilege
and are testifying without privilege?
I don't believe he specifically listed in that order by the chief judge of the in the
DC court over that, but that ruling could have set a precedent that would have compelled
his kind of informal interview the way he was to basically know he's going to lose
that argument anyway.
And there's my self-interview.
I said, grand jury, he went in for an informal interview
with Jack Smith's prosecutors, right?
Correct, it was an informal interview, not grand jury yet,
which has left many to speculate that he could be cooperating as well.
So the fact that he is there voluntarily for this interview, you know, I think is,
you know, kind of demonstrates though that the past orders reached by Judge
Barrel Howell saying that attorney Klein privilege didn't apply to people like
Evan Corcoran, you could probably
take that ruling in Epstein, saying, I'm going to lose this argument. Why drag this out and
get another order that basically says that I'm a co-conspirator in a crime.
Yeah, I got him confused with Steven Miller, who went in and testified to the grand jury off
the rulings by a combination of Jeb Boowsberg, the chief judge, and the former
chief judge, um, Barrel Howell. But you're right. And it's, it's not a great thing for
when, you know, just to show you how this, this stuff is working. You know, one day he's
sitting at council table on the arrangement of his client for 34 counts of felony indictment.
Another day he's sitting in the willard hotel, hope, you know, planning the overthrow of the government and the next and getting his phone picked up. And then
he's giving an informal interview, not for one day, but for two full days with Jack Smith's
prosecutors. I mean, I don't know how Donald Trump sleeps at all, let alone well at night
knowing what these things are happening, especially with his lawyers who he thought was going
to be the firewall to protect him
with attorney client privilege
and otherwise from any of these problems.
But this is back to your point Ben,
you'd like to talk about the law of halls,
but you also have done a good job of talking about
and me with you, no prosecution before its time.
And if they have brought all these things a year ago,
you don't have Boris Epstein testifying. You don't have Stephen Miller testifying. You don't have Evan
Corcoran testifying. The case wasn't ready. It's getting ready now. And I think we're
moving very quickly towards charging decisions by Jack Smith. Does he beat Fawney Willis in
May? We'll talk about her next. And when she goes to a regular grand jury, probably not.
But the, but the moral logo is probably about done.
And he's got to make a charging decision and then a recommend and then tell, just remind
everybody he has to tell Merrick Garland, I'm going to seek the indictment of the president,
the former president of the United States on these counts. And then Merrick Garland can
say, yeah, your name, if he rejects it, don't think he will, but who knows? Then it goes to the House Judiciary Committee
led by Jim Jordan for an explanation
by the Attorney General as to why he's rejected
the recommendations of Jack Smith.
I think, what do you think, Ben?
You think it's more like a June, July thing
for Jack Smith on his cases?
Yeah.
And so when you mentioned Mar-a-Lago,
you're talking about the theft of
thousands of government records that Donald Trump stole, concealed in Mara Lago, he's being
criminally investigated for crimes into the espionage act, concealment and mutilation and obstruction
of justice. That investigation seems to have basically has reached its end by special counsel, Jack Smith, some dotting of eyes
and crossing tees.
You know, I've always said here that I thought that was a summer indictment, June, July,
I still feel that that's probably what's going to take place.
You know, if there's some additional grand jury proceedings that are taking place, perhaps
that gets kicked to the fall, but I think you're looking
still probably the summer for that one.
And then for these various election interference crimes by Donald Trump, you still may be,
that may be pushed back a little bit later in terms of sequencing.
And just for everybody who has their kind of Jack Smith scorecard here of the various criminal investigations that
Jack Smith is engaged in.
Let me kind of give you the list right now.
So special counsel, Jack Smith, as I just mentioned, there's a grand jury for the criminal
investigation into Donald Trump's theft of documents.
As it relates though to the 2020 election interference, we know that on the day of January
6th, there's a criminal investigation into Donald Trump's conduct, the hang Mike Pence,
causing the mob of violent Trump supporters to attack police officers and invade the
Capitol building, right?
So that's one, two, you've got the fake electors scheme whereby Donald Trump had these Trump
supporters who were Trump electors submit their names on fake certificates and send those
to the archives and eventually to be counted by former vice president Pence on January 6th, a false certification of fake
electors as opposed to the real electors who were supposed
to be counted, because president Biden won those specific
states. And for example, that's what took place in Georgia
where there were 16 fake electors who said Trump won when the
true elector slate was 16 for Biden, and that took place in
other states as well.
So the fake elector scheme, then you have Donald Trump's threats to state and local election
officials, like when he threatened Brad Raffensberger, the Secretary of State of Georgia, find
me the votes or else.
And he engaged in that pattern of conduct throughout the country, though, in other states as well, specifically targeting Republican state officials who he thought he
could harass and intimidate to find him votes and literally, you know, change the votes
from Biden to Trump, because it's all projection when it comes to Donald Trump.
Another area of criminal inquiry by special counsel, Jack Smith, are campaign
finance violations by Donald Trump, and specifically wire fraud charges. And here, where Donald
Trump's political action groups claim they had election defense funds, which didn't even
exist, and where they raised hundreds of millions of dollars, which was utilized by Trump,
for things other than election
defense because that didn't exist.
And Trump made these false claims in these emails to his supporters about where the money
was going, when it wasn't going there.
And then there's this final issue, which has become more prominent this week in reporting
of these Trump operatives going into these state election offices, for example,
in coffee county, in Georgia, in Antrim County, in Michigan, because after Trump via Giuliani
and Sidney Powell couldn't seize the voting machines, right?
They wanted to seize voting machines, they went to the Department of Defense, they went
to the Department of Homeland Security, all the way to the top, they said seize the
voting machines. Why would they want to seize the voting machines after the 2020 election
was over? Because what they wanted to do was steal the data, weaponize the data, and put
that data in their filings, and say that the votes were different than what the true votes
were,
but manipulate and tamper with the data.
That's why they wanted to seize the voting machines.
Well, when they couldn't seize the voting machines,
they did the next best thing,
which is they sent operatives,
particularly in Republican leaning areas,
where they would have a mole
in the election offices of coffee county and Antrim County.
And the Trump operatives would literally steal, they would download the election offices of coffee county and Antrim county, and the Trump operatives would literally steal,
they would download the election data,
that's private, that they shouldn't have had access to,
they would breach the election data,
then they would upload it to Giuliani and Sydney Powell
and the whole team there,
and they would try to weaponize that and use this data,
manipulate the data though,
in their court filings to try to overturn the that and use this data, manipulate the data though, in their court filings
to try to overturn the results of the election.
That's another area of inquiry.
So those are the various criminal investigations
that Jack Smith is focused on.
And I want people to pay very close attention
to the breaching of the election data though,
because that actually seems to
be kind of very clear cut.
It's not being talked about as much, but I think that's going to play a prominent role
in a future indictment.
So there you have it.
That's your score card with special counsel, Jack Smith.
So going from special counsel, Jack Smith to Fawney Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, Popak things
are heating up again there, right?
Where we last left off, I feel like it's a movie and this is kind of part two.
Where we last left off in our series, there was a special purpose grand jury that was
impeanneled, which met for close to two years receiving evidence
and prepared a report and recommendations
about people who the special purpose grand jury believe
should be criminally indicted for 2020 election interference,
but specifically as it related in Fulton County, Georgia.
Now in Georgia, if you go through
the special purpose grand jury process,
it is a two step process. You don't have to go through a special purpose grand jury, but
if you do there, it's a two step, right? Whereas in Manhattan, for example, we talked earlier
about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Berg, he presents the evidence to a grand jury
and then the grand jury votes to indict. The special purpose grand jury that Fony Willis presented the evidence to does not have the
power to indict.
They make the recommendations.
You can then take those recommendations and you bring them to a grand jury.
And ultimately the grand jury makes the decisions over indictments.
And the grand jury can take those recommendations
directly, they can take other witnesses, but that process by the grand jury will be starting
in May when the grand jury is set to be empaneled there.
So the grand jury will be empaneled in May, they'll get those recommendations, but what's
been happening over the past few months since the special purpose grand jury will be in paneled in May, they'll get those recommendations. But what's been happening
over the past few months since the special purpose grand jury has made these recommendations,
by the way, who they recommended to be indicted, that's still under seal at this moment. That
remains under seal and it's confidential. And Fony Willis requested it be confidential. But between the special purpose
grand jury and the grand jury, Fony Willis has been going to people who are targets of the
criminal indictment. And she's been saying to them, okay, really, you know, we're going
to, you know what we're about to do in May, you know, we're going to present to the grand
jury. You're sure, you're sure you want to go, why don't you come into the office and we could have a chat. And they
have and she's been learning a lot of things. And this has been put in her recent motion.
So Popeye, what's this motion? Why is it such a bombshell motion? What's going on?
It was the first time we've heard from Farni Willis since January when she now did the
now infamous, almost meme-like, that decisions on indictments are imminent.
That was in January, everybody was all excited, it's going to happen any day now.
Problem with that is it's not like you can just take the Special Purpose Grand Jury report.
It's add water to it and puff, you've got a charging document or you're ready for the
grand jury.
It's a whole nother thing.
It's not even a dress rehearsal for the real grand jury that in Georgia intites.
It gave Fannie Willis the recommendations that advice have exorted through all the evidence
in the seven months that the special purpose grand jury met.
Well, the witnesses and their recommendations as to who should or shouldn't be entitled.
It doesn't bind her.
It's an advisory grand jury.
She can indict whoever she likes.
She can seek to bring other claims or counts that she wants to bring.
And if, as we believe on this show, she is trying to put together a very complicated,
civil, rico, racketeering influence
and corrupt organization act, organized crime act,
conspiracy to bring in Giuliani, Meadows,
Trump at the center, maybe Lindsey Graham,
the fake electors, you can put them all on a bicycle wheel,
a spoken wheel of a conspiracy.
That takes some time to develop.
She obviously, in January,
when she told Judge McBerney,
who supervises her, and supervises this case ultimately,
that the charging decisions were imminent about indictments,
she wasn't ready for the next time
the regular grand jury was open in Georgia,
in Fulton County, which was in March. So, March came and went.
The next time is May.
So we all believe, based on this current activity, that she is trying to get everything
together so she can present her case in May.
Now, unlike some states in Georgia, she is able to bring in hearsay testimony.
She doesn't have to bring in all of the same witnesses.
You know, they had like 70 witnesses that came in
to the special purpose grand jury.
Just don't have to bring all 70 in.
She can bring in their transcripts
and have their testimony read to the jury.
She can show them exhibits and video and audio tapes
that she developed in her investigation
to this new regular grand jury.
Although I think she'll bring in a few
real live witnesses, including maybe new witnesses that they've developed since the end of the Special Purpose Grand Jury, which brings us now to the first time since January. We've heard
of Fawney Willis officially. She filed a motion to disqualify. Now that on its face is like,
hmm, that's interesting, but what's really interesting is who she's going after and who the
clients are and what we learned by reading on the motion to disqualify what happened. So there's
a lawyer that represents 10 out of the 16 fake electors, including some leading people in the
Georgia Republican Party. And she, her name is Kim DeBrow. Kim DeBrow, by the way, if you look at
her, her body of work, her resume, she used to work in the Fulton County DA's office as a special DA at some point. I don't think she overlapped with
Faudi Willis, but she does have that background. And she's a known commodity in the criminal world.
She's also being paid by the Georgia Republican Party. She had a co-counsel Holly Pearson,
who at one time represented more of the fake electors.
And there was already a hearing in front of the judge about six months ago about whether
Kim Debrou and Holly Pearson could represent all of the fake electors or the 11th at 11
at the time, all being paid by the Georgia Republican Party.
And Judge McBurney looked at them and said, you can represent, I think, 10 out of the 11, but you can't represent
the former head of the GOP because in Georgia, because his criminal liability exposure
looks different and greater than the shape of these other 10.
So for now, even though it's an ethical dilemma and quagmire and a little bit messy, I'll
let you keep the 10, but you got to cut David Schaeffer, the former GOP Republican or current GOP Republican leader,
eluce, and so he had to get his own lawyer.
That's the first time we ever heard about Kim DeBrow
and Holly Pearson.
Then, before the end of 2022,
at the later part of 2022,
the judge authorized Fulton County DA's office
to offer blanket immunity,
criminally immunity in return for cooperation
to all of Pearson and to browse clients,
all 10 of their fake electric clients.
And the report back from Holly Pearson at that time
to the judge, because he ordered her to do something,
was sorry, Judge, none of the 10
want to take an immunity deal on the table,
which is really weird.
I mean, I've done a certain amount
of why call a criminal defense.
It's weird that none of the 10,
because they all have different levels of culpability
and exposure and a different appetite
for being tried, they've been told
they're the targets of a criminal investigation.
You'd think one would jump out of the barrel
and say, yeah, I'll take the deal, but none of them did.
And that's what Pearson reported.
Now, somewhere along the way, there was a split between Pearson and Debrouh.
So now only Debrouh was representing these 10.
And at least two of her clients wanted to cooperate or were willing to come in last
week to meet with the Fulton County DA's investigative team, which means they're probably
cooperating. We call it in the business a proffer. They're
making a proffer. They have their lawyer, Kim DeBrow,
sitting next to them, and they're talking to the investigators.
Now, at some point, because it all came out in the papers,
this motion to dismiss, sorry, motion to disqualify,
followed by the office, it came out, two major things came out.
One is the investigators asked these two witnesses. Did you know that we offered a blanket immunity
deal that you could have taken an immunity deal with us? And both of those witnesses in front of
their lawyer, Kim Debrow, said they had no idea that there was an immunity deal on the table.
Well, if that's true, then Holly Pearson and Kim Debrow are in big trouble with McBernie,
because McBernie told them to make the offer, which, and the report back was, nobody wanted it,
not that nobody knew about it. So now you got problems, right? You got lawyers who may have lied
or done unethical things to the judge and he'll take care of that
in his own way.
That could be sanctions, that could be contempt, that could be a referral to the Georgia bar
if all of that's true.
And that'll be made out in an evidentiary hearing, like a little mini trial that you and
I will get to cover.
The other major thing that came out of the meeting is that two of them are pointing fingers criminally at
others, other clients of Kim DeBrow saying they violated Georgia election law.
We didn't, but they did.
So you can't as a lawyer in any state represent a group of, of multiple clients.
If they, if they're interests or not perfectly aligned, if they start finger
pointing, he committed the crime, I didn't. He drove the getaway car. I didn't. Then you can't
represent them and you really should move to, to get out of the case yourself and move to
recuse yourself. If you're not going to do that, it looked like Kim DeBrow wasn't going to do that.
That gave the perfect opportunity for the prosecutor to move to disqualify her
doubt for the second time.
Tell the judge in the filing, we got a problem with the immunity deal because it looks like
two of them never heard about it from their lawyers, even though they represented to you
judge that they did.
That's a problem.
And secondly, it revealed to you and me so we could talk about it with our listeners and
followers that two of the fake electors are cooperating
with the prosecutor's office
against the others claiming that they committed crimes.
And so this is a perfect lead-in.
If she's trying to get her ducks to the full county DA
for a May presentation to the May regular grand jury,
this is the kind of motion that you would file.
And I think Fony Willis also realizes that probably more of the fake
collectors will flip on each other if you remove this lawyer who's if you follow the allegations
being made in this motion is essentially coordinating amongst these witnesses to try to say the same
things here. You mentioned this issue where there's this conflict of interest, right?
And there are many circumstances in the law where you could represent clients who
potentially have a conflict. And in those types of circumstances, what you would
get is a conflict waiver where the clients will knowingly and intelligibly wave their conflicts of interest
and you could represent clients with conflicting interests.
The issue becomes where in the same proceeding, there is an adverse relationship between
the clients, the law calls that an unwaivable conflict of interest that even if you
had the client sign, a conflict waiver saying that they are okay with the relationship, the
law says the lawyer is not allowed to represent the clients in that situation.
The lawyer must withdraw and if the lawyer doesn't withdraw, then you can have situations where someone
like the Fulton County District Attorney brings it to the attention of the court and the
court will force the disqualification to take place.
Remember what I said before about coffee, county in Georgia and Antrim County in Michigan?
Popuck, you mentioned the Rico or kind of racketeering charges that are being considered
by Fulton County District Attorney, Foni Willis here.
Let me just give you a quick example of how this could play out in Georgia, for example.
So when we think about racketeering charges, think about mafia style cases, right?
And think about it, you know, in the most basic example
where there is a hitman who works for a specific mob family who kills somebody, right? But
it's very hard to connect that all the way up to the mob boss for ordering the hit. And
what you can do in a racketeering, if you show that everyone was basically involved in
the same crime family, if they were all involved in the common cause and conspiracy, you could basically
charge that murder all the way up to the top mob boss on a rico and racketeering charge.
So how does this apply to Donald Trump in this situation with the example I gave in coffee
county? Well, if you had these operatives who are linked to the Trump campaign,
who basically stole election data in coffee county that they weren't allowed to access,
that was then funneled to the next tier of the mob in Mafia, if you will, with the Giuliani's
and the Sydney Powells, and ultimately all the way up to Donald Trump and that stolen election data was weaponized for a common cause
and purpose of overturning the election in 2020, you can then basically charge Donald Trump
with the theft of the election data by his operatives who broke into coffee counties.
As long as you have a tacit agreement among all those people.
Correct.
And the tacit agreement would be the demonstration of the
common cause and purpose. They weren't just out there stealing it because they love stealing
election data. It's not like a hobby of theirs. That they go, oh, honey, let's go and steal
election data today, right? They're doing it ultimately to weaponize it for a purpose.
And the tacit agreement is to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election there.
So that's what's going on in Fulton County, Georgia.
Pay attention there, because I know that like the media,
they're not focused there as much, right?
And all of a sudden, it's gonna come a,
the grand jury's gonna be in-paneled,
and everyone's gonna be like, oh my gosh,
we're so surprised.
How is all of this happening?
Well, it's in legal filings that are taking place right now. That's how we were able to predict what
was happening in the Manhattan district, Attorneys case. And that's what we're
going to do here in Fulton County, Georgia as well. And that's what we've been
doing in E. Jean Carroll's civil trial against Donald Trump for rape and
defamation. That trial is said to start next week on April 25th. A lot is going on there.
I want to talk about it with you, Michael Bobach, but first let's take a quick break.
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Welcome back to legal a f
Ben micelle us here joined by my co host Michael Popeaux. So E gene carol got to give her
a lot of credit for the fortitude of sticking to this case. Donald Trump and his lawyers
have thrown the kitchen sink at her.
You got to give a lot of credit to E gene carols. Lawyers led by Roberta Kaplan and Roberta Kaplan's team who have continued to outmatch,
outsmart Donald Trump's lawyers here.
And the case is set for trial.
So this is E gene carol too.
If you want to kind of create a delineation between the
various cases that are set for trial.
But E. Jean Carroll, too, involves Donald Trump's defamatory statements made in October of
2022 on his social media platform, where he basically says that she's a liar about accusing him of rape and also
says a bunch of horrific things about her that she's not his type, just really putrid and
vile things.
And this is also a case for the underlying rape that E. Jean Carroll alleged is took place
in 1995 in 1996.
New York passed what's called the Adult Survivors Act,
which allowed victims of sexual assault
to have a one year lookback period to file within one year,
even if their statute of limitations expired.
EGIN carol statute of limitations
for bringing a rape case expired
because it would have expired in about 1998,
if the incident happened
in 1996 or so, about a two-year statute of limitations.
But under the New York, the new law, the adult survivor's act, she was able to bring that
case.
Those were combined into this case, that set for trial.
There's another case, E. Jean Carroll, one, which is based on Donald Trump's defamatory statements
made about her, where he says the same things about her that he put in the social media
posts, but he said those things while he was in office.
So he made all these arguments about immunities and bill bars substituted the United States
government in place of Donald Trump and the trial court judge, the federal judge
says, you know, rejected the attempt to do that.
It went to the second circuit court of appeals, the second circuit court of appeals referred
that to the DC court of appeals, the highest court within the district of Columbia to certify
a question of what constitutes course and scope of employment and whether or not Trump made these defamatory statements
while acting in his capacity as a commander in chief,
which is its own inquiry, which the Court of Appeals said,
is a fact-intensive inquiry that we're not gonna deal with.
They sent that back to the trial court judge,
E. Jean Carroll won the first defamation case
is gonna go back to judge, Louis Kaplan for proceedings,
but don't worry about that one right now.
Let's focus on what the trial is about
and the trial is about the defamatory statements
from October of 2022 and the underlying rape case
and there's been a lot of developments,
including Donald Trump's lawyers,
basically filing letter briefs almost like everyday, rape case and there's been a lot of developments, including Donald Trump's lawyers, basically
filing letter briefs almost like every day like judge, please can we have this?
Judge, can you please tell the jury this?
Judge, can you please do this?
And Judge Lewis Kaplan, no relation to Roberta Kaplan, E. Jean-Carrie was lawyer, but Judge
Lewis Kaplan, the federal court's other district of New York, whether it's taken place,
would just be like, can you stop writing these letter briefs?
Basically, like, I have local rules.
I've said what I'm gonna do.
You need to listen to what I say, Joe Takapina,
and I'm not going along with these gimmicky silly things
that you want me to do.
I'm not instructing the jury that Donald Trump wants
to do the jury in New York a favor
by not showing up to the trial.
He can show up or not show up.
He can do what he wants to do.
It's a civil case.
He's not required to be here.
If he doesn't want to be here, but we have trial set.
Let's be normal and let's bring the show on the road.
But Popoak, tell us all of the developments this week as what's been going
down as we had to trial. Yeah. The Carol one case is in, I'm still
leading with that one. If Robbie Kaplan ever needs an expert about the Carol one case, which
is on ice now, because the judge wasn't going to wait, the judge Kaplan wasn't going to
wait around to see what the federal courts were finally going to get around to do. And he
put a pin in it and said, let's just do carol one another time, if at all.
Let's do carol two.
Let's do the defamation after he was president
and the civil rape and the rape and the dressing room case.
And we'll leave the other case for another day.
But Joe Takapina, we've done a hot tick on this.
When Joe Takapina before, he was the lawyer for the president
when he was just a commentator.
He gave an interview with Newsweek Magazine
in which he said that Donald Trump
should not be immune from suit
because against E. Jean Carroll when he was president,
because being president doesn't allow you to be
what Joe Tachapina called the defammer in chief
against E. Jean Carroll.
So if they ever get around E. Jean Carroll one, they should use Joe Tacapena
The lawyer for Trump as an expert about about defamation because he made that comment not knowing that one day
He would be the lawyer for Donald Trump or not because we have a new development that happened just 72 hours before a jury is picked on Monday morning in
Southern District of New York in Manhattan
We have a new lawyer who's
appeared. We have Perry Brandt. Perry Brandt, who for 35 years practiced at a decent law firm in
not that one, a decent law firm in the Midwest called Brian Cave, where he, where if I know the rules
there, he probably had a retire. They have a retirement age of about 70 in firms like that.
He went off to another firm that we just showed a graphic for, but he was only there since
February and he's no longer at San Bernard Phoenix.
Because when he filed his notice of appearance just on Friday to come into the case in some
capacity, he filed it with a signature block that says he has a Perry brand with a PO box, supposed office
box, and a Gmail address with no law firm listed at all.
So it looks like he's no longer, when you go to the website that were putting up now for
San Bernard Phoenix, whereas they made a big show in February of announcing that they had
gotten this big trial lawyer, he's nowhere to be found.
So he's either got pushed out of that law firm or he left that law firm in order to take on the Donald Trump representation. But the question is, what is his role going
to be? Now, I agree with you, Ben. Totally. You and I have both done hot takes on about
that Takapina and Habba seem to be way over their skis in federal court in the front of
Judge Kaplan. Let's remind everybody that Takaka Pina was brought in six months ago,
kind of late in a two-year trial, two-year case,
because Haba was doing terrible in front of Judge Kaplan,
and Taka Pina was supposed to be the adult
to kind of change the relationship
and start winning again in court on behalf of Donald Trump.
And all they've done is collectively lose almost on every issue possible
from the DNA issue they lost.
From the anonymous jury,
we don't want an anonymous jury or we want an anonymous jury,
but we want to know who they are in there.
And before they're even picked, they lost.
We want to use a jury questionnaire.
The judge says, I told you I'm not using a jury questionnaire.
They lost.
We want a 30 day extension.
Judge said, you're not getting it.
We want another 30 day extension for another reason.
Judge says, you're not getting another 30 day extension.
Now they filed late to try to bring in some sort of sex attack
on E. Jean Carroll.
By the way, she's publicly reported
that she has not had sexual relations
with another man or anybody since she was attacked
in the dressing room in 1995 or 1996.
But they want to use somehow her past sexual history
against her, which they cannot do
under New York law or evidentiary rules,
and they're late anyway.
So there's just a little bit of Repopuck, right?
They talk about it.
They put, so right before trial, each of the sides
designate portions of their deposition transcript that they're going to play for the jury on
video. And so evidently, what happened is during E. Jean Carroll's deposition, Donald
Trump's lawyers asked E. Jean Carroll a lot of questions about her past sexual behavior, who she's had
sex with before, and questions like that.
And they designated that those were the portions that they want to play for the jury.
So Roberta Kaplan filed a motion to the court and said under federal rule of evidence for
12, and specifically, I think for 12 12, C, the time for introducing evidence like
that has passed.
Donald Trump's lawyers would have had to file an under seal motion, designating those
portions a long time ago, and then we could have had an evidentiary hearing on their potential
relevance in this case.
And if it met the narrow circumscribed circumstance
where potentially a past sexual behavior could be used
adversely against a victim of sexual assault,
we would at least have an underseale hearing.
So as to not publicly humiliate a victim of sexual assault,
that's why you have evidence rule of evidence for 12c.
And basically, Roberta Kaplan said
Trump's lawyers missed the deadline judge so on that basis alone they can't bring it in.
So they're 0 and 7 and all their underhanded attacks on E. Jean Carroll have failed and
just as Alina Habas screwed up on her deadline for the DNA issue on the
Coat Dress that that E. Jean Carroll was wearing which we showed in a earlier
graphic on the cover of New York magazine. She was wearing that very coat dress. They just keep losing. There's a picture of what she
claimed she was wearing the day that she was violently sexually attacked by Donald Trump.
So, for whatever reason, and I can't for the life of me find it, and I've done a decent job of
sleuthing on it, I can't find the relationship between Perry Brant,
the new lawyer and Donald Trump or Boris Epstein
or Joe Takapina or Alina Habba or even Robbie Kaplan
on the other side.
I can't find a link at all.
He's not that acclaimed.
There's not a lot of cases that he's reported.
And like, what do you do when you're not doing well
at a New York courtroom and you're ready to pick
a Manhattan-based jury? You're bringing somebody from Kansas City, Missouri, who's never really
tried a case in the Southern District that this doesn't smell right.
And then you're going to take this older gentleman over the weekend and teach him everything
about the case so that he's going to be the lead trial lawyer and replace Joe Takapina
and Alina Habba, who if nothing else have lived and breathed the case
for the last three years, or at least Alina Haba has, that doesn't make a lot of sense. And if
you're not going to have them do the opening, then I don't know what role he's going to have.
So I have a speculation. I want to run it by you and I talked about it before.
Donald Trump was close to Rupert Murdoch. I'm going to connect this to the Fox dominion settlement on Tuesday.
Regardless of what the Rupert Murdoch is doing to him now in, not on Fox News, but in the
New York Post and other in Wall Street Journal and other media outlets that he owns, they have
been close in the past.
Donald Trump, just as we talked about human beings, have five senses and eyes and ears,
Donald Trump just saw a huge settlement on Tuesday.
Now the reason that case settled on Tuesday.
One of the reasons I believe it settled on Tuesday is because there was a change in lawyers by Dominion about six months ago
because Dominion was getting their ass handed to them on discovery matters. That's how you and I and the audience
learned about those text messages and emails is because Fox Fox got a terrible
set of rulings with their old lawyers.
They fired those lawyers brought in Dan Webb, another Midwestern lawyer at Winston and
Straun, a federal former federal prosecutor who has a history of settling defamation cases.
He settled a huge case on behalf of ABC news when ABC news defamed the beef industry and beef manufacturers in a 2020 documentary
and that went for 150 million. So you got a guy who comes in later from the Midwest to help
settle a case. Perry Brandt from the Midwest comes in. Now maybe he's the guy, he's the
closer, he's the reliever from the bullpen because Takapena and Habba have so blown it with E. Jean Carol's lawyer Robbie Kaplan
That I don't even think they have the credibility to pick up the phone call even on bend at knee and open up a settlement dialogue
But maybe somehow this sort of all shucks midwestern guy semi retired
Maybe he's the guy to pick up the phone and try to get a settlement. And settlements can happen just so everybody knows.
At any time, I've settled cases even when the jury has reported that they have reached a verdict,
and they're about to deliver the note to the judge as to what it is.
And we've settled the case because both sides were like, we want to take it away from that jury.
So it could happen. It could happen on jury selection, on opening statements after close
of evidence anytime.
Maybe he's that role.
It will go on Monday or an opening statement start, what role he has, but what do you
think about my theory?
I think that Donald Trump is a less rational actor than Rupert Murdoch number one, I think that there is no way that this case settles. I think this case
goes to jury verdict and yeah, so I think Donald Trump is too cheap to write the check. I think
Donald Trump is too irrational to write the check. I think E.INE Carroll has pursued this for justice and not money, whereas I think
Dominion achieved the result of justice and transparency, but they are a corporation with
shareholders and are ultimately driven by money as a corporation.
So when the price is right, it makes sense to them. I think E. Jean Carroll has done this purely
for vindication, for holding Donald Trump accountable. Can I tell you why there's another issue?
There's another issue here. She's also a human being who apparently, based on her own admissions,
lives a solitary life at a log cabin at a cabin in upstate New York. She got fired from her job at L.
magazine where she was a gossip columnist for like 30 years. I don't know what her source of income is.
I don't know. I mean, at one point when she was, she's a very interesting person. People
that should go online and read about E. Jean Carroll. Successful journalist, successful gossip
columnist, she was a writer for Saturday Night Live in what an Emmy.
I mean, she is a fascinating person.
She was a regular at a Lane's restaurant, a very famous restaurant in Watering Hall in
New York with a lot of celebrity.
She married a very famous local newscaster that I knew when I was growing up in New York
at ABC News.
So she's a fascinating person, I don't know how she's making a living. And if they put like $50 million or $25 million in front of her, we want the case. We want her,
we want her to try this case for justice. But at the end of the day, she's a person.
And she's a person that got damaged terribly. She has a damage expert that's going to testify
about how her entire career was dashed, not only
from the rape, but from even as recently as 2017 when she was fired because of going after
Donald Trump.
And I mean, she's got bills to pay.
I think if there's a dollar amount on the table, Robbie Capon's hard press not to tell
her to take that settlement, whether she can get an apology or a retraction and a mission
of guilt, who knows?
But as I said, by way, let me just finish the point
and you can do what you like.
But as I've always said, and I've been involved in this,
nothing concentrates the mind like a pile of money
on the table and a jury sitting in a box
and a judge tapping his foot and patiently.
So we're gonna have to see what happens.
Now you're right, he may be too cheap,
he may not have the right dollar amount in mind
and they may really want to hold out
for an apology or recognition
of what she said of knowing,
and she said, he said originally,
I don't know her, that we know that's a lie.
The not my type part, that's ridiculous,
and we know that's not even a defense,
that's ridiculous and disgusting.
But there's ways to fashion,
I'm thinking of a future press release.
There's ways to fashion something
that gets her justice, money, and a statement and gets
him out of a New York jury finding him.
Now one last thing, because I've been asked this in tweets and the federal rules require
unanimous jury.
So when they pick this jury, it's going to have to be unanimous for the end for the ultimate result. Could there
be what this is why people settle cases, even as stronger cases, I think Robbie Kaplan
has, if she had the DNA evidence, it'd be even stronger, but she doesn't. They could have
one person who holds out, who is just doesn't buy the case, doesn't buy eging carol, is a
Trumper and doesn't vote for them. And they walk away with nothing.
And that's why parties enter into settlement negotiations.
The Fox Dominion thing, as strong of a case, who had a stronger case than Dominion, but
already they had jury problems.
It was reported that one juror fell asleep during an actual selected juror during Tuesday's
proceedings before they settled.
And another juror had a meltdown over being told that she was going to have to stay for
six weeks and they had it dismiss her.
So there's lots of things that go on in a room, even if you think you have a great case,
that you got to worry about bringing it forward and having a jury return of verdict to your
favor.
I'm just saying this, though, I don't think it's going to settle.
I don't think E. Jean Carroll is looking at this case as an issue of money
nor do I think her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan took this case for money. So I'll put that out at the
front. But I do want to say in general, that is the purpose of a civil case. Like when you go to
civil court, it's not criminal court, it's civil court, You ask the jury for money. So at the end of the day
You don't ask the jury in your closing argument. Hey, we want you to award justice
You don't that's that's not what the civil form is you can say you want justice do the right thing here
Justice needs to be served but ultimately there is going to be a monetary
value that is quantified by an expert about eging carols damages.
And you're going to have eging carols lawyer tell the jury, please award us X millions
of dollars.
And then the jury is going to say, we the jury find in favor of, and if they find
in favor of E. Jean Carroll, we find in favor of E. Jean Carroll and award E. Jean Carroll money.
They're not saying at the end of it, we award E. Jean Carroll justice. They say there's a dollar
amount for emotional distress damages.
That's going to be written on a piece of paper.
They don't say in their verdict, we find that Donald Trump should have been arrested.
They're not allowed to do that.
That's not what they find.
So it is important though to your point, Popeyes, what people know.
Civil case is money court.
Civil cases where people go to ask for money
for their injuries and damages.
One other point I want to make about this trial though,
as well, as I alluded to earlier,
Donald Trump's lawyer wanted the judge to read
an instruction to the jury that if Donald Trump doesn't show up,
it's because he wants to do a favor for New York City and not create
a lot of traffic and not burden the court.
The court responded, that's ridiculous.
We're perfectly capable here in this courthouse of handling high profile cases.
Also I looked at Donald Trump's campaign schedule.
Looks like he's going to be in New Hampshire next week during this trial.
If he could be in New Hampshire, he can be here.
Not only Joe Takapina, am I not going to read that instruction.
Now you, Takapina, thanks for bringing that up because maybe if you didn't bring this
up, you could have told the jury that.
But you know what?
You can't even tell the jury right now that Donald Trump is not going to be here because
he's trying to do the city
a favor there.
This is a civil case.
In a civil case, unlike a criminal case, the parties don't have to show up.
But if you're a member of the jury and you see that Donald Trump's not showing up for
a case where he's accused of rape, you're going to be thinking he might not be taking this
case very seriously at all.
Why is it?
And if they don't think it, Robbie Kaplan's going to bang away at the empty chair, which
she now is able to do and say it's so unimportant to him in the opening, he's not even here.
And every time, and every time he's not there, she's going to find a way to point it out
through a witness.
You mean Donald Trump?
The person is not sitting in that chair right now.
And the other error then, which we didn't cover,
so many errors by Takapina and Habba,
they'll be talking about it in law schools,
Georgetown included about trial practice.
They also screwed up their expert.
There's one expert that's gonna be in front of the jury,
and it's E. Jean Carroll's on her damages
for defamation and intentional inflection,
the emotional distress,
because Donald Trump's lawyer
got stricken, got banned by the judge
because he's not really an expert in the area of damages.
He's just a guy that had a calculator
and tried to attack her damages.
And the judge says, this isn't a proper expert.
There's gonna be one expert in this case.
So the jury, when they get to damages,
usually it's like lawyers like you and me
putting up a big number on a board, but you have to, usually if it's an economic
case or you want to have an expert testified of the jury and then you want, on the other
side, you want a rebuttal expert or somebody say those numbers are full of you, know what?
There's no, there's no rebuttal expert.
They're all in number.
They're going to hear.
Yeah.
So, yeah, so, so Trump, they, they, they, Trump, they failed to designate the appropriate expert.
I mean, come on.
That's like, that's like,
one-o-one, one-o-one.
That's like, one-o-one.
Some of the most basic stuff right there.
You know, you never know what your expert's actually
gonna say until they say it,
but at least designate the expert appropriately
and follow the rules there.
You know, one of the other interesting things
about the trial strategy by E. Jean Carroll that
was mentioned in the judges' order, which I hadn't really picked up on though, is that
Roberta Kaplan's not going to call Donald Trump as a witness.
It's a very interesting strategy and a smart one and you may go, so E. Jean Carroll's
not calling Trump.
Why would they do that?
Well, they've got Donald Trump's seven hour deposition
and Donald Trump performed horribly during that deposition
and you can play a party deposition for any reason.
So what E. Jean Carroll's lawyers are gonna do,
they're gonna play Trump's deposition,
they're going to get testimony in court
from the other victims that Donald Trump sexually assaulted
who are allowed to testify,
they're gonna play the access Hollywood tapes
where Donald Trump brags about sexually assaulting women.
They're gonna call E. Jean Carroll,
and it may be in that order or a different order.
And then other witnesses, wait, wait,
other witnesses that she has in 95 and 96
that she told contemporaneously about what happened
to her in the dressing room. She has those witnesses.
And then they're going to rest.
That's going to be their case.
And then the burden's going to shift.
Donald Trump's lawyers will file what's called a motion for non-suit to try to get it dismissed.
They're not going to win that motion.
And then they're going to have to call witnesses.
Well, they don't have an expert, so they can call it an expert on damages. So really, the only witness that they would have to call is Donald Trump.
And so if they don't call Donald Trump, then Eugene Carroll's lawyers are going to say,
they had the opportunity to call their own client.
Their own client did not show up to defend himself, which may occur.
And then if Donald Trump does show up, well, then you
get to cross examine him and imagine a direct examination of Donald Trump, whether it's the
new lawyer or Takapina or Alina Haba. I'm not even sure that Takapina and Alina Haba can
do a direct examination. You know, doing a direct examination, there is a skill to it.
You have to build a foundation.
You can't lead the witness.
And Donald Trump has to be responsive to the question.
That's being asked.
He can't ramble on.
If he starts rambling,
Roberta Kaplan can say,
judge, motion to strike non-responsive to the question.
And you will see in that format in a direct exam
setting aside the cross exam. Donald Trump is going to struggle because he doesn't, he's not able
to answer questions. So he'll be asked a question like, well, Mr. Trump, what's your profession? And
he'll go, rush, rush, rush, you great, you great, you great, you great, does anybody want to eat
the pizza out of my mouth? I just ate pizza, do you want to eat the pizza? I mean the guys are freaking maniac and so he will become unglued in a direct exam and then you do the
cross-exam and if he doesn't show up just say he doesn't show up so you may be saying wow her
call her not calling him is a mistake make him show up no it's actually a brilliant strategy and
it's why good lawyers matter in cases like this.
And speaking about good lawyers matter, though, Popeye, I want to go to this one point, though.
The DOJ had some very good lawyers and under very tough circumstances,
argued to this Supreme Court and this emergency motion to stay what was going on in the fifth circuit,
which is a right wing control court of appeals, lots of trumpers, and also to stay then what
the Trump appointed judge, Judge Kazmerich, from the Northern District of Texas.
We've obviously been talking about it here on the Midas Touch Network.
This Trump appointed judge judge
Cosmetic found that the FDA's approval of Mifapriston from
2000 from
2000 was invalid and banned and and banned the use of
Mifapriston the abortion drug just banned it and then the fifth circuit court of appeals after the DOJ
Took an appeal the 5th Circuit was like
Okay, you're doing the 2000 ban
The 2000 FDA approval is fine
We're gonna stay judge cosmetics ruling
Prohibiting the FDA's approval from 2000, but you know, there are extensions and expansions of the
use of Mifipristone as its efficacy is further demonstrated. And so, and its access has been made
more available in 2016 and 2021. And thereafter, but then the fifth circuit said, we'll allow the
2000 approval, but all of the approvals after,
we're gonna stop that.
We're gonna stay that pending the full appeals process.
So Popeyes, what happened though
in the United States Supreme Court,
and how does it impact every all these other decisions?
Judge Kazmarik's a bad judge,
sitting in Amarillo, Texas.
I now call him the first Liberty Institute division of Texas,
because that's where he was the general counsel. He's anti-abortion. He's always been, that's why they
this plaintiffs group, but moved and actually opened shop in Amarillo just for the sole purpose
of filing this lawsuit. And, and, Kaz Marik's opinion that the fifth and now the Supreme Court have commented on was so
ridiculously reversed engineered that he actually used blogs and unaccredited
comments on the internet to support his theories that somehow these two pills and chemical abortions that have been successfully successfully and safely used by women around the world for over 20 years.
It has one of the safest rates. It has a supremely almost non-existent rate of mortality.
Live childbirth is more dangerous. Viagra is more dangerous. The use of Tylenol is more dangerous
than the two drugs that are used in chemical abortions. And so even the fifth circuit that you just identified, which is on a two to one vote,
which is supremely right wing, they were like, even Cosmere went too far here.
But like you said, the two aspects of it that most women use, the fifth was okay with
the his his opinion, which were male getting them by male and having healthcare providers
that aren't medical doctors be able to provide them like at the pharmacy.
So they took that away. So we have the appeal.
But the same time we've got just to keep an eye on in Washington state,
three hours after Cazmeric ruled in his little Abilene, Texas courthouse,
a Obama appointed judge, Judge Rice in Washington, which is in the ninth circuit, ruled exactly
the opposite.
He said that he issued a mandatory injunction requiring the FDA to continue to supply
the drugs in 17 states.
So ultimately, if it goes up to the ninth to match the fifth, you'd have a split in
the circuits, which circuits which goes directly to the Supreme Court.
But what did we have?
We had an emergency appeal by the Department of Justice
and a manufacturer of the drugs to the Supreme Court,
but it has to first stop on an emergency appeal.
And we've talked about this a lot on legal AF as a reminder,
is the Supreme Court judge assigned to that circuit
to determine emergency applications.
And look, Roberts is in charge of assigning who's responsible for which circuit.
And he generally puts the most conservative right wing, maga people in charge of states
and districts that are conservative and right wing.
So the democratic states are headed by the more democratic appointed justices and the other
ones are appointed by or assigned to people like Alito.
So Alito, the writer, the author of Dobs, the Dobs decision, taking away the federal constitutional
right for a woman to have a bodily autonomy and take away the right to an abortion under
the federal constitution.
He happens to be no surprise. That's why it's filed in Abilene to end up with Alito.
Now, Alito, back in the old days, would have just under the shadow docket, just denied the appeal
right there and then let it run its normal course, which could be a year, a year and a half,
two years through the appellate process
to see if it ever ends up back at the Supreme Court.
He could have killed it right there,
but because of so much spotlight
that's been put on the shadow docket by networks
like the Minestouch Network,
they basically, especially in the areas of Borscht
and have stopped doing that.
So Alito granted an emergency stay for the purposes of letting the full
nine member Supreme Court evaluate whether there should be an emergency stay of Casmarix order
or the fifth circuit's order at all. And they needed an extra day and an expired last night.
And finally, we got the ruling. It's amazing, then, that on a such an incredibly important
issue to women in this country, that the decision to for now stay the order, not enforce
Kasmarax order, and allow the two pill, a chemical abortion to be available in states that
allow abortion. That's the only place you can use them.
It was in a half paragraph unsigned decision,
but we know we can do the math in order for them to have issued that.
With two people that publicly dissented,
Alito who wrote an opinion, we'll talk about that.
You can talk about Ben Alito and what he said about the Biden and FDA,
Biden administration and the FDA, which was total, as you like to say, projection.
And of course, Clarence Thomas.
Now the question is, they nearly needed five.
We know, we know that Brown Jackson, Kagan and Sotomayor voted for the stay, right?
Voted to stop cosmetics over throw of this drug
and this drug use.
Now you need two more.
If I got a guess, it's John Roberts
and then you need one more or more,
could have been seven to two
from Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett.
We don't know because it's unsigned, but we know that two were
in descent and that none of the other Trump appointees, none of them, dissented. Doesn't
mean they voted for it. It just means they didn't publicly descent, but they got at least
five votes. Now, what they said is for now, we're going to basically stay the operation of that order
from Cosmetic and the fifth circuit's version of it.
So now it's without any limitations available.
And we'll let it wind its course through a normal appeal at the fifth circuit, which takes
time.
And they also know, of course, that the night circuit will be getting probably an appeal up from the other side in the case that was decided in the opposite direction.
They then will vote at some point in 2023 or maybe 2024, whether to take the case at
all it takes four votes to bring a case up for Sershari at the Supreme Court. But that
will be kicking the can down the road. Usually stays like this mean that they don't have the votes if you're on the right-wing side.
You don't have the votes to kill these pills from being used nationally in the states that allow abortion.
And usually it will die right there.
We'll have to see, but it's at least for now.
Thank God.
2020, you know, right now, 2022, 2022,
2023 and beyond, that those drugs are going to be able to be used just as the FDA prescribed
them and allows them in states in America that allow abortion as a right.
Yeah, Justice Alito's descent was very odd.
It accused the Biden administration of doing something the Biden administration
did not do. I mean, it says that, you know, the Biden administration, no matter what the
Fifth Circuit or this court does, even if we, you know, did not stay what the Fifth Circuit
was going to do, the Biden administration is so lawless that they would do what they want
to do anyway. And their DOJ would do what they want to do anyway.
And their DOJ would do what they want to do anyway.
Like, it's a weird shot to take
at the Biden administration
where the Biden administration went through
the formal channels.
They sought this emergency petition
before the Supreme Court.
By the way, they petitioned it to Elito.
Elito referred it to the full court.
And you may be saying, well, why did Elito have itito referred it to the full court, and you may be saying,
well, why did Elito have it?
Elito is the emergency Supreme Court justice over
the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Why did Elito just not on his own?
He could have made the decision
and basically rejected the emergency petition
to the Supreme Court,
but what seems to have occurred
is that a deal's been made amongst all of the
Supreme Court justices that when it is a high profile matter, regardless of which district it is, you
refer that to the full court for decision and not one justice makes a decision.
We've seen that a lot in the January 6th committee related cases where there were these emergency
petitions.
That's because we shine the light on the shadow docket and talked about it at length.
People didn't even know what the shadow docket was.
And I think we, I don't know, I don't want to say us,
you and me, but certainly organizations and media outlets
like this one shine the light on the shadow docket
and they stopped doing it.
I think they would have done it had they not.
But Ben, just on your Alito point, the quote that I took away is that he actually said,
talk about projection, that the FDA, which is the Biden administration, he faulted them
for using the court system to evade proper administrative review and judicial review.
Are you, are you effing kidding me?
They filed in Abilene, Texas to get Kazmaric in order to get this ruling.
He'd been a general counsel of a right wing religious organization that was against
the portion in order to conjure up this decision to then put it back in front of the Supreme
Court.
And you're blaming the Biden administration for filing in Washington to get a competing
order.
That's just called good practice.
That's not called flouting the Supreme Court rules.
If anybody's flouting the rules and trying to form shop
in order to get a ruling of their choice,
it is the other side.
It's just...
And Justice Alito fundamentally,
he does understand, but he's being disingenuous.
The complaints about the shadow docket
are that in these shadow docket emergency rulings,
the Supreme Court would use their powers to stay things
that would dramatically change the status quo.
So imagine if the orders happened differently,
like imagine if rather than the Texas ruling coming out,
you had the order just from Washington state, which found that the FDA had to continue to abide
by its 2000 approval of the Princeton.
And then that was appealed to the Supreme Court.
And then on the emergency application, docket, the Supreme Court stayed that ruling and fundamentally altered the
status quo prohibiting the FDA's approval of MIFA Pristone. That's where the people
complained about the shadow docket, because it was like, you basically just made a ruling
overruling the FDA by couching it as a stay of a lower federal court judges ruling,
but you fundamentally made a ruling
which should have occurred through a regular oral argument process.
And here you have Justice Alito in the dissent saying, oh, liberal justice is, I thought
you were upset about the shadow docket.
Now you're using the shadow docket to stay judge, Kazmeric's order and to stay the
5th Circuit's order.
And it's like, no, you're missing the point.
What all the Supreme Court did here in staying judge, Kess Merrick's ruling is
preserving the status quo that existed since the year 2000.
That's all the Supreme courts then and it's later approvals.
So the status quo is now preserved pending a normal appeal process.
So just wanted to explain that, but that's what Alito used a lot of his descent to say,
he's like, oh, now you like the shadow docket.
No, no one likes the shadow docket, but the status quo needs to be preserved and these
massive rulings overturning FDA approvals of safe drugs used since 2000.
The status quo needs to be preserved and then go through a normal court proceeding.
And to state the obvious, but I've seen some confusion out there.
So this is all this only applies in states, the 23 of them or so.
I think we might even have a map of it that allows abortion as a state constitutional right or a state right. Federal right is gone because
the US constitutional right was ripped away by Alito and the other right-wing maga back
in the summer with the DOPS decision. So now we're just talking about only where, so if
you're in Texas, you can't get these drugs anyway because it's illegal to bring in these
drugs into a place like Texas.
That's the other thing that was wrong with Casamaric.
Nobody in Texas is getting those drugs because the state has a ban on it.
So you got a phony plaintiff who moved to Abelene to file the case in a state where there
is no use of the drugs.
It's a great point.
It's a great point. No medical harm.
It's a great point.
There should be no standing on that basis alone.
But POP, we discussed a lot on this episode of Legal AF.
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but you and I offline,
let's work on doing new diplomas
that we could put out there for the legal avers,
because that was really popular.
The first time we did that also,
if you want to support the Midas Touch Network,
we don't have outside investors.
In one of the main ways we support this network,
you're through our Patreon, go to p-a-t-r-e-o-n.com slash
MidasTouch Patreon.com slash MidasTouch.
As always, Popeyes and honor and a pleasure hosting this
with you.
Thank you to all the legal aeifers.
None of this is possible without you.
This is a movement and it's a movement led by the legal aeifers. And the Midas mighty, we're so grateful for all of you. This is a movement and it's a movement led by the legal a f'ers and the
Midas mighty were so grateful for all of you. See you next time a lot of legal news is gonna be happening this week
So I can't wait already for next week show. Till next time. I'm Ben myself. It's joined by Michael Popeye
Shout out to the Midas mighty
Shout out to the Midas Mighty.