Legal AF by MeidasTouch - NYAG Trump Investigation heats up & FBI is sued by Female Olympic Gymnasts

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

The midweek edition of LegalAF x MeidasTouch, the top-rated podcast covering law and politics, is anchored by national trial attorney and strategist, Michael Popok and former prosecutor and leading cr...iminal defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo. On this week’s episode, Popok and KFA discuss and analyze:   1. A NY State Court Judge finding Trump in Civil Contempt for failure to produce documents and records to the NY Attorney General.   2. The same judge ordering Trump’s long time appraisal firm to turn over all of their records without delay to the NY Attorney General to aid her investigation into whether Trump committed loan fraud.   3. 13 members of the Women’s Gymnastics Team putting the FBI on notice that intend to sue the FBI for bungling their investigation of former Dr. Larry Nasser who sexually assaulted and abused them while the FBI did nothing for years.   4. Whether a Jan6 Insurrectionist criminal defendant will be successful in defending herself by arguing that she is not a US or federal citizen, but a child of god.   Special Easter Egg: KFA plays “stump the Popok” as they discuss Elon Musk and his efforts to buy Twitter and what it all means. Follow Legal AF on Twitter: Legal AF: https://twitter.com/MTLegalAF Karen Friedman Agnifilo: https://twitter.com/kfalegal Michael Popok: https://twitter.com/mspopok 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 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the midweek edition of Midest Touch's legal AF with your anchor lawyers, Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifolo. Each week we tackle and explain the most consequential legal and political developments. And on today's podcast, Karen I take on a state court judge in New York who supervises the New York Attorney General Civil Investigation of Trump and his family concerning their business dealings. Before Trump was even in office, finds him in contempt for failing to produce documents despite a court order to do so. In a related development, and on the same day, the same judge has ordered the long-time
Starting point is 00:00:41 former appraisers for Trump, who he used for possible loans on inflated assets. They've been ordered by the same judge to turn over years of Trump's appraisal files and documents concerning the reason that they are no longer his appraiser and they have exited their relationship with the Trump organization. Well, then turned to a capital insurrectionist defendant who screamed for members of Congress to be hanged while she breached the Capitol, but now wants to present a defense that she's not a federal citizen at all. She's a citizen of God and doesn't respect federal law, and she wants that to be part of her defense presented to a jury over the objection, understandably, of the Department of Justice.
Starting point is 00:01:25 And then we'll end the show with the continued pursuit of justice by the US Women's Gymnastics team, who filed, at least 13 of them, filed a landmark lawsuit against the FBI or about to, for botching the Larry Nasser investigation and failing to put his predatory monster in jail before he could harm even more victims. Wow, Karen, that's an exciting show. I'm glad you're here with me. Fame, I'm so excited we're doing the Larry Nasser story in particular today because,
Starting point is 00:01:59 as I'm sure everybody knows, this is Sexual Assault Aware month. And today, in fact, is denim day. I don't know if you know what denim day is, which is why I'm wearing denim. Denim day is actually an international sexual assault awareness day that is recognized all over the country where everybody, a lot of people wear denim to work in solidarity for sexual assault victims. And it comes from a case in Italy,
Starting point is 00:02:27 for I think a 23 or four years ago, where a woman was sexually assaulted and the defendant was convicted, she was raped, and the defendant was convicted of rape. And a three-judge panel on appeal in Italy reversed the conviction, saying that it was there was no way that this could have been non-consensual because she was wearing tight jeans. And therefore, she must have had to help him take her jeans off and thereby consenting. And so they reversed the case. And the next day women members of the Italian Parliament showed up to work all in solidarity wearing jeans to protest the decision and it's become an international movement and so I was so happy when when we were discussing what cases we were going to do today that it happens to be on
Starting point is 00:03:20 denim day. Yeah, that's a terrific observation. I know you have a long background on the prosecutor's side of working with victims of sexual assault and abuse. And frankly, I listened to the other podcast and I listened. I followed Twitter that story about the new suit, potential suit against the FBI under the Federal Tort claims act, which is the first time in 70 episodes of Legal AAP we're going to talk about the FTCA. No one's really talking about it. It's sort of like nobody's talking about what happened to Brittany Griner, who still sits in a Russian jail even a month after you and I covered the story.
Starting point is 00:03:59 These are the stories that we hope that our audience come back to us for, and then take out with them back to the world as they talk about these things and it resonates and reverberates that way. And now that you've told me that I did not know about the denim, the denim gesture, I'm going to a Yankee game tonight with a client with Stuttering John. And I will now wear, I have one denim shirt, I will now wear that denim shirt, I will take a photo of it, wearing it at the Yankee game, hopefully a win against Baltimore, and I will post it in what's, let me also announce this, we have a new legal AF Twitter community. I know Twitter is in the news lately about Elon Musk potentially buying the first amendment. But we have set up a new Twitter community that's just for legal AF audience members, Midas Mighty, legal AFers,
Starting point is 00:04:54 and it's a place, a safe space, which I'm curating personally in terms of keeping trolls out and making sure that the dialogue is healthy in that way. It's going to be a place for people like Karen and me and Ben and others to post information leading into one of our podcast episodes, information coming out of it, something that we mentioned on a podcast that we think would be useful. You want to see the actual contempt order will post it. You want to see, you know, the actual decision of the Supreme Court or a link to the oral argument on the Supreme Court. That's a place where you can go. So I encourage you. We just found it on Sunday. We have already have 250 members. I'd like to grow that. But that's
Starting point is 00:05:36 going to be a place where everybody can go a toolbox where you can go. And if you enjoy legal AF, I hope you'll enjoy the legal AF Twitter community as well. And how do people join it, Popak? What do they have to search for and click on? Well, if they're already on Twitter, it's one of those groups or communities that you can join. We're already established. We already have a landing page. You just search for Legal AF Twitter community
Starting point is 00:06:01 in the search bar, and it should pop up. It's posted as well. If people want to go, you should do it to yours too, Karen. If you go to my Twitter profile, which is at MS Popok, I have a link to it at the top in my profile. And I think Karen, you should do the same thing. Hopefully, you'll hopefully you'll teach me how to do that since you're much more technologically adaptive than I am. I'm going to teach you the edit button and how to edit. All right.
Starting point is 00:06:32 So we've gone through that part. Before you start with the three stories, can you just give us, because I think your description of Elon Musk and the situation is truly the best I've heard anyone be able to describe it in a way that people can understand. Can you just give us one minute update on sort of where we are and why is it that this poison pill that we heard about isn't happening and sort of what's the deal? Okay, thanks. I'm ready for that. There's an old, that's also known in the business, Karen, although I want to do it, I appreciate it. As a hospital pass, do you know what a hospital pass is?
Starting point is 00:07:09 I do not. That's where the quarterback throws the ball over the middle and gets his wide receiver sent to the hospital because they're not ready for the pass. So I know you're ready. The thing is, I know you're ready because A, like I said, the way you described it was better than anyone else I've heard.
Starting point is 00:07:24 And I mean that. I don't just, I don't say that just because you're my co-host. But also, I've seen you tweeting about it. So I know that you're up to speed. I would not have asked you something that I didn't know you could explain. But I genuinely have questions and I assume that must be in others due to. So if you could just give us a very quick explanation, I know I would appreciate it. So Elon Musk who owned up to 10% of Twitter made a proposal, as everybody knows now, it's all over the news. Of course, made a proposal and offer to buy it
Starting point is 00:07:59 after first accepting an invitation that he forced to be on the board and stay as a minority member. That lasted three days. And he then departed and said, well, I want to own the whole company. I'm going to put it in offer. And without having the financing in place, because he can't do this himself, even though he's about to get a $23 billion bonus. Because frankly, he's raised the share price to all of the targets that they gave him in his executive compensation. The share price is for Tesla, although they've now dropped 15 to 20% in the last two days,
Starting point is 00:08:41 the market responding to him and basically telling him, don't think over Twitter, focus on Tesla, focus on going to Mars, don't focus on buying Twitter. So the market is pounding him right now, right? The market is pounding him and lowering his share price, but the share price has quadrupled or more since in the last three or four years. So he's getting a $23 billion bonus. Now we know where he wants to spend his bonus, right? Where he wants to spend his allowance.
Starting point is 00:09:09 He wants to buy Twitter. It's almost the exact amount of cash because there's three components to the purchase price. There's the amount that his investment banks, in this case Morgan Stanley, can raise in loans, right? So Morgan Stanley is gonna literally be a bank and loan him like, I think half of the $40 billion
Starting point is 00:09:34 the billion would be purchase price is gonna come from lending arranged by Morgan Stanley, both as a bank and what's called a syndicated loan, where they take the amount and they sell off parts of it, tranches of it to different lending organizations and banks that want to have a piece of it. So when you're a lender, you have a note, and there's your owed a payment, coupon payment, and that's a debt that sits on the books of the company. The other tranche, the second tranche of the investment
Starting point is 00:10:07 is gonna come from equity, meaning people buy shares in the new company that are being sold through now Elon Musk. So there is an equity for the vehicle of the purchase. So people are gonna go, oh, I wanna buy those shares. And usually these are big institutional investors, not small mom and pops like you and me, who are buying those shares.
Starting point is 00:10:28 So they're on the equity side. And all they get is, you know, they get a vote when it comes time to vote their shares in favor of the board. And they get a dividend if it's ever, if it's ever announced. That's all they get. Does he personally guarantee these loans, for example, so in case Twitter implodes and then he's files chapter or whatever, it files chapter 11. Yeah, he personally guarantees, so let's say the 25 million, sorry, 25 billion of lending
Starting point is 00:10:57 that Morgan Stanley is arranging, it's backed up with a pledge of the Tesla stock that he has. Now, he has limitations. He has limitations within the governing documents of Tesla as to how much of his stock he can pledge and or because of its pledged and there's a violation or breach, he could lose his security, his asset, and his collateral. And that matters to Tesla because, oh, there goes the founders, you know, $20 billion worth of stock. It's sold by Morgan Stanley at a market price depressing shares. So you have all
Starting point is 00:11:31 the fiduciary responsibilities that he has at Tesla. And then you've got him pledging personal assets and cash because he's going to have to come out of pocket cash. Mainly to get cash, he has to sell stock, which further depresses the market price for the shares. The market is trying to, let's be frank, restrain him from buying Twitter by pounding the share price into the ground so that he has to use more and more shares, you know, it becomes more costly for him to acquire Twitter because what three days ago was, you know, a valued at X, it's now X minus 20%. So now he's got to do more and more and more. And then the other thing, so he's got equity, he's got debt that he's taking on and that he's pledging his stock for. And then there's usually like bonds that are sold, which are also on the debt side of the equation.
Starting point is 00:12:28 Putting, he says now, and this was the big change in the last week since Monday, that he has put together the complete financing for $40 billion in those three categories. When he first made the offer, he didn't really have the financing in place. And people, including me, said, this is sort of a joke offer.
Starting point is 00:12:44 Another one of these marijuana 5420 offers that he did last time for his own privatization of Tesla. And he's just jerking the stock price. Now, even the Twitter market for stock did not like the deal originally started pounding the Twitter stock down, but then as it looked like the board had come around to accept the offer and make it a friendly takeover, as opposed to, we'll get back to the poison pill. Since the board announced and they have to, under the SEC, the Security and Exchange Commission regulations, they have to announce what their position is. If their position has changed about the potential acquirer in Elon Musk. And once they announced on Monday and Tuesday and Jack Dorsey, the
Starting point is 00:13:30 founder came out and said, we think the company will be in great hands with Elon Musk. This is exactly what we wanted. Let's go private. And yes, I'm going to make a billion dollars in a parachute on the way out. But I'm really in favor of this deal for the shareholders. Okay. You have that. And so the market reacted and started raising the stock price to come close to the offer price, because there was a gap. He offered 5420, but the stock at one point was like 50.
Starting point is 00:13:56 Then it started to rise 51, 52, as the market believes that the deal may actually happen. While at the same time, they're beating the crap out of Twitter stock to make it more expensive because the market signaling, don't do this. We don't really want you to do this. I don't think it matters to Elon Musk. He'll be able to pull this off between his dividend, his shares, his bonus, the lending. What the resulting company looks like in terms of debt structure, I think it's going to be crushed under debt at a time when I'm not even sure what the Twitter business model is. We like it. We use it a lot, but you know, we're not paying Twitter for it either.
Starting point is 00:14:34 So, you know, they have to find a way to start making lots of money once he comes on. The commercialization of Twitter will be dramatic because he's got to pay notes and bonds and dividends and debts and repay. And that's not going to happen from the existing revenue stream of Twitter. At a time where all streaming service and all social media are being hammered by the financial crisis, the world crisis, the Ukraine crisis is all hammering these things. Netflix hammered recently. YouTube announcing losses compared to prior years. This is not a good time to be buying a social media company at the highest value.
Starting point is 00:15:18 Then the other question is, is there somebody else that wants to buy it? That was my question. It doesn't the board have a fiduciary duty to try to get the highest price. I don't understand why they just went from Poison Pill to, okay, we'll take your marijuana offer with the number 420 in it.
Starting point is 00:15:34 I mean, seriously, it just seemed so strange to me that they would get it for sale. Yeah, well, let's talk about that. Ben did a whole like eight minutes on the fiduciary duty responsibility of the board. On the poison pill that you asked me about, he or they that put the poison pill in place can remove the poison pill. If it goes from an unfriendly hostile takeover, which is what it was at one point, because
Starting point is 00:16:00 they said, we're not inviting this. We don't want this. We don't want to sell at 40 at 40 at 42 20 or 54 20. Sorry, a share which is too low. Our value is like 70, which is what it was a share a year ago. And okay, but you know what? They've got advisors. They've got Goldman Sachs as an advisor.
Starting point is 00:16:20 And the market is talking right now, right? So people would say, put it up for auction. You know, that's a foodie-shary duty. You know, Delaware law says that at some instances, it's incumbent upon the board to get the highest price and maybe using an auction is the way to do that. But frankly, I haven't heard one other competing offer come out of the woodwork.
Starting point is 00:16:44 Jeff Bezos loves tweeting about great. The Chinese are going to control Twitter and this one tweets this and this one tweets that and be, oh, I'm on and I'm off. But you know what's not happening? Another competing offer. And all you got to do, and I've been involved with this on the Wall Street side, if you want to buy the company, you send in a letter to lines to the board that says, stop. I'm willing to pay 60, I'm willing to pay 5520, and now we're often running with a competing offer. But you know what, in the week, the market is silent
Starting point is 00:17:13 about another acquirer. So you don't, you could hold an auction, but somebody's got to show up. And right now, nobody is indicating that they want this more than Elon Musk at 5420. And can he back down? Can he back down at this point? So he had a file and the company had a file paper work yesterday.
Starting point is 00:17:33 And this has been little reported, although I tweeted about it. There is always in a potential takeover or acquisition, what's called a breakup fee, which is the amount that will be paid to the target, in this case, Twitter, if the acquirer does not go through with the transaction. It's both to punish the acquirer for not doing that, and of course, to compensate the company for going through the reputational harm issues of having this dance and then going nowhere. And so usually to punish them, it's a very high number as a percentage of the total deal price. Total deal price here is 4 billion. Usually, it's about 10%, which would be a 40 billion. So 10% would be a $4 billion penalty or break up fee
Starting point is 00:18:21 if Musk doesn't get the financing or just walks away from the deal, which he can do. He has the right to do that, and this would be the damage, look with data damage amount. But the only amount that they've set is one billion, which is a lot of money to you and me. If I had it, I wouldn't want it sucked out of my bank account, but it's not any money at all to Musk. So it is, you know, it's pocket change for him. It's it's one. So, so it's a so that was filed. So that was filed yesterday yesterday was the date. Now there's a breakup. Okay, I got it. Right. And there's a breakup and all he has to pay for if he fails to close on this deal is $1 billion. That's all. Which means, which is for him is nothing.
Starting point is 00:19:07 That's the reality. So he can jerk this around, watch the stock market price, watch the Twitter price, play the margins, right? And then decide, you know what? Thank you. It was a pipe dream, but I'm not going through it. They don't point to something else. You know, the board's not cooperative.
Starting point is 00:19:25 I got to look under the hood into diligence. I looked at all the information on their finances and the company sucks, I'm out. You know, something like that. Or, you know, I want to spend more time with my family or whatever coaches say when they retire for bad reasons. But, but that is, I want people to understand. That is a red flag
Starting point is 00:19:45 about whether he's really serious or he's given himself what looks like optionality to walk away from the deal. So speaking of bad coaches, should we move on? Sure, let's talk about former Dr. Larry Nasser, formerly of Michigan State, who was a sports doctor and the head doctor for the US women's Olympic gymnastics team or gymnastics team, USA gymnastics, I think is what it's called. Who most people are like, didn't we already do that story? Isn't he, isn't he the bad
Starting point is 00:20:20 evil man that's sitting in jail for the next 40 to 175 years in Michigan. And the answer to that is yes. 2018, he was sentenced for molesting and sexually assaulting women and girls on the team under the guise of giving them medical examinations or treatment. So that really terrible man is where he belongs. Now you have, how do the victims victims and there are hundreds of them. How do they get compensated financially for the physical attack, the sexual attack, the emotional abuse and emotional suffering for this and from whom? Larry Nasser doesn't have any money and he's
Starting point is 00:21:02 making license plates now at the Michigan Penitentiary. So, where do you get money? Where do you go? Well, you look to other people that should have been in a position to protect the innocent. And they have money. Michigan State, I think, got sued at one point for employing him, USA Gymnastics,
Starting point is 00:21:22 for not properly supervising him when they heard complaints. And this one that we're going to talk about now is the federal Bureau of Investigation who started an investigation in 2015, but did not take him off the street and arrest him until well into 2017. And in that two-year gap of 2015 to, Nasser continued to molest and sexually assault dozens and dozens of women and girls, including the 13 who are now about to sue the FBI for $130 million. So let's talk about the case.
Starting point is 00:21:58 Let's talk about the statute under which the federal statute under which the plaintiffs are suing the federal Bureau of Investigation and where it is now and where it goes from here, Karen. Yeah, so this is just an incredible thing that's happening and really the fact that these sexual assault survivors are coming forward and bringing this to light. I myself am so happy that they are bringing this to light right now about the failures of the FBI and what they did, what sort of highlighted how so many more victims in this matter were sexually assaulted because of their failure to act.
Starting point is 00:22:36 Basically, what's happened is 13 different sexual assault victims are seeking $10 million each from the FBI for basically bungling the investigation that they say led to more abuse. And this is coming because there was an Inspector General report that came out in, I believe it was in July of 2021. It was the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General and that's sort of the oversight body that looks at and investigates federal agencies.
Starting point is 00:23:18 They investigated the handling of the FBI, how they handled the Larry Nasser case, and what they found, and this was like a finding, an actual finding that said senior officials at the FBI, in particular the Indianapolis Indiana office, where some of the survivors came forward, they went to that office and reported the crime, said that that particular field office failed to
Starting point is 00:23:47 respond to allegations of sexual assault with the urgency that that this required. They didn't notify, for example, the Michigan field office, you know, because every FBI, the FBI in addition to being in Washington has field offices all over the country. And so they should have notified the Michigan field office where he was a doctor and coach. They should have notified the Michigan state and local agencies, like for example, the local police department. They could have been, they could have been investigating Larry Nasser and potentially had other complaints against him. And the third, they found that he did not, they did not, the FBI field office in Indianapolis didn't do enough to mitigate the ongoing threat.
Starting point is 00:24:35 And what they meant by that was stop further abuse. So you have information that he is sexually assaulting young girls. And they sat on their hands for eight months, there were eight months of inaction before the FBI in Los Angeles got a separate report and by another sexual assault survivor. And they started an investigation. And they finally are the ones who started
Starting point is 00:25:03 to investigate this federally. However, they also failed to mention, I'm sorry, to refer this to the Michigan field office or to the Michigan State and local agencies. So again, every single sexual assault abuse victim who was abused and assaulted and raped and touched inappropriately from that time in that report in 2015 to the Indianapolis office going forward until he was arrested, frankly. What these
Starting point is 00:25:33 sexual assault survivors are saying is that's on the FBI. You have blood on your hands because you could have every girl who was touched inappropriately or sexually assaulted after that is your fault because you did nothing to stop it. You had the information and you did nothing to stop it. So these 13 women and girls were part of that? Yes, exactly. And interestingly, there was a lot of language in the, in, in that has come out both in the in that has come out both in the report, but also that the director of the FBI Christopher Ray, you know, who is after in response to this suit. It's not really a lawsuit, but you'll
Starting point is 00:26:16 explain that when you when you explain sort of, you know, the FTCA. But essentially the FBI director saying words like, I'm deeply and profoundly sorry for these delays. These was an unspeakable failure of the FBI. To me, that's signaling the fact that they are going to settle with these women and settle with these girls. And I think that's significant because if this ever does go to an actual lawsuit against the FBI, a concept of qualified immunity, something that we've talked about before could come into play. It could come into play that the FBI agents
Starting point is 00:27:01 could be immune based on their inaction. And so it's something that I think, I don't think it's gonna get to that point because the bad press and the hits that the FBI will take if they actually try to come forward and say, that I'm sorry, we have qualified immunity in this matter. I just don't think they would ever hold themselves out to that because then I think,
Starting point is 00:27:24 there's already a call to reform the qualified immunity kind of judicially created provision nationwide, especially after the George George Floyd protest, which holds mostly inaction, you know, obviously you can still prosecute people criminally, but you know, when you, when you're, when you do a bad job or you're incompetent, you know, there's qualified immunity, you can't be held accountable. So I worry about that a little here, technically, but I think the FBI would never go there, both for reputational harm, and also because they don't want to risk having this be,
Starting point is 00:28:04 the lightning rod that finally overturns qualified immunity. So I think they're going to settle with these survivors and I think these survivors are going to get paid for the inaction here. That's what I think. Okay, so let me continue with that qualified immunity as the individual officers for sure.
Starting point is 00:28:21 Fortunately on the books, and we're going to open up class now for legal AF on the federal tort claims act, which I'm actually handling a case under it right now. That is it until 1946, if you were injured at the hands of a federal employee, whether it be law enforcement, medical, you name it, Department of Justice, and it could be anything, anybody who's employed by the federal government. Until 1946, they were able to say under the doctrine, long standing of sovereign immunity,
Starting point is 00:28:53 sorry, we work for the king, we work for the sovereign, and you can't sue us, you're out of luck for your injuries or your loss. And in 1946, Congress passed the Federal Dorklaims Act at 28 USC 1346. We'll post that in our legal AF, Twitter community, in which it allowed that if the injury was caused by an entity that if it was a private citizen would be able to be sued in court for the loss or damage, federal tort claims act says, you can sue the agency, not the individuals, but you can sue the agency as if they were a natural person in the court and you can seek recovery of your loss or for your
Starting point is 00:29:40 damage. There's a few very specific requirements. A, you can't sue the individual, it did it to you. This is where qualified immunity comes in. You can't sue the TSA agent directly. You can't sue the FBI agents by their name, but you can sue the TSA. You can sue the FBI, the Department of Justice, the EPA, whoever you say has harmed you, that employee
Starting point is 00:30:07 worked for. And you got to do it within two years of when you knew or should have known about the loss of injury, which is an interesting, we'll have to put a pin on that one, Karen, because this seems a little late for bringing it against the FBI if the two-year requirement holds, this stuff happened in 2015 to 2017. My calendar says 2022 seems to be beyond the two years, but if you're right, and I believe you will be, at the FBI from a reputational standpoint, from a human being standpoint, does wants to compensate them. Then the statutes limitations issue will not come into play at the time.
Starting point is 00:30:52 Now, in order to start a case under the Federal Tworklames Act, the FTCA, and then just everybody knows who are the lawyers for the government and the government agency, the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice has a section dedicated to the FTCA. And if any other agency gets sued, they jump in and defend that agency or supervise the settlement negotiations related to that agency. So you fill out a form, you literally fill out a claims form. It's form 95. You submit it to the agency, to the FBI. So Chris Ren, the director of the FBI, is going to get a form 95, or has gotten it based
Starting point is 00:31:37 on the reporting of the case. And you have to file that first with the agency. You don't go to court for you. You're not allowed to go to court first. The agency, and you make your demand in the Form 95, you lay out your narrative, I'm sure, I'm sure in this case, it looks like a standard complaint that's filed in court with allegations and paragraphs
Starting point is 00:31:58 and dollar amounts. And then you sign it and you put in it, the amount you're looking for. So I don't know if they use 13, 495s asking for $10 million of peace. I think they probably did or they did one master global omnibus one asking for $130 million. But either way, it goes to the FBI. Chris Ren then has a decision to make and he has the power to do this comes out of his budget or he can go to
Starting point is 00:32:25 Congress for more if he feels he doesn't have $130 million laying around with the Department of Justice lawyers, they evaluate it. And then they have 180 days to evaluate it. Again, you can't run into court yet until the agency you're suing has a chance to evaluate whether they're going to pay the claim. And if they decide to pay the claim or enter into good faith settlement negotiations with the lawyers, which I'm sure is what they hope, they can resolve the claim without it ever going to court. If it does not get resolved or they make or they decide to pay less or they decide to pay nothing at all, or 180 days goes by and they haven't done a darn thing, which I don't think that's gonna happen
Starting point is 00:33:06 in this type of case. Then the women in this case get a what's called a right to sue letter, and they can run into court and file their case six months from now. I have a couple of questions to that, if you don't mind. Let me give one last thing before procedure, because this is all sort of new, I think for everybody.
Starting point is 00:33:25 And I want to bring up two pro, yeah, yeah, I want to bring up two prior cases at which the Federal Torclayme's Act was used successfully by plaintiffs that are pretty famous, but people may have forgotten about them because they were not, not recent. So in 1991, when I was leaving law school, and you can look this up and I'll post something on the on the Twitter community, the US Navy had a famous party. That was called tailhook and all the officers and male and female and other females, what a 10 tailhook. And let's be honest, it was drunken deboutry and really out of control in appropriate behavior, but it had gone on for years. And it was known as the tailhook convention or tailhook. Well, women who were sexually assaulted at tailhook in just prior to 1991 said enough is enough. And they filed under the Federal Tork claims act to hold the officers of the Navy and the Navy responsible for what happened to them at Tailhook and they were successful in a case and got tens of millions of dollars and of course cultural change within the Navy. So that's 1991 in Tailhook involving
Starting point is 00:34:39 sexual assault. In 1993, the branch Davidians cult in Waco, Texas, right? And Waco, you know, a fire got started either by inadvertently by the FBI or by members of the branch Davidians who wouldn't who wouldn't be taken alive. But a lot of innocent people, you know, not David Kuresh, not the leader of the cult and all of that died in that fire. And the families of the victims sued the FBI and recovered under the Federal Torque claims act in a settlement. Actually, it wasn't a settlement. It was a judgment, $100 million. Now, that was back in 1993. So it's not a toothless statute. It's something that brings real relief for real important matters involving the federal government.
Starting point is 00:35:32 So I have a couple questions, if you don't mind. Let me ask it. Number one, is it possible? So as you say, qualified immunity only applies to the individual FBI agents, which there were some that clearly had bad behavior. Like for example, one of them was interviewing with the USA gymnastics to do security for them when he retired, clearly had a conflict of interest in that matter. But is it possible that the 13 individuals, the survivors can come forward and say, we didn't know about the harm caused by the systemic failures by the FBI until the July Inspector General report came forward?
Starting point is 00:36:16 So therefore, is that a way to get around the two-year requirement? I think you're exactly right. I think that's a very good observation. They didn't know or should know back. It's not you're right. You're right. I misanalyzed. It's not when they were sexually assaulted in 15 to 18. It's when it came to light with the Inspector General's report, as you just mentioned, in 2021, and we're well within the statute of limitations. See Karen you completely solved that mystery. Perfect. Well you know anyway so so this is a this is it that was that was my main question. The other question was does and then we can go to our next story but my next question was basically
Starting point is 00:36:59 does this 180 day period toll the statute of limitations, or is the statute still running to file a civil case in court? You know, that's a good question. I would think it equitably tolls it, so that means it stops the clock, so you don't lose six months. Because some people think, well, it's two years, but two years goes by pretty quickly, especially, you know, on some of these standards. And you don't want to lose, you know, six months of it, jerking around with the administrative process that's required by the statute.
Starting point is 00:37:32 My gut, and I will look it up, is that it will stop the clock on the equitable tooling at the time that you file the required procedure than the Form 95 with the agency. You that that is a timely notification and should count in court for nobody arguing, oh, they missed the statute because they were jerking around in a required mandatory administrative procedure. But I will look that up, but I that's my gut. Yeah, so I ask the question because it actually comes up in the next case, we're going to discuss where Trump is being held in contempt of court by a state court judge. And one of the things that we're going to discuss, I'll let you set up this whole case.
Starting point is 00:38:20 But one of the things we're going to discuss is the contempt order that the judge filed yesterday and it just came out. And one of the things he mentions in there is clearly that Trump is trying to run out the statute of limitations in any possible suit that Tish James is going to bring against him. And that's part of his tactic, delay, delay, delay. And then, whoops, now you can't hold me accountable whether it's criminal or civil, but why don't you set up the Trump, the Trump hell that being held in contempt matter? Well, let me respond to that first, because it'll bring in your prosecutor experience.
Starting point is 00:38:53 Every time I've been involved with a prosecutor where we were running up against a statute of limitations, one of two things happened when I was defending corporations. The government said, yeah, we're sort of short on time. Here's a tolling agreement that I'm going to require you to sign right now, giving me as the prosecutor six months or a year more, where we stop the clock and we agree you will not raise the statute of limitations, defense, or else. And what is the or else, Karen? What is what is the really big club that the prosecutor or the SEC or SCFTC or any of the regulatory agencies? What's the big what's the big or else if you don't sign the telling agreement?
Starting point is 00:39:37 We're going to bring the case. We'll indict you. We'll arrest you. We'll prosecute you. You know, all right now. Bring the case. Yeah, right now. We'll bring the case now because we don't want to be locked out of the time period and lose claims. And then you know what? Will amend will supersede will bring new claims? Well, I think you Trump knows that she doesn't have enough yet. If she did, she would bring it.
Starting point is 00:40:01 And so he knows by delaying this and not because he's not he's, he's not giving over all the documents that she needs for her case. Well, let me say one thing. One of the things that came out of, we had a lot of developments this week. And the order came out, I guess yesterday from judge Ergeron at a trial court judge in Manhattan in the New York State Supreme Court, which is a trial level judge. And we had two amazing bombshell results this week. Kind of back to back. Contempts got the headlines because it's sexy. The one that's probably even more devastating because contempt you make it out of and he will get out of ultimately is that Kushman Wakefield, the international real estate appraisal and brokerage and leasing firm, who had bid his long time real estate partner, who did all the leasing for Trump tower, did all the leasing for all of his Trump properties, all of his commercial people think, oh, he's
Starting point is 00:40:56 a real estate, he doesn't all himself, no, he doesn't. He farms it all out to major real estate firms because he's like a four person shop with the kids. You know, he can't, right? He can't, I'm sorry, he can't cover all of this. So he has to hire professionals that handle commercial leasing, commercial sales, branding. And in this case, appraisals because every time he went for a bank loan, he had to do an appraisal. So he used Cushman Wakefield, which I know because it's sort of a competitor
Starting point is 00:41:26 of a company that I used to work for. So Cushman, just like Mazers, had been Mazers USA, which was this accounting firm that noisily exited last year and said, you know what, after 10 years, not only are we getting out of our relationship with the Trump organization as a client, but everything that we've ever said in our financial reporting for them is unreliable.
Starting point is 00:41:50 All right. That was mazers. Now, pushing the opposite approach, right? They're saying we stand by what we've done. No, no, close. Pushmen noisily exited, basically saying we are no longer going to be in bed or business with the Trump organization. We're walking away from the leasing. We're walking away from a brazil work. Goodbye. Thank you very much. They did not, however, undercut or call
Starting point is 00:42:15 into question, the underlying appraisals, you're exactly right. They said, but we stand by all of our appraisals. They were done by fine individuals. Everything's really so far away. By the way, I hope they're right. Well, well, well, you know what? Look, I'm not an appraiser. I'm not a real estate expert, but I am a person who lives in New York City. And there's a building at Forty Wall Street, which is if anyone knows. I'm not from you. Yeah, a block, a block from me, but it's also just absolutely one of the hottest neighborhoods and has been for many, many years, beautiful, stunning, old, historic buildings. And Kushman Wakefield valued it in 2012 at 220 million and three years later in 2015
Starting point is 00:43:00 at 550 million. I mean, that's, you know, I don't know how they're going to justify. Well, did you or let me let the your apartment triple in three years in that period? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I don't think this one did either. And I know that building. I have friends that have law firms in that building. And I used to be a I used to be a 100 wall street when I started the law firm here in New York. So I know that I know that neighborhood and that stretch really, really that building really, really, really well. Are they potentially liable?
Starting point is 00:43:25 Cushman and Wakefield as yes, yes, and they're probably worried just as mazers is that they that they are considered Coke and spiritors along with Trump in the submission of these fraudulent bank statements. If Trump goes down for bank fraud and loan fraud and tax fraud. They're going to go after they're going to. Yeah, they're going to turn around and go after mazers and pushman wakefield. Wow. You know, there are no longer international accounting firms who were around for hundreds and hundreds of years, who are no longer on planet earth because of financial
Starting point is 00:44:01 failings that they did in working for what turned out to be criminals. So it happens every day. Before we turn to the story, the reason I think we're getting close to New York Attorney General Tish James' filing is she basically said it this week. She said she's close to filing her civil lawsuit against the Trump family and the Trump organization. I think and hold me to it, I think that happens between now. I think it happens before the end of the summer.
Starting point is 00:44:31 Maybe it rolls into the fall. I think it's going to be a one, two punch. Jan 6th committee does its June presentation of the evidence around the same time, Tish James comes out June July. She's politically savvy. She knows the midterms are coming. And she files her civil suit right around the same time. I think this is the last piece is to look at the appraisal documents and see if they can make their case on that particular
Starting point is 00:44:53 working theory. And she's basically said that I don't think we're not going to wait around much longer. But what is Judge Ergaron? What has he been doing? If he hasn't been litigating over or been presiding over a civil lawsuit over Trump, he's been supervising the civil investigation. So we're all those people out there who think, Tis James is just running a mock. She's doing her own thing and she's just, you know, she's completely it's a political vendetta. That was my Trump impression. She's supervised by a judge. She has to report to a judge. Oh, that's not a very good Trump impression. I'm not good at Trump.
Starting point is 00:45:28 You have to work. You have to work on that. I don't want to. You don't make me. Huge, huge, huge. China. I don't know. There's so many good people.
Starting point is 00:45:37 We have a guy that goes on minus touch. It's like 22. He does amazing impressions. He's in the guy in Saran and alive. I don't think anybody could beat him right now who's doing the Trump impression. But in any event, that is not what's happening. There is a there is a state court judge that's sitting over the investigation and Tish James and her people report to him, file documents with him, file updates with
Starting point is 00:45:58 him, get subpoenas from him. He supervises the discovery in the case who's being deposed, when they're being deposed. If they don't participate appropriately in discovery process, which is what Trump is now accused of, he's going to throw down the hammer. So, beginning of this week, the motion before him was the motion that New York Attorney General filed a couple of weeks ago, which was the find Trump in contempt for failing to provide the documents that were required of him personally from his filing cabinets, from his boxes, from his computers, from his phones, wherever he stores his cloud,
Starting point is 00:46:38 wherever he stores things by March 30th. March 30th came and went. And the judge had already appointed an independent electronic discovery vendor, a company to get these documents, whether they're an electronic form or otherwise, and report back to the judge about the progress. Why? Because the judge already didn't trust Trump from his past bad acts. So he brought in like this
Starting point is 00:47:05 this discovery referee and that company reported to the judge, there are entire file cabinets that we know exist that have not been searched. And they identified it. The filing cabinet outside of Trump's office, the filing cabinets on the 25th floor, the fire, the boxes in Mar-a-Lago, another scary, uh, another scary identification, the executive office boxes. That sounds like there's going to be a lot of stuff in there. Not searched, not searched, not turned over. So Alina Habba, who is the flavor of the month, new lawyer for Trump currently, who he's fallen madly, if effectuated with, in fact, you know, he likes her a lot because she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she's, she does whatever he wants. Right. No more Giuliani, no more Powell,
Starting point is 00:47:55 no more Lin Woods, you know, now it's Alina Haba and she's loving the limelight. And so she runs into court and says, Judge, you can't hold my guy in contempt. Everything's been produced. They said, well, what do you can't hold my guy in contempt. Everything's been produced. They said, what do you mean? What about the 25th floor filing cabinet and the boxes of executive office and the box out the cabinet out in front of his office? What about all that? I personally went, this is the Lena Habit in court.
Starting point is 00:48:18 I personally went to Mar-a-Lago and I looked around for things and I didn't find anything. And he said, you know what? That's not enough to avoid contempt. You have to file a sworn affidavit or declaration, laying out for me, if you're right, everything that's been done in all of these locations to convince me that they've been searched in good faith and the documents have been turned over.
Starting point is 00:48:41 And does it have to be his affirmation or can the lawyer say? Oh, it's gonna to be Alina. It's going to, it's going to be Alina on behalf of Trump. Maybe Trump does it too. If he cares about the $10,000 a day, maybe he does. But my favorite part, I miss you, I can get this to go right. My favorite part of his ruling in court, because the written order came out yesterday,
Starting point is 00:49:01 but he brought everybody into court, live court, on Monday and made the announcement. And my favorite quote, you know what it is. I take my job seriously as you as do you, what you say? Yeah, no, no, that was perfect. He said, Mr. Trump, I know that you take your business seriously. And I take my business seriously too. I find you in contempt. And then he literally slammed the gavel down and that was the end of the hearing.
Starting point is 00:49:26 Either way, isn't it? I take it seriously too. I find you in contempt. Did he watch off? Yeah. Didn't the judge say? Didn't the judge say? And instead my written order will be coming out in a few days. So, but I want to manage expectations as do you.
Starting point is 00:49:43 A Habba may be able to pull a rabbit out of the hat, and she may be able to demonstrate in sworn declarations that all of these places that, that, to James things weren't searched, were actually searched. I think it's a tough road to hope. But if she does, they'll get out from under civil contempt, and they'll just, and the judge will say, all right, then there's no more documents.
Starting point is 00:50:04 But right now, the judge believes there are documents that haven't been searched for sitting in these cabinets that are responsive. And he's in contempt of court until he, you know, Trump does something to get him out outside of and they move to vacate the order, they move to reverse the order. And Alina Habas says, I'm going gonna take an appeal. I mean, but on the record before the judge, see the problem with her appeal strategy is that the appellate court is only going to look at the information that was in front of the trial judge. Alina's not gonna be able to supplement it
Starting point is 00:50:38 with, oh, I found an affidavit later, appellate court, go take a look at it. They're gonna say you should have brought that up at the trial court level. So she's gonna have to file these things at the trial court level. She's going to have to ask for reconsideration or rehearing by Judge Ergoron. She's going to have to try to convince him based on that information that they're not in contempt and then take the appeal of whatever adverse result comes from there. So anything else you want to observe about
Starting point is 00:51:01 this particular judge or what happened for contempt for. I think we're really done with Kushner Wakefield. We've covered what the order is. He's ordered them, Ergoron has ordered them the same day to turn over all of their appraisal files for dozens of years of appraisals with a Trump organization. And he went one step further, your decision to exit the relationship and to quit. You turn over all those, all those internal memos and emails about we got to get out of here, we got to get away from Trump, he's going down, all those emails have to go over to the New York Attorney General as well. So the only observation I want to make is what's happening is this isn't for those of you who aren't in court every single day. This isn't kind of normal, what's happening. Okay, this isn't for those of you who aren't in court every single day. This isn't kind of normal what's happening.
Starting point is 00:51:45 This isn't part of the normal procedure where you file this and you file that and you're held in contempt and then you produce that this is not normal. This is clearly the judge is frustrated, exasperated and feels that after multiple extensions of time, adjournments, etc. that the process here is actually being impeded. The statute of limitations is running and therefore it could impact whether or not certain, either civil or criminal charges can be brought by Tish James or anyone else in this matter.
Starting point is 00:52:20 And the judge is clearly exasperated. I mean, even to your point about the gavel and him smashing down his gavel, I read somewhere that he said that was the first time he's ever used his gavel in court. Judges don't really use their gavels though. I want you to go. It's not, but it's not like a thing, you know, it's like it's very dramatic and holding someone in contempt is also very dramatic.
Starting point is 00:52:42 I was, I was a practicing prosecutor for 30 years. I don't think anyone in my office during that time had ever been held in contempt or any defense attorneys very few if at all prosecutors and defense attorneys is very, very rare. I once had a judge throw a binder clip at his own bench, what he was annoyed with my opponent. And the only other thing I want to say is, again, for the legal AF law school, is there's two types of contempt, of course. There's civil contempt and criminal contempt. Civil contempt is designed to make you do something. It's designed to course you to do something. And that's what happened here. He's being fined $10,000
Starting point is 00:53:19 day until he actually produces the documents to the satisfaction of the judge or files an apodabit with the level of detail that you said saying, look, I looked, it doesn't exist, I can't find it, whatever. You know, my little Sharpie scribbled post-it notes, I can't find them anywhere. So that's what civil contempt is. It's designed to get you to do something, but there's also something known as criminal contempt, which theoretically could happen here. And criminal contempt is designed to punish. You can't cure that. In other words, if Donald Trump refuses to turn over these documents or he refuses to file this
Starting point is 00:53:54 app at David and he just says to the judge, you know what, I am not listening to you. You're not the boss of me. And I'm a sovereign citizen, which, you know, we'll talk about in a minute. And our next in our next case, I like weaving these cases together. By the way, I only answer the God Almighty. Yeah, you're not the boss of me. The judge can hold him in criminal contempt. And that's where he could put him in jail and punish him. So anyway, I don't think that's ever going to happen.
Starting point is 00:54:19 But I just wanted to for the law school students of legally, I just wanted to point out that there are different types of contempt in this particular matter. It's civil. So let's move on to our sovereign citizen. But I like that one because it does remind people because it can be confusing, even for lawyers, that even though you're in a civil context, you're not in criminal court, the judge has the power
Starting point is 00:54:44 if the flouting of the rules, the thumming of the nose to the court, there's a word for it that I love. It's not contemptuous, although a lot of people use that. In our profession, it's contumacious, which means you've done things in contempt of the court. So that's the phrase. So if your contumaciousness reaches such a level and civil contempt doesn't convince you to do the right thing, the civil judge, as you just described, can use criminal contempt to take away your liberty, grab your toothbrush and go with the bailiff because you're going to go sit in Rikers Tell me that would not be amazing. I don't think there's a presidential suite at Rikers Island
Starting point is 00:55:32 I don't think so. By the way, you know that there's only three presidents or former presidents I read in in researching for this that have ever been held in contempt of court It's just Clinton was one of them Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky kind of situation. And then Thomas Jefferson in relation to the Aaron Burr, some kind of Aaron Burr, I feel like I'm watching Alexander Hamilton on Broadway hearing about this. But again, so holding the former president of the United States in contempt of court. It's a big deal. And this is, maybe it doesn't have a ton of teeth. And the $10,000 a day means nothing to Donald Trump
Starting point is 00:56:10 because he'll just hold a rally and his supporters will pay for it gladly. I'm sure, just to allow him to do it. But it's a big deal that the former president is being held in contempt of court and showing that basically saying the law does not apply to me. The rules do not apply to me. Can you imagine, it makes me feel better sometimes to imagine this, can you imagine the history books 20 years from now? Yeah, the critical race theory history books.
Starting point is 00:56:37 The real history books, tell the history of what happened here, when the students of that day get to the Trump section, there's going to be entire law school classes. It's going to be like, what did he do? And why was it allowed? And what were those people called that supported him? And what's QAnon? I mean, this is my boggling. But let's speaking of all of that,
Starting point is 00:57:00 let's turn to the capital insurrectionist trials and an update on that and we'll do it through the lens of one particular defendant. Her name is Pauline Bauer. She hails from Pennsylvania. She owns a pizza shop and when she's not doing that, she subscribes to the theory that she is not bound by the federal law, federal constitution. She's not a citizen of the United States. She's a free sovereign citizen of the world and of God, and she does not have to respect the laws of this, of, that you and I have to respect, or I guess anything else, maybe natural law, gravity, maybe she doesn't have to respect gravity either. So the insurrection on Jan 6, shows you that out of control, weird people come in all shapes and sizes and all shades of white.
Starting point is 00:57:53 You have proud boys, you've got oath keepers, you've got first amendment Praetorians, you've got QAnon Conspiracy Theorist. It was a grand old picnic for all of these people to get together on Jan Jan 6th and storm the Capitol and try to stop the peaceful transfer of power. And another group that showed up because, you know, it was an open invitation, you know, that party's a big tent. They let everybody in. Our sovereign citizens. Now, what the heck is that? I happen to know about that one because I defended a group of people who believe that they were sovereign citizens when they were prosecuted by the IRS 25 years ago and said they didn't have to pay taxes
Starting point is 00:58:32 because the internal revenue code was improperly passed by Congress who had no power or authority to do so. Therefore, it's an illegitimate law. We're going to talk about jury notification next. It's an illegitimate law that they did not have to abide by and that's why they didn't file their tax returns and that's why they didn't file their taxes. So they can't have criminal intent because they honestly and truly believe as sovereign citizens that they didn't have to. And they use gold instead of money. It's a whole thing. Well, listen,
Starting point is 00:59:07 these were our clients. We told them to take the deal that the government was offering to put them in jail for a year or two. And they said, no, we want to put this case on a trial. And we told them why that's probably not going to go well for them. And so we put it on in Miami federal court. And it did not go well for them. The jury did not like them, did not like the sovereign citizen defense, which the judge let us put on, and they went to jail for five years plus. Now. I was happy to see that Pauline Bauer
Starting point is 00:59:35 is being prosecuted in Washington, D.C. Yes. Not necessarily in Pennsylvania, where, you know, look, as we saw in the Michigan and the governor Whitmer case, you know, your case is only good as your jury pool. And, you know, these sovereign citizen people, they're all over the country. I mean, my father at one point lived in Oregon and Oregon has a big community of these, we used to call them off the grid, kind of sovereign citizen type people,
Starting point is 01:00:00 they have, they generate their own electricity through solar. They literally are like, we do not participate in government. And therefore, the government does not apply to that. They're like violent Amish people. But they always take up arms. And so what did this wonderful human being do while she was there on Gen 6? She decided that she decided that you know what tell her what? She was on tape, by the way. Yeah, tell her what this beauty was yelling and screaming,
Starting point is 01:00:28 we're a family show, so you can't actually use the words, and I don't have a bleeper, but say what she was yelling about and what she wanted to happen. So she was on camera and yelling for the police to bring out Nancy Pelosi and bring out other members of Congress so that they can hang them. Literally, she was seen shoving the police and screaming profanities.
Starting point is 01:00:53 And, you know, she literally was encouraging that members of Congress become out, so that they can be hung by this lynch mob of people who were there. And, you know, but she's saying that she can't be prosecuted because she is, she has a slightly different take on the sovereign citizen. She's her own brand.
Starting point is 01:01:16 She, her own brand. Well, no, hers is a religious exemption saying that she's not a person. She's a creation of God. And therefore, because she's not a person, and therefore, the laws, these laws that govern humans do not govern her. I have good news for her.
Starting point is 01:01:38 There is a creation of God section at the local prison. Yeah, well. Yeah, so what happened this this week and what's going on is is all the pretrial motions and limiting that happened during any case where both sides ask the court to whether it's allowed them to present certain evidence or preclude other types of evidence and in this particular instance the Department of Justice here filed motions asking that certain types of information, either she has to say that she's going to do it, or if, which how can she, she's on tape. But if you're gonna offer an alibi, the law requires you to serve notice that you are going to offer an alibi defense.
Starting point is 01:02:32 And this gives the prosecution an opportunity to investigate your alibi and whether or not you, whether or not you are, where were you said you were. So they're just saying, because she didn't serve alibi notice, she should be precluded from that. They're also saying anything that she wants to say that could potentially encourage jury nullification
Starting point is 01:02:54 that should also be kept out. So for example, the stuff about being a sovereign citizen or the stuff about the laws don't apply to her or being you know all that kind of stuff. And I thought it was interesting that the Department of Justice wants to keep that stuff out and that they have made the calculation that that will actually potentially create during nullification because frankly if I was the prosecutor I'd say bring it on. It'll just show you that you are just as nutty and crazy and extreme as I'm going to portray you to be.
Starting point is 01:03:29 I don't want you to be this nice little pizza shop owner. I want to portray you as an extreme, violent extremist. So bring it on. I don't think she'll be able to pull off that she's a nice sweet little way. So why are they trying to preclude that? I think it helps them. Yeah, but I'm back to? Because I think, so why are they trying to preclude that? I think it helps them. Yeah, but I'm back.
Starting point is 01:03:46 I'm back to a lesson I learned from somebody who looked and talks exactly like you, a week ago on jury nullification. What you don't want, as you described it, is you don't want the jury to hear the evidence and decide the case not on the evidence and not on the law as charged by the judge because they find the law to be not what they would like it to be.
Starting point is 01:04:10 They don't like the law. And so they go, no, I'm not gonna find that person even though I've got the facts and I've got the law. And I like the law. So, and that's jury nullification. And they're worried that the people are gonna say, hmm, maybe the law is not right here. And they don't get their
Starting point is 01:04:25 unanimity. They get. Yeah, I just don't see that in Washington DC again. I agree with you. I agree with you. Maybe in upper reaches of Michigan or wherever in Pennsylvania, perhaps, but not necessarily in Washington DC. They even though it's a different department of justice section, I'm sure the whole department is hearing footsteps about what happened in the governor Whitmer case and they're worried and they're not taking any chances. My favorite deadline. That's a good point. I didn't even think of that. Yeah, they all sort of, you know, what it's like in prosecutors offices. The my favorite deadline is the deadline to tell the court whether you got a plead insanity.
Starting point is 01:05:04 My favorite deadline is the deadline to tell the court whether you're going to plead insanity. If you're really interested in you, you might miss that deadline. But she's got to tell, I don't know, May 6th to tell the court whether she's going to go along with the insanity defense, you know, which I think she should strongly. She might, I was going to say, I was like, I agree. That's the one she should really go with. I know. I'm going to leave you with one more quick fun fact, which is one that I don't not not too many people know about fate by the way. So, you know, this woman's name is Pauline Bauer. My middle name happens to be Pauline, just FYI. Yeah, I wasn't sure where that was going. I thought you were going to tell me your middle name is Bauer. No, it's actually Pauline, which I always never, yeah, such a strange, you know,
Starting point is 01:05:48 such a strange thing goes, named after my grandmother, Paula, who was a wonderful, wonderful woman. But back in those days, and probably still today, if you're Jewish, you're not allowed to be named after someone who's still alive or take that name on. So they had, so my mother and father had to come up with the derivation of Paula. So they came up with Pauline, which is your K P F A. I am. I am K P F A. We won't you little little not. Yeah, it's a big mouthful, little non fun fact. I'm sure tonight I'm sure it's going to lead to a lot of Twitter traffic related to to and all the Paulines on all the Midas mighty who are Paulines are going to find by the way It's bad enough to have the first it's bad enough to have the name Karen, you know by the way in the stage
Starting point is 01:06:30 I'm gonna as long as we're sharing my sister is Karen and my father You want to talk about really terrible names and my my deceased father who I adored was Morton herman Imagine going to childhood Morton herman.. I mean, what were my, you know, what were my immigrant group grandparents thinking when they settled this board child with that name? So we're at the end with that. We're at the end of another midweek edition of legal AF. Two comments to keep everybody rolling here with our community. There's a new Twitter community for legal AF. You can find it quickly by doing your own search or go to my MS Pope, at MS Pope Park Twitter profile. And I have a link up there that you can click and join. And I will
Starting point is 01:07:15 be the Pope, I will be curating and monitoring and moderating that space. So it will be a troll free space. And I guarantee it. And not this, this coming weekend, I'm going to be appearing with Anthony Davis as a guest on Midas Touches weekend show. He's that really great British journalist that does the five minute update and the weekend show. And I'll be on the weekend show with him coming up this weekend. I got to, you know, I got to stay relevant. You're. You're doing live feeds with Tony, Tony Michaels on Marjorie Telegreen and Beyond. I got to, I got to stay in the public eye.
Starting point is 01:07:52 Well, I can't, I can't wait to see your, uh, your, your selfie in denim tonight at the Mexican. Yes. And I'm going to go and tweet that out. And then the last thing is a little bit of an update, a little bit of a preview. We are really confident that Robbie Kaplan, the lawyer and her firm that are handling both the E. Jean Carroll case against Donald Trump, the defamation case related to that and has
Starting point is 01:08:16 filed the new case in the Northern District of Florida against the Santhus's, don't say gay statute as being unconscious and join us. And I think, and the woman responsible for marriage equality in this country. That's right. She argued at the US Supreme Court I think she was in her mid 30s. That's how Robbie got on the map relatively early.
Starting point is 01:08:35 So she had a postpone as we all do. She something came up in her professional life, but we have it scheduled down for next week. So hopefully we'll be bringing her to you as a special guest of the Midweek Edition of the LAF. Me neither and I can't wait every time I can't wait for our Wednesdays. I look forward to our next one Karen, okay? Take care. I use well. you

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