Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Time for VERDICTS to CRUSH Trump and MAGA Criminals

Episode Date: December 17, 2023

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We're here for all these things because we're not just Petro, we're Petro Canada, live by the leaf. Rudy Giuliani slaughtered by the jury in the defamation case against him in Washington DC by former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss, $148 million. Let me Shay Moss $148 million. Let me repeat $148 million. That's the verdict. That's the verdict sheet right there against Rudy Giuliani for his lives that destroyed the lives of Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss. Next up, the defamation case against Donald Trump by E. Jean Carroll next month, January, where he was already found to be liable.

He was already hit with a $5 million judgment in the prior E. Jean Carroll case. I think, and I wanna get Popeye steak, that we are headed toward a verdict that will even be higher than the Giuliani defamation verdict when Donald Trump sits for trial next month. Speaking of trial dates, what's going on with the trial date in the Washington DC?

Federal criminal case against Donald Trump. We all know it was set for March 4th, 2024, but the district court issued a stay. How does the district court stay of all proceedings pending Donald Trump's appeal on the issue of absolute presidential immunity and the court of appeals order expediting briefing on that issue. Impact the case. Let's discuss meanwhile, the Supreme Court agreed to clear a case involving the obstruction of official proceeding felony charge that the DOJ has been using as a potent tool in the prosecution of January

6th insurrectionists. That tool was affirmed by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and two of the counts against Donald Trump are based on that charge. Now the Supreme Court has granted Sertia Rory to hear whether or not that charge is a valid one to bring against insurrection. And finally, it seems like a year ago, but it was last Monday when Donald Trump was supposed to testify at the New York Attorney General's Civil Fraud trial, but decided not to testify. It's exactly when Michael Popak and I predicted here on legal AF, It's really easy to predict. Donald Trump will always air on the side of

what is cowardly and expedient for him. Trump blamed the gag order that prevents him from attacking the judge's law clerk as the reason why he could not offer testimony regarding the financial valuations and the accuracy or inaccuracy thereof of his properties will break it all down here on legal AF, Michael Popock. I always love a legal AF where we've been talking about something for a very long time, the wheels of justice turning where we've gone and done a real deep analysis of the discovery,

the sanctions, what led to certain things happening. And then you have a verdict day. I always love a verdict day here on LegalAIP. Yeah, I was just taking a little notes while you were doing your opening. I think there's two takeaways that tie, everything we're going to talk about on this podcast together. I think one, the market has been reset for defamation awards against MAGA and their cult leaders

like Donald Trump, just like the O'Tani baseball contract that blew everybody's mind. It was so far over. Any other baseball players, same thing here, this $148 million message sent by the District of Columbia, jury, is going to transmit and travel all the way up the Northeast to New York. And you'd have to be living under a rock, not to know when that jury is picked in about a month in New York against Donald Trump.

Forget the two and a half million dollar punitive damage award. He's lucky he got that in May. I think that market has been completely reset. And you and I will talk about why we could now be heading into the hundred million dollar range to punish Donald Trump for what he's done. If the new market rate is what has been set in the district of Columbia. And then lastly, as the kind of a rapper for today, you've got the Supreme Court who sat on who has sat on the sidelines mainly because of the wheels of a rapper for today, you've got the Supreme Court who is sad on the sidelines,

mainly because of the wheels of justice you just talked about, wasn't time or ripe for them to intervene, but they have been sitting on the sidelines for all things related to Donald Trump, immunity, Jan 6th, election interference, but now they've jumped in with both hands and both feet within two days of each other, telling Jack Smith, hmm, we think it's interesting. Let's talk more about whether you should have a direct appeal to us on whether Donald Trump has immunity to dismiss the indictment in the District of Columbia. And while we're at it, let's talk about two of the counts

that you've brought against him in the four-count indictment for obstruction of an official proceeding. And two days later, they issued that. That noticed that they're interested and they're called that up for the current term. And I don't think it was by coincidence, as when we get into the segment, the Supreme Court doesn't do anything by coincidence, and I think they've sent a message. What the message is is for you and I to try to divine and bring it to our audience. And we will talk about that on today's legal app.

You mentioned that O'Tani contract, and one of the interesting things about that on today's legal AFU mentioned that Autani contract and one of the interesting things about that contract is the payment is deferred and I think that a lot of people do not want justice to be deferred. So a lot of questions that people have are, when are these trials taking place? And okay, so Rudy Giuliani gets hit with this verdict. Does that get deferred? Does he get to appeal it? What happens with if he declares bankruptcy? Will Ruby Freeman and Shemost actually see any money? Let's discuss this all right now. So the lengthy verdict form that you all saw

for those watching on our YouTube channel will post it up there again. Here's how the damages broke out in the verdict form by the jury. Compensatory damages, sixth for Ruby Freeman, $16,171,000 for J. Moss, $16,998,000.

Then it went to the issue of emotional distress or general damages for the intentional inflection of emotional distress claim, a separate claim, $20 million for Ruby Freeman, $20 million for Shay Moss, and then you went to punitive damages, $75 million. There was an eight-person jury in the civil trial. It had to be a unanimous decision and it was. We're talking about a total of $148 million in a verdict entered against Rudy Giuliani. It was about a week-long trial.

It was just on the issue of damages, the same way that the case against Trump next month will just be on the issue of damages and punitive damages because Rudy Giuliani failed to participate in basic aspects of the case the same way as this trial started Rudy Giuliani said I'm going to testify I'm going to set the record straight he gave these press conferences after each day of the trial where he said I intend testify. I'm going to let you know what really happened. I'm going to confront Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss. He also continue to defame them after the trial, after the days of trial,

that is when he would go out and do these press conferences. And then they would then show the jury, look what Rudy Giuliani just said about them again. Outside after these proceedings ended, here's what Rudy Giuliani was doing. And that gave you just a glimpse into the behavior of Rudy Giuliani and MAGA people in general during these court cases. They don't turn over the documents. So they get sanctioned. They don't provide answers to the most basic questions of litigations. They don't show up when they're requested to show up. And so ultimately the judge basically said enough's enough, you know,

we're finding you liable enough of the games. And now the case moves on to the damages portion of it. Giuliani, as I mentioned, did not show up there. Michael Popock, take us through what went down, maybe your impressions during the trial, how ultimately Giuliani's lawyer essentially had to argue during the closing argument that my client is a bad guy, but don't judge him based on what he did in recent times, just realize he's an old guy. This was actually the closing argument. Remember the good old days with Rudy. Well, that didn't work I thought the lawyer for Rudy also insulted the jury's intelligence by attacking plaintiffs Expert witnesses and then you had Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss confidently confronting Giuliani Testifying going through our judicial process that exists. They were cross-examined. They put themselves before the jury. Their lawyer pointed that out as well on closing argument. They showed up. They told you what went down in their life. The other person did it

and was defaming them outside of the courthouse too. So it gives us a broader glimpse too right into like people who participate in our judicial system of people who try to shred it and rip it down. The number one reason that Shemoss and Ruby Freeman rightfully won their case is because of Ruby Freeman and Shemoss. They were horribly defamed and docks. Their lives were turned upside down and inside out and nobody was able to communicate that better than Ruby Freeman and Shemoss. There wasn't a dry eye in the house when they testified that Jerry sat riveted during that testimony.

I got choked up preparing to do a hot take about the testimony. I mean, it's that powerful. And Jerry's, there's a lot of criticism about the Jerry system in America, but I believe in it. And at the end of the day, Jerry's don't like frauds. They don't like somebody who's not authentic and they don't like to be lied to. And all of those things happened on the other side of that table with Rudy Giuliani. He was not authentic, he decided he'd rather, as the judge pointed out during a hearing without the jury, he'd rather go out and try to pander to his social media audience outside the courtroom,

than do anything effective to defend himself inside the wood paneling of the courtroom. That's the split screen we've always seen with MAGA. Donald Trump is the playbook that they all run. Rudy Giuliani, Ain't No Donald Trump and he does a very ham-fisted impression of Donald Trump. He figured, well, Donald Trump could hold press conferences and not testify. I'll do the same thing. Except, you know, there are very skilled lawyers on the other side, as there are in the civil fraud case in New York.

And those lawyers were smart enough every time. Rudy Giuliani said something outside the courtroom during the trial, including the first two days, that was inconsistent with the judges order orders about what he could and could not say. And or we're just more defamatory statements, they brought it to the judge's attention, and more importantly, they presented it to the jury. You're not gonna hear from Mr. Giuliani,

apparently, in the courtroom, but here's what happened outside the courtroom role tape, and they just rolled it. And the jury couldn't help. I'm sure there was a lot of eye rolling, couldn't help, but watch the real- time self-destruction of Rudy Giuliani. If they had any doubts at all on that jury, it was all doubt was removed because of Rudy Giuliani's own conduct. Even his own lawyer, Joe Sibley, who was the last and long line of lawyers, this one,

this is the one that got the short straw and actually had to try the case. You know, he was the best and I've been a defense, I am a defense lawyer. The best that he could do was to tell the jury, I know you hate my client. He's old, he's 80, he's losing his fastball, he does weird things. But, you know, remember him when he was mayor in the 80s. First of all, that's not the standard for assessing punitive damages. Punitive damages are for what you've done right now as a punishment, not whatever you think your laurels or your resume is that's now in shreds 50, 40 years ago.

So if that is the best you can do, and then your guy compounds it with his eye rolling in the courtroom, is refusal to look at the jury, is refusal to look, shame, and Ruby Freeman in the eye, the jury is going to do the right thing. And they're going to follow the evidence. And we just remind those that are joining us for the first time. And of course, remind people that have been with us for the whole journey about our analysis. As you mentioned, Ben, the judge as a sanction and as a finding found as a matter of law

that Rudy Giuliani had defamed those two women, the mother, daughter team, and that they had suffered damage and that left it only to the jury to decide how big of a check they were gonna write write you and I thought it was going to probably approach if they were asking 50 million you and I were joking 60 80 90 somewhere I thought North sorry south of a hundred million but we'll talk about the jury verdict in a minute but the judge also went a step further because of all of Rudy's misconduct. He has no one to blame but himself. And the misconduct of him hiding his financial records from the other side, which is important to a punitive damage case, refusing to say how much he made on his podcast, how much he made in collection from his, you know, audience slash suckers, how much he's made

what's in his 401k, what's in his pension plan from the federal government. And all here just refused to turn it over. And the judge says, all right, fine. If you don't turn it over by next week, which he didn't, I'm going to instruct the jury that the reason that you did not reveal your finances is because you're trying to mislead them to have sympathy to lower the number when they get around to awarding punitive damages.

And I'm going to so instruct them. And they did. So before the jury even went back to deliberate, they were basically told that Rudy Giuliani is a liar and a fraud and he's trying to mislead you. That's not a great place as defense lawyer to be to send the jury off for their first session of deliberation. It took him 10 hours. We on legal A.F. were speculating what is taking so long and I thought and I was wrong. I thought that what was taking so long is that there was a group on one end of the extreme. They wanted to give like 10 million, and it was another group that wanted to go to like a couple of hundred million, and they couldn't find the compromise position.

But when I got to jury verdict for which took about 10 hours for them to render it, it had some weird numbers, which will have to wait to jury interviews to figure out what they did, but they used the formula. I don't know what the formula was. I don't know what it was based on, but when you have $16,171,000, so specific, $16,998,000, and one more than the other, they used the formula. They're own. The juries do that. They're like, well, for every, maybe they heard a number about social media hits. Maybe they heard about, you know, the, the, the five million of whatever's happened to them by the attacks and they multiplied that by some number they were given by the economists and they came up

with a number, but they came up with a number. And then very smartly guided by the lawyers, they didn't, they set a punitive damage number. I think they reversed the engineer this, but it's not so many multiples of actual compensatory damages that for that reason it could be reversed or vacated on appeal.

They basically doubled the compensatory damages of 37 and change, came up with 75 million, which is about right under the case law, whether you say it's one times compensatory damages or two times under the case law, there's some formula that you have to kind of stick to. You can't do 10 times compensatory, but they got it about right. Now Rudy, of course, first thing he got off and saying, I love the press conferences for Ruby Freeman and Jemos.

They were so powerful, so eloquent, so authentic about what happened to them, you know, Lady Ruby on one side, you know, daughter on the other, I mean, just amazing stuff. And then you have to contrast that with Rudy Giuliani's ridiculous, there I have evidence, there's discovery, I should have testified, I didn't testify, the judges against me, all ridiculous. These are not grounds for appeal. If he needed to testify, that he needed to testify, if he got stopped on certain things he wanted to say, he needed to make a record in order to preserve issues for appeal. And so now we've got this 148 million, and I'll leave it to you next,

about an identity hot take on it. What happens next? How do you collect 148 million? What happens with bankruptcy? What happens with appeals? And so I don't know if you wanna kind of shape that a little bit. So the next step is a pretty Giuliani wants to stay or pause collection efforts

that Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss would initiate right away would have to do exactly what trumped it in the federal court in New York when Trump was found liable for defamation and sexual abuse in the eging carol case in May. You got to post a super-cidious bond that is at least equal to what the judgment is. So Trump posted a $5 million bond pending his appeal of eging carols verdict against him in the other eging carol defamation and sexual abuse case. So Rudy Giuliani would have to do that here now. Can Rudy Giuliani come up with the funds of

$148 million Absolutely not $28 million, absolutely not. Can he come up with anything near that? Absolutely not. But do I think Rudy Giuliani is hiding money and hiding assets? Yes. And so I think now the work begins by Freeman and Moss to start collecting and trying to find all of his assets. And there are other proceedings and debtor exams and all these other procedures to try to identify

where his assets are, to seize those assets, to take his wages any money that he makes. By the way, including, you know, probably doing some procedures regarding Trump and Donald Trump's political action committees, that if they think they're going to try to pay Rudy Giuliani money, all that money goes immediately to Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss. They'll look at his podcast, they'll look at all of that and they'll start collecting. Now, one more one before you move on to that, that we haven't talked about. I've been involved with these pension forfeiture proceedings. He gets a pension, I'm sure, as being a former, it's hard

to believe he was the US attorney. He was the former US attorney department of justice in New York. He's got a pension and they can go and he can, he can, he can actually lose that pension and have it forfeited and paid over to Ruby Freeman and Chamos. Now if Ruby, if Rudy Giuliani tries to declare bankruptcy, then that goes through a bankruptcy proceeding, because this is an intentional act, an intentional tort, it's done with malice, it is a, what's referred to as a non-dischargeable debt. And of course, Ruby Freeman and Chey-Moss, they'll have to assert that if Giuliani files for bankruptcy, Giuliani will try to claim this is this judgment and all of his other debts are

dischargeable. In bankruptcy, what's called an adversary proceeding would take place, but an adversary proceeding where there's already a judgment in a sister court like there is right here in the Washington, DC district court, what Ruby Freeman and Shane Moss' lawyers would do is tell the bankruptcy judge, hey look, the ad for purposes of the adversary proceeding, this jury's already found punitive damages. In other words, the Giuliani's acted intentionally and with malice and fraud, and therefore it's non-dischargeable. So, Rudy won't be able to extinguish this in bankruptcy.

And so Rudy's got big problems. I mean, for the rest of the remainder of Rudy's life, Freemann and Shay Moss will seek to collect on him. And then they're going to look to the estate. And so any of Rudy Giuliani's kids who are hoping for a trust fund or anything like that or any money in a will, Ruby Freeman and Shane Moss are going to be right there ready to seize it.

Popack final thoughts on Freeman and Moss, because then I want to talk about how this relates to the Donald Trump defamation case, which is set for trial next month, end of January, and it's also a case where Trump's been found liable already by a jury in the previous case, an adactron called collateral is stoppled now, means that that jury verdict is such that Trump has found liable in the next defamation case against Trump. So it's just damages and punitive damages. And like Giuliani, Donald Trump's out there repeatedly defaming E. Jean Carroll. And this next jury in New York's gonna say,

after Donald Trump was found liable by a prior jury, he went on CNN the next moment in a town hall in front of millions and humiliated her and has done it again each and every time that that Trump Vertick is gonna be massive Pope Bach anyway. We'll talk about that in a bit. Five words on on Freeman and Moss. Yeah, and I'll tie it I'll tie it back to Trump also the Ruby Freeman and her press conference said she's not done. There are other people that are continuing to defame her This is not conclude the chapter and and I said it a hot take.

There will one day be a bronze statue of Ruby Freeman and Shane Moss as a testament to their heroism and their courage of what they're doing. They are at the heart of the Georgia election interference case, Ruby Freeman, especially. She's a prime witness there, at least three of the co-conspirator defendants with Donald Trump are tied back to what they did to Ruby Freeman to try to get her fraudulently to admit that she participated in voter fraud when she didn't.

And there are people, even there, the co-conspirator is like Travian QT and Mr. Willy Floyd who continue to this moment to defame Ruby Freeman and Sheamus on social media giving rise to future cases against them. And now they've got a potential $148 million dollar war chest to go after people. In addition, they settled before the Giuliani case with a number of right-wing media companies, and so they had that pot already prepared. So Georgia has a one-year statute of limitations for defamation. Within one year of somebody defaming you, you've

got to file your lawsuit. So if Donald, I'm not sure, I asked on my hot take for people to go scrub the internet and see if Donald Trump said anything stupid and defamatory against those two in the last year because that would give rise to a new claim. You can't go back beyond a year, but these two up in Georgia certainly could be sued for defamation. And Rudy Giuliani just three days ago to fame them again, the way that Donald Trump did. Now, on to Donald Trump for just two seconds. That original, you and I had a head scratcher about why with all the evidence that was presented in the

summer early summer trial of E. Jean Carroll, the former editor who a jury adjudged had been raped by Donald Trump sexually assaulted and defamed in the sexual misconduct was in 1996 and then defamation ever since and yet only awarded her after hearing evidence even including expert testimony of some economists of about I don't know two and a half million or so of punitive damages. We thought that was pretty light and we weren't quite sure. Now forget that. The new jury isn't going to know about that. It's not irrelevant to their issue of just how big of a set of damages punitive included. They're going to hit Donald Trump with for defaming her again over and over again to send the message. And it's not going to be in the courtroom officially, but everybody, everybody knows this is so close

in time to the $148 million judgment that the jury is going to know about it. And certainly the lawyers, and we know them well, they've been on our show, Robbie Kaplan, is going to ask for a bigger number now, knowing that a jury is willing to pick up a pen and write a big check if presented with the appropriate evidence against a defendant that they despise who has done these things. And so I think now, and we'll, in either at commercial after commercial or whatever, we'll talk about the fact that this trial against Rudy Giuliani, against Donald Trump is going forward in the middle of January.

He does not have sovereign immunity, and after our break, we'll tell the audience why the case is going forward, he has no immunity. Yeah, he doesn't have absolute presidential immunity. By the way, I bet you that Trump's lawyer in the E. Jean Carroll case, Joe Takapina, either wrote a note to Donald Trump or told Boris Epstein or someone who hangs out with Trump all the time, you see what a good job I did for Donald Trump that the jury only had $5 million.

Look at what, I bet you Takapina did that. Look at what the jury did. And then he's gonna say, because Donald Trump's been throwing Takapena under the bus lately, and blaming Takapena for the $5 million. Now because of Trump's conduct, post-Takapena's defense, look, I wanna be objective here,

compared to Giuliani's team. Takapena had a, I think, a more difficult case and the jury only awarded $5 million, but this is the thing about representing Trump. What did Trump do the next day after Trump was only hit with a $5 million verdict? He went on and defamed E. Jean Carroll again, and makes it possible to represent him.

One final point I want to make as well, though, too, E. Jean Carroll again, it makes it possible to represent him. One final point I want to make as well though too, about the case that Ruby Freeman and Shane Moss can now file to the extent there is a claim within the statute of limitations against Donald Trump. They didn't sue Trump originally for defamation because they didn't want the case to be stayed or bogged down on the question of absolute presidential immunity as that was stopping and staying all of these cases, right? So about two weeks ago, when the blasting game decision came down, that found that Donald

Trump was not entitled to absolute presidential immunity on things relating to the January 6th insurrection because his conduct there fell outside even the outer parameters of Article 2 executive authority because it involved election and campaigning. So to me the blasting game decision is dispositive when it comes to Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss that Trump statements about them do not fall within the outer Parameters of his absolute presidential immunity because it involved election and campaigning per Blossom game. So now they're able to sue Donald Trump on that basis. The statute may have run But I think their broader point that they wanted to have is they wanted that case before a jury.

They wanted their justice and they probably realize that no matter what Trump is going to defame them again because he's sociopathic and in malignant narcissists and he will continue, just a matter of when's the next time he's going to do that. He will defame them. It's just a matter of when. He can't help himself. It now just a matter of of when he can't help them. So it now seeing Ruby free of it and shame loss. We've heard so much about them, but now seeing them and seeing how much they were psychologically and emotionally devastated by it. I am sure in

consultation with their lawyers, they made a decision not to go after Donald Trump because they were afraid. Karen Freeman, Agnifalo are a colleague and podcast partner made that point a couple of weeks ago. And I think she's right. The more I see them, I think she's right because what you and I would have done if this was just a straight like business dispute and we didn't have crazy violent party on the other side, Donald Trump, we would have at least filed the case inside of the statute of limitations to preserve the, preserve the claim, let it be stayed and then move forward

with Rudy Giuliani. They didn't even do that. They were willing to walk from Donald Trump's. I don't think they could put their clients through this. One last just observation. One of the reason that the punitive damage has got ratchet it up, you know, just firehosed in Rudy's case is because of what I said earlier, which is they were given an instruction by the judge that you are to assume that Rudy Giuliani is hiding his assets from you when you write your check. That's not yet present in the Trump case. It may still be about that. I'm not sure if he's turned over all of his financials. I think his finance is a little bit more public since the civil fraud case has revealed all of them in terms of statements of financial condition and where

assets are and there's a monitor over everything that he owns. So I'm not sure it's going to have that same, I'm not sure that when Robbie, Robbie Kaplan makes her opening statement, she's going to have a jury as pissed off on the issue of the finances as they were against Giuliani. But that doesn't mean that you're not right. That Donald Trump is a despicable, even more despicable than Donald, than to Rudy Giuliani, especially in New York.

And that all things setting that all aside, there's no doubt in my mind that the number of this new jury is going to award is going to be many times Multiple higher than the jury in May awarded her because of the despicable nature of the new conduct and because of you know They're gonna send a message through the punitive damages So I don't know if it's a hundred million dollars because they got it You know you always have to tie it to that compensatory So if the compensatory damages that they if if if Robbie and her team are able to put on substantial, this is a little bit of a problem.

I just want to make it clear for our audience. It's new, you know, she got an award for what was, she was compensated for all of the damage from another jury of four, everything from 1996 all the way up from another jury for everything from 1996, all the way up until that jury award. Now, it's got to be like new damage, actual compensatory damage, and it should be out to put out a good expert on that, in that delta, and that a punitive damage number

that sort of ties to that. So the only limiter here is how big of an actual damage award, they're gonna be able to come up with in order to then have several multiples for punitive damages, pardon me, and total this thing out at some really high number. But look, we'll follow it every day, every way and every filing to bring it to our people's attention. But the market, I believe, has been reset and they'll give the highest dollar amount that

they think they can. And Robbie will ask for the highest dollar amount that she thinks she can get away with and have supported on appeal. The, let's be clear, when we're talking about compensatory and the overall kind of damages, other than punitive damages, we're talking about number one, like economic damages, doctors bills and salary and things. think but we're also separately we're talking about general damages which is emotional distress and think about this closing argument or opening statement. Donald Trump was found to have engaged in sexual abuse of my client, Eugene Carroll. He was found to have

engaged in what is the same thing as rape, although there's a technical definition, variance in New York, but this court has found that to be the same thing as a rape that took place. Number one, number two, Donald Trump was then found to have defamed E. Jean Carroll in connection with raping her. Number three, immediately after a jury

vindicated my client's rights, which was the most important day in her life after all of the trauma that she had. He went on CNN and then humiliated her and did it again to his rape victim, to his rape in front of millions of people. There is no bigger trauma than any, this is what this is going to be the argument. There is no bigger trauma than that. We initially thought when we put this complaint, $10 million, that's not enough for this emotional trauma. $40 million. And then we

think that you should award punitive damages five times that and hit it with $150 million. I think that you will see an argument that looks just like that. And then here's what we'll say. Here's what I was saying. But as we get really into the weeds on this, then you're gonna have judge and goreons judgment in the New York Attorney General Civil Fraud Case. That's going to hit some time right around when the jury verdict hits. Turn. It could happen while the jury's deliberating.

So what you're gonna have right around early February to mid-February, mark the words, rewind the tape. Donald Trump's going to have about $500 to $1 billion in judgments against the $750 million. Yeah, exactly. I think it'll be, I'm hedging a little bit right now, $500 million in judgment. And he's going to have to post a bond if he wants to appeal that.

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But one of the things that's paving the way for this Trump defamation case Michael Popeye Carsome Serious errors that were made by Donald Trump's legal team surprise surprise and failing to assert absolute presidential immunity in a case involving defamation while Donald Trump was in office by Trump's legal team is kind of a check the box wink wink error if you will to be clear if you want to cite something or you want to assert an affirmative defense it's literally a sentence in your answer you just, as for the third affirmative defense, Donald Trump here by asserts absolute presidential immunity.

And then you could assert it. You don't wave it until the time of trial. You could bring it up on summary judgment. You could potentially even bring it up on the eve of trial if you've asserted it as an affirmative defense. But you see Donald Trump's legal team, and again, and this E. Jean Carol case, just a reminder, involves Donald Trump's statements while he was

in office during press conferences, where he defamed E. Jean Carol. You'll remember, what were all these appeals about? The appeals were really jurisdictional. That was when Bill Barr tried to assist Donald Trump and substitute in the United States government in place of Donald Trump. And that's what went up on appeal, whether or not the government should be substituted.

So all of these appeals, Michael Popack, were over kind of the course and scope employment analysis about whether the government should be substituted in. But these appeals did not involve the other question because Donald Trump's lawyers didn't assert absolute presidential immunity until like like months ago, like like not too far long ago where they tried to bring it up for the first time when E. Jean Carroll amended the complaint just slightly based on the new statements that Donald Trump had made after the defamation case back in May when Donald Trump went on that so-called CNN town hall. And then the judge said, no, you can't bring up

absolute presidential immunity on the eve of the next defamation case. You had three years to assert this as an affirmative defense. And your lawyers, when you were sued for years, year one, year two, year three, never raised this issue of absolute presidential immunity. You've waved it. We're not letting you even bring this up at the trial. So Donald Trump appealed that to the second circuit. And in a scathing order, the second circuit

court of appeal said, waiver, you waved it, you can't assert absolute presidential immunity here. And here's the thing, Pope,, I want to get you a take too, as abhorrent, as despicable as Donald Trump's conduct was. This is an objective show here on Legal AF. He had a decent shot, not before Judge Kaplan, the federal judge, but I think before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, or at least the United States Supreme Court to actually make an absolute presidential immunity argument as it relates to the defamation case brought against them because it is not a course and scope of employment argument. It is an issue of absolute presidential immunity.

And if you go back to the Nixon v Fitzgerald case, which is one of the preeminent cases on absolute presidential immunity, that case involved, and unlawful act, and unlawful retaliatory termination, but the Supreme Court said, if it falls in the outer perimeter of presidential authority, hiring and firing, even if the president engaged in something unlawful or a former president while they were in office,

engaged in something unlawful, if it's within the type of things they do as article two, and it's not criminal, and it's civil in nature, you are immune from civil damages. The difference in the blazing game case involving the January 6th insurrection, why that's distinguishable, is that the conduct falls outside the outer perimeter, right, because it involves election and campaigning. Nothing to do with article two executive authority there. But the E. Jean Carroll, Trump could have made an argument and said it was a press conference while I was in office. It could be despicable conduct.

But it happened while I was in office, former presidents, when they were in office, they engage in press conferences, they engage in interviews with the media, and I was asked these questions, and I could have seen the Supreme Court actually biting on that one. Thankfully, he waved the issue and now he's going to get hit with a massive, massive verdict. And by the way, I want to be clear, I don't think he should have immunity for that. I think Judge Kaplan would have found that Trump does not have immunity for it under absolute presidential immunity.

I think ultimately though, a court of appeals or the Supreme Court may have disagreed and he had a shot of getting the case dismissed on that grant. What do you think, Pope? Yeah, about the only good thing that's come out of Trump Giuliani meadows the criminal, the criminal prosecutions and the civil lawsuits is that it's developing a new body of law that will now be used against them in the future or others worse than them or like them in the future. We have a now a well-developed body of law about immunity, civil application, criminal application, and that concept that you just talked about, the outer perimeter, outer boundaries.

It sounds like an old 1960s sci-fi TV show. I used to watch a show called The Outer Limits. That is now in the vernacular for a good reason, because we've had a series of cases that have been now decided by at least the DC Court of appeals, which is the highest court in the land other than the United States Supreme Court when it comes to constitutional things like this. Having already made decisions, as you said earlier, the Blossomham decision, setting the outer boundaries of a misconduct that can, if it falls outside those outer boundaries, be a subject of a civil lawsuit for torts and damage recovery.

We have the criminal side of outer boundary analysis when it comes to immunity that we're seeing now being developed through Judge Chuckkin's original decision, citing back to blasting him that there is no presidential immunity for criminal conduct automatic. You have to go look at if he was insider outside the course in scope or his article two powers. And then we're not going to touch on it much today, but similarly in the same breath this week, we've got another appellate court, the 11th Circuit, I would say struggling, but I don't think they're struggling based on the oral argument as to whether Mark Meadows was inside or at the outer perimeter's

outside of his federal officer duties in order to enjoy the ability to trigger federal officer removal to take his Georgia prosecution from state to federal court. And if the oral argument is any indication and I did a hot take on this one, he is staying firmly in the Georgia state prosecution. That is the only great thing that comes out of the wheels of justice about, I'd rather not have had the conduct to have had now developed all of this new line of immunity cases. But as you said, what we've now learned is that presidential immunity is something you have to use or wave. You have to assert or you've lost it. And we weren't sure about that before because some people might be scratching their head even on the show and saying, well, wait a minute, what's going on with the

criminal case in Judge Chuck and why is that case stayed awaiting an expedited resolution of immunity either by the DC Court of Appe appeals or the US Supreme Court on a direct appeal We'll talk about that in the next segment. Why is that different? That's different because you're talking about criminal rights and and if if it's a criminal case with with the with the liberty of somebody in this case a former president at risk You don't want to put him through the trial and then find out that he had Immunity you want to because you know, that's a pretty, that's a pretty serious set of consequences if he had immunity all along. You want to get that thing decided early as to whether based on the record that's been

developed, he is either inside or outside the outer boundaries or perimeter of his presidential authority or powers before you go off and just pull a jury and start. Can I say something as one thing? Of course, of course. Just to want the one thing right there that I apologize for interrupting is, but still Donald Trump at least asserted it on time later than a tie-back. Yeah, later than people would like.

He at least asserted it on time. In Blazingham, he asserted it on time in E. Jean Carroll. He never asserted it agreed But but my I was making a slightly different point, but I agree with you on that. This is the point I was trying to make in In in the criminal setting it I don't think it mattered whether when he asserted it I think it it divest jurisdiction and the court has to decide at that moment Immunity we don't have to get to that because it's not really he asserted it. But I ask you a question on that sadness degree because

okay so you're telling me then you go through all of the criminal trial on the eve of a verdict. The jury's out. Can Trump then go you see what I mean? Well that's on the eve of at any point in time on the eve of a verdict. You go through three months of a criminal trial, then, could Donald Trump say absolute presidential immunity. I still think there has to be a moment where the declared. Yeah, the good news, you're right. I agree with you.

I think waiting until like, while the jury's still out, you wait a minute. I was the president. Why am I here? I think you're right about that. It's not an issue that will be in the cases that we'll talk about next involving Donald Trump. But as you said, back to the, the difference between, I was really making the point of, does it divest the court of jurisdiction or not? Because if it's something that can't be waived, then it doesn't, you know, the waveability of the issue is at stake in the second circuit

decision about E. Jean Carroll. I just don't think that's the issue. And yes, he raised it a little bit late for my liking, but he raised the right immunity issue on the criminal side. On the E. Jean Carroll thing, that was a complete screw up by Alina Haba. She got obviously, she was handling the case for most of this. Joe Takapina came in three months before the trial and took over, but she was running the day-to-day show.

She made a number of errors. The reason that the blue dress coat wasn't used in the trial is because of Alina Hobbes screwing up in the timing of when she asked for certain things. And I think she got confused when the two trials got separated and one got stated, one moved forward. She had never raised in two and a half years, never in her answer that there was presidential immunity in play.

And as you said, unlike in a state court proceeding, where you often have to put a lot of facts behind your defenses, all you have to put a lot of facts behind your were defenses. All you have to do in federal court, it's a notice pleading concept. All you got to do is one line, unclean hands, presidential immunity, statual limitations, latches, one line. That's all she had to do.

And it was a mistake because she should have at least raised it so that the issue got resolved on the merits on the appeal. to do. And it was a mistake because she should have at least raised it so that the issue got resolved on the merits on the appeal. I think she was surprised. You and I did hot takes on this. We played the audio of the oral argument that she got caught so flatfooted. Her only argument then became, this could never be waived. It can't be waived. It doesn't matter whether we're late. It's unwaivable. And the judges were like, I mean, was written by Judge Jose Cabránis, but the judges at the time were like, I don't understand that. I could have vision.

Can't you ever envision a time where a president, maybe not named Donald Trump, would be willing to waive presidential immunity in order to clear his name and try the case on the merits and she said, no, like, he's been accused of being a rapist. Don't you think he doesn't want to get out on an immunity technicality? He may want to put on the evidence that didn't happen. And she was like, no, can't ever waive it. And so that was already a loser argument.

When they finally got around to ruling, we now have precedent because there's no conflict among the circuits we have. The only federal appellate court decision on the issue, which is you can waive presidential immunity if you don't raise it early enough. And it's exactly the way you said it. How late can you let them raise it? You can raise it while the jury is still deliberating and go through that process and

two bites at the apple. So no, he'll take that. I'll try to take that appeal, but I'll have to go through Judge Suttamayur, who is the associate judge in New York who sits over the second circuit, and she'll either reject it on her own, like no, or which has been there habit lately because of all the flak they've gotten understandably because of their ethics, is that she'll refer it over to the full appellate panel, the full Supreme Court, and see if any of the nine want to want to take on that appeal or not at this moment. But we are watching, and we'll talk about it in the next couple of segments. We are watching that the Supreme Court is we're getting to the point where they're waking up and getting

involved now with things related to Donald Trump that matter. But these are the stepping stones and are now the precedent that other courts need to apply unless they're going to do something different, set up a conflict in the circuits, and then the Supreme's at some point have to decide it. We're running out of time. I mean, this is, I'm not talking to you, Ben, I'm talking just out loud. We're running out of time. This is January already, effectively, a trial in March and election in November. Things have got to move at a high velocity. Appeal, trial, decision making, and the rest. I think we're starting to see it with how the DC Court of Appeals, which is usually the first stop on this constitutional, presidential train. And then even

the US Supreme Court are saying, whatever we're going to do, almost like Bush versus Gore when in 2000, we got to do this quickly. You know, there was another oral argument before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case involving Michael Cohen, where Cohen was challenging the unconstitutional remand for purposes of Michael Cohen's lawsuit that he filed when he was remanded into custody and put in solitary confinement because he wouldn't wave away his rights to put out a book in 2020 for purposes of that basically everyone stipulated okay Assume it is a constitutional violation is there a remedy because the right wing the Supreme Court over the past three decades has gutted a doctrine called bivins Which used to find implied causes of action in the Constitution for kind of basic constitutional wrongs

This the right wing Supreme Court's been saying well Congress needs to pass a specific remedy on a specific point or else we can't Knowledge implied causes of right so that one of the issues on appeal is does Cohen have a remedy for the constitutional wrong that was committed? The only reason I'm bringing it up is that Alina Habbo was arguing for Donald Trump and tried to assert not official acts immunity, but absolute presidential immunity. So the second circuit panel had questions for her about the blasting game case, right the key case and she goes I have to check my notes I don't know what the blasting game case stands for and then the second circuit panel goes you don't know

Blasting game and she goes no, I'm sorry, but I can talk about the Nixon v Fitzgerald case And it's like everybody who listens and watches legal after you all know the blessing game case and blast it wasn't like it was decided decades ago is decided two weeks ago and it's the case involving absolute presidential immunity involving her client it's it's basically her case and she doesn't know what blessing game stands for that donald trump does not have absolute presidential immunity in civil lawsuits relating to the conduct involving

the insurrection because it's a campaign activity or election activity. So she couldn't answer and then the panel was basically like sit down Alina Haba. I think that's a good segue into now what the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is doing because the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is the court that made the finding and blasting game, finding that Donald Trump does not have absolute presidential immunity in civil cases. Now, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, they're the bosses for federal judge, Tanya Chutkin, the district court judge overseeing the 2020 election that's scheduled for March 4th of 2024. And Judge Chutkin says in a criminal case, unlike a civil case, in civil cases, the doctrine of absolute presidential immunity exists.

It is established. Donald Trump doesn't have it in January 6 cases as the DC circuit court of appeal said, but Judge Chuck and found for an independent reason that Donald Trump doesn't have absolute presidential immunity. She found there is no such thing as absolute presidential immunity in criminal cases. So Donald Trump for former presidents Donald Trump is appealing that to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. And as I've said before, there's now two independent reasons why this should be a no-brainer for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. The logic by Judge Tanya Chutkin that how could you have absolute presidential immunity

and criminal cases? That means that former presidents during the time they were in office could act as kings. They can do whatever they want. They could summon the military and have a coup. They could do anything and say, Ha, ha, we're not responsible. That clearly can't be what the text, the structure, the history of our constitution is all about.

But then the second reason is blasting game. Donald Trump's conduct, while criminal also relates to the January 6th insurrection because the DC Circuit Court of Appeals found that the insurrection conduct relating to Donald Trump as alleged in the blasting game case is outside the outer perimeter of absolute presidential immunity. He doesn't have it for that reason. So there's two powerful reasons right here that both go hand and glove. The one thing that I'm surprised special counsel Jack Smith didn't do because Jack Smith's been super aggressive and did a few really powerful moves.

I'm just surprised he didn't and this could just be because he thought this could cause more delay, but tell Judge Tanya Chutkin that Donald Trump's appeal because of the blasting game is frivolous to try to certify the appeal as a frivolous appeal from the outset, but I think special counsel Jack Smith knew that the DC Circuit Court of Appeals kind of knew that and would expedite it. So right, Jack Smith did two things. One, filed a direct petition to the United States Supreme Court for Sertiary Arari saying this is an extraordinary case. Sertiary or oral argument should happen in this term immediately before going through the normal years and years and years that takes cases to go to the Supreme Court because this is so fundamental,

so foundational to our democracy. Supreme Court responds right away, says Donald Trump, you have until December 20 to respond to the issue of whether or not Sergio Rare should be granted. So the Supreme Court not granting Sertiorari yet, they haven't decided that. That's the oral argument before them on the issue of absolute presidential immunity, but granting special counsel, Jack Smith's request to expedite the briefing. That's in front of the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, special counsel Jack Smith filed a motion to expedite the briefing on the issue of absolute presidential

immunity before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Jackson Smith needed to do that especially because federal judge Tanya Chutkin, the judge who I just mentioned, is overseeing the trial, who's a great law-and-order, no-nonsense judge. She looked at the law and said, by hands, they're kind of tied here. Absolute presidential immunity seems to encompass the entire case, and there is a doctrine called Griggs, which says, on an appeal to the DC Circuit or to whatever the appellate circuit court is,

it stays the district court proceedings. There's a recent case that came out called, Coinbase vs. Bielski, and applying the Griggs doctrine, applying Coinbase and applying the logic at least of the blasting game case that talks about if absolute presidential immunity exists, it means that no proceedings can take place even though Blastinggame ruled against Trump. She basically said Judge Tony Chuk and said, look, my hands are tied. I have to stay the proceedings here.

I'm not going to vacate my trial dates. I'm going to keep the trial dates on, but I can't have any more proceedings here. So special counsel, Jack Smith has to run, run, run to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to expedite this briefing. Donald Trump thinks he gets a big win by having the case delayed and stayed by Judge Tonya Chutkin. So Donald Trump feels he got great news in the morning for his delay strategy. But then the DC Circuit Court of Appeals

says not so fast, not so fast. And boom, they hit him with this briefing schedule that is as expedited as you can be before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Trump's brief is due December 20th on the issue of absolute presidential immunity, which was denied by Judge Tanya Chutkin. Jack Smith's is due December 30th, and then Trump's reply brief is due January 2nd, 2024. So all of the briefing now will be due. We're talking about, you know, in the next 20 days.

So in terms of a delay, we're looking at more like a 45 to 60 day delay of Judge Tonya Chutkins proceedings by the time oral argument is scheduled, which I think will be some type around January 10th to 15th. So Trump is getting, I think, A Delay, not the delay he wanted, and I think this can still be kept on track. A lot of concepts there that I wanted to throw out to kind of before I hit you with the analysis, Popeye, that you can give our legal affers out there on all of that, but that's a lot of moving parts. Yeah, so there's two things that happened back to back at the US Supreme Court. One, they thought it was interesting as to whether the appeal of the immunity issue should be decided by them directly rather than have the record more fully completed below and

let the DC intermediary court decide it first. Jack Smith did the right thing. You and I said a couple of weeks ago that when there was some misreporting about, oh, no, the appeal at the DC court of appeals based on an order spit out by an automated service system says that his next big piece of paper has to file the appeal is late December, oh no, and we said relax. They're the first of all, either the panel is going to get in place and make a decision that goes faster than that or Jack Smith's going to do something to force their hand and right on cue, Jack Smith did two things

to show how serious this is. It'll take either one. One is to get the Supreme Court interested on the issue of this is such an important issue that we don't even have to go to the lower level intermediary court, even though you're a court of limited jurisdiction, Supreme Court. You can do this and should do this directly.

And that, of course, was a wake up call because I got decided first by the Supreme Court. And then hours later, the DC Court of Appeals said, no, we're going to do this expedited too. On the actual issue, we have jurisdiction over the appeal. Let's do this on an expedited issue. First, they said, let's have expedited briefing on whether we should have an expedited appeal. Donald Trump cited the Grinch that stole Christmas. I'm not making this up. Harper Collins, 1957, for those that are following the copyright, and wasted ink telling the

panel, oh my God, we have to work over Christmas. That sounds terrible. And like an hour later, the panel said, okay, so we're having an expedited appeal. And here's the briefing schedule that Ben, you just read out there at the same time the Supreme Court said, hold on, we're going to figure out whether at the same time, don't stop anything, do this all parallel, all out in the open. We'll figure out whether we want to take the appeal directly or have them say after seeing the briefing there, you guys look like you're in good hands with the DC Court of Appeals. Finish

up there. If there's an issue, come back and with the DC Court of Appeals. Finish up there. If there's an issue, come back and see us. That's where it's going to go. I'm not sure yet, except we have to read something into the fact that within two days after they decided the Supreme Court to take the issue up to them, whether they have or want jurisdiction to be asserted by the Supreme Court on the immunity issue now or wait, it's a timing issue, it's not a, it's not a, well, we're going to stay out of it forever more. It's, do we want to do it right now?

Or do we want to do it after our lower level of pellet court goes first? That's the only issue that's really up there. But it's important. As I said, the velocity of this is important. If we're going to hit a March, April, Ish trial date for Donald Trump. It's got to happen then. And then if she'll just start her trial, just to answer the question on some people's

minds, she's not, Judge Chuck is not going to care. Alien Cannon has, you know, double booked restaurants like she's on some sort of judicial open table and she's not sure she's really going to use that appointment or not. Chuck is just going to start a trial. And if the other one happens or doesn't happen, she's going to let the lawyers run around and argue, oh my God, we have two trials back to back or whatever it is. But Jesus is going to go forward.

If she loses a month or a week or two weeks or whatever it ends up being on this fast track, then so be it. So you got that going on. But at the same time and in the same breath, you've got the Supreme Court sending another message, which is we're gonna have our first opportunity to tell the Department of Justice and therefore the world,

whether the obstruction of an official proceeding, whether these gen six insurrectionists, these gen six defendants were properly charged or were they overcharged? Does that concept is used in prosecutor world? Were they overcharged with crimes that don't fit the facts? These are very novel facts. We've never other than the 1800s had an attack on our capital by domestic terrorists, you know, defendants. So, you know, prosecutors have to take existing law. They can't make up crime on the spot.

Criminal statutes on the spot. Take existing law and map it onto novel facts. And if they get it right, they're great. If they get it a little wrong, that's called overcharging. And so the question is, have they overcharged and using the 20 year sentence, which is the highest level other than seditious conspiracy, which they've used to obtain hundreds of convictions, either by plea, by bench trial or by jury verdict already. And then Donald Trump has two of his four counts in the DC case are whether he corruptly attempted to interfere with an official proceeding, congressional proceeding, which is the certificate

count, the certification of the electoral votes. How did we get here? We got here because Judge Nichols at the DC, DC Judge said, I thought it was a bridge too far. He said that that particular statute, which came out of the 2002 Enron financial debacle deals with sort of white collar crime and somebody really ripping up the ballots, destroying evidence and that type of thing. Not, you know, attacking the Capitol at the right moment to stop the certification. God, that sounds like corruptly trying to stop a official congressional proceeding to me, but to judge nickels, if you didn't

like physically get your hands on the certificates, like go up to Mike Pence to the podium and like rip them out of your hands, and then that statute didn't apply, although that's nowhere in the language of the statute. So he, that's the appeal. What do you have to do to constitute corruptly, willfully interfering with a congressional proceeding and hasn't been properly applied. If the Supremes were to rule, for instance, that it was not properly a count that should be used against these people on these facts, then that's going to send people out of the jails because there's lots of people serving time right now because they got convicted on

that count. And it will vacate sentences unless they were convicted of something else, which a lot of them were, and everything else. And for Donald Trump, it means, if depending upon where the ruling comes out, they either have to drop two of the four counts against them. They've got two other having to do with defrauding the US government and suppressing the vote.

But they'd lose the two highest value crimes on the indictment, Jack Smithwood, if this Supreme Court case comes out. Now, normally, when you're doing, when they decide to take up a case in January, which is effectively now, you don't get a ruling after briefing an oral argument until like June, if this trial happens in March or April, that's not going to help Donald Trump. If he got convicted, they later ruled that he shouldn't have been then on appeal. He'd be able to have that portion of his conviction vacated, although that's not the perfect world for Jack Smith to be in.

But there's a message being sent. I want to hear your view on it by the Supreme Court and saying, yes, we're going to figure out whether we should be dealing with immunity right now in Donald Trump. And by the way, half of your indictment, we're going to decide whether that was properly charged or not. Get that out of the way right now. I have a theory. I did it on my hot take.

I want to hear what your theory is about the messaging and what do you think they do? I want to hear your prediction on, do they take the direct appeal or make it go back through the DC court of appeals giving the timing here? And secondly, what do you think they ultimately do with the charge of that charge being applied at MAPTON to Donald Trump and the other insurrectionist conduct? I'll tell you what I think after our last quick break of the day. This bustling holiday season, you might be looking for nutritious, flavorful meals to fuel you on jam-packed days.

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they'll get Trump's briefing on December 20th, despite Donald Trump and his lawyers saying they want the Supreme Court to step in. They're gonna argue the Supreme Court shouldn't step in and they're actually gonna cite the DC Circuit Court of Appeals expedited briefing schedule as a reason why the Supreme Court should't step in and they're actually going to cite the DC Circuit Court of Appeals expedited briefing schedule as a reason why the Supreme Court shouldn't step in. They should say we may want you to step in after the DC Circuit Court of Appeals rules so delay it until after that happens. I think the Supreme Court is going to look at that expedited briefing schedule

and say that it's premature for them to rule at this time because the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is moving quickly. I think we'll have a response by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and a ruling before February 1st. The part that I truly don't know, though, is ultimately, will the Supreme Court then take up this issue? And this is where you got to see what Donald Trump's response is going to be. He can argue this should not go before the Supreme Court, or is he arguing it should go

before the Supreme Court, and then it just delay, you know, but just delayed until after. If the Supreme Court takes certiorari after the DC Circuit Court of Appeals makes its ruling, say DC's Court of Appeals makes its ruling before February 1, and then the United States Supreme Court hears oral argument, but sets an oral argument because they may do that, and then they set an oral argument, would they believe to be on an expedited schedule, but like a 45 to 60 day schedule. And then that kicks it into the summer. I think that would be problematic, Michael Popak, if that happens.

And I'd prefer that this Supreme Court to kind of just, at this point, it's a tough one, because special counsel Jackson says he wants them to hear it. But if they set it on a schedule that's in their own mind expedited 60 days, but it's after the DC circuit court of appeals makes its ruling, which I think will happen before February 1st, that becomes kind of problematic on the trial, you know, on the trial scheduled me. I think the Supreme Court's going to hear it. I think they're going to hear it after the DC Circuit Court of Appeals rules. And it is my hope that the Supreme Court sets that

for more of like, like right away, because all of the briefings basically there and that they recognize they want to keep this trial and schedule. That to me is the only variable of like actually delaying this trial date to an area where it becomes problematic is will the Supreme Court set a briefing schedule that really kind of pushes this to a time that's, you know, what where it can't be tried before the election. Now in the meantime, let's just not forget that Manhattan District Attorney case, that will go in March then. The criminal case, again, strump before Judge Juan Moshan for Trump's failure to appropriately log the business records

for as hush money payments or to falsify or fraudulently place, you know, put with these legal expenses where for, or calling them legal expenses when they were hush money payments, that case goes to trial then in March, and then this one gets kicked to the next one. I want to see this case go first though. So I acknowledge that my desire to have it go first is hoping that hope springs eternal, but I also recognize that if the Supreme Court does take Sershi Rari after DC, that could push it till after the Manhattan DA case.

I might be an outlier. I think this goes a lot faster. I think other than Bush versus Gore, which took about 30 days or less to decide, the major issue of who's going to be the president in the United States. There's been no more important decision to our constitutional republic than whether Donald Trump is a convicted criminal or not before the November election. And I think they certainly can move a lot faster than we just mapped out here and that they should. And one of the ways to do that, if they believe it's as important as I've just laid out, and the first signal that I may be right, we all wanna be, we all wanted fast.

So it's not that, it's not like I'm trying to win a bet. But one of the, the fact that they even thought, you know what, let's see if we can have a direct appeal directly to us. That's interesting. That's, let's give a fast track briefing on that. And then if they decide, and I going to play devil's advocate here.

I think Donald Trump argues, because he's getting his ass kicked understandably in the district of Columbia with these three judge panels, because they're generally coming up, Biden, Biden, Obama, Obama, Obama, Biden, you know, Obama, Biden, George appointees and they're he's not doing well. It's a it's a more democratic place. This current panel is a child's Biden, pan, Biden, and Henderson, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, but an old school Republican, not a mag. Yeah. No, not a mag a trupper.

So if I'm Donald Trump, I may as to answer a question you raised before, I may want to support trying to get the direct, argue for direct appeal jurisdiction of the US Supreme Court, because on paper he's got slightly better odds there with some of the people that are on there. If they grab it, because they just think, look, this is so important to our system of government,

our way of life, our democracy, that we are going to do the extraordinary thing, as Jack Smith said in his briefing. This is an extraordinary request, but this is an extraordinary case. And if they see that, and this is their moment, and it's a little scary to say that because we don't trust this Supreme Court for very good reason. Just as it was their moment in 2000 to decide by a five to four decision, it was one vote for Bush. That's why we had a presidency called Bush. It should have been Gore based on what was brought up to them.

But if that is their new theory now, 23 years later, that we should make this decision and not leave it to others, then they'll make it quickly, just as they did in Bush versus Gore. And I think that can get made after, what's the, sorry, you're better with the date than I am. What's the last brief in on the US Supreme Court, whether we should take jurisdiction or not issue? December 20th. Yeah, I think if they, all right, so if they rule,

I think they rule quickly after that, maybe with oral argument, maybe early January, and then they'll go like fit. And I've seen the fast track briefing. They gave, they gave a week for Supreme Court briefs or less in the Bush versus Gore. So when they want to, they can get off the stick. And if they do that, and they that and they have it fully briefed on the fundamental issue of immunity by mid-January, they can make a decision by January and not terribly impact February or March. It won't roll out. I don't think they would risk as an institution deciding to take the issue and then knowing that the case has stayed and then just let it roll out to help

out Donald Trump until the election. I just, I mean, it would be people wanted to topple the Supreme Court before because, you know, because of the ethics issues and the fact that the way that they're ruling to take away women's rights to choose and expanding second amendment rights. You imagine what, you know, you hear the, the MAGA Republican podcast, just the thing saying, this world, there'll be blood in the streets of Donald Trump or put in jail. You imagine what would happen to America if they took the case and then, and then kept him from being tried and let him stand for election. Well, that's why it was such a, that's why it was such a brilliant move by special counsel,

Jackson Smith, also to call Donald Trump's bluff. Okay. You believe you have absolute presidential immunity. You believe you should be treated like a king for criminal acts. If you believe that, and that's what you're out there saying, bet. I'll give you the opportunity right now. I'm going to ask the Supreme Court to do it.

Now if you really want the Supreme Court to do it, like you say in your speeches, like your lawyer, Alina Habba is out there saying, you want the Supreme Court to intervene. If you believe you have this king-like immunity in criminal cases, here's your shot. And so it was the perfect aggressive, but it's also Jack Smith saying to the American public, too, I'm doing everything I can do. You wanted the aggressive prosecutor, you wanted somebody who did every possible maneuver, they could do, I'm going directly

to the United States Supreme Court on this issue, and to your point, Michael Popak, it puts the Supreme Court in the hot seat. The American people saw what you did in overturning seat. The American people saw what you did in overturning row. The American people saw what you did in gutting all of these rights. You claim that you're not trying to create this handmaid's tail world, even though you're ruling suggests the exact opposite. I'm going to put this in your lap right now, United States Supreme Court.

You have the opportunity to make the statement that you're just for the normal type of Republican corruption, not the mega-king-like Republican corruption. So here is your opportunity to basically, you know, reflect that. And then finally, I'll say this, the issue is a simple one. Does a former president have absolute presidential immunity for their criminal acts while they are in office? That's the question. The answer is very simple. No, they clearly can't.

It should not be complicated. Both for the reasons, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals said in Blassingham as it relates uniquely to Donald Trump's conduct, but as it relates more broadly and more fundamentally within our constitutional regime within our democracy, presidents are not kings and Donald Trump is not the president. Those words prophetic as they were were by Judge Tonya Chutkin in 2021, in a case where Donald Trump was suing the January 6th committee, where he tried to assert king-like executive privilege before the January 6th committee got all of its records.

And those words are fundamental and foundational to our democracy. It's fundamental and foundational to why you and I decided we're going to do this legal AF show. We need to get that message out there. And finally, Michael Popak, I do want to turn though to the topic. Can I interrupt for one second? Yeah. Because I had time while you were given that good analysis. It's even faster than I thought in Bush vs. Gore. The Florida Supreme Court made a decision upon which the Bush vs. Gore that gave Bush the presidency on the 8th of December of 2000. On the 9th of December, the court granted Sir Sherri, there was oral

argument on the 11th of December and they ruled on the 12th of December. That was done in four days. There's no excuse if they take this case that they have to do it in longer than a week or two. There's precedent for them moving, no pun intended, quickly on issues that could rock our constitutional republic. Well, look, here's what, here's what Donald Trump's going to, it's not a secret what Donald Trump's going to argue. He's out there saying it though, he's going to say the, and again, this is because it's an objective reporting here on legal AF. Trump is going to say, well, you waited, if you thought this was that big of a crisis, you could have filed this back on January, you know, seventh. Obviously,

Bill Barr couldn't, couldn't, couldn't bring it't bring it back. Bill Barr was out. And Donald Trump's own DOJ wasn't going to bring it against them and they were cowardly. And then there had to be an investigation. So that becomes the argument, though, which is special counsel to have the special counsel appointed, to have the special counsel go through the process. Donald Trump obstructed this. Let's be clear though, because I know there is a lot of reasons to potentially fault Merrick Garland for not bringing this sooner. Against Donald Trump, but let's also not forget that Merrick

Garland also has secured over a thousand convictions of January 6th insurrection is all the way up to the proud boys. And at every step of the way, Trump and his maga crew have been trying to undermine the rule of law, taking every possible appeal to block all of these things happening. Judge Barrel Howell, who we mentioned at the outset, she's the judge presiding over the Giuliani case, you see how all of the connections are made right here, but Judge Barrel Howell, who's a federal judge, so she oversees civil and criminal cases in DC.

She used to be the presiding judge in Washington, DC, as the presiding judge. She was the judge assigned to all of the disputes before the DC Grand jury. So she saw all of these January 6 cases. She saw all of the Donald Trump proceedings as well before the grand jury proceedings right there. And Trump tried to block everything before. Everything was a fight, everything was a delay, everything was a briefing. One other note about Judge Barrel Howell.

And by the way, that's what I think Jack Smith's going to say. This was moved as within our legal system, this is being moved as expeditiously as it possibly can. And here we are, a federal judge has set a court date, set it. And I think Jack Smith has the more powerful argument. I just want to give you the arguments that are going to be made there. One other point about Judge Barrow Howell though. So at least, Stefanik and the MagGA members of Congress who just do whatever Donald Trump

wants, it's like the most pathetic thing in the world. At least Daphonic now sends letters reporting judges to their judicial ethics committees that govern the judges if Donald Trump doesn't like the judge. So at least Daphonic back in, I think it was either October or November sent one about judge Arthur and Goron to the judicial council that Overseas the judicial conduct of New York State court judges and at least DeFonick just sent one complaining about Judge Barrel Howell because judge Barrel Howell received an award from the women's White Collar Bar Association in Washington, DC for her career achievements. And in the speech, Judge Barrow Howell talked about how big lies are permeating and how

lies are distorting truth and how our democracy is under attack. At least, Daphonic says that that statement by Judge Barrel Howell was inappropriate and shows her bias against Republicans, who I guess is at least Daphonics just saying the quiet part out loud, and if you condemn and criticize fascism, you are condemning and criticizing one of the two major political parties right now, the one that at least Daphonic is as a member of the Magga Republican Party. So I just wanted to point out all of those connections. Finally, although it seems like this happened a very long time ago in our news cycle,

these things are happening very, very quickly. We predicted it here on Legal AF that Donald Trump was not going to show up, that he was not going to testify. We've probably been saying this on every one of our episodes. If you just study the pathology of this malignant narcissist, he does the same thing. And they all do it. Let's say I'm way Rudy Giuliani said he was going to show up and testify. Donald Trump says he's going to show up and testify.

I'm going to prove my case. I'm going to show you what I made of. Only cowards don't show up. That's what Trump's lawyers continue to say as well over and over again. But if you just look at like the January 6th Committee, Sapina, the E. Jean Carroll case where Donald Trump fled to Scotland and Ireland and like held a shovel in Scotland and said, I have to build something here. That's why I'm not testifying.

And then he said, I'm coming back to confront her and then judge Kaplan. Said, all right, we'll give you a time to come back to confront her. If you want to testify and then Donald Trump to say he's not going to show up. If you go to the Trump University case, he does the same thing. You know, like in a play basketball growing up, you know the player, right? They only can dribble with their right hand.

They can't go left. So you gotta guard him. They only go right. And you'd call, the only knows how to go right. Point guard only knows how to go right. You know, when I play as a kid, Donald Trump only knows how to do one.

He just does the same move over and over again. And it is this delay, delay, delay, lie, lie, blame, blame, blame, act tough and say, I'm going to show up. Don't show up. Find some scapegoat, blame the judge, blame the system. It just repeats. It's the exact same thing. It is very, it's very simple to see and identify here, but no surprise to you, Michael Pope, I've met Donald Trump did not show up at this New York Attorney General civil fraud case. He's gonna get hit with a massive judgment there.

What say you? Yeah, I think it's, the writing has been on the wall for a long, long time. I mean, you've got a judge, judge, and Goran, who on no less than two prior occasions has found persistent fraud in the operation of the Trump organization businesses. He found it a year ago when he imposed as an injunction, a monitor, a former federal judge, to keep an eye on everything related

to the business practices of the Trump organization and the assets and all of that. And then he found it 12 weeks ago when he the judge ruled as a matter of law that there was, that the New York Attorney General prevailed in the first count of their petition to find persistent fraud as that term is used in executive law 63-12. And now we've been just waiting around to see if there's five other fraudulent things

that Donald Trump has done in addition to that one, or six, no five, and that's been what the 12 weeks has been about. Has is there insurance fraud done intentionally and that insurance companies relied on that fraudulent statement of financial condition and other fraudulent activities, is their business record fraud, similar to the Stormy Daniels case, and how they booked certain of these things in their records, i.e. the cooked up statement of financial condition. And is there insurance fraud related to his financial statements, which is what we've talked about in conspiracies around those three.

Yes or no. And then what is the ultimate remedy for that? Because the judge could take away most of what is near and dear to Donald Trump, and by that, I mean money and control and the ability to operate a business in New York and borrow money in New York and transact real estate in New York with the first count that was already ruled upon in the summary judgment and dissolve his companies. And they'll be a fight over how broad the powers of this judge is in terms of equity to do justice.

And they'll be a fight over it. He'll make his order. It'll be middle to late January after oral argument. The case has gone dark now. Donald Trump did nothing at all to defend himself. He didn't even appear in the defense case. Same for Eric Trump, who was the other substantive witness that was that was brought there. And the rebuttal case for the government for the New York Attorney General, was very light because they didn't think they had been hurt at all in anything in the defense

case. Four experts testifying about things that have nothing to do with the fundamental issues of whether there was fraud committed by Donald Trump. It was not going to be persuasive to the trial judge who's the trial or fact in the case. And so I'm sure that the decision in this next month that the case is going dark, he's writing his order right now. Sure, he's going to listen to the oral argument, but the judge is not going to, it's going to be three quarters written when he walks in the door.

He's got some questions he's going to ask off of whatever, I'm not sure if they're doing post trial briefs, maybe they are, and then an oral argument to support it. He'll ask them of his own questions about it. There'll be another ridiculous set of arguments literally in the courtroom. Chris Kaisel attacked in New York Attorney General, and attacked Judge Engoron, and attacked the principal Law Clerk all over again. It'll just be the same old thing. And then, then, he'll issue his order. And the question is, once he does, and I feel that I believe that he's going to find at least three or four more fraud counts

that have been proven on the preponderance of evidence standard by the New York Attorney General. And then we've got to get down to the meat of the case, the meat of the decision, which is what are the remedies going to be? The first is going to be, forget that $250 million number that we talked about throughout the summer. That number is gone, based on the testimony

by the experts that were put on by the New York Attorney General, double that number. It's at least $500 million if they are right about the fraud and the judge buys it. So start with a $500 million number and then you go from there. In addition, what do you do with those companies? Because New York doesn't like persistently fraudulent businesses operating in New York.

They're funny that way. And so the New York, the Attorney General's is going to ask for the dissolution of those companies. They're done. They had their chance for 50 years to operate a business in New York and they blew it. And what do you do with the officers and directors, which are all named Trump or Weiselberg or McCotty or the like in terms of their ever being able to be in that control position of trust again?

That's done. What do you do with Donald Trump's trust, speaking of trust, where he has all of his assets? Who do you put in charge of that? These are all going to be fought over the next few years. So there's going to be a big number that we're going to talk about that's going to be awarded. You know, kind of like this $148 million drudy julie anything. It'll be multiples of that. And a lot of bad things are going to happen to his companies and his ability to operate businesses. But that's going to be appealed and stayed and argued over

at the Court of Appeals, sorry, the first department, a palliative vision for New York, and then ultimately at the Court of Appeals for New York. We may not get an ultimate ruling on that until a year or two later, but listen, by time January, the calendar turns to January between the E. Jean Carol, second jury finding, and this one here, like we said earlier, it could be a $750 million loss that Donald Trump is looking at. And he's going to have to post a bond. And I think that piece of it needs to be talked about, where is he going to be able to,

I mean, we're going to be talking about a bond somewhere in the range of 500 to 750 million dollars. I think when you have to add up the various, the various places that he's going to get hit from on all these verdicts. So stay tuned there and we'll leave you with that. I mean, a lot, a lot happening this week and I always love when we have a legal AF where there's a verdict. Either way, I love when verdict sides on the side of justice, but I do love when all of the things we've been talking about lead's an outcome that our system, although it has its flaws and that's for sure, was always something that I think was admired across the world.

Something I went to law school. I believed in our legal system. I believe in our justice system. I still believe in our legal system and our justice system. I also recognize it's under attack like never before. I hope the United States Supreme Court realizes that they're under attack like never before. I hope all of the courts recognize. Judge Barrow Howell obviously recognizes it and it shouldn't be a partisan thing at all. It should just be a judge thing. That when Donald Trump and these Magger Republicans threatened facts, the truth, threatened our judicial system,

threatened judges, threatened the law clerks, threatened the prosecutors, and don't argue the facts. Donald Trump didn't show up in his defense at the Ascivil for our trial and go, all right, let me show you the books. Here's how we do it. Here's the diligence. Here's why it's so important that I'm accurate. Here's why the New York Attorney General's run. Let's pull up the 2016 spreadsheet. Let's pull up the 2017 spreadsheet.

Let's go property by, he didn't in and do that, right? Donald Trump's not arguing in these, you know, or not arguing at least forcefully in these various criminal prosecutions that he didn't commit to the crime. He's arguing that it doesn't matter what he does. The same thing with the documents. He's not saying he didn't take him.

He's saying he could do it every once telepathically. These are concepts. These are things that dictators and authoritarian say. And our country foundationally was built, and this is what Judge Chutkin said in her order, denying Donald Trump's claim to absolute presidential immunity, that the text, the structure, the history, why we are the United States of America was that we were repulsed by Trump-like figures. And Trump, frankly, is a wannabe of those figures. Trump is not even the authoritarian. He's a wannabe author. He's, he wants to be the

authoritarian sidekick. When he's there with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, he's in awe of them. It is loserish. It is demeaning. It is anti-American. That's how I feel about it. I care deeply about this legal system. I know that you do as well. Let's keep growing this legal AF community together. And we are so grateful for you all. Want to remind you all about the Midas Touchouch Patreon Patreon.com slash MidasTouch. Check that out. Make sure you subscribe to Legal AF wherever audio podcasts are available. If you're subscribed on audio, subscribe to the MidasTouch YouTube.

YouTube Watchers subscribe to the Legal AF Audio Podcast. Help us grow that audio podcast as well. It's free to subscribe to the audio podcast and check out store.mitustouch.com for the best Pro Democracy gear, including all of the Legal AF gear 100% union made 100% made in the USA. That's store.mitustouch.com. Thank you to our Proocracy sponsors. Check out the discount codes in the descriptions below. Thank you Michael Popak. Always my favorite time of the week spending legal AF with you and the legal AFers. See you next time on legal AF. Let's keep on supporting, protecting, defending our democracy, our judicial system.

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