Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Top legal experts REACT to biggest legal news of week | Legal AF 6/18/22

Episode Date: June 19, 2022

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF x MeidasTouch is back for another hard-hitting look in “real time” at this week’s most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics.  This week, Ben and Popok discuss and analyze: 1. Sessions 2 and 3 of the Jan6 Committee Hearings, including Republican witnesses Bill Stepian, Greg Jacob, Jason Miller, and Judge Luttig. 2. Whether “Presidential pocket pardons” are a thing and constitutional. 3. Bannon’s efforts to exclude references to Jan6 from his upcoming trial. 4. Developments in the Proud Boy conspiracy prosecution and the revelation of a planning memo to “infiltrate” and “occupy” 7 other Capitol buildings. 5. Google agreeing to settle a landmark “pay inequity” class action case for $118mm based on their past practices of discriminating against women in the workplace. 6. The continued attack on class actions and other representative and collective action type cases by the Supreme Court who instead strengthen corporate mandatory arbitration agreements. And so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: https://athleticgreens.com/LegalAF Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two more January 6th hearings are in the books. Six live witnesses testified and over a dozen depositions were played all Republican witnesses, conservative witnesses, witnesses who worked for Donald Trump and all saying Trump violated the law. Except of course for John Eastman Trump's lawyer who pled the fifth 100 times and we saw that video. Popoq there are some new revelations and it seems that based on what we've learned could Trump himself be charged with attempted murder. I mean it seems

that that's what he was saying regarding Mike Pence. So let's break that down and talk about that. A federal judge denies Steve Bannon's motion to dismiss the contempt of Congress, charges brought against him by the DOJ, and his trial is set to begin next month. Steve Bannon files a motion to exclude evidence of the actual insurrection. But Popoq, I thought Bannon said there wasn't really that bad of a thing and that we should This was a celebration. So what's he worried about? Obviously, we know the not-so-proud boys terrorist organization ask for a

Continuance of their trial from late in the summer in August to about December They also seek a venue change from Washington, DC to Florida. Let's break down POPock, why they're making that request. Pocket Partins. You and I get asked this all the times. What are they? Dig Trump.

Grant them. If he did grant pocket partings, what are their implications? Are pocket partings constitutional? We will talk about that. And more evidence emerges showing that Ginny Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was in communication with Johnny Smith, the man who pled the fifth, 100 times.

It let's just be blunt here. She was basically one of the leaders of the insurrection in the January 6th committee would like a word with Ginny Thomas. Let's also talk about some Supreme Court decisions. Let's just talk about one on this podcast today. Let's talk about one in California, away that California employees would get around arbitration provisions. This was rejected in an 8-1 decision by the Supreme Court. And a Google class action settled for $118 million, a gender discrimination,

female employees getting $118 million if this class action is approved. Michael Popock, we have an action packed courted court case-packed legal-packed episode of LegalA. Great to see you today. You too. I'm breathless. Uh-uh, you and I again, we're doing that cut down. And we start, which everybody knows what goes into this. We start with 20 or 30 stories that were following closely during the week.

Of course, Jan 6, took a lot of the oxygen out of the room for us as we, for the Midas media network, do commentary for it. But there's other things going on that we have to keep our eye on the ball and not lose sight of and bring it to our Midas, Midas, Midi and Legal A efforts. And you just gave us the top six consequential stories that you and I picked for our audience for today. What everyone also to put on their radar, the fact that the Supreme Court will be issuing more opinions next Tuesday and Thursday. So this podcast is being recorded June 18th, 2022. And so expect massively consequential decisions happening on June 21 and on June 23.

And we're talking about 18 cases that remain to be decided. And these are the cases that we've talked about on this podcast, the case that will likely be overturning Roe v Wade and the rights established by Roe v Wade and Casey, cases on the second amendment, which will likely expand significantly, the right of individuals to bear arms with unfettered regulation,

just to basically run around with guns. I mean, so we'll see the expansion of the second amendment there, cases on climate change and religion in schools. And just by putting those topics up, we could pretty much, you could pretty much know where the Supreme Court is going to land on the issue. On climate change, they're not going to take the pro climate change side on religion in schools.

They are going to likely make rulings that would make religion more prevalent in public schools. That's the trend that they've been obviously taking. So we will be following those decisions as they happen and giving alerts there. But Michael Pope, why don't you start by taking us through just this, why don't you take the Google case and explain the settlement there.

And I'll briefly talk about this Pagocetlement. I think that's a good split because you practice regularly in California. And you and I have been involved with Pagocetlement. I think that's a good split because you practice regularly in California. And we've you and I have been involved with Pagocases in the past, but let's start with Google because they, you know, they've had a good week for justice terrible week for Google. They already settled $100 million in case earlier in the week related to their use of biometrics without having disclosed it in a class action, but this one goes to the heart of what both what you and I do for a living

whether or not podcasting and to gender and equity equality in America. A very good class action law firm that you've talked about before on this on this podcast brought in 2017, a class action suit on behalf of all female employees of Google who both upon hiring were ranked lower than their male counterparts and therefore got initial compensation that was lower than them. And throughout their careers as a result, did not get the bonuses and compensation that their male counterparts with the equivalent pedigree and credentials received. And the statistics that they did, and this is how you do it, and a gender equal pay case, is that you actually get from the company, if you're the plaintiff's lawyers, a download of all of their data that they have to keep related to pay and gender and positions and titles and

credentials. And you can see you and I have been involved with these cases. You can see gender equity and disparity in pay pop out as soon as you see the statistics. And in the case of Google, a female, with the same credentials as her male counterpart, sitting next to her, was making on average $17,000 a year less than the male. There was no dispute about that. Google had some defenses, and of course,

they didn't emit liability in the settlement. But the settlement is $118 million plus a three-year independent monitor who's going to monitor Google's practices, look at all of the equity data for new hires. Also in response to this lawsuit, which is not part of the technical settlement, that the court is going to approve or not approve on June 21st, Google on its own,

but in the face of the lawsuit in 2020 raised the pay for thousands and thousands of female employees voluntarily, but in the face of a lawsuit. So, and they got, in addition, all, And they got in additional, it looks like that part of it was another $5 million, almost $5 million in pay increases plus this $118 million, plus three years of having a monitor basically sit in your HR department to make sure that all your future hires and how people are treated for bonuses and other things is treated equally. And so this is a real big win for women in the workplace because Google is not the only one doing this. And now the signal is out there that you better settle cases if you have and you better

do an internal review, look at the mirror, which is what companies do and make sure that you don't have a gender equity problem. And if you do, you better fix it, or a big, bad plate of sloth firms in a come along and take a few hundred million dollars, or a billion dollars off of you. You know, what's interesting about this case, Popat, though, is that it's a gender discrimination case that was litigated, you know, with it was this one is filed in a state court, but that was filed in the courts there was not any arbitration provisions here. And that's an important point to point out that the reason that there wasn't though, you know, as I looked into it, Pope, was that within Google itself and large corporations, there's been movements by employees

to not allow their corporations or to object to their companies they work for, putting arbitration provisions within their contracts. You know, about 60 million Americans, this is the stat, have signed forced arbitration provisions. And many of you listening, if you work for a private employer in a non-unionized setting, you've likely signed an arbitration provision with your employer and you may not realize it. It's probably in your employee handbook. It's probably in your employee handbook.

When you click, just I accept, you're signing arbitration provisions, and this prevents you from having a day in court, but it allows you to adjudicate your claims in a private arbitration setting before a retired judge or a retired lawyer, but here this case went through the normal kind of class action process. Google filed some motions to dismiss,

but they were very technical grounds about what constitutes the class in the years. And one of the things too, that corporations have found actually, well, arbitrations were supposed to be cheaper, actually doing individual one-off cases within arbitrations could cost a few hundred thousand dollars Just to litigate the actual cost of the arbitration. So if you do that writ large with thousands and thousands of people

Before you even deal with the actual payouts that would be owed You know in a settlement or an adjudgment you may be paying hundreds of millions of dollars for the cost of Arbitration alone one thing I'd mention is there a case, a seminal Supreme Court case called Walmart versus Dupes. This case was in 2011. It was a case in which the Supreme Court ruled that a group of roughly 1.5 million women who worked at Walmart could not file a gender discrimination case because it didn't meet the class action requirements for having common and typical claims. And this Walmart VDUX case was really the death knell to gender discrimination, you know, style class action cases, and then you layer on that,

the arbitration provisions that were taking place. And so it's just very interesting to me, Michael, that in light of Walmart, the dukes, how this law firm was able to utilize a California law, get around the arbitration, there was no arbitration provision which could could have been a death now number one number two using California's equal pay act a very specific law to find this kind of commonality and to push for this relief on a class wide basis. I thought was just very good. Let me give you, I agree with you. Let me give you two softballs back to you. One, do you think that if, do you think Google would have taken pay equity and paid disparity seriously

in their workplace, had there not been the ability to thread the needle and for these lawyers who brought a state court claim on behalf of a class action that was certified a year ago, do you think we would have seen anything close to the result if they're not, if there had not been a class action brought on these issues? No, I mean, you know, it's why the class action as a remedy though is so important and why you know plaintiffs lawyers but civil rights lawyers fight for this remedy because when you are able to bring together a group of similarly situated individuals the power of the class is significantly more than the power of the individual.

And when a corporation can divide and conquer the individual employees, you're not likely to get this outcome. So here's the tension that you're going to pick up next in the packet discussion. The tension is that while the federal courts and the Supreme Court are okay with class actions as a vehicle to be brought to remediate and remedy injustice. They are big, big time supporters of arbitration, which is really a pro corporation vehicle. So much so, wait to you start talking about the Alito decision next. This tension that the Supreme Court is in love with arbitration and will defend it against really almost anything in its path. And the role of the class action in society to remediate things that an individual and

one lawyer can't come to grips with environmental disasters, what, you know, dirty water, polluted water from a chemical plant, causing massive injuries in a community, pay an equity that we just talked about, products liability cases, where a product damages somebody. That is what class actions were invented to do. It attracts high caliber loyering, who get compensated to represent a mass of people

who have the same or similar injuries. When you break them down, it's divided and conquer. And this is that tension that you're going to talk about next as a Supreme Court having fallen in love with arbitration. Does never seems to resolve in favor of the little guy. Agreed completely, Popoq. And so in California in 2004, the California labor and workforce development agency, the LWDA,

which is authorized to assess and collect civil penalties against employers for certain violations and provisions of the labor code were assisted by the California legislature, which basically said the LWDA lacks sufficient resources to enforce the labor code. So the legislature enacted something called the Private Attorney General's Act, or Paga, which took effect in 2004, and Paga allowed individual employees who were alleging

violations of the labor code that they experienced to basically bring these class action claims and to recover on behalf, as the statute says, the Private Attorney General's Act, to basically act as private attorney generals, and to sue employers for violations of the labor code, not just on their own behalf, but on behalf of all of the other employees who worked for that employer. And what the Paga statute said is that there would be

civil penalties and the default penalty was about $100 per employee, per pay period for an initial violation, $200 per pay period for subsequent violations. And then there would be attorneys fees as well. And so when you would be able to recover all of this money against the employer for violating the labor code, 75% of what was recovered would go back to the state.

25% would go to the lawyer and to the class for recovering this fee. So you'd get to keep 25% of the fee. And what this was able to do is this was kind of viewed as an end run around also arbitration provisions because you were acting as an arm of the state or agents of the state where California courts had always interpreted this Pagastatute is that it would be against public policy to have any provision in your employment agreement that would basically wave Paga

or force Paga into an arbitration. And so these Paga claims were a way around arbitration and that individuals who brought these Paga claims would bring their individual claims as well as California courts interpreted it into California courts and not into arbitrations. Well, the corporations challenged this provision in a case called Viking River Cruises versus Moriana. This case went to the Supreme Court and what the Supreme Court just ruled this past week is that if you're alleging Paga claims, inherently what you're alleging is still

your own individual claim, your own employment and labor code claim, and therefore, if you are bringing your own labor violation claim, that your own claim should go to a private arbitration, if there's an arbitration provision in your agreement. And because you have a remedy to go to the arbitration, you really can't bring a representative action on behalf of an entire class because your individual claims have this remedy and therefore no class action. So the bottom line of this case is that these labor violations in California are not going

to really be able to be brought anymore, the way they were before, as class actions, as a result of this decision. Now, it was some interesting infighting in this decision. It was an eight to one decision. Believe it or not, the one who was against this ruling was Clarence Thomas. And Clarence Thomas just believes that states should be able to make up whatever rules they want to make. And let me be clear, Clarence Thomas is not doing this because he supports the employees'

rights in this specific case. What Clarence Thomas is basically saying is, I think states can basically make whatever rule that they want to basically not allow anyone to do to litigate if they want to. So even though he cited here with apparently the employee, it was not a pro-employed decision by Clarence Thomas in this pagan decision. There was a pro-state sovereignty states, right? Exactly. Exactly. But here we're going to have less arbitrations, less employee rights, but you have eight other Supreme Court justices who were basically, you know, who were united.

You know, they took different approaches to how they got to the outcome. And the judges appointed by Democrats were basically saying, look, California is the way you wrote the statute in California. It wasn't great. Go back and rewrite the statute to create a different way that you can give employees. It's another example. There's about a dozen of them over the last five years

where the Supreme Court goes back and chastises California, California legislature, California courts, and the Ninth Circuit and says, you got it wrong when it comes to arbitration. They just, there's this constant fighting and of course, in rock paper scissors, the Supreme Court beats California in every time. But I give it up to California. They keep trying to preserve the rights of employees and collective action and representative action like the private attorney general statue and the Supreme Court keeps saying federal arbitration act prevails over everything.

In fact, I thought one last line on this, then of course we'll move on. Alito says in his, because Alito wrote the opinion, you know, not great when everybody's siding with Alito on a majority opinion. I hope that doesn't hold for abortion. But here Alito says that there is, he's so concerned about the equal treatment. Think about this, Ben. He's so concerned about this concept of equal treatment of arbitration against litigation because he says that in the past, state court judges, especially were against arbitration and always ruled against it. And so there needs to be equal treatment.

He's only concerned about equal treatment when it comes to arbitration. He's not concerned about equal treatment when it comes to human beings and discrimination. But you know, this is the problem with the supermajority right wing or what they refer to as the conservatives. They only care about contracts. They only care about the statutes as they read them, but not the individual. Absolutely, Popeye. And so what we try to do in legal AF is try to sneak in some very technical law to improve your legal education. But let's get into really, you know, what's the state of our democracy right now, Michael Popeye. I want to talk about this Joseph Biggs motion to continue the trial, which seems the DOJ is in agreement to continue the Joseph Biggs trial itself to December.

I want to talk about that, but what the DOJ was not in agreement with was Joseph Biggs motion to sever the case so that his case can be tried separately from Tario and the other proud boys. And some of the other relief that Joseph Biggs was, you know, was seeking and the DOJ was definitely against transferring the case to Florida where Joseph Biggs would like. I want to talk about Miami, why they want to go there. This case to be heard. So let's start with their Popeye.

Why does this terrorist Joseph Biggs want to move the case from Washington, DC to Florida? And then let's talk about after that, why does he want to continue this case to December? Why does the OJ agree that this case should be heard in December? Let's start with Miami because they don't really have other than Tariots from there. The others don't. So just to remind the legal aaffirs, these proud boys are joined together in an indictment under a conspiracy to commit seditious, seditious overthrow of the country. The conspiracy is important because Tario, this guy Henry Tario, or Enrique, whatever his

bullshit moniker is. He was not in, Tario was not in Washington or at Jan 6th, but is tied together in the conspiracy to do the violence, to do the sedition and the insurrection part of it. And we'll talk about before we leave the segment, the memo that was written for the Proud Boys, the 1776 returns 9-page memo, which ties them all together in the attack on Jan 6th and other attacks that they were going to do to occupy other buildings around the Capitol.

That's what we're talking about. That's the trial. And Joe Biggs is one of the leaders. Why that name sounds familiar to legal A.F.ers and Midas and Midas Mighty is because if they went on your brother's media network with you to watch the first day, Joe Biggs had a very big, no pun intended role

in the first day of the first hearing of the Jan 6th committee because he was the proud boy that had the interaction with Carolyn Edwards, the police officer, who described the carnage of being attacked, and she described quite poignantly what Joe Biggs did on behalf of the proud boys on that day. So now, of course, his lawyers said, oh, he can't get a fair shake in DC.

He was just the star of the day one of the Gen 6 Committee hearing, and he can't get a fair shake there. And interesting as you pointed out in the opening, it just now been, he wants to move it, not just some random place, wants to move it to Miami. Look, there's been plenty of reporting, including through the Midas network, that Miami, the Republican party in Miami has been infiltrated by people like the Proud Boys, that there is because of the demographic shift, because of the group that is in power in Miami, primarily Cuban American and from other regions in Central and South America are moving sharply to the right in their political views

DeSantis supporters. I was down there as people know for prior podcast. I was down there to be a poll watcher during the last election Four years earlier that was solidly for Obama four years later. I can't tell you I can't describe to you the amount of vitriol, the amount of violent language that was on the streets against Joe Biden and Kamala on a regular basis. It's pro to San this. So they think that with the Department of Motor Vehicle Records, they'll pull a better jury in Miami that that leans right literally in their political views, which will be a more hospitable forum for them of a jury of their peers, than what they think is the liberal, or in one of the papers, Joe Biggs's lawyer said that the cookie-lovable people that live in Washington, D.C.,

almost like the liberal of feet, woke snowflakes in D.C. is what he really meant to say, versus what he thinks he will have a better shot in Miami. By the way, despite the fact that this is a Trump judge, we like to out our judges on this show, Judge Tim Kelly. By the way, he's no shrinking violent. Tim Kelly, even though I don't like the fact that he's a member of the Federalist Society, he went to both of our alma materes, he went to Duke for undergrad, he went to Georgetown for law. He was also the chief counsel for national security

for the Senate Judiciary Committee. And he was affirmed 94 to 2 by the Senate when he became, so he is, we may not like his political leanings, but he's ruled properly with things related to Trump in the direction that we think he should have ruled. He is not transferring this case to Miami. He's going to, there's been five cases already tried by the Department of Justice against Jensics insurrectionists in DC.

Yes, they're five and oh, but they're five and oh because of the overwhelming evidence against these people, including the future case against Joe Bigg. So prediction, motion for venue change denied. And let's, let's talk about your other questions. Talk about the continuance requests, but I agree with you, Popo, the venue change is definitely going to be denied. And one of the bases it's also going to be denied

is that if the argument is that so many people watched the hearing, over 20 million people watched the hearing, it's interesting that when they want to go on their own podcasts and try to provide disinformation to their echo chamber, they go, nobody watched it. But then this is the thing that they do when they go to actually in court and they have to testify under it. So many people watch this, that it's not going go to actually in court and they have to testify under it. They go, so many people watch those that it's not going to be actually a fair trial,

but the argument that the DOJ makes and the argument that Judge Kelly has also said before with previous requests that if this is pervasive information that is known to the entire country, whether you're in one venue versus the other, those same issues are going to remain and the Voidere process, the jury selection process should be sufficient to fair it out,

which jurors would maintain a bias to make them not capable of being proper jurors in a specific case. You mentioned some other rulings by Judge Kelly. Judge Kelly presided over CNN versus Trump, right? That was the lawsuit about Trump's decision to revoke Jim Acosta's White House press credentials denying him access to White House grounds. And then Kelly ruled that Acosta could return to the White House pending a trial. So that was one of the decisions

that he made, which was a decision against Trump. And then on December 28, 2021, Kelly also denied emotion to dismiss the indictment of Proud Boys as well, who were charged with conspiracy. So that's another ruling that he made. Now, in terms of the continuance, this was, we saw a filing by the DOJ where basically they said, we're actually okay with it being moved to December. And the reason they give, Michael, is that they say that they're waiting on the transcripts from the Gen 6 committee,

that they wanna turn over these transcripts to they have an obligation to turn over these transcripts to the defendants in this case, and that they kind of wrote a little bit of an SDGram about the Jan 6th Committee not giving them documents and not turning over the records. And there was a little tip we actually saw this past week between the Jan 6th Committee and the DOJ,

co-equal branches of government, the executive branch, and the legislative branch. But really what the Jan six committee, the undertone is, is that, you know, you're the DOJ, like you should have access. Aren't you doing this investigation as well? Why do we have things that you don't have, even if we have these transcripts, even if we have these transcripts, you know, as a legislative body, we want to hold it close to the vest, what we have, but you're the DOJ. You have a grand

jury. Go subpoena these same people. You have the same ability to do what we're doing over here. But should they just be sharing this records with them? Yeah, let's talk. There's two cases today, two segments today where this becomes relevant. We're going to talk about ban and filing emotion and eliminate to keep out the Jan 6 attack and the same issue. Department of Justice lawyers are now having to appear in court and explain to the judges

why they don't have the Jan 6 transcripts and video transcripts. Why is that important? You alluded to it earlier because under a concept called Brady based on a case, Brady Material, which is material that could help the defense has to be provided to the defense by the prosecution. And so the defense is saying and to be frank, they're not wrong. Hey, I want to see the video of me, my client at the Jan 6th, I want to see the interviews that were taken about

his participation. And the Department of Justice has to have taken a sheepish position in now two, two court appearances, if not earlier, and say, we don't have them. And the judges are like, what do you think you don't have them? Well, the Jan 6th committee is not giving it to us. Now to your point, which is a problem. Now what I've seen in the recent reporting is that the Jansix Committee said they will turn them over to the Department of Justice, but not until then did you see this, not until around July? I guess they want to get over their hearings before they turn over because I don't want any leaks. They're doing their own thing. They're putting on a major hearing right now. So it's a July doesn't help some of these trials.

So there's a continued tension here. Department of Justice, let's make a couple of points here. They can't order. And I mean, could they? No, I don't think they could subpoena successfully. The Department of Justice, the Jan 6th Committee to get it from them. So they're stuck and they know that. Now, to answer your question, where I answer the question of Benny, Benny Thomas, don't you have these already? The answer we know is no. The Gen 6 committee is so far ahead in terms of development of their case, the thousand of interviews, the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. We know the Department of Justice is at least six months

behind because we know, yes, there's three grand juries or more in paneled in in Washington right now, but but they're playing catch up. The Gen 6 Committee's been going on for over a year. So that can't be the answer. What do you think the rest? What do you think the end result is for the Gen 6 Committee turning over with a ribbon tied around it, all of their materials, the Department of Justice? Does it happen? When does it happen? I think it happens after they make their closing argument. Yeah, great. And I think it probably happens within, it's a lot of material. They are releasing the material to the public. When you watch these hearings and

you see Benny Thompson say, we hear by release the deposition transcripts and making part of the public record, he's not referring to just the clips that we're seeing. He's actually referring to making the full deposition transcripts available and part of a public congressional record and basically taking these as confidential documents and moving them into the public record. So they're doing that naturally right now as the process is taking place and moving these videos into the public record.

But they're going to do it after their closing argument, after their statement because here's what they're going to say. They're going to say DOJ. We have made a case that is beyond compelling. Now the job is in your hands. Here you go. Here's the records that you saw. And they want a sequence at that way to put the pressure on the DOJ to do the right thing. And the judges, I agree with you, and the judges are just going to have to make a ruling that this, this, the Jan 6th Committee information and data is not Brady material to be, because A, it's not in the hands of the Department of Justice, obviously, it won't be for some

time. Now, when the Department of Justice does get it, they will have to turn it over one by one to defendants who request it if it goes to their culpability or an attempt at a defense to their culpability, what we call, like, sculpatory material at that time. But if you're trial and some of these trials have already happened, have happened already, you don't have, you as a defendant can't say,

oh, if I had only had some of that material from Gen 6, it could have helped my case. It's over. It's over. It's not Brady material in Tena gets in the hands of the Department of Justice. That's what they said to the judge in the recent case involving big and big, big, and they're going to, they're going to say the same thing in the ban in case we're going to talk about next. And Popeye, what was this filing touch upon it briefly by Zachary Rell, one of the code defendants of Enrique Tario, this 1776 returns document. And I've seen different analysis, and now different analysis done on this to see, you

know, was this a, is this document like incredibly helpful to prosecutors? Is it not helpful to prosecutors? And the 1776 returned document basically is the one of the plans and the plots that the terrorist proud boys had to occupy the buildings on January 6th and to make their demands be heard and to shut down, you know, Congress. But the documents themselves don't actually talk about going into the capital. They talk about occupying and basically holding hostages in other buildings. And so it's part of the development of their sedition. It's ultimately not the final

piece of what they decided to do. Yeah, I called it Audible on Jan 6th, but, or this was part of all the planning. So, in March of this year, just to continue our build of information that we provide on the podcast, in March, we talked about the original indictment of Tariot and five other co-conspirators, all proud poise. And in the March indictment, and in the courtroom, the Department of Justice mentioned a memo that they had, and the New York Times did a whole report of it in March.

And I'll post it on Legal AF community today later today, in which they suggested the memo was part of the plot and was the PowerPoint, if you will, that led ultimately to the tip of the spear, which was the JAN-6 insurrection and attack on the Capitol. It was an attack and a infiltration to use their words of seven other buildings around the capital, all at the same time to be held and occupied by groups of 50 or more of the proud boys and others led by a proud boy in coordination. Sounds an awful lot like a conspiracy, which is what get your opinion on this as a trial lawyer, in a curious move, one of the co-conspirators decided to rip the bandaid off and actually file the memo in an attempt to move to dismiss the indictment against them, arguing that the memo is innocuous,

the memo, there's no real link between Tariot and my client, in this case, Zach, as Zach rel, R-E-H-L. This is the lawyer's argument. And if you look closely at the memo, which I've attached to my motion, all night pages, it's yes, it says that the steps of the, of the plan are infiltration, execution, distraction, occupy, and sit in. But they're almost acting like, see, it's like a sit- in. It's like when college students don't like the food that served in the cafeteria. So they go sit in the lobby of the of the dean. It's just like that.

It's just, you know, fun and games, you know, just the way Jan Six is portrayed by those like Jim Jordan who don't want to admit what happened. It's just a little, you know, hugging and sitting and, you

know, got a little bit out of hand. That's what they want to portray now. So they made a tactical decision. I want to get your opinion on it to actually file the message that they want to put in a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of you know, got a little bit out of hand. That's what they want to portray now. So they made a tactical decision. I want to get your opinion on it to actually file the memo and say the memo is not that bad. They didn't talk about violence. It didn't talk about the overthrow and therefore, you know, there's no conspiracy and even the government's own document supports that. What did you think about that argument? I don't think about the stupidest move. Oh, it's the dumbest move in there. I was like, why are you filing the memo? The history. Why, you know, when if you're like, I'm glad this idiot terrorists did

it because, you know, the more information that's out there is the better for justice. But if you're representing a criminal defendant in this case, you tell him to shut up. You don't give more information than you need to do. You have a fifth amendment, right, against self-accrimination. Here's the memo I relied on. You know, in a criminal proceeding, obviously, you know, here's what I want people to know too.

In a civil proceeding, if you take the fifth, it can actually be used against you as an adverse inference, by not by taking the fifth and by not testifying in a criminal proceeding. If you take the fifth, you are not allowed to point out as the prosecutor that this person invoked the fifth, you're not allowed to show the video the way they did in January 6th and show the person pleading the fifth over and over and over again, on stand, you can't do that in the criminal case in the criminal case

because you don't have to testify against yourself. And you can go up and make the argument as the prosecutor, don't you think he's guilty or she's guilty? They did not testify and they're invoking the fifth and therefore they're guilty. You can't do that in a criminal prosecution whatsoever. So you as a criminal defendant should not be turning over these records that would incriminate you more.

And also we know what happened on January 6th. But what this also goes to Michael is the disunity between these defendants, the different strategies. It shows they're sloppy, they're messy, they're kind of going at it with each other, you know the other code defendants were not happy. I would guarantee you that this was actually that this document was filed They were probably like, yo, what the what is rel fucking doing? I mean, what rel went rogue? What's rel doing? Can I go to your point? Yeah, but it's the dumbest thing to do if you're criminal. I totally agree with you. Can I go to one of your points and kind of tease it out a little bit?

Talk about Fifth Amendment right not to accriminate yourself. What is going on with the Peter Navarro's and the John Eastman's of the world and Bannon who continue in the face staring down the barrel of a indictment and criminal prosecution and spending a lot of time at Levit worth John Eastman continues to blog about evidence in the case against him and respond to what we're going to talk about next to Ginny Thomas connection. He's blogging as of like yesterday about evidence that is against him taking an opinion or a position which is back to your law of holes continuing to dig his own grave. Navarro does the same thing. I got a book that I'm releasing, Judge, please postpone my trial so I could go on a book tour.

The book is going to be like mana from heaven for the prosecution, because of all the crazy crap that's going to be packed into it so we can get paid, you know, his royalties. And then, and then you have ban and who podcasts on a regular basis, while he's out on bail, what, what do you make of that conduct, which is completely against you and I would leave the representation of a client in a criminal setting. If they continue to do that, yes or no, would you, would you continue to represent that client? If you couldn't control them that way. Absolutely.

And, and to me, this goes to what Bill Steppian said about in his deposition testimony about team normal and team not normal. What I want to be clear about is I don't believe that stepian and the Trump inner circle was team normal, even though they view themselves as team normal. But nonetheless, they had at least a fear of the rule of law. In the sense that they understood the repercussions, they followed the norms of what the law was, and where they stopped was directly overthrowing the government, which is not exactly, you know, we should not get them kudos for doing that. But what we have here, a why I reference that is you really see a decaying of the rule of law creep into, you know, that kind of team normal because team normal is not really normal anymore.

So team normal is at a position that we would normally view as red alert, red alert. But then you have this fascist creep, this total disrespect of the law. And what we see with banan, what we see with Navarro, what we see with meadows. And of course them working for the Trump cartel. We don't give a fuck about the law no more democracy, the courts. It don't matter because guess what? Donald Trump, you heard what he said at the faith and freedom, whatever they call that convention. We're going to get pardons. So all we need to do is we're going to talk shit. We're going to keep, we're going to go all in on violating the law, ridiculous. When only that, we're going to taunt the law.

We're going to taunt the judge. We're going to taunt the Constitution because that will courier give us more favor to get a pardon for Trump down the road because they're all in on him running in 2024 or a fascist-like figure in DeSantis. And their view is that we're going to get pardoned. That's what these so so screw the law. If we have any respect for the law, we're not gonna get the benefit. That's why they're doing it. That's why they're funny. And they're also sick people.

Like, you know, and sick may give them, you know, too much credit. You know, these are really dastardly and despicable individuals who are the most un-American, un-patriotic people that exist and they're criminals. And all they know how to do is to engage in criminality and speaking to that Pope, let's talk about Steve Bannon. Let's talk about, I always like to give a little bit of a teaser of who the judge is, the

same way you talked about the prior federal judge overseeing the Proud Boys case in the district court in Washington, DC, Timothy James Kelly. In this case, Bannon, it is Carl John Nichols, again, another Trump appointee, which frankly, made me a little nervous early on. And you knew about Judge Nichols' background, too. And you've always said that he's someone who also, even though he was appointed as someone who has a reputation of calling balls and strike, but where I was a little bit nervous, although I thought, how could he possibly buy this argument from Bannon?

Is this argument where Bannon was trying to claim executive privilege and he was relying on this DOJ memo and saying that the advice that I have, that the case should be dismissed against me because there's this DOJ memo that basically says, if you work for the president, and there's this executive privilege claim,

you don't have to testify before Congress. And that was one of the arguments that he made, you know, to get the case dismissed, executive privilege. The other argument he said is that the January 6th committee is not legitimate. The third argument that he made to try to get this dismissed, which was rejected a long time ago, was I relied on the advice of council,

which the judge says an advice of council defense is not a defense of a contempt of Congress charge. So those were the arguments that he made. Fortunately, Judge Nichols rejected all of these arguments and said, as far as I know, Trump hasn't even invoked executive privilege with respect to this. And that's who has to invoke it. But it's ambiguous at best.

And by the way, you were a podcaster. You're not working for the president. They didn't subpoena you in your capacity as an advisor, which may be a close call if that's what the subpoena was. But it was your conduct on January 6th and the week's preceding it and weeks thereafter. You are a podcaster. You don't get a podcaster immunity.

You're going to trial, buddy. And then Steve Bannon filed a motion in limine shortly thereafter. And a motion in limine is a pre-trial motion to exclude information. If you've heard the term motion in lemonade, weird word, can this be motion to exclude? I don't think, we still use the term in lemonade, one of those Latin terms that we use in court,

but it's a motion to exclude evidence of January 6th itself. So he just wants the testimony to be, I was subpoenaed for some random reason to show up in front of the January 6th committee, but we can't talk about January 6th. I wanna get your views on it, Michael. I do think that some of the motion and limine will be granted.

I agree with it. But the judge is not going to allow in, is for the DOJ to make the case and show the videos of Jan 6th and show the hang mic pants and show all of those things. I think that the DOJ is going to be permitted to give some background to the jury. We all know what happened on January 6th, you know, individual storm, the Capitol. We, we as the DOJ wanted to get information. We subpoenaed Steve Bannon because he was involved. Here's what we thought his involvement was in it. He

reviewed limited to that. That's what will likely be. I totally agree. And you have all of his competing motions and limited, no, you have competing motions and limited. The government filed a motion in limited or to exclude because they don't want ban and going off like ban in the podcaster attacking democracy attacking Nancy Pelosi attacking the legitimacy of the Gen 6 Committee and putting all of these crazy thoughts in the jury's head, which is not part of a defense that judge Nichols is going to allow and he shouldn't be able to just, you know, be Steve Bannon, crazy podcaster on the stand and have them have him pollute the jury or the jury's mind. So you got the government arguing that to your point, you're right. There's even though

I would love to fry this guy's ass with every piece of evidence possible. The federal rules of civil procedure, I'm sorry, the federal rules of evidence in this case, have a balancing test for evidence that is relevant, what we call, probative, of the claim or the defense that's being prosecuted or defended in the case. And any severe prejudice that could result if the prejudice outweighs the probative value of that piece of evidence. So in other words, we put it in lay terms like we like to do in legal I.F. If that piece of evidence would blow the jury's mind,

making them incapable of properly reasoning as the fact finder, because of it, they can't get past that piece of evidence. You know, assuming it's not the only piece of evidence that proves that particular claim or defense, then under what's called a rule 401, rule 403 balancing test, 401 being relevancy, rule 403 being prejudice outweighing relevancy, the judge has to do a test. There are certain aspects of the chance, the carnage to paraphrase the Capitol Police officer about what happened on Jan 6th. The attack on the Capitol and all of that,

I agree with Bannon's lawyers. That's not relevant to him being found for willfully in contempt of Congress for not cooperating with the Jan 6th Committee. So I think that gets excluded. I'll give a personal example. As people know from the podcast, I work for a Wall Street firm

that had a link, unfortunate link, a terrible link to 9.11. I won't go into the details, but we had in cases that I handled for the company, we had the other side in federal court and otherwise make motions and limiterate to prevent us from even mentioning, even if it was relevant to the case, the fact that hundreds and hundreds of people were murdered in 9-11

from the company on that particular day. And generally, they were successful that we were not able, not that we wanted to do it to fuel the fan, fan the flames of prejudice against the other side by mentioning where the company that that happened to. It's just part of the corporate history of the company and usually we want to mention it at some point. And so we were unsuccessful in many of those cases because the courts are very leery about allowing this kind of, could be probative but highly prejudicial inflammatory material to go to the jury. I think he wins on that. He doesn't win on anything where they're bound

and gagged the Department of Justice from telling the jury, what is the Gen 6 committee? What is its role? What is its investigation? What is the scope of its investigation? This is all public record. This is all declarations establishing the Gen 6 Committee and they're going to be able to read from those This is the scope of their authority and this is what they did They asked for they commanded the testimony of Bannon under a subpoena. He refused. It's willful and here's why I agree with you Exactly aspects of the motion in limine for banan are going to be granted If it doesn't go to the heart of the matter and it's deemed to be too prejudicial and unlike wise the government

I think is going to win the bulk of its motion in limine to to gag banan from going off the rails in front of the jury and doing his his crazy clown show You know dumpster fire act in front of them. So I think that's how Nichols who's a very sober person is going to make sure that this trial stays on track in front of this chart. You also mentioned before Peter Navarro, his case is before Judge Amit Meta, an Obama appointee who we've talked about, he ruled on the civil case denying the motion to dismiss filed, that was filed to prevent the case from going forward against, like the members of Congress who had filed the case against Trump and against others on January 6th for their conduct, their civil conduct

in causing the insurrection. So Judge Mette is overseeing the Navarro case and Navarro pled not guilty on Friday, this last Friday as well. And the court also entered a protective order preventing Navarro from releasing records, confidential records to the public. I wanna talk about pocket partens have been a major topic.

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Go to AthleticGreens.com slash legal AF. Michael, pocket pardon's everyone saying, I know Trump gave pocket pardon's, he must have given pocket pardon's men and pop can you please talk about what a pocket pardon is? A pocket pardon just so everybody knows it's never been done in the history of the United States. A pocket pardon is like a secret pardon.

There are pardons that are announced publicly, right? Cause that's the whole part, that's the whole concept of a pardon. Then it's a public reprieve. But this idea of a pocket pardon is, is there anything that is preventing a president from basically writing secret partings that aren't announced, putting him in a vault, hiding them, you know, I guess in Trump's case, under the toilet bowl or wherever Trump hides

his things, or just, and then saying, aha, there was a pardon. I pardon Giuliani. I pardon myself. These partons existed. This has been discussed by numerous constitutional scholars. The pardon power of the president is based on Article 2 section 2, clause one of the United States Constitution, which provides the president shall have the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment, just a reminder to everybody.

The president does not have the power to pardon people for state offenses and state criminal acts, only federal claims, federal charges. And we've talked about this before, potentially. It's never really been challenged in a court, but like the pardon of Richard Nixon was a pardon for conduct that he wasn't necessarily even charged for yet. That was never challenged to the Supreme Court, but many constitutional scholars have argued that's probably okay to pardon someone for conduct that they hadn't, but it hasn't been actually litigated ever, you know, ever.

But this idea of a pocket pardon, a private secret pardon, it would seem to contradict what a pardon is is what constitutional scholars say. The very essence of a pardon is something that's done publicly, but Trump has violated a lot of norms, you know? The whole idea before Trump about pardons

was really that like an individual had to, for the DOJ, it was a process one by the DOJ, not by Jared Kushner, who testified at the Jansick that he was very busy with Partens at that time. Yeah, before was the Department of Justice that dealt with Partens, and it was after an individual had served the time for significant period of time and then a number of years later, like at least five years after the individual had served his time, then it could be begun as a consideration.

So Popeye, what's up here? You and I are the constitutional scholars on legal AF. When I stroke my beard, that's when I'm going into my constitutional scholar mode. I have to agree with Larry Tribe and I have to disagree with my somebody that I admire, Lauren, so Lauren, so Donald, who said, don't trust the list. There are pocket partners. This is how this whole thing kind of started. Here's the problem I have with the concept of pocket partners. Sounds great. It. There are pocket partners. This is how this whole thing kind of started.

Here's the problem I have with the concept of pocket partners. Sounds great. It's very catchy pocket partners. Here's the problem with it. Parts have to be any any event has to be memorialized in one of two ways. Would you agree with me Ben? See, they're in writing or it's or it's oral. Okay. Absolutely. If it's in writing, it's covered by the Presidential Paper Sack, he'd have to have produced it to the National Archive, can't keep it, can't literally keep it in his pocket. He's the president, he issued a paper. There's no secret pardon paper exemption

from the Presidential Power, the Presidential Paper Sack at all. So if it existed in paper, he would have needed to provide it. Why? Because presidential papers are really, really important from a historical standpoint and from a record keeping standpoint. And so then we know what is the president's paper and what is not the president's paper because it was created contemporaneously with the time that he was in office. Because on the way out, you know, and Nixon flew away at president's paper because it was created contemporaneously with the time that he was in office. Because on the way out, you know, a Nixon flew away at his helicopter like he was leaving Saigon when he resigned.

I'm sure there could have been a typewriter on that. He's typing away even though he's resigned. He'd be back dates it. So to avoid that, there's a, you know, we cabin, what are the presidential papers. So if it doesn't exist, let's assume now, let's take my theory forward. It doesn't exist in paper, the pardon, the, the, the, the pardon for future conduct, for, for Ivanka, for Eastman, for Meadows, for the Congress people that were lining up, banging on the door, like one of those sci-fi movies where the rocket ship is taking off from

an exploding planet They all want to get on before it happens, you know, and they're closing that door, you know to these people Okay, assume it's a sussan paper. So then it's oral. Okay, so it's an oral pardon I Donald J Trump Harden you for all of your sins and all of your crimes against humanity and the United States Constitution Who's the witnesses for that? sins and all of your crimes against humanity and the United States Constitution. Who's the witnesses for that? I'm now the Supreme Court of the United States. Okay, it's not in paper. Okay. And what happened exactly? Well, I was in the Oval Office. I was in a dining room with Ivanka and Meadows was there and I gave that part. So he's going to have to

testify. The others are going to have to testify. I mean, so far, nobody's come out of the woodwork and said, I was there for a secret pardon. I heard of it. I was, and then, and then there's the credibility of that. This is why I think if, if any, if anybody tries to claim, they got a pardon from the president, not writing. Or there's a first time in the history of the United States, an attempt by a president, a criminal president to pardon himself in advance. I think even this Supreme Court, even this Supreme Court would find that pardon having not been properly issued at the in writing by the time he left office to be invalid. What do you think? Oh, I agree with you.

I think even this Supreme Court would find it to be invalid to even get there. As you mentioned, there would have to be this mini trial, if you will, about the circumstances surrounding it. And why do you think you need it apart? And you'd have to really get into the issues, which would ultimately kind of collide with Trump's ego that he claims that he did nothing wrong. So the essence of a pardon, as federal judges

have said over and over again, is that there was guilt that you need a reprieve from. So to ask for a pardon means you were guilty. Shawnee something underlying and that's exactly. And so that is where the rubber meets the road of Trump's ego and him having to say that he was guilty of the underlying crime. But would it shock me though for Trump to try it

if he is charged and convicted to say, actually, ah, this is what I, you know, I gave myself the part before I left. Who do you give it to? I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure all the constitutional mischief in the world, I'm sure Trump will attempt at that situation.

But Michael, I think your analysis is definitely sound. And I use the term constitutional mischief because we heard that word over and over again at the Jan 6th hearings this past week. I want to talk about day two and day three of the January 6th hearings. So day two took place Monday, June 13th and day three took place on Thursday, June 16th on Monday. Who were the witnesses? X Trump campaign manager, Bill Steppian, who was not able to testify live because apparently his wife was in labor.

We still don't have information. Have you got information? Do we know if there is a baby? Where is that baby? Where is that baby? I don't know one way or another. So I don't want to, for all I know is that I haven't seen no baby photo. So can I make something clear?

It came up in a Twitter feed. We, we, and after 75 or 90 shows, we are not, we are a theftness. We are not anti-women. I am not attacking the mother, Bill Steppian's wife when we make a joke about where is the baby. We're attacking the character of Bill Steppian to have used the excuse of that, especially if it's not true to avoid having to give a live testimony. Well, I just think if you make that statement publicly, the public may want to know. I don't think in any other setting,

we should have to know, right? In this one setting where our democracy's on the line and minutes before a hearing, we learn about that, the public has some interest to be like, all right, but where's the baby? And let's be honest, the brothers and you, you may want to find out where they're registered and send a gift. Exactly. The X Fox News political editor, Chris

Steyerwalt, testified in person, attorney Benjamin Ginsburg, a Republican constitutional lawyer, XUS attorney BJ PAK, Republican, United States attorney in the Trump administration ex-Philadelphia city commissioner, Al Schmidt, who was a Republican. And then day three, Greg Jacob and Michael Lennig. Let's just take day two first with all of those witnesses that they had there. I thought day two was incredible. You know, the information that came out of day two. I thought day two was incredible. The information that came out of day two, I thought was, to me, put day one was nothing compared to day two. But to hear from a Fox news, in this person said,

look, I was there for the news. I was not there to play the Hannity games. And that wasn't my role. I took a great deal of pride in calling balls and strikes on elections. I was proud of the software we had. We knew that Trump lost. We called it first.

And I was proud of that decision. And we were right in making that decision. And that there was no way that Trump could have won. So that came from a Fox News person, then Attorney Benjamin Ginsburg. He was integral. He was the main lawyer, basically, who argued Bush v. Gore, you know, for Bush and argued cases in the past of vote counting.

And he basically said the whole process that these, you know, that these Trumpers even went about is not how you even argue voting fraud issues. And that there's no way that with the way the votes were in the different states that you could possibly win those cases. And that there was no election fraud in this, in the 2020 election to possibly change the outcome in any way whatsoever. And that was the Republicans main constitutional expert. Then you had BJ Pock, the US attorney from Georgia, who said he looked into all the accusations that were made in Georgia, found none.

And ex Philadelphia city commissioner, I'll Schmidt said there's no Republican, Republican Philadelphia commissioner. Yeah, and said there's no, there was no fraud in Philadelphia. And when Trump used my name and tweeted out my name, the ramifications of that was I received death threats and my family's life was placed in jeopardy all as a result of this big lie.

Michael, what'd you think about that day? I did, day was, was amazing. And, and what, what the Jansix Committee is doing is using Republicans against Trump. That's why every one of the witnesses and every one of the clips is Republicans in the inner circle, Federalist Society, died in the wall Republicans. Stepian is currently the

campaign manager, at least he was, he may not be after this week, but he was the campaign manager for the challenger to to Cheney in a Trump supported candidate. Miller, Jason Miller, who, who even when they don't announce a live witness, there's always these other clips that they use, talking about Rudy Giuliani being drunk on the night of the election and forcing Trump's hand or convincing Trump that he should declare that he won the election. Two different people saying that Giuliani was drunk on that day, stepping in and Miller, both Republicans, Pock saying, I resigned, profiling courage because the president of the United States and his henchmen pressured the Department of Justice in Georgia to find voter fraud where

there was none. And I resigned. The guy from Fox News, Fox News, an analyst, I don't know what his political meaning is, but he's working and applying his trade on the fascist network of Fox News, said, I lost my job because I properly declared the election for Joe Biden against Trump. Republicans, these are Republican Republicans against Trump showing that he couldn't possibly believe the bullshit in lies of the big lie. And this is all goes to criminal intent against Trump.

And Stepan, even though he gave us some of the most memorable lines so far, besides when we get to judge Ludic on day three, which was team normal and therefore team abnormal to Giuliani and team normal. It shows you the insidious, insiduous nature of what the Republicans were doing, even at the very end. Bill Steppian said, I'm a professional and I am ethical and I didn't find anything that that Giuliani was doing or that group was doing. I didn't think it was ethical or professional. So I left, but he's still normalized all of this until the fall of Saigon. And he had to get out of there with a helicopter. He was there giving the impromotor of normalcy of nothing to see here of Republicans are in charge and and Trump's got valid arguments until the very end. So

he's complicit, even though he's, he's after the fact, try to cover himself and glory with, I was team normal. You weren't. You were part of the conspiracy that kept the flames alive that led to the insurrection. And we'll talk about day three. So powerful day led by Republicans against Trump, whether they wanted to or not. And then the January 6th committee in addition to these live witnesses would play the deposition testimony of people like a Trump lawyer, Eric Hirschman, Eric Hirschman's testimony was, you know, as blunt as it was saying that, you know, these people were crazy.

They were insane. I told Eastman, you better find a damn good criminal defense lawyer is the best effinant vice that I could give you. Stop on Hirschman for a minute. Let me tell you something about Hirschman. You may not know or if you knew it, I'll tell it to the audience. Hirschman came from a law firm in New York that I know well and has always been a big supporter of Trump. It's been Trump's law firm before he hired all these other law firms. We've talked

about Atnauseum. He used to use Mark Casowitz's firm, Casowitz Benson, in New York. The ambassador to Israel under Trump was a Casowitz partner, Hirschman, casowitz partner. He left a three or four million dollar partnership to go serve in the White House as White House counsel. These are not Democrats. These are not, these are people who are card carrying members of the Trump cartel, as you called it, and Republicans testifying against people like John Eastman and ultimately by extension Donald Trump. And the best line, and I know we've talked about it at Nozion, but I still love it, is when Hirschman in his video recording said he got a call from Eastman about Georgia and

about we got to preserve the voting machines and and the fraud that happened there. And he said, are you out of your fucking mind? The only two words I want to hear out of your mouth next are orderly transition. Say it. And he made him say it. He made Eastman say orderly transition. And he said, I'm going to give you your best piece of advice. And that's the one you just said about go get yourself an F and criminal defense lawyer because you sir need it because he knew in it as a, as an observer of the crickens criminal conspiracy led by Trump that was going on to overthrow democracy. No, absolutely. Let's talk about day three in June 16th.

You had Greg Jacob, former counsel, device president Mike Pence. Greg Jacobs was the top lawyer for Mike Pence at the White House at the time. And then you had Judge Michael Luttig retired judge from the US Court of Appeals for the fourth circuit, who was also an informal advisor to Mike Pence around the January 6th events, compelling testimony from both to me where Ludwig ended of this is not just about January 6th, but this is really about is 2024. By the way, Judge Ludwig is one of the top conservative jurists, Republican jurists out there. And he's someone who's saying, this is our democracy's on the line right here. He said, based on his entire review of the Constitution of historical

context, there was no basis whatsoever for any of the claims that vice president Pence had the authority to reject electors or to delay the counting of electors and throw it back to the state legislature. And then Greg Jacob, who was the day-to-day person advising Mike Pence at the same thing, he said that we looked every angle of this, you know, we tried to see, you know, this is where Greg Jacob, it's like, you know, you applaud them for doing the right thing, but Greg Jacobs and Pence were trying to find a way to actually delay the counting and throw it to the state legislature. But ultimately, they found that there was nothing in no bases to do it. And some of the most basic stuff

that Greg Jacobs said when he was speaking with John Eastman, who was giving the advice of the president, he said, look, don't you think that Al Gore would have just done that if, if, you know, or are you, would you be okay if Al Gore did it? And would you be okay if Vice President Harris, Kamala Harris did it to which Johnny Eastman said, it would not be okay with that, but just do it here for Trump, which conceded that there was no basis. And then Greg Jacob said, do you think you're going to win this argument in the Supreme Court? And Johnny Eastman said, no, I think we'll probably, we'll probably lose seven to two,

to which I think he was talking about Thomas and Lido. Of course. And then he claims he changed it to no, we would lose nine. Oh, I actually think it would probably be seven to two. I do think Alito and Thomas would probably side with Eastman, but nonetheless, they would lose Eastman knew they would lose. Eastman knew the strategy was a unlawful strategy. And then the Jan 6th committee, this is where all these legal afs tied together going back to Judge Carter, say, look at what the federal judge who looked at this, US district court

judge from the central district of California, division, uh, judge David Carter, when he looked at all of this, said that this was a coup in search of a legal theory. Yeah. So let's start. That's all great. I mean, unpacked just a couple of parts that I thought were the most interesting of what you said. Judge Ludwig, as you said, is the rightist of right wing judges. He was

known, what he sat on the fourth, uh, fourth circuit. He wasn't a trial court level. He was a public court level, but his clerks went to the Supreme Court and clerked more than any other federal judge. It was known as his clerks were known as a litigators. His name was Ludwig and the Lut. He had 43 clerks, former clerks of his go next to the Supreme Court and clerks. Wasn't Cruz and Eastman his clerk? 30 out of the 43 that he sent to the Supreme Court clerk for either Antidine Scalia or Clarence Thomas. Eastman clerked for both Lutick. That's why he was so pivotal in giving advice to the vice president Pence in the last three days. He was only

retained in the last three days to give cover to Pence to back Trump off and not do, not do his bidding for him. But Lutick, Eastman clerked for Lutick, Eastman clerked for Thomas. Eastman clerked for Thomas and and Ludic basically was a feeder program on the Federalist Society to send clerks from his appellate court to the Supreme Court. So you couldn't think of a more odd choice for the Jan 6th committee to use unless you knew what his testimony was going to be. And we knew for the beginning that he said, my former clerk, John Eastman is full of shit constitutionally. He doesn't know what he's talking about. This is what this is what Ludic said in a tweet on the power of Twitter on Jan 7, giving Pence some cover and then wrote a memo for Pence in which he said, you are, there is no role of Congress and therefore the Senate and therefore you as the president, tempore of the Senate

as vice president. There is no role other than the most ministerial role unless it is clear from the voting that the that there aren't there isn't a majority winner of the electoral college, then it gets thrown to the House of Representatives. So Luddix position is is unique among the GQP, which is there's no role for the Senate in this. You just raise your hands and you certify and you are done. You are not to do anything else. You don't delay 10 days, like John Eastman said, you don't throw it to the house because you feel like it or you like the, you know, you want to help the, the, the, the president who just lost, you don't do any of that. That's not what the Constitution says at all. And Michael Ludwig had the most powerful testimony because he said point blank that the, that Donald Trump presents a clear

and present danger. Think of those words, clear and present danger to democracy and will continue to as an ex-president by challenging the legitimacy of the election, by claiming that Mike Pence should be hanged for doing something that would have been criminal and unconstitutional to have micro-lutic of all people. You would have told me three years ago, four years ago, or a year ago, he would be the star witness on day three. Microlutic, I'd say, are you crazy? That's the one judge I never want to face in any of my cases because of his right wing positions.

But when that is the power of the Gen 6 committee in its hearings, they're not using people that are independent, people that are democratic evidence that can't be refuted. They're using Republicans against Republicans. This is the, this was the 11th commandment of Ronald Reagan. A Republican shall not speak ill of another Republican. They are using the 11th amendment of Ronald Reagan against Donald Trump in such an powerful and impactful way that yes, the Department of Justice is going to have to wake up and start prosecuting people like Donald Trump. And I'll leave you with this. To the extent this is partisan, it's partisan in favor of

Republicans because the only people who have testified are Republicans. The only witnesses are people who I would disagree with on every issue other than the fact that insurrectionists should inform the Capitol building and try to hang the vice president and overthrow our democracy for a piece of crap like Donald Trump. And that's why this isn't about Democrats versus what Republicans used to be. It's about people who love democracy against this mega cult movement. And we saw the development of this mega cult movement with the Tea Party. We saw it with the Sarah Palin strand. We saw it further, mistast the size under the Obama administration, you know, when the Republicans were spurring it on. But see, now they've created this, this, this horrible plague that they can't control

in the air. As the golem, we have it in our religion. We have something called the, the, the, the golem, they, who, which is created out of incantations and magic and then it ends up killing everybody in the village, because literally they can't control it. And you have currently the only people who continue to go along with this big lie, you know, other than, you know, this mega base, which is a significant base of tens of millions that represents about 25% or 30% of the United States are the elected Republican officials who are now scared shitless of that base or who want to try to harness that power to be these cult-like figures like Trump.

That's what they want to do. And that's how they want to use it. So here we have this unity of pro-democracy against the creep of fascism. It couldn't be more binary than what we're seeing right now on display at the Jan 6th. And as we hear about, you know, we heard about the hearing, confidential informants within the proud boy said, no, no, we were about the hearing, confidential informants within the proud boy said, no, no, we were going to try to murder Mike Pence if we had the opportunity. The news that was out there was to be used against Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi.

And then with the elected Republicans, the Ted Cruz's and the Jim Jordanans and the Gates, when they look at that and go, huh, who cares? Not big news. Boring just shows you how far this current Republican party has fallen from what the great values with the great ideals are and what this country stands for. We had a lot of news to unpack on this episode of Legal AF. Thanks for sticking with us as we went through all of those issues. And oh, I know I teased Ginny Thomas.

I'll just tell you what the Ginny Thomas thing was. Just super, super quickly. You know, there's more emails and messages from Ginny Thomas to Johnny Eastman. We already know that she's been reaching out to the legislatures like in Arizona. We know that she was involved in putting together these fake electoral slates. And finally, the January 6th committee has sent a letter to her saying, we want to have

a conversation with you. And so we'll keep you updated on all the Ginny Thomas. It's just so absurd that you have a Supreme Court justice's wife who was integrally involved with that Supreme Court justices wife who was integrally involved with that Supreme Court justice. We know as part of their political leanings and their involvement. It wasn't just like, oh, we're going to follow not today, but we're going to follow Eastman, Thomas, and her husband. And on that last note, you just said she went on some right wing news organization on

the night on one of the days of the hearing. It said she'd be happy, happy to come before the Gen 6 Committee. Let's see. Welcome to the Gen 6 Committee for any comments. I don't think that you will be true to your word. Everybody, thank you for watching this and listening to this edition of Legal AF. I'm Ben Mysellis. That's Michael Popak. Check out MidasMurch at store.mitustouch.com.

Store.mitustouch.com. Special thanks to our sponsor, athletic greens. We'll see you next time on Legal AF Delivering, the most consequential news to you each and every week been my cells at Michael Popak, signing off. Special shout out to the Midas Mighty. Heidi.