Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Top Legal Experts REACT to BOMBSHELL Jan 6 Hearing and other breaking legal news

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

On this special midweek edition of LegalAF x MeidasTouch, the top-rated podcast covering law and politics, anchored by national trial attorney and strategist, Michael Popok and former prosecutor and leading criminal defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo, discuss 1. Day 6 of the January 6 Committee Hearing, including Cassidy Hutchinson’s bombshell testimony and whether Trump is implicated criminally by his knowledge that his supporters were armed and dangerous. 2. The DOJ dawn raid of Jeffrey Clarke’s home coordinated with the execution of a search warrant against John Eastman’s iPhone as he was leaving a restaurant, and what it all means for the criminal investigations. 3. The Supreme Court’s second Church and State case in a week, ruling 6-3 in favor of a football coach who led compelled prayer groups and also wanted to pray at midfield at a public high school facility. 4. The sentencing of Ghislaine Maxwell. Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the midweek edition of legal AF with your co-anchors Michael Popock and Karen Friedman at Diffelow. On today's Post Jan 6, Day 6 episode we're gonna talk about Cassidy Hutchinson's historic and devastating testimony before the Jan 6 committee about her former boss Mark Meadows and her ultimate boss Donald Trump and ask the question that's on everybody's mind, does it now allow prosecutors to charge Trump with a crime based on an overt act that Cassidy identified in her testimony. Then we're going to turn to the Department of Justice, who has been very busy in their

own right, having conducted two raids in the last week. One, they went to, he calls himself Johnny Eastman. They went to Johnny Eastman's restaurant, which means they were surveilling him. And on the way out, they picked up his iPhone and asked them to open it and got all sorts of, I'm sure, interesting information off of it. At the same time or in the same week, they raided in a, in a dawn raid, Allah Rudy Giuliani, Jeffrey Clark's house, sending him out to the street and his pajamas and picking up all of his electronic devices to boot. And we'll talk about that as well.

We'll talk about the Supreme courts yet again, second time in two weeks, the hits just keep on coming against the Supreme courts yet again, second time in two weeks. The hits just keep on coming against the church and state separation. Ruling that Joe Kennedy, not that one, has the right to Neil after a football game. And that's not a violation of church and state. And then we'll end it with our update of Gilein Maxwell and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and her being sentenced by judge Nathan. Whoo. I'm exhausted just given the rundown. Karen, how are you? I'm good. It's been a big week. Oh God. I somebody I was going back and forth as I'm sure you you have been with friends, family and colleagues about what I now call the triple play of terrible

decisions last week by the Supreme Court that you, me, and Ben, covered in our YouTube and our podcast is still up there, covering the church and state guns, and, of course, abortion decision, all landing on our desks like a thud last week. We didn't even have time to talk about another one, which you and I will pick up with probably after the break, the holiday break is the decision on Miranda and the court's Supreme Court's decision that you could have a Miranda violation, but it's not a constitutional violation for which you can sue anybody over. We didn't even have a chance to cram that in because of the momentous landmark decisions of the Supreme Court. And now we have Cassidy Hutchinson,

the who will go down, I'm sure you agree, as historically, as one of the most devastating testimonies against a president ever in the halls of Congress, and we're gonna talk about that. But let's kick it off with two of our favorite incompetent lawyers who had worked with Trump. There's so many to choose from when you talk about incompetent lawyers. But the two we're going to talk about today are Professor Johnny Eastman and his iPhone and Jeffrey Clark, the Naird-Duel environmental lawyer, who had his eyes set in the last

10 days of the Trump administration on being the acting attorney general and using the Department of Justice as a tool to bash the the proper transition of power and what happened to them and what it means about the Department of Justice. So, Kara, why don't you talk about what happened to Johnny Eastman and Jeffrey Clark and then we'll talk about it from a prosecutor and defense attorney standpoint. What it means about the Department of Justice and their development of their grand jury investigation and ultimate indictments.

So it's clear that the Department of Justice has now moved towards the lawyers of that sort of surrounded Donald Trump and that's where their investigation is. Apparently they are, their grand jury subpoenas have gone out to others in addition to Clark and Eastman, the two developments we know about. And what happened on Wednesday was, as you said,

Mr. Eastman was stopped coming out of a restaurant and they seized his cell phone. What was interesting though, what came out about that is so normally we wouldn't find out about it or even hear about it or learn about it because investigations are by their very nature, not necessarily publicized or spoken about if you're in the government.

But Mr. Eastman filed a motion right away in court to compel the return of his property. And so in that, he spells out all his complaints and grapes and what he thinks is wrong with what they did by taking his cell phone and also attached a copy of the warrant. And there's a lot of nuggets in there that I think are worth talking about. So for example, you see in there, I virtue of the fact

that the warrant talks about they're going to take the phone and process it in the lab of the Department of Justice Inspector General's office. So even though it's the FBI seizing it, what that tells the world is that the Inspector general is the one who's doing this investigation. He also says, you know, I, what does that, what does that mean to you? Yeah, so he says he says I've never been an employee of the Department of Justice, you know, a government employee, therefore, because the inspector general typically only investigates current or former employees of the government and

then anyone associated with that investigation. So what that tells me is that this is about Clark and we know that that very same day they because Clark is a member of the Department of Justice at the time. Correct. And and we know that very same day that they went in and did that pre-don rate of Clark's house. So, that's number one. This is all related and orchestrated and coordinated and choreographed in such a way. And they do things like that so that, you know, these people know that if he goes down, I go down because we are co-conspirators.

So, if they execute a search warrant on one, the next thing he's going to do is pick up the phone and call his co-conspirator and say, he can read about the evidence. Not to overly pat you on the back because I do it all the time. I haven't seen any other legal commentators make the link that you just made, which so with such ease, because of your background. And I think it sounds so right. That doesn't mean that Eastman is out of the cross-hairs for his own criminal prosecution,

not related to Clark, because he's got his own fake electors problem, that I'm sure they're investigating as well. But this particular, let's pick up his iPhone 13 max as he leaves whatever restaurant he was leaving. I think that link that you just made between him and Eastman and the timing of it is really an eloquent observation that I haven't seen made anywhere else. Yeah. So, you know, that it just seems to me that it's a very coordinated investigation and that they are the the heat is on, you know, the circle is closing whatever whatever analogy you want to you want to draw, but it's it's happening for sure and so he made a few complaints about about it. So number one, he said that they didn't show me. So the law requires that you have to, when you execute a search warrant, you have to give a copy of the warrant to the person that you are serving it on. So Eastman complaining, Eastman's just to be clear. Eastman's complaining about

the execution of the search warrant. And you're going to, you're going to go through those items now. Yes, exactly. Well, he's complaining about two things. He's complaining about the execution as well as the substance. So two things. He's complaining about everything. So luckily, so he says, in terms of the execution, he says, oh, they didn't show me the warrant that they're required to do. Well, there's thankfully there's a video that shows this.

And guess what? Outside the restaurant or the FBI was filming. No, I thought it's a good question. I don't know who took the video, but somebody did. And, and it shows that they handed him the warrant. Right afterwards, it's practically simultaneous. I mean, that's way faster than any, you know, that's the way they do it. They're not going to hand it to first. I mean, they have to secure him, secure the property. Right. It took all of like three seconds. That's the way they do it. They're not going to hand it to you first. I mean, they have to secure him, secure the property.

It took all of like three seconds. And then you could, I mean, by the, by the, it's a stop right there, just like on television. There's, there's some things that do match up with television. If they, if they said FBI and they pull out the badge and he's got contraband on him or the item that is under the target, like a phone, all he had to do was like smash it on the ground, throw it into an aquarium. Exactly.

So they need to size you said, they need to secure the evidence. Exactly. So that's clearly what they did. And then they handed in the warrant. Then he's complaining that it doesn't spell out a crime. So the substance of the warrant, he's saying. Well, no, no, go back. He's complaining that they made him use his big.

Oh, the biometric data. Yeah. You can figure it out his biometric data. Yeah. So I'll get to that. I'll get to face. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. We'll do it now. So, yeah. So another complaint he had was that they are that they required him to give over his biometric data, meaning however your phone is open. Some of the phones are open with your finger. Some are open with your finger, some are open with your face, some with your iris, you know, whatever it is, whatever your biometric

data is. And you know, when when iPhones and those types of phones first started coming out with biometric data and passwords and all of that, it was very confusing for law enforcement because you can't compel someone to speak, right? They have a fifth amendment right against being forced to incriminate themselves. And so you can't compel speech. So asking someone for a password, for example, you can't do, but they're not asking you for anything. They're just taking your finger and putting it down or holding it up to your face. But let me, let me ask you that.

So it doesn't, doesn't that normally even include for the fifth amendment? And I'm not totally up on this, but maybe you are as a former prosecutor, compelling blood samples and semen samples and DNA samples. Doesn't that been found to be a fifth amendment violation? Or not? No, you have to have a warrant.

You have to have a warrant. But no, you can also do that. So, and that's done all the time to get, you know, whether it's blood in a drunk driving case and you want to get blood to see your blood alcohol level, someone died, for example, you'll do a warrant to seize your blood or same thing with DNA or semen in a sexual assault case, you can you can compel someone and it's a warrant that you have to that you have to get for those things. But you can't compel someone to speak. You can't compel them to give you your password.

So doing this sort of biometric data is actually- If you could pal them to give you the finger. No, you'd do exactly. Well, you're just going, you could put your hands behind their back for hand-cuffing and you can go like that. So it is a new area of the law that I'm sure will be tested. It's something that law enforcement is doing and we'll see if it kind of holds muster. I think it will, but that's that's sort of what they did. In other words, you think when you

say you think it well, you think he will, his challenges will be denied by the New Mexico federal judge where he's filed. I guess he was picked up at a restaurant in New Mexico and moved to quash the execution of the, of the, um, the subpoena, the warrant, which, which to remind everybody, we'll talk about it in Eastman 2. These FBI agents through attorney, uh, US attorneys had to go to a judge and convince a judge. Let's think of this hurdle, which they did for Giuliani too. Convinced a judge that lawyers who normally have some sort of privilege with a client have are involved with a crime. It's more likely that not that they committed a crime and that for which this search war or execution war and have to be executed and got a federal judge in a confidential application at least for now, as sealed and not public

to sign off on, which is an extraordinary thing. I want people to understand, especially Republicans that listen to the show. It's not like they just woke up one morning, typed up a search warrant and just decided which on the enemy list of Joe Biden they wanted to go executed on. You got to go through a federal judge. That's true. Yeah.

They got to go through a federal judge. And so normally what happens is you, an FBI agent has to go before a federal judge and square under oath and provide an affidavit that sets forth probable cause to believe that what crime was occurring and that there is evidence of that crime on a particular, at a particular place, in this case, a cell phone, and you have to be specific. You can't just, it can't be a fishing expedition, it can't be, it has to be probable cause to believe that there's evidence of a crime. And so they spell out the crime

and they spell out the evidence, and they're very, very specific. And as you say, the judge has to sign off on that. And though that affidavit and that warrant are what the judge signs, but the law only requires you to give a copy of the warrant, which is a one or two page, very basic thing that says, this is the person that you have that, you know, this is the person or this is the item. And this is what I'm looking for. And I'm the and you know it's very specific but it doesn't give all the juicy details of what crime and what the facts are and that's what another thing that Eastman was complaining

about. He wanted the affidavit which he's not entitled to and that was yet another one of his many complaints about this. So you want to move on to Clark? And what happened with him? Sure, but one other thing I just want to say about that I noticed about this warrant that I thought was interesting, even though the warrant was to seize and search the phone, I noticed the language in there that the FBI said,

we won't search it. We're just seizing it until it goes before another judge who can talk about the parameters of searching it. I believe, and this is just reading the tea leaves, but I believe it's because he's a lawyer and there's going to be lots of privileged information contained on there. And so they're going to have to put parameters in place to make sure that they don't in any way violate any attorney client privilege stuff. And they went through a lot of that with Judge Carter on the civil side. Yeah. When Eastman had to produce all of his emails, but I don't think a lot of his texts.

And so no, that's a very good point that it's now going to be preserved for a judge to help pick through the minefield of privilege versus non-privileged. But I think he's way of this privilege. I think it's, I think it's crime fraud exception. He's going to have to turn over all of these things. But let's get to Mr. Clark. And let me preface it by reminding people that they listened to the hearing, which I'm sure all of our people are on their edge of their seat, that Herschman, who was in the White House, formerly a lawyer for Trump, testified that when John Clark, who, sorry, Jeffrey Clark, who tried to become in a coup

of his own making under Trump's direction, tried to take over the Department of Justice from the number four slot. This was like a mid-level environmental assistant attorney general who decided he wanted to get to the topic as Trump wanted him to in order to use the Department of Justice as a vehicle to another vehicle, one of the seven steps of the conspiracy that was Janie outline to stop the peaceful transition of power. One of the ways he wanted to do that was two ways that has been people have testified about. One, he wanted the Department of Justice issue

and announcement that they were investigating fraud in the election, especially direct to the Georgia officials. And of course, wrote, thank God, Rosen and Donnie, you and even Pat Chip O'Leaney in the office of the legal counsel for the president said, no, and so that was good. The second thing, apparently, that Jeffrey Clark wanted to do was to impatel a panel of grand jury

in order to give the impromotor of validity to Trump's bullshit claims about it, to which Eric Hirschman testified that he said, now, cover your ears for those that are listening at a different hour. He said to, he testified that he said to Clark, congratulations, effing asshole. Your first act as the new attorney general will be a criminal,

be a criminal act of, um, and a felony. Congratulations. He's picked the right person for this. This is, talk about cannibalization going on. This is a Republican Trump lawyer in the White House talking to Jeffrey Clark at the time. And so, precious, preciously identifying, just as we're gonna talk about with Cassidy Hutchinson,

crimes that these people were worried about were being immediately committed by the others. So, Jeff Clark and his pajamas gets gets rated at dawn at the same time, the Eastman phone gets picked up, Karen, take it from there. Yeah, no, they're looking for evidence. They're looking for evidence of these primes that you just spelled out, whether it's going to be documents or computers or cell phones. And what's sort of interesting is the Department of Justice has two different ways they can gather evidence. So the more kind of tame way is you issue a subpoena.

And it's a grand jury subpoena. They have grand juries. And they are issuing subpoenas all over the place. And typically, when you're investigating a crime, that with somebody that you think is potentially not guilty and you're still investigating and maybe they're going to, you know, you think the cooperate because they're legitimate people, you wish with subpoena and you allow them to produce this information.

It's only the, it's very extreme to issue a pre-dawn search warrant in your pajamas, you know, where you go in you know, with guns and battering rams because you're so you because this person is so either dangerous or criminal that you know they are going to destroy evidence. I mean it just shows you what the Department of Justice thinks of. Yeah. And how about message sending? The message sending is you haven't been co-op. It's like Giuliani when they raided him 18 months ago and picked up 20, you know, electronic devices. They could have given Rudy the benefit of the doubt and as long a lustrous career as a prosecutor and coordinated it, coordinated a self-surrender of these items with his lawyer. And they said, no, we don't want you to cooperate. We want to come knock on your door for you and

Mr. and Mrs. Eastman, and literally in your pajamas and put you on the street while we execute our search warrant, because you're not going to get the respect that we would normally extend. Because listen, I assume they've either had some contact with him and his lawyers or, as you said, fearing destruction, fearing that these people will, they'll put nothing past these people and the depths that they will sink to protect Donald Trump even today indicates that they're going to knock down doors with battering rams in order to get what they want. And I love the message it's being sent by a Department of Justice, which is sort of beleaguered on the Twitter verse under Merrick Garland for not being tough enough against

Trump and the inner circle there. I think we're seeing a escalation of muscularity by the department. Absolutely. And you know, they're employing the exact same tactics, they would employ if they were if they were investigating a crime family like the mafia. And you know, no, they clearly are. And I think the other the other thing that I think everybody's going to have to really kind of be able to stomach is the fact that they're going to have to flip people in order to get to the top the way you would in any mafia family. Like family, like, you know, Sammy the bull, Gervano or whatever, you know, there's some really bad people who some really done really bad things who you're going to have to give a pass to.

Well, you, you might have to nod on this one because of your past background, but I assume one of the reasons that Alvin Bragg is having some difficulties with the Trump prosecution is by now they expected someone below Trump to have flipped either the CFO or the CEO or something like that. This is where Kerry gets the blink and not. No, I mean, that didn't happen. And it's made the prosecution there that much more difficult. Yeah, I think that's true. I think it's true. But I think, I think you're going to see some of that here because you still need non-hearsay

admissible direct evidence to be able to bring criminal charges and prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt. That is such a perfect segue. Here say, what is here say, what is non here say or here say accepted statements. And why we're going to move to Cassidy Hutchinson now. Why was her testimony in two hours could be the tide turner against Donald Trump and a criminal prosecution. We're going to go there right now. Let me set the stage, turn it over to the former prosecutor in Karen.

Michael Bechloss, the world famous American presidential historian, is on record this, yeah, after yesterday, is saying that never in history, never in history, has, he seen such a, a shocking and credible amount of testimony against the former president, the halls of Congress. And I totally believe him. And how do I know that her Acastity Hutchinson, the former chief of staff to Mark Meadows, her testimony is so damaging. A blue hole in the side of the Donald Trump worship. What are you going to do is read Donald Trump on truth, social, whatever the heck it's called. He said, I love this inconsistent comments.

I don't know her, which is impossible. I don't know her. I saw her handwriting. She looks unstable based on his handwriting analysis. And three, she's a snitch. Well, which is it? If you're a snitch, it means you're telling the truth, but the other person just doesn't like it. You know, like in a jailitch. Well, which is it? If you're a snitch, it means you're telling the truth, but the other person just doesn't like it. You know, like in a jailhouse. So is she a snitch because

she's telling the truth, but you don't like it? Or is she not telling the truth because you think she's unstable, which is the misogynist attack that Trump does against every woman that's ever testified against him about anything. It starts with an attack on her emotional or psychological makeup, which is projection because there's no one more off-kilter than Trump. There's one line, I'll leave you with before we talk about Cassidy Hutchinson and the cannibalization of the Republicans about two months ago a reasonably well-known Republican said the following. He said, I'm not saying that Donald Trump should be committed to a mental hospital.

I'm just saying that if he was in a mental hospital, he wouldn't be able to get out, which I think is a great line by one Republican against the other. So now you have, and you and I both commented on the Midas Media Network's coverage, and you and I both commented on the Midas Media Network's coverage, and we're still doing that all the way to the very, very bitter end. And we already commented about what we thought,

Hutchinson was going to testify to it. It was even more devastating for Trump and even I thought. So let me just set the stage here. We've got former chief of staff. She is with Mark Meadows and ultimately Donald Trump at every critical moment that matters. Even the things she didn't testify to yesterday. She was involved in the phone call setting up the meeting in Georgia for Mark Meadows. She watched Mark Meadows burn papers

after a conversation involving Jeffrey Clark. She was there on the ellipse. She was there for the planning, leading into the Jan 6th. She was there for the private fly on the wall conversations with Mark Meadows, with the director of security, Tony or Nato, who we'll talk about today, who's the deputy chief of staff responsible

and current and former secret service director responsible for the protection of the president. She was there for all of that. And she gave testimony, which fell into a few buckets. Most of it was stuff that she observed as what we call a precipitate witness with her own ears and her own eyes and she testified very powerfully and courageously about that. Some of it is stuff that she heard from other people, but falls into the category of non-hearsay because it's either an admission against interest or some other exception to the hearsay rule. And some of what she identified is really credible, but will require other witnesses like Tony or Nato, who is the one that knows what happened in the limousine with Donald Trump when he tried to grab the wheel for

him to testify. And that's all okay. No witness is so omniscient that they know everything about anybody at any time with first hand knowledge. And it's okay. I know the Trader versus all of all of all a Twitter about all a flutter about some of what she said is right here say or here say within here say no. Most of what she said at firsthand knowledge and is not here say or here say accepted. And then there's a small category for which there's more work to be done by the Janskiks Committee or the Department of Justice. And then there's a small category for which there's more work to be done by the

Jansick's committee or the Department of Justice. And that's okay. It doesn't undermine Cassidy Hutchinson's credibility or the veracity of her testimony. So let's talk about the things that you heard. And I particularly want to focus Karen on the criminal conduct that she identified by Donald Trump related to the ellipse and the armed spectators and what you think about it as a as a form of prosecutor. Yeah, so I think it's a good place to just remind people that, you know, this is not a criminal prosecution. This is a congressional hearing, right? And so what would ultimately, and no one's trying to pretend like this is a trial, you know, with where the rules of evidence apply. Really, what this, what, if you sort of take a step back

and you look at all of the hearings that have happened so far, it's clear that this is a roadmap to the prosecutors of, this is what, this is what's out there. These are the witnesses you would call, and this is the evidence that's out here, and this is how you would prosecute. And they take it like each day is devoted to a different set of crimes.

And I think it's actually brilliant the way they're doing it. And Cassidy Hutchinson, which they sort of decided at the last minute, she wasn't a surprise witness in the sense that she had testified before them for different times, but they suddenly decided to have her give live testimony. I think for a couple of reasons. I think they're coordinating with the DOJ and the fact that DOJ's investigation is happening in real time during these hearings to me shows that. And I think for whatever reason, whatever they all know and whatever they're coordinating, they felt it was time that she, that the American

people see what she has to say. I'll give you two more reasons. I'll give you two more reasons. One, I think, Jody Hunt, who's her new lawyer. I don't know if you know Jody over at Austin in bird. Yeah, I know Jody a reputation. He is a very sober, credible, former official. He was a chief of staff for Jeff Sessions of all things, which gives him a particular insight into the anti-Trump world, into the Trump world. And I assume was a Republican. Once she changed counsel, I think the whole tenor of her representation changed at her level of cooperation. And I think Jodi Communicated to the to this is my speculation that Jodi communicated to the Jansok's committee that that his client is getting both

What what you and I would call witness tampering witness interference type of Communication from those around Donald Trump and disgusting threats against her life that makes her testimony at her safety and preserving her testimony really, really important right now. And they're about to take their July 4th break. And I think they wanted to, they wanted to end to set up like in pool. You set up your next shot. I think they're setting up the, the July 8th sessions off of this. But I think they're setting up the July 8th sessions off of this. But I think they're also concerned about preserving her testimony and not having to continue to be because that's why Cheney at the end talked about witness tampering and witness interference.

What do you think about that? Exactly. I think you're exactly right. She just basically looked everyone in the eye and said, we know what you're doing back the fuck off. You know, and that's basically, it's true. That's basically what she said at the end. I love and on my show with you. That's why I love going with you. No, no, don't apologize. I don't say the F bomb enough. Anyway, so I'm sorry, this just gets me so angry. Yeah, but so, you know, I thought that she was just absolutely, it's only today, you know, I was watching it yesterday and I realized, oh my god, it was a lot of, oh my god, what is she saying? But it's today, after 24 hours of processing that,

that you realize how significant her testimony is. First of all, she shows that this was not a spontaneous kind of attack on the Capitol. She shows that on January 2nd, Giuliani was talking to her, you know, she called Rudy, was talking to her about the plan. And she talked to Meadows about the plan. And so there was clearly something going on.

Rudy said, you know, something like it's gonna get intense or I don't remember what he said, but it's gonna get, you know, something like that. So I thought that was really interesting and very important for, again, an ultimate criminal trust. Meadows saying it's gonna be saying it's going to be bad. It's going to be bad.

Exactly. And then, to me, two people who are going to have to be compelled to testify. So don't forget, the Department of Justice can compel testimony by immunizing people, right? So you subpoena them. And if they take the fifth, you can give them, they can be given immunity and then

compelled to testify. And that's a very delicate balance to decide who to immunize. And you always want to immunize down below to get to the top. You never want to go the other direction. So two people who I think, who I predict are going to be compelled to testify.

And if necessary, given immunity, Artoni Onorato, who you said and or not or not or not and an angle those are two people who I think you know Cassidy Hutchinson kind of spelled out throughout all of yesterday so how critical they are and how they are the ones who have all of the firsthand knowledge of the fact that Tony or not a told Trump that people had weapons, that they would be violent. I can see if that's true, if he told,

if that turns out to be true, I see him as a critical witness against Trump. I think the fact that Trump wanted so desperately to go to the Capitol and to be a part of that march and to potentially even go inside. There's gonna be a lot of that testimony that both of them can talk about,

everything from the steering wheel to the choking out, all of that just shows how, talk about unhinged and out of control. He loves to call her unhinged and out of control. You know, he loves to call her unhinged and out of control. She, what is she do a good job showing that he was unhinged and out of control? Um, and, and I think they are critical witnesses in that before you leave Tony or not. Let me tell people who Tony or not is and, and I, you're right. He's either going to get immunity or Biden's going to get him a pardon, um,

because he's so critical here. It's critical to the crime because here we have a witness who's not talking about everybody was all ringing their all the Democrats and everybody the Fowler podcast was all ringing their hands about yes, but if he reasonably believe that he won the election, does that defeat criminal intent in Mendsria? Forget all that. The crime that of inciting a mob, which is a, which is what you would expect, is a federal crime.

The Federal Anti-Royant Act and the inciting insurrection and rebellion crime, which is five and ten years apiece, that goes to on Jan 6th, Trump being informed that his crowd was armed and dangerous. And they gave him a list according to Tony Ornato and Hutchinson's testimony, AR-15's, handguns, spears, personal body armor, and the like. And he said, and the secret service said, the reason we can't fill your ellipse here is because we're using the mags the magnetometers To as a metal detector and he said no fuck the mags fuck that let them come through armed as they are They're not here. They're not gonna hurt me get rid of the mags and then he said They're not here to hurt me. It's why I said he's not here to hurt me and then pointed this armed mob. As you've always said, pointed a gun at the

literally at the Capitol saying, I don't care for my own personal safety. If they're not going to shoot me, we know who they're going after. They're going after the Capitol and let it happen. Now, Tony or not oh, just so people know who he is and the validity that he has, he is the currently the assistant director of the United States Secret Service Office of Training. He has served three presidents as the chief of detail for the Secret Service for Bush, Obama, and Trump. At that moment, he was, he was assigned or, you know, kind of co-assigned both at the Secret Service and to be the deputy chief of staff under Meadows, who was responsible for the security of the president and all those around him. Secret Service reported that they knew leading as early as 9 and 10 o'clock

in the morning, remembering that the riot happened at one or two o'clock in the afternoon, that the that the crowd was armed and that they would likely overrun the Capitol police. They knew all that. This is all new information. Trump being informed of this by Tony or not. And others and meadows having been informed of this bettownie or notto, on purpose went forward with the ellipse and then pointed that loaded armed and dangerous crowd directly at the capital. That I would think Madam Prosecutor is at least two federal crimes. Is it not? No, of course. I mean, and I think Cipolloni is another one that they're going to have to that they're going to consider. To me, it's it's or not an angle in Cipolloni is another one that they're going to have to, that they're going to consider. You know, to me, it's, it's or not an angle in Cipolloni are the three that you use, subpoena, or they'll come in willingly. And if you're like I said, if necessary, immunize them.

And I think those three witnesses with Cassidy Hutchinson buries the president on that day. 100%. The, the, the, the rest of it is I found great for the future TV and movie of filming of this like you could just see the giant president like lurching in the grab the steering wheel and throwing his food literally like an infant against the wall that's all great but the crime that she testified to is knowing that the crowd was armed and dangerous and still not only going forward with his own parade, but pointing that arm and dangerous crowd, knowing about AR-15s, end guns, end weapons,

end spears at Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the elected officials. And Mike Pence. Yes, and if you remember the stuff about hang Mike Pence. He was told that the crowd was reaching the Capitol and saying, hang Mike Pence and, and meadows, and Cassie Hutchinson was talking to meadows about it and saying, this is what's happening in real time. And he says, the president doesn't care. He thinks he deserves it. Now that is, now that for the, I'll throw one bone

to our listeners and followers. That testimony is here say on on meadows is hearsay but probably hearsay accepted because that's a statement against interests or something like it. The Trump comment to meadows the meadows comment to her may not be is probably hearsay. However, however, there's other places to get this information. And I think he is dead in the water. The more he tweets and social truths about the problem, the more he tightens his own news around his own neck from a prosecutor's standpoint. Isn't that right?

Absolutely. But, you know, so 100%. So when you, when you talk about potentially immunizing witnesses, to me, that, you know, again, to get them to testify if that's what's necessary if they take the fifth. To me, if I was the Department of Justice, the easy calls would be Cipolloni and Angle and Ornato. The tougher calls, the Sammy, the bull calls, that are going to have to make are Mark Meadows

and Jeffrey Clark. And those two right there might be necessary at a certain point to get to certain crimes. I don't know that they're necessary. That's a very good observation. People are going to have to, so I think what you're saying is that our flisters and followers and others are to manage their expectations. They may have to hold their nose and swallow the fact that somebody high up one or two rungs just below the president may get a free pass in order to cook the president. Correct. Giuliani could be another one. So we'll see.

I know. They, I mean, listen, they are grabbing Giuliani by the scrotum and meadows and they haven't yet squeezed as hard as they would like to, but that's still all the activity that we're seeing. Giuliani's in harm's way in Fony Willis's Georgia prosecution. He might go down as easily there as in any other place, put a putting aside the Ukraine investigation in his old shop at the Southern District of New York. He's got so many, he's got so many criminal, you know, guns trained at him.

And then if you see over the weekend, he's also a fake crime victim. Did you hear this? Oh, you got slapped at a shop right up there, which you should have, which was good. He got, he got, he got, it's our video. Thank God, Slump Surveillance video. We see some guy walk up to him and just like barely like, it's almost like,'s almost like, hey, man, like Mack, I'm on the back. A little bit. He said, hey, he said, hey, he's come back. But yes, I think it's a good point. Yeah, but still, it was not a hit.

And he said, well, Mayor Adams, mayor Adams is on record now. You want to report that? What did Mayor Adams say? He basically said, guess what, Giuliani? You know that falsely reporting an incident is also a crime. You know, you faker. You know, there's no crime there. Like it's such a ridiculous, Giuliani, you know that falsely reporting an incident is also a crime. You know, you faker, you know, there's no crime there. Like it's such a ridiculous. He Giuliani's like, I felt like it was a gunshot, really?

And for people that thank Giuliani has slithered back under the rock under which he's crawled out, he is, he is daily actively campaigning in the state of New York to help get his son, Andrew Giuliani, elected governor of the state of New York to help get his son, Andrew Giuliani elected governor of the state of New York. And he's going to, did they have that Republican primary yet? I don't know, but he's got to be, it's, it's, I, I think Andrew, Andrew Giuliani could be the, the candidate against, how cool, I think he loses badly, but that's what he's doing every day.

Wasn't there an issue when, when Giuliani was mayor and his son wouldn't speak to him and does that do you remember? Yeah, there was a falling out. Yeah, that that kid, if anybody just wants to laugh because you got to occasionally just go find the late Chris Farley playing eight year old, the son at the father's swearing again that Saturday night live did 25 years ago. I got to watch that. Oh, it's hilarious. And the kids now all grown up, but he's got the fathers say bullshit, false misplaced bravado for no reason. He's never done anything in his

life. He's never accomplished anything in his life. He has nobody of work to speak of, but that never stopped anybody around Trump or the Giuliani's from that. So all right, so we've got we've got Tony or not, oh, I agree with you. Critical witness identified Cassidy Hutchinson under much duress. You could just tell from her, listening to the clips of her in deposition, where she was kind of giving private deposition. And now, with the glare of the clean lights of testimony and all of that. I mean, it's, she's a courageous young woman. I don't think anybody could have watched her and come away with anything other than what a witness, how powerful, how courageous. I don't care if she's going to write a book in the future. Who cares? Mark Mato's wrote a book. She should write a book. Peter Navarro's writing

bullet. People, somebody tweeted on mine today, like, she's writing a book. I'm like, who cares? Everybody is writing a book. It doesn't. I want to read the books. The books are not ready. The book. Well, no, but these people, these, the books are chapters in history that need to be written

by those involved, even if they're like meadows and they're full of you know what? Let's move on. Well, we're going to follow her, but let's move on from Cassidy Hutchinson. And let's move to our Supreme Court. Haven't they been busy little beavers the last week or two? I'll tell you man, the hits just keep on coming. And now they decided that the right wing ultra religious conservative majority of the court, whereas in past years, I don't know, you'd get like a church in state ruling every 15 or 20 years. We get a church in state ruling about every 15 or 20 minutes with this court because they're just not done with their pronouncements about what they see as the, what I see as the under the First Amendment analysis for them, freedom of expression of religion.

And First Amendment speech in general is greater than to use that symbol, the establishment clause of the First Amendment. And under almost no circumstances, except for the classic one, is the Supreme Court ever going to find that even if public funds are used, public property is used or otherwise, are they going to find a church and state violation? They're always this, this group is always going to find that free exercise trumps the establishment clause. So now we've got Joe Kennedy, not that one, who was about seven years ago was an assistant football coach who took to

praying after the game at midfield on a public high school field. And he was fired for that and other reasons. And he claimed his first amendment rights to freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and freedom of speech were all being violated. And in past years before this current group of six to three got on, he probably lose. But this group has never seen any personal private conduct, whether it's running a flag up a flag, Paul and Massachusetts, whether it's using public funds in the recent case that we just covered in Maine using public funds for schooling, whether it's using

public funds to resurface a church playground. If it's personal, private, and the government, or the governmental entity, is benefiting a public entity, they're gonna have to benefit the one related to the church as well. So says the 63 majority of the Supreme Court. So the one we talked about last week was in Maine, so some people aren't confused like,

there's another one, yeah, there's a new case. The one in Maine was written by Chief Justice Roberts, and that one found that tuition assistant programs like vouchers, if a state is going to provide them at all, they need to provide them even handedly to both promote religious education and parochial public education. So that was last week. So no surprise this week, they also found that if there is a free exercise of a person's personal, private, religious speech, even on a school grounds, that is not going to violate the constitution at all or the establishment clause.

And corset, who wrote the opinion, went one further, which we anticipated. I think Ben and I covered this one with the oral argument because Gorsuch called out the, before we knew he was going to write the opinion, called out the lawyers for the state and said, what is the rationale for the state under strict scrutiny analysis for having fired him or tried to prevent him from praying at midfield? And they say, well, your honor, the lemon test under a case from the 70s involving the Supreme Court. And Gorsuch said, why are you using the lemon test?

That has basically been so discredited by the other Supreme Court's rulings that that should never have been your test. And so he already questioned the lemon test. The first thing he took away in this new Supreme Court ruling is the use of the lemon test to decide whether there's a there's a violation of church and state. Now the new test, the new test is if you have a first amendment expression, the and you do, then you go to strict scrutiny so that the government has to either prove that there was, that there was, there was narrowly tailored to resolve the issue. And there's

a compelling governmental interest to stop in this case kneeling and praying at midfield. What do you think about that decision coming on the heels of last week's main decision that we discussed, Karen? So you know, I had a, I had something happen to me when I read this decision that I don't think has ever happened to me before, which is I read the majority opinion and this might be a little controversial to you, but I was like, I kind of agree with them, you know, the way they described it. I'm like, just like I think Colin Kaepernick should be able to take a knee. I think if you're Muslim and you want to put, you know, your, your rug down and do your prayer, I think you should be able to, I, I, I actually don't have a problem with that. And when you

read the decision, that's sort of kind of the way they presented it. Then you get to the two concurrences, which I've never seen concurrences that are like one sentence, you know, so bizarre. It was like, again, these very strange concurrences. But then you get to the dissent. And this is what never happened to be before. They, it's like they're talking about two completely different cases. But in other words, I couldn't believe how misleading the majority opinion was factually. And that's why I had that feeling of, well,

I kind of agree with them. But when you read what the actual facts are here, they completely misstate the record. They totally ignore. In what way? What were the facts in the dissent that you don't think were properly recited in the majority opinion? So this is a majority opinion made it seem like

after the game, the students are on their way back to the bus. It's his belief that he can just very quietly and privately go to the 50 yard line, take a knee, say a prayer of gratitude, and then get on the bus and go. Personally, I think that's not a problem. He can do that.

That's just my opinion. But, you know, and I think that it doesn't violate the First Amendment at all. But then you get to the actual facts of the kid. And the whole majority of the opinion was I was willing to just do that. I said I would just do that. I don't, they're giving me a hard time,

even though I said I would do that. And they totally misstate the fact that there's a long history there of it started with doing it privately. Then he had players come join him. Then he asked the opposing team to join him. Then he would give motivational speeches where he would recite Bible verses. There were other students and coaches who said,

or a student, I'm sorry, players, athletes who said, you know, look, I'm afraid of retaliation or not being promoted if I don't join. Yeah, he didn't threaten me, but if I don't join the prayer, I might not, I might be disfavored. So he was told multiple times, don't do this, don't do this, he kept doing it. And then he, so he was upset that they told him, you can do this privately, you just can't do this group,

you know, Bible kind of whatever he was doing. And so he went on TV, he did a whole media thing and he called all these people to the game to protest and to get upset. And so then they started getting death threats and the satanic people started, you know, people on the field were coming down and joining. So, you know, people aren't all out on the field. And then the satanic group said, I'm going to come and I'm going to go on the field if you're letting these religious things. I mean, so now it's not about speech or religion. Now it's about controlling a dangerous situation and distracting from, you know, the crowd and distracting from the game and what this is supposed to be and people are complaining and they totally don't say any of that. So his fake, you know, kind of, oh, yes, I'm just trying to go on the field

by myself and do this, you know, is clearly not true. Well, I agree with you. What it shows you is that and we saw it in the oral argument that this Supreme Court will never let a proper recitation of the facts get in the way of making and reverse engineering the law that they wanted. And we saw it because at one point in the if I remember correctly in the oral argument from several months ago, one of the right wingers on the Supreme Court. I want to say it's a lead open. I might have been someone else. I actually said, the facts here are so messy. You know, did he get fired over this or not? Did he get fired over something else? Let's not focus on the facts.

I'm like, wait, stop. Unless we've now completely changed what I learned in law school about the Supreme Court not being a place for advisory opinions, that there has to be a live controversy between the parties that comes up on a record that they can only use the record to establish. Sometimes cases being proper vehicles for new laws, sometimes cases because of their facts, not. We've now seen this in at least two or three occasions this term, where the Supreme Court says, facts be damned, the facts are messy. But doesn't matter because we want to make a new law as a new pronounced because we got the numbers in the area of church and state or in the area of Miranda or in the area of Fifth Amendment or in the

area of whatever. It's like, we don't even eat cases. I think I said this on a prior podcast. Why do we even eat cases? Why do we skip the cases? Why do we just make them oracles who sit and divine the law, tell us what it is, tell us mere mortals what the law is, and we will follow it like we're in some sort of Greek mythology. But that's not supposed to be our democracy or the three co-equal branches of government or the Supreme Court since Marbury versus Madison. So what, so let me have since we're continuing our theme today, what the F is going on with the Supreme Court. And they're just it's clear. It's clear. They don't give a shit about the case.

I'm not even trying to pretend. No, they don't care about the case in front of them. It's like, well, the lawyers stop talking and will you stop talking about the facts so we can we've already written the opinion. It's in the back. We just want to bring it out and announce it. So stop talking. So true. So true. What happened to the law, the adversarial process in this country? It has now completely been ripped to sunder. It's fucked up. I'm sorry. I hate to leave people on this note on that note of the Supreme Court, but it's it's F. Up. And we will. I you know, I will have Karen on again. Is I think that by the way, change that you changed the legal a F the F now for this episode is a thing. Like what legal a F and like what is will do and I'll talk to

Ben. I'd like to I think the three of us should do, you know, in the summer when it's news is a little slow and some of us are on holidays or whatever, you know I think we should do an overview of the Supreme Court term and the top 10 cases and what it and what it means It was fun doing a show with three of us. Yeah. No, I thought it was great. I thought it was great So I also you had to jump on a plane. So, you know, we couldn't let we couldn't let Ben just do it alone Yeah, no, I would never do that. I would never allow that on a plane. So, you know, we couldn't let we couldn't let Ben just do it alone. Yeah. No, I would never do that. I would never allow that. Um, so, but yeah, I think we're going to do a Supreme Court rap. Speaking of raps, let's end the episode with, um, just a quick update.

There's not really much to say at this moment, except to tell people who have been following legal AF from the beginning, what happened to Galein Maxwell, she, the, the, the, the pimped, the fluffer, the co-conspirator, but Jeffrey Epstein who hanged himself. And what happened with Judge Nathan? Who, for a moment, interesting, who's already on the second circuit court of appeals, somehow I guess they're able to step back into their role as former trial judge, which I thought is interesting. And do the sentence. So, you know, Friday, she's at the second circuit, looking at her briefs for all argument on appeal, but here she came back out and put on another black robe. Well, she probably has to recuse herself when this goes up on appeal. Oh, without a doubt. And it is. So since that's already the case, when it stepped back down and and so she's like deputized for the day to do the sentencing for the case that she handled. And the just

to frame it for our listeners and followers, the the sentencing guidelines were at the upper extreme of 50 years, five zero years for her. And the prosecutors were pushing for the entire maximum under the federal sentencing guidelines with all the aggravating and mitigating factors. They wanted her sentenced to 50 years. And of course, you've got the sentencing reports, the pretrial sentencing reports that are prepared

by this independent sort of independent government entity that issues their recommendations as to the formula in the sentencing guidelines, the evidence on both sides, ex-colpatory and otherwise, the other things submitted by the defendant. They do their own sort of submission to the sentencing group talking about her life and her I saw some of it in the paper, sexual abuse when she was a child and you know she didn't have a good relation with her parents or whatever happened to her and they then factor that all in. And Judge Nathan didn't go along with the 50 years. She didn't go along with the eight years or so that that Galaine's lawyers recommended. What did she

finally do Karen? She did 20 years. So it was an interesting 20 years plus a 750,000 dollar fine and post-release supervision and that kind of stuff. It was sort of interesting because there were a few little interesting things that came out during the sentencing. Number one was the fact that she had to, the sentencing guidelines and the sentencing statutory schemes change over time. And this crime that she was convicted of occurred between 94 and 2004. And there was a different guidelines and statutory scheme back then than now. so, depending on which one you use, depends on whether it's a higher number or a lower number. And the judge went with the lower number,

saying otherwise it would be ex-post facto. In other words, it has to be the law as it existed at the time. And so, she went with that lower calculation. And the probation report recommended the 20 years, and she went with the 20 years. In the government, I think it asked for 30 or more. And you know, look, some of the things that the judge pointed out was that she never apologized. She never showed any remorse. All she did was basically throw it on Epstein says, you know, she regretted meeting Epstein.

It should have been Epstein. I'm just a proxy because, you know, he killed himself a month after he was arrested. So he barely spent any time in jail and never had to face any charges. And he's the real bad guy. And I too am a victim of him, you know, and I'm not a predator. You said this in the sentencing, right? Yeah. well, she said this in both her, the lawyers, well, they filed a pre-sens, they filed a sensing memo, and in that is where a lot of that came out. So you're like dead for our listeners and followers. You lost your trial.

She had a full blown trial. She put on this defense already. At the moment, I know it sounds weird, but at the moment you're about to get sentenced. Yes, if you're going to go up on appeal, I guess you have to keep a consistent story and say, I was just a pawn in Jeffrey Epstein's world and I'm a victim too. And I guess you got to keep that story going, but that's not going to help you get credit from the judge in your sentencing, especially when victims are there for the sentencing and said that it was crocodile

tears on her behalf. We don't accept it. She's never accepted responsibility. And it's tough because if you do, if you accept responsibility, you kind of fucked your appeal, right? If you maintain your innocence. Yeah. But right.

So I think that's why she had to do it. But that doesn't, that doesn't, she's not covering herself in glory with Judge. Well, but she, but she can say, I'm so sorry for any pain that I caused without admitting to being, you know, to do any crime. I don't know. I just, whatever. She didn't apologize at all. And that really upset the victims. They said it was sort of a final insult that she can't do that. And I think the judge did a really good job at kind of showing why she wasn't just, that she was a predator too.

She wasn't just, you know, it wasn't just a Jeffrey Epstein that she too was a predator. And she had a hand in, you know, really pretending to fake mentor these young girls and really lure them into. From groom, she grew, that's a proper use of grooming as a term. It's taken on a weird competition. And by the way, they engaged in three sums half the time.

So it's not like she didn't do, you know, she did all of the above. So we'll, yeah, we'll follow the appeal. As you said, Judge Nathan won't be there. They'll have the sentencing issues on the appeal. They'll have the runaway juror, you know, the one we talked about earlier from Britain, a British American, who testified that, you know, he talked to the jury about his own sexual abuse and memory recall issues. All right. You know, other things that have a juror number 50 and all the other love potion

number nine and all the rest of it. They'll have that all as part of the appellate record and will report. My gut is that the appeal is going'll have that all as part of the appellate record and will report. My gut is that the appeal is going to be not successful as most of them are not successful. And that she will serve, eventually serve her time. Did they, is she still in jail, right? She's, she's not out pending. No, no, no, she's in jail and she'll stay there. She's a flight risk. She has like, I think she has other citizens ship, what France and Australia or something like that. Yeah, she's risk. Well, when you have multiple passports and IDs and moves around to avoid apprehension at different rental properties throughout Europe, you're probably not going to get the benefit

of being out on bail. So that's what happened there. Karen, another action-packed epic midweek episode right before our 4th of July break, where we all reconvene afterwards to cover day seven of the Jan, the epic Jan 6th Committee hearings couldn't think of a better way to spend my midweek and on my own vacation than with my co-worker. Enjoy your vacation. Friedman. Ignit falo.

Enjoy your vacation. Thank you. And we'll see what we can't wait to see what's happening, happening tonight with all the chat. And we'll be there. Thank you all. And shout out to the minus money and legal A efforts.