Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Top Legal Experts REACT to most important legal news of the week - Legal AF 7/30/22

Episode Date: July 31, 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. On this episode, Ben and Popok analyze & discuss: the Department of Justice’s criminal probe of Donald Trump and the grand jury’s focus on his role in the fake elector scheme; the Jan6 Committee and its focus on whether Trump’s cabinet and Pence considered using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office before or after Jan6; Fani Willis’ Fulton County (Atlanta) Georgia criminal probe of trump and the fake elector scheme, her recent disqualification, and the testimony of the Georgia GOP head; Trump’s appeal to have “absolute immunity” protect him from the KKK Act and civil rights suits brought against him by Capitol Police and members of Congress attacked on Jan6; the Department of Justice’s prosecution of Russian operatives who conspired to interfere with 2016 election and to sow US discontent through misinformation campaigns; Musk files a countersuit against Twitter in face of mid-October trial being set against him & so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: AG1: https://athleticgreens.com/LegalAF Slotomania: https://www.slotomania.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 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sources have confirmed that Donald Trump is a target in the DOJ investigation into election interference. The January 6th Committee is ramping up even more, talking with cabinet members about January 6th and the invocation of the 25th Amendment. And we have updates on the Fulton County investigation of Trump's election interference. What's going on in Fulton County? And Donald Trump appeals the district court ruling in Washington, D.C. denying his motion to dismiss and holding that he can be sued for civil monetary damages. And Donald Trump tried to invoke the presidential immunity there, and he filed some type of

a deal, but it's not the greatest legal document. It's probably one of the worst legal documents. Popok and I will break down what Trump filed with the Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. And the DOJ charges a Russian national for 2016 election interference and controlling three American groups identified as co-conspirators, even recently controlling these groups to so discord in this country. Popeyes, I wonder who these co-conspirators may be.

And the Alex Jones trial for defaming Sandy Hook victims is underway in Texas and boy is it crazy, disturbing, will break down what's going on in that trial. Also, Elon Musk countersues Twitter and we would be remiss, Michael Popeye, if we did not mention some breaking news from this morning in its potential legal implications that is a audio has leaked of a conversation in 2019 between Roger Stone and Matt Gates when Roger Stone was on trial for obstructing the Mueller investigation based on his ties for WikiLeaks and Matt Gates said, the boss will pardon you if you play ball Roger Stone. We will talk about this and more on this episode

of LegalAept the most consequential news delivered to you each and every weekend. And of course, the LegalAept midweek Ben, my cell is and Michael Popeye. Michael Popeye, how are you doing today? Ben, I'm doing great. I've always underestimated how much I'd enjoy doing this podcast with you. And it is the highlight of my weekend, and I'm glad to share it with you and our followers and listeners. For those listening purely on audio, Popock is wearing a pink colored shirt today. And I got a little pink too, and wearing my Saki bomb shirt. We kind of, we didn't plan that, Popock, but it's part of the Popockian Mycelus mind meld. But let's mind meld where

people want us to mind meld. And that's not our sartorial choices. It is our legal analysis here on legal a f. And let's talk about this breaking news from this week. But frankly, not breaking news. If you followed legal a f we've been telling people all along that the DOJ had empaneled a grand jury in Washington, DC that was investigating Trump and the conduct that was taking place in January 6th. I know lots of people didn't want to listen to that or had their own perspectives of

what that grand jury was investigating. But Michael Popeye sources have confirmed this week that Trump is indeed the subject of that investigation. And we've learned that the grand jury has been interviewing some very, very high profile people at the very top of the food chain and the Trump administration. We're talking about vice president Pence's chief of staff, Mark Short, who spoke with the grand jury. We're talking about Greg Jacob, his top lawyer for Penn's. And we're talking about a cadre of lawyers as well as been a theme of all of the top lawyers who were in the White House.

You got to thank lawyers here. Lawyers get a bad rap at least. I don't want to give these people too much credit. They were Donald Trump's lawyers, but at the very least, they are the ones now appearing to go to the DOJ, even if it's for self preservation, which is probably what this is really all about. But nonetheless, they are spilling what took place on January 6th, leading up to it. And so Michael Popeye, tell us the implications of this.

The import is this news that we didn't know before. Is this something that is escalating the investigation? What's going on here? Yeah, we know. Thanks, Ben. We know there's at least three grand juries that are the Department of Justice is running in the in District of Columbia. This particular grand jury is now focused on the fake electors, the slate of fake electors in states like Georgia and Arizona and Michigan, and particularly the pressure on Mike Pence, taking a chapter directly out of the Gen 6 committee. I don't know if it was session four or five, it was the session that you and I refer to as the pressure Mike Pence session, where we saw many of these same witnesses

So we know the jet we know the Jans X committee is having an impact on the Department of Justice because they're taking pages right out of their playbook Here the first thing it looks like they've done is bringing the highest ranking person in the inner circle at the White House in this case Mark Short Who is the was Pence's chief of staff for the entire duration, not like Trump who changed his chief of staffs like he was changing his underwear. But, but Mark Short was by Pence's side all the way through Jan 6th and was a active participant in a series of meetings along with Greg Jacobs, Pence's general counsel, the Pat Sipalone for Mike Pence, if you're playing at home, with John Eastman, along with Trump. Because remember, this new focus that we've learned about off of this last week, Ben, is that the Trump's actions in trying to stop

the peaceful overthrow using the fake electors as a monkey wrench into the peaceful transition is being focused on by the Department of Justice. So who better to get testimony from than Mark Short and Greg Jacobs about what was the pressure on Pence, what was Trump's role in those conversations? How was the John Eastman scheme presented by John Eastman and Donald Trump in those rooms?

And these are live witnesses who participated. Greg Jacobs, who also testified, we've seen clips from his interviews at the Jansick's committee. We know that he brought in Michael Lustig, the right wing federalist society of judge to give an opinion in the waning days after the election about whether Pence had the power as the vice president to reject the electoral count, or if his role was merely ministerial, Greg Jacobs brought in the firepower of my holistic, my holistic look, Mike Pence to the eye and said, you cannot do this.

You have no other role, but then to count the duly elected and duly certified electoral vote. That is your only role. You can't do anything else. And it was Greg Jacobs with Michael Lustig shoving a steel rod of Pence's backside that allowed Mike Pence to look Trump in the eye and say, I am not doing this. I am not going to stop the peaceful transfer of power, which of course pissed off Trump, which led to his famous tweet at 2 30 the afternoon of Jan 6 for Mike Pence to do the right thing, throwing flames, throwing gasoline on the fire. So you got Mark Short, you got Greg Jacobs. And then we know that they've also brought in a series of Republican high ranking government,

high ranking Republican officials at the state level the georgia head of the republican party his counterpart in our azona to talk about their role in the fake collector uh... scandal linking back to the white house through a little known lawyer that you and i have talked about i know you and the brothers have talked about josh

finley josh finley was the coordinator with John Eastman of with these Republican state houses and Republican state officials to try to use this elector scandal or elector scheme. Sorry to throw the monkey wrench in. And what is his current job, Ben? You know what he's currently been appointed to do this week. Just to show the irony of the Republicans, you know what is new job is. Let's pop up.

He is a Rona Daniels, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, just gave him a new job. He's now the national director of election integrity because the Republicans are still really worried about voter fraud. So the guy who's going to be in part of it. In 2020, what the main platform as the Democrats are passing all of these bills right now to try to help the American people, the Republicans are focused on the 2020 election to try to boost Trump's fragile ego. How pathetic can you be?

Yeah. And worse, they're claiming that the next election may be so fraught with fraud, which you know, we know is a statistical impossibility given the security systems that are in place, the cyber security systems that are in place, that she's appointed this phony, a national director of election integrity to work with like DeSantis's election police. For the next election, about a problem that does not exist at all. So look, the Department of Justice is focused on these things. And I know I, I don't want people to get fatigued on our show.

This was a big F and deal. I think that's Brett Mysalis said that recently. This is not something that should be just lost in the chatter of Twitter versus this is a big deal. This is Department of Justice going after Trump himself through the inter-synctum of these people, something for us to watch throughout the summer. And as the Gen 6 committee returns in September, let me give you some inside baseball. Pop out.

Actually, I'm not going to give you inside baseball. You don't need it. I'm going to give the legal A F for some inside baseball. Pop out. Actually, I'm not going to give you inside baseball. You don't need it. I'm going to give the legal AF for some inside baseball because sometimes the company you keep also tells you a lot about what's going on here. So when Mark Short was seen leaving the grand jury who was by his side, none other than Emmett flood and flood is a partner at Williams and Connolly, which was one of the top DC law firms right now, but he actually worked with Trump against the Robert Mueller investigation. And now he is working with Mark short to throw Donald Trump under the bus. Trump under the bus, an individual by the name of Ty Cobb who proceeded, um, Emmett flood in that position and representing Trump in connection with the Mueller investigation. Ty Cobb recently went on NBC and he said the following that any declaration of Trump's candidacy,

quote, serves no interest, but his self-defeating and overwhelming need for relevance, attention and money. Such an announcement also does not inoculate him from criminal investigation. So really what we're seeing here is this Republican establishment as well, throwing Trump under the bus, which is why I think the prospects of a Trump prosecution is significantly higher because we are seeing really Trump's inner circle right now, a two-brutus throwing him under the bus. That's exactly what is going on.

Did you also catch this week that the RNC told Trump that if he announces before the midterms, they're not going to pay his legal bills and carl rove attacked him in the wall street journal over raising phony money and not spending it to support candidates at all i mean this is really the knives are out thank god and by the way it really interesting emmit flood talk i want to read his autobiography one day he worked for muller as a special prosecutor in the Russian interference, yet Trump brought him into the White House before Pat Sipelone

to serve the role of White House counsel. And now he's representing Mark Short, who's obviously dumping all over Trump in front of the, in front of the Department of Justice. This guy is amazing. And I can't wait to read his memoirs. Now, we got to definitely check that out. We got to check out also what the January 6th committee is doing here. Popo, ramping up their efforts, even more focusing on the cabinet level officials. And we got word this week that Treasury Secretary, for example, Steve Mnuchin spoke with the January 6th committee about what Trump was saying on January 6th is conduct around that time, but specifically after January 6th meetings

that were held by cabinet officials and conversations that were held at a very high level, at a very serious level, at the highest level, invoking the 25th amendment to remove Donald Trump as president based on being an incapacitated to actually run and function in the government. And this view wasn't just held by Steve Manuchin. It was also held by education secretary who wants to dismantle the Department of Education. Betsy DeVos. Betsy DeVos, yeah. Betsy DeVos, yeah.

So what's going on here, Popoq, with the cabinet officials that are being interviewed by the January 6th committee, they're definitely ramping up. Yeah. You and I talked throughout in the last year and a half about the 25th Amendment and the fantastical development and the fantastical development that even before January 6th, there was rumors they were talking about, especially after the election. And before Jan 6th, taking Trump out through his cabinet members through the 25th Amendment

application, Nancy Pelosi and others called for that. But we didn't realize that it got really serious from Jan 6th to Jan 20, which is only a 14-day span. But of course, Trump did a lot of mischief during that 14 days, trying to replace his attorney general to do his bidding, bringing in all these other phones in the last 14 days. It would have been a midnight massacre for 14 days. And apparently, there was serious discussion among the cabinet about getting him out of office and making pants the acting president to allow for the peaceful transfer of power. I mean, the words coming out of my mouth and hitting your ears and our followers and listeners

ears. I mean, literally, I got to chill down my spine again to talk about this, but this was one of the protections that was put into the constitution after John F. Kennedy's assassination. Past in 1967, by Lyndon Johnson, one of the many good things that he did as president and his domestic policy, because there was a fear about what would happen in the transfer of power after the Kennedy assassination, if something happened even to the vice president. So they passed the 25th Amendment, and as a small tutorial now, to remind people who want to now look it up, and we know salty will put up a graphic during our show tonight.

The 25th Amendment says if the majority of the cabinet level appointments, you got to be cabinet level. If the majority of the cabinet level appointments of the president, along with the vice president, can remove the president from office by a vote by I guess a voice vote and that apparently that jansok's committee is going to get down to how close they were to actually exercising this let me remind our followers and listeners not only have they already interviewed a cabinet level person

in steve manuchin the treasury secretary we know that the acting defense secretary uh... was a uh... mill Miller was also brought in and gave testimony. We know that the labor secretary, here's inside baseball, Antonine Scalia of the, of the, of the formerly of the Supreme Court's son, Eugene Scalia, a labor lawyer was the head of labor. He gave testimony, Rosen gave testimony.

And Betsy DeVos, we know she quit on Jan 6 because of the insurrection and Trump's fomenting of it because she publicly declared it. So we assume that she'll be a soft spot for the committee. And then listen to this one, Ben, Mitch McConnell's wife Elaine Chow was the head of transportation. And would not be odd for Elaine chow to go in and testify that she thought seriously about the application of the 25th Amendment. Of course, Mike Pence, because they needed Mike Pence to go along with it as well. But this is some of the bombshells that you and I are going to be covering in September when the Gen 6 committee comes back in and does hearings.

And now they'll apparently be a whole session on how close were we to implementing the 25th Amendment against Donald Trump to take him out of office by a majority of his cabinet and the vice president? Yeah, speaking of cabinet level officials who spoke with the January 6th committee, we've also learned, of course, that Chad Wolf, the acting department of Homeland Security secretary. He previously spoke with the January 6th committee, but this was before some revelations that occurred this week, learning that his text messages were also part of the text messages that were purged and don't exist anymore. And so when Chad Wolf spoke with the January 6th committee, he had told them that he had turned over all of these records.

He maintains that he didn't delete any records that he maintained all preservation requirements within the Department of Homeland Security, but it's very suspicious again and suspicious would be putting it lightly that his messages were deleted as all the secret service messages are deleted and they're claiming a purge within 20 days of January 6th. You know, it's a total absolute BS on that Pope. But the January 6th committee and Benny Thompson and everyone is saying, we're going to get to the bottom of that. And we're going to get to the bottom of Chad Wolf, particularly his messages being deleted as well.

I want to hear what you got to say, Pope, I don't want to give one footnote on Chad Wolfen a second, but I want to go to you about your comment for me. Yeah, no, I, we just just to follow up to that because both Karen and I in the midweek edition and you and me during a weekend edition about the text messages, the new development that came out, just the touch on, is that apparently the purge text messages from the secret service were not text messages at all, but they were eye messages through their Apple iPhones because they are apparently secure enough for the federal government to use at the highest level. Shout out to Apple for its coding and its security features that allows the messaging to happen between the highest levels of government to be so secure that they're using iMessage.

And apparently when they all switched their iPhones, there was no thought to how to preserve the iMessages. And now the head of Secret Service is trying to think about, maybe we should disable iMessaging. Or maybe you should just preserve your records that are really, really important that you know as a agency that's devoted to investigations, that you know your own records might be subject to production and review one day. How about that?

Is it so Lucy Goosey at the government level? I want to come to records as we've seen with the Trump administration that there's no protocol, there's no controls. This is one of the most devastating things that's coming out of the Gen 6 Committee and these other investigations is how informal, improperly informal record keeping has been at the Trump administration level and every other aspect of that all the way down to the Secret Service. And these are the things that are going to come out. One of the many byproducts of the Jan 6 committee

Besides getting the Department of Justice to tune in and bring prosecutions Following the lead of the Jan 6 committee and also, you know, putting a giant shadow Casting a giant shadow on Trump's election or electoral possibilities in the future. One of the things they're doing is future. One of the things they're doing is suggesting improvements in policies and procedures and laws that have been pressure tested, seriously pressure tested by the Trump, by the Trump era. And that's what's going to come out of the gen sex. That's another one of their, their roles of being a congressional investigators, making changes in the future to make sure things like this don't happen again. Calling it informal record keeping is probably putting it very nicely, Popoac, because really what it was is intentionally deletion of records

and no record keeping to commit crimes. But what if I told you Michael Popoac, and what if I told our legal AF listeners right now, and viewers that I have conclusive 100% proof that the acting United States Secretary of Homeland Security for Donald Trump Chad Wolf was unlawful and that he engaged in unlawful acts. What if I told you that I have that? Are you going to break that story here? I don't think I need to break it because his entire role as acting United States Secretary of Homeland Security was deemed to be de facto and unlawful by a new by a New York federal judge. His entire appointment broke the law and basically how he was running the Department of Homeland Security.

I believe starting in 2019, you know, late 2019, 2020, he wasn't appointed. He wasn't confirmed by the Senate. The Trump administration just put him in there literally just called him, you know, swore him in without approval, without going through any of the process. Hey, you're the United States Secretary of Homeland Security now. We're going to go. We're just going to leave you in that position. And so in November of 2020, a district judge in New York declared

wolf's appointment unlawful and basically overturned everyone of his orders, right? Not in proper extra. I forgot that of legal authority. So this is the person that we're supposed to trust. Literally the person, imagine your whole entire job, Popoq. It's like, what do you do for a living? I'm, I'm in a lawful lawyer. I am in a lawful secretary. I am in a lawful cook.

Yeah. Everything that this year, right? I forgot about that. That's so good. Everything that this guy issued or did was completely wiped out with the etch a sketch of this federal judge. So you're right. Why would we, Why would we be shocked that he also didn't understand or intentionally didn't properly record keep? You think about it, Pope, I can mention it. You said, eh, literally everything this Trump administration did was criminal, incompetent or both. Let's go to Georgia.

Let's go from DC. Let's travel south. Let's head to the beautiful state of Georgia. Let's go to Fulton County, the Fony Willis investigation into election interference. You know, two big pieces of news this week. First, the disqualification order that was issued by the judge who oversees the special grand jury that's looking into election interference with respect to phony willis as it relates to one of the 16 electors and that was one of 11 electors who filed what's called a motion to quash or a motion to

basically stop these electors from being subpoenaed who are now declared as official targets of engaging in criminal activity by Foni Willis. And this one particular elector said, you and June through a fundraising event for the person who's running against me in an office, you know, for a for office for lieutenant governor. And therefore, you're not the proper person to investigate me. The judge found that Fony Willis being attached to this fundraiser, rather than throwing in, being attached to the fundraiser, was an actual conflict of interest.

I do agree with the judge there. I mean, you know, it doesn't mean that Fony Willis can't prosecute the other electors, just with respect to this one elector, that would have to go to, there's a whole appointment process that you could talk about, Popeyes, who would investigate that. But I do agree with that, but it hasn't slowed down Fony Willis' investigation

in any meaningful way. It's just one of the electors. The others, the judge said that Fony Willis can continue to investigate and continue to be targets. And it doesn't, in any way, der that Fony Willis can continue to investigate and continue to be targets. And it doesn't in any way, derail Fony Willis trying to get Lindsey Graham to test. If I were any of the other people, it doesn't prevent her investigation of Trump. So it was definitely kind of an, it was a very tight investigation that she was running. You and I had been talking about actually on prior legal a F's we've been saying look.

She is a little close to the sun on this one and some of the public comments and things, you know, seem to be a little aggressive and probably pumps us up as podcasters, as legal observers, but you and I said, I may as a prosecutor, you may want to not go that far, you know, with it and sure enough, we saw, you know, a judge basically saying the same thing as relates to that. Then we also saw a popok, the Georgia GOP chair, David Schaefer, who was one of those 16 electors who held that cloak and dagger meeting in the Georgia Capitol building, where they appointed themselves.

We are the fake electors. Um, and this was in December after all of the evidence revealed that Trump clearly had lost in Georgia and the election after Brad Raffinsburger said, we've done all the recounts. We've certified the results. There's been no fraud that would ever change the result of this election whatsoever. The Georgia criminal Republicans met and they said, we are now the electors, not the real electors. And they submitted a fraudulent elector slate to the National Archives in DC, which gets processed. Then was supposed to go to Pence, because the broader plan here when Trump was speaking to the legislature's was

Pence was supposed to say I hear the objections of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. There is now a doubt. Oh What's this? We have an electors late. That's that's what they were gonna do We have an electors late. That's come in. Oh, it looks like Trump has won Georgia Trump has won Arizona. I hereby declare Donald Trump the president. That was actually the plan. A little bit of emphasis added, but that was the plan. So Popeye, take us through what's going on in the state of Georgia. Yeah. Funny Willis.

We like her a lot. The judge put her put her a little bit back in her place and reminded her that she's not the prosecutor for this case yet. She's the special legal advisor to the special grand jury that advises him as the chief judge of Fulton County and not her. And at the at the at the oral argument that you and I talked about last week, we were a little concerned. She got wrapped on the knuckles. I didn't think he was going to take her out of the burnt Jones investigation at all, but totally, which is what he ultimately did. We'll talk about that in a minute. But he did say to her, look, I'm watching my prosecutor on national TV, tone it down a bit less is more when you're

a prosecutor. And you don't need to be out in front with the media. I mean, you and I like to compare her when everybody wants, you know, uh, Eric Garland's head on a pike because he's not muscular enough or not doing things fast enough or he's too quiet. We say, uh, we love funny willas. Follow. We love that we do. But, you know, she doesn't need to be on ABC news, talking about how she doesn't, um, you know, politics don't play a part in her role. And she's going to, you know, politics don't play a part in her role and she's going to, you know, stand up for what's right in Georgia at the current time. That role is completely supervised by this Fulton County chief judge who also reminded everybody that it's not Fawni Willis's, Fawni Willis's office.

It is hit him that makes the ultimate decision as to whether the indictment recommendation goes forward. And when it gets published, he also told everybody at the hearing, it's not Miss Willis' decision as to the timing of the release of this grand jury report. If it's too close to the election, the midterm, I am going to put it in my desk drawer and I'm not going to release it until after the election. So it doesn't have an impact on the election. He didn't say how much of an interval he would tolerate. But if she doesn't hurry up and get her grand jury done in the next month or so, I think we're not going to know the results of it until after the midterms and it won't have an impact on that. And that's

a decision that this judge has made. He also made the decision that because she very publicly was a co-host of what ultimately ultimately became Bert Jones's opponent, Democratic opponent for the Lieutenant Governor position in Georgia. And she knew or should have known that he was going to win that primary, this candidate. And worse for her, really, is that he then, this friend of hers, who she supported as a fellow Democrat, he then used the fact that his opponent, Bert Jones, is being a, who's been announced as a target of the investigation by Fony Willis, his friend. He's saying, see, that's why you have to elect me to be the next lieutenant general. He's under criminal investigation. He's a target. It just looks bad. It looks like you're using your friend to smear your opponent that you can use in your

campaign against him. And that's not the appearance that should be out there. That is an unforced error by Fahni. It's okay. We love everything else that she's doing. And it doesn't let Bert Jones off the hook. As of July of this year, this was little research that I did for the midweek edition with Karen.

There is something in the state of Georgia that we don't have in other states, which is known as the prosecutor's council, which is a statewide group of prosecutors who will now decide whether Bert Jones is going to be a target of investigation and how he's going to be prosecuted, whether it's by another special grand jury or in some other way, but that's going to be a vote of the special of these prosecutors counsel after she's tendered her resignation or or disqualification, which I'll have to do off of the judge's order. It used to be the attorney general of the state, which is a political role.

Apparently, George even Georgia thought that was too political and recently as of, as of, this month, as of July, decided a council should decide who should be the new prosecutor. But she's funny. Well, it, Fawni Willis's office is not going to be able to use this current grand jury, nor does any other prosecutor to go after Bert Jones in, in a criminal context. And the judge also interestingly reminded Fahni that even the term that she used target, he was a little bit, um, John, just about why she's telling people they are targets. He reminded her that is a federal criminal concept of target that they don't really have that in Georgia, that he assumed what she's trying to signal in her discussions with these people is that they're no longer seen as witnesses, but rather the focus of the investigation. But you know, he's running a tight ship and ultimately defeated or denied the

motions to disqualify her from all of the others, forcing the rest of them like Schaeffer, the head of the Republican Party for Georgia to testify. But we all know because they said it in their papers that they're going to take the Fifth Amendment almost to almost every question that's asserted against them. These people that followed that absent minded law professor of John Eastman and his fake electors scandal. And then lastly, we didn't talk about it on this show, but we did earlier in the week. Jody Heiss, a male Republican, a congressperson who's also been subpoenaed by Fahni Willis. He went to federal court in the Northern District of Georgia, pulled an Obama appointee, much like Marjorie Taylor Green, pulled an Obama appointee in the Northern District, when she was getting disqualified under the

14th Amendment. And that judge said, you're going to testify, but I do appreciate that you have And that judge said, you're going to testify, but I do appreciate that you have potentially a speech and debate clause under the Constitution privilege about your participation in this fake elector scandal. I don't think you have that privilege. If you talk to third parties, which is what Fondie Willis' investigation is focused on. So you go in, Mr. Heiss or representative Heiss. And if there's a problem, get me on the phone and I will question by question, give, give my ruling as to whether you have to

testify to that or not. So what's the takeaway Ben? Full steam ahead with Fony Willis on almost every except for one on all of the, all of these fake electors are people involved in it. They're and full steam ahead on Rudy Giuliani as of right now, giving testimony in August that you and I will talk about is too. But I think if she doesn't get this wrapped up with a report and recommendation in the next 30 days, we're not going to know the results until after the midterms. What if I told you Michael Pope, that I also have evidence, I have evidence, Michael Popack, that John Eastman, that his scheme, that he knew his scheme was unlawful and was not going to work. Do you know how I know that?

Is this the conversation with Greg Jacobs over losing 9-0 with the Supreme Court? Yeah, it's his statement with Greg Jacobs and in front of Greg Jacob and Mark Short on January 4th. That's one. And then in his emails, Johnny Smith also said that he thought that this plan was not going to work and that it was, and it was unlawful. So there's actual evidence of this stuff. People of, so you know my favorite, but wait, wait, wait, wait, you don't call it a mastermind when the plan is so I call them the absent-minded professor, law professor. But, but, but, but the plan is so I call them the absent minded professor law professor.

But but but the the one I like about that band that you just reminded me of is that and we know that Jacob's testified about it to the Jan 6th. So we know he did it. He's going to do it to the Department of Justice. This is grand jury. Is that he said to Eastman this theory that you have about what Mike Pence can do? You know this would go down nine zero, even with this Supreme court. And Johnny Smith said, no, I think it would be

seven. It would go down seven to two. And Jacob said, well, who would be one of you? Who would be your two? And he said, Clarence Thomas. And we know there's a link between Ginny Thomas, Johnny Smith and Clarence Thomas. So the fact that he thought, and he's right, by the way, because we know that the only time anybody signs on to any of these crazy ideas, it's going to be Clarence Thomas. But the fact that he said, no, I'm going to lose eight to one. You're right. It's not nine zero.

But the fact that he said he's going to lose, it was still pitching this as something the vice president of the United States should do. In order to stop the peaceful transition of power, your right shows the crimin president of the United States should do in order to stop the peaceful transition of power. You're right. Shows the criminality, the mens rea, the criminal intent of the entire scheme while Trump is sitting in the room. They didn't even have the brains enough to to protect their own client, if you will, and have him be in another room during the conversations because you know, Trump and his personality, he barged in it. I want to be in this meeting. Great. You're in the meeting. You're in for a penny. You're in for a pound. And that's why you're the target Trump of a criminal investigation because

you're in the room, helping to make those decisions. Yeah. Adam Kinzinger, who's on the January 6th committee, who's been doing an incredible job actually said this past week that Jenny Thomas would be subpoenaed by the January 6th committee if she didn't voluntarily appear, which was also very good news. And more news to report on Donald Trump's civil lawsuits that have been filed against him in Washington, DC district court. Remember, there's cases filed by capital police officers and members of Congress for Trump's conduct on January 6th in connection with the insurrection. I

want to talk about Donald Trump's appeal of the district court, the lower courts ruling, but the federal courts ruling nonetheless, that Donald Trump is not entitled to presidential immunity and that he could be sued in civil court, federal court for monetary damages. Wanna talk about that. But first, of course, I got to tell you about our sponsor athletic greens. Today's program is brought to you by athletic greens, the health and wellness company that makes comprehensive daily nutrition really simple. With so many stressors in life, it's difficult to maintain effective nutritional habits

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life leads moms, dads, rookies, first timers and everyone in between and take ownership of your daily health and to make it easy. Polpock and I negotiated this without let it greens. They'll give you an immune supporting free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. If you visit athletic greens.com slash legal a F today again simply visit athletic greens.com slash legal a F take control of your health and give age you want to try. I really, really, really enjoy Pope. up seeing how it's actually helping our legal AF audience. If people speak very highly of it, athletic greens dot com slash legal AF Michael Pope, let's go back to this Trump appeal. I know you've analyzed the actual appeal that Trump filed from the district court ruling. Talk to us about this case, maybe give us some background on the the Nixon case and

the Clinton case that established this concept of presidential immunity. Why judge meta, who's the district court judge said there was no presidential immunity. And what this appeal is the, the appeals more like a whiny rant, claiming that judge meta, who's a well respected, um, federal judge, Mehta, who's a well-respected federal judge, you know, is basically persuaded by the January 6th committee to dislike Trump and it's based on his own dislike of Trump. And then they go in and basically justify January 6th as kind of having, you know, there's different perspectives on January 6th is what they like to argue with that as well. And they claim that inciting an insurrection by the president as he did would be part of his presidential powers and what he's supposed to do and what Judge Meta basically said, and I don't

mean to steal your, you know, the headline here from you Pope, I guess Judge Meta said, this was a campaign event that you had on January 6th, this had nothing to do with you being the president. Presidential immunity is absolute. If you're acting as the president, not whining about stolen elections and doing campaigning weird events, that's basically the layman's version, but Popeye, I'll toss it to you. Yeah. You know what I loved about rereading judge Mehta's motion to dismiss where he denied Trump's dismissal of the cases brought by originally brought by Benny Thompson. Now the chairman of the Jan 6th Committee, but when he became the chairman, he stepped down as the plaintiff, turned it over to Karen Bass, a representative out of your home state

of California. So there's this set of bass plaintiffs, which are the House of Representative members who were under attack During when siege was laid on the Capitol led by President Trump and then the Capitol police or another band of plaintiffs in the case and they brought a case You and I talked about it length six months ago or more under the KKK act claiming a civil rights violation under a little used, but on the books statute and act that came out of the rise of the KKK who tried to deny black Americans their civil

rights. But the way it's written, of course, it's broader than that and you can go to anyone who civil rights are being denied or abridged in a civil way to civil case. And so they brought this case. And then Trump turned around to dismiss it, claiming that as the president, the president is absolute immunity, which he does, or she does, for civil actions that they may take in their capacity and their official functions as the president, as the head of the executive branch of the government, even to the outer limits of that.

And that's what case is like the Nixon case in which Nixon was sued for doing something to a civil servant. And the court established in the 1970s, the Supreme Court established the boundaries of absolute immunity because legislators have qualified immunity, but the president because of the power of the office and all the things that the person's involved with has given absolute immunity. But it has to be within the official function of the job to stanguishing that from other things that are not part of your official position. That's why when Clinton was sued by Paula Jones for an illicit sexual affair while he was the governor of Georgia, a governor

of Arkansas, but was now president, he lost in trying to use the absolute immunity of the of presidential immunity because they looked at him and said, at that extreme, you weren't doing anything related to the presidency, you were the governor of Arkansas. So the question is where on the continuum between Nixon doing something related to the civil servant and the court finding absolute immunity and Clinton doing nothing about being the president at the time that he allegedly harassed Paula Jones, where does Trump on pre Jan 6th and on Jan 6th and beyond, where does that fall among the absolute immunity continuum? The most fascinating thing for me, Ben, is to re-read Judge Maites' decision to find how much he knew at that time from the evidence that hadn't even yet been disclosed by the Jans 6th Committee

about Trump's role, including an entire passage and his opinion about Trump's failure to act, which is also part of the lawsuit, his failure to quell the violence, to call off the dogs, to send people home, which we know is this is now the subject of the Department of Justice and the Gen six committee about his cowardice and his dereliction of duty. That is all. If you want to have a good primer about what he'll be prosecuted for, everybody should go read and we'll post it. Judge made his original 30 or 40 page decision and denying the motion to dismiss, which is now is

exactly what Trump is appealing. And Trump's main appeal seems to be focused, though. They seem to have waived one issue because there's lots of things that made us said are outside of Trump's presidential role. One of them was the speech on the ellipse. One of them was the tweet about Mike Pence not doing his job at 2.30 in the afternoon on January 6th. At the moment, he should have called for peace. He called for violent attack on the Capitol.

And he used in his in his judgment, he used in his opinion, which they tried to hold against him in the appeal. He used the analogy of if a it would be the equivalent Trump's speech inciting the mob would be the equivalent of standing in front of a corn sellers home, telling the angry mob that corn sellers were against the poor and were, and we're sending them into starvation and then pointing this finger behind him at the house of the leading corn seller. And they said, oh, see, see, Judge Maitre didn't like Donald Trump. He didn't like his speech. And he was doing things. He was just commenting on items of the day that were of national importance. But that's not the standard for giving absolute immunity to the president's powers.

It's not that he gets to be a commentator, like a podcast or like you and me and being able to talk about important issues that people are talking about, which is was their fraud in the election or not? It's whether on that moment, he was exercising some official function, even to its outer boundaries, or he wasn't, because if he wasn't, there's no absolute immunity, and you can be sued. And that's what Judge made a found. And what the judge said in his opinion is that there is no official role for the president in the

electoral count and electoral certification process on January 6. None. He was a candidate. He has no role. The vice president barely has a role. It's even in all everybody that's looked at it has said it's ministerial at best. It's counting. It's certifying.

It's announcing. It's certifying. It's announcing. It's no other role. And so, certainly the president, who's a candidate along with Joe Biden, has zero role. And that's what the judge relied on. He said, you might have had a lot of things to do on January 6th. They were presidential. You were the president, but standing at the ellipse, arguing about the electoral count and the certification and

that Mike Pence should not participate in his constitutional role in certifying the election is not one of them and you don't get the immunity for that. And I saw nothing in the 50 page appellate brief bend at all other than hack need arguments that have all been rejected personal attacks on the judge, trying to act like he's been political, which he's not going to be. And I don't think this is going to have very much resonance at the DC level court of appeals, which is still controlled by democratic appointees. The question for you, Ben, that I always ask at the end of these discussions is when it invariably goes to this Supreme Court where Clarence Thomas is currently holding sway,

even at and and the shrinking that before our eyes of the Roberts influence on his own court as chief justice, what do you think this Supreme Court does even with the absolute immunity privilege doctrine that prior courts and precedent, which we know this Supreme Court loves to flout and express their new views. Now that they have the numbers, what do you think they do? It's a really good question. And as you've been asking it, I've been going through all of the scenarios in my head because Chief Justice Roberts would side with the Biden and Obama and Democratic appointees.

So at most, if Trump were to prevail in the Supreme Court, it would be five, four in his favor. And I think though about Gorsuch and I think about Kavanaugh, you know, and, you know, and I think where, where would they kind of come out on this? I mean, Clarence Thomas will absolutely find presidential immunity. No doubt about it. And Alito, Alito will definitely find presidential immunity. But I actually think the Supreme Court, I think they'll probably engage in some gamesmanship is the reality because the conduct was inextricably kind of inter, like there was different things like there, and that's why judge Mata's order was so kind of precise

and identifying the acts that were outside of the scope of being presidential. But see, I think that the Supreme Court may kind of slice and dice the issues and say, this conduct can be sued on at the ellipse, but this other conduct is presidential. And so I think they'll kind of give a annoying nuanced obstructionist kind of ruling that doesn't allow the claims to fully go forward on a five four basis, but does recognize some of the outer limit stuff that Trump did was clearly outside of, you know, of being, you know, a presidential immunity. It should be an easy ruling. There should be no presidential immunity. I'm just giving you the analysis of what I think

this is pretty important. I think you're you your your analysis is spot on the with one caveat putting aside things that seem to really matter to certain of the newbies on the right wing of this supreme court, like Amy Coney, Barry Corsuch and Kavanaugh, which appears to be guns and religion and the destruction of the church and state barrier. The thing that they seem to be okay with is continuing to reenin' and out of control, president. They've given Trump a number of losses when it comes to records, when it comes to the National Archive,

when it comes to other things. I think even they saw a potentially dangerous president and the future of future dangerous presidents occupying that office. And that is the only thing that gives me a certain amount of comfort that I think you're right. They might get rid of a couple of them, but they let the majority of the soot go forward because of their fear about checks and balance and the institution of the presidency. And it's not in there, you know, their preferred basket of, um, we got everything we wanted on a church and state this term. We got everything

wanted on guns and on abortion, but on like raining in a president that's out of control, you know, we better be a firewall or that will be a problem. So I'm hoping that it goes six to three on the things that really matter. And that suit goes forward. And judge made is upheld ultimately. That's why you can go back to the beginning of this podcast episode when you see the type of lawyers, one who are testifying against Trump before the grand jury. And then you see the lawyers who are representing those lawyers, the people we mentioned, like Emmett flood and people who are out there speaking about Trump's criminality like Ty Cobb. These are people who the Supreme Court justices on the right would view as their colleagues and they'd view as kind of within

that circle. And so you get a sense of where they're of where they're. And lust and lust a half or two thirds of the clerks that clerk for the Supreme Court on the Federalist side come through micro lustic and they know publicly what micro lustics position is about this out of control president. So I think you might see the revenge of micro lustic taking place at the clerk level and ultimately Clarence Thomas and Eastman and others that clerked for lustick Listen lustick was not mints and words people You know, he spoke very clearly and very slowly and methodically about the danger of the Trump presidency So I'm hoping that when this case goes up in variably It'll be another loss at the Supreme Court level for Donald Trump

Yeah, that's judge Michael Lutick. Oh, I said Lutick. Now you're right. But it stays in the pod. It I don't know why it keeps I knew a Lutick. It's Lutick. LUTti. You're right. Yeah. Retired judge Michael Lutick who testified before the January 6th committee. Well, Popoq, you're letting your error stay in the pod. You're exposing a vulnerability, Popoq. Lots of people still want to know, speaking of vulnerabilities from the last podcast, you answered my question when I said, what was your work at routine? You said you would let me know. You kind of had a weird answer about not wanting to talk about your work at routine publicly. I better not ask after you showing me those guns.

Let's move on to the next topic, Michael Popak, which is nothing to do with you showing your guns, but guns are blazing at the DOJ who have charged a Russian national for election interferes. I wanted to talk briefly about the unceiling of this indictment for this Russian national. But what it really speaks to is that even up until very recently before this indictment, this Russian national was controlling groups during the 2016 election to show discord and division and to suppress the vote in 2016. And then even very recently controlling groups in various states. And supporting, let me be clear who the groups are. Like MAGA

related, Republican groups. I want to be very clear which type of groups. It doesn't say who these groups are, but these are groups who are pushing for a secession of California, they're pushing for like secession of California on the right wing side. They're, you know, pushing for all of these, like, trying to sew racial division in the country, additional racial division in the country, but controlling these three groups. And they're disturbing emails from Russia to these groups in the United States who are identified as co-conspirators who are obviously associated with, you know, right wing causes. That's clear from the indictment, even though they're listed as co-conspirators who are obviously associated with, you know, right wing causes. That's clear from the indictment, even though they're listed as co-conspirators. These groups would like travel to Russia. They would know that this group is being run by Putin directly and the

Russian government would be like, cool. They're giving us money. We know that they're doing it, but let's keep it going. And we know that, you know, that Russia was heavily involved in, in, in, or it's widely believed that Russia was heavily involved in passing money through the NRA and groups like that. We also see their influence here. And these radical right wing groups, they've gone so far right that they've literally kind of just traveled. If we're looking at a map like they traveled around the globe. They went to Russia. They're Russian.

They're literally against the United States of America. And they're just doing Putin's bidding here. But let's talk, talk to me briefly about this same day. Yeah. On that note, I don't know if you caught earlier this week. There was a Russian talk show that's sanctioned by Putin that actually speculated that if that Putin was, is so popular as a leader even after Ukraine, that he could win the presidential election in America with Trump as his vice president.

This was on nationally sanctioned Russian TV, but that just shows you what they think. But they're all they're doing. And you and I have talked about, your brothers have talked about it. Is that the Russians and the Chinese have used trolls through social media to try to so discontent and discord among the electorate and destabilize America because a destabilize the America fighting with itself, cannibalizing itself, warring against itself like the Civil War is a good thing for our enemies. And so for people that think, God, where did all those Facebook pages pop up from?

And who, and trying to tell me things about Joe Biden or Gavin Newsom, or pumping money into the, you know, the Gavin Newsom recall campaign, or, you know, succeed in California's succeeding for the nation, or African, you know, succeed in California succeeding for the nation or African, you know, stirring discontent about the black elect for the black American electorate against a democratic party. Where's that coming from? We know where it's coming from because the Russian interference, which Trump likes to say never happened, not only happened, but

as being currently prosecuted by this well, a placed department of justice led by Merrick Arland, who was not giving up just because Robert Mueller couldn't find it or whatever couldn't find it. It happened. And now we know it's happened because this is now the second unsealed indictment in the last six months that deals with the Russian interference of the 2016 election. And there was even things in the indictment Ben all the way to March of this year with their involvement. So what we have is a a person who's been

indicted his name is Alexander Victorovich Ionov. It's in Tampa of the Southern dish, the middle district of Florida, federal court brought by the main justice, the Department of Justice in Washington through public corruption and integrity, integrity departments, working with the field office in Tampa, because that's where these people reside. The indictment had already been filed, but was just recently unsealed so that you and I could read about it and tell our listeners and followers. It's a charge under 18 USC 371, which is the catch all claim that the or a char criminal charge that the Department of Justice uses for conspiracy to defraud the U.S. in this case for full and fair elections. And it alleges that this person, Mr. Ayanov, was controlled by the, the department of Russia, an agency of Russia, who is, that is ultimately controlled by Putin.

It's the federal security service of Russia, who pumps money through a guy like Ayanov, who then uses that money to pay legal bills for other people that are Russian that are interfering with the elections here who throws money to campaigns that are false ed fake and false flag if you want to use that term before we talk about Alex Jones later. It's not being led by grassroots Americans. It's being led by Russians who want to sow discontent in this country or as the indictment called it foreign maligning influence campaigns. That's what they group all of this under. And these people are going to go to jail. The indictment talks about the fact that the Russians have tried to infiltrate the NRA. I know you mentioned that earlier. The, uh, very close, he's actually the personal chef or Putin,

but he's just used the con, as a conduit, the funnel money to things that are important to Putin. Um, it was sending money to I and off to, uh, and everything that we've seen in Facebook that's been pro-Russia related to the Ukraine invasion to try to, to try to get people to support Putin, calling the Ukrainians Nazis and that we've seen with the Ukrainian people been pro-Russia related to the Ukraine invasion to try to try to get people to support Putin, calling the Ukrainians Nazis and that we've seen with Twitter trolls and Facebook trolls, that's coming from I and off. So for those people that are saying, what is Merrick Garland's DOJ doing, all the right things and things that Bill Barr's Department of Justice under Trump would never have touched. So back to Ben's favorite, your favorite comment, elections have consequences.

I don't care whether you like Joe Biden or not. I don't care what his current polling numbers are. Look what he's doing at his legislative policy, agendas. Look at the things that are getting past. See if they align with your morals and your values and vote blue if they do. And if they don't, then, you know, don't blame this podcast for the result. If, if the Republicans get back in power, yeah, elections do have consequences. Just look at the judges that President Biden's appointed. And you could one of the most impressive things that he's done is his judicial appointments. And just this week, he announced that he was going to be nominating Julie Rickleman, a US litigation director for the Center of

Reproductive Rights. She was put forth as a nominee for the first circuit court of appeals, which is based out of Boston. And she was the abortion rights lawyer who argued for Jackson's women health organization in the dobs versus Jackson case. And so just an example of elections having consequences, Biden sending a clear signal that he is going to be nominating a judge who will be protecting women's reproductive rights. I also like the fact, I love that appointment. I also love the fact that this week they announced that Garland and Biden are going to be hosting at the White House a roundtable with leading lawyers.

Well, I would love for you and I'd get in that room about what lawyers can do at the state level and otherwise about abortion rights. And they're going to be having this conclave, this blue ribbon panel assembled, because we're not going to take this lying down. And we need to get, you know, listen, as as progressive Democrats in this show, and people that listen to follow us, you have to get ourselves off the mat, dust ourselves off, take pages out of the book of the Republicans that have been more aggressive than we have at the state level, and figure out how to pick our way through this minefield so that there is, at the end of the day, a majority right to an abortion state by state. We'll just have to do it state by state until we

are at one day able to have the numbers back at the Supreme Court and that terrible, terrible decision can be reversed. But that's decades away. We got to do something in the interim. Well, one of the things that we could do that's not decades away and that we can do in the interim is vote blue right now, vote Democrats right now, get a additional senators, so that we could actually abolish the filibuster as it relates to the issue of codifying Roe v Wade. My view is if the filibuster has been eliminated when it comes to the appointment of Supreme Court justices, there is no filibuster when it comes to that. My rule is, and the rule that I want the Senate to adopt is if those justices lie during their confirmation hearings about their position and they take the opposite

position, you shouldn't have to require the filibuster to correct the fraud committed by those Supreme Court justices at the confirmation hearing to write the wrong where there was no filibuster, there should be no filibuster. And one of the things we need is to maintain the house and to increase seats in the Senate. And polling is trending in a positive direction as Democrats have been fighting and fighting for the people over these past weeks like they need to fight.

I wanna talk about a fight going on in Austin right now within the Travis County district court, state court within Texas. And this is the defamation case against Alex Jones. I want to talk about what's going on there. But before talking about what's going on in the Alex Jones trial, I want to talk about one of our sponsors, Slot Omania. This podcast is brought to you by Slot Omania.

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Go to that Slot of Mania on the App Store or Google Play Store for one million free coins Michael Popeye So we got this trial going on in Austin Alex Jones being sued for defamation We all recall with great horror the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting on December 14 2012 and Connecticut elementary school shooting on December 14, 2012, and Connecticut, where 26 people were killed, 20 of the victims were children between six and seven years old, six were adult staff, members, and what did Alex Jones do on his program infowars? He spread disinformation, not only disinformation, but defamed the families, the victims, and said that their loved ones didn't really die and that they were actors, that this was a false flag operation in some conspiracy

with the government, which is just the most horrific and horrible thing that you can ever say to add to the unthinkable tragedy that these families experience. Well, the trial was underway this past week because Alex Jones failed to participate and follow the court rules. He's already been found responsible and liable in the liability phase of this case by by a default. He's he lost the case because he basically didn't show up. He didn't respond to discovery but he has showed up now. So with this trial is all about, he's already been found liable or responsible. So the jury will award damages. It's not like Alex Jones can win the case and be found that he didn't do it. He's been found to have done it already. So with this trial is just about, is damages.

How much money is the jury going to award the victims? And in this specific case, there are two victims, Neil, Haslin, and Scarlett Lewis, who are the parents of a six year old son, Jesse, who was shot and killed in Newton. And their lawyer is asking for $150 million. There's really no dollar amount that could ever bring justice. I think Danielle Hathen and Scarlett Lewis for the loss of their son and the horrible defamation they had to endure. The cliff notes of this trial is Alex Jones

and his team have just exposed themselves witness after witness who have been called to the stand. The producers of the show have testified that. I don't know what they testified to. I mean, it's, it's a bunch of just BS and incoherent. Just craziness. They've testified that they basically, they just find random clips and they like selectively edit it to show things that people aren't really saying. If you play the full clip, the person didn't even say these things. And just to create this false narrative. And then on questioning from the plaintiff's attorney,

you know, basically what they would say is, well, we had to just come up with something really quickly. So we just like set it and they're like, well, why didn't you investigate it or actually tell the truth? Oh, well, we had to just come up with something really quickly. So we just like said it and they're like, well, why didn't you investigate it or actually tell the truth? Oh, well, we had to cut to a break. You mean to sell those diet supplements and those pills? Yes, that's what we were trying to do.

And then a one point, one of the producers for Alex Jones, she was testifying and she basically said that the plaintiffs lawyer and the court was victimizing. The real victim here, number one is Alex Jones, she said, and then it was the plaintiffs lawyer and the court that was to blame for victimizing the plaintiffs in this case. Right. That's quite a lead. So this is a crazy case. First of all, Alex Jones is being, is being, I don't see he's being tried in up stench because he's chosen not to be there. He told the judge he had some sort of health reason why he can't attend this damages trial, but he's been podcasting all along the way, selling his iron supplements. I mean, it's not info wars. Apparently his show

should be called info mercials because it's all bullshit podcasting in order to sell some sort of product. It's amazing, these advertisers are still advertising with him, but he's elected not to go to the trial. It's his own stuff, Popeye. Oh, yeah, he makes it.

He makes it too. He basically has partnerships with the group. He's basically shilling his own stuff. Well, I think we'll just stay with might as touch merchandise. I think I like that a lot better. People seem to like it. It's not killing anybody, which is also good.

So he's not going to the trial and we're in Texas, which has some interesting the jury's able to question witnesses, which we'll talk about in a minute, because already quite, we don't have to wait till the verdict celebration. They're asking questions by notes now, which are giving you an indication of where their heads at. And it's just a spoiler alert. It's not great for Alex Jones where

their head is at right now as a jury. So we've seen some crazy things. Apparently reporters have caught that the lawyer for Alex Jones gave the middle finger to the lawyer for the plaintiffs lawyers while the jury and the judge was not in the the middle finger to the lawyer for the plaintiffs lawyers while the jury and the judge was not in the room. I mean, that's the height of unprofessionalism, I would say. And things like that sometimes slip out when you have that kind of Adamist and ridiculous approach. Sometimes that slips out during a trial.

Certainly, jury will pick it up when they're back in the room. So you will also add some, we also add some mistakes, of course, and open door, door opening, as we like to call it, by Alex Jones's trial team. They opened the door to having the entire 17 minute interview that Alex Jones gave to Megan Kelly back in 2017 about info wars, approach to Sandy Hook, the false flag calling these, um, calling the events, um,

fake stage theatrical, claiming that one of the plaintiffs couldn't possibly have been holding his dead child in his arms because in their view and their interpretation, the autopsy's revealed that they were so heavily, the children were so heavily shot, sorry, to reveal this again today With multiple gunshot wounds by the AR 15 that was used that that he would rather have had the parents identify the children in a different way Rather than have them come down that doesn't mean that one of the plaintiffs is not telling the truth when he said he held his dead child in his arms Which is what that What the info wars people in Alex Jones said so you've got the entire telling the truth when he said he held his dead child in his arms, which is what that,

what the info wars people in Alex Jones said. So you've got the entire 17 minutes in which he also Alex Jones at a very craven and depraved way challenged the victims of the Ariana Grande concert in London, basically calling all of those victims who died there in that fatal shooting, snowflakes, millennials and liberals and who cares about them, just showing you how callous and disgusting and depraved as a person, Alex Jones, is so that jury got to hear the entire 17 minute video, you and I, if we ever had the misfortune of representing him, we would not have made that mistake to have his entire interview because it was terrible for him.

So terrible that the jury came back with a few questions for one of the witnesses that you already talked about. Darya Carpova is apparently a producer of Alex Jones, and they asked the following question. Her the following question. Firstly, do you believe this is a show trial? This isn't a real trial. And she responded partially, bad answer. And they actually came back and said, listen to this one, Ben, I don't know if you caught this. This is a jury question to Carpova. You seem to be comparing Alex's grieving to the grieving of the plaintiffs who lost their children who were murdered.

Can you please tell us how you compare those two things? That's a bad question for Alex Jones. And then Owen Shroyer, God, talk about you. This is like Wacomall. You can't keep these people away. Out Owen Shroyer, who is a host on Info Worlds, who stormed the Capitol and is being prosecuted, was brought in as a favorable witness by Alex Jones to testify. This is the guy who wants Obama lynched, who claims that the, you know, he supports the big lie and

the fraud and all of that. And he came and he's the one that you just testified that you just a podcast about Ben, in which he said, um, yeah, well, we might have gotten it wrong about whether the plaintiff actually held his dead child in his arms, but we just got that information. We had to go with it because we had a break to sell iron pills. And so I didn't have time. So I might have done a, I might not have, I could have done a better job doing the editing and to which the plaintiff's lawyer said, or you could have done your job or a job. You didn't do any job. You just completely heaped more trauma, more suffering on the parents of these unfortunate victims of the shooting. So let's make a prediction here. How big of a number? Do you think this jury is going to award these plaintiffs based on how these questions are coming out and the testimony is the best testimony that the defense can put on. I

assume is Owen Troyer and Carpova. And if this is their best witnesses, how big of a number? Do you think the jury writes on that board against Alex Jones? I think it's gonna be a very, very, very big number. I think they'll probably meet him at the $150 million ask, you know, the formulation of the $150 million number was a bit disturbing, if listen to the opening statement, what the plaintiffs lawyers,

the way they got at that number basically, is they said about, I haven't confirmed these stats, but this is what they said, and I will presume that the lawyers had, you know, who have been very well researched on the plaintiff's side, they say close to 73 to 75 million people actually believe the lie, to some extent that there is a false flag aspect to the massacre as a result of disinfo campaigns that are out there. That kind of dovetails also with the amount of people who voted for Trump and not Biden when you look at those numbers and people who could be convinced of something incredibly false. So for each of the plaintiffs, the way they got it 150 million is a million dollars for all of the people that have been,

you know, essentially, you know, for all the people who have been convinced, 75 million, 75 million, and that's how you get to 150 million. I'm not sure that formulation, to me, I would just let the facts kind of speak for itself, as opposed to the people out there and just say, look at what they've done to this family. There's no amount of money, you know, but to me, this could be 150 million, 200 million, you know, it'll be an eight figure amount that will be a large amount.

Yeah, agreed. So we will follow that up. But one other quick note on Alex Jones, that parent company free speech systems filed for bankruptcy on Friday, which is not expected to derail this trial, but he also said to go to trial in Connecticut on Tuesday, a jury's being selected there. So all of these cases against Alex Jones are all percolating right now. And so that case in Connecticut, that could actually have an impact. And then Alex Jones sued himself as well in another court. He sued the parent company to claim indemnification. And it's not even worth me giving you the legal analysis of why he did that.

But on Friday, he declared bankruptcy for the parent company and then sued himself. So to round out, to round the circle, the square, people might be saying he doesn't have $150 million and he's filing these bankruptcies for all these underlying entities and taking them out of bankruptcy and end of bankruptcy and suing himself. What is the end game of the parents of Sandy Hook who suffered? They're going to ultimately own the assets of Info World, whatever they are, and take him off the air or he's going to have to go back on the

air and some other capacity because that's happened before with media outlets. They end up just owning the intellectual property, the assets, the name of things that seem to be near and dear to the heart of Alex Jones, but he'll crawl out from another rock and he'll restart with, you know, with the ban and money and the, and the stone money and the Flynn money and all the other, and the Donald Trump $150 million money. And he'll get restarted somewhere else, you know, being a huckster for some other product and continuing what he's doing until, until what he does is criminal and he's put in jail. Yeah, that's the sad part that the, the family is not really going to be compensated at the

end of the day. Yeah, you know, they'd be fortunate if they were compensated anything based on the shell game that Alex Jones is playing here. But hopefully, I mean, the Info Wars did make money. I mean, it's made, you know, that the families argue that it's made over over $150 million over, you know, a five to seven year period based on selling all of these, you know, diet supplements and things. And Alex Jones says he doesn't have money, you know, I'm sure it'll be tied up for a very long time. But I hope the families do get some, some money out of it, even though

that won't really bring, you know, do anything that will be substantial or meaningful, but it is good to it's good to see evil people exposed in a court room like that, which I guess is a nice segue into the Elon Musk case. We've talked about in the past the Twitter file in the Delaware Chanceree Court against Elon Musk for a cause of action called specific and for performance to force Elon Musk to complete the $44 billion transaction that he breached. We talked about an expedited trial date that that case is set to go to trial October 17th of this year. The parties have various kind of discovery disputes right now before the court over the scope of discovery before that trial with Elon Musk demanding everything and all of this data and all this information, you know, regarding the so-called bot issue in Twitter

saying that has nothing to do with the underlying transaction. You waive due diligence, that shouldn't matter at all. And so they're sorting that out. But then we learned that Elon Musk sued, we learned this at the end of last week, sued Twitter. He filed the lawsuit, what's called under seal, so that we don't know what's actually in the counter-sued itself. One of the bases of sealing in is that it purportedly contains confidential information that the court will determine if it needs to unseal. But Popak, what's going on there with that counter suit? Well, it really just seems like a kind of

a, you know, the best defense is going the offense or whatever here, but like Elon Musk is going, Elon Musk is going down. He's going down and they're on their back foot because you and I talked last week about in advance of the hearing on the expedited trial, which the judge now set by order on Thursday to be October 17th, over a five day period, basically siding with Twitter about the need for an expedited hearing because of the expiration of the financing commitment dates that Elon has to go through with the deal and not pushing it out till February as the Musk people wanted you and I said and I said to you last podcast what I was surprised by is that they didn't file the lawsuit already counter suit in order to argue for the February

date. I thought that was a strategic error. They're trying to make up for it, but they're still a day late, a dollar short, because she issued her order on Thursday. They filed a sealed complaint, which the judge gets to see, but the public doesn't on Friday. Now, Delaware has a very unique approach to sealing. A lot of states that you and I operate in, including California, New York, there's very little that you can seal.

And there's an anti-sealing sentiment that's expressed in the federal rules about sealing. This should all be out in the public. You can redact meaning you can black out certain aspects of a complaint. You still have to go through usually a federal judge process or match straight process to argue why certain aspects, you know, you're talking about competitive information. You're talking about confidential information. You're talking about confidential information or trade secret information of your companies. Or there's a non-disclosure agreement that the parties have agreed to. And you don't want the public to see certain things. So therefore, the media doesn't.

There's a process for that. But because Delaware is our national business court, they have a unique approach to it. You can file anything and have it in bargoed or not disclose the public for I think five days or so. Then within that five day period, you have to replace the sealed complaint with a public complaint, which has everything revealed in it, or you have to explain to the court why not and there's a hearing over it. So we're going to know really, really quickly. I'm not sure it's going to be in time for the midweek edition of legal AF with Karen Friedman, a Gifalo in me, but certainly by next Saturday, this whole thing's going to be out there. It may be heavily redacted after a court proceeding in the middle.

But I don't think this judge is going to be that thrilled. Maybe they alerted her. I wasn't privy to the argument on Thursday when she issued a order, or if there was even an argument or another zoom because she's recovering from COVID, apparently. But I wasn't privy to the argument on Thursday when she issued a order or if there was even an argument or another zoom because she's recovering from COVID apparently, but I don't think she's going to be thrilled that they filed this last minute. Dodge on Friday, late Friday sealed it and I now I'm sure they're going to reopen and have her re here if she's willing to pushing the case off to February because now they've raised in a hundred and forty-eight page filing, apparently, some more of the same as it relates to their due diligence rights, which they don't have. Their rights to get to the bottom of the bot issue, which they don't have, and other things that go to material, material events, which they claim have happened, which give them a right to walk away

from the deal, which they don't have. So I think the judge is gonna have to look at the 148 pages. You and I will look at it next week and explain what's going on in there and whether it has an impact on the October 17 trial date which she has already set. Now she can double track this. She can say, okay, on the issues that Twitter has raised, we're going forward on the October 17th and on the

issues that you've raised, because I don't see any of them as a defense. We're going to do that on a separate track. I don't think that's what happens. I think she's now going to have to reconsider whether the October 17th date is going to hold or whether they're going to get rewarded on the musk side. We're bringing this last minute, 12 hour new filing. But again, you and I are shadow boxing right now about what's in it. When we see it, we'll be able to give our listeners and followers our own handicap, respect, as a whether it has any impact at all, whether it provides a proper defense to him having to close, but to remind everybody so they don't forget. And so we can hold the ring on this issue.

The issue is as you've laid out then, the specific performance of forcing him to close on the $44 billion purchase. Nowhere in the discussion is whether the $1 billion break up fee is what we're talking about a trial. We're not. We're talking about whether he does or does not have to close on the deal. The $1 billion break up fee is for another day, if at all. What if I told you, Popak, that I've got also an inside scoop here, that Elon Musk is the one of I told you episode of legal AF?

What if I told you that I know that he's going to trial in Delaware in October. And I have some info about that. Do you know how I know that though? On this particular case or on the Tesla case against him. Popo, don't ruin my, you gotta just like, let me deliver it the way I wanna deliver it. Just for future legal AFs.

You can't like ruin the group. But yes, you can't stump the pop off. If you're trying to stump the pop off, it's hard. Well, considering that we text message each other, the documents and info before. It's not exactly the greatest stump in history. But yes, the trial that goes the next week. So October 17th, Judge McCormick in the Delaware Chanceree Judge,

she set trial for October 17th on Twitter. Guess whose trial is the week after? Also Elon Musk. Elon Musk is being sued by a Tesla shareholder based on the 2018 compensation package that Elon Musk gave himself as CEO for $2.5 billion. He gave himself a $2.5 billion pay package for one year as the CEO and the shareholders said it was a breach of his fiduciary duty and the breach of the board's fiduciary

duty. That was previously scheduled about six, you know, for six months. The trial would have already happened. It was actually moved back a few times to that October. Different chancellor, though, right? Different, different associate chancellor. Actually, the ruling denying summary judgment was Kathleen McCormick, right? So same skeptical that this litigation can be resolved based on the undisputed facts. So I'm canceling our argument on summary judgment motion. She added, quote, this case is going to trial. So she's already ruled against must before she's got a flavor of that musky disgustingness. So we will see what happens there.

And finally, Pope, speaking about musky disgustingness, I just want to talk about breaking news from this morning, which was that Matt Gates was heard in an audio that has been leaked. The Washington Post reported with Roger Stone saying that the boss would parted Roger Stone. If Roger Stone basically played ball and not to worry about it, the big boss will take care of you. This was in 2019. Recall, Roger Stone had those back channels with WikiLeaks. He was being investigated as a connection with the Mueller investigation for WikiLeaks releasing all of the information that they did as part of the Russian election interference. And Roger Stone gave a lot

of false information to the DOJ. He was prosecuted and indeed he was parted by Donald Trump. But when you listen to the language that's being used here in this audio recording, it just sounds like a such a mafia boss conversation there behind the stage. One, they're just idiots too again because Roger Stone, he's shooting a documentary about himself and he was on the mic that they were shooting the documentary with. And he forgot to turn it off and didn't realize that it was on and so in this audio recording they're discussing Basically commit a crime and and Donald Trump will you know give you a part of it. I mean These people are the worst of the worst and I want to say this kind of in closing

You know is the following. No look to date, there have been in connection with the insurrection alone, Michael Popack, of over 800 cases that have been brought by the DOJ, and close to 400, half of those have already resulted in convictions as they go through the log and to continue to convict the others, but already from the 800 400 convictions, about 230 are awaiting sentencing close to 200. I've been sentenced. Those numbers are a little off, but that's basically the the best estimate of where we're at right now. And the DOJ is continuing to do its work to build to build its case, and they're doing all the other work we talked about. Vopak like in Diting Enov, the Russian national who was controlling these videos, they're doing all of this work at the same time, but the wheels of justice move slowly,

but they are moving incredibly in the right direction now. And I think this has been a very pivotal summer for our democracy in general. The work of the January 6th committee, you've talked about some of the effects that it has brought, how it's given the DOJ, it's mojo, but it's also given Democrats, it's mojo and not just Democrats, it's given pro democracy, it's mojo, it's really taught pro democracy how to fight back against fascism and disinformation. And to do it, you have to do it with some pizzazz. You have to do do it, you have to do it with some pizzazz. You have to do it publicly. And you have to do it relentlessly. And the

pro-democracy force is introducing bill after bill after bill to help people like our veterans get health care, to help women in their reproductive rights, to help our economy, to reduce inflation, to truly fight for the American people. We've seen that in such an incredible way. And we see from the DOJ to the Democrats to just this pro-democracy movement fighting. It is working. And we depend, though, on you. We depend on you, the listeners, on you, those watching this to be an active part in

this. Our audience, Polpok is expanding pretty rapidly here on legal AF. You figure about 200 to 250,000 people watch this or listen to this on a simulcast. Think about the impact that each one of you 250,000 people can make. If you just impact 10 or 20 other people and they impact 10 or 20 other people. That could be the difference between us having a thriving vibrant democracy or these ghoulish idiots like the Matt Gates and the Roger Stones and the trumps of the world can go back

and bring us down to the depths of depravity and incompetence. It is really truly up to you. So take the passion, take what we give you, take this information and go out there and fight for our democracy. Michael Pope, I'll give you the last word. Yeah, but I'm back. I'm make it easy. Val Demings wins Senate in Florida. Federman wins Senate in Pennsylvania. We win Arizona. We win North Carolina. And we win North Carolina. You don't have to worry about Joe Manchin anymore, because we've got enough votes to not only retain the Senate, but get over the 50-50 hump. And that is looking very, very good. Post-Dobbs,

post-arming our listeners and followers with information so they can debate and convert hearts and minds in the street and get off their couches because as we've said, democracy is a not a spectator sport. It's a participatory sport. It's a context sport. And we're hoping that we're doing our contribution on the might as touch, all might as touch stable of podcasts, including this one. Hey, mansion supported the inflation reduction act after getting the chips plus bills supporting our semiconductor industry. Then we're right to the inflation reduction act. So while people like to criticize mansion, and we've been very critical,

you got to give credit where credit is there was a big move, a big chest move, great work there. Joe mansion. And we obviously, we still need to make great work. Joe Biden forgetting that done. Well, I say goes without saying it goes without saying, Pope, I like spending my weekends doing legal AF with you. I love our legal AF audience.

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