Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Top Legal Experts REACT to most important legal news of the week - Legal AF 9/10/22
Episode Date: September 11, 2022Anchored 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 discuss & analyze: the DOJ and Trump’s “legal team” duking it out (again) in West Palm Beach (FL) federal court over the appointment of a special master for the documents Trump stole on his way out, and the DOJ’s appeal to the 11th Circuit of Judge Cannon’s order as it relates to Trump’s assertion of executive privilege, and staying the DOJ’s and Intelligence Community’s continued investigation into Trump’s possible crimes; another Southern District of Florida federal judge dismissing once and for all Trump’s case against Hillary Clinton and his “enemies list,” with scathing language for Trump’s lawyers to boot; Bannon’s arraignment on new New York state criminal charges for his role in the “Build the Wall” fraud; a Texas federal judge’s new attacks on Obama-care and his ruling that people can discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community related to health care on “religious grounds;” and Ginni Thomas direct involvement in most of the “friends of the court” briefs filed at her husband’s Supreme Court in support of taking away a woman’s constitutionally-protected right to choose, and why that is a big deal; and much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: AG1: https://athleticgreens.com/LegalAF GET MEIDAS MERCH: 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
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Updates on the search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago.
What is the judge doing?
Literally Popeye, what is the judge doing?
What is the DOJ doing?
And what is Trump doing?
We will break it down.
A grand jury in Washington, DC has been issuing subpoenas regarding Trump's pack.
You want to call it that,
and other subpoenas to former top advisors,
like Stephen Miller and Brian Jack
on the fake elector scheme.
A federal judge in the Southern District of Florida
dismissed Donald Trump's absurd and frivolous Rico
or racketeering lawsuit and essentially said as much
in his order and appears that Trump's lawyer, particularly Alina Habba, is going to be sanctioned and sanctioned severely for
bringing the lawsuit.
Steve Bannon is indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney in New York Attorney General in a joint
prosecution for state law crimes for his involvement in the We Build the Wall scam.
And a Trump judge in Texas rules that businesses should not be required to cover life-saving
HIV treatment as part of the Affordable Care Act because their religious views allow them
to discriminate against homosexuality.
How dystopian and sick is that?
And a new report shows that groups connected with Ginny Thomas were involved with the submission
of 51% of the amicus briefs that were submitted to the Supreme Court.
In other words, her radical right extremist husband in support of overturning Roby be way in the dobs case and ultimately the dobs
decision the most consequential legal news this is legal
AF I'm Ben my cell is and I'm joined by Michael popok
Michael how are you doing this weekend.
I'm doing great Ben. It's it's really you ended it the way
we're going to begin it and just this
dystopian view using the justice system as its as its handmaiden as its tool to put together the
this right-wing agenda. You know, we'll talk about Alina Haba who's at the heart of the
motion to dismiss against the Trump Law suit down in Florida and having seen her on television.
We'll talk about that as well.
We know this is all just the charade as a publicity stunt to raise money for the former president.
And we're going to talk about money flow as it relates to Steve Bannon as well.
So let's get to it.
You know, one of the special master selections, we're going to give a more in depth what
this whole process
is even about though, but I want to say this at the outset that the Department of Justice
suggested to be the special master to review some of the documents obtained at Mar-a-Lago
with someone by the name of Thomas B. Griffith, who was a retired circuit judge of the United
States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Actually, a George W. Bush appointee, and he had written a report following the 2020 elections
that basically said and applauded the courts for holding strong against all of the kind of
lies and frivolous attempts to undermine our judicial system.
And it's why we do this show. Our judiciary and our legal system is so important.
It was truly the last line of defense. And it did hold up. So with all the dystopian stuff we're
talking about, those are the attacks from all sides, right? That Trump and Maga Republicans,
let's just call it what it is, are trying to attack and bring down our
Judiciary because it held strong in 2020 because facts and the rule of law prevailed. And so that's why we do this show to show that
Contrast though between this dystopian vision and manipulation of the law and when the law works and how we can preserve and protect
our rule of law. So I just wanted to say that at the outset, when we talk about some dystopian stuff,
the system has held. So let's get right into a pop-up. I could talk about the updates on the
search warrant executed at Marlago. Of course, search warrant warrant was executed pursuant to a valid search warrant signed by
a magistrate judge out of the Southern District of Florida, Judge Reinhart. The search took place
on August 8th. A number of items were obtained in connection with the search warrant. We're
learning that there were about 100 top secret documents, confidential, classified records belonging to the government that were obtained,
thousands of other government documents, which have never have been taken either, and a very kind of small set of
potentially personal documents belonging to Trump and even a smaller sliver of a potentially attorney client privilege set of documents, but under no circumstance, under
no one who is a fair arbiter of the law.
Would you say that in connection with a valid search warrant executed, the individual who's
being investigated for the crimes should dictate how the investigators, how the department of justice and arm of the executive branch
conducts their criminal investigation.
And what the judge who Trump basically tried to forum shop to get, he really sought this
judge out and he's supposed to be a random selection.
You know, we don't know how random it is.
The procedure sometimes for selecting the judge is somewhat cloaked in secrecy, but it's
supposed to be a random selection.
But after the August 8th warrant, he does nothing and then waits until August 22nd, files
this motion for a judicial oversight.
And he's essentially asking, hey, I'm the one being criminally investigated judge, but
basically appoint me to control how the
investigation is actually boiling down, right?
And I want to appoint a special master, in other words, an independent third party who can
review these records.
And he didn't really say this as much, but the judge basically said it for him, made the
argument for him.
And I want an injunction. I want to stop the government from doing its investigation because it would be utilizing
documents, which Donald Trump is claiming it belongs to him.
Donald Trump's never claimed which documents belong to him.
He's never denied that he has top secret sensitive classified records.
He's never denied the recent reports that some
of those could actually be nuclear secrets of foreign countries. He's never denied any
of those facts. He simply said, me, me, me, give it to me. The Department of Justice filed
an opposition and earlier this week on Monday, to the surprise of many, although to the surprise of most people who follow the law,
the judge granted the special master request and enjoined the government.
This happened on September 5th from continuing their investigation, their criminal investigation
to the extent it utilized and used those documents that were obtained, including the classified records,
which is basically an affront to our national security interest and affront to all laws
of criminal justice derailing a criminal investigation.
And so then the ball was in the court of the Department of Justice to respond.
And they filed a notice
of appeal.
They haven't filed the formal appeal yet, but they let the 11th Circuit know they're going
to be appealing judge canons order.
And what they also did, Pope, I can't want you to break it down because it's a very sophisticated
move, a motion for partial stay of judge canons order.
And the motion for partial stay is a very surgical move
and it basically says this, judge,
you're wrong on everything.
So we're gonna appeal your order to the 11th circuit,
who we think is gonna overturn you.
But we know that could take time
and we know that Trump's trying to delay, delay, delay.
And judge, you may be trying to delay.
So why don't we just focus on the 100 classified records?
You want to go along with this special master charade.
It's going to be a waste of everyone's time, but you want to go ahead with it.
Go ahead with it.
We're still going to appeal that because the whole order is fatal and doesn't make sense.
But as it relates to the 100 classified records, those should not be subject to a special master, right?
And those documents should not,
we should not be enjoined from utilizing those records
in connection with our investigation.
And so they boxed Trump in Pope,
because he has to now say,
I own those records or I declassified those records
or say something about that subset.
So she ordered Trump to respond by September 12th there.
She also gave an order, Judge Cannon ordered Trump to respond by September 12th.
Judge Cannon also told the parties to meet and confer on this issue prior to their submission
which took place on September 9th about who they would want to bring in for a special master
and what the procedure would look like
and to give their thoughts on it.
And then late last night on Friday,
the parties filed a joint filing
about their disagreements over who the special master should be
and what the procedures and processes should be.
And the government said the classified documents
should not be subject to the special masters.
Trump said the classified documents should be given to us.
First, we should look at all of the records and then we will tell the special master what
the categories are and then the special master can make decisions and file a report to the
court on which documents should or shouldn't be returned or what the privileges exist
if they exist at all.
So that's the overall summary of where we're at.
Let's delve into some of that pop-up.
Let me turn it to you.
Okay, Ben.
Thanks.
So the way I read the, let's start with the appeal.
The way I read the appeal, they're not actually appealing the entire decision.
They've made a surgical decision.
Similar to what you and I talked about last week on the podcast about, we knew they were going to appeal,
but what were they going to appeal? And in boxing them in, as you framed it, or boxing her in,
they're going to appeal to aspects it looks like of her order, and they're going to give her an
opportunity to fix part of it. They're going to appeal the aspect of her order that says that executive privilege A is
properly asserted by Trump and should be reviewed by a special master.
They think executive privilege is off limits, not something that is properly asserted in
this case over any of the documents and certainly not something that a special master
should be picking through as they go through these documents.
Whoever that special master is.
And also they're appealing the aspect of the order
that enjoins or stops the Department of Justice
and the broader intelligence community, the IC,
which includes the FBI from using the documents,
not just looking at them,
but using them to progress their investigation,
meaning documents lead to leads in investigations,
which require interviews with cooperating
and maybe not so cooperating witnesses.
The way the order is written
and the way the Justice Department has interpreted it,
Judge Cannon's order, they cannot without violating this federal order follow up on leads.
And one of the leads that they want to follow up on with with witnesses, Ben, is whether
there are other classified and national defense and security documents located not just within
Mar-a-Lago.
They're pretty sure they pick that whistle clean when they did the search warrant execution, but at other locations that you and I touched on last week that are in Trump's universe his apartment in New York his Bedminster golf club other properties as properties all around the world. And by using current documents with witnesses,
doing a normal investigation,
you'd be able to find out the extent
of the national security and national defense compromise
that which they are doing as an assessment.
That's one.
The second thing the Department of Justice
told the judge and their filing is you have,
inadvertently you're on purpose, also stopped,
the very thing that you said
that we could do, which is continue a national intelligence, global intelligence assessment
because the same people that would be assessing the compromise of the intelligence and of our
diplomas national diplomacy, international diplomacy, includes the FBI. You can't separate them.
There's no bright line to divide up these reviewers of documents.
And so you may have not wanted that.
And you said that in your order, you didn't want to stop the continued assessment of whether
the national security has been compromised through a national intelligence community.
But you have, by the the way of your order.
So you've got the appeal, which will go to the 11th circuit.
Again, three random judges will be selected, six of which have been appointed by Trump.
We're going to talk about one of them because she's married to one of the special master candidates
that Trump has proposed.
Get to that in a moment. And five of the judges on the panel
are either appointed by Obama or Clinton
or other people that were not Trump, not Republicans.
Comes just to remind everybody, another lesson.
You're one of your two senators, federal senators,
in this case, Marco Rubio nominates someone
and Trump appoints to the 11th
circuit and to all the circuits.
We'll talk about that in a moment.
That's the appeal.
In the meantime, they run back to court and simultaneously file with Judge Cannon as
you alluded to this 28 page or so motion, which asked her to reconsider her order in a number
of ways.
Once it reminds her, you don't have jurisdiction over this matter because the factors that
a federal judge has to apply to insert herself into an ongoing investigation, one that hasn't
yet resulted in an indictment or even a grand jury are extraordinary.
And you judge have not found that those extraordinary elements are present.
You talked about one of them in the last podcast, which is this callous disregard for the
rights of Donald Trump.
In fact, she found the opposite.
She found no callous disregard for the rights of Donald Trump in the execution of the search
warrant.
So you don't have jurisdiction.
And then they go on to talk about is you've done, including in your hot takes about the
ownership, the possessory right of the person has to be present in order for
them to bring a motion of this type and for the judge to find some sort of executive privilege.
And again, they reminded this judge trying to school this judge that Donald Trump could
not possibly have a legitimate argument to possessory rights, ownership rights over classified documents.
So, Judge, we're going to help you avoid a reversible error. We're going to tell you that the
classified documents, including those empty folders, right, those 48 empty folders or so
of classified material, that we don't know where they went. We have to be able to continue to investigate that because those documents, Ben, as they
said in the papers, are not just relevant evidence.
They are the very object of the criminal investigation.
The crime that's being alleged is that he stole the people's documents.
You can't claim that the people's documents are yours and
therefore can't be reviewed when that is the very object of the three crimes that he's being
charged with. And then reminding her of the impact to the intelligence community assessment
that she believed that she was allowing to continue, but that they can't. So you have all of
that going on in the filing. They're okay. And you and I kind of picked up on this last week.
going on in the filing. They're okay. And you and I kind of picked up on this last week. They would, they did, they only, the Department of Justice only got very excited
over not the attorney client privilege stuff, although they think that's a laughable argument.
It was the executive privilege being asserted by Trump and her assigning a special master related
to that. They think that's ridiculous on the, but they're willing to live with a special master related to that. They think that's ridiculous. But they're willing to live
with a special master to let them go through like personal items, like the passport, things
that weren't really, you know, were properly scooped up by the search word execution.
But now can be returned as rightful property, not classified information, not defense documents
back to Donald Trump, as long as those
standards are.
Which by the way, Popok, weren't they doing that anyway with the filter team?
I mean, that's why they don't have access.
They have a process in place that was in the search warrant.
And so for them, it's like, okay, you want to pay someone else to do what we were going
to do anyway.
That was normal procedure.
But yeah, yeah, I know you're exactly right.
And then the executive privilege being used against the executive branch is is ridiculous.
And they and they reminded the judge of that as well. But what they're telling the judge
when you when you strip all this away, that's what we do here. We strip it all away is
judge will live with your order on the special master related to attorney client privilege
assertion and any kind of real
personal items that he owns
That that should be returned to him if they haven't already been but everything else about your special master order is
Reversible error and here's the the repeat reasons why and that will go up to the 11th circuit now
That's the reason why Ben
Some people may be head scratching why are they continuing the Department of Justice to participate in the judge's process
of picking a special master and joint submitting with Donald Trump this eight page thing about
the special master and what the function of the special master would be if they're also
appealing.
It's because they're not appealing the whole thing.
They're appealing a part of it and they're willing to go forward.
So it won't be a waiver of their argument with this other aspect of the special master.
Now let's look at the people that both sides have picked for special master.
Partement of justice picks one unassailable people who have no acts to grind and no political
agenda or other link to the case that would disqualify
them. Barbara Jones, you and I talked at length about Judge Barb former Judge Barbara Jones.
She was appointed by the Southern District of New York to be the special master from Michael
Cohen's materials for Rudy Giuliani's materials. So she is a well regarded respected lion of the bench, you know, X, um,
Lioness of the bench X judge who, um, they said she's done it before.
Let's, let's use her again.
That sounds good.
And the other judge that you talked about, Judge Thomas Griffith, who also has a
tremendous reputation and it just stepped off recently from the, uh,
court of appeals for the federal court of appeals sitting in Washington.
Now, let's look by contrast at the two people that Donald Trump has, uh, selected one of
which I sort of know from working in Miami.
First one is uh, Ray Deerey, who is a recently retired Eastern District, New York, meaning
Brooklyn, New York federal judge.
Ray Deerey has a very good record.
He was appointed by Ronald Reagan.
He's about 78 years old.
But what is the problem with Ray Deerey?
It's that he is connected to Carter Page, who used to work for Donald Trump and for which
the FBI through the FISA court, the the foreign surveillance court that Judge
Deerey had been a member of appointed by John Roberts for about eight years.
There were three different search warrants that he issued based on representations by the
FBI against Carter Page, a Trump advisor and counselor, based on the FBI's allegations and the Department
of Justice allegations that he was a foreign spy working for the Russians and that they had
enough evidence concerning that, using a little bit of the steel dossier, which has now been
discredited.
Probably with the Carter Page event is that the Department of Justice is Inspector General
in doing a review of whether there was problems with those search warrants found that at least
two out of the three were improper and based on an improper basis. They should not have gone
to the FISA court and judge Derry and they should not have obtained those search war and
send the FBI and the Department of Justice sort of conceded that later.
So what do you have?
You have a judge being offered a special master who got burnt twice by the FBI, the Department
of Justice and may have a real John disview of any government position being brought, brought
in front of him despite his route, his otherwise impeccable
record on the bench. I don't think it's a coincidence that he was the judge that got
potentially burnt by the Carter pay. I and Popoq before you do the next one. Yeah. That's
an incredible analysis right there. I had not heard that analysis. Lots of people were speculating
why Deere, you know, Deere's got a record of being a great reputation,
very reputable judge, but they're banking on the fact that Deerey's going to say, hey, you,
I was misled by the government once before. So I'm going to come into this with a great deal of
skepticism about the one. It's a good. Absolutely. Yep. Thank you. And the second one is Paul Huck Jr.
Okay, so let's start with that.
Paul Huck's father, Paul Huck Sr. was my first federal criminal trial that I defended 20
years ago.
It's a well-respected family in Miami.
He is the son of the federal judge that's now retired.
He has had his own nice career as a commercial litigator, as a product's
liability injury litigator and a major firm in Coral Gables, very close to my firm. I know
the guy well through other people. He also served as Charlie Crists when he was governor, Republican
then governor of Florida as his attorney general at that time.
I'm sorry, as his general counsel, so that the head lawyer for Charlie Chris, and he then
went to two major international global law firms. Why is there a taint of conflict of interest
related to Paul Huck Jr. Because he's married to Barbara LaGoa. Barbara LaGoa sits on the 11th circuit,
having been nominated by Marco Rubio and appointed by Donald Trump. Barbara LaGoa,
I'll just say it, had a very good reputation as a Miami state court-level trial judge,
appointed by the then governor to the third district court of appeal in Miami. I've appeared
in front of her in both proceedings. She had an impeccable credential. She's on the right side of the aisle
related to her politics, and she got appointed to the 11th. Now, Paul Huck Jr. It's gets
picked as the special master. And there's an appeal to the 11th circuit. We'll talk about
judges recusing and disqualifying themselves because of their spouses later with Jitty
Thomas. What do you think happens, Ben? Do you think she has to recuse herself if
she's selected? I think that anyone other than the Supreme Court, I think they would technically
have an obligation to recuse if the spouse is, if the spouse comes before you. That's
the canon that that deals with judicial recusals. And as we'll talk about later, when it comes to the
Supreme Court, though, they're self governing regarding all potential conflicts of interest,
and that there is no one who can tell them whether there's a conflict or not, which is one of the
issues of why there needs to be serious reform there. But if she follows the rule of the law,
she should definitely recuse herself.
It becomes in front of her to the extent the decisions being made by her husband go in front
of her or have a potential to go in front of her.
And it seems like to the extent the husband would be appointed as a special master, they
absolutely would because they'd be to the extent decisions are made or could be
made. And one of the things that Trump wants, particularly is the special master to make
determinations of executive privilege, like to just have this independent party make the
balls and strikes on what's executive privilege, not the executive branch. And we're talking
about that. Then that will go to the, you know, we'll agree. Let me bring it. Let me square the circle one more time. Paul Hock Jr. is a member
of the Federalist Society. You can go on their website and he's sitting right there. He's well
respected in right wing Republican and Republican circles. I'm sure the six Republicans who sit on
the 11th Circuit appointed by Trump like Paul Hock Jr. They like Barbara LeCoA. So there's a halo
effect around him. But there is nothing in his background whatsoever as a private lawyer
or as sitting as the general counsel for Charlie Chris that makes him qualified to practice
in this arena of determining executive privilege, or even even having a national security clearance to look at any of the documents.
He is not, you know, I assume those are the one or the two so that she would can and would pick Deary
because Deary matches up better with Barbara Jones and with the other federal appellate judge on the other side.
So if she's trying, I think Huck sort of loses. But I think that may have been done strategically like game theory to get her to
pick Deary. Look, they interviewed Deary before they picked him now that he stepped off the
bench. She just recently retired as a senior status judge. They know what his positions are
in terms of this. And they, they think they found a friend in former judge Deary. And that's why
he's on their list.
Let's, I'm not sure what she does.
I think she stops the whole special master process
until she gets guidance from the 11th Circuit,
but the Department of Justice,
just to kind of end my breakdown of this,
the Department of Justice has given Judge Cannon
until the 15th to do the right thing.
She doesn't do the right thing until the 15th to do the right thing.
She doesn't do the right thing by the 15th.
They're gonna, and stay her order related to all of these things.
They're gonna ask for a stay at the 11th circuit
from the three judge panel that gets appointed there.
So they're kind of given her one last chance judge
to avoid reversible error, fix your order,
stay the aspect of the order that's reversible
or we're taking you up to the 11th Circuit and seeking our injunction there.
It was definitely when I read what the Department of Justice said to the judge.
It was somewhat of a rare, strong, arm-moved to tell the judge like, we're giving you a deadline
judge, but it's because there are unprecedented times with her level of incompetence and corruption
where they said in their motion for partial stay, you're going to rule on these classified documents.
They told her that's normally what a judge tells the litigate. They said, we're going to give you
until September 15 to rule on our motion for partial stay regarding the 100 classified documents
or basically we're going to tell on you and we're
going to embarrass you to the 11th Circuit. And if you think you're embarrassed now, wait until
the motion that we file, which is why I don't think they've yet filed their actual appeal,
because it's so blistering, it will be so blistering and so destructive of our credibility.
I think they want to legitimately give her until next week
to try to reverse course and do the right thing. So she responded to that motion for partial stay,
which was filed on Thursday. And she ordered Trump to respond to that by September, believe by
September 12th. So on Monday, Monday, on Monday, we can expect Trump's filing and now Trump's going to have to respond. What is his position?
Regarding the government saying under no circumstances, can he control or own those 100 classified records?
We got a taste of it in the motion for special master of what he's going to argue, which is
of what he's going to argue, which is he's not going to argue that they are absolutely mine because he'd be admitting to the crime that he stole them number one.
And he's not going to argue what he claims, which has no bearing on the crimes he's being
accused of because he doesn't know what the documents, well, because he knows what
the documents are, but doesn't want that to come out what they are.
He's not going to argue that he declassified the records because if he declassified nuclear
secrets, which he's not allowed to do, in many cases, that's like almost worse, like you
just waved a magic one and you declassified nuclear secrets. So anybody can do a freedom of information act request and just find out our nation's
nuclear secrets. And you can't declassify nuclear secrets. But here's what he's arguing
because it's in the brief in the in the in the brief that was filed last night regarding
the special master plaintiff believes the government's objection to the special master reviewing documents that they deemed classified as misplaced.
First, the government's position incorrectly presumes the outcome that their separation
of these documents is inviable. So they're there. So they're trumps basically saying,
you can't even, we need a special master to look at it because even though the Department of Justice is saying they're classified, you can't believe them
that they're even cl- we don't know that to be the fact.
And he goes second, their stance wrongly assumes that if a document has a classification
marking, it remains classified in perpetuity.
Now, notice there, what does it even mean?
He's not even saying he declassified.
Of course, at some point in time, a document will not be classified 50 years or 100 years
from now, but there are classified documents.
And the statutes and the criminal statutes, he's being prosecuted or investigated under
don't require classification at all.
Oh, and this one gets extra embarrassing.
If any seized document is a presidential record,iff, then referring to Trump has an absolute
right of access to it while accessed by others, including those in the executive branch,
has specified limitations. Thus, President Trump cannot be denied access to those documents,
which in this manner gives legal authorization to the special master to engage in first-hand review.
Talk about gibberish, non-sequitur, and misunderstanding law. He's not the president. It's not president Trump.
He's not the president. And yes, the executive branch is the one who should have it, not the former president who stole it.
It's a total inversion of the law. And if that was the case, then what, all former presidents can go and just steal documents from the executive, but if that's the argument, Popeye, he's
in a lot of trouble.
I agree. And you said earlier when we started the segment that he didn't, the Trump side
didn't do anything for two full weeks. They're not doing anything. Stretch is back even
further. And the Department of Justice reminded Canada of that and they're filing.
He never asserted the executive privilege when he voluntarily or was compelled to respond
to the grand jury subpoena that they used first to get back all of the classified information.
The one where Bob taped up a folder with with masking tape that's at top secret documents and
clothes and said, this is it.
We did it all.
It's all in this one little folder.
You never asserted executive privilege then.
It's a little late and disingenuous to say you think in honesty that executive privilege
applies.
You're so right.
The search warrant was needed because they glide
to a grand jury subpoena.
And in response to the grand jury subpoena,
what would they normally do?
What would you do?
What would I do for a client?
You would say objection executive privilege,
attorney client privilege.
We're not turning over.
Move to quash the subpoena.
And for the judge to, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the
the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the
the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the it a branch as a private citizen. It's just such bad law and we'll see what happens next. So we'll keep you updated. The next filing will be September 12th. The one last thing I want to
point out about the judicial master filing or the special master filing is the government wanted
Trump to pay for it all because he's the one requesting it. And Trump wanted to split the costs 50 50 and
have the taxpayers pay 50% of his bill. That's the last part I wanted to say. Yeah, no,
and now again, I want to just leave it on this judge canon has a primary fundamental misapp
retention of the crimes that are charged in this case and the documents that are evidence
or the object of those crimes. And it's like the old joke about, you know, she got off on the wrong
foot and never caught up, you know, like you're doing a dance choreography and you just start off on
the left instead of the right. And then you're sort of screwed for the whole choreography. She does not
understand. And the Department of Justice has tried to teach her
in three separate briefs,
that the documents that are at issue,
classified documents, these hundred documents
that we've now identified, are not just evidence,
they are the very object of the crime,
it would be like the gun in a murder.
They picked up the gun in the murder, and she's saying, you would be like the gun in a murder. They picked up the gun in the murder,
and she's saying, you can't use the gun
that you picked up in the murder
because you gotta do a special master
and all this other stuff.
The documents are the crime.
The documents are the crime.
So you can't use a special master to go,
you shouldn't be using a special master to go through,
and you certainly shouldn't be stopping an active criminal investigation that has national security
real-time implications with a national intelligence assessment. Stop it in its tracks because
you want to play some kabuki theater of a special master to placate the Federalist Society
wing of your party.
Or the MAGA Extreme Mystery Public and wing who's subsumed all of that.
Let's talk speaking of the mega extremist wing.
A grand jury in Washington, DC has issued Sipinas to mega extremist wing people.
Trump's political action committee, it's called the Save America Pack, which just saying
that name, it's the exact opposite of what it is called the Save America Pack, which just saying that name,
it's the exact opposite of what it is because.
Save America from MAGA.
I mean, that's what we should be saving America from.
And also there been other subpoenas that were issued to Trump's former top advisors who
still work with him.
Steven Miller, who was a top policy advisor, who wrote speeches for him, Brian Jack, who
was the former political director in the Trump White House.
And those grand jury subpoenas, what really being honed in on here by this grand jury
is the fake electors.
And it also appears now more and more about Trump's save America pack, which was basically
used in a similar fashion as the way Steve Bannon, who will talk about shortly
as well, used the We Build the Wall nonprofit to basically grift and steal money from donors,
but ultimately enrich themselves.
But in the case of the Save America pack, to further obstruct the investigation by the
Department of Justice, and it was being used, for example, to pay for lawyers of Jan 6th witnesses,
to try to get them not to testify and to not give truthful testimony and give information.
And that Save America pack that Trump created was created right after the election.
It wasn't like a normal political axe committee, which is like try to get someone elected.
It's a literal goal and objective is to undermine our
democracy. Stop the peaceful transfer of power.
Stop the peaceful transfer of power.
So pop up other than that intro, I gave that these grand jury
subpoenas are out there. What other information can we
gain and why is this big news? Well, you and I have, thanks Ben, you and I have talked a lot about
the fact that we have, we have been able to identify not just one, not just two, but
probably four or more ongoing grand juries led by Merrick Garland's Department of Justice
in Washington, DC again, answering the question from just a couple of months ago. What's Merrick
Garland doing?
You know, he's asleep at the switch. He's not. But there's a process and grand juries are fragile
things. They have to be formed. You have to prepare your case to present it to the grand jury.
You've got to get witness to penis out. And so now we know that there's at least, I think, for
there's one in particular that you've launched this
segment about, which is looking at two things.
They're related, but two things.
The fake elector scheme and the use of the fake elector scheme and other and other things
to raise money fraudulently from donors with Trump's Save America pack, which is not
a political action committee
in the Department of Justice's view,
at least in the target of their investigation,
but rather is a major grift for Trump and others
to get money extracted from their wallet,
you know, take it right out of their wallet
into their coffers to use for these other nefarious purposes,
particularly the, the, the, the,
the stop-joe Biden for being President of the United States or to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
So this particular grand jury has not only focused on, say, of America, but it's also now
subpoenaed at least three people close to the Trump orbit and more.
They always start with the low level White House AIDS who know everything because
they're in every room as of literal fly on the wall about everything and they worry about
their careers and going to jail. So they're good witnesses. So they've already brought in
a whole tranche of lower level White House AIDS. Now they've moved on to Stephen Miller,
if not the most senior policy advisor for Donald Trump for most of his administration one of the he you know
He was part of the
Terrible immigration policy and build the wall
Policies and pronouncements my Donald Trump. They're all they all come back to the dark. Lord of Stephen Miller
announcements, my dad will Trump. They're all they all come back to the dark, Lord of Stephen Miller. The other person is Brian Jack. Brian Jack was the last
White House political director for Trump in the 2020 period. He's also currently a
political director for Kevin McCarthy and the political director for the RNC. So he's
still very high up in Republican circles. They've subpoenaed him to talk about the fake
electors and the save America pack all by this grand jury. And they've also brought in
one of the lawyers that we haven't really talked, we touched on, but haven't talked about it at
length. Ken Cheeseboro was also an architect of the fake elect electric scheme, he's been subpoenaed.
Again, continuing the theme of the department of justice to bring in every lawyer who has
an ethical obligation to ultimately tell the truth and not participate in a crime before
a grand jury.
This is now no less than the seventh or eighth Trump lawyer that's been brought before
a grand jury by this department of justice.
So that's where we are.
Now, one last thing, the grand jury that we're talking about,
the fake elector, save America pack, is being led.
In other words, the prosecutor that's in charge of it
is Thomas Windom.
You and I about six months ago commented that the arrival
of Tom Windom, who is a seasoned, fearless pitbull
of a prosecutor on the federal side, especially in public corruption cases, was not going to be
a good thing for Donald Trump. And now we're seeing the fruits of that because Tom Windom and his
and his group of assistant US attorneys are the ones that are leading on these grand juries.
And he's the one signing these subpoenas.
And he's the one that's intervened even in the Eastman case related to the phones.
So anything related to fake electors, anything related to the safe America back
and Trump is being led by this really amazing fearless prosecutor under
Marik Garland named Tom with them.
A lot of grand juries.
Popeye, how many grand juries do you think are currently investigating Trump related I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna start with the carol and I'm gonna at Mar-a-Lago because that was the subpoena that issued from that grand jury.
We obviously know there's a grand jury here in connection with the Save America Pack,
the fake electors scheme. I think there's just other grand juries in general. I mean,
well, we know there's other grand juries relating to, not even sure if this was included in your
tally, the special purpose acquisition company, Truth, social, their grand jury is investigating that.
What other ones do you think that may exist?
I think we've got the fake, we just,
we, I think we've done a good run down.
We got the fake electors.
We've got the Save America Pack.
We've got other aspects of Gen 6.
Yeah.
And what happened on the ellipse and the rally and all of that,
I think is being handled by another grand jury. And then the one that you just talked about. So look, it's a, it's
a good day for democracy. And it's a good day for as you kicked off this podcast today
about the last firewall against the burn down and the toppling of democracy is a properly
functioning department of justice led by somebody
like Merrick Garland and not Bill Barr. We'll talk about him later. And a court system, though infiltrated
by Trump appointees, some of which, most of which have come out with bizarre activist judge
rulings that have no basis in constitutional law or history, some of which have done the right thing,
like we talked about, Judge Nichols against Steve Bannon in his other case related to the
related to the Jan 6th committee's subpoena. It's the last firewall on democracy. It's the reason
that despots, dictators, and Trumps and MAGA want to tear it down and destabilize it and make and de legitimize
the FBI and the, um, and the, uh, the judicial branch because all dictators do because that's
the first thing dictators do when they take over. They disband the Supreme Court of whatever
country they've now taken over because they don't want judges who follow a constitution
or follow judicial precedent to be stopping them from their evil scheme.
That was why one of Trump's, what he ran on actually in 2016 when Hillary Clinton was
saying to everybody is, look, he's attacking the judiciary.
He'd attack them personally.
He'd give xenophobic attacks on them. And it would
attack the judges by name with Doxam. It's one of the tactics Steve Bannon would use as well,
trying to undermine the legitimacy of actual law and order and replace it with a mega extremism
and corruption. And speaking of Steve Bannon, Steve Bannon was indicted this week in a joint prosecution by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and New York Attorney General's Office for state law crimes based on his involvement in that we build the wall scam had already pled guilty in connection
with the federal prosecution.
Steve Van and was federally prosecuted for wire fraud and other related crimes, but he
received a full pardon from Donald Trump in connection with his involvement in that scheme
on January 19th, 2021.
Steve Van and then filed a motion to dismiss the federal charges, which had to be
reluctantly granted by the district court out of the Southern District of New York.
And she mentioned in her order that a pardon is an admission of the crime.
We reported on legal AF for those legal AFers who are OG legal AFers.
We told you back then that the Manhattan district attorney was investigating
and sure enough the wheels of justice moved slowly. And that prosecution came to fruition.
This week Steve Van and being charged with two felony counts for money laundering,
two felony counts for conspiracy, one felony count scheming to defraud. The allegations are that
Steve Van and basically took at
least a million bucks from this. We build the wall scam where they claim they were going
to help build the wall. And he pocketed it himself. One of the other things to note about
this indictment out of New York is actually, unlike the federal case, the we build the wall
501 C. I'm sure if it's a C4, I think it is, it's a scam. So that's why I like
is it a C4? Not a legitimate, it's not a legitimate C4 was also named as a defendant.
And then Steve Van and was seen surrendering himself and like ranting and raving like a
demented lunatic that he is as he left off. The government's got me on the mega. This
is the mega party. Like that's literally
what he was doing. That's that's where we are with. Maggah dream is that this point Popeye.
Yeah. I like this indictment for a lot of reasons, some of which we touched on last week.
It wasn't just the rubber stamp of the federal prosecution, even though federal prosecutors
got all the way to trial with it. And they could have just said, okay, thank you.
We'll just convert this into New York state stuff.
We'll give it to a clerk over the weekend and we'll just indict him on Monday.
This started with Sivance, Karen Freeman, Ignifalo, our illustrious co-hosts boss.
She was number two there and ended with Alvin Bragg and Latisha James.
And especially as you said, joint prosecution prosecution they issued a joint press release about it
How does that work for those like the inside baseball stuff that we give them?
It looks like it was led by the Manhattan DA's office, but there are criminal bureaus within the attorney general's office at the state level
Public integrity is one of them and certain of those public integrity and other lawyers in the New
York Attorney General's office were deputized, especially as special assistant district
attorneys for this particular case. And then they won't work together. And there's a long
list. Well, we'll post the press release. There's a list of like 30 people between the state,
the New York Attorney General's and the Manhattan DA's office working together on this.
Over the last almost two years to put together this indictment, which is based on New York
state claims and a New York hook.
You got to have jurisdiction to hook like why is it being prosecuted in New York?
Well, of course, they found 11,000 donors in New York state who were swindled according to the indictment at a 73,
sorry, $730,000 worth of donations.
And another, and I found this, I found this interesting because I didn't think there
were that many Republican right wingers in Manhattan, which is a very liberal place.
They got 430 donors in Manhattan for $33,000 to also donate money to this fraudulent pack of,
of, say, build the wall or whatever it was called. So it's focused on New York law and all of the
felonies that are listed there are all under New York law, some of which have counterparts under
federal law and some of them are unique to the New York penal code. The problem, which are major for Bannon,
comes in the form of two people, Brian Kulfage,
and Andrew, I love this name, Badalato.
Andrew Kulfage, both from Florida,
who was a wounded Air Force veteran who led the,
we build the wall charity charity and this guy, Andrew
Baudelotto, who worked with it, have already pled guilty to the very similar federal law
counts declaring, if you will, admitting, if you will, that the charity that ban and siphoned
a million dollars from, it was a fraud. That all the money, or most of the money,
did not go to the building of the wall.
I don't think they ever,
maybe there was a small segment of a phony wall
they put up for fundraising purposes.
But when Steve Bannon stood in front of an audience,
fundraising in June of 2019 and said,
quote, all the money that you give goes to the wall.
That's in the indictment.
That is a fraud because most of it did not go to build the wall.
Millions of dollars went to call page approved by baton.
A million or more went to baton for his personal expenses and lifestyle. Remember that when they arrested
banning on the federal case, they pulled them off of a super yacht that he was about to get
on to party with right-wing Republicans. You know, using, I guess, some of the money from this,
they pulled them off the yacht. Here, they himself surrender because they didn't want, as they knew it was going to
be a circus with him.
They wanted to kind of suck some of the oxygen out of the room for him and just let him
come into an administrative room and and surrender.
So call page and bottle out of bed.
I know if you caught this in the reporting, they already played guilty and they were supposed
to be sentenced on the federal side on the 6th of September.
6th of September has come and gone,
and there's no reporting of them being sentenced.
So I'm gonna speculate here,
based on reasonable opinion,
that they are gonna cooperate
with the state prosecutors against him
and perhaps get some credit
because the basis of their accepting the guilty plea was that the
government, the federal government would recommend a sentence for each of them somewhere for
a call phase between four and five years and for about a lot of between three and a half
and four years.
I think they're going to whittle that down based and the government feds are going to say
in their sentencing memo, they helped with the state prosecution for banning and they should be given additional credit and let's get it down to two years.
But banning is looking at five to 15 years for all of the felonies that are listed.
If he's convicted by a Manhattan jury, I can't stress for you enough, Ben, how liberal
Manhattan is and how much they're not going to. It's supposed to be a jury of
your peers, but not of your political party. And I think he's going to, if they put on a case,
an effective case, which that Manhattan DA's office is very, very good at, I think
Bannon gets convicted of this crime.
This is big news. I mean, it seems like not a week passes where Bannon is not either
indicted or convicted of something, right? I mean, he was just
recently convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress one for not showing up in connection with
the January six, subpoena and another count for not producing documents in connection with the
January six subpoena. He asked for a motion for new trial just last week in front of judge Nichols who denied the motion for new trial. He's going to be sentenced there in mid to late October. And so
a lot of crime by bannond, but a lot of accountability, which I like as well. A lot of more topics
to discuss. We got a touch upon popok right here, the federal judge in the Southern District,
Judge Middlebrook's in the Southern District of Judge Middlebrook's, in the Southern District
of Florida, who not just like dismissed Donald Trump's absurd and frivolous Rico racketeering
lawsuit.
I say Rico, one of the things I should break down is what Rico means and what racketeering
is.
And you could break that down because some people were asking you say Rico, like we know
where Rico is.
And I apologize for that in one of my, in one of the comments. It's, it's true. But also basically the judge retained jurisdiction
to sanction Alina Habba. And Alina Habba is in big trouble for that case. I mean, she's in big
trouble for all of the lies. She's the next gen stupid Trump lawyer like the previous ones have all lost their weight. Wait, wait, wait, I'm, I'm, I must have missed this.
Is this, is this something you want your hot takes or might as brothers,
Jen's stupid loving this?
Is that what you call them?
Yeah, it's, it's just, it's the next
Jen's stupid.
I mean, you had the, you know, you had the elders, you know,
Julia and Sydney Cowell, like they've either all lost
their licenses or just barbed like the boomers.
The boomers.
And now, you know, now Jen, whatever I'm mind, millennials or whatever, and they've come
in and they've go, oh, you know what?
I've seen, you know, the crazy thing is like, if you're a Lena Haba, you saw Giuliani fart
on Jenna Ellis and you saw them all lose their license, you
know, and all of the issues that they're going through if they didn't lose their license.
But a lot of them are being investigated, disfart all of that.
And then for you to go, you know what, that's what, that's for me.
That's what I want is really, really, really, you know, an incredible thing.
It makes a worse almost than the first
gen, the second gen, because watch as the first gen, and then go, at least the first gen,
he was potentially still the president at first, you know, I mean, I mean, I, I, I, I,
the second gen, the word. So this judge, middle Brooks, he's a Clinton appointee, very experienced
judge has incredible reputation in the court. Um, Trump files this Rico racketeering lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and
Mark Elias and Peter Strach and Fusion GPS and James Comey and
basically everyone that he rants about this lawsuit was filed in March of
2022. And the lawsuit looked like his like crazy,
demented social media post. It was like 118 pages.
You couldn't even make sense
of what it was even trying to say or alleged.
Like poorly written no basis in law
outside the statute of limitations.
If you can even construe a complaint
because all this shit he was saying
in this complaint filed in March of 2022,
he was railing about back in October of 2017.
He doesn't establish the elements for any of the alleged conspiracies or Rico claims that
he's making.
He's just using words like wire fraud, obstruction, but like not tethering it to actual legitimate
acts.
And kind of the same rollout for all of these Trump lawsuits that we talk about.
The media covers it as Trump's filing this lawsuit against Hillary Clinton relating to
the Russia hoax, right?
Like total bullshit.
That's how the media covers it.
Alina Habba goes on Hannity and talks about this is the greatest lawsuit we've ever filed.
We're going to win, but what's going on behind the scenes?
Well, they try to disqualify judge scenes? Well, they try to disqualify
judge Middlebrook's and why they try to disqualify Judge Middlebrook's. And this is where this
all ties together. They were trying to forum shop this case when they filed it in March
of 22 to get who judge Eileen. They filed the case in Fort Pierce, even though he lives
in West Palm.
They couldn't make that same filing for the emotion for judicial scrutiny, whatever the
hell they called it for the search warrant, because literally the house was in West Palm.
It just happened to get assigned to Eileen Cannon.
But here they were fishing for Eileen Cannon.
They filed it.
They wanted Cannon, and it just happened to get assigned to Judge Middlebrook's. And. And when it got assigned to judge middle Brooks, they filed a motion to disqualify
middle Brooks to try to get it back into Canon's court and judge middle Brooks in real time
in April before any of this news on the search war called it out in footnote three of his
order denying the disqualification. And he goes, look, I know what you did in this footnote three.
He goes, I know what you did.
You filed in for Pierce because you wanted the judge that Trump appointed.
He was kind of warning us then about this judge and no one really picked up onto it because
we didn't know how corrupt she was until this search warrant occurred in August 8th, but
he was warning us back then.
So he ruled to dismiss with prejudice all of the defendants who
Trump sued in this Rico claim who filed merit-based arguments, either that the claims were barred because
the statute of limitations. He found, yes, they're barred by the statute of limitations. And even if
the statute of limitations didn't barred, you didn't assert any Rico claims. You're just basically ranting and raving and
whining. And this is not a real lawsuit. And in the harshest of terms, he basically said the
judge that this is not a good faith filing. And the judge retained jurisdiction for sanctions
basically inviting the defendants who were sued to go after Alina Habba. Alina Habba doesn't
make her case any better. She goes on Fox last night and basically says, yeah, it was probably
I shouldn't have filed the lawsuit and, you know, you know, and, and, but it was so important
to me that I filed it. But she basically torpedoed herself and put the grenade on herself to
protect Trump. She goes, yeah, Trump told me, don't file it. Don't file it. Like, you're going to lose you. You're going to,
I'm speaking to you, Alina Haba, you're going to lose your law license. Like your next,
like you are an idiot. Like, you're doing this for that. He's throwing you under the bus
in a second.
I think she's been frankly, I think she's been auditioning to be a talking head on Fox
news when her legal career, which wasn't, wasn'ting to be a talking head on Fox news when her legal
career, which wasn't anything to speak up before, goes down and flames off of this.
And they'll hire her, you know, because they're okay with that.
So, so off to middle bro, off to middle Brooks.
As I've said before, like him a lot as a jurist, as an impartial arbiter, my second federal
trial was in front of judge,brook's in West Palm Beach. He comes from a tremendous,
sophisticated commercial litigation background working for a major firm, a well-known firm in Florida.
He's on a saleable. You may not agree with everything that he does, but you know it's done with
intellect and Jude and heft and ethics and integrity.
And so, you know, to a sale him because Hillary Clinton's husband
appointed him in the 90s to sit on the bench in Florida.
And that's the reason I love that footnote.
You just reminded me about in April where he said,
well, I may be a Clinton appointee,
but you're trying to get it to a Trump appointee up, you know, one of my brethren, the lowest senior
person on the Dodon ball in the Southern District up in Fort Pierce. I love that, that, that
fingerwag. And we'll come back to a fingerwag. The judge said, look, I gave you two chite,
two bites at the apple to get a complaint survive emotion to dismiss, which is the fundamental pleating
standard that you have to use in federal court, where you have
to have a short and concise pleating that's supported by law or
a reasonable argument for the extension of law and on predicate
facts that a lawyer using due diligence has developed prior to filing and signing their name
on the signature block. As in federal court, you attest as the judge reminded Lelina Habba and
Ticketin, the lawyer that is a Trump's former classmate at military academy that is co-counsel in the
case who sits in Fort Lauderdale reminded both of them
that you, when you sign a pleading in federal court, you are attesting to its ferocity, to
its merits. And then it's not a meritless lawsuit. We'll come back to that in a moment.
The judge said there's a pleading standard under federal court. You and I refer it referred
to it as the Ashcroft, the Ickball standard.
It's cited in every case I've ever handled relating
to motions to dismiss and it lays out how the pleadings
have to be arranged.
The judge said, I gave you a second chance.
You came back the first chance I gave you,
you gave me a hundred and something pages.
This time you came back with 90 more pages.
So the final picture of this pen, the final amended complaint was
819 paragraphs at 193 pages. Okay, I've been doing this a long time over 30 years. I've
never seen a complaint ever reach 819 paragraphs because it automatically violates the federal
requirement of concise pleadings and summary
pleadings.
And the judge starts off with that.
He said, this is nothing more than a list of grievances and against the long list, like
an enemies list by Donald Trump posing or masquerading as a complaint. He said it is fundamentally a shotgun pleading, which
is violentive of pleading practice. Shotgun pleading means like the difference between
a, just to talk argument here, gun and a shotgun. A shotgun has shotgun shells and little beads
come out and you can just shoot them anywhere, right? And they scatter everywhere. A shotgun
pleading is not precise. It just takes allegations,
reincorporates paragraphs after paragraphs of paragraph having no link to the prior paragraph
and making the judge try to make their way through it. That is a violent of that requirement.
He also said, when I looked at your footnotes and why you have 193 or whatever it is footnotes,
I have no, you know, 293 footnotes. You don't
need to have, you shouldn't have footnotes really at all in a well-planned complaint
and federal court. But if you're going to have them, I went and looked up, Judge Middlebrook
said, the things that you cited to and they either didn't stand for the proposition
that you said supported in the footnote. Like you said, go look at the attorney, the inspector
general's report on page 16. Well, I look at the attorney, the inspector general's report on page
16. Well, I went to page 16 of the attorney general's report. It doesn't even mention the topic
that you're talking about. So they're trying to hoodwink the judge, hoping that he, you know,
faced with this pile of documents. He wouldn't do his due diligence. And he did. He also said,
and even in places where you properly cite to a report or properly cite to like the Michael
Susman indictment, which you love to talk about at Nazim in your complaint, you forget
to tell the court that Michael Susman got acquitted for the crimes that you say are
in the indictment.
And when you say the attorney general questions certain aspects of certain things related
to the Russian collusion issue against Donald Trump, you forget to give the ultimate
summary opinion of the attorney general, which is opposite to what you're pleading in your pleading.
Now, here's the punishment part. The judge, this is my favorite quote in his 60 plus pages, Ben. He said,
it is not, it is not that I'm saying that I find aspects of the amended complaint
to be inadequate in any respect.
I find the amended complaint to be inadequate in every respect.
I'm, this is great.
And in the beginning, he said, reminding wagging his, his finger, which is a pretty strong
and powerful finger when you were a federal judge at Alina Habba and this lawyer Tickton saying, you had an obligation
that I found I am finding that you have violated in terms of preparing this suit and making
it based on merit in terms of law and facts.
And at the end, as you said, Ben, he retains your restriction. He's inviting a motion under what we call rule 11
for sanctions against those two, which can take the form of not
just a sanction of the form of, let's say, attorney's fees
and striking of pleadings and other things against Donald
Trump, but also against the lawyers themselves. And you know,
the defense is all excited and salivating
about filing that motion invited by the judge. And now they're going to add a link to things
like Alina Haba on Tucker Carlson. She was on the other one. She was on the Hannity
in which she basically conceded that the suit had no merit at her own client told her that.
It's just mind-boggling.
So here's the prediction.
They're gonna try to take that appeal
because he dismissed it with prejudice,
almost the entire case.
They'll take it to the 11th circuit,
or back to this 11th circuit again.
We'll see what happens there.
They'll try to take it to the feds,
but in the meantime, that doesn't stop judge
middle Brooks from using his inherent authority on punishment. And so I'm sure in the month
of October, there's going to be a filing you and I are going to talk about where the defense
seeks major sanctions, millions of dollars, potentially in fees, at least high six figures
against the Lena Haba, Tiktok and Donald Trump for
attorney fees and other sanctions related to it.
And the judge will rule on that.
And then that could be appealed.
But it's not going to stop his jurisdiction.
They're not going to, I don't think they're going to stay on that issue at the, at the
11th circuit, if they, when they eventually file it.
Oh, they're not.
And because in this shot, gun frivolous pleading, they sued everybody he had a grievance with.
And there are like 30 plus people. Each one of those people, Popoq, you mentioned the six figure
sanctions. Each one of them will be bringing six to seven figure sanctions times 30. So we're
probably going to see at least 15 or 20. There are some people who are just going to be like to
their lawyers, look, whatever, like that's just we don't even want to be intertwined with this person in anything. So just don't worry about it. Let's let's let's sleeping dogs lie.
But there's going to be a lot of people like I can assure you, I'd be I'd be surprised if this was not the case that Hillary Clinton, Peter, Strock, Fusion GPS, you know, are those types of people are going to file sanctions emotions
and their lawyers probably spend hundreds and thousands of dollars. So she could be looking
at several million dollars in fines, which will likely bankrupt her. We'll be the least
of her problems though going bankrupt, but hey, you know, that's the company that you keep,
they all go bankrupt. Hey, have you visited store.
MidasTouch.com store.
MidasTouch.com get the best pro democracy gear, the best legal a F gear at store.
MidasTouch.com and MidasTouch just got a new Patreon page where you can become a producer of the Midas Touch podcast.
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You always say, how could we support
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to talk about this judge in Texas, Pope, read O'Connor at the outset of the podcast, I think I inadvertently had mentioned and I want a flag at that it was a Trump judge.
It was a Trump supportive judge, but it was actually a judge that was not supported by Trump that was actually supported by,
I believe George W. Bush was in it, but he's become the go to in essence Trump, because, I mean, by the way, you know,
some of George W. Bush's appointments, like we talked about with Thomas Griffith are
okay. You know, and, but some of them took this radical bent. And so for all purposes,
he's a in bed with Trump judge, but not appointed by Trump. I want to make that distinction here.
Can I make one comment before you move on to the substance of the piece?
And I want to make this clear.
We at Legal AF are in favor of a well-balanced judiciary with people that don't have overt
political agendas on either side, and that will properly represent the Constitution, interpret
the Constitution, interpret the Constitution,
and this federal status of their federal judges.
There are plenty of them that run the gamut
from before Trump, that run the gamut
from all the prior sitting presidents
that we've talked about on Carter forward.
That is not the problem.
The problem are the activist judges
or ones that have been activated by Trump and MAGA that always seem
to be on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of the Constitution.
I don't want an entire judiciary filled with Democrats as exciting as that sounds in
some heaven of mine.
That's not what I want either, but I can't have and we can't abide by judges who allow their political
leanings and their fealty to Donald Trump to cloud their judicial judgment and make these
crazy, terrible, immoral decisions that we're going to, like, we're going to talk about now.
And Popok, I mean, it goes back to it like Justice Warren burger, right?
Who was appointed by Nixon, who by all accounts is what like, you know, that was
what conservative was.
I mean, who sat on the Supreme Court.
And he was the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Conservative.
That's what conservative meant.
His view was that the
biggest fraud on Americans was how people said this in a statement that the great fraud on Americans
was the manipulation of the second amendment by the NRA to proliferate guns. And he went through
the second amendment and talked about it says, well, regulated militia. It has the words regulated,
it has the words militia, and the idea that we should just chop off all of those words and focus
on the right to bear arms and basically say militias need to be regulated, but anybody can use
arms, however they want, and we can have AR 15s or whatever weapons of war out there. He called
that the biggest fraud on America, And that's someone who's conservative.
So it's not that like the only thing that's changed here is that whatever that was, that
was conservative in the traditional sense.
And we could all agree on those things, right?
Like there was consensus and we had differences at some points in times, but these were rational
discussions.
And now the discussions though, are these like extremist discussions? These cruel discussions
were mega Republicans and people like this judge, Rita Conner, who essentially are adopting
this mega Republican extremism, Trump judge persona are just making frankly very cruel,
are just making frankly very cruel, like mean, fascistic rulings that just hurt people. Like they want to attack healthcare.
Like they want to attack our ability to be safe during global pandemics.
And they utilize all these religious justifications and all of these things to, at the end of the
day, this stuff can kill, this could kill him.
It could kill Rito Connor and his family.
And it's like that that's why we keep calling it a death call and why it's so
dystopian at the end of the day.
Cause all they're doing is creating this unity in the country and promoting
death. And this ruling is that.
Yeah, we're going to talk about it.
Rito Connor, which we're going to talk about in a second, pen, is so extreme in some fundamental decisions
that he's made in the last year that you and I have talked
about with our listeners and followers,
that even this right wing Supreme Court
doesn't support him and has reversed him
and has admonished him in prior cases
because even they think, you gotta be pretty extreme
and outside the bell curve and an outlier, if
this Supreme Court and it's right wing, things you've gone too far.
Yeah, I mean, he previously ruled in 2018 to overturn the Affordable Care Act.
It didn't go in front of though this current composition of the Supreme Court.
So we're not sure what they would do. But you know, by all accounts, the affordable care act has done a phenomenal justice of making
sure 20 plus million Americans who didn't have insurance now have insurance, but he's
always found ways to try to chip away at that right to health care. And he did this in this horrible decision that just came before him.
And there are really two main facets of this ruling that he just made. And he basically ruled
number one under the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act. A law that was passed in 1993.
And it was passed in 1993 actually to try to recognize the religious practices of Native
American tribes and how they were being discriminated against from their practices.
And so it was a way to try to enhance their ability to exist given the history at issue.
But this has been perverted and twisted in a way to basically say that the free exercise
clause of the Constitution allows businesses and individuals to say, hey, I'm just exercising
my religion so I can discriminate against whoever. It doesn't even have to be the discrimination
can be very subjective, discrimination, irrational,
but hey, I feel this way against a certain group.
So you can't force me to do anything.
You can't force me to get vaccinated.
You can't force me to wear a mask.
You can't force me setting aside vaccinated and mask.
You can't force me to not spread COVID.
If I wanna go and my religion says,
I wanna go here and there, I'm allowed to do that.
My religion says that I can do that.
And that's how they've perverted and twisted
this religious freedom act.
And what they've done on this decision is with respect to prep,
which is a prophylactic against HIV.
It reduces the transmission if taken at the right time by 99% of sexual transmission of
HIV and 75% or 74% from HIV transmitted via objections.
And it's one of the things that were covered under the Affordable Care Act that was recommended
by a specific board, the board, which is known as the US Preventative Service Task Force,
which makes the recommendations of what should be covered and what shouldn't be covered as mandatory things
that need to be covered under the Affordable Care Act.
And one of the things that the judge ruled in addition to ruling that certain companies
that filed this lawsuit, these companies basically filed this lawsuit, Popeyes, and they were
like, we feel that prep promotes homosexuality. And as a result
of this life saving medication, that we think promotes homosexuality, we don't want to cover
it under our plans. And so the law shouldn't be applied to us if that's our view. And the
court said, this is what the judge said, you're right, you're right.
And the judge said that the government
didn't have a compelling interest
in trying to reduce transmission of HIV.
That's actually what's in the order,
that the government does not have a compel,
because the government could rebut the religious interest
by showing their own compelling interest in health policy.
And the court said, no, you haven't showed a compelling interest in that.
But then what the court also said, which makes it extra dangerous,
is that this task force, the US preventative service task force,
was unconstitutional because they said that in order for it to make its recommendations,
its recommendations to the judge
appear to be orders, in which case the president had to appoint the task force and there was
no appointment.
So that could actually not just affect prep, but it could also affect lots of other medications
and life-saving medications. So at a time where Democrats, independents are fighting
to lower prescription drug prices, improve access to health care, Republicans and Republican judges
like this judge are trying to figure out ways to deprive people of life-saving medical treatment
like PREP, and this ruling, which will be appealed,
obviously, by the Department of Justice, has the potential impact, though, and likely impact
of affecting other things that are recommended by this preventative service task force board,
very dangerous, very discriminatory, and again, a mutation of the free exercise clause allowing the free
exercise clause in the First Amendment to be used to discriminate.
Yeah, Rito Connor hates the Obamacare and he is a religious zealot on the right wing
and will not pass up any opportunity
to find ways to allow people to discriminate
against Gaze, LGBTQ plus community and homosexuality
and sex related to that.
There's no other way to put a finer point on it than that.
There's no other way to read his opinion in this case
than that.
The plaintiff in the case, a doctor who brought the case in the name of his
corporate management company, is publicly on record as saying that gay marriage is wicked and evil.
This is the plaintiff and has challenged, I don't want to help gay people and gay men in particular from stopping them
from contracting AIDS during this wicked and evil sex act of theirs.
And it's against my religion.
I'm in favor, apparently, of those people dying during sex and love making.
And Rital Conner said, yeah, that sounds about right to me.
And we figure out ways.
It's almost like reverse engineering.
We've talked about this before.
Let me figure out ways to make it so,
to make it so you don't have to do that.
One, let me attack the committee or the organization
that you talked about earlier,
because I'll find that that wasn't properly appointed.
And so all of their rulings are all of their issues,
all of the things that they've issued are improper.
And then secondly, I'm just going to find in general that this religious right that you
have trumps overcomes any right of a person to have sex with whom they choose between
two consenting adults or more without dying.
And so I don't find that to be a right.
Why is Rideau Connor, why do we know this about Rideau Conner?
Because he already got spanked a couple of times even by this constitution of the Supreme Court,
this group of the Supreme Court, except for, I'm not sure Amy Coney Barrett was yet on.
I'm actually, I think she was. He's the same judge you and I talked about six months ago that
decided that he was the commander in chief of the
armed forces, not the president of the United States under the Constitution, and that he was
going to dictate from his little courtroom and chambers in wherever Texas about which navy seals
could be deployed and whether they could choose to compromise operational power and readiness by refusing to get vaccinated
despite the order of the Department of Defense, the Secretary of Defense, and ultimately
a president and the commander-in-chief, President Biden.
And Reno Conner said, yeah, yeah, I don't think Biden's really the commander-in-chief.
He didn't say this, but I'm going to make the ruling. These people have the religious right not to choose to get vaccinated and they can't
be penalized by the military. They can't be court-martialed. They can't be stopped from being deployed
in overseas units or in military operations. And I'm going to make the decisions. I'm the commander
in chief here, basically, not Biden. And even the Supreme Court, this group, and Kavanaugh in particular said, what are you
doing?
You are a federal judge.
You are not the commander in chief.
You are not allowed to decide who gets deployed and who doesn't get deployed on that.
I mean, even Kavanaugh thought Rito Connor was out of his mind. The Rito Connor goes out of his way to challenge the Supreme Court, even the right wing of it with
his rulings. This is going to go up to first bend, what's our, what's our favorite court
of appeals on the magaside, our fifth circuit court of appeals, which is, which if you thought
the 11th circuit was dominated six to five by
Trump appointees, the 11th is worse. So we'll get some sort of wacky ruling from the
fifth. That's we're not you and I are not going to like. And our followers aren't either.
And then it's going to end up going back to the Supreme Court who will have now I think
the fourth opportunity to validate Obamacare, a medical set of rules of the road about health care
that people have relied on for more than 10 years.
And it's not just the, you mentioned the 22 million or so who got coverage under Obamacare.
We use it unwittingly every day.
I just changed insurance companies.
I have a pre-existing condition.
I have an injury.
They had to cover me and continue with some of the care that I'm getting related to that injury
because of Obamacare. It impacts everyone in every way and to rip that away. It would be like today,
it would be like ripping away Medicare, Medicaid, any other social, uh, student loans, any other social
safety net policy, primarily implemented over the years by Democrats and not by Republicans.
It's cruel. It's mean. It's dangerous. Frankly, it's against the law, but that is who these people
are. And that's why we need to call it out. And speaking
of calling it out, Ginny Thomas and the absurd and brazen conflict of interest that exist
in any other setting, being the spouse of CEO, a judge, she could put in any context who interacts
with the judge or CEO or whatever the context is and who's
become an insurrectionist and who advocates for the overthrowing of the
government. In addition to other very radical and extreme positions like in
this specific case, the overturning of Roby Wade against all precedent with
cases that go before her husband,
that's a conflict of interest.
It's very clear and obvious conflict of interest.
One of the issues is that unlike other courts, the Supreme Court is the only one who governs
their own conflicts of interest.
Without any kind of cannons of law, like they could just make whatever decisions, and there
is no requirement that they recuse themselves regarding issues about their spouses or whatever. They're supposed to
just, we, we assumed, if you're a Supreme Court justice, you have experience and you're
qualified, not so anymore, which is why the Supreme Court, because of the radical extremists
who Republicans put on this court have like very little to no credibility at all. And so we've
now learned through a new report that Ginny Thomas was submitting through proxy groups, which
almost makes it worse because it was trying to be concealed. One was Liberty consulting a group
that she basically shills out access to her husband, but by having a consulting company and basically saying,
we'll get Amicus briefs before before the court. And another radical right extremist
group that cloaks itself in religion that I don't even want to say what its name is because it
gives it credence. But those two groups submitted like 51% or had a hand in submitting 51% of Amicus
briefs before the court in the dobs decision
where it overturned Roe v. Wait, an Amicus brief, which we talked about, unpriorly, Gale
as known as a friend of the court brief, it's just as brief from outside groups or special
interest groups. The courts don't have to necessarily even read it, but these are outside
groups that usually have, usually have experience who want to educate the court on certain areas of law.
And here it's basically the wife of one of the justices who ruled against a woman's right
to choose an overturned rovy-weight, essentially through the groups that she controls or is
affiliated with or has leadership positions telling her husband and her husband's supporters
on the court how to rule.
I mean, how corrupt can you be when they talk about banana republic type stuff like this
is as banana republic as as you get.
It's bananas.
But you it is I know this came out as like breaking news, but you and I covered this very thing about five or six months ago
I actually with you listed about six or seven different organizations that Ginny Thomas either founded is on the board of is an executive of
We didn't we didn't put up a chart, but I listed them with you and I said and they're involved in lobbying
Congress and the Supreme Court through various filings. Um, I think the new reporting is just they sort of put it all together,
pulled the 74 Amicus briefs that were filed before the Supreme Court related to the abortion
right, whether it was in dobs or any of the related cases related to dobs like the Texas case, SBA and
found that 38 out of 74 of them link back to Ginny Thomas.
Now some of our listeners and followers might be like scratching their head here again saying,
why aren't the judicial cannons of ethics applied to Supreme Court just as the way they
are applied to every other federal and frankly state court judge below them.
And are we really in an era where we can just trust them to do the right thing?
The answer to that obviously from the way you've described it and the way we've described
it over all these episodes is no.
And John Roberts had a tough decision before him, but has elected as the chief judge not
to do anything about it.
He gave a speech at every year, he gives this end of year speech,
it's kind of the state of the Supreme Court speech that, you know,
law geeks like you and I listen to in reporters.
And he said, basically, back off, we know we're doing,
we know how to police ourselves, we don't need to be police
by Congress or by any judicial canyx.
We've got this, but they don't have this. And in many ways,
in most ways that are met that matter to us, John Roberts has lost control of
the court. It is spun away from him, both in his ability to influence
decisions and to get them to the middle at least on important fundamental rights issues.
That seems to be gone.
He's lost, if you ever had that power, he's lost that power and his ability to govern and
legislate the ethics of his fellow Supreme Court justices.
We saw he has no power because of what happened with the leak of the dobs decision, which apparently
they're still investigating to try to get to the bottom of who leaked it.
I mean, I can't believe it's taking this long to figure out who gave who took it from
the printer in draft and sent it out to a reporter.
But you know, he said, we got this.
We don't need, you know, I'll open up my own investigation.
But again, there's a, there's a ethical set of reaches that are going on within his and he has to take
responsibility and ownership for this.
His Supreme Court, he's lost control of Clarence Thomas as a trustworthy colleague.
He can't trust Clarence Thomas to do the right thing and to step down and to accuse himself
from places where his wife or he
particularly have connectivity and therefore bias.
And therefore he should be wholeheartedly willing to accept, you know, instead of self-policing,
at least the adoption of a set of judicial cannons that apply to the Supreme Court, whether
you're left, left right or center.
Why would he have checked to that?
Because the traditional view, his role as the chief justice is to protect the space in
the separation of powers, right?
So he views that as the goal, but what he doesn't realize or doesn't appreciate is that not
only has he degraded this separation of powers of what the court is, but the court isn't
an arm is now an arm of an extremist movement.
And the perception of the majority of the public and overwhelming majority is that the court is so far extreme.
It is not reflective anymore of what the American people want.
It's a kangaroo court.
And so those traditional notions of protecting judicial independence and guarding it, they
just don't apply anymore.
They don't apply anymore.
And the same way he's lost control of his court is still what's
informing his kind of weak decisions here to not course correct and take any of the right
actions and to speak out against the court. You know, and it's kind of that obsequious,
you know, weird, kind of Republican thing that we've seen over and over again is that the
moment you like yell at them and you act like a bully
Like they just like give in like and that's why like Trump like being mean and yelling at them
They're like so why'd you do it? And they were like well, he yelled at me and he was mean and mean
And it's like we've seen that a lot of like very credible Republican people who have just gone along with it because they just didn't want drama
They wanted to go to the golf course
or their golf club or play racquetball and just protect the privilege. I'm like,
I will deal with it. It's not serious. Whatever. Yeah. He's crazy. Blah blah blah blah.
But they became complicit with that mentality. And he kind of seems like he's from that elk and
that. Yeah. That kind of skewed week like mindset.
Yeah, I totally agree with you.
I think that he's playing, and Biden was accused
of this politically until recently
when we got to dark Brandon,
is that he was playing from an old school playbook
of unity and I'm gonna be Father Joe, Papa Joe,
and I'm gonna bring everybody together., Papa Joe, and I'm going to bring everybody together.
Now that he's taken the gloves off
and he's really going after the MAGA Republicans,
not just starting with the recent speech,
but before that, Robert's plays from that same playbook.
He's like this gentile judges who have lunch
and putter on the golf screen
and make these amazing decisions together.
It's lost.
Even Clarence
Thomas, the person who's out of control the most, the most out of control has said over the summer
in those speeches that you and I covered, basically the gentility and and amoeiability of the
Supreme Court where a Scalia and a Ruth Bader Ginsburg could be bosom buddies, but not when they wrote their opinions, is gone.
And the leak of the Dobbs decision reflects that.
When we talk about the thief, the wolf in the chicken coop, calling out problems in the chicken
coop, where's Roberts?
Roberts, who again does not want to soil himself um or or soil his hands with with admitting that he has an ethical problem with his current group
and could solve it by adopting judicial cannons that apply to them like that
um is playing playing on a different playing field than the sharp elbowed right wing maga
republicans are playing on and he's losing.
And the one thing that I would add just to conclude
this great episode of Legal IF, though,
is one of the big differences
that you mentioned, Biden and Jintiel and all of that,
what's become clearly evident is that Biden had a plan
and Roberts doesn't.
And what Biden's plan was all along
while he was getting that criticism is to keep his head down,
you know, work in silence, get the work done, and then once all of the bills were passed,
then go out and talk about it versus, you know, Trump would be just like
buffoon out there just saying whatever, you know, we got the work, we've got the results and here are the results American people. So he waited and held the line until the results showed
for it and then went out and talked about it. But Popuck, an incredible episode of Legal
A.F. There was a lot of law to talk about there. I mean, those were big, big, big stories
of the week. It truly is the most consequential legal news of the week. Want to remind everybody to go check out the new Midas Touch Patreon account at PAT
RON dot com slash Midas Touch. It's one of the ways you could become a supporter of independent
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Want to thank you, Popoq, always the highlight
of my week getting to spend this time with you
even if we have to talk about some frustrating legal
opinions.
It's all part of the process though.
And by educating, we can empower and by empowering,
we can secure our democracy.
This has been my cell is from The Minus Touch Podcast.
We'll see you next time.
Special shout out to The Midas Mighty.