Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Top Legal Experts REACT to Trump’s WORST LEGAL WEEK of his life
Episode Date: September 25, 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 at the wheels of justice in “real time” as they analyze and discuss this week’s most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this week’s episode, the anchors break-down: major developments in the Mar-a-Lago search warrant case against Trump, including the 11th Circuit’s overturning of Judge Cannon’s decision; the NYAG’s civil fraud case against Trump and his children seeking at least $250 million and to ban the Trumps from operating businesses in New York; a new federal constitutional class action suit filed against Florida Governor DeSantis for his capturing Venezuelan migrants seeking federal asylum and shipping them to Martha’s Vineyard for political purposes; Trump’s lawyers secret attempts to stop a former White House Counsel from testifying against Trump to one of several federal grand juries; Pillow Guy’s failed efforts in federal court to have the FBI return his cell phone; and a New York judge throws the book at Giuliani and threatens him with jail time, and so much more. Special Easter Egg: New Wheels of Justice LegalAF merchandise is now for sale. 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
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A Week of Justice.
Trump's special master gambit backfires magnificently.
And Trump and his stooge judge, the disgraced Eileen Cannon,
lose in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the special master judge, Deary,
calls Trump's bluff.
Big win also for the Department of Justice.
The New York Attorney General, Tish James filed a massive $250 million lawsuit against
Trump and his adult children.
I always call them the adult children.
Refraudal and business practices.
And the lawsuit would also put Trump and his adult
children out of business if New York Attorney General Tish Jame is successful and I am very
confident that as long as Tish Jame remains the Attorney General she will win this case and I'll
explain why. A class action lawsuit was filed by the migrants who were kidnapped and trafficked by Ron DeSantis
and a criminal investigation has been launched by the Bayer County Sheriff in two DeSantis's criminal conduct.
Mike Lindell and Rudy Giuliani taking big Ls in the courtroom.
And Trump's lawyers were spotted leaving a DC Federal
Courthouse this week and we've learned that's because Trump's lawyers are
asserting various privileges to try to stop White House officials from
testifying in grand jury testimony into the January 6th insurrection. The most
consequential legal news of the week I don't know how you get more consequential
than that.
I'm Ben Myselfis joined by Michael Popok.
This is legal, a F-Michael Popok.
How are you?
I am fired up and ready to go what an amazing set of developments against Trump world that
you and I are going to drill down on and and provide
our analysis during the show.
The wheels of justice turn slowly, but they've turned in the right direction.
And we've been telling people where we thought it was going to go.
I'd like to take some credit, you and I, for the fact that it went exactly where we said
it was, despite some obvious setbacks.
And, you know, the biggest setback was really this judge, Eileen Cannon, this Trump appointed
judge, this Federalist Society member, this really unqualified hack who was doing everything
that Donald Trump asked her to do in the way of appointing a special master, stopping
the Department of Justice from using their own
executive privilege records. They're the ones who have executive privilege, the Department
of Justice. And her ruling was basically like, Hey, Donald Trump can steal top secret information,
just make some vague claim that it may be his without declarations or affidavits or any proof whatsoever.
And that met this incredibly high threshold.
But for her, she turned this extraordinarily high threshold into the lowest threshold
imaginable for her.
It was like, if Donald Trump winds, I'm going to find in favor for forget the fact that
for a judge to exercise equitable jurisdiction
It requires these extraordinary findings to happen. So you and I both thought the DOJ was going to win on appeal to the 11th circuit
You still never know the panel that they went in front of when they filed their appeal had two Trump appointees
filed their appeal had two Trump appointees, one Obama appointee, but in a per curium decision of the court, meaning a decision reached by all three written by all three, a unanimous
opinion, they found that it was self evident. They wrote that Donald Trump did not have
a right to those 100 classified records, which is the only issue that really the Department
of Justice drilled down on
and that they care about because that is at the center of their investigation.
That's what would cause them irreparable harm and the Department of Justice file that appeal
on those issues alone.
The 11th Circuit again founded with self-evident and really wrote this scathing opinion where
they broke down the elements and they were like
any of this analysis alone would show that Judge Eileen Cannon was wrong. But for the sake of
just clarity, we're just going to go down each and every issue and just give a lesson to her
about why she was so wrong. And frankly, a lesson to the public whose confidence in the legal system may have been shattered.
So like in the ruling by the 11th Circuit, they have like a section that just explains almost
like elementary school, like there is an executive branch in the government. Our national security
interests are significant. Since World War One, we've realized that the executive branch needs to have its top secret
classified records.
Here they've asked for their records.
It is unclear what claimed Donald Trump, a former president, could make, nor has he provided
any evidence whatsoever.
Thus, it is entirely unclear to us what possibly the district court could
ever have seen in this case. It was language like that, but they acted very quickly, very
swiftly within a matter of days, basically overruled Judge Eileen Cannon. And now the
Department of Justice there, as a result, has now got their 100 classified records back.
The news is, is that both the FBI is now continuing their criminal investigation.
The Office of Director of National Intelligence is continuing its national security assessment.
And that is now moving in the right direction before going to the special master news.
Popok, what do you think about that ruling by the 11th Circuit, finding that the DOJ one
and that judge,
Eileen Cannon, has no clue what she's doing.
Yeah, I think that they were,
as polite as they could be to tell Judge Cannon,
and under this,
well, I might have to appear in front of her one day,
so I'm being more, I'm being more diplomatic,
that the factors, they basically said she got one thing right
The 11th Circuit and again just to remind everybody this was a motion for stay of judge canons order a
partial motion for stay which the 11th Circuit went out of their way to remind everybody that they were there on one issue and one issue only or two issues
one the
100 documents marked classified shouldn't be with a special
master. They should be returned to the Department of Justice and they should be permitted along
with the intelligence community to continue their investigation during the dependency of
whatever else is happening with the special master. And they're remaining 11,000 documents.
And that was the narrow. You and I talked about a three or four podcasts ago. We knew that
we knew the DOJ was going to appeal,
but we thought they were going to appeal sort of narrowly
in order to increase their chances of winning.
They could live with certain aspects of the order,
even though they sort of rolled up their nose over it,
like the special master, but not over the top secret documents
and classified documents.
And the 11th Circuit said, look,
you got one thing right, Judge Cannon.
In order to have jurisdiction in order to rule,
what's called equitable jurisdiction,
you have to apply factors under a case called Richie.
And you got the factors right in terms of listing them,
but you got the application of them entirely wrong
as it relates to each of the elements.
The first thing, and you and I've talked about this before,
the very first and the dispositive element in those factor analysis that Judge Cannon should have
gotten right, but didn't, is whether there was a callous disregard by the
government in the execution or the obtaining the search warrant and in the
execution of the search warrant. So Cannon, in her own opinion, said she did not
find that callous disregard. The 11th Circuit said Judge Cannon, your analysis
of whether you had jurisdiction should have ended right there. Because if you don't find a lack of
a, if you find that there is a lack of Calis disregard, you really don't go any further with
the other three factors because that one's dispositive. You have to have that one at least plus
a balancing test on the other ones. If you don't have that one, shutitive. You have to have that one at least plus a balancing test on the other ones.
If you don't have that one, shut the book game over. So they're saying in this ruling,
then, that Judge Cannon improperly found that she had equitable jurisdiction to stick her nose
into this process, which she should have left well enough alone, and leave with the
magistrate judge who had issue the subpoena.
And then they went through their own factors,
because they have their own factors as an appellate court,
that they have to apply, and whether they're going to impose a stay,
which they have, of course, and in their ruling.
The other thing I found interesting about their kind of whack of judge,
Canon, was they said, basically, the other, even though we don't have
to go further because there was no callous disregard.
And you found that Judge Cannon.
Let's go through the other elements.
So basically, so we can, like you said, we put you on our knee and we can teach you how
this works for the future.
In other words, let's scare the crap out of this brand new green web behind the ears,
the federal judge about how the 11 circuit works or how it should work.
And they said, for instance, another factor that you needed to analyze was whether the plaintiff
Donald Trump had an interest in the seized documents.
And the 11 circuits that to her in the opinion, how could a former president or anyone ever
have an ownership interest or an interest or a need for documents that are marked classified?
Well, what does he need them for?
And since you didn't find, or you said it was sort of on balance, you know, maybe there's
some things as passport as medical records he may need, I'm going to find the whole thing
appropriate for a special master, wrong.
And then, of course, a reprobial harm is in favor of the Department of Justice and any alternate
remedy that Trump may have at a later point, was also in favor of Donald Trump.
The thing that hasn't gotten a lot of press back before we talk about what's left for
Judge Deerey, where Trump is also having a really bad set of days.
We'll talk about that next with special master because he's still around. He just has a narrower
remit of things that he has to do. The thing that's not getting a lot of reporting, Ben,
I want to see if you caught this, is that canon within hours of the 11th circuit,
slapping her, we're going to wrapping her knuckles, amended her order in a number of significant ways,
which likely kills any appeal that Trump may have, or even the Department of Justice may
have, at the 11th Circuit.
Remember, the motion for stay is pending a full appeal on the issues, but the trial judge
has already fixed the order to take the 100 documents
classified away from the special master to stop him from she had originally ordered him to issue
interim reports about his process. She said, don't do that anymore. And she also amended her order
as it relates to the Department of Justice can now continue to move forward with those hundred documents in their investigation. There's very little left for the appeal. Now the trial
judge has fixed her order. What is the Department of Justice appealing, meaning what is Donald
Trump going to be able to appeal beyond the 11th Circuit to the Supreme Court? So canon,
either because she's too smart by half or because she sees the error of her ways and she wants to be a federal judge for a long, long time in the 11th circuit, I think screwed Trump for any potential appeal. What do you think about that?
I agree with you. I mean, I think in her logic, she did Trump's bidding. She got overturned and that mega fascist world. She can say, look, I wink, wink, look what I did.
You know, I was on the right, I, I, an 11th Circuit knocked me down.
I tried to do, you know, and, and hope that you have, you know, a fascistic country.
But Pope, we are not going to let that happen one bit, you know, and you talked about judge
Deere, the special master.
It's really the worst possible outcome for
Donald Trump right now, because now the process isn't slowed down anymore. He's now has
a special master who he what and fought for. And the special master judge, Deary, was someone
Trump selected. We say, well, why do you select this Trump Deary who by all accounts was a very well respected
and liked and normal judge who was the former chief judge of the Eastern District?
Because Trump was so far down this like MAGA rabbit hole where because Judge Deary
was the issuing judge of a FISA warrant when he sat on the FISA court for Carter page, which had defects
and it based on certain problems that the FBI had when they submitted the application to
Judge Deerey.
In that home bag of world, they figured, well, Judge Deerey hates the FBI now and he's
with us.
He's one of us, which was such a miscalculation because here, this has nothing to do with
any foreign surveillance.
It just has to deal with very basic classification documents.
And Judge Deary is very familiar with classified documents where they belong, that they are
the executive branch.
And he understands the national security interest because he was a FISA court judge and understands
how dangerous it is if you steal those records.
And so before the court of appeal ruling, Judge Deary had held this hearing last Tuesday,
where he was basically like, what do you want me to do with these confidential records?
Like they clearly belong to the government. Like, are you claiming? This is what he said to
Trump's lawyers. Like, are you claiming that he declassified them? Are you claiming these are yours to which Trump's lawyers responded, oh, we can't answer that question. To which
Deerey said, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You appointed me to make these
calls and you don't want to answer my question. Idiots. He didn't say idiots, but he basically
apply. He basically said that. And then what were you going to say, Popeyes, then?
The problem with that is this is where Deary has painted Trump's lawyers
into a corner, which doesn't seem that hard to do these days.
This seems to be the gang that can't shoot straight.
If they are going to file
in response to Judge Deary's question,
something from Donald Trump
about whether he classified or declassified,
he's waived the Fifth Amendment and he's now testifying
under sworn oath about a key feature of the potential prosecution against him. So they're not that
balsy these lawyers for Trump. I don't think they're going to put him in harm's way and have him wave
his Fifth Amendment in order to satisfy the Judge Deere's question. And the problem, as you've noted, is that Trump says one thing on the right wing fascist
media circuit, and as lawyers say, another thing in their filings in the courtroom, and it
all came to a head.
And I know you're going to get there about the deadline that the judge has set about the
issue that Trump has raised outside the courtroom, but not in the courtroom about
whether the FBI planted evidence at the time they executed their search warrant.
You want to talk about that?
And you hit the nail on the head here too, as that implicates his fifth amendment rights
and waving his fifth amendment rights, rather than asserting the fifth amendment rights.
You have the right to remain silent and you have the fifth amendment right not to testify
against yourself,
the right against self-incrimination, which is why in these situations any criminal lawyer
worth anything would tell you to shut up. Stop do not say anything yet alone go on
Hannity and go to rallies and post on social media every single second, because Judge Deerey now issued a case management
order whereby September 30th, he's asking Donald Trump to submit a, Donald Trump himself.
It says a plaintiff must submit a sworn affidavit if he's claiming that the FBI is lying about
the inventory of documents that they obtained.
And so Donald Trump now has to,
if he didn't appoint the special master,
he would never have to go through this process.
And now he has to do a declaration
under penalty of perjury.
Essentially, if he writes that it's accurate,
he's essentially admitting he's guilty of the crimes.
And here's the reason, if he's lying,
he's committing, and if he lies, he's committing perjury. And here's Deary. And if he's lying, he's committing, and if he
lies, he's committing perjuring. And so that's the one element of which, Deary, did I want to say?
It's such a great setup that you just did. Deary basically did the old, uh, what's the,
what's the artful term for this that we learned in law school? He called bullshit on Trump and said,
you know, I've been hearing all this stuff about, you know, you think the FBI, again, this might go back to your Carter page observation that you and I talked
about a few podcasts ago, which is if they think Deary is going to find for Trump or turn
his favor towards Trump because of this, oh, the FBI is up to their old tricks again.
Your honor, remember what happens?
You in Carter page, they don't say it, but it's all implied, right?
He's saying, you know what? I don't want to keep hearing about the FBI and then doing bad things.
You, Mr. Trump, and this has been reported then. There are surveillance cameras throughout
Mar-a-Lago and Trump has gone on television, along with Alina Haba and others who have said they watched the execution of the
search warrant at every place that it happened.
So if they watched it on video, which is now tangible evidence, because the DOJ took the video
also, then how could he possibly maintain that at the same time they were watching it?
They were also slipping in like the old OJ and the glove defense BS about, oh, they
must have planted the gloves, the LAPD, the FBI must have planted all those classified
documents. I didn't keep them in a mess. I didn't keep them in a mess on the floor out.
I'm a very neat guy. I kept my classified documents at a neat order all in my desk drawer
and in other places. I mean, it seems to be his defense. And Judge Dere is quickly
getting to brass tacks here with enough of the bullshit that I've been hearing about.
I'm not deaf dumb and blind. I know it's going on outside the courtroom. You got something
to say in this courtroom about the FBI and their process, then put it in writing and put
it under oath, Mr. Trump. You know, he's never going to do that. You think Trump submits
by the 30th of September and a declaration. Yes, it submitted one declaration in any of
the cases against him, including Tish James's case at all, ever. He always pushes a lawyer
in front of the moving train and says, you sign the declaration. You think we're going
to see that declaration from Donald Trump? It's like a drunk driver telling his friend,
I'm not, I'm not drunk. I'm not drunk. You want me to prove it and then drive who's drunk and you drive to the police station,
open up the door and tell the cops, Hey, I'm not drunk.
I'm not a freaking drunk.
Come on.
You think I'm a giant and drink.
You thought I drank 15 shot?
Like what he just gave a federal judge in a civil case jurisdiction over him to order him
to do things like submit affidavits, which is the like literally the worst thing you could
do in this situation. But that's great for just so what do I think is going to happen
on the 30th? I think that there's a likelihood that they're going to try to extract themselves
from the special master process and say, look, now that that decision's been made with those documents, the issues been
moot because here's the other issues.
Judge Deary set an expedited timeline to complete all of this.
So all of this should be completed by October, including ordering Trump's lawyers to then
submit a one to go line by line over every single document to make the claim presidential record,
personal record, classified, and then to write summaries of them with respect to each of the 11,000 records,
other than the classified records, rather those are removed, but all the other government records.
And then one of the other things that Deary did as well, is he appointed a retired magistrate judge, Judge Oranstein, who he's now making
Trump pay that guy's fee at $500 an hour. And because he realizes that Trump doesn't pay
it. He can't do it alone. Right. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because he realizes Trump doesn't pay his
bills. He's ordered Trump to make raise any objection to the invoice within like a short amount of time, like a few day period. And then if no objections
are raised or if they're overruled and he doesn't pay the magistrate within the seven
days, he'll be found in contempt and sanctioned under the court's powers. But the court
wrote that into the order. I mean, the court knows judge Deerey knows what's going on.
But this is the
worst case scenario. It is the worst thing that you could do as Trump. What he's just done.
Agreed, but answer you didn't you skip my question. Do you think Trump is going to file an
affidavit or declaration himself about the planting of evidence on the 30th? When I've read the order,
evidence on the 30th. When I've read the order, it's that it doesn't say plaintiffs council. So can I see a situation though where the lawyers tried to submit one for him or he tries to make
the lawyers submit one? I think that there's a possibility of that and then you will see like
if they try to sidestep it, but the judges I saw, though, said plaintiff.
I think they say pass.
I think when the time comes, they're not going to file a darn thing.
And the issue of the FBI having planted things, which is complete, bolder dash is just going
to fall by the wayside.
And then judge is going to be like, right, now let's get to your chart that I told you,
you know, this is like, like you said, this has got to be like, right, now let's get to your chart that I told you, you know, this is like,
like you said, this has got to be his nightmare. And the reason that he's been playing with
fire for so long, Donald Trump playing with dynamite for so long. He was the president.
He got away with it. Right. It hasn't completely exploded in his face because, look, he
filed or was behind 60 lawsuits challenging the election. He's got six criminal cases
potentially against him right now. He's got six criminal cases potentially against
him right now. He's got the, we're going to talk later in the podcast about the Latisha
James attorney general civil suit after a three year investigation that just got filed against
him and his children. Or if you like to call them the adult children in New York, he is
you know, but he has, you know, he is juke and move as much as he possibly could
with lawyers like Alina Habba, who literally will file anything under her name.
You know, and he hasn't yet suffered the consequence.
He hasn't been found in contempt.
He hasn't had a judgment against him.
He hasn't yet been convicted, although all signs are pointing in that direction.
So he feels, you know, for him, there's no lessons
that have been learned. And as lawyers, as you said, the synchofants that are around him,
don't exercise independent judgment, which they are required to do by the ethics, the ethics
rules that you and I are under. They don't, they do his bidding. He helps write the pleading
as you can tell by the way they're written. So he said, all right, let's go for a special
master. Work for Rudy. Let's do it here. And then let's, that'll
just delay, delay, delay. And they didn't think through, you know, they're playing checkers
in the department of justice is playing three tier chess. And they just got checkmated.
And they're, and it's going to happen more and more in you and I will have a whole show
about from now until 2024 about everything that's happening against.
Well, and here's the thing with Rudy, the Department of Justice, they asked for the special
master because it involved potentially attorney privilege documents. It had nothing to do with
executive privilege and the Department of Justice wanted the special master. Just one correction
Trump was held in contempt with Alina Habba in New York in connection with the Tish James lawsuit where he
had to pay $120,000 fine because he did not turn over records. One of the paragraphs in Tish James
because some of the personal records that actually may have been obtained during the August 8th
search and mentioned some financial records. And so one of the things Tish James had actually pointed out in her lawsuit was that Trump still may be
in more contempt over there if he was actually hiding potentially financial
records in Mar-a-Lago. And then finally, Trump was able to wiggle out of some of
the stuff in the past because he was a president. And as a president, he was
given special advantages because our constitution
never imagined a criminal and insane criminal. I mean, our founding fathers should have known
that because in the Federalist papers, they warned about it, but they never really thought
that there would be a criminal like that in the White House. And so he was able to do all,
engage in all of this, you know, ridiculous conduct. And so he was able to do all, engage in all
of this, you know, ridiculous conduct. And then sometimes I get asked, like, well, what
do you think? Why didn't he, why didn't anybody like stop him from taking these top secret
classified records back to Mar-a-Lago with them? And the answer is, well, because he was
the president, like, it was hard at the time when you have that power, no one envisioned
that he would actually steal it.
I think what they thought is, you know,
he'd go through the process like every president,
log these things with the national archives,
and then deal with it.
But that's how the national archives knew they're stolen
because they knew the records that were taken out.
They knew which records he pulled,
and they said, hey, you pulled and stole those,
and did you literally think that we aren't going to call you out?
And Trump didn't because he's a criminal, you know, because he that's what he does.
He thought they're being betrayed.
There were lawyers and we're going to we're going to talk about the lawyers in his world
that are testifying it before grand juries in another segment in the podcast.
But but Phil Ben who worked who was the second and Pat Sipalone, tried to be the broker of
the return of the records because Pat and Pat Sipalone and Phil Ben knew that, yeah,
well, there's a difference of opinion on how to pronounce his name, but yes, you can
call it Chippalone.
No, no, no, no, Chippalone.
Chippalone.
Okay.
All right.
Well, we'll leave it at that.
I've seen it pronounced Sipalone by CNN, but okay, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter who it is.
What matters is my point, which is Philbin has been trying to negotiate, had been trying to negotiate before the departure of the president for the return subpoena, which was unsuccessful, and he lied during it. And then
and then the search warrant. And the thing that you mentioned about Alina Habba having filed
a affidavit in response to the investigation that Tish James was conducting. And the attempt to get out from under contempt with the judge is that she swore in her affidavit
that she, Alina Habba, personally searched Mar-a-Lago, including the desk drawers of the president.
Well, what do we learn in the execution of the search warrant? Three classified documents,
three. I would assume handpicked by Donald Trump
were in his desk drawers.
So she searches the desk drawers
and Alina Habba with no security clearance.
Seize classified documents and either just
just ignores them or reviews them
as she's got another judge asking her questions
in New York. I mean,
it just shows you the extent of harm's way that that Trump has put all of these lawyers
who voluntarily take the engagement and get paid or not paid by Donald Trump.
Look, the way I went down was she didn't look at anything, you know, she did. And she
probably called them up. And she's like, just write that, just write this. And she's
like, all right, all right, I'll write it for you. I need anything you tell me, Donald, anything you tell me.
And that's what happened there.
Let's talk about this big blockbuster lawsuit, though, from New York attorney,
general, Tish James that was announced this week.
It's a massive $250 million lawsuit against Trump and his adult children.
There's also other remedies as well, including preventing the trumps from ever serving as a director
officer in any business in New York, again, essentially a lifetime ban undoing business in New York.
It would also stop them from just engaging in any commercial transactions as well for a period of
up to five years. And that $250 million number is a floor. And so it could potentially go higher
than that. Hope I want to hear your take on this lawsuit. But I want to start off just by giving
my view of this. There have been a lot of people like even the New York Times wrote an article that
said, you know, these cases where the underlying allegations involve fraud in valuations
and how you value businesses and because they're very,
their people have different views on what a property is valued at.
It's gonna be a very hard lawsuit to prove
that he valued his property like this.
And it actually wasn't worth that when he made claims
to tax authorities versus to insuring the authorities,
they spaced in different ones to investors and how are you really going to prove that
valuation banks are sophisticated and what you know, you're saying a bank is a victim.
Didn't they give them the loan?
They didn't thought to do the right due diligence and look, is that good point?
Yeah, it is, but here's why Tish James will win this
lawsuit. I'm confident that she'd win the lawsuit. In fact, I would put the odds at 95
percent. She won the lawsuits. And if you know me, I don't think there's really any lawsuit.
There's a 50 50 before a jury. You, that's a good case because you never know what's going
to happen in front of a jury. But as long as Tish James remains the AG, this is why I think there's a 95% chance she's going to win.
Mr. Trump, what was the valuation of your property, uh, Trump towers? I plead the fifth.
And Mr. Trump, what was the valuation of your property and so I plead the fifth.
And Mr. Trump, what did you tell your investors that this property? I plead the fifth. And Mr. Trump, what did you tell your investors
that this property? I played the fifth. What did you tell the state of New York? I played the
fifth in a civil action pleading the fifth allows the jury and the judge to make an adverse
inference against you. Donald Trump led the fifth hundreds and hundreds of times to each and
every question was asked. So the judge and jury
can infer that the answers to the questions that were asked, had he answered them, would have
demonstrated his guilty conscious and would have proved the underlying liability that the prosecutor
authority, in this case, his James is trying to approve. So trying to prove. So from that perspective,
because he pled the fifth, because Weiselberg pled the fifth, because Eric pled the fifth granted
Don Jr. and Ivanka didn't, they actually testified. But the three key people within the organization,
who would be at issue here, you know, pled the VF and to me, that's games that match right there on a case
like this, Popeye.
I don't think I've got to ultimately disagree with you, but let's talk about the law
under which the attorney general in New York, who has broad and unique powers, is bringing
this case. To remind everyone, this is civil case, while the New York Attorney General does have some criminal jurisdiction,
public integrity being first among them.
She is bringing this under her civil powers,
but under broad civil powers, New York has a very unique
statute called Executive Law 63-12,
or what we call 63-12, which was created back when some people know the convention center in New
York is called Jacob Javits, but they don't know why, is because he was an attorney general,
and the law was passed during his tenure.
And what it does is it allows only the attorney general of the state of New York, no other
department, no other prosecutor, no other party to bring a case for what's called persistent fraud or illegality.
They do not, the Attorney General, does not have to show intent, not just criminal intent,
even civil intent for fraud has to be proven. It's not necessary if you're bringing a executive
law 6312 case. So all you have to show if you're, you know,
you're burden, because everybody has a burden
in a courtroom, if you're on one side of the V or the other.
The burden for the New York Attorney General
is to show a significant misrepresentation
or deceptive practices, you know,
and that's enough in front of a jury.
And a jury's gonna have to be well instructed
under 6312 about the powers of the New York Attorney General.
They also have very unique powers under that body of law
to get what's called Discouragement,
which is the $250 million at least number
that you mentioned before.
Discouragement is if a person through their fraud or crime
has obtained something of value, including money that they
should not have received, that can be ripped away from them or what's called discouraged from
them.
It's not a damage per se.
It's an amount of money that they are retaining.
Could be a piece of art.
Could be a boat.
It could be a stock.
It could be cash or any of those things. And they got to give it back and they give it back to the state and usually the state does
something with it like compensate victims. So she's already laid, laid the gauntlet down and said,
we have done all the math on all of your properties without you have overinflated to remind everybody
this came from the Michael Cohen original testimony about the operations of the New York of the Trump organization,
where they would inflate the value of a property and not just by a little, like 10 times,
a hundred times in order to get alone, like Mar-a-Lago, that's worth $755 million.
I'd like to take a load out on that at 80%. And when it's really worth 75 million. And that's where you're questioning,
or where the New York Times has questioned whether the banks like Deutsche Bank, who was the prime
lender for the Trump Organization, and Donald Trump, all those years, are going to come forward and
admit that they were victims of Donald Trump. I don't think they have to come forward, although Donald Trump will likely list them as witnesses
to say, did I take your loans out?
Yes.
Did I repay all those loans?
Because he has significantly repaid all of his loans and anticipation of this lawsuit
being filed so that he's worked on his balance sheet in the last year.
We know how through the fraudulent PAC scam through the sale of property because
real estate has risen to the Biden administration over the last few years and he's been able to
relieve his debt. So he's going to say, well, Deutsche Bank, you gave me the loan, you had your own
professionals, you could figure out whether I was lying or not about the, about the praised value,
you have your own appraisers. And I paid you all back. So who's the victim here? And anticipating that, let's eat your james at a press conference said, the people are
the victim. The public is a victim because it's a amount of money that's available for
lending is a zero sum game. If a bank lends the money to Donald Trump, they don't have
additional money. They're not printing money like the Treasury Department is. They have
a finite amount of money that a bank can lend
based on its assets, its collateral,
the amount that has to keep in reserve
for security and all of that.
So you got your loans, Donald Trump,
at amounts far and excess of what you were entitled to,
you committed fraud, and therefore the borrower
in line right behind you was not able to borrow
the money that they wanted to borrow.
That was legitimate.
And so that is gonna be part of her argument in front of a Manhattan jury, which is going to skew 90%
liberal, 90% against Donald Trump, with a couple of Trumpers sprinkled in for measure. And she
doesn't have to get unanimity in her verdict, because she's on the civil side. Now, one caveat to your 95% prediction rate.
There is a history of attorney generals using 6312 executive law against companies like Exxon
and against, particularly, there's a recent case where Elliott Spitzer, who used 6312
as the sheriff of Wall Street before he had his own
personal problems that led him to leave. Well, eventually he went for governor and left
the governor position. He failed under 6312 against AIG, a large insurance company, and
it's CEO Hank Greenberg and Hank Greenberg ended up suing him. I think they're still in
a dispute over defamation related to that. And Exxon also won at trial against the then not-tissed James, but the then
Attorney General under 6312. So it's kind of mixed results. Now, Tristan Snell, who's a
podcaster now and a lawyer and a friend of your show, the mightest show, might as brother show,
he successfully prosecuted the Trump charity and the Trump Foundation and
Trump University using 6312 and other things. So Trump has lost already under 6312 and other settings,
but I want to manage expectations here. It's not a completely foregone conclusion, even though in
this case, you do have unique aspect that he did testify or took the Fifth
Amendment, which will be used against him.
You know the defense is going to argue, A, the Tis James has an Alfred Donald Trump, and
this is all a political prosecution.
I don't want to get your view on that one.
And B, he didn't do it.
Weiselberg did it.
I just said, you know, like, you know, keep the assets as high as possible, but
I didn't tell him to commit fraud.
And they're going to have to believe that Donald Trump's fingerprints and those of his
children are on all of these transactions enough to hold them liable civilly for fraud and
under executive law 63.
So I, he's going to lose.
I'm just not as 90.
I'm not at the 95% level, but I think it's well above 60% and I would
take those odds against Donald Trump.
The one thing that you said you wanted, my opinion on was whether his defensive that this
is a political prosecution, I think that that is not going to be allowed to go in front
of the jury.
The same way Trump tried to make that argument in the criminal case that the
Trump organization is going to be a criminal defendant in starting October 24th.
The Manhattan DA's office there filed a motion in limine asking the judge to prevent Trump
from saying this was all a political prosecution and Trump organization is being unfairly targeted
and the judge in the criminal case granted that motion by the Manhattan DA.
So Trump can't make, or the Trump organization can't make that argument in the upcoming
criminal trial.
That's coming.
I'm not sure about that.
I'm not sure.
Definitely the dismissal of the investigation, the judge ruled that I'm not buying that and I'm supervising because to remind everybody this is unique.
This isn't like a civil lawsuit that like you and I would handle in our in our private practice where we have a plaintiff and we just get our facts together sufficiently that we're comfortable to file the suit and good faith. This was an investigation that is supervised the entire time by a sitting New York State Supreme
trial level judge. The motion practice that Trump did then, I agree with you, was unsuccessful and
should have been. I have to really look more closely and I'll report it back when you and I next
talk about developments in this case, about whether that is a defense to anything, and whether they're gonna try to now move to dismiss,
not the investigation, but now the filed lawsuit
on similar grounds.
We'll have to see.
I've seen different, you know,
everybody likes to be a podcaster or talking ahead
about legal issues these days, like you and me.
And a couple of them that used to work in the A.G.'s office have popped out, Tristan being one of them, who have said, yeah, I
mean, you know, if you're going to campaign that you're going to take down Donald Trump
before you even see the evidence, you know, there might be some mileage that Donald Trump
can get out, but it's the same judge. He's heard these arguments before to stop the investigation.
I don't think it's going to fare any better, but I think they can raise it again and try now to dismiss the lawsuit. And we know we're going to
see Alina Habba out on the courtroom steps and on Tucker Carlson making some ridiculous arguments,
some of which he never makes in the courtroom about why this case should be dismissed. And the
worst part is, I don't know if you and your brothers talked about it, is the racist
talked about it is the racist social truth thing and social media that Trump did as a dog whistle,
a racist dog whistle against Tish James in his new nickname for her. Did you guys cover that? We did. We did cover that. And then he also claims that Tish James is being racist against him. And, you know, part of my calculation
of the 95% chance of victory also,
as I call it the laws of the law of holes,
which is to stop digging.
And Donald Trump just keeps digging and digging and digging
and makes situations where a intelligent lawyer
could at least create landmines for prosecutors. Trump just moves
those landmines away, straps the landmines on, walks into court and says, and says, basically,
hit me. And if you hit me, there's going to be violence in the street. And that's frankly, what makes him such an unprecedentedly dangerous human being. And when I say an unprecedentedly
dangerous human being, you have people like Ron DeSantis, though, who basically says,
let me see what I can do. I mean, you're doing that. Let me see if I could just kidnap asylum
seekers and engage in human trafficking. And I'll just say I'm the governor of Florida.
And there there should be no ramifications.
And I'll just let Fox News, you know, do the press conference with me.
And I'll say that that's what governors are supposed to do.
We covered this pop-up on the last legal AF when it happened the week before that.
And I was, as I told you, I was seeing Martha's vineyard
appearing as trending on social media.
And I was wondering why it was.
And I read the story and I thought it was like
a disgusting onion type story that was like,
I couldn't believe.
And then I'm like, wait a minute, no,
he sent somebody to Texas who would give out like
food vouchers and then lure them asylum seekers with
fraudulent brochures about what about benefits and jobs and all of these things. They would get
in Massachusetts and then flew them around. What could go wrong? What could go wrong?
And then flew them out to Martha's Vineyard and then just left them there and then just
said see you later with no food, with no direction, with no guidance,
without contacting anyone at Martha's Vineyard, so that they then could basically say, you
know, we're we're owning the corrupt governor of Massachusetts, so they didn't realize
because there are a bunch of idiots is a Republican.
By the way, Massachusetts has a Republican governor who they were trying to go after as a Democrat. But no, it was just people who truly value law in order.
Actually care about human trafficking of asylum seekers and humans in general that that is a despicable and disgusting thing to do.
But a class action lawsuit was filed by the migrant asylum seekers. It's a really, it's a really tough lawsuit to read because as they go
through the factual allegations of each of the individuals and their stories about how they survived
barely the authoritarian Maduro regime in Venezuela, just an interesting tie-in to, you know,
with all of the things that we're talking about. Trump's lawyer on the special master case that Christopher Keiss is a foreign agent of
the Maduro regime.
He had a file, a far application because he gives advice to Maduro's attorney general.
So the person who wants to who wanted our top seeker records, by the way, was a foreign
agent of Venezuela.
And here we have people who are fleeing from the repressive
Venezuelan regime, and you have a Republican governor toying with their lives for a PR stunt.
But these individuals got together. They filed the class action. They have constitutional rights.
They're here lawfully. They are here, pursuing to the processes in place for asylum seekers.
They did everything right until they were kidnapped, Lord transported, um, and shipped to an area
where some of them missed court dates and are now actually having real consequences as a result.
And regardless of their court consequences, they've all suffered gravely from being kidnapped. And in addition to the lawsuit, you have the bear County sheriff.
That's the county that includes San Antonio. It's a democratic sheriff and a democratic district
attorney's office out there in bear County, who the sheriff would refer the crimes to
for criminal prosecution.
And frankly, it shouldn't matter what political party you are.
You should all be against a kidnapping and human trafficking.
But Republicans have once again proven themselves on the side of authoritarianism
and cruelty.
What do you make of this class action?
Laws in Pope.
Oh, where do we start?
Well, it's what we predicted.
A UNI talked about it.
I talked about the 14th of them.
It was probably the way to go to go after DeSantis.
And now he's got, he's got a fight on his hands politically because it looks terrible in
the state of Florida to go after people seeking freedom from authoritarian regimes like
Venezuela.
And Venezuela and Americans,
there are 200,000 of them.
Venezuela and American voters in Miami-Dade and South Florida.
And I can't believe this is gonna
carry any favor with them,
come his fight with Charlie Christ.
He then has three different problems
created by his political grandstanding at the expense of human dignity
and creating human suffering. One, he's got a state senator in Florida who's bringing his own
lawsuit claiming that the $12 million fund that the governor tapped into to pay a right-wing aviation company, a few million dollars for this stunt was in improper use of
what turns out to be when you track it back, federal funds read that to be Biden. So Biden, I'm sure,
and the Department of Justice is looking into ways to either discourage and recover the amount
of money surplus that's federal funds sitting
in Florida that's being used for this stunt, God forbid.
The DeSantis used his own money for this.
So that's one, you got that lawsuit in Florida that just got started and there's going
to be a hearing on this issue related to that, the use of the funds.
Two, you've got the class action that you and I anticipated
in front of a Obama appointee district of Massachusetts
sitting in Boston, Judge, Alice and Burrows.
So we got the right judge, if you know what I mean.
She's already granted the first motion in the case,
which is to allow the three named plaintiffs
to have an anonymity
by being called Jane and John Does
so that they will not suffer the repercussion of Trumpers
and right wing maga going after them in social media
and finding out who they are.
The pleading that you talked about,
which is heartbreaking to read,
because we used to have something called
the golden door into our
country that if you came here and you needed assistance and you were a political refugee,
we would open the door.
You know, it's sort of inscribed at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty with the emolaser
as well.
And that's gone now.
Well, at least it's gone under the Trump days.
And instead you have people, because human being, other human
beings had to execute this ridiculous plan, this heartless plan that, that, um, the
Sanctus came up with. And use, as you said, fake, fake documents, fake folders that looked
official to try to lure them away from federal protection. Let's remind everybody. And this
is a point that's made in the complaint.
Once these people surrendered themselves to the federal immigration authorities,
they are now under federal protection. There's a concept in immigration law called a humanitarian parole, which is what happened to these people. It cloaks people for a time period
while they're in the immigration process
and seeking asylum in this case to have federal protection.
They were lured away from federal protection over to a maniacal state governor who in conspiracy
with this private aviation company, which is also a right-winger and has gotten donations
and given donations to the Santas.
To get people from Texas, people might be thinking already, what does Florida have to do with this?
Nothing. Florida just decided that these were, this is where the props were. This is where the
human props were. We'd get them from Texas because we have a we have a governor relationship with
Avid in Texas. We pull them out of San Antonio. Stick them on a plane, not tell them where they're going. Don't give them food, water or shelter.
Promise them a $10 McDonald's meal voucher and shoes. Literally, this is how desperate these people are that they went anywhere in return for a $10 fast food voucher and shoes.
That's what he's praying on. Got them on a plane, got them away from federal protection and the federal
process that they were in, including court hearings, court hearings and lawyers assigned to them and
dumped them off for political theater in Martha's Vineyard. This is all outlined in the lawsuit,
which we'll post in the legal AF, the legal AF Twitter feed. And the claims are just as you and I anticipated,
fourth amendment violation illegal search and seizure
of a person, whether they are a citizen
or not doesn't matter,
14th amendment to process violation
and equal protection violation.
A violation of what you and I refer to
is the 1983 statute, 42 USC 1983,
which is a civil rights violation, conspiracy, fraud, intentional
inflection of emotional distress, all the things that you think they would be there.
And asking the judge for an order and a junction to stop this from happening and damages as
a result. The suit is against the Santis, the Florida Department of Transportation and its commissioner
because they are involved with the transport of these people.
I think this is a winning lawsuit brought by a very good civil rights group sitting in
Boston that helps people in the immigration process.
And they also raised the issue, Ben, I don't know if you caught this,
that the supremacy clause has been violated
of the US Constitution, which puts the federal government
supreme in the matters that it operates in,
and that it legislates in, which is immigration,
because they lured these people away from federal protection
and humanitarian parole, and put them in harm's way under the state system.
So there's going to be this interesting academic tussle about whether DeSantis violated the
supremacy clause with this ridiculous two smart by half plan.
I have no doubt that Merrick Arlin and the Department of Justice is also investigating, I would stay tuned to see if there is going
to be some sort of injunctive relief or lawsuits filed by the Department of Justice to prevent
this type of conduct. Again, I think that the Civil Rights Division would have a very
meritorious lawsuit. So we'll see what happens there in this class action.
Before you move on, Ben, when you're done, before you move on, I want to go back to one,
one thing we talked about for a point of clarification. Go for it. I got so tied up in the 6312
executive law that I didn't mention the we didn't talk about here that for those that were wondering
what's going on with the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump related to the loan fraud that the Alvin Bragg,
Manhattan D.A.'s office seems to have decided to punt and not go after him.
Well, even though she worked closely with Alvin Bragg, she has declared at her press conference
in a footnote in the lawsuit that her office has made a criminal referral to the Southern
District, New York, Manhattan, which is the attorney general's, sorry, the
US attorney's office for Manhattan and the IRS criminal division related to everything
that she's outlined in her in all of her things.
So if they open up a case, it'll be the feds prosecuting him for things in her civil
case, not the Manhattan district attorney's office.
Popeye, I like how you were not going to leave them hanging. You could have left that part
off.
And maybe talked about it on a midweek, but I'm glad that you brought that up. We still
have a lot to talk about here on legal AF, but I do want to tell everybody about the
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a G1 a try. So Michael and Dell Popok tried to file basically the same motion that Trump did. He tried
to file that motion for return of property.
And it didn't fair to us.
Can you tell us about that, Popok?
Yeah, so yeah, this is the problem when,
Trump tries to open a new avenue of arguing federal jurisdiction
in a subpoena process or a search warrant process, and then
everybody in his world decides that's a great idea. Let's also argue the court as equitable
jurisdiction to override a magistrate judge, and I'll argue the same thing. So, and then
not waiting for the result, which is that it's not fairing well for Trump right
now.
And the 11th Circuit's already ruled that there is no equitable jurisdiction.
So you you've spoken about it.
I don't know.
It was hardies Wendy's whatever it was.
He was at a fast food restaurant.
It was a hardies.
Many thought it was an Arby's, but it's a hardies.
But we know where is the meat.
We know where it is.
But now I learned because Linda Elk can't help himself. And he is LaGarria diaria of the meat. We know where it is. But now I learned because Linda Elk can't help himself. And he has LaGarilla diarrhea of the mouth in his complaint. He said he was
going hunting like elk hunting. Like who cares what he was doing?
The first the first 30 paragraphs of that complaint that he filed like in unnecessary
detail. He joined he woke up. He, got in his car, he drove to
go out hunting.
I was like, what gives it?
I know.
It is just, I have to laugh at that moment.
Yeah, it's, it is just way too much detail that a federal judge is going to have to
wait through who cares about going out hunting and then stopping off at the fast food restaurant.
It's like, you're a pillow guy who tried to overthrow our government.
You were caught leaving the White House with documents that said, Marshall law and a point cash
Patel as the acting CIA director. And you've you've funded all this right wing fascist
disinformation. So yes, the federal officials are going to execute a search warrant on you
when you're saying martial law and overturn the government.
But I thought it was interesting that, you know, just as the white supremacist, the proud
boys, the oath keepers are trying to make themselves, you know, more modern and more approachable,
I found it interesting that Lindell is trying to rewrite his revisionist history about what he
was trying to do. And the way he describes it is not what you just said, which is exactly what he was doing.
He said in the beginning paragraphs of his complaint that all he was doing is that he's
against computerized voting. And he speaks to Americans, capital A Americans, all the time.
And makes videos about it. He's just against computerized voting.
Americans all the time and makes videos about it. He's just against computerized voting.
Putting aside for a minute that this was not only the most secure election in the history
of America from a cyber security, it is because there is a paper trail unlike the old-fashioned
mechanical voting booths that I actually cast my first vote in.
I know you're going to make an age joke in a minute. When I was 18, and I pulled a little lever,
and it put a punch on a piece of paper that was behind this thing.
And then it got collected by other human beings and got counted.
There was no paper trail.
They couldn't say, I voted.
This is what my vote was.
It was just sort of tabulated.
Every, every vote, it was the most votes
in the history of American politics and voting,
where there was a paper trail. And that's a good thing, and that's where computerized
voting, or what he calls computerized voting, comes in.
He says his Miranda rights were violated because they spoke to him for 30 minutes.
I guess he talked during that period about all sorts of things, including his role in
hiding the clerk from Arizona, when people, when the FBI wanted to talk to her, and things
of that nature, false arrest her and things of that nature
false arrest and all of that. But if he thought that this was going to stop, again, we had a magistrate judge, just to remind people of the process in the criminal court system, federal
criminal court system. The prosecutors and the investigators go to a federal judge who's called a magistrate judge who listens to the probable cause testimony
usually by way of live testimony and or affidavits and decides whether there's probable cause to find that a crime has been committed and the fruits of that crime or evidence of that crime are
sitting somewhere that's defined specifically in the search warrant, he, the sitting magistrate judge either issues the search warrant
or denies the government's opportunity for the search warrant
or application for the search warrant, and then it's executed.
And if you don't like it, you can take it up at different times
in the criminal justice process, just not usually when your stuff is picked up
in the execution. In this case, the phone, which apparently is his only
communications device, he has no computer, In this case, the phone, which apparently is his only communications device.
He has no computer.
He does everything on his phone and he wants it back.
So Ben, tell me because I might have missed other than the filing of the complaint.
Is there already been a hearing?
You're saying in which in Lendell's?
Yeah.
It's done.
He lost.
I mean, he lost the in.
Well, that's what I needed to hear.
I knew about the complaint, but I didn't pick up the update.
How did he lose already? The judge in a day said, Lendell, you lost. I mean, he lost the end. Well, that's what I needed to hear. I knew about the complaint, but I didn't pick up the update. How did he lose already? The judge in a day said,
Glendale, you lost. I mean, we're not giving you perfect. And the judge and the judge see
you're learning from legal. I have to. Sometimes the judge I find it so confusing. I have to
come here to listen. The judge cited the 11th circuit case applying those five factors
that you talked about.
Perfect. Perfect.
Perfect. So now, Trump's created the precedent against criminals like him who pre-indipement
tried to slow down the investigations by the Department of Justice. So that was a good
thing that came out of Trump's at the Presidents against criminal idiots like himself.
And then the other update to report, it was
a very quick loss.
That's why you missed it. That's why you didn't hear back because it literally happened
less than 24 hours later by the by the district court in Minnesota. It was like, what are
you talking about, you idiot? You lose. But look, if you are criminally prosecuted, as
you said, there are other stages like you could challenge,
you could file suppression motions in the criminal case, you could claim that certain things
can come in. But this is all pre-indipement stuff. And this is criminal law 101. Did Rudy
Giuliani think, talk about people who you would think would know criminal law 101, considering
that he was the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York,
which always just shocks me knowing what a criminal he was.
That that individual had so much power over the legal system, knowing that it was likely
a deranged person, his entire life.
No, I don't think so.
I got to tell you, I'll stop you on that one.
I don't think so.
I was in New York as a young lawyer when he was here.
I know people that work for him directly
like his right hand.
Oh, man, he married his cousin.
Well, hold on.
Putting aside, you say that?
You say that like, it's a bad thing.
I don't say like it's a bad thing.
I'm just saying there was some red flag.
The Royal family's been doing it for years.
There were some red flags early on.
All right, maybe, but I will tell you people that worked,
I won't reveal their names, who were his right hand,
who when I raised this issue with them,
like, what happened to Rudy?
You worked for the man, and they just looked
at it their shoes, and they're embarrassed.
They think something mentally has happened to him
because he was not like that when he was running that office.
Doesn't matter what he was like.
It matters what he's doing right now, which is where you're trying to go with the segment. So let me show it up.
So Rudy Giuliani owed his ex wife who was married for more than 15 years, close to $250,000.
She sued him. They entered into a settlement in 2019, were based on the settlement. This was
money that he owed her. And there were a payment schedule.
He missed the payment schedule. She showed up in court. She had a file like a lawsuit in August
second. He paid her back 45k of it. So it was about 215,000 more dollars that were owed.
She shows up in court last week. Rudy Giuliani's a no show. The court finds Rudy Giuliani in contempt.
week Rudy Giuliani's a no show. The court finds Rudy Giuliani in contempt orders him to make the payment forth with. It's a default judgment against Rudy Giuliani and finds that if you don't
pay her immediately, he said the judge said, reluctantly, I'm going to have no other choice,
but to send you to prison if you don't pay her. And I think that's where it is headed. But you know, here's someone who he didn't even show up to the courthouse on a default judgment
to make any arguments. And he's been going on TV shows and claiming that she's a liar
in this and that. But then in the courtroom, he doesn't even show up. And so a big L for him, but again, like not even going kind of speaks to like a
pro-say lit again, who just doesn't know what they're doing or, you know, or is just trying
to give the F you to the court. But, you know, so be it. That's, that's,
well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you a couple of things. One, it's not a total shock because you and
I recorded a year ago that he failed to participate in the process
related to his law license in New York being pulled from him.
He didn't file anything with the first apartment,
which is the court division that regulates lawyers
who are admitted in Manhattan like I am,
and the way Rudy is, he didn't even bother to participate.
He just let us law license something I'm sure he was proud of
and work very hard for just go out the window like it was,
you know, not of a concern to him.
He's just completely lost it when it comes to proper decorum
and ethics and professionalism.
Judge Katz, who's the judge in the family law case
that you just talked about,
I know Judge Katz have appeared in front of him before.
He is a no nonsense, very respected judge
who operates in the, you know,
this kind of divorce court world in New York,
which can be very high end
because there's a lot of rich people here,
a lot of celebrity people here.
So he's used to having all different types of people, different walks of life in front
of him, but he does not brook fools well.
And if you don't do what he, what he has ordered you to do, at the time that he's ordered
you to do it, he has no problem throwing the book at you.
I had a zoom hearing with him on behalf of a client where the other side, you know,
sort of didn't color within the lines
if you know what I mean.
And he was not happy about it
and had no problem telling them to get that fixed ASAP
or there's gonna be major repercussions.
If he's reached this point with Rudy,
it's because there's been a series of orders
that Rudy has missed
and leaving the judge with no choice but to do this.
But this is just yet another example of his contemptuous,
Rudy's contemptuous behavior towards the judicial system
that he, where he once plied his trade.
It is, if it wasn't negatively impacting America
and democracy as much as it is, it would be
a very sad fall from grace that we would be commenting on.
But because he's a total, you know what?
And support Donald Trump in the courthouse and is, you know, I can't have any empathy
or sympathy for him.
And this was not his cousin.
This was Judith Giuliani, not the cousin.
He doesn't always marry his cousin, but he doesn't always marry. This is Judith Giuliani, not the guy. He doesn't always marry his cousin, but
he doesn't always marry. This is you. The Giuliani. And then let's just chat about Trump's lawyers.
They were spotted leaving the DC Federal Courthouse where the grand jury meets. We know that there's
a number of grand juries investigating Donald Trump for conduct relating to the January 6th
in Syracon. And what we've learned is that the reason that Trump's lawyers were there
was because they are interposing a lot of objections and saying that certain witnesses,
for example, Eric Hirschman, the outspoken in-house White House lawyer who's spoken out against the
clown show lawyers as he likes to refer to them as on the January 6th hearings, but like a certain
executive privilege, attorney client privilege, and trying to prevent people in the White House from
offering testimony. Now, we've talked a lot about privilege claims here on the MidasTouch podcast
and on legal AF. And so these privilege claims are ways to say
that there are certain communications
that simply are not allowed to,
not only not go into the courtroom during a litigation,
but can't even get discovered.
And there are sometimes reasons why you have,
these privileges, for example,
attorney client privilege,
the advice that attorneys and clients give each other are confidential. And if you can't tell your attorney things, then
it could chill the very essence of you having constitutional rights to lawyers or to or to
even get a lawyer in the first place to represent your interests. But all privileges usually
have some exceptions and certain privileges have more exceptions
than others.
But like with the attorney client privilege, you can't engage in criminal conduct with
the attorney.
And even if the attorney doesn't know that there's criminal conduct, but is being used as
a prop for criminal conduct, but the attorney can't be your proxy to further have crimes.
However, that goes about.
And that's remember the case out in the central district of California
Where a federal judge judge David Carter found that there was that exception the crime fraud
exception to John Eastman who said that he was Trump's lawyer
tried to make an attorney client privilege objection and
Judge Carter said no, that wasn't an attorney client relationship.
That was a coup in search of a legal theory. And I find more likely than not that you both were
co-conspirators engaged in criminal conduct on January 6. So surely, with respect to attorney
client privilege claims, the Department of Justice is going to be citing Judge Carter and making
the crime fraud exception argument. Another basis of waiver
of attorney client privilege, as if you speak about it outside of the attorney client relationship,
if you tell third parties, if you publish it in books, if you give interviews about it,
if you talk about it at rallies, that waves the confidential relationship, if you're talking about
it publicly. And then with respect to the executive privilege claims, as you know,
now by watching these episodes of Legal AF over and over again, executive privilege claims
the ability to assert that is with the current executive, not the past executive. And there
have the only real exception to that, though, is anbranch disputes where like there's a dispute between a former president
and Congress, but even there, it could be overcome by an extraordinary need for it. But here,
you have the executive branch, the Department of Justice seeking its own executive branch
information. And so that's undoubtedly what the Department of Justice is raising there that these Nixon
versus GSA and Nixon line of cases that hold that executive privilege is not with the former
president.
So, but we're at a point though where there's likely motion practice that has already
take place or will be taking place with the Department of Justice seeking to compel testimony.
We don't know any of this that's going on because there is something called grand jury secrecy. And because of the grand
jury secrecy, all of all of the filings and all of the things taking place in those proceedings
are going on. What's called under seal and confidential. Now the Mara Lago case, you're
at wise that public. Well, Trump made it public. He filed
the lawsuit for the special master. Otherwise, those grand jury proceedings and those filings
likely would have all been under seal as well. And they would have been confidential except
for Trump making it a public issue. He has not made these January 6th public issues yet,
even though he talks about him publicly,
but in terms of making any filing, there is no lawsuit like a public lawsuit yet.
But those grand juries are moving, again, wheels of justice are moving in the right direction.
They're heating up. Sipinas are flying to Trump's inner circle, but that's my update on the lawyer-spotted leaving
DC Federal Court as public.
Yeah.
So here's what we know from, I think, CNN breaking the story.
Eric Hirschman, everybody knows he's my favorite former Trump White House counsel.
He of the one where when John Eastman, which was, is the lawyer, former lawyer, strategist
of the fake electors and other things that's
before your judge Carter that you referenced when Eastman called him up and gave Hirschman
who worked in Pat Sipalone, Sipalone's White House Council's office and said,
here's my cock and baby theory about how we can avoid turning over power to Joe Biden, Eric Hirschman eloquently said,
basically that's Kuku. And the next f-ing thing I want to hear out of your mouth is peaceful transfer of power. Say it, any made-eat-eat-eat-eat-eat, and then he said,
and you need a really good criminal defense lawyer and hung up on him. Eric Hirschman got called to
the grand jury. We already know the Pat Sipolloni testified to the grand jury.
Just as he testified to the chance six committee, we know that Philbin, his number two, also a lawyer
for Donald Trump as president in the White House Council's office testified to the grand jury.
And apparently Eric Hirschman got a grand jury subpoena to do the same thing. He reached out to the
lawyers representing Donald Trump, this case Eric Corcoran and a couple
of others and said, what do you want me to do?
Are you guys going to intervene and argue that there's some sort of privilege?
Because if there's not, I can read between the lines here.
I'm just going to testify.
And they said, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Well, we're going to jump in.
Now, I don't know Ben, and it hasn't been reported whether they quote-unquote jumped in
and intervened
before Pat Sipolloni already gave his testimony.
It sounds like we have a waiver issue.
We have two lawyers and probably a third have already gone in and already testified and
they sat on the sidelines much as Trump sat on the sidelines and did not intervene in
the judge Carter case with Eastman and say, because as we always say in the business,
the privilege belongs to the client.
If it's the attorney client privilege,
it doesn't belong to the lawyer.
The client has the way of the privilege, not the lawyer.
So oftentimes a client will intervene in a matter
involving his current or former lawyer
and say, the privilege is mine and I didn't wave it.
They stat on the sidelines during the entire easement process
and Judge Carter made his findings the way that you've put
in this podcast again.
Here, it looks like they didn't intervene for the first two,
but they're trying to intervene and have a hearing
with the judge overseeing the grand jury
with the DOJ on one side and then on the other,
about Hirschman, obviously, because, as you said,
about, well, I don't like the analogy
about hitting anything, but they're hurt by Hirschman
and they know that if Hirschman goes in
and testifies the way Hirschman,
only Hirschman can do in a very colorful fashion
about his beliefs, that's not a good day
for Donald Trump in front of the Grand Cherry.
So they are leaving the courthouse,
got spotted by CNN.
Of course, they said we're just here on a behalf of a client, but the three of them only
really represent Donald Trump.
So they're obviously intervening to try to stop or shape the testimony that Hirschman
can give.
Hirschman didn't like, and he's revealed it.
He didn't like the letter that he got from Eric Corcoran, who he said didn't really
provide him with the proper guidance about how do I,
you wanna use the executive privilege or you don't,
you wanna use the attorney client privilege,
I don't understand how to answer questions
with the guidance you're giving me.
And Corcoran apparently in a letter in response
said something along the lines of,
well don't worry, it'll all be sorted out
by the chief judge overseeing the grand jury,
which is what they're apparently doing now.
We'd love to have more details to report on, but as you said, it's all cloked behind the wall of secrecy because it is
a still a grand jury process. Unless one of these lawyers, you know, stupidly takes to,
you know, one of the right wing media shows and starts giving interviews. I don't think
they're going to do that here. They're really worried though about Eric Hirschman and
what he could say in front of a grand jury if he's not muscled. Can I ask a favor right now of all the legal appers who enjoyed this episode?
Here's how you can help Michael Popock and myself and grow this legal AF channel together.
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So feel free to reach out to both of us or one of us, but we'll always send it to each
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So that's mpo-pocketzplaw.com and Ben at MidasTouch.com.
I appreciate everybody who tuned in to this episode.
It was a big, important week for justice
with all of those updates.
Thank you so much for watching this, Michael Popock.
This is my favorite time of the week.
I hope it is, I know it's yours, Popock.
And I'm glad to spend it.
I hope it's everyone else's who listens to the show.
The audience keeps growing. this with friends families colleagues
News hasn't been done like this before this presentation this style this
Unapologetically pro democracy
Intelligent research detailed calm
Rational conversation doesn't really exist anywhere else and we're happy to
provide it with you.
We'll see you next time on Legal AF.
I'm Ben Myself as joined by my esteemed co-host Michael Popok, special shout out to The
Midas Mighty.
you