Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump and MAGA MORE DESPERATE as INDICTMENTS Loom

Episode Date: January 29, 2023

Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF is back for another hard-hitting look at the most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this week’s edition, they discuss: Jack Smith’s decision to bring former deputy Homeland Security Director Ken Cuccinelli into the grand jury presumably to testify about Trump’s order to seize voting machines; Fulton County (Atlanta) Georgia DA Fani Willis and her “imminent decision” to indict “multiple defendants” as announced by her in court; the DOJ obtaining four more “seditious conspiracy” convictions; the California Bar moving to disbar Trump’s coup-architect John Eastman; new revelations that Bill Barr covered up the fact that his special counsel John Durham opened a criminal investigation against Trump based on intel received from the Italian government about his potential financial fraud; and George Santos being the target of a new DOJ criminal investigation for election law violations and fraud, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: Head to https://ZBiotics.com/LEGALAF and use the code  “LEGALAF” at checkout for 15% off. Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch 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 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Special counsel, Jack Smith's criminal investigation into Donald Trump continues to heat up and just this past week, Jack Smith secured key grand jury testimony of one of Trump's former homeland security department deputies, Ken Kuchinelli, who Trump had asked to seize voting machines after the 2020 election. So POPOC, will Trump be indicted in February? Is a big question, but perhaps even a bigger question is, will indict Donald Trump first? Will it be Special Counsel Jack Smith? Will it be Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, or could it be Fulton County District Attorney, Fawni Willis? And that's what you're

pointing at, Popack. And just this week, Fulton County District Attorney, Fawni Willis informed the judge who was supervising the criminal special grand jury that she had in panel to investigate 2020 election interference. She said that charging decisions were imminent. That is a direct quote from Fony Willis. And she asked the judge not to release the Special Grand Jury's report because of those imminent charging decisions. And Bobak, we all know what MAGA stands for, right? It stands for make attorneys, get attorneys,

yet another example of it this week, after last week, where we talked about Trump's lawyer being sanctioned basically a million dollars. This week, the state bar of California has filed the complaint against Trump's lawyer and criminal co-conspirator, John Eastman, seeking to disbar and revoke John Eastman's legal license.

In my view, and would love to get your take, Popok, on this edition of Legal AF, the case to revoke Eastman's law license is almost a certain winner we will explain why. And in this week of accountability and look folks, I know it's been a long week, but let's not forget what happened earlier in the week on Monday, where we saw the Justice Department secure the convictions of four more terrorist oath keepers for seditious conspiracy and numerous other felonies in federal court in Washington DC. That happened in one courtroom while they were prosecuting the Proudpoint terrorist organization in another courtroom. Can we compare the current Department of Justice's successful prosecutions with Bill Barr and

John Durham, and especially the more we learn about them actually actually covering up more crimes for Donald Trump, we got to talk about this on this episode. And it looks also like in this week of accountability, the Justice Department is getting ready to indict the Maga Republican, the complete and utter fraud. I mean, it's the same thing, Maga Republican, complete and utter fraud. But George Santos for his many, many, many crimes.

The Department of Justice reached out to the Federal Elections Commission and said, don't charge him yet. We got this. We'll explain the implications of that request by the DOJ too. The FEC on this edition of Legal AF, the most consequential legal news of the week of our time. I'm Ben Melfish. Join by Michael, Popeyes, Michael. How are you doing? Sons glasses. Sounds glasses. I'm doing fine. I want to

spend a minute talking about something we're not going to talk about on the podcast, but something that's near and dear to you and me. And I want to do a moment about Tyree Nichols. And our hearts go out to what happened there. You have a big background in police brutality cases. I've been involved as well. We're going to follow it as the prosecutions continue. And as there's a court case to follow. But we'd be remiss if we didn't start the podcast with acknowledging the family, the loss, the

bereavement, and all of that. And so I wanted to kick it off with that. We're not going to dive into it. But it is a tragedy of epic proportion and inhumane and immoral and depraved. And it happened in America once again. Happens too many times here, just happening once is enough and the fact that it is repeated over and over again as President Biden said, if we are to live up to our ideals of who we tell the world we are, we need changes.

This cannot be happening so frequently here. This should not be happening at all here in the United States. It is utterly despicable. Real reform, real change is needed. And real accountability is needed. And again, we're not going to get more into it here. We will follow those events as they unfold, as criminal proceedings unfold, and we will keep you updated there. Let's get into Jack Smith's criminal investigation. As we mentioned at the top, it is indeed heating up even more. We've been covering the flurry of subpoenas that Jack Smith has been sending. Donald Trump has been rambling about key witnesses testifying before the grand jury.

And now we've learned of one. There's probably a lot of others that we don't know about because as we've talked about here, grand jury proceedings are held in secret, criminal grand jury proceedings. That is so how do we know? Well, you can actually have cameras and have people stand by the courthouse where a lot of other things are taking place. As I mentioned before, we have the Oath Keepers trials

and the Proud Boys trials and other insurrective trials. And guess what? They're all in the same courtroom or right around the same area. So there's a lot of media there. So you can actually see individuals entering and exiting if they're unable to kind of hide and they're not able to you know sneak in. So we saw Ken Kuchinelli and the media saw Ken Kuchinelli walking in. It was clear that he was there for grand jury testimony and connection with special counsel Jack Smith's

criminal investigation into Donald Trump's election interference. And Kuchinelli is important for a lot of reasons. He was one of the top homeland security deputies. It actually turned out he was illegally appointed under the Federal Vacancies Act. He should never have even had that position in the first place. Like a lot of Trump appointees, they were designated individuals who were never actually confirmed because Trump broke the law in everything he did. And that's why even the acting homeland security head Chad Wolf was determined by a federal judge

in New York judge, Gartefy, that everything that he did was unlawful because he was unlawfully appointed. So just kind of start with that. But then following the 2020 election through Mike Flint, Mike Flynn's plan and Sydney Powell's plan and Giuliani's plan, Trump had Giuliani go to Kuchinelli and tell him to seize voting machines that they had prepared an executive order to seize the voting machines to try to spread more conspiracy theories about the election to spread more disinformation.

Kuchinelli didn't say he was not willing to do it. He just said, that's not what the Homeland Security Department does. Like, sorry, we can't do that even if you gave us an executive order. So that plan never panned out. One other thing to mention about Kuchinelli, and then I'll pass it to you, Popeye, is that all of his text messages and emails, uh, same thing with Chad Wolf, the head of the Homeland Security Department, all of their emails and text messages leading up to the January 6th insurrection were destroyed, um, and all of their

backups were destroyed. Um, so I would probably believe that the questioning also involved potential obstruction of justice and that's a charge that the Department of Justice utilizes with a great deal of success. But what do you make of this pop-up things heating up? Yeah, things are heating up. So let's start with Kuchinelli. I'll do a split screen when he was the Virginia Attorney General, he got an award called the Defender of the Constitution Award. And that guy, the Defender of the Constitution, walking up the steps, the Federal Courthouse on Thursday was asked by CNN, are you here to testify before the grand jury? He said, yep. They said, what about? He said, don't know. So I love the fall from grace, from people who pounded their chest and after like they

were patriots and defenders of the Constitution, and now being dragged in by Jack Smith into one of several grand juries about topics, including the ones that you just identified. We know Ken Kuchnelli testified before the chance six committee, and of course his witness statement is already out there. The part about the seizing of the voting machines, which I know you've done a hot take on, we've talked about it a little bit on legal layoff. Let's just stay there for a moment. It's so breathtakingly shocking. It's what Mussolini would do. It's what Hitler did. And it's what dictators do around the country, which is seize voting machines because they don't like the

results of the election. You know, like a child who doesn't like the way the game is going and just throws the table over and starts again. It's the same kind of thing. So this... Popoq, we used to reset what we did as kids me and the brothers, which is like sees the which is the equivalent of sees the voting machines. We would be playing PlayStation right before the other brother was about to lose you'd hit the reset button. He turned it off. Right. Right. Then the other brother would cry. Sorry. There you go. Same thing. Same exact thing. But I want to go over who was the architect for this, this, this, who, who hatched this plan. You had, um, Colonel Phil Waldron, former military,

former army, who's, who's a crack pot and was part of the inner circle of Trump that got even more inner during the coup plotting. So you had Phil Waldron, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, also Army. They were the ones that came up with the ideas about using the Pentagon, the Army to seize voting machines. They were guided in this plot, you know, they were stirring this cauldron of crap by Sydney Powell at around the same moment, well, we get now that we've got the timeline right from the Jan 6th committee. It's right around the same time, and we heard about this at the time, reported on it, that Trump was seriously considering naming Sidney Powell, special counsel to investigate election fraud, until Chip Cipollone and others said over our dead body because

she is as as Cipollone is testified, nutty and not more to reality in no way. The other person that Trump apparently had in mind for this fake job that he was going to create in the waning days of his administration was Ken Kuchinelli, lawyer, former attorney general of Virginia and all that. So there's one of those two choices. So you've got Colonel Waldron, Lieutenant General Flynn, guided by Paul saying it's okay, Tellin' Trump whispering in Trump's ear that they should use the Pentagon. Apparently two executive orders were actually drafted, Ben.

One, the executive order to authorize the Pentagon to seize seize them and the alternate one, which is where Kuchenelli comes in. The alternate one was was to have the Department of Homeland Security do it. Led to the phone call with Kuchenelli where they ask Kuchenelli to kind of find the authority to do this and he like came back on the line and said, we don't have that authority. I don't know if that was a moment of courage or he was scared shitless or whatever. But he actually testified to the Jan 6th, at least. We don't know what he did to the grand jury now, but to Jan 6th, he told them that he was never asked about actually, he didn't know about the executive order and draft.

And so it was more of the conversation is all that he could remember. And of course, as you said, Giuliani was guiding Powell as well. So yeah, Giuliani and Powell has a lawyer's Waldron and Flynn as the former military guys that Trump loved to surround himself with using the, and I think it's so back to things that you and I've talked about and making this a continuity. He Trump's not using the military appropriately to defend the capital during Jan 6th, but he's going to use the military to seize voting machines so that he can, I don't know what review them. So Kuchinelli looked pain during the CNN moment on the steps because he's in harm's way,

putting aside for a moment that everything he did or said while he was the acting deputy secretary as you outlined in the beginning was completely invalid and ultravaries and, you know, and all of that putting that aside for a minute. You know, he got looped into, you know, a real, a real coup element of seizing voting machines using the military. I mean, I can't even imagine if that order had gone out, what somebody like Miley, you know, the joint chiefs of staff had, would have done. They would have had to, I think at that point, playing this out, the 25th Amendment would

have had of an exercise, or the military would have had a basically, you know, say no, at that moment, but we'll never know, although it is scary to think we were on the precipice of that with this, with this Donald Trump. Popeye, I think that's a chilling analysis of what could have been, but nonetheless, when we're talking about conspiracies, and we've talked about this before on the show, and it's worth mentioning as we talk about the oath keepers and the proud boys and the seditious conspiracy trials, the conspiracy doesn't have to be successful for you to be criminally charged with the conspiracy, engaging in the conspiracy with the intent to overthrow

our democracy. That intent is enough. And so the fact that they didn't ultimately overthrow our democracy does not immunize them from liability. So switching gears from special counsel, Jack Smith, though, to Georgia. This was a big, this is a big week for accountability. They're Michael Popock. I mean, we've got Jack Smith engaging in, you know, this criminal investigation of Donald Trump. We've got the DOJ prosecuting oath keepers and proud boys and getting guilty convictions. And then we have this big hearing that we had talked about previously where Fony Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney would go before Judge MacBurdy, the judge who's been presiding over the special grand jury that's been empattled for a very long period

of time that has been receiving this evidence from Fony Willis. Witnesses have been called. It's been a very diligent investigation. The special grand jury completed its services, they prepared a report, they wanted to release the report, the special grand jury's report of who they think should be indicted for 2020 election interference. They are saying, release our report, we voted to release it. And Judge McBerney responded and said, look, reading the tea leaves, I'm inclined to release

it. There seems to be a public in the interest of the public to release this, but I want to hear from the parties. And I think Judge McBerney was specifically thinking of more of the possible targets of the criminal investigation and the people who may be listed as recommendations of people who should be indicted. Just to remind our viewers and listeners one more time, this special grand jury did not have the power to indict. They had the power to recommend indictments. And then another grand jury would actually indict.

And so for all we know that other grand jury has already is already empaneled and already ready to indict. But I think people thought that it was going to be these possible criminal defendants who are going to object. But it was actually Fawney Willis who said, don't release the report yet, Judge McBernie, please, because charging decisions are imminent. Charging decisions, meaning that the Fulton County District Attorney is getting ready to charge multiple, multiple individuals for their role in 2020 election interference. What do you make of that, Michael? Yeah, that was a, I watched the 90 minute hearing.

She, a funny spoke for about eight minutes, but it was the most powerful eight minutes in that entire hearing. I got a, the rest of it was sort of inside baseball and we all geeked out about whether this is a general presentment under Georgia law and does it have to be made public and, you know, the media got up and made their argument. We'll talk about Donald Trump's ridiculous moronic comment about him not participating in and how he thinks he's been exonerated because he wasn't compelled to testify before the grand jury that's looking into his own criminal action. Putting that for a side for a moment, I listen very, very carefully and watch very, very carefully because you and I are practitioners.

We've been in the courtroom. I pick up as much body in from body language and situational awareness of what's around me, including the judge and my opponent as I do for anything else in the room that's being spoken. And, and, uh, Ms. Willis is, uh, responses to the judge direct, um, almost hurt. She, she really doesn't want this published the special purpose grand jury report for a couple of reasons that she stated. One, I need to defend making sure that, that the multiple defendants, not possible ones, not maybe ones, multiple defendants that will come out of this when I make my decision that I haven't yet made,

but might will be making it imminently about seeking indictment from a regular grand jury. I'm worried about them having a fair trial. I don't want to buy an appeal. I don't want them to have an appellate argument that they didn't get a fair trial because of the disclosure of all this material. And she also said, I don't want my hand, she didn't say quite this way, but I'm paraphrasing.

I don't want my hand forced to make the decision to seek the indictment before I am ready. And then she outlined all the ways that she's been methodical and sober in her approach. And she doesn't want that apple cart thrown over now. She said, I made a decision. I told everybody I'd make my decision whether to seek a special purpose grand jury quickly. And I did.

I told everyone that if I got the special purpose grand jury, I would only keep it in session for as long as it was authorized. I did that too. I finished my work in the seven months that it actually shorter period of time. And now I will make my decision imminently. The other reason from her body language, not a body language, because you had to see it. The reporting didn't pick it up when she said the following. It was the sentence before the comment about imminent decision. That was important. She said to the judge,

there's only two people in this room that have read that report, me and you judge, and you know, she didn't wink, but she says, you know, dot, dot, dot, based on what's in there that you've read, my decision is imminent. And that imminent also carried a lot of weight,

because I think it also signal to the judge like don't be so quick to release the report. I'm going to be making my decision really quickly. So give me a little bit of time. Just just give me a hot minute. I'll get this decision made and then you can do what you want. But she really doesn't want it released until she's gone through the grand jury process or at least until she's made her decision. I don't know what's in there, but it's got to, we've always suspected that it is a bombshell against defendants that we've heard of. I said on the show with Karen, we're not, I guarantee it's not going to be a list of defendants

that were like, who, who are these people? The fake electors. That's the only people that she, she indicted. The targets and she's identified and we've been able to piece together. There's, there's about 17 to 20 targets of the special purpose grand jury. We think that includes Meadows, Eastman, where we're going to talk about a bit later in the pod, Lindsey Graham and Donald J. Trump. So some combination of that group is probably I would predict. And I think you agree, part of the multiple defendants that she is soon going to make a imminent decision about whether to go into the regular grand jury. A regular grand jury that's all people are like,

oh my god, there's going to be a delay. Regular grand juries are already there. She doesn't have to assemble. I mean, if I take her a little while, she doesn't have to assemble what and she'll be able, we figured it out from looking at the statute when Karen and I looked at this more closely, unlike in New York, where they have to bring in live witnesses to give non hearsay testimony. Georgia allows Georgia allows hearsay. So she'll be able to take that whole report and have the witness statements read in that she's already developed. She might bring a few live people in that she can guarantee will be impactful on the grant on the new grand jury, but she doesn't have to start from scratch. It's not going to be a seven month long process at the grand jury.

That's why in the beginning of the pod, I kind of thought that the of the three horses that are in this race, the one that I think at the end of the home stretch is going to is going to nip the tape is funny. Willis, because I think she's that far ahead of all of, of all of the rest of them. So that was my takeaway. And the last thing I wanted to comment on then is, what could the indictments look like? And I can tell you one that I would be shocked if it's not in her charging document, ultimately. And that is Georgia's civil rico racketeering influence and corrupt organization act. It is one of the broader ones in the states. It's bigger than the

it's broader than the federal one in terms of the ability to piece together a racketeering case against people. All you need is a predicate act, which would be the phone call, for instance, from Meadows and Trump to Raffinsburg and others trying to find the votes. And then you just need any pattern, which can come from state or federal law in Georgia. It doesn't have to be just a state law violation or federal law violation. And so, you know, we know what that is. The fake electors, the emails, the phone calls, Julie Annie coming to the state and making

presentations. I mean, she's got it. And she has used that civil rico differently than any other prior Fulton County DA. She has brought more Georgia civil rico in the last two years than in the 10 years combined for that office. And she hired a special ADA who's a, a, a master and expert in George Eureko to work in the office. She's using George Eureko against Donald Trump at others, I think. That's not forget. She has the phone call, which Donald Trump calls the perfect phone call, which is all projection, which was anybody who listens to that phone call will tell you that's a crime what you are

listening to when he says find me 11,780 votes or else very bad things are going to happen to you Brad or words to those effect and then you have all the other conduct surrounding that which it wasn't an idle threat. By the way, I think the threat alone is criminal, but it wasn't just the threat. It was then actually positioning people to engage in conduct that would be harassing and threatening and intimidating and actually making good on the threats if those votes were not found and by those votes found Brad Raffensperger who's testified before the special grand jury who would testify at a criminal proceeding against Donald Trump. By the way, this is what would make it so fascinating. Bonnie Willis's witnesses, a

lot of them are going to be Republicans,ans you know republican state officials who said look we've been voted for donald trump and and a lot of them are feckless and have no spine and sometimes when you ask would you vote for the guy again sometimes they'll say that they will that's a whole nother conversation that is it just shows you you know how spineless these people are now they'll let fascism creep up but these are people though who would say that, but then testify against Trump. And Raffin's burger said, no, that was extortion.

So when you have the secretary of a state saying, I was extorted. I understood that to be a threat. I felt threatened. You don't have much more of a compelling witness come in. Play that tape. Have the secretary of state testify. In Georgia, I think it's, I think it's a strong case against Donald Trump. We'll see if she indites. But again, charging decisions are imminent. I agree, Pope, it's not just going to be the fake electors, but they're going to get

indicted, the fake electors, top Republicans in Georgia, who are the mega Republicans in Georgia, who link back to Johnny Smith. Johnny Smith's Johnny's to, by the way, we're going to talk about Johnny Smith soon. He's throwing out an F bomb popup. That was an unprecedented F bomb that you threw out. Just there, there we can, no No, we're gonna keep it in there. I'm gonna have salty make sure. Salty probably already censored it,

but a very casual F bomb you're throwing out there without really, is it that maybe no glasses, Popeyes, a bit edgier than glasses, Popeyes? Yeah, yeah, it's like, it's my alter ego. It's no glasses, Popeyes. Like why? The testimony that's coming out, Yeah, it's like it's my alter ego. It's no glasses popuck the testimony the The testimony that's coming out Of like the G the Republican GOP the the GOP heads in Georgia

Ty Eastman directly to the fake electric scandal and that he you know One of them testified That you know, he didn't really think Eastman believed at it all, but just saw it as a way to delay the peaceful transfer of power. I think Johnny Smith, we're going to talk about him later, is it a world of hurt? I'd be shocked if it's not Meadows, Trump, and Eastman. I'm not sure she, she, she bags Lindsey Graham. Maybe. I don't like Lindsey Graham's phone call anymore than I like Donald Trump's. I don't like phone calls to talk about Ken Is there a way for us to throw out legitimately mail in legitimately filed or bailed mail in ballots? No, our absence, he ballots, but he might skate.

But Trump, the phone call meadows, the phone call Giuliani Eastman. I think they're screwed in a good way. Popok is cursing. You know who else is probably cursing, not casually, but cursing at himself in the mirror. What has become of me, John Eastman, Johnny Eastman's been a lawyer since 1997. He was a very distinguished professor at the Chapman Law School out here in California, known as a constitutional scholar, but he turned MAGA. You look at these videos of him on the stage on January 6th. It's clear that this was an individual who just

You know, you know who who he rubbed the Jeannie bottle and said I want I want to be famous, you know, and it's like the the tail wear Okay, well you got your fame now you're infamous and now you're a criminal and now you're a magick streamist And now you're going to jail and now you've lost your legal license. It's the old story. It's like damn Yankees. Yeah, it's there. There's a famous book and musical called damn Yankees where the guy literally sells a soul to the devil in order to play for the Yankees and win the pennant and then you know,

he's got to pay the price at the end to the devil. And that's the story of maybe the story of Johnny Eastman, but maybe Johnny Eastman has just always been a criminal and just has hit it for a lot of his career. But Eastman already been called out by a federal judge in the Central District of California Judge David Carter in a lawsuit that Johnny Eastman filed. What I love about this too is like, so Donald Trump files a lawsuit in federal court against Hillary Clinton in March of 2022 and Donald Trump loses and now I does he lose, he gets sanctioned $1 million, right? John Eastman files a lawsuit in federal court and the central

district of California to block the January 6th committee from getting his text message and phone records. It was filed in California because that's where he lives. That's where he's a law professor and the federal judge in California said, you're a criminal, you're a criminal, made a judicial finding of that. The reason the judge made that judicial finding is because Eastman was asserting attorney client privilege. So if his relationship with Donald Trump was an attorney client relationship, which the

judge found it to be the only way or one of the only ways that those communications can be revealed if there is an exception to the attorney client privilege. And one of the exceptions is the crime fraud exception to attorney-client privilege. Where you engage in criminal conduct because the law doesn't want to keep those communications secret if that's what's going on in that attorney-client relationship. And so it's a two step inquiry.

One, where you engage in a crime and two, where the emails, text messages, or documents in furtherance of the crime. And on two separate occasions, Judge David Carter said, this wasn't even like a legitimate attorney client relationship, maybe it started off that way, but this was a coup in search of illegal theory. You had a federal judge make that finding

and make numerous factual findings. That John Eastman and Donald Trump were engaged in criminal conspiracy, criminal obstruction. So we already have the judicial finding. Now comes the California State Bar. And what the California State Bar does is they file a complaint with 17 different counts as part of their disciplinary complaint. The technical name for it in California is called an NDC, a notice of disciplinary charges with 11 separate charges against Eastman who engaged in a course of conduct to plan, promote and assist, then President Trump in executing a strategy unsupported

by facts or law to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by obstructing the count of electoral votes of certain states. And what this proceeding would do is revoke Eastman's legal license. He would not be a lawyer anymore. Eastman sent a statement, oh, it's a witch hunt. They're all coming after me. Can't lawyers represent people with unpopular positions? Well, you can represent people with unpopular positions, but the lawyer can't engage in a freaking coup to destroy our democracy. You

became a criminal. Popuck, this seems like a slam dunk case for the California State Bar, even if a federal judge did not make that ruling, but you have a federal judge ruling. So to me, all the state bar has to do in revoking Eastman's license is basically request judicial notice. You know, and Eastman can argue all of these things, but a federal judge has already made that finding. And one other point before I throw it to you is that don't you think Alina Haba and

Christina Bob are next? Michael Popak. Yeah, I like, I love, I've always loved your make a make attorney's get attorneys. And I did the math while we were preparing for today's show. So far, 17 lawyers representing Donald Trump around the country have faced ethics complaints, bar, bar, a disbarment proceedings and or and or have been fined and sanctioned by state and federal judges. 17.

Wow. We usually talk about the usual suspects, Lena Habba, Sydney Powell. Remember Linwood, we just talk about Linwood. Now John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani and the rest. But there's others we haven't even really talked about. There were out there filing lawsuits in the Hinter lands that they've been sanctioned. And or had bark grievances file for them. And the numbers got up to 17, which is really, really crazy. Let's remind everybody what John Eastman did. John Eastman was the architect

of the coup. There's no other way to put it. We talked about Phil Waldron and Michael Flynn earlier about the shadow military operation that Donald Trump was going to use and have his former army guy's item on that. But the coup architect, the brains of the operation, if you will, is this former law professor, who nobody ever heard of before a wannabe law scholar, as you rightly pointed out. And he came up with a two-prong plan. One, lean on Mike Pence, pressure Mike Pence and convince him that the Electoral Count Act gives him the power to not count the votes, not certify the election for Joe Biden by time and have him accept instead.

The second prong of the of the pot of the plan was the fake electors will have all these fake electors who are now all going to jail in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Colorado and other places. Mail these things in not to the national, well, yeah, to the national archive, not on official paper, not done properly, not really electors at all, phony fake electors. But they'll come in, get delivered to Mike Pence, who will recognize them, and or delay the process for at least 10 days to give the time for the legislatures to figure shit out. This is John Eastman's grand plan. Everybody, everybody in the round of Pence, like Greg Jacob, his general counsel, and people around Trump, like Eric Hirschman and Pat Sipalone,

said Eastman was, I mean, nutty professor makes them sound, you know, feckless and mild and innocuous because his craziness almost over through this country or took us to the, took us to the break. So, you know, he's the guy that Eric Hirschman said, you better get a good F and criminal, criminal lawyer. And the next words out of your mouth, all I want to hear is peaceful transfer of power. He was referred to as by Greg Jacobs as the surpent in the serpent in the year of Donald Trump throughout, although he's still defending himself in interviews given at the New York times and everything else.

So and he's involved directly in the Georgia interference and the fake electors issue there, which is why I think he's likely on the hit list for for Forty Willis when she moves around to indict. Now, as you said earlier about him rubbing the genie bottle and we joked around about Damienke's, there is a principle, a protocol that you and I learned as lawyers, I learned from a mentor of mine. If you're gonna do criminal defense work, which I did for a time, nonviolent criminal defense work.

defense work, which I did for a time, nonviolent criminal defense work. The number one rule is when the hearing is over and your client walks through the metal door, you walk out the front door, the wooden front door. And that means you represent your client zalously as you're required to do under our rules of ethics, but you don't become a criminal. You don't, otherwise you're going to be walking through the metal door with him. And I've always, you know, it was, it was said to be sort of half jokingly when I was a very, very young lawyer, maybe one or two years out. I've never forgotten it.

And not that I had to. I have my own morals and ethics, but it is an imagery that I've never forgotten. He's obviously lost his way as, as have the other 17 that we've identified. But I agree with you, the way the bar complaint was written by, and this isn't even brought, I'm sure somebody like tipped them off and filed a bar complaint,

but I think the bar can do it themselves. And in the bar complaint of the 11, the can, right? The 11 disciplinary counts that they've listed. I thought the statement that they made, which we touched on about usurping the will of the people, overthrowing an election, you know, that that is the most sacrosanct thing in our country, in our republic, and the fact that you worked against that means you should no longer be a member of an honorable profession and be a part of our bar. And based on what I saw with Giuliani, DC and New York and other places, he's getting disbarred.

You know, Pope, just an interesting thing you meant. So different people can file bar complaints. And it's basically the same in different states. So a client can file the bar complaint against their lawyer, which usually has a, you know, a little bit more of a persuasive impact when the bar gets it. I mean, obviously you have to look at what the complaint is versus just if some random stranger, you know, files it or your opponent in the litigation files it. So it could be filed that way. It could be filed from someone in the action. The state bars on their own can self initiate investigations

based on a judicial ruling or a finding or something that they're aware of. And they have teams that are looking into that. If there's a ruling that sanctioned somebody. Um, and, you know, for example, if you're sanctioned by a court over a certain amount of money, um, most states will require that you self report that sanctioned to the state bar and then they could initiate action, you know, based on the sanction. And also members of the public concerned citizens, anybody who's watching can file a complaint against somebody like Eastman or Alina Haba or Christina

Bob, you know, you know, on the merits of the fact that the underlying actions that they filed were frivolous or that they've been engaged in misconduct. And then it's up to the ultimately the bar investigators to take action. Different states have different state bar authorities and they're based in different areas of like the government. Sometimes they're independent bodies. Sometimes they're run by the legislative bodies. So it's different in each state. But what I do wonder, though,

you know, Pope Occ, you gave those statistics about the lawyers and those in that first wave of Trump litigation. But when you have someone like Judge Donald Middlebrooks in the Southern District of Florida, state in his order how every single accusation brought by Alina Habba and Donald Trump is frivolous without merit was done to harass. It's also to me a judicial finding that's made of unethical behavior meriting Alina Habba to lose her bar license and so I wonder there if there are investigations and proceedings or complaints being filed by the public in New York and New Jersey and perhaps other places

where Alina Habba is licensed to revoke our license. And I always say, make attorneys, get attorneys, we've said this from the outset, when Alina Habba started getting on the scene and Christina Bob, it's like, we've said this on the show, it's like you're gonna lose your license. It's not a matter of if you will lose your license

It's a matter of when you will lose your license and yeah, you'll have this year or two years Where I suppose you'll get fame on right wing echo chamber media and they'll treat you like you're a hero But they're gonna abandon you right away You're gonna have no legal license and your legacy in the United States of America is going to be like a freaking trader and that you're aligned with the Oathkeepers and you're aligned with Trump. You're aligned with terrorists. By proxy, it makes you a terrorist. It makes you a trader.

We're not afraid to call that out here on the Midas Touch. Now, if we're going to talk about some traders in a little bit, these Oathkeepers, then they keep getting convicted in very difficult trials, you know, seditious conspiracy. As not a, is not a cause of action that has been a criminal cause of action that's used frequently, but it's been used with regular success now by the Department of Justice. I want to talk about that. First, I want to talk about our sponsor, Zbiotics, ever skipped a workout because of drinks the night before. Me too, if you're committed to your healthy routine this year, you need Zbiotics. Ever skipped a workout because of drinks the night before? Me too, if you're

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of legal AF. Michael Popak go into the Zoth Keepers trial. We all knew about the first one back in 2022 with Stuart Rhodes and a Group of four or five. Both keepers in that trial two were convicted of seditious Conspiracy. I think the other three were Not convicted on this aditious conspiracy count but all five in the first trial were convicted of obstruction and numerous other felonies. And so

they're all going to jail for a very long time. The sentencing has not occurred yet. Of course, we'll keep everybody updated when that happens. Separately, there was a the next group of another four oath keepers who have been trial. It hasn't been reported with the same fanfare, if you will, as the first oath keepers,

because Stuart Rhodes was the leader. But here you had people like Joseph Hackett of Florida and Roberto Manuta of Texas and David Morchella, Florida, and Edward Vallejo of Arizona and these individuals were part of the next group of Sadishis Conspiracy Guard. As you and I have discussed, one thing the Department of Justice is very good at is learning from previous trials, what went well, what didn't go well, and kind of building on that foundation, looking at the Stuart Rhodes trial and seeing how Stuart Rhodes conduct was so reprehensible, that some of the other defendants were able to kind of say, look, it was all Stuart Rhodes.

We're just a bunch of idiots. We were brainwashed by Donald Trump. We're a bunch of morons and we screwed up. We're not smart enough to be involved in seditious conspiracy. That was essentially the argument. Like, we did some bad stuff. We're just, we're not, these people are just a bunch of idiots who like to talk a big game, but don't know what the hell they're doing.

Right? That's been kind of one of the common arguments that they make. And so now the Department of Justice learned from that and here they secured, they went four for four on this edition's conspiracy count. And they also went four for four on the obstruction count. There were some other lesser counts where

there were some splits here and there, but on the big charges. All of them were, all of these oath keepers were convicted. So, hope I, these are tough cases, though, seditious conspiracy before Merrick Garland. I mean, when was the last time, 30 years ago, maybe once, and now it's 30 or 40 years ago. Yeah, I want to give, in my, in my, my take. Yeah, I want to give, and my take on this, I want to give credit where credit is due. Department of Justice took on a high risk,

high reward scenario, and won twice. So, vicious conspiracy was not the easiest charge that could have brought. It was the opposite. It was the hardest charge that could have brought with a lot of risk of failure. They've now convinced two juries, two separate juries, having one having not anything to do with the other, that people are guilty of seditious conspiracy. So credit shout out to the

Department of Justice. Not only are they like 10 and 0, but they are getting, they're going for double grand slam home runs and they're getting them in front of different juries. In fact, as you said, they're learning, like I say it like machine learning, they're getting better and better each time. They're getting faster and faster each time too. The Stuart Rhodes Kelly Megs jury from November was eight, it was an eight week trial and two and a half days of deliberation leading to the convictions. This one was a five week trial and the

same two and a half days of deliberations. They're getting faster and faster and they're learning and one thing I think they learned is what you alluded to Ben is about grouping. Now what it wasn't totally in there, it wasn't in their power to to divide the trial up the way that I got divided. Well, you and I reported last year that there was a hearing in front of Judge Maitre who we like a lot, who said, look, first of all, I can't put eight defendants, eight defense lawyers, prosecution team and everybody in front of one jury. All right, they're going to, there, there, there's only so much information that a jury can,

can keep track of. It's too much. And my courtroom can't handle it either. So I'm gonna split you guys. And, and I, you know, we didn't really focus on what the Department of Justice, if anything was advocating in terms of the divide. It might have been better in retrospect.

I think what the Department of Justice has learned is the following. If you put the foot soldiers along with the generals, as it was with megs and roads and the others in that trial in November, the jury may do a little bit of a compromise verdict, which they're not supposed to do, and nailed the top two for seditious conspiracy and charge the others with something slightly, only slightly less than that. Maybe the way they now in retrospect, maybe they would have advocated to a judge, we need three trials, judge.

We need one trial for these two. And then you can split the other two in half. And then they probably would have gotten cherry, cherry, cherry, seditious conspiracy, seditious conspiracy, seditious conspiracy, because the jury wouldn't have been in a situation of potential compromise. So they're learning about the next large group. Proud Boys is already up and running. This is again, as I've said, in a number of hot takes, this is the Department of Justice that can walk and chew a lot of gum at the same time. They're still making arrests, you know, Marines are getting arrested for their role in the Gen 6 while one trial team is doing oath keepers.

Another trial team is doing proud boys. Another trial team is getting Gen 6 convictions. Another three or four trial teams are in grand juries, getting indictments, and the like all at the same time, well, they continue to investigate to try to grab people off the street that were involved, who think after two years, I haven't been picked up yet. I got news, there's two, there's two news flashes here. You post it to social media or anybody saw you out there and you haven't been picked up yet, they're coming for you. Pack a bag, leave it at the front door, keep one eye open because the FBI is coming through the front door. That's one. And second, cut a plea deal. Let me repeat, cut a plea deal. Don't listen to your family whose, you know,

a lot of them are connected as a support group with the other crazy wives, mothers and girlfriends and husbands. Forget them. Don't listen to the lawyer who's also MAGA or QAnon cut the deal because if you take this to trial, just as the statistics tell you that you will lose at a federal trial in front of the Department of Justice anyway. And it's like 90% conviction rate if you don't get the plea if you decide to go to trial very small It's 100% now if you're a Jan 6th insurrectionist take the plea deal fire your lawyer don't listen to your wife or girlfriend take the plea deal Popeye I couldn't agree with you more there and it leads me to You talk about the success of the DOJ

under Merrick Garland, and look, I know people want certain things to happen faster, I get it. There's been over 500, 550 successful prosecutions or convictions so far, they're batting 1,000 in their jury trial conviction rate right now, which is unbelievable. And it's been the biggest overall prosecutorial endeavor in the history of the Department of Justice. And I agree it will all be for not if they don't go after the top, if they don't successfully prosecute Donald Trump and the individuals who were really at the heart of why all of this took place.

But you got to give success where success is do sometimes and you got to come. Like there's ways to compare it. Like if you look at what Merrick Garland's done, how special counsel Jack Smith has just kind of quietly put his head down and done his work, you compare that to what was going on under the Trump DOJ. So you know, when everything's projection with Trump, right? So when it's weaponization of the DOJ, you know, you weaponize the DOJ to go after your political enemies and you weaponize that it in a way also

that was kind of combines the hallmark of Trumpism, like complete corruption, fascism, and incompetence, like it's a corrupt fascist incompetent, grilled cheese sandwich, no offense to grilled cheese, you know, but like, I'll call it a vomit sandwich then, because that's ultimately really what, you know, what the combination is when you look at all of those factors. I mean, Popeye, this news, you know, this from the New York Times, who by the way, were partially responsible for perpetuating false information back in 2020 that I want

you to speak to, but they did do a good report this week, granted they did a horrible report three years ago that furthered some of the false news coming out about Durham's investigation. But what appears to have taken place is that Durham, as part of his investigation when he was appointed by Bill Barr to try to go after all of the people who provided accurate information about Trump's links to Russia, all Durham was able to actually find in terms of criminal conduct, was that the group of Italian officials told Durham's investigators they had information that Trump committed crimes. And rather than investigate those the appropriate way, Bill Barr assigned Durham to basically stop those criminal, those criminal investigatory efforts from taking place in its normal course.

And then basically reported it out as though they had found criminal information about the origins of the Russian inquiry when the information that they had only found was that Trump committed crimes to cover that up. I mean, I think that frankly, that's not just an ethical prosecutorial content. I think it's criminal. What do you make of that story, Pope? As we compare this to what Marigarlins doing. That might have been my favorite story of the week, the way you just told it.

And just to re-emphasize some of that and to remind people, Bill Barr got the job as the attorney general. His tryout for that was he told the New York Times reporter when Trump was looking around for a replacement for Jeff Sessions that he thought based on no information that he had was privy to that if anybody in the Russia collusion world should be prosecuted it should be Hillary Clinton not Donald Trump Donald Trump read that said that's my man and within a week or two after he was literally named as the attorney general because he he wanted that job and he wanted Trump to signal to Trump.

And he unwittingly, the New York Times was used unwittingly as a dupe in that. So that's where bar comes from from the very, very beginning pro Trump or pro Trump conspiracy anti Hillary Clinton that that that wasn't as much reported actually when he got what he got the job. The reason that he appointed a special counsel to lock him in even beyond the change, a possible change administration and a point John Durham a drinking buddy of his speaking of Zbiotics a scotch scotch sniffing Guy with bar

As has been reported the reason he did that is because they didn't like the Inspector General Report that was coming out about the FBI and the intelligence community, which basically absolved them of any kind of nefarious, deep state anti-Trump conduct, which was the premise of bar putting Durham into place. They hated that. They hated that attorney general report and they so then to keep Durham in place so that the Democrats and a future president couldn't remove them easily, they made them the special counsel. Now, this is the contrast. Can you imagine a world where if in the middle of Jack Smith or Robert Herr doing his investigation about one thing, they got credible evidence and opened up a prosecutorial file, a criminal prosecution file about, let's

say Joe Biden, not about the documents about something else entirely. You don't think Marik Garland would take the podium and announce the appointment of another special counsel or that this criminal prosecution had been opened. We didn't know about what you just talked about, which is that when John Durham's team trying to find a case that didn't exist, right? This was a case that was in search of facts and evidence called the Italians, the Italian government to ask them if they had any evidence that the US intelligence community and FBI were secretly working against Trump. They said, we don't know anything about that, but we do have information about Donald Trump's

financial misdealings and misconduct that you may be interested in. So talk about backfire, Operation Backfire. Trump pushes to have Durham appointed special counsel to investigate ultimately Hillary Clinton and everybody else. And the only criminal prosecution at that moment that was open, when we'd never heard of until today and the New York Times reporting and the, through the Italians until like this week, is that there was another criminal investigation of Donald Trump we'd never heard of. And it was opened by John Durham. Why was it secret? Now, he eventually no surprise, never found there was enough credible evidence to bring an indictment or to recommend an

indictment. We know why that happened. But why are you and I just hearing about this in 2023 and then to add insults injury in this back to your point? Bar is complicit in all of this because he allowed the media to be duped. The media had gotten wind at around that moment of the Italian tip of Trump's financial crimes, potential crimes, that there was a open criminal investigation that Durham had opened. Because all Durham ever talked about, and Barr ever talked about, was Russia collusion, and whether the FBI, they allowed the media to report that it must be related to the Russia collusion issue.

Knowing it was about Trump and Italian financial crimes, they let that float out there. They also allowed, here's another complicit moment for bar, he allowed an informational vacuum to develop and Donald Trump stepped into it and he filled the vacuum by saying that he believed that Durham was close to indicting Barack Obama and vice president Joe Biden. And Barr didn't take to the podium and say, no, that's not what we're investigating with the potential counsels investigating his Donald Trump. So Barr, you know, although he tried at the end to cover himself in glory with the Jan 6 committee and all the craziness and talking Trump out of all this stuff, Bar has as much

blood on his hands as anybody else for the attempted coup in America and to allowing and empowering this out of control, maniacal, ego maniacal president, Donald Trump. Because we're just hearing about it. Talk about the value of investigative journalism as Judge Middlebrook's called it. The journalist write the first draft of history. Okay, we're hearing about it late, but at least we're hearing about it.

We're definitely hearing about it. We also have to acknowledge, though, how these tactics of intimidation and manipulation of the media, though, are effective when the media doesn't stand up to this. And when the media just wants to gain scoops by reporting its sources, say that you should be careful because John Durham is now opening up a criminal investigation. Well, yeah, but a criminal investigation into Donald Trump that was then covered up, not into the origins of the Russia inquiry. And then you talk about Popok enabling and empowering just this utter fiasco

was I like to call it the vomit sandwich of fascism and incompetence and corruption. You know, and so the, I won't give any more food analogies because I don't want to ruin food for people, but within that is, the crumbs, if you will, from that vomit sandwich are people like George Santos, who are now the face of what it means to be a Republican in 2023.

We just take that in for a moment that the Republican Party of 2023 is the party of George Santos, of Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Lauren Bobert, of Paul Gosar, of Jim Jordan, of Matt Gates, of Donald Trump. By the way, I could probably list every Republican in the House of Representatives at this point. And they're all like that at this point.

These aren't like the wild cards. They're the ones sitting on big committees. I mean, they just appointed Marjorie Taylor green to the subcommittee to investigate COVID when she spreads COVID conspiracy theories and wants to attack attack Dr. Fauci and attacks Dr. Fauci says that he should be locked up, going back to George Santos, who's lied about every single thing in his entire life, including his businesses. The Maga Republicans put George Santos on two committees, and one of them is the small business committee that has oversight

of PPP fraud. You can't make this up. And it speaks to the broader issue of if this is what they're doing there, these are people who have life and death decisions and they treat it like a performative, fascist sitcom and not as serious, deliberative government work where adults need to accomplish things for people. That's what's taken place. As I always say, I'm not a Democrat because I love the donkey logo or I'm specifically loyal

to the party. If they start tweeting out QAnon posts and start attacking survivors of school shootings, I'm gone in a second, screw them. I'm with them because they're adults in the room. And do I agree with Democrats in Biden on every issue? No, I'd probably disagree with them on many issues actually. But I know they're adults in the room trying to address and solve problems. But I digress. This isn't the political show. But sometimes the law and politics emerge when we're talking about people like George Santos, who's the face of the Maga Republican Party. Because just this week, we learned in addition to all of the other lies that George Santos has told the most despicable and heinous lies imaginable from his mother dying in 9-11

to his mother surviving 9-11 to his grandparents being Holocaust survivors to him being Jewish, to his employees dying in the Pulse Nightclub shooting. I can go on. I mean, the most everywhere he went to school, everywhere he worked, everything is alive. But this week, he starts filing these amended FEC forms, better election commission forms. And so he unchecked the box that previously said that he was the one who lent himself About 700,000 dollars, you know in loans to his own campaign So he unchecked the box and then when he's asked about it, you know as he's walking these like daily press conferences

You know, he's just like I don't know. It's a fiduciary who did it. It's fiduciaries I would like he uses a word like it's, they're your forms, okay? You're the filer. There may be someone who has fiduciary obligations like a lawyer or a treasurer, but they work for you. They're your agents. Those are your, that was my favorite.

That was my favorite when he cut off the reporter and said, you know, I don't fill out forms like that. Those are the lawyers. Yeah, what you, that been actually leaving a misimpression. Yeah, he said lawyers too. They were leaving a misimpression with the people. We don't fill out our own forms. I mean, it's, it's, you know, so, so there's that.

And then you go to, you go to the person who's labeled as his treasurer, this guy Tom. That wire and Tom. That wire, you know, but, you know, Tom. That wire is like, I'm not the treasurer, I don't know why my name's listed. And then you have a report that came out by Mother Jones. And in there, in there reporting, a lot of the donors, individual donors are not real people,

you know, who have, who have don, who are purported, who have donated money. So with that amount, too, is clear examples of campaign finance, crimes. And we've talked here on the Midest Dutch podcast of people who have been criminally prosecuted for penalties for far less. We've talked about a Republican politician, a member of Congress who was recently convicted in a federal criminal trial recently for, and it was under 50, it was like 50,000 bucks.

It was a 50,000 straw man, foreign influence kind of operation, funnel through somebody else at an event and criminally prosecuted. Okay, that is peanuts compared to this massive, you know, you know, what of George Santo, a massive pile of, you know, what of George Santo's fascist trader, criminal crap right here.

And so the Department of Justice told the FEC, the Federal Elections Commission, look, we know that you probably want a filing action against him, which would be a civil action for sanctions and penalties and other non-criminal type relief. And the DOJ said, hold off, hold off, hold off, don't go there yet because we're doing, we got this, okay, which usually signals imminent indictments and an ongoing criminal investigation there. We know Santos is being criminally investigated by everybody, state, local, federal, international prosecutors, commit crimes in Brazil.

So you know, this is signaling that indictments are coming. And here's the thing, it should be very obvious to any member of Congress, specifically Kevin McCarthy should be very aware of the crimes that were committed here. It's so obvious, you know, and you know, even if Kevin McCarthy suspended Santos or removed him from a committee or just did even just imagine just the slightest modicum of like we acknowledge something's wrong, but where the republicans lean into right now is we don't care about the past at all. Past doesn't matter. He was elected by the voters, despite the fact that he defrauded all of the voters, and we're not going to do anything

at all. If this was any other entity, they promoted him. In fact, you get on two pretty good committees, including one that will conduct oversight of small business fraud. Can you kidding me? If this was any business entity, a small business, a medium-sized business, a large corporation, a nonprofit. Heck, if it was just like a club, you know, a social club, a gathering, you know, a restaurant. If someone behaved this way in any entity, they would get removed except, and this is, this goes to the heart of it, except in the Republican Party, which combines those elements, fascism, corruption, incompetence, and that's who they are. Popuck.

So, yeah, it would be the, you know, putting Marjorie Taylor green on the committee, you would identify putting Santos in this committee. You know, this is the equivalent of putting the straight jacket at inmate in a mental asylum in charge of investigating the psychologists. I mean, this is what's happened here. McCarthy is now come around to having publicly announced that if the ethics committee controlled by Republicans finds that he did all of these bad things, that he will be, quote, unquote, removed from Congress,

I'm not sure he's read the Constitution, I'm not sure that happens. Maybe they impeach him and convict him and remove him. Maybe we'll have to talk about that process if and when it happens. Santos, how many times do we have to have an episode where we say Santos is in deep trouble? The Department of Justice not only told the FEC that we got this, they also said,

and turn over all of your records please to us that you have developed for your files against them because we'll take it from here. I don't want to gloss over the Chief Financial Officer part. That Chief Financial Officer wasn't listed on the last set. It was on his updated, new and improved. I got nothing to hide set filled out by the fiduciary lawyers, listed as see a FOA treasurer who claimed afterwards after he was contacted, because now we don't

take anything at face value by reporters doing their due diligence. I don't know what you're talking about. I should have been listed on that form. That was just filed like this week. So the the grift and the lying and the catch me if you can, which is a psychosis. This is a mental disorder that we're watching. Unfortunately, it's impacting us. I wouldn't care.

It would make for a fun, you know, Netflix show, but except that he's sitting as part of the majority of the house, which really troubles me. And as you said, we have a party, one party at least that has no problem. So the Democrats bend over backwards to remove people or not support people that they think even have a whiff of scandal around them. You know, why is there no longer a Senator Al Franken over a picture that was taken when he was a comedian on a, I won't even debate Al Franken for now. But as soon as the Democrats, you know, just the whiff, I hint a little, it's like, buy your gone. This, you know, he has been, he's because

he's the plus one for every vote. They know they got him in their back pocket. So gates in a very cynical fashion, gates and Marjorie Taylor Green have adopted them as their little brother. He'll do anything for them because he'll be incinerated immediately if they, if they left him completely alone. And they'd rather have him inside the tent pissing in then pissing out. But there's a chance this guy could be pulled off the house floor in, in handcuffs. I mean, I mean, and then everything else that's come out about him. I mean, obviously recently there is validated Facebook page and post from five or eight years ago,

where this, for anybody that thought he was Jewish, this will, this will disprove that, making Hitler jokes about killing the Jews. I don't think anyone thought he was saying. No, I know. I can tell you who doesn't make Hitler jokes. Jew-ish people don't make Hitler jokes. So he's he's pretty somewhere deep inside of him below the site load layers of psychosis and psychotic behavior. He's he's laughing at this. He cannot believe he's gotten this far,

this drag queen. By the way, that was the coolest thing about him. I had no problem with the cross dressing. Actually, that humanized him for me, that he was in touch with his whatever side, down in Brazil. But, you know, everything out, he's even lied recently. He lied on a podcast that he was very, very close, oh no, when he was, sorry,

when he was with the financial services company in Florida, he told people that he was extremely close with the head of a major pension investment fund out in California, he told people that he was extremely close with the head of a major pension investment fund out in California, CalPERS and the CEO dropped her name frequently in order to get people to invest. You know, here we go. Here's the pyramid scheme. And then of course, they interviewed people of CalPERS and they had an issue of press release.

You know, nobody named George Santos or George DeValder or whatever other names he's used has ever had a relationship with any of our CEOs at CalPERS. I mean, there is the Department of Justice is going to have to do the job that the Republican party will not do in self-policing, which is to prosecute, convict, and take this guy out in, in, in, in chains and write them out on a rail to prison. And look, I think that's gonna happen soon. I think that we've got, my hair just like fly up over in there and a little break over there.

I didn't even want to say anything. This is just a weird thing. Is that the whole happening there? Is that that, is that been the whole episode? I wonder if there's like, no, I'm still. No, no, I thought you were having another nerd cluster moment. Something happens, hair flew up.

Let's say that absolutely. It won't be my dog up. You see the dog went by the dog got excited left the room. That's what happens. I want to tell everybody to while you're here, if you can, check us out at patreon.com slash might as touch PAT, R EEO and dot com slash mightestouch. We have a lot of exclusive content. We only have at our Patreon, but we're not funded by any outside investors at all. We're 100% independent. We're 100% accountable to you on the last exclusive offering that we had on our Patreon.

We did a three hour chat me and my two younger brothers, the co-founders of Midas Touch. We answered every question for three hour straight of anybody who wanted to meet us and ask us questions. We're gonna do more of those each month. And there's a lot of other exclusive content there. So if you want to meet us, if you wanna gain any of these other exclusive members

of benefits, but most importantly, help support the growth of this platform. I know you probably have a lot of other subscriptions to other things, but, you know, if you have the ability to do it, you know, check it out, p-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com slash might as touch patreon dot com slash might as touch. Also, check out our merch. I love seeing people in might as touch. Also check out our merch. I love seeing people in Midas Touch merch gear. I love seeing people in legal AF gear. And if you want to search for that, you just go to store.mitustouch.com, STORE.mitustouch.com store.mitustouch.com,

check out our great merch, including our convictor convict 45 shirts, as well as the legal A-F shirts. and I want to give a special thanks to our sponsor Z by Odics go to Z by Odics dot com slash legal a f Z B I O T I C S dot com slash legal a f and get your 15% off your First order when you use legal a f at checkout with a 100% money back guarantee by Z by Odics and we always appreciate our sponsors because that also helps with our editors and our research and all of the work that we do here. So until next time, hopefully we have more weeks of accountability like this. I'm Ben Myceles joined by Michael Popak, special shout out to the Midas Mighty.

join by Michael Popock, special shout out to the Midas Mighty.