Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump ATTEMPT to THROW Lawyers UNDER the BUS has ZERO Chance

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

Trump using the “advice of counsel” defense to defeat the Mar a Lago theft of classified documents case is IMPOSSIBLE, even if the Judge hasn’t figured that out yet. Michael Popok of Legal AF carefully dissects all 5 Trump lawyers who “touch” Mar a Lago and why none of them will be able to support a “good faith reliance on advice of counsel” defense for Trump given their own personal and ethical difficulties. Head to https://manukora.com/legalaf or use code LEGALAF to get this exclusive offer! Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bet on the NFL with Bandual, official sports put partner of the NFL. Download the app today to see why we're North America's number one sports book. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gampling problem call 18665312-2600 to visit connectsentario.ca. This is Michael Popok, Legal AF. I want to clear up something. There's been a lot of misconception about whether Donald Trump is going to be able to use successfully an advice

of counsel defense, a common law defense to his criminal prosecution and indictment in the moral log case down in Florida, a legend where the indictment alleges that he's obstructed justice and committed espionage act violations because of his refusal to return national defense information, classified information, and other top secret documents and classified documents belonging to you and me, the American people that despite being required to do it, despite being requested to do it by the National Archive, despite being commanded to do it by a search warrant issued by a federal judge and a magistrate, and a, that a search warrant that was executed, Donald and a magistrate, and a, that a search warrant

that was executed, Donald Trump, as the indictment alleged, found ways on purpose intentionally, corruptly, intentionally, to refuse to turn over boxes and boxes and dozens and dozens of documents back to the federal government. So the argument that you've heard Donald Trump's lawyers make at least outside of the courtroom and Donald Trump make himself in social media posts is, I relied on very good lawyers for all of my conduct and therefore I can't be held liable for that. Now, where does that come from? Is that going to work in Mar-a-Lago?

Because there's a new reporting based on an order issued by Judge Cannon in which she's delayed assessing the validity and the good faith nature of that kind of defense in Mar-a-Lago. But once I get done telling you what the defense is and the lawyers that are involved and their testimony and cooperation with Jack Smith, you'll see why we don't have to worry about advice of counsel being used by Donald Trump at all. It's just a talking point that he uses in order to grift and raise money and delay things. And indirectly or directly, alien cat on the judge there is allowing him to do it because she's not calling BS as we like to say in

school, and nor making the rubber meat the road on his arguments until she at the very last minute until she possibly until she possibly can make that decision, which will allow Donald Trump to try to escape the trial that's set for me. That's where we're going. First, the defense. Nowhere in the criminal statutes is there a particular chapter or provision that says advice of counsel is a defense. Generally, you are charged with the knowledge of a law, either without a lawyer,

and the fact that you followed your lawyer into the depths of a crime or violated a contract or something like that, is not generally a defense, right? Ignorance of a law is not a defense, and following people who profess to have knowledge of a law is not generally a defense except in the common law as part of what we call equity where it seems to be unreasonable if a person went to a lawyer for advice gave him appropriate information and full disclosure that the lawyer gave appropriate advice and return and the client followed that advice and that led to the indictment or the criminal conviction. That seems unfair under the law. And so under common law, meaning case created law, judge created law, they've developed

this defense that we like to refer to in shorthand as advice of counsel. Now, the case law also tells and informs judges and lawyers like me and commentators, but how that applies. Let me tell you the elements of it, and we're going to turn to the four or five lawyers that are at the heart of Mar-a-Laga with Donald Trump, and I'll explain to you why. It doesn't work for them, because most of them have either admitted to participating in a crime, and judges found that they participated potentially in a crime or a fraud, or they've just given great evidence against Donald Trump to Jack Smith.

But first, the defense. In order to get the benefit of the defense, the case law, generally federal case law says as follows. A client, in a legitimate attorney client relationship, has to go to the client, has to go to the lawyer, and the client has to give the lawyer full and complete information. A picture completely can't hold back, can't shade the truth, as Donald Trump is known to do, can't leave out important critical facts or documents or evidence, can't cook the answer, so to speak, right? Get an answer that you're looking for by giving information that's not complete. Carbagin, Carbajout can't do that. But if you fully and fairly and completely give the facts that are necessary in order to render the advice, you don't leave out bad facts.

You don't shade the truth. And the lawyer in response, practicing his ethical obligations as an attorney, provides you with proper advice, you know, or advice that you rely on and you actually reasonably rely on that advice to a T. In other words, you follow it. It impacts in your conduct. It changes how you would act or not act. That's how you rely on it reasonably. If you've done all those things that I just described. And as a result, you're charged with a crime. You may have a defense that you can put up in front of a jury, not to get your case dismissed,

but in front of a jury for the jury to weigh the evidence in a side. Whether you get the advice of council defense. Do you see where I'm going with this? Now, many of the lawyers, most of them, that Donald Trump says that he's relied on, and let's say the DC election interference case, or in Georgia, have either pled guilty to felonies and or lost their bar license, or that's about it. Rudy Giuliani, losses bar license, John Eastman, losses law license, Ken Chesbro is now a convicted felon. Jenna Ellis is a convicted of a crime, but it's a Mr. Meater same for Sydney Powell.

You see where I'm going with this? It's very hard to rely on counsel when that counsel have also had their bar licenses stripped away from them and have admitted to participating in crimes. So you have that as a backdrop. You also have two different federal judges who in the course of doing their work on a certain

issue have already declared that Donald Trump participated in a fraud or crime with one or more of his lawyers and stripped the attorney-client privilege away from them. For example, and as relevant to Mar-a-Lago, the chief judge at the time, the DC Court of Appeals, is responsible for all things grand jury at the time, whoever the chief judges, the chief judge then, barrel Howell, having heard the evidence and a secret hearing, we keep all these things really well protected and secret until the trials are over, appeals are completed and the transcript can get released. She determined that M. Evan Corcoran, remember that name.

One of the lead lawyers for Donald Trump once he got tomorrow, a logo about how to or how to not properly respond to the Department of Justice's demands for the return of the classified materials and information that Evan Corcoran, Judge Barrel Howell found it was more likely the knot that he participated, wittingly or unwittingly, in a crime or fraud with his client Donald Trump. And as a result, she stripped Donald Trump of all of his attorney client privilege forced Evan Corcoran to turn over audio recordings that he had taken while he was representing Donald Trump and 50 pages or more of single space notes that he had taken about his interactions with Donald Trump. On those notes, which were now disclosed to the prosecutors and Evan Corcoran has testified about, are little, are little vignettes like the following Donald Trump telling Evan Corcoran,

Hey, you know, it would be, you know, there's a great example of what you could do with the documents that you're reviewing to turn over for me to the Department of Justice. You know, Hillary Clinton had this guy that ran the servers and suddenly emails disappeared. That would be a good thing of certain things disappeared, right? If they just plucking sound, I didn't do a good plucking sound. Let me try it again. That's a better plucking sound. If they just disappeared, that's notes Evan Corcoran took of a conversation. He had with Donald Trump, or Donald Trump suggested that he better instructed him to lose documents

when he went back to his hotel room before he delivered them to the Department of Justice. Evan Corcoran didn't do that. He turned over 38 or 39 documents in a sealed envelope because Donald Trump told him that was all that there was. Of course, the Department of Justice knew that that was lie because they had cooperating witnesses inside of Mar-a-Lago and some video recordings. And so they knew that that was not true. And Evan Quirkman eventually had to come clean. He also talked about how

Donald Trump tried to get people like the maintenance worker, Mr. Dale of the era, and others like Walt Nauta, both defendants, to try to interfere with his independent judgment and his ability to review the documents. He made a major mistake, of course, Evan Quirkin has already told Jack Smith that he left the boxes with Donald Trump for two weeks. And when he returned, he trusted his client when he put all the boxes back in the room and wouldn't take anything out of them or wouldn't lose any boxes.

And in the two week time, it's exactly what Donald Trump did as a legend, the indictment. There were lots of shell games going on with the movement of boxes within Mar-a-Lago and to Bedminster, his other golf course led by Wal-Nada and Carlos the Olaviera, and moving all things around. So, Evan Corcoran, there's no way he could properly rely on Evan Corcoran for advice, because he lied to Evan Corcoran so that Evan Corcoran would not have a full and complete truthful picture when he negotiated with the Department of Justice. So Evan Corcoran ended up lying to the Department of Justice, which is a crime, as well, a

1,000 and 1 charge. And because Donald Trump fed him a line of BS, or as we like to say in the business, he treated his lawyer like a mushroom kept them in the dark and fed him a load of manure And so Between Evan Corcoran already having been found by a judge who participated in a crime or fraud with his client having turned over all of his Evidence having testified or given testimony or a statement to the Department of Justice Let's take Evan Corcoran off the board as someone that Donald Trump can reasonably say he relied upon,

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That's m-a-n-u-k-o-r-a.com slash legal a f to get 25 bucks off your starter kit. This is just the ultimate honey in doldge and try some honey with superpowers from Manacura. Then you have Alex Cannon. Alex Cannon is interesting. He's sort of moving rapidly to the dust bin of history because we focus on the Evan Corcoran's of the world and the Christina Bob's and the Jennifer Littles. I'll get to them next. But the first lawyer up for grabs in the negotiations between Donald Trump and the National Archive upon the departure from the White House was Alex Cannon. Alex Cannon got the, here's a legal term, the Hebe Gbees and how he interacted with his

client. It got very tense because Trump wanted Alex Cannon to lie. This was Alex Cannon's testimony to the National Archive about the turnover of the documents. He wanted to tell him that all the documents that they need had been returned. Alex Cannon knew or should have known that was a lie. He refused to do that. And so we, Alex Cannon departed that relationship.

Alex Cannon's very important because it's at the very beginning, it shows Donald Trump had willful intent to hide and keep the documents for his own purposes and that started with his interactions with a national archive where he wanted his lawyer to lie to them. Just like he wanted to set up Evan Corcoran to lie to the Department of Justice by taking away documents and boxes so that Evan Corcoran would never know about them. And so when he told the Department of Justice and FBI, these are the documents, he probably really thought that was the documents.

He just didn't know there were tens of boxes in Donald Trump's living quarters at Mar-a-Lago that were being hidden from him. Then you got Christina Bob. Now, Christina Bob is interesting because her involvement with Mar-a-Lago was limited, but really, really important. Evan Corcoran, likely because he started to feel very uncomfortable and representing Donald Trump on these issues, he did not sign the sworn

statement required by the Department of Justice in the turnover of the documents originally in the envelope. That's seal that now famous sealed envelope with 38 or 39 documents in it. When there are hundreds more right behind them in desk drawers and different locations at Mar-a-Lago, somebody had a sign on the dotted line, literally, and say, this is the, this documents in this package are the result of a diligent search. In good faith, by me, signed.

And then you'd think Evan Corcoran would do it. Evan Corcoran did the research. Evan Corcoran had the interaction with Donald Trump. Evan Corcoran went in the rooms for 20 minutes. I'm not kidding. And looked through the boxes and came out with the confidential top secret information. And it's Evan Corcoran.

Except he called over Christina Bob, a young lawyer from Florida and said, you sign it. And she did. She signed, and I think you sign it. And she did. She signed, and I think, well, a picture of it here, she signed a certification on the envelope that said, to the best of my knowledge and based on what's been told to me, these are all full and complete. Well, that was a lie. That was a lie by extension and indirect lie by Donald Trump, because Evan Corcoran didn't feel comfortable because he'd been lied to. So he brought Christina Bob into sign of the dotted line. What a chivalrous lawyer that was of a senior lawyer bringing in a junior lawyer

up and be a woman and make her sign on the dotted line. I don't have any sympathy for Christina Bob because ever since then she and Alina Habba battle it out for who's going to be the biggest maggot talking head in favor of Donald Trump, their fearless leaders. So don't have any sympathy for Christina Bob. And again, he can't rely on Christina Bob, what does Christina Bob do? She signed on the dotted line, having not spoken to Donald Trump at all. That brings us to Jennifer Little. Jennifer Little is also representing Donald Trump, along with Steve say now in Georgia. Jennifer Little is, I don't know where Trump gets these people from. They all

look identical. They're all, I'm going to use an old reference now. It's all the Allie McBeal School of Law School. Like short skirts, pretty women, very young, not that experienced. When this doesn't work out for them, they're going to're on their, you know, they're, when this doesn't work out for them, they're going to be on their way to Fox News, you know, that type. So Jennifer Little though has given testimony, according to reporting, to Jack Smith, in which she said that when she got involved with the case, one of the many lawyers I've just identified that she went to Donald Trump and said, you got to stop screwing around now once the subpoena was issued. Now, what's the difference between a subpoena and a cert

warrant? Let me do a breakout legal a after that. Subpoena is issued by a judge. It's an order compelling the production of documents or information, records, videotapes, audio tapes, whatever it is, anything tangible or even electronic, that a judge, sometimes a magistrate, if you're in federal court, which is the judge below a judge, sometimes a magistrate, if you're in federal court, which is the judge below the judge, the junior judge, the magistrate judge, issues

after there's been, in a criminal case, a evidentiary hearing in secret, generally, declarations that affidavits under oath, so are testimony by FBI agents, investigative agents, whatever department they may work for. And then the presentation is made by the government. And then if the judge, the magistrate judge, finds probable cause to believe that the commission of a crime has happened and that these are the evidence of that crime, he, that person

will issue a narrowly tailored, uh, cert, uh, subpoena. And that subpoena will then be issued to the party who has to comply with it. And then there might be some other requirements that go along with the subpoena, but they comply with it. It's not the FBI agents knocking on the door and banging down the door and bursting in with FBI on their jacket. That's a search warrant. The first thing was that a subpoena was issued by this case by Barrel Howell, the regular judge, up in the district of Columbia to send Donald Trump through his lawyers. He got it. And that's when Jennifer Little stepped forward and spoke truth to power according to her own testimony and told her client, stops

going around because it's a possible criminal indictment if you don't respond to the subpoena of the right way. Putting him on notice, which is again back to his mental statements, Ray O'Welful intent, that has to be proven a trial. So you have the Jennifer Little, who I don't think will be able, again, take her off the board of him being able to rely on because he didn't obviously follow her advice because he committed, he continued to screw around a width department of justice playing hide the salami with the boxes, right, in all the

different rooms, using all the different staff that he had at Mar-a-Lago housekeepers and gardeners and personal assistance he took with him from the White House and at all videotapes until he realized, oh crap, I'm videotaping everything. Go get me the videotapes and drown him, burn him, erase him. And that's where we have the Donald Trump creating his own witness against him, which is you seal Tavaris, the IT worker

who didn't want to be involved with the conspiracy to bring down democracy. And so he eventually, eventually, after he got out from under a Trump assigned appointed lawyer, he eventually went over to the light and met with Jax Smith's team and is now cooperating with us. So you've got this group that I'll throw one more asterisk of Alina Habba, of course, somehow being involved. She is like, I'm not kidding.

She is like an evil forest gump or zealink. She just shows up in the back of every major historical bad event about our democracy and overthrow of it. She's just there. You know, it's just, I was going to use a reference that's inappropriate about, I'll do it on another hot day, I'm sorry. So you've got all those lawyers for all the reasons I've outlined here who are just qualified and couldn't possibly be the subject of a proper good faith for Alliance and the vice

of council. So what is alien Canada the judge waiting for? Get to it. Get to it, lady. You know these people who are involved? Many of them were mentioned in the indictment. You know that former senior federal judges have already ruled that attorney client, attorney client privilege has been stripped away from these people.

Donald Trump's has and they have to testify. How could they possibly be in a position for Donald Trump to claim that he relied on them? And now that brings me to end the hot take on Alina Habba. Alina Habba, who, you know, we thought that she and Trump broke up. Apparently, she's back as a practicing lawyer for Donald Trump. Not doing any better than she was before, where she was busy waving defenses and screwing up evidence and preventing Donald Trump from having any experts at trial and all sorts of other things that she did wrong. But she's back and she had a role or at least she's she's a part of the cast the characters of Mar-a-Lago. Why? Because while she

was busy screwing around with the New York Attorney General case and not producing documents that Donald Trump had to produce as a matter of law there in subpoena and search warrant and that's everything. She had to make an attestation swear out in oath to the judge in New York about the missing documents and she and rather than use a third party which she should have done. Flu in the middle of the period between the subpoena being issued and the ultimate search warrant that fateful summer, a year ago, she between the Department of Justice and the court's order on a subpoena and the knock, knock, knock on the door search warrant that's now infamous in the history of American presidencies in finding all those top-sacre classified documents strewn around Mar-a-Lago.

Alina Haba traveled to Mar-a-Lago to go search the boss's desk. That desk had classified top-sacre documents in and around it. And she didn't not to look for those. She was just looking in drawers. She was looking for things related to the New York Attorney General's Civil Fraud case. But she had to have seen these envelopes that said classified information with

the candy striper red and white on the sides. It's just my box. She had a testifying the grand jury about Donald Trump, even though she's currently representing him. So look, I think the takeaway I'm hoping from this hot tick is don't worry about the advice of council defense, even in the hands of misguided, inexperienced over his skis, federal judge and alien cannon down in Florida. This is much to do about nothing.

He's not gonna, Trump's not gonna prevail, not gonna defense it. The quicker we get it, litigated, adjudicated, ruled upon by the judge, the better, if we have a shot at having any of these trials like Mara Lago before the election to give voters the opportunity to have that data point. Are they voting for a convicted felon or not in the back of their minds before they pull the lever? We'll continue to follow all of these types of matters at the intersection of law politics

and justice. One place the Midas Touch Network follow me on legal AF on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time and on hot takes just like this one. So until my next hot take, until my next legal AF, this is Michael Popak reporting. Hey, Midas Mighty. Love this report? Continue the conversation by following us on Instagram, at Midas Touch, to keep up with the most important news of the day.

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