Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump CAN’T ESCAPE Devastating LEGAL UPDATES
Episode Date: August 18, 2024Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back for the weekend edition of the top-rated Legal AF podcast. The anchors discuss and debate: Trump’s new threatened phony lawsuit against the Department of Just...ice as he struggles to gain attention and traction in the race against VP Harris; Judge Chutkan likely rejecting Trump’s efforts to claim he was just “investigating” election interference by Russia and Iran, when he did all those bad things leading up to Jan6; Trump’s new federal campaign required financial disclosures and the likelihood that they will get him in trouble again for lying about his finances; Trump’s last gasp effort to avoid having the Manhattan DA catalogue all of his criminal conduct when they file their sentencing memo against him, and Trump’s likely failing efforts to delay his 18September sentencing in New York, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF Thanks to our sponsors: Rhone: Head to https://Rhone.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF to save 20% off your entire order! Henson Shaving: Visit https://HensonShaving.com/LEGALAF to pick the razor for you and use code LEGALAF for 2 years worth of free blades! Mosh: Try Mosh today and use LEGALAF to save 20% plus free shipping at https://moshlife.com/LEGALAF Oracle: Take a free test drive of OCI at https://oracle.com/legalaf Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Donald Trump files a notice to sue
the Department of Justice for the search warrant
that was conducted at Mar-a-Lago.
In this notice to sue,
Donald Trump claims he will be suing in the future for $100 million.
We'll talk about why this is frivolous, vexatious, and just shows how desperate Donald Trump is as he continues to trail in the polls to Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump's stock Trump media has been tanking. It's been down massively about 52% over the past six months alone.
The question that I have for Michael Popak who handled securities issues before is,
do you see shareholder lawsuits coming against Donald Trump?
We'll talk about that.
Also, Donald Trump filed a motion to stop the sentencing that's set to take
place in the Manhattan district attorney criminal case where Trump was convicted
on 34 separate felony counts.
Currently the sentencing hearing date scheduled for September 18th.
Donald Trump is requesting an adjournment of the sentencing, but not just that.
Donald Trump is also requesting that the Manhattan district attorney's
office be prohibited from even filing paperwork regarding their
sentencing recommendations and regarding how long they think that Donald Trump
should be serving time in prison and any of the factors regarding why Donald Trump should
be serving significant prison time.
We'll break that down.
Federal judge Tanya Chutkin made an order, which we can somewhat decipher regarding
SIPA.
We'll talk about that.
And also Donald Trump's financial disclosures that were required to be filed with the
federal elections commission, raising lots of red flags.
He had to disclose as liabilities,
the judgments that have been entered against them,
which he did in very kind of vague and ambiguous terms.
There's also a number of other red flags and those disclosures that we will
discuss. Michael Popok, let's bring you in. We've got a lot to discuss,
so we should just get into it right away, huh?
And I love it.
I think this is a great week for Kamala Harris,
the Democrats going into the convention
and for criminal justice.
Summer's over.
I mean, not technically, but it is.
You've got my favorite part.
I don't think we're gonna talk about it today,
but I'm sure you or I or others will do.
Hot takes on it. I know you just did one on, is the way that the stolen valor and the swift
boating of Tim Walz has backfired spectacularly on Donald Trump, who decided once again to
demean veterans and those that have died in honor of their country overseas and who win the
Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest honor you can be awarded, but not to Donald
Trump.
Donald Trump, the highest honor is whatever his award is because he likes his heroes alive,
not captured, not in prison.
And we're right back to where we were before where he sullies the name of the fallen.
He attacks, you know, John Kelly, who was in the military, was his chief of staff, looked on and discussed as
Donald Trump would make comments about, um, uh, people who were injured or wounded,
uh, or died in battle.
Uh, he's doing it all again.
And the veterans of foreign war are firing back.
I think it's, it's great.
Once again, Donald Trump stepping on his own story and having it backfire
and blow up spectacularly spectacularly in his face.
Well, the story that he's stepping on, like all Donald Trump's stories are lies
and fiction to begin with and dangerous WWE kind of cosplay fiction.
The fact that Donald Trump and JD Vance and the right wing media has spent
weeks attacking governor walls because governor walls served 24 years in the United States military.
Then 18 when he went in.
Then ran for Congress where he led the veterans affairs committee and has been a staunch
supporter of our troops and our veterans. And then it does raise a spotlight
on Donald Trump's behavior and conduct.
So like when Donald Trump was at this event in Bedminster,
his own country club,
he doesn't really even do a lot of campaigning anymore.
He basically sits at his country club,
says he's doing press conferences,
gets the press to show up at his country club says he's doing press conferences, gets the press to show up at his country club only invites like a handpicked press, CNN and MSNBC and
others still run it.
And then they decide, Oh, I guess Donald Trump's not telling the truth.
Now we're going to have to stop this, but they play like 20, 25 minutes
of him lying nonstop.
And then this is from the event that he gave at bedminster in
the evening on Thursday.
It's what you referenced.
And you know why I want to play this at the intersection of law and politics though, is
because, you know, Donald Trump attacks all of our institution.
He attacks veterans.
He attacks our troops.
He attacks federal judges.
He attacks the judiciary.
This is the opposite of what conservative is.
If conservative means conserving institutions,
I mean Donald Trump is literally the exact opposite
trying to rip it to shreds.
Let's just show you Donald Trump
at this Bedminster events player.
I have to say, Miriam, I watched Sheldon sitting so proud
in the White House when we gave Miriam
the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
That's the highest award you can get as a civilian.
It's the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor,
but civilian version.
It's actually much better because everyone gets
the Congressional Medal of Honor.
That's soldiers.
They're either in very bad shape because they've been hit
so many times by bullets or they're dead
She gets it and she's a healthy beautiful woman. It's right
And they're rated equal
He goes they're rated equal but what he wants to do whether it's with that
or You know the way he views our judicial system is he wants to rate equal Judge Eileen
Cannon's and federal judges who actually care about the law. What he wants to
rate equal and create these equivalences is actually Soviet-style justice, which
is not justice at all, and the American system, which for its fault,
is a system that works, that you and I studied and revered.
And then Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans
go on to the projection side of things,
where they then accuse Vice President Kamala Harris
and Governor Walzow,
oh, you're doing Soviet style show trials of Donald Trump.
Donald Trump, you invoked your fifth amendment right
against self-incrimination in your trial.
You got all of the due process rights.
You got a jury, you got a grand jury.
It went through all of the steps.
A unanimous jury agreed.
Your lawyers got to select the jury.
You're sending motions about sentencing hearing.
There is all the due process in the, you know,
that exists under our system, but it just goes to show you.
And that's really why I wanted to show that clip Popeye.
So as you address that clip, then I'll toss it to you to pivot to this Donald
Trump notice to file a lawsuit against the department of justice, which the
very fact that he's able to do that says a lot about our system.
Ain't no one filing notices to sue Vladimir Putin in Russia.
Like, let's be very clear.
Ain't no one filing notices to sue of Kim Jong-un.
And Trump does this here though, where there are sometimes valid reasons and
notices why you would have that precursor step and then bring lawsuits
to vindicate your rights
Donald Trump uses lawsuits as press releases so that he can
Try to take attention away from the fact that his poll numbers are crashing and Americans are turned off by him
And so he goes, okay, I guess I gotta roll out another hundred million dollar DOJ lawsuit Popeye
Yeah, I mean you're exactly right. It's all a diversionary tactic. He doesn't really believe that he's ever going to actually either file that lawsuit.
That lawsuit will likely never see the light of day.
It must've been at the moment in his, um, his walking dead dementia that he now has
where he's just stumbling around golf courses, looking like a hollowed out
human being must've been at that particular moment.
He didn't like a hollowed out human being.
It must have been at that particular moment, he didn't like a new story like Kamala Harris
surging, Kamala Harris now leading at all the battleground states, Kamala Harris being untouchable
to him, him being unhinged and unable to figure out how to recalibrate against Kamala Harris
instead of Joe Biden, you know, something like that,
along that way.
His tank stocking, we'll talk about it later,
because he decided to breach the exclusivity
of that his mean tweets would only be in one place
and now he returned to Twitter, you know, things like that.
So he's like, I got an idea.
What can we do?
I can just see him sitting around a large boardroom
with his brain trust,
and that word is doing heavy lift in that
sentence and say, what can we do today to get to news cycle? I had an idea. Why don't
we show that we're really happy about what Judge Cannon did in Mar-a-Lago where she is
the only person in the entirety of the American judiciary dating back to 1974 with the United
States Supreme Court who thinks the special counsel is a figment of our imagination
and doesn't really exist and decided to get rid of the entire indictment because he's improperly unauthorized and funded and therefore the case shouldn't continue. By the way, no other judge
believes that. Judge Chutkin, we'll talk about later in the TC election interference case,
doesn't believe that. The Supreme Court doesn't ultimately believe that either.
So she's got a big problem.
But so, you know, he decides, well, I won that.
Let me sue now for malicious prosecution.
And who is he suing?
He's threatening to sue.
He says the Department of Justice, but it's really the United States of America is the
defendant on the other side, ultimately.
And if he were to prevail
which he won't, it would come out of the pockets of actual taxpayers not Donald Trump because he
doesn't really pay taxes but you and me and everybody else will be paying this hundred million
dollars which is a number he picked out of his backside once again. This is no different than
suing Michael Cohen for 500 million dollars, suing the Pulitzer Prize Board, suing George
Stephanopoulos and ABC. Does anybody see a pattern here of a vexatious litigation having
no merit? Judges do. You know, usually when they get their chance to do it, they'll sanction
him and his lawyers. The reason, just to do a little Patreon legal AF teachable moment,
the reason he has to give us notice is because you can't,
because of something called sovereign immunity
and the way that governments generally can't be sued
for their actions, you have to put the government on notice,
whether it's local, state or federal,
in this case, the United States of America,
that you're planning on suing on some grounds
and you have to give them a certain amount of time,
I think it's six months, for them to respond to it or to make the change that you're
looking for, like stroke on the check for a hundred million, and then you can try
to sue. But even if you sue, it's still subject to dismissal under these various
doctrines that we've talked about and I think sanctionable for whatever lawyers
he's using. Now people might be thinking, Ben,
what lawyers is he using these days?
Because many of them are disbarred,
lost their law licenses, have been indicted,
or been convicted.
So which ones are they, Michael?
So, you know, he goes back to the well of Stephen Miller
with his America first law firm, AF Law,
not to be confused with our program,
and pulls a lawyer out of there,
and they're busy running around like gadflies,
filing lawsuits and things with labor disputes
and this and that in order to get attention,
that's all they do.
And so some lawyer there signed his name to this notice,
and the number's interesting, because we'll talk later on
maybe about Donald Trump's having to disclose his finances and they are a mess. They are shambles.
They're shambolic and they are not sustainable. I mean, how many books can you write in which
you just take other people's notes to you and slap a title on it.
How many NFT trading cards can you possibly,
how many Bibles or sneakers can you,
how is this sustainable against half a billion dollars
or more of judgments?
So he, and a stock crashing.
We're gonna talk about all of that.
That's my take on the notice.
I don't think, well, let me summarize.
We'll never see this lawsuit.
If we saw the lawsuit, the lawyers would be sanctioned and Donald Trump is never
going to obtain a hundred million dollars from the federal government because the
Mar-a-Lago case was not maliciously prosecuted and I believe the 11th
Circuit is going to turn it around.
You mentioned Stephen Miller there. Now Stephen Miller's law firm, Stephen Miller's not a lawyer.
We previously have talked about Tom Fitton's legal group.
Tom Fitton is not a lawyer.
So some of the main people advising Donald Trump on the law,
are not lawyers.
That's probably a notable thing to point out.
Don't you think, Michael Popak, at the outset?
And I'm reminded what a federal judge Middlebrook said in the Southern
district of Florida, when he sanctioned Donald Trump and Alina Haba about a million dollars for their vexatious litigation and their, um, and
their filing of the frivolous lawsuit there, he was raising the red flag to the
judiciary in general, basically saying, you know, we have a rare situation here where the toolkit with
which we're usually able to sanction somebody for a million dollars or
$500,000 or $5 million.
And that has a meaningful impact on deterring conduct simply doesn't exist
here because Donald Trump just goes back to Mr.
and Mrs.
Magadonia, his donors, you know, who he goes, I need you to give me money right
now and you'll join me on Trump Force Two and we'll be able to fly together.
I need you, please give me this money right now.
And they do.
And then Fox normalizes the behavior.
And then you have Supreme Court justices like Neil Gorsuch,
right-wing Supreme Court justice,
then go on Fox and basically rubber stamp
this whole charade as being okay.
That's why it's so important
that we call out what's going on here.
You mentioned the Trump media stock.
We'll talk more about that You mentioned the Trump media stock, we'll talk more about that now.
The Trump media stock, just pull up the past six months
of what that looks like, down 52%.
Now, the United States stock market,
since Donald Trump has left office, is up around 50%.
So Donald Trump's constant threats, there's going to be a great depression.
The stock market will crash if president Biden comes into office.
Our stock market is actually up about 50%.
And by the way, I don't think the stock market should be viewed as a main or even
lead indicator on how Americans are doing, But I'm using that because the corporate media
allows Donald Trump to do that.
So I'm just making this one-to-one comparison.
So while the stock market is up about 50%, Trump's stock is down about
52% over a six month period.
And look, it had these earnings reports, which should be called
lack of earnings reports when it comes to Trump media.
What did it do, Popok?
$840,000 in revenue last quarter.
That's total revenue.
840,000.
That's less than what a single McDonald's,
not McDonald's generally,
what one McDonald's franchise makes in a quarter
is significantly more than what Trump's media enterprise made in that quarter.
And Trump media lost again, $16, $20 million again.
It's lost over like this past year now, about $300 million.
I, whenever I say lost, people always make a good point.
The money's going somewhere.
So when you say it's getting lost, that money's going to a place search for that.
And trust me, we are here at the Midas Dutch network, but horrific financials.
Donald Trump has continued to engage in the exact type of kind of
puffery regarding Trump media and pumping rather that crosses
that in my opinion kind of crosses the line. So the next question, Popak, is are there
shareholder lawsuits coming?
Yeah. I mean, listen, I got people know that I have a background. I worked on Wall Street
on the legal side, kind of touched the number of these items, including SPACs and all of
that. The special purpose acquisition company, the stock that you put up at $24
and falling like a stone just to remind everybody, or for those that are new
to this game, when you invest in a SPAC, every SPAC has a set unit price of $10 per unit.
And so when you get into the SPAC, you get it at 10, you buy in at 10. So some people will be saying, well, it's 24 now, that's better than 10. Right. But at one point, it was up to 60. And people remember that markets not static. And so while the original investor who bought at 10, obviously, is still benefited at 24. There's lots along the continuum of new investors
that come into the market at various prices
and they're crushed when, let's say, I bought it 45,
I bought it 50, well, now I've lost half of my money
or more.
Donald Trump didn't buy any of the stock.
Donald Trump was given millions of shares of this stock. And so his
fortunes go up and down with the gyrations of the stock price. But I don't care about him. I care
about mom and pop, the widows and orphans and retail investors that are investing in the stock
and his stock market. There is no there there. This is beyond the Wizard of Oz. There's nothing behind the curtain at all in terms of a legitimate business operation
engine that generates any money.
There just isn't.
They have four, you were giving some stats out comparing it to a McDonald's franchise.
They have four million total active users on their social media platform.
Midas Touch Network has 28 million. What's the number? 28 million views in two days?
Every 48 hours, we're doing it now. 28 million.
Every two days, they have four million a month. Do the math. That's one. Two, the only asset
of the company is Donald Trump, for those that want
to watch him. And the exclusivity of having Donald Trump only be on his social media platform. That's
the only asset. They got nothing else. They got no other better mousetrap. They got no other
competitive advantage. There's nothing else. So if you wanted wanted to see Donald Trump, you had to
go and pay their money and sign up and be there on that, you know, and be there in that ecosystem.
Well, that all went out the window because candidate Donald Trump can't keep track of
businessman Donald Trump and he can't keep track of felon Donald Trump because they're all
inconsistent these positions that he's taking. So when he's helping his
candidacy, or he thinks he is, he's harming his business. So he says, oh, I got an idea. I'll go
on spaces. Talk about day late, a dollar short. His spaces is so like 2021. I went on spaces with
Elon Musk, and for two hours of where I stared at my iPhone over a desk while he droned on about
something else in his world, and when I wasn't busy getting ourselves in trouble with the
NLRB and attacking unions who now have a claim against Donald Trump for retaliation potentially,
he was draining the stock price because now he's quote-unquote returned to
Twitter, returned to X. Okay, well there goes the business model. Now what happens?
I got two things I've said in the past I'm staying with, I'm sticking with. One
is that the worst mistake Donald Trump ever made was to
bring his company public and have to be regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission
and ultimately by plaintiffs law firms who sue over securities fraud. I know, and you do too, Ben,
I know the plaintiffs bar in Delaware all too well. I had to defend a number of those cases
when I worked at that company that shall remain nameless. And I know all the players.
They are salivating about going after Trump,
particularly the independent directors, whoever they are,
and Donald Trump personally, and the company,
for this gyration of stock price.
It's all gonna be in Delaware,
that's where the company is incorporated.
And they're going to pick Donald Trump's bones clean.
I used an image on a hot take recently.
Picture Donald Trump naked wearing a barrel, suspenders, and selling pencils and apples
because that's where he's headed.
You got to lead there with that imagery, Pofok.
You got to lead with the barrel.
The barrel, the apple.
You almost made me throw up my bum.
So here's the point.
Donald Trump's thought the biggest golden goose he was going to make was the billions
of dollars with truth social.
The reality is the plaintiff's vultures, lawyers, and I mean that in a nice way, are going to
pick his bones clean with these lawsuits.
Because every time there's a gyration in the stock price,
a dollar, two dollars, five dollars, 10 dollars,
they're gonna tie it to a material misstatement
that Donald Trump has made to the marketplace
about something, and that that misled somebody
to buy stock in reliance on it,
like the exclusivity of Donald Trump,
to only be on Truth Social.
And now you and I are going to have a lot of fun when they have to do their next SEC
filings about what just happened on spaces with X and what it means for the stock price.
So Donald Trump's just trying to get to September when he can start selling some of that stock.
And if you thought the stock gyrated and dropped before,
wait till Donald Trump and his family
start flooding the market with shares
because he needs the money to pay a billion dollars,
what's approaching a billion dollars of lawsuit,
penalties and fines that he has to pay.
Wait, you think the 20, people will be begging for $24
in September and October. That that stocks gonna cut in half again
Heading towards the 10 that it started at well
You know, it's kind of a game of chicken right now right in the sense of people who are still holding on to it are
Trying to I suppose wait for that very last moment before you get an indication
That Donald Trump has unloaded some of the
shares.
Now, when Donald Trump unloads a certain amount of shares that reach a threshold, there's
going to have to be, it's public, there's going to have to be a disclosure that he,
as an insider, is dumping a certain proportion of his shares.
And the moment that is done, if he chooses to do that in September,
and I don't think he can help himself,
the moment he's able to not have this lockup period,
he's gonna sell right away.
I think that exact day,
you're going to see a massive, massive drop
as everybody kind of rushes to try to unload it quickly.
And then what they're going to find is that Donald Trump basically
froze out their brokerage accounts by having them, by having them not do
where, not keep the shares as liquid and fungible as they normally are.
Because Trump told his people,
hey, avoid your brokers basically lending your shares
for short selling, here's how you can do it.
Basically you can give them to us
and we could basically hold them
to prevent them from being short sold.
So the moment that people start selling it,
a lot of people who hold these shares
may be calling their brokers or may be going,
hey, sell it, sell it, sell it. They go, we can't sell it right now. You
put it over here at this holding company and they're going to go, what do you mean? And
they're going to be. And then, so wait, this is again, look, I'm not giving stock advice.
Popeye's not giving stock advice. We're giving you our opinions right here, but things will
get very interesting there
in September.
Hey, Salty, show that.
Ben, before you move on, one comment.
The ones that aren't going to get crushed are people that are wondering, are all the
friends of Donald Trump.
All the friends of Donald Trump are not on the equity side.
They're on the debt side, meaning they lent money with really amazing terms, with convertible notes, and they're doing deals with Donald
Trump to bring the Trump TV streaming service.
So what you said earlier, people remind us, well, the money went somewhere.
That $230 million loss, a lot of that line the pockets of investors and friends and cronies
of Donald Trump who got the benefit.
They started picking that clean
even before the retail investor.
But we don't care about them.
We care about the retail investor.
That means the people in the 401Ks,
you know, and others who decided to invest in that stock
for whatever reason,
because Donald Trump touted it and blew it up.
In other words, hypothetically, robbing Peter to pay Paul,
a lot of people lent Donald Trump money to prop this thing up from the outset.
So when the initial monies were accessible from the money held in trust in the SPAC,
that was basically able to cover some of the debt that was able to prop
Trump media up during the SPAC process in general.
So those people got money, insiders got money,
retail investors are the ones who ultimately
we were warning about years ago
and whether or not they took that warning, we will see.
Show these financial disclosures, Salty,
because we're gonna talk about this when we get right back.
One of the things I wanna show you is that as liabilities,
you have E. Jean Carroll's judgment listed there,
the New York attorney general civil fraud judgment listed there. You've got that property right
there, which to me is always like one of the shady things, this Chicago unit acquisitions LLC,
which we'll talk about. Let's talk about all of that more. Let's take our first quick break
of the show, but before doing that, a reminder, patreon.com slash legal AF, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash legal AF.
Make sure you join the conversation
at patreon.com slash legal AF.
Michael Popok and I hold our partner
and associate meetings on Zoom.
You get to meet us, ask Michael Popok and myself questions.
We love doing that.
It also helps grow this independent media channel.
It's one of the ways we grow,
one of the only ways we
grow. So thank you to everybody who joins that. But just share the word about Legal AF in general.
That's one of the best ways you can help as well. We'll be right back after our first quick break.
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It's time to find your corner office.
Welcome back to Legal AF.
Great ad reads there, Michael Popa.
Thank you.
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Let's show those financials that Donald Trump had to release in connection with
the fact that he is running for the office of the presidency.
This is a required disclosure.
I mean, you see there, uh, E.
Jean Carroll, uh, listed the judgment listed as a liability.
You see that the New York attorney general civil fraud case listed as a
liability in very vague terms, as well. You see that the New York attorney general
civil fraud case listed as a liability
in very vague terms as well, over $50 million,
over $50 million, which I guess is the bare minimum
disclosure requirement,
because it's more like $500 million
and over $100 million with E. Jean Carroll,
when you add them all up. But, um, okay.
And then the other thing that I'll, I'll just flag for everybody is you see number nine right there, Chicago unit acquisitions, LLC.
This one's always been, um, you know, an interesting one to me because
Donald Trump is the owner of Chicago unit acquisitions, LLC, and it's
listed as a liability and I've always suspected, and again, this is an opinion,
that there was some debt parking taking place,
which could be not above board,
if Donald Trump basically took a certain amount of debt
in connection with the acquisition and debt financing and servicing of the debt
around his Chicago tower and the lawsuits that he filed against banks in 2008.
So there was a question of in connection with those settlements, rather than having to pay the taxes of these banks
canceling the debt, did Donald Trump acquire, and I put quotes, acquire the
debt and park it in an LLC that he controls so he didn't have to pay taxes
on the debt forgiveness in connection with suing the banks during the 2008-2009
period where Trump's investments in Chicago were absolutely tanking.
And that's part of Donald Trump's playbook.
But Popak, you did a big hot take on everything that you were seeing there.
And it's not just that page. I mean, it's all the other NFTs and the, you know, and all the scammy crap and the
Bibles, and then I did a take on Milan.
You know, he had to disclose Melania stuff.
So Melania got paid.
So I have been Republicans.
Remember like the one event she went out, you know, and it was like, that's okay.
She did one event.
She got paid $247,000 or so.
She didn't go out.
She stepped out of, she was at Mar-a-Lago.
That's what I meant, sorry.
She stepped out of her room.
Off her road to the first.
And she got paid $247,000 for that speech.
And then for her NFTs, she made $303,000.
Now, PO-POK, for purported billionaires.
This is not sustainable.
What do you think?
There was a number of takeaways.
First of all, the one is he's inflating assets
and deflating liabilities.
That sounds familiar.
That's how he ended up getting a half a billion dollar
of a disgorgement order against him for persistent fraud in the operation of his businesses for 10 years in New York.
So you have that.
That's one takeaway and I'll dive into that for a moment.
Then you've got what I call the finances are in shambles.
It's unsustainable.
Sure.
He's got some, he doesn't, well, here's the other takeaway.
It's kind of a sub takeaway.
Since the fraud judgment and a former federal judge's monitor being placed over the companies,
they've basically not done any new business.
For all intents and purposes, the Trump organization, in terms of new revenue streams and new business, is out of business.
It's nothing more than a family office now,
keeping an eye on prior contracts,
which will eventually expire for licenses
and prior real estate deals.
But they're not buying any new buildings,
they're not investing in any new,
banks aren't investing in them,
they're not able to get money currently.
And so the company is sort of just running in place.
Sure, it's generating some from old contracts,
licensed deals in Dubai and Oman, Jordan,
where Trump's name is splashed over a building
and he gets a license fee.
And sure, he's got existing assets, Dural Country Club,
as you said, the country club circuit.
He just moves like an MX missile through all of his country
clubs.
He never goes anywhere else.
And when he ventures out to campaign,
he goes to that great battleground state of Montana.
So he goes from Bedminster to RAL country club to Mar-a-Lago,
and that's it.
And sure, these things generate revenue.
But even in the disclosure, I can't tell
if it's making any money. Just because something has gross revenue of a number doesn't mean
fundamentally it's in the black. It depends on how much it costs to make that dollar. So he says,
oh, we're up $57 million in Mar-a-Lago. We're revenue. Well, how much do you spend? If you
spend 60, you're in the hole by 3 million, which isn't, man. So he doesn't wanna list that.
He just wants to list, again, hyperinflating assets
to make himself look better.
And so that's the no new business being generated,
no new income streams being generated by Trump,
or again, goes to my, his finances are in a shambles
and they're unsustainable and you can't reproduce them
because he's not getting any new Dubai deals.
He's not buying or he's not building any more hotels that anybody wants to live in with
his name on.
In fact, places in New York, they're paying money to take his name off of buildings that
they already live in.
And then you have the unsustainability of it, as I said.
How many NFTs can the guys sell?
I mean, how many trading cards with him in cosplay,
fireman, cowboy, astronaut, how many of those can you sell?
And even the Bibles that he sold with Lee Greenwood,
the country singer, it was 300 grand.
That's all you brought, seriously?
You sold the Bible that you also
signed. I almost said authorized. You almost that you signed and you brought in 300 grand and nowhere
on there, I couldn't find it in pages and pages and pages of his disclosure was the sneakers he
sold out of the back of the van in Philadelphia. But selling a book that's not even you didn't even
he doesn't write any of his books, but selling a book about's not even, you didn't even, he doesn't write any of his books,
but selling a book about notes to Trump,
just other people's notes that you slap your name on
and you sell for a few million dollars,
eventually the music stops
and you don't have a chair to sit in
because you can't generate,
this is how he's generating new income.
So he's living off of old legacy dollars.
He's not generating any new real estate dollars. He's got to rely on these phony card games that he's
that he's established for cash against a looming balance sheet of over a hundred
million dollars owed to E. Jean Carroll that he's going to end up paying. The bond
is fine. The bond is just a bond, a security to the judgment creditor
that they'll get paid. The bonding company doesn't pay the money. Donald Trump has to
pay the money. So the $100 million to E. Jean Carroll running with interest, pardon me,
is real. The $500 million, which has been running with interest from the New York attorney,
from the attorney general case in front of Judge Angoron is going to be fully briefed
on appeal during the fall. And everyone at the time,
and you and I reported on it, we're like, Oh, well, but the, the,
appellate court lowered the bond amount to 175 million.
That doesn't mean that's all they're going to find him liable for,
or to take a blue pencil under Angoran's order.
It just means that they see he's got a lot of visible assets with his name on it. He's not the
kind of guy that's going to be able to beat out all of his creditors, especially with a monitor
in place. So the money was less important to them than seeing the assets and having Barbara Jones
sitting on top of all of his assets and reporting back in.
I think I'll leave my point on this, Ben.
The next big step is for Barbara Jones, the appointed monitor who's paid by Donald Trump
but reports as an officer of the court to Judge Angoron and then gives public reporting
so you and I can talk about it, for her to comb through these hundreds of pages of
disclosures on liabilities and on assets and determine whether he is committing election
fraud by falsely reporting the true state of his financial picture as required by the federal
election laws and report that back to Judge Angoran. Believe me, if he thought that he was just gonna file this thing and that former Judge
Barbara Jones and Judge Angoran wouldn't be interested in it, I think he's in for
a rude awakening very, very soon. Well look, it's not a coincidence also that
the reasons that he's giving these press conferences at Mar-a-Lago and Ben
Minster, in my opinion, you know, he's
selling access when you join these clubs, you get to be courtside at the, at
during the campaign and you get to be there during, you know, when all of it's
happening.
I did a video earlier in the morning about how for three or four minutes,
Donald Trump will show up at the clubs.
He will like, first off, he makes everybody clap for him.
Like it's North Korea, like it's like Kim Jong and clapping.
Then he goes up to kind of the certain people and speaks to him.
Cause he's selling access to the leader.
It might be, you know, of the Republican party.
Cause the one asset that actually is doing good at this point are the
memberships to his country clubs where he's using as his residents to kind of live in,
to also avoid taxes. And that's what's funding his lifestyle. He's raised the rates on the clubs,
and that is generating huge amounts of cash. And one more thing-
And he throws the events there. He then uses the campaign to-
That's it. And then has the campaign...
All the expenses are offloaded to the campaign, meaning the donors, because he books, right? He
does everything at his own locations. And so revenues up, expenses are down, campaign is
being used for personal funds. Exactly. And when it comes to the campaign and it comes to political action committees,
they're tax exempt, they're tax, they're tax exempt organizations.
So the PAC isn't paying taxes.
The campaign isn't paying taxes while they're raising money for Mr.
and Mrs.
Magedonia with those emails that I cover in a lot of the hot takes that I do
where I show that they're a combination of like weird love bombing, where Donald Trump will write, I love you.
Do you love me?
There's no one who I love in this world.
And it would make me so sad if I didn't hear from you tonight or Donald Trump
saying, you know, you need to know tonight, this could be the last night.
We see each other again.
They're coming for us.
It's, it's, it's messages.
Um, it's messages like that.
I want to talk about what Donald Trump's plan though, is with all of this happening,
we talked about the stock crashing and shareholder lawsuits.
We talked about here, these liabilities are going to catch up with him.
Trump wants to push everything off.
It's his playbook.
Even when he's the plaintiff, he sues,
and then he refuses to sit for deposition
and refuses to go through the steps
because he's using the lawsuit as a press release.
And if you're skeptical of what I'm saying
and you're watching Legal AF for the first time
and you go, that's not true. Think about it like this. Okay,
so assume you're a MAGA person whose friends or family told you to watch the show and just
see if what these guys are saying on legal AF makes sense. Let me break it down for you
like this. So Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against Michael Cohen, what about six months
ago, nine months ago?
He sued Michael Cohen for about 300 or $500 million.
Donald Trump filed the lawsuit.
Donald Trump is the plaintiff.
He was the one doing the suing.
So he sues Michael Cohen and Michael Cohen says, okay, you're suing me.
I will sit for a deposition, but Donald, you need to sit for a deposition so I can ask you the questions about the lawsuit where you are suing me, Michael Cohen."
So Donald Trump then tries to avoid the deposition, and then Michael Cohen goes to the judge and
says, hey, judge, he's trying to avoid the deposition, make him sit for it.
So then Trump's lawyer said, now we're not trying to avoid it.
We'll sit for the deposition.
And then as it gets closer to the deposition day,
they say, actually he's not available.
We need to move it.
And then Michael Cohen goes, all right,
we'll move it two weeks.
Donald Trump goes, okay.
Then the next date of the deposition comes
and Donald Trump goes, you know what?
We can't do the deposition
because we need to move everything till after the election.
And Michael Cohen's like, what are you talking about?
Like, you're the one who sued me.
I didn't sue you, you sued me.
Sit for your deposition so you can answer questions.
Tough guy, right?
You're a tough guy.
Answer the questions.
Donald Trump goes, no.
Michael Cohen goes to the judge.
The judge says, Donald, I'll give you an extra week or two.
You're gonna sit for a deposition.
Trump's lawyers go, great.
We're gonna sit for a deposition. Trump's lawyers go, great, we're gonna sit for a deposition.
We'll absolutely sit for the deposition.
Then that date comes, the day before the deposition,
Donald Trump dismisses the lawsuit
because he did not wanna sit for a deposition.
He wanted the headline that he sued Michael Cohen
for 300 to $500 million.
And that's just one of the ways he abuses our legal system.
And it's deeper than that.
Imagine all the other cases of people who have real issues that were delayed
or didn't get in front of that judge because Donald Trump is playing games
like that, you know, in the federal judiciary and then using the money
from Mr. and Mrs.
Magidonia, who he raises money off of, to fund these things.
Donald Trump's whole strategy is delay, delay, delay.
When we get back, I wanna talk about now Donald Trump
is requesting a delay of the sentencing
of the Manhattan District Attorney criminal case.
Let's talk about that, but let's take our last quick break
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Welcome back to LegalAF.
Michael Popak, loving those ad reads.
Again, thanks to our pro-democracy sponsors right there.
All right, let's talk about Donald Trump
requesting an adjournment of the sentencing
in the Manhattan District Attorney criminal case.
We know Trump was convicted on 34 separate felony counts.
A jury of his peers, that his lawyers,
had the opportunity to select.
All 12 of them agreed.
When do you get 12 people to agree on anything?
All 12 of them unanimously agreed, unanimous agreement that Trump was
guilty of 34 felony counts of falsification of business records.
Donald Trump tried to get the judge recused for the third time, attacking
the judge's daughter that was already rejected twice.
Also the judge received an that was already rejected twice.
Also, the judge received an independent ethics opinion
from the State Bar of New York over a year ago,
saying that there's no even basis for a recusal at all,
yet alone in any reason why you should exercise
your discretion for a recusal.
And then Justice Mershon made it clear in a letter
because he knew where Trump was going with this.
Do not try to move the September 18th sentencing date.
I'm not moving it.
It's on.
I'm going to still have to rule on Trump's motion about absolute immunity
after the Supreme court, but assuming I rule against you, Donald Trump there
and say that this case, you know, that the case should not be retried based on
the Supreme court's absolute immunity decision, we're going to sentencing. Do not file anything to move it. So what does Trump
do? He files a motion, a letter motion to move the sentencing date. Not only that, I thought your hot
take just really went to the heart of the issue here, Bobak, that Donald Trump was also saying,
we want you, Judge, not only to move the sentencing date from September 18th to some indefinite date in 2025 in the
future, but please judge, stop them in hadn't district attorney's office.
Please stop them from even, um, filing anything in the first place.
Um, regarding the sentencing, because it would cause reputational harm to
Donald Trump if they even made a filing.
Donald Trump doesn't want any reputational harm.
So if the Manhattan DA lays out the conviction and why they think he should
go to prison for a number of years, that will hurt Donald Trump's reputation.
And what Donald Trump was arguing in this latest letter brief is that the
Supreme court was not only granting absolute immunity for court constitutional
functions, official acts and evidentiary exclusion, but Trump claimed the Supreme
court even went a step further beyond that and they gave absolute immunity for
anything that could even potentially make Donald Trump sad or hurt his
reputation or hurt his ego.
That absolute immunity is a
reputational protection as well.
It's literally in the letter brief.
They argue that.
Michael Popak, I want to get your take on that.
And I think you just nailed it.
And then why don't you pivot there on your own?
You can talk about a little bit of the SIPA as you transition there.
All right.
No problem.
So the letter brief,
the letter motion, we've got a copy of it here, is how we do things in New York. We file letters
to your judge and ask them to consider letters to be motions and then judges send emails
and letters as orders. That's the way things happen in the Byzantine world of New York. And
kind of buried
on the third paragraph of their request was really what they're trying for. They're worried that
because the judge has told both sides to send in their pre-sentencing memos, which is their
recommendations and analysis as to what is the proper sentence for somebody that just got nailed
with 34 felony count conviction. They're worried about what the Manhattan DA's office's report is going to look like because
it's going to be public.
It's going to be on the docket.
You and I are going to talk about it.
The LIF is going to explore it and it's going to be a bad news day week or beyond for Donald
Trump and they don't want that to happen.
Now the judge said, I think a
little tongue-in-cheek, I mean there's a chance I grant immunity on the 16th and
find that they reversed and vacate the 34 count felony conviction, wink, but I'll
see you all on the 18th of September and send me your sentencing memos, you know,
no delays there. And they didn't like that. Here's what they wrote. They wrote, the requested adjournment would prevent, they call it DANY, D-A-N-Y, we call
it the Manhattan DA's office, from filing a sentencing submission while the court is
still considering the presidential immunity motion. We'll talk about that for a minute, too.
In an August 5th letter, your honor indicated that the court will issue a decision on the
immunity motion on September 16th, but that the existing September 18th sentencing date
remains unchanged and that the parties should keep that in mind for purposes of sending
in their sentencing recommendations as public document.
However, in a July letter, the Court acknowledged that the sentencing may not be necessary in
light of the Supreme Court decision.
I'm not quite sure that's what he meant by that. We've explained in our briefing why no
sentencing should occur and why the case should be dismissed. While that is still a pending question,
the Manhattan DA should not be permitted to file a public and politically prejudicial
sentencing submission that will include what the Supreme Court has
described as the threat of punishment in a matter, here it is, that is personally and
politically prejudicial to President Trump and his family, just throw the family in there for no
reason, and harmful to the institution of the presidency as a result of the type of peculiar
public opprobrium associated with these proceedings that trouble the court,
the Trump court.
All right, now let's break it all down.
The judge is going to be sentencing on the 18th of September.
I have no doubt.
On the 16th of September, I believe, and I think you do too, Ben, that the judge is going
to rule that the narrow issue of immunity application to this case only dealt with whether some very small
stray evidence about Donald Trump's short time in the White House while he was still running
the bribery scheme should not have been allowed to go to the jury under the immunity decision
because it somehow rose the level of
official conduct or stretched to its outer boundary official conduct. And the judge would also have to
find that that testimony basically of Hope Hicks when she entered the White House as the
press secretary and Madeleine Westerhout, who ran Donald Trump's calendar
and scheduled things like the meeting with Michael Cohen
to write him a private check to pay him off for the scheme
that somehow rose the level of what a president
is supposed to be doing in his spare time in his office,
as opposed to just being private criminal conduct.
So that's the
only issue. The judge, Mershon, who sat through the entire trial
and months and months of pretrial proceedings and
hearings and briefing knows this area of the law well, I believe
he's going to say the following that the that there's two
reasons why I'm not vacating meaning reversing the decision
of the jury and taking away the 34 felony
counts.
One, the information you're talking about, the Westerhoo testimony, the Hope Hicks testimony,
and this evidence about what happened in the White House was not outcomes positive.
It's not the reason the jury convicted on 34 felony counts against the mountain of other
evidence and dozens of witnesses testimony,
including the two other components
of the Trump Tower conspiracy,
David Pecker of the National Enquirer and Michael Cohen,
who was then your lawyer and consul Yerry at the time.
The jury, yes, it heard the evidence,
but to say that they would not have convicted
on 34 felony counts,
unless they heard about Hope Hicks press statements and how meetings were calendared in the
White House is wrong. And secondly, even if that were the case,
it doesn't require that it be stricken that evidence because it's
beyond the outer boundaries of official conduct and it is into the world of private conduct and criminal conduct and therefore denied.
See you two days from now for sentencing. That's what's going to happen.
They know that's going to happen, but what they don't need as they're watching the political
calendar, as you and I always keep one eye on here on Legal AF, while they're looking at the
political calendar, they're trying to line it up and say, oh, that's gonna be a terrible news week for me,
Donald Trump, when that pre-sentencing report comes out
because what people need to know here on the show
is that it's just not gonna be a recitation
of all the evidence against Donald Trump
that was presented against him.
It's all of his misconduct inside the courtroom,
outside the courtroom, the 10 findings
of contempt, the attacks on Judge Murchon and his daughter and Steph, the attacks in other places
that go into sentencing. You don't just look at it in a vacuum. It's everything he did to Judge
Angoran and his wife and the law clerk. It's everything he did out in front of the bicycle racks and these impromptu
press conferences. It's all the social media. It's all the attacks on Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan
DA with the pictures of a baseball bat next to Alvin Bragg's head. It's all the racist comments.
That all goes into a sentencing memo. All that stuff that Donald Trump did as candidate Trump is only going to backfire and explode in his face as a felon Trump to be sentenced.
And on the heels of that, we got kind of two things that happened right back to back in the week.
Is that Donald Trump, once he, you know, once he, his first step was to try to get rid of Judge Murchon
for the third time.
And the only, the only new evidence was, I don't know, that the, that the daughter for
Judge Murchon, who's an adult, who doesn't work for the court system, who has a job,
her company also fundraised for things related to Kamala Harris.
So what, what does that have to do with the jury of, as you said,
12 people convicting Donald Trump
for the bad things he did in 2016?
Who cares how she makes a living?
And how does that link to the judge
who already got a clean bill of health
from the Judicial Ethics Board
when he wrote him a letter and said, here's what they're accusing me of, what do you think, do I
need to recuse? And they were like, no, you don't have to recuse because you made
a $15 donation to ActBlue or your daughter has a job? No. And so he, but it
just shows you how desperate and flailing they are. You said it once, I
think either last week or one of your hot takes.
Donald Trump's running out of places
where people have to listen to him.
And the court was great because he'd show up
and the media, not us particularly,
but the corporate media would like ants at a picnic,
would just like jump on him.
And he'd get that 10 minute
and that sound bite that he wanted, same ridiculous things.
Now he's got to try to do it where he tricks
the corporate media into showing up for a quote unquote
press conference where there's no questions answered.
It was really just free media, you know,
for which, you know, they're not supposed to be doing that
by the way, because if that looks like a campaign event
instead of a Q and A, then they got to give equal time to Kamala Harris. That's why you see CNN
with the button going we got to get out of here. This looks like a campaign stop. This isn't
anything else. So you've got all of that going on and then you've got he's running out of these
places and so he's got to make these ridiculous filings. And he's worried and that's where I'm going to end it. He's worried about the entire catalog
of misconduct and bad behavior right at this moment in time in like September, which is
not a great time when you're trying to win the presidency a couple of months later.
Now, finally, let's just talk briefly about what Judge Tanya
Chutkin did in the SIPA Classified Information Procedure Act ruling,
kind of granting in part and denying in part Trump SIPA Section 5 requests.
POPAC, it's confidential, so we don't really know it's under seal and it's pursuant to the SEPA procedures.
But you did a take on this and you thought that, you know, perhaps there's
more than meets the eye there, although we haven't really seen what it is.
To me, the fact that she's making SEPA section five rulings in general tells
me she's moving this case along Section 5 rulings in general tells me
she's moving this case along as quick as she can. Everybody should recall as well, though, that we're still in this period
where there was a stipulation that was entered into by special counsel
Jack Smith and Trump to provide a little more time for Jack Smith
to provide the Department of Justice this position on on what the indictments going to look like
given the Supreme Court's absolute immunity ruling.
But I think Judge Chutkin signaling
everything under her control,
she's gonna move this along quickly.
Well, I agree with that.
Yeah, I have a hot take up right now.
It was, it's not that hard to piece together,
even though she had a one line,
my order granting a part, denying a denying apart Donald Trump's or the other
government's motion to strike Donald Trump's SIPA five notice
is is sealed. Because everything about SIPA is sealed. So let me
just do a quick do a quickie here. But most of people are
thinking, why are we talking about classified information?
We're not talking about Mar-a-Lago Pope Buck. We're
talking, what even lost your mind? We're talking, we're
talking about the the interference with the election case
in DC before Judge Chuckett. Yes. But Donald Trump has been telling the world and anyone who will
listen, including in filings back in October, that one of his theories for defense to destroy
the criminal intent, what we call mens rea for the prosecutors, is to argue that Donald
Trump was really, really, I love this one, Donald Trump was trying to get to the
bottom of Russian and Iranian election interference from 2016 and 2020.
And that explains all of his misconduct related to his cling to power and
failure to transition peacefully. Everything from weaponizing the Department of Justice to claiming this outcome's positive
fraud when there wasn't, to claiming that dead people voted, to at the very end
after the pressure campaign against Mike Pence failed and the
use of the fake electors failed, then he just decided to burn the capital
to the ground in order
to try to stop the transfer of power.
All that can be explained because Donald Trump was actually working undercover to try to
get to the bottom of presidential interference, presidential elections.
I said in my hot take, I can't tell you how many criminals when they're picked up by the
FBI, they often say a version of this,
oh no, no, you thought I,
oh, you thought I was committing the crime.
No, no, I wasn't committing the crime.
I was working undercover to try to catch the real criminal.
So what you saw is like embezzlement or arson
or murder for hire.
No, that wasn't that.
I was working deep, deep, so deeply undercover
that I can't even tell you who hired me to do that.
This is Donald Trump's problem.
Donald Trump's saying, I was just trying to get to the bottom of 2016 collusion.
First of all, I thought Donald Trump's entire argument was there was no Russia interference.
Mueller's report exonerated him, which is actually not exactly true.
But now he's saying, no, no, I have the right as a president
and a duty as a president to get to the bottom
of Russia and Iranian interference.
Now look, this is mixing apples and bowling balls.
Is there an Iranian plot to try to get back at Donald Trump?
Yes, because the intelligence community tells me there is.
Have they tried to maybe assassinate him?
Maybe.
Was that related to Butler, Pennsylvania,
the 20 year old kid from high school?
No, but there's some truthiness in what he says,
but he puts it all together as an excuse
why he doesn't have criminal intent.
So what Chutkin did is she's making her way through the October filings now.
Two weeks ago, she denied two out of the four pending motions to dismiss that Donald Trump
had made, all filed in October.
And now she's up to docket number 121, which is October 26, when Donald Trump put the government
on notice, because this is what you have to do.
When you want to use classified information,
which is going to be the Russian interference,
Iranian interference stuff, and you want to use it,
you can't just put it on the docket.
You can't just use it in public, in a public trial.
You have to go through, as you've done at length
during Legal AF last year,
you have to go through a classified information
procedures act procedure under SIPA.
There is a court officer, an officer of the court who is a SIPA officer, you have to go
to them first, you have to brief the issue with them, they have high national security
clearance, they go look at the documents and they make a preliminary decision and then
the judge decides.
This allows somebody who really legitimately needs
to use classified information in order to clear their name. This allows them to do it so the jury
gets that information but yet the public doesn't have, you know, our national security isn't further
compromised. That's the reason for this elaborate SIPA procedures. So it starts with a notice. I want to use X, either a document that was redacted,
like black tape was put on certain things. I want to use the information that's underneath the black
tape. It's over redacted. Or I want to use this document because I think it helps my case,
it helps my defense. But a judge is the gatekeeper. And what the judge has said,
because she cited this particular filing as her document,
as what she was responding to,
is I think she's going to allow Donald Trump
to see certain of the redaction on some of the documents.
But she's not going to allow the Russia collusion
and Iranian collusion on elections
to come in as a defense to distract the jury
as a diversionary tactic to try to get a hung jury or to try to get or to try to get a
jury verdict in his favor. That I do not believe she's gonna do. We'll know
more as she unseals things but I'm piecing it together from the big pieces
of the puzzle that I can see as to what I think the reality is. Well there you
have it Michael Popak breaking down SIPA gave you the hand that I can see as to what I think the reality is. Well, there you have it.
Michael Popak breaking down SIPA gave you the handoff there as much as I love
talking about SIPA, you did a really good, hot take on it.
And so, um, I thought, uh, you'd contextualize it very well and how it
interplays with all of the other developments in that case, and frankly,
all of the other cases taking place generally. Folks things are moving along and what I thought was great about
today's Legal AEF in terms of the data that we have is that there's a lot of
things that are moving towards kind of pivotal key moments that are really
going to happen in the next three weeks or so, four weeks or so, before October 1st, right?
We're recording this August 17th.
Between now and October 1st, I mean,
you're gonna have the period where Donald Trump's
lockup period for Trump media is over,
so Trump may start selling the stock.
And imagine if that stock completely crashes,
the implications there,
if shareholder lawsuits happen there,
what that means and no one else is really talking about that.
You don't hear corporate media letting people know,
here are the steps that we think could be taking place.
And that's what we've always tried to do here on Legal AF
before any of these cases were even filed,
before they even went to the grand jury,
we were mapping out as best as we could.
The analogy I often give is like a meteorologist trying to predict the
weather, where these storms are brewing, where they're going, what the storms
can look like and what's developing.
So that's why we wanted to cover what's developing with Trump's
crashing stock, what's going to happen there.
Our shareholder lawsuits on the horizon.
Let's talk about these financial disclosures.
What are the financial disclosures
that we see red flags with?
What might the financial monitor do?
Stay tuned there.
It's why we talk about what's gonna be happening
with Trump sentencing on September 18th,
even though it's August 17th.
It seems like the media wakes up all of a sudden.
For those who watch corporate media,
it's like all of a sudden, nothing, nothing, nothing,
nothing, and then all of a sudden comes September 18th,
it's like, oh, we're here,
and then they wanna just shout out each other
versus giving real reason analysis.
So what's gonna be happening with the sentencing?
We're talking about that.
What's going on in the Washington, DC
federal criminal case, we're talking about that. What's going on in the Washington DC federal criminal case.
We're talking about that.
So we're mapping all of these things out.
We'll keep you posted every step of the way,
but these things are all major, major developments
that are happening right now.
Michael Popock, great spending this time with you
this weekend on Legal AF.
Legal AFers, thank you for continuing to make Legal AF
the top legal show
in the intersection of law and politics out there, period,
in the country and in the world.
We're grateful for you for that.
Patreon.com slash Legal AF,
P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash Legal AF.
If you so feel inclined to support
financially legal AF and this network,
we don't have outside investors,
so one of the ways you can do that is right there,
patreon.com slash legal AF and there's fun features there
including attending exclusive Zoom partnership
and associate meetings.
We have a lot of fun with those.
Also don't forget store.mitustouch.com.
Some great pro-democracy gear and while I teased it
too early on the Midas Touch brother show,
we have some great Kamala wristbands
and some other incredible merch
that's just been selling like crazy right there.
You see the wristbands right there.
Take a look at all of that gear,
100% union made, 100% made in the US.
But for all those legal AF fans,
we've got the legal AF shirts there.
So make sure you get the bundle
when you go to store.mitustouch.com.
Get the legal AF shirts, 100% union made,
100% made in the U.S.
Bundle it with some of the wristbands,
bundle it with some of the other gear.
Some great stuff there.
And shout out to Jordy for really curating a great store.
And shout out to Karen for doing the
designs and taking the lead on that.
Popak, pleasure, Legal AFers, and honor.
We'll see you all soon on the next Legal AF.
Make sure you're subscribed.
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I think we can get there next week.
It's for Labor Day.
That's my prediction.
It could be next week.
We'll see. Make sure you hit subscribe. Thanks everybody for prediction. It could be next week. We'll see.
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