Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump CAN’T HANDLE the HEAT of Even MORE Indictments
Episode Date: August 10, 2023The top-rated legal and political podcast Legal AF is back for another hard-hitting look at the most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. On this midweek’s edition, ...Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo, discuss: 1. The red letter date on the calendar for Fulton County Georgia DA Fani Willis and her likely indictment of Trump and others for Georgia election interference and other criminal conspiracies; 2. Trump’s efforts to seriously delay Special Counsel Jack Smith’s DC criminal trial of him and DC Federal Judge Chutkan’s consideration this week of the DOJ’s motion for protective order and to stop Trump and his counsel from violating the terms of his release from custody and the local criminal rules on improper out of court statements; 3. The Special Counsel’s continuing efforts to present new evidence to the Grand Jury seeking the indictment of others involved with various criminal conspiracies not named Trump; 4. The revelation of new evidence of criminal intent and fraud to support the DOJ’s new case against Trump, this time in the form of a legal memo concocted by “Co Conspirator #5”, that indicates that even its author did not believe there was any legal merit to have VP Pence accept the “fake electors” and deny President Biden his victory; and 5. Voters in dramatic fashion and fighting back in Ohio by rejecting “Issue 1” part of a new movement by MAGA republicans to make it almost impossible to have voter ballot initiatives succeed to change state constitutions to enshrine abortion rights there, and so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! GREEN CHEF: Head to https://GreenChef.com/LegalAF50 and use code LegalAF50 to get 50% off and Free Shipping! AG1: Go to https://drinkAG1.com/LEGALAF and get 5 free AG1 Travel Packs and a FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D with your first purchase! FUM: Head to https://TryFum.com/legalaf and use code LEGALAF to save 10% off when you get the journey pack today! FAST GROWING TREES: Head to https://fastgrowingtrees.com/legalaf right now to get 15% off your entire order! SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop NEW LEGAL AF 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 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 MAGA Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Full steam ahead, Fulton County, Georgia, DA, Fawni Willis, prepares to have her hard
working three week old grand jury.
Return a criminal indictment against, we presume, Trump and others for election interference
conspiracy, and it's likely coming at the top of next week.
I was on the ground in Atlanta, at the courthouse, at the DA's office just yesterday, reporting
on developments in the case including
two possible new witnesses. What will the shape and contours of the indictment look like?
Surgeical like Jack Smith's or more expansive and sprawling with multiple defendants and counts?
And she seemed pretty coy about communicating with special counsel Jack Smith's office
about their respective cases in a recent interview. what does all this mean as two separate prosecutors
work to whipsaw one criminal defendant named Trump?
Then Jack Smith's team continues to battle
over getting a protective order
and ultimately gag order in place against Trump
and his counsel in front of DC federal judge,
Tanya Chutkin, to stop them from continuing
to violate the local criminal rules
about out-of-court statements,
about evidence and potential witnesses. The judge said a hearing for this Friday, now that there's been full
blown briefing on the issue, and of course Trump and his counsel are taking advantage of the delay by calling the
indictment among other things, bullshit, and other in-elegant attacks on witness credibility and the evidence. Hasn't Trump already violated the conditions of his release from custody
and hasn't at least John Loro already violated the local criminal rules governing
out-of-court statements? And what will Judge Chuck can do about it all?
Speaking of Jack Smith, the work of his grand cherries and team of investigators and prosecutors
is not over. They didn't put up a going out of business sign
when they issued the indictment,
new witnesses and new cooperating witnesses
are meeting the team and giving grand jury testimony,
including Bernie Kerrick, who worked for Rudy Giuliani
and ultimately for Donald Trump.
As the DOJ focuses on the as of yet
unindytico conspiratorsators one through six and others, but potentially Donald
Trump again to bring new indictments.
And what about Mark Meadows, disappears from view and bear mention in the indictment, what
could that mean?
And Jack Smith is working with a new piece of key missing link evidence that even the
Jan 6th committee didn't have a December 2020 legal memo created by,
I call them co-cons, co-conspirator number five, Ken Cheeseboro. He shared it with Juliani,
Eastman Powell, Trump and others, in which he lays out in vivid detail that even he didn't believe
that Pence had the power to reject the actual electoral votes and
accept the fake ones, but that this phony approach would continue to buy time for Trump to steal
the election.
Ken Chisbrough, along with John Eastman, are clearly the mad political scientists who implemented
Trump's plan not just to delay for delay's sake, but to steal the election from the American
people.
Or to paraphrase Trump, he did it against you, not for you, and he's being indicted because
of it.
Finally, we have yet another data point prior to the national 2024 elections that the
voters in each state are rebelling against the GOP and MAGA and their attempts to shove
undemocratic policies down
their throats, especially those that disenfranchise and undermine the right to vote and the people
to petition.
Latest example, Ohio, where Republican legislators tried to implement a part of a national strategy
of making it almost impossible for the people, as in we the people, to affect change through
ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments.
Knowing that the Democrats and progressives were about to put on the November ballot
an initiative to secure a woman's right to choose and have bodily autonomy with a state
constitutional right to choose, Ohio, Ohio, MAGA tried to slip through an off-election
year initiative called issue one to increase the voter percentage required to amend the state's
constitution to 60 percent and increase the number of voters necessary to even get the proposed
amendment on the ballot. What happened? And what does it mean for November's abortion rights bill in Ohio,
and those throughout the country? All this and so much more that we haven't even planned
or talked about in advance. On the midweek edition of Legal AF podcast, only on the
Midas Touch Network with your regular co-anchors, Michael Popeok and Karen Friedmanek Nifolo,
KFA since the last time I saw you, just
last Wednesday, you did an amazing interview and special legal AF episode with former Republican
House member Adam Kinziker about the January 6th Committee in hearings and what he thinks
about Jack Smith's indictment so far. And I did remote reporting from the steps of the
Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta,
putting my ear to the ground about the upcoming indictment.
And we have day jobs as practicing trial attorneys.
What a week so far, Karen, how are you?
I'm good, I'm good.
Yeah, we've been super busy.
I wrote that op ed to when we launched our new Midas Touch website that looks amazing,
by the way. And the op-ed has been, has reached far and wide,
and I think we have close to three million reads
so far, or views of it.
So, I felt pretty good about that.
I think it's, we're reaching a wide audience
in our attempt to try and preserve our democracy.
And Congressman Kininsinger,
that's what his whole message was about.
It was all about how you put your country first
over your party and over anything else
because if you're a country, if you're a democracy,
if you don't have that, you have nothing to debate about
or disagree about or any of those things.
And so I think there's a lot of people who are
selves included, obviously, who are trying to help get this
message across.
And all the people who are reading are what we're writing
and watching all our episodes and our hot takes.
That's how we get the message out there.
So it's been pretty great.
And we've been busy, but it's worth it, you know, I took one look at your,
your editorial that you wrote for the new website, and which you, I think you whipped up in an hour or
two, and I said, if this is the standard of the quality of writing that we are required to put
together for this website, I'm out. I cannot. I thought it was so good. And the second comment I had in my head was,
you know, who doesn't have three million views?
The New York Times, the Washington Post, the articles,
the fact that the Midas mighty and the Midas network
and the movement is now latched on to a website
that three weeks ago didn't even exist.
And now is becoming the number one new source for law, politics,
and those at that intersection.
It's just incredible.
And they're coming for content.
You're writing, and the crap I do on the street
with my microphone standing over a garbage can,
stuff like that.
But I think it's because everyone who does it
is authentically mission driven to preserve
our country and our democracy.
This isn't about a business.
We're not corporate with all these corporate other concerns, like money or profit.
We're all about getting about the mission.
And I think that that's partly why people come to us because, and they see we're authentic,
right?
You're standing, you were reporting live on the street from Atlanta, you looked so professional.
Meanwhile, you had your laptop sitting on top of a garbage can, right, so that you could
record, you know, so you could record for, yeah, that was on top of a garbage can, right? So that you could record, you know, so you could record for, yeah, that
was on top of a garbage can, right?
I just think of photo.
Yeah, and you know, how many times have we been interrupted by my family or my dog or your
dog or, you know, boogie, whatever, like, because we're authentic, right? We're not this,
you know, we're just doing the best we can to get the message across. And, you know,
I think people see that and they know that we're, you know, I'll tell you the other thing
that's been pretty cool, is I've been getting a lot, and you too, a lot of feedback from
people, emails, not just, you know, we've always gotten lots of comments in the live chat
as well as in, you know, the Twitter or X or whatever it is in the comment section.
And I don't know if people realize this, but I read almost all of them I try.
And part of it is because I really appreciate people who take the time to actually comment.
And a lot of people give really constructive feedback.
You know, there are people who are telling me that, oh, you're really good that you
ask this question, but maybe next time you should ask this other question. And I think it's great that people are so engaged
in what we're doing and also giving us
what maybe talk about this or maybe answer this question.
Or I just think the level of engagement
that all the people who are equally involved
in this movement with us are really, it just, it makes
it, you feel like you're part of, at least I feel like I'm a part of something really important.
Well, I got a shout out from Miss Barbara from Shambley, Georgia, because I went to a waffle
house. There are not a sponsor on the way to do some coverage at Fulton County and she is a huge, mightest mighty and legal AFN. She
sat at a booth across from me and then finally had the courage to yell out, I know you,
your Pope-Pock and it just went from there. She was a lovely woman and she's keeping up
the good fight for democracy in Georgia and And it was so great because, you know, we spend so much time talking to a computer screen.
We talked to each other, but talking to the hot techs, like just just sitting in a room
by ourselves with a microphone and to be able to actually meet live people that we that
are part of that are on the same journey that we're on or we're sharing a journey.
I can't tell you how hard warming it was to meet her.
I, for her, she felt like I'd stepped off the television
and walked into her living room.
For me, I was like, I just love meeting the people
that we're touching because all we get really
is the comments and numbers.
We sort of generally know how we think we're doing,
but the human
touch is always so great.
Let's stay in Georgia.
Let's stay in Georgia and kick off the LegalAF podcast today and talk about what we are
hearing about the indictment.
The good news is we've been talking about imminent indictment since March, maybe a poorly
choice of words, but everything else about Fony Willis, I call
her full steam ahead, Fony Willis, has been, she's told us where she is going to go, how
long it's going to take her to get there, and then right on time that train arrives.
For instance, pardon me, she said early on, I am going to in panel and ask for a special
purpose grand jury to assist me in making the ultimate decision whether to indict.
And she did.
And then she said, I'm going to keep it in place for about seven months or so.
And then when it's over, I'm going to listen to its recommendation and make a decision
from that.
And she did right on time.
And then there was that gap that we all sort of ridic, that ridicule, that's too strong
of a word.
We sort of made fun of her that from March until she got the new grand jury up and running,
it seemed like it was an inordinate gap.
Plus, we were watching Jack Smith sort of move his cases along at a very high velocity,
and we thought she maybe she wasn't.
And I gave her, and I think you did too, as a former prosecutor, I gave her a little
bit more credit than that, because she wasn't just going to take the special purpose grand jury's recommendations about their counts and the crimes and not
make aid continue to develop more evidence to strengthen some parts of her case and even
consider more crimes that she didn't even have the information at that moment to present
to them before she went into her final grand jury or in dieting grand jury to walk out with
her indictment.
So I didn't really, the March, June, I didn't really care.
So now she's got 23 people, Fulton County, Fultonians, who are the grand jury for all things
Georgia election interference.
And this is a many headed Hydra, right, in Georgia.
It's not just, although we love talking about it because it's the clearest example of Donald Trump's interference and crimes
But it's not just the phone call with Mark Meadows to Brad Rathans Perger to try to throw away almost 12,000 votes and turn the election for Donald Trump
It's not just that. It's Mark Meadows going to Georgia and meeting with elected election officials on the ground to try to influence the outcome
It's it's Rudy Giuliani and the other lawyers, both conducting phony legislative hearings that
were at hearings and or filing lawsuits that all that all ended up in the trash bin and to try
to stop the election and the use of fake electors in Georgia, the coordination through the White House
with at least one or all six of the
unindicted co-conspirators listed in the indictment, including Boris Epstein.
It's all of that.
And then how Georgia fit in to the other six battleground states and how she's looking
at those things.
And she told us, she told us six weeks ago, seven weeks ago, that she wanted the streets
of Fulton County,
and I was there yesterday, and they are cleared, cleared.
During this exact time period starting on Monday,
there's some footage that I shot.
Well, I was there, we call that the B-roll in the business.
I didn't even know what the business was until I joined
the minus touch network, but I shot some B-roll.
There it is, and it is dead, it is desolate there,
because 70% of her staff and that of courtroom personnel and that of the state house, which
is across the street, have all listened to judge a batty, I'm sorry, Sheriff batty and
stayed home along with the chief judge who gave out. And so there's not a lot of people
on the street. And there's a couple of court room proceedings going on. And of course,
the grand jury, the 23 grand jurors ultimately have to vote and they have to count to 12.
She has to get 12 people to agree with her to indict.
And for what we're hearing about some remaining witnesses that she's trying to wrap up and
the ways of penis have been issued, all things that I heard on the ground and I was asking
people and things that ABC
news is reporting looks like Tuesday indictment, unsealed thereafter, and then we're often
running with talking about George July as it relates to arrest, surrender, arrest,
arraignment and release. What do you think? Do you think it's going to be,
do you think it's this week or next week?
And I want you to talk about first,
the contours of what you,
because you're such a good predictor about indictments.
Well, what do you think this indictment looks like
in terms of number of defendants besides Donald Trump
and the counts that you think she'll be inserting
within that as she reaches her indictment decision.
So let's just say I was supposed to be on vacation next week and I was going to be out of the city
and I have now changed my vacation so that I will be in the city because I think it's almost
certain that it's going to be next week on Tuesday. And your Wi-Fi substate?
Well, no, yeah, well, that's true.
But you know, I recently, I think I fixed that problem recently, but that's a whole other story.
But yeah, so I think it's next week.
That's what everybody is suggesting.
And all evidence, as you say, including the empty streets, the closed
off court, court building, the staff being home for this period of time. And the days we know
that the grand jury meets, I think it's a pretty good guess that it's next Monday or Tuesday,
probably Tuesday. And just, you know, what do I think it's going to be?
I mean, we do know that there's a couple of people
who are testifying next week.
It's the former Lieutenant Governor from Georgia,
Jeff Duncan, as well as an independent journalist,
George Cheedy, and they both testified
before the Special Purpose Grand jury.
She's choosing to bring them in.
And what I'm wondering is whether she's had any witnesses really go into the grand jury
yet because she's been assembling the grand jury.
They've been voting on other cases.
There's been reporting about that.
And it's possible because hearsay is allowed in Georgia that she's, without a doubt, she
has her indictment written ahead of time, because that's how prosecutors do it.
You write the indictment ahead of time,
and then you ask the grand jury to vote on the indictment.
They don't usually, and if they don't vote on certain charges,
then you would just go back to your computer,
and you would omit those charges, or change it if there are any changes.
But you do write it in advance, and you have them react to a set of charges
that you ask them to vote on.
And again, the indictment is pre-written.
So one question I have is because there's hearsay allowed in this grand jury.
Maybe they will have somebody read in the relevant portions of the special purpose grand jury.
Because if you recall, if everybody recalls, there was a special purpose grand jury that met and they aren't allowed to indict in Georgia, sort of a
quirk of Georgia. They were only allowed to investigate and make recommendations.
We don't know exactly what those recommendations were that they made
despite the fact that the grand jury for a person strongly hinted and suggested that they there would be no surprises
and that they did recommend charges against people and the obvious people that we all think it would be.
And so she had gathered all of that evidence from all of the witnesses who testified there.
And she doesn't have to recall those witnesses live
to her grand jury.
She can either summarize what they said
or she can read from the transcripts of what they said
and she can present the elements of that,
the aspects of it that she needs to get an indictment,
which is a reasonable cause to believe
or probable cause to believe that a crime occurred. And so she'll do that. She's not going to want to
recall many of the witnesses because you don't want to create two different
transcripts, right? What if there's like a little mistake or if they testify
slightly differently? You're now building a record that can be used across
examination at trial. So most of the time you wouldn't recall any witnesses.
You already have them locked in, they'rean they testified under oath. They're locked in. But
you do want to put in one or two people to to frame the case for this for the new grand
jury. And it seems like she's chosen George Chidi who's the independent journalist who
could who testified before the Jan 6th committee who can tell the story, right, as a journalist,
and tell the story of what happened
as well as the former lieutenant governor
to talk about Georgia election law
and Georgia what's supposed to happen and how they do it
and just all the procedures and processes.
So what do we expect to see in this grand jury?
Well, if you recall,
she was been working on this
way before the Department of Justice got involved.
And she was investigating and looking into this case partly
because the Department of Justice
didn't get involved, right?
She was one of the prosecutors
who was calling for the Department of Justice's involvement
when it looked like they weren't doing anything
and by all accounts, they weren't doing anything other than
going after the low level people.
Well, I shouldn't say they're low level,
but compared to Donald Trump, they're not the masterminds.
You know, the violent insurrectionists
who breached the Capitol and wreaked havoc
and created violence in the Capitol.
And the Department of Justice had no problem
going after all of those individuals
and they prosecuted what, a thousand of them.
But they didn't seem to be going after any of the Trump
and his henchmen, co-conspirator level people.
And I think Fannie Willis was one of the prosecutors
who had the more blatant crime happen in her state,
if you recall, the President Trump phone call,
phone, the perfect phone call, as he calls it,
find the 11,780 votes was kind of the culmination
of this plan, but there was a whole pressure campaign
that, as you said, Giuliani came and held these fake hearings
and they were getting fake electors
and they were trying to get the fine, the votes,
et cetera, Mark Meadows flew in to try to pressure
Georgia State officials as well.
And Giuliani and Meadows together
did this whole pressure campaign,
tried to all to try to really turn the electors
from Trump to, from Biden to Trump.
And so she saw what everybody saw
that no one was doing anything.
So she starts her case.
And, you know, once she starts her case
and she starts uncovering this sweeping crime, you know, at some point the JAN-6 committee did
their work and kicked the Department of Justice in the pants. And so they began investigating
it. Well, then Donald Trump gets wind of the fact that he's being investigated. And
so he declares his presidency in order to now be a candidate
so he can accuse the Department of Justice
of being political, right?
And exactly what he's doing now,
he's accusing the Department of Justice of being political.
So what does what does Merritt Garland do?
He does exactly what he should do,
which is, okay, well, now that you've declared
your presidency and you're a candidate,
my Joe Biden, who appointed me, is no longer,
and it's his justice department,
is no longer the appropriate investigating
and prosecuting entities.
So we're going to appoint a special prosecutor,
who is not part of the Department of Justice,
or doesn't report to Joe Biden.
It's separate, it's special.
And it's great how Trump loves to get out there and do this message saying that no, no,
it's my rivals justice department.
Well, let's just remember, the only reason he's your rival is because you declared to run again
to avoid these prosecutions number one and number two, it's not your rivals justice department.
They actually appointed a special prosecutor.
So he really doesn't like to tell things the way they are.
But at a certain point, Spani Willis had her investigation going.
She presented this to the grand jury.
She uncovered a lot of crimes.
And in what I know you're going to disagree with me,
but in what I would say is yet one more example of how she's not coordinating with Jack Smith.
She's like, I'm bringing my case.
I don't know what you guys are doing.
No one's talking to me.
You weren't doing it before.
I started it.
I'm bringing my case.
And so I think her case is going to be unlike the surgical laser, surgical, you know, laser-focused indictment that Jack Smith did, which is one defendant
and four counts to try to get the case two trial before the election, and an indictment
that doesn't get involved in the free speech arena, it only gets involved in the action
arena, right, which I know we're talking about later on.
And so, you know, he did that kind of, let's just get a case and get to trial.
She's putting her case in that she has.
And I give her a lot of credit for that because also her case is pardon proof if God forbid
Trump wins or someone else, you know, decides to pardon him federally.
So I think we're going to see a sweeping indictment that has Georgia's RICO statute, which
is the racketeering influence corrupt organization statute that they've been used historically
to prosecute mobs, like the mafia and other organized crime syndicates
and brings.
Georgia has a Rico statute that's broader than the federal government.
The federal, you have to have certain predicate crimes.
So in other words, you can only charge Rico if your sweeping organization conspiracy is in
order to commit certain crimes and the federal government has 35 crimes that you have that have to be in
Furtherance of whereas Georgia's statute has 30 more additional crimes in addition to the 35 so many more crimes qualify for it. It's in Title 16 chapter 14 of the Georgia Code, and it basically says it shall be unlawful for any person
through a pattern of racketeering activity or proceeds derived there from to acquire
or maintain directly or indirectly any interest or control of any enterprise, real property
or personal property of any nature, including money.
It shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise to conduct
or participate in directly or indirectly such enterprise through a pattern of racketeering
activity and it shall be unlawful for anyone to conspire or endeavor to violate these provisions
when he or she, together with one or more persons persons conspires to violate any of the provisions
that I just said and anyone or more of such provisions they have to do an overt act which would be
the object of the conspiracy or to affect the endeavor which means you have to have a structure
and a hierarchy, right? You have to have like a boss and people under the boss means you have to have a structure and a hierarchy, right? You have
to have like a boss and people under the boss. You have to have an agreement to commit a crime
together. And then you have to have an overt act in furtherance of that, and it doesn't have to be
criminal, right? The pattern act or the overt act does not have to be, you committed a crime in
furtherance. It could be, you know, if I was going to bomb a building,
it could be, I could Google online, and my over-dact
could be, where's the location of the building?
Or how does one build a bomb?
Or whatever.
That can be over-dact.
You just have to take some steps.
So I think that's what's going to happen.
I think we're going to see a sweeping indictment on Tuesday.
And in one last, I was shocked when I was preparing for this.
I missed this.
You probably saw that Trump is already freaking out, right?
And calling her all kinds of names and racists,
and there was that threat that he did,
calling her part of the fraud squad,
but he reached a new low when he's,
apparently he's accusing her and defaming her
and saying when she was a defense attorney
that she had an affair with a gang member,
which is outrageous.
Did you see that, Popok?
No, but nothing, I'm beyond, I can't be shocked by anything that the former occupant of the White House,
the leader of the free world, says in order to try to return to power.
So yes, there are avenues for her to address that, not now, wrong time, wrong place.
But if he thinks he's, you get more flies with honey than vinegar, I don't think you need
to encourage Fawli Willis anymore.
There is nobody that is more, you think Jack Smith is as focused as a heart attack, Fawli Willis
is very focused and committed
to bringing Donald Trump to justice.
And we're gonna know a lot more of that.
We're gonna do a lot more about justice
on this midweek edition of Legal AF.
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Okay.
Let's move from Georgia.
I, um, I, you know, I have my own opinion about some of those things, but, um, my favorite
was when Fawney Wells was asked, are you cooperating with the special counsel and she will show
the video one day.
She looked away and there was a suppression of a little bit of a smile and I'm not going
to comment about who we're cooperating with or talking to.
I love her in so many ways.
Yeah, I mean, I look, we can talk about this. There's no way they.
There's two things you and I never agree on. The level of cooperation among prosecutors
about this president and the historic prosecutions. And the second thing we don't agree on is strategic
leaking. We will never agree on that. I can tell you. I know. I've been a leaker. You have it. If they were coordinating, if they were coordinating,
she, A, wouldn't have been bringing, let me tell you how they coordinated, okay? They coordinated
in two ways. She signaled when she, she didn't need to signal months ago when this was happening.
She did that as a message to Jack Smith
that if you're gonna bring your case,
bring it during this time, that was her communicating.
They didn't talk on the phone,
nobody spoke to each other.
That was her signaling to him.
If you, you know, basically a lifeline,
and if you have anything you wanna say to me,
you can say it to me.
And I think there's been a phone call.
I think you know that. And I know that's been phone calls. And you know that.
And I know that.
But I don't think he would have risked the political backlash that would happen if it ever came
out that he did coordinate with.
He has to be, they actually have to be separate because otherwise it will be deemed like it was
a political, like they're conspiring together. But I don't think a question like what are you doing with
Mark Meadows? Are you going to I don't think that's a bad question. He would
he would he would never risk it the all the second way that they're
coordinating in my opinion in addition to her signaling to him when she's
going that was heard you know shot across the bow is through defense lawyers. I
think that cooperating witnesses
who are represented by lawyers
are gonna want to make sure that if I'm cooperating
in one case, I'm also gonna,
if I'm getting immunity in one case,
I'm gonna get an immunity in another.
Through the lawyers, I think that's the way,
it's the, that's how it's happening.
But I almost guarantee that there is no communication
between Fannie or any of her people in Jack
and any of his people.
One day at a future legal AF,
after Jack Smith and Fannie Willis have written their memoirs,
we will settle that bet once and for all.
In the meantime, we need to move on.
So let's move on.
It's fun, it's fun to debate.
It is fun, but we can't make a whole podcast that of it.
So let's talk about a judge, who knows what she's doing,
and a judge who is experienced and has a firm hand
on the controls and knows what's going on in her courtroom,
which comes from about 20 cases that she tried in civil practice
before she hit the bench and hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds of cases that she's handled,
including through trial, as a federal judge over the last 13 or 14 years. That's Tanya Chutkin.
Tanya Chutkin has a number of issues that are now in front of her that she's going to have to deal
with, some of which are of her own making, meaning things that she has to handle as a federal judge, on a
criminal trial, including setting a speedy trial or setting a trial date.
And some of it is a hand that she's been dealt because she has an out of control, both
defend it in front of her in Donald Trump, who calls things like the indictment bullshit.
And I mean, that's his words not mine. And then he and the lawyer mainly John
Loro, although I've seen now Todd Blanche hit the hit the circuit also make references
and comments. What looks like to me to be in clear violation of the local criminal rules
about what you can and cannot say outside the courtroom about potential witnesses and evidence.
That's all they do.
They talk about all the witnesses that they think
are gonna be in their favor.
They talk about how they're gonna cross exam
in Mike Pence.
They talk about other witnesses.
They talk about other evidence.
And this is a problem.
And this gap between the arrangement
and the ultimate hearing on the protective order,
which in most cases,
like 99, just don't let people know, who are learning about American jurisprudence through
case like this, you're not watching typical things that happen or typical procedure.
In 99% of the cases in federal court, the protective order issue is not a big issue. The Department of Justice
asks for it. There's a little bit of tweaking going on between the defense lawyers and the prosecutors
and the judge enters a protective order and then all of the discovery, whatever the volume is for
that particular case, comes flying out to the defense in order for them to have a defense and have the documents witness statements transcripts documents and other things and they can go digging through these haystacks that the Department of Justice gives them in order to find maybe the needles that they think will help them That's not what happens here. Here the Department of Justice does the right thing, which is takes as its model what I believe
is the protective order put in place by Judge Nichols, a Republican Trump appointed judge
in the Steve Bannon case and said, yeah, that works for us.
And so this is Judge Chutkin.
You know, normally you take one that the
judge has done. I mean, that's normally what I do. I take a protective order that's
on the docket for a prior case, because I know the judge likes that one, because she signed
it. But here they did a little differently, because of the, you know, the unique facts
and factors and elements here and said, we'll take one from recent Jan 6 or obstruction of Congress type case.
And they fired back, the other side fired back,
not only on social media, not only on network television,
but also in their filings, when they were complaining
about having only a few days to file their briefs.
But it basically saying, we don't want any gag order at all.
We don't want first amendment rights. This is the first amendment case, which it is not this isn't about first amendment
Speech of anybody this is about the conduct of Donald Trump and the way they try to make it first amendment as they say
It was all aspirational. He was just making asks. He was just asking Mike Pence if he was willing to overthrow democracy.
He was just asking Brad Raffin's burger if it was possible to dump 12,000 votes. He was just
asking the fake electors if they would put their signatures on fake elector certificates so
they could be submitted to Mike Pence. These were just asked. He was just running it up the flag, Paul. Let's see if anybody salutes.
Is that really what it was?
Or was it conduct to interfere with and obstruct a function of the government, which is the
counting and the certification of electoral votes for the transition of power, which
is what it is?
I use the reference.
Actually, one of, I mean, it's not unique.
I'm not saying I pat into it.
It was mine alone, but then a couple days later, one of the former judges for Donald Trump
said the exact same thing, which is you can stand in front of a bank and you can say,
with your buddies, God, all the money in there is really mine.
We should, you know, it's really mine.
That's different than the middle of the night
putting on a ski mask and going into the bank
and trying to steal the money or making plans to do that.
Speech is one thing, action and conduct is another.
And even speech can be criminal in nature,
depending upon what you're exhorting the other people
and your conspiracy to do.
So this whole first amendment
tiny chockens gonna have to get her mind around, but that doesn't mean that on Friday
when the hearing happens for the protective order that I don't think she's going to put something
that looks awfully like an awful lot like what the government is proposing and not what Donald Trump is proposing,
which is he can say and do anything about any of these things. And my favorite part of it,
I want to hear yours next, Karen, is he said, well, judge, the protective order as written is
limited to the defense council and their staff and the defendant, although we have to manage the defendant,
make sure he doesn't take notes
or any documents with him.
But we might have volunteer lawyers
and other people volunteering their time.
And we want them to be able to have access
to this material as well,
to which the government responded,
you mean like the six co-conspirators who are all lawyers,
you wanna give them access to our sensitive
information before they've even been indicted.
You should reject that, Your Honor.
Tell the audience where you think as a prosecutor, because you've dealt with a lot of protective
orders.
I've done it on the other side.
Where do you think Chucket on Friday after hearing argument of counsel?
Where does she end up on this in terms of the protective order?
And then comment on those two things
that I started the segment with,
which has Donald Trump violated his terms of release
because of the things that he's been saying,
including some of the ones I poppingly
that you mentioned earlier, or Ed too,
has John Loro violated by making inappropriate out-of-court statements about
the case and violation of local criminal law.
So Judge Chutkin is not going to be reviewing this protective order in a vacuum.
So let's just back up a minute and just remind people of a few basic principles.
So number one, what is discovery?
Discovery is all of the information a prosecutor has
in their file about a case, right?
It's all the evidence you've gathered
through your investigation.
And why is it that defendants are entitled to discovery
and when?
In the federal system, you're not really entitled
to discovery until much later in
the process when you're about to go to trial. And the purpose of discovery is so that you
don't engage in trial by ambush or by surprise, right? There should be an opportunity for a
defendant in all cases to prepare for their defense. And so we, in this country, and we're moving more and more
toward it in the States, like for example,
New York recently in 2019 passed a law.
We used to have very restrictive discovery laws
that didn't allow discovery until right before witness
testified.
And now there's open file discovery 15 days after
a raiment.
So it's because of this whole, it's not fair, people need time to prepare, etc.
So that's what discovery is. And in this particular case, the government wants to give
the discovery to Trump much earlier than he's entitled to it, so that they do have an
opportunity to prepare, and so that he can't say I need more time
just so we can get a trial going. So the sooner you give over your discovery,
the more time they have to prepare and the sooner everyone can be ready for trial.
So what happened though is the defendant was arrested and when he was arrested he was in custody and in order to get out of custody
and custody means you're not free to leave, right?
You're under arrest during the custody of federal law enforcement.
You have to be brought before a judge where a judge will release you or decide that you
have to stay incarcerated and if you're released you're released with certain. And that's the purpose of an arrangement in addition to inform you
of what your charges are. And so it is very common and standard in all cases for a judge
to release a criminal defendant with conditions. So when Donald Trump was under arrest and not free to leave and appeared before Judge Chutkin.
She released him with certain conditions. And I wrote, this was the basis of my op-ed that we
talked about earlier, was in my view, in my 30 years, both as a prosecutor, as well as a prosecutor as well as just an observer of cases around this country.
I've never seen a defendant be treated as leniently as Donald Trump in terms of his release conditions.
If there was, you know, and I know that some people have commented if you were Black or Muslim, and imagine if you were Muslim who tried to overthrow
our government and our democracy and had people storm the capital to try to stop the vote,
that person would be incarcerated immediately, right? He wouldn't be free to walk the streets.
And if you were to appear, I mean, just all the facts
that have come out about him.
If you look at any other defendant, white, black, whatever,
who appeared before Judge Chutkin
with three open indictments, 78 felony charges,
and the most serious of charges, right?
You've got the willful possession and retention
and obstruction and bragging and showing it to people
of our most sensitive secrets.
You have the trying to destroy the evidence
of moving the boxes with the video evidence, right?
In the Mar-a-Lago case, you've got the Jan 6 indictment
that talks about the conspiracy to steal the election,
and all of those details.
Aside from maybe murder, but even that,
I think these charges, because he was trying
to steal our democracy, who's trying to just change our country completely,
might be the most serious charges ever brought in this nation.
And to see someone with those number of charges of that severity, who has a 757 plane at the
ready, where he can leave wherever he wants at any time to have almost no conditions.
I mean, look at Mr. Deole Vieta, his lowly property maintenance guy, even he was told,
you can't leave the confines of the southern district of Florida and had to put up
a hundred thousand dollar bond, okay? And who even is he? He didn't mastermind this whole thing.
This was Donald Trump. So I've never seen
anyone get treated as leniently as him, but he did have a couple of conditions. And one
of his conditions was, do not commit any more crimes, do not do anything that could threaten
or interfere with witnesses in this case, or in any way, taint or make this trial, you
know, interfere with the integrity of this trial.
Those were his conditions, right?
What does he do?
He goes out and he tweets the, I'm in the context of also another post, he tweets, if you
go after me, I'm coming after you.
And look and taken it, and this was right after he was arraigned on this charge. There was also very close in time to that.
Another post where he put up pictures
of all the prosecutors, including Fonney Willis,
Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, and Latisha James,
who's an attorney general, but sort of like a prosecutor,
and Joe Biden, where he calls them the fraud squad.
And I think taken together, you could very easily see that was a direct threat to those individuals,
right? He of course makes up some excuse, no, you know, this is just political speech, but,
you know, nobody believes that, just like they didn't believe when he held up a picture of,
when he posted the picture of himself holding a baseball bat
next to a picture of Alvin Bragg's head, that that was, oh, you know, I was just advertising
American-made baseball bats or whatever ridiculous that strains the credulity, you know,
it's just strains, strains logical common sense, nobody would believe that's what that was about,
that was a threat to Alvin Brag.
So Judge Chukkin, when she decides
whether he has violated his release conditions,
okay, by threatening with that post,
I think it's not in a vacuum.
She's going to know all the things
that we just talked about.
But Jack Smith, who is doing this in a very measured She's going to know all the things that we just talked about. But Jack Smith, who is
doing this in a very measured way, right? My first reaction was haul his, you know, what into court
and ask that he be put in because that's what would happen to any other defendant. He would be
incarcerated. He would be given, and if you're not going to do that, you put them on house arrest.
You would give him restrictions.
You might take his passport, maybe whatever it is,
tell him you can't travel.
But nobody's treating him like that.
Even Jack Smith, who's extremely cautious
and conscious of the fact that he's running for president.
And he doesn't, we can't interfere with an election.
OK, fine.
My temper is flaring.
And maybe I, you know, what
I think should happen is probably not realistic given that. And Jack Smith, who's, who's
much more measured and is, is taking a more gradual approach. And instead, he brings this
request for a protective order. So that's what the context of this protective order is.
And he puts in there this quote, the, I'm coming after you, you know,
you come after me, I'm coming after you, saying before we release this discovery early to him,
which we'd like to do, before we do it, we are worried that he will try to use the fact that
certain witnesses have testified in the grand jury or have come in to cooperate, he will publish that and use that to try to intimidate the witnesses
and bully them. Therefore, judge, we want to protect the
border so that protect the witnesses, protect the integrity of the trial.
Four or five responses back and forth happened after that.
You had the defense attorneys fire back.
It was all over the weekend.
Like we were doing hot takes that were becoming stale
by the time they went up because it was so fast.
How quickly this one's doing a response
and this one's replying and this one's weighing in.
It turned out, I think we each did one.
Me, you, and Ben, for each of the different stages of this, but the defendant weighed in
and said, no, in fact, Joe Biden is the one who's threatening us because there's this picture
of him drinking coffee saying it's a good day for a cup of Joe or something. I was like, that's
a threat. I didn't get that one at all. saying no, you've gone too far with the protective order
It's supposed to be narrowly tailored. You didn't narrowly tailor it. You're being yeah, there's the cup of Joe thing
I was like that I could I had to like read it three times to see if I can even strain my neck and
Crane it around and figure out now where where is this a threat?
But they took that as a veiled threat
around and figure out where is this threat but they took that as a veiled threat. Anyway, so they said no, we don't want a protective order.
It should just be a few things, right?
Because we want to get it all out there.
It should only be sensitive information.
And so they make a proposal.
And then Jack Smith goes, you know, and then they're like, and we want more time, right?
We need more time to answer this.
And Jack Smith fires back.
Well, you had time to ask for more time
So you should have spent that time commenting on the proposed protective order and then they fired back
You know, and meanwhile as you as you pointed out the the
John Loro was he had time to be on five different shows on Sunday morning to talk about all of this
So he clearly had time to do that. And the judge fired back and said, okay, everybody, we're having a hearing and we're going to see exactly what we're going to do
here with the protective order. And what do I think is going to happen? I think she's going to give
Trump one more chance and a really stern warning. I don't think she's going to give, I think she will give Jack Smith a protective order. I think it'll be almost exactly what, what, what Jack Smith is asking for.
I do think there's a local rule that John Loro has violated.
It's the District of Columbia Courts' local rule and courts all have their own local rules. And this one is criminal rule 57.7 B1 and B3, which essentially prohibits this media
blitz.
And I think that that will come up.
And I think that the judge will admonish the lawyers and tell them not to do this again.
You're not trying this case in the court
of public opinion.
You need to try this case in my courtroom
and I don't want you infecting a potential jury pool.
I think she'll give the protective order to Trump
and I think she'll give a strong admonishment
that stop the threats, stop this.
And you do it again, you're gonna have a strong reaction
from me.
Again, I think it should be, I think he should be treated
like everybody else, but that's what I think's gonna happen.
I agree with you, and we're gonna talk more about
what's going on with Judge Cannon,
another judge is handling.
Criminal cases and a little bit more about Jack Smith,
and what he's doing with his new grand juries
or his existing grand juries and new potential claims against
future defendants not named Donald Trump and perhaps Donald Trump again.
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All right, so let's talk briefly about Judge Cannon,
just to kind of,
we don't know quite where she's going with this yet.
But in denying a couple of motions to seal
that the government had filed to continue to protect the grand jury secrecy and some of the information that that shouldn't be in
the prying eyes of the public or the media, she in denying a couple of those items.
She also had a very cure, it was also curious where she put it.
In the order denying it, she also wants the federal government, the Department of Justice,
to be prepared at their next, the next time they get together, or when they file their
next paper, to talk about why there are multiple grand juries involving moral log-o issues.
She's of course aware that for the longest time and through the chief judge of the District
of Columbia at the time, federal court, barrel Howell, they were the one, she was the one
that was where evidence was being developed.
We know that Evan Corcoran and the issue about Evan Corcoran, the lawyer for Donald Trump
who interacted with the federal government, the Department of Justice, National Archive,
the search warrant, the subpoena and all of that, and certified along with Christina Bob
that he had done a diligent search and only found 38 documents when he knew or should
have known that was a lie,
that whole issue about the crime fraud exception and the loss of the attorney client privilege
by Donald Trump, that was decided not in Southern District of Florida, grand jury by a judge down
there, but up in the District of Columbia. And that's why we were a little bit surprised,
although there were indicators that there was also a West Palm Beach or Miami or both
grand jury looking at issues because that was closest in location to the actual crimes
that were alleged to have been committed at Mar-a-Lago located in Palm Beach County, Florida.
And there is a requirement, and it's been reinforced by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, that you've a grand jury not located where the crimes took place,
if that was going to, if that was going to hold up Supreme Court sort of made a ruling, and
Jack Smith already made his decision that he wanted the indictment to be rendered by a grand jury
down near Mar-a-Lago. That doesn't mean under the federal procedures and Department of Justice guidelines
that some of the evidence couldn't originally have been developed
by another grand jury as long as the ultimate evidence
upon which the indictment was going to be sought
in that jurisdiction.
They did hear and see all the evidence
that was necessary in order
to support that indictment.
We saw that there was seems to be a little bit of at least a time linkage between Jim
Trusty, the former lawyer for Donald Trump, who's still his proxy and shill on network television,
suggesting that there was a problem
with on Fox News here, a problem with the two grand juries,
which may give grounds for a motion to dismiss the indictment,
and then a day later, out of the blue, an apropos of nothing
and not in relation to anything that was pending
in front of her, Judge Cannon who I assume
as a television or a mobile device,
and can see shows like Fox News,
all of a sudden started questioning
and wanting to get the timeline about the grandjuries.
So why don't you comment on that
then we can talk a little bit about
what else Jack Smith is doing the grand juries. So why don't you comment on that then we can talk a little bit about
what else Jack Smith is doing besides just this indictment that came down next week before
we turn to Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, Ohio, and issue number one.
It's just strange to me that this is something that hasn't been brought before Judge Cannon, that she must have watched
television and saw this former lawyer who brought this issue up, and that she's now raising
it herself. It's the first time that she has since, if you recall, when she was presiding over
the search warrant of, for Mar-a-Lago. She inserted herself and pointed a special master and got in trouble
from the 11th Circuit for doing that because it was inappropriate. You know, she got, they call it
bench slapped and, and they really smacked her down and said, you know, don't do that. They came
down pretty hard on her for really bungling that issue and the
special master issue. There was a lot of people who, when she got assigned this case, said,
you know, don't just give her a chance. Maybe she's new, maybe she didn't know what she was
doing. She's really not known to be an unfair judge. She's, to make her reputation a lot better.
And let's look give her a chance.
She had a reputation for being smart and quiet
and a good lawyer, she's young and inexperienced,
but let's give her a chance. Well, this, I think,
is yet another example of her inserting herself in a place where she is not, isn't
supposed to insert herself, and bringing up an issue that isn't even being raised by the
defense, and she's raising it on her own. She's sort of signaled to Walt Nada, hey, you might want to raise this issue about whether
it was okay since we're in Florida.
Can Jack Smith continue to investigate things in the DC grand jury?
Now, let's talk a little bit about what the grand jury can and cannot do.
So if you're presenting a case to a grand jury, like say you're presenting
a case, you ultimately ask them to vote on a defendant and a charge or a set of charges,
right? If that grand jury stays open, which it sometimes does, because they sit for a period of
time and they can continue to investigate,
that particular instance for which a person was indicted for can no longer be investigated in that grand jury
without permission.
But that person can be investigated for other things,
or other charges, or other people can be investigated.
So it's not inappropriate for the DC grand jury,
for example, to continue to investigate
other defendants involved in the Mar-a-Lago case,
or other documents that weren't charged
in that indictment or possession of, or other things.
What you can't do is use a grand jury
that's already voted on a defendant for a particular charge as a way to investigate for trial. You have to use trial
subpoenas for that, not grand jury subpoenas. So it's a nuance, but it's not inappropriate for
Jack Smith to continue, and he knows this, every prosecutor knows this. So I'm not really sure why what she thinks she is, what she's saying here, but she's absolutely
over inappropriately inserting herself again in a place where she has not even asked to go in PS.
There's a rule 6E3C that specifically allows an attorney for the government
to disclose grand jury matters to other federal grand juries.
So, he's allowed to do it, he's allowed to do it if it's for other defendants or other charges,
and Canon is not supposed to be ruling on legal arguments
that are being made in the media.
She's supposed to be ruling on legal arguments that are made in court and she's not supposed
to hint and give defendants, hey, why don't you make this argument?
Yeah, that's a good summary.
You're allowed to use multiple grand juries to develop evidence in different locations,
and then pull it all together in front of an indicting grand jury at the appropriate time.
And you're able to, as a prosecutor,
use that information to develop one place in the other place,
as long as the final indictment and the grand jury has
everything in front of it, either because of the transport
of the information from one grand jury,
or because of the new information they were given.
We were a little shocked when we learned
there was a Southern District of Florida grand jury,
but because he made that decision in order to avoid
what was going on at the Supreme Court level
with another unrelated
case, which did come down, I think, in favor of his decision, even though he knew there
was a one in four chance that he was going to get canon, that that's where he needed to
get the indictment from.
But he's not done.
And the grand juries, if what she wants to hear from Jack Smith is that the grand juries
are still in operation.
He's not going to reveal to her in DC where he supervised by Jeb Bozberg, the chief judge,
the content or the information in those grand juries.
But we know that he's investigating based on reporting things like the political action
committee and the grift behind that.
And the money raised on the back of a lie.
In this case, the Donald Trump was either going to use the money to promote democracy and
not use it for his attorney's fees or that he won the election when he knows and he knows
that he didn't because when you tell somebody something that's not true in order to separate
them from their money, that's called fraud.
When you do it by mail or the internet, that's called mail or wire fraud.
And that we've always thought was also a strong suit for Jack Smith to go after those claims.
Donald Trump's not out of the woods yet. I mean, there could be a bedminster or a New Jersey
indictment. There certainly could be another indictment out of the District of Columbia as these
trains sort of move down, you know, picture a subway that
has multiple tracks and multiple subway trains on them. And the indicted co-conspirators are
moving on their own path. They're not all assembled and coalesced into one big mega omnibus criminal
trial of everybody's dreams. They're done separately. And for the reasons we've talked about, including that we want to get justice done
before the election, which Judge Tanya Chukkin
is gonna have to deal with on the 28th of August
after full briefing on the issue.
We already know from the filings
that they've made, including today,
that Donald Trump's and his team of lawyers, Laura and
Blanche, are going to argue for somewhere between a year and a half to never for the scheduling
of the trial of the new indictment.
You already hear Laura, well, they had two and a half years to investigate, but we want
equal time to do our defense.
That's not really how speedy trial or the Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial works. And other things that they have filed indicating that we know,
and we'll see it in the filings before the even the hearing, that they're going to seek something
after the November election. And Judge Chutkin's going to have to look at the calendar and say,
I don't know, I see openings in April, I see openings in February. You know, the civil cases don't concern her because she can sort of bump those with federal
criminal cases.
And all she's got to do is kind of, I think, maintain the Manhattan DA's case and the
one that that judge, uh, uh, Canon has said.
And if judge can in case slips because it's attached to judge Canon and therefore it could
be slippery.
Then as Ben, our co-incor said, I thought properly last Saturday, he said, we'll find if
Judge Cannon bumps her date, then Chuck can slide hers into that.
You're open and I see you're open in May now.
Why don't we use May?
So that again is the reason why we're seeing multiple things filed by Jack Smith and multiple jurisdictions because it's that portfolio approach.
I may lose a little here, but I'm, he's not going to run the table and fight off three separate indictments.
Um, so, I think February, I think February two and Ben thought April. So I, I'm on both sides. I think February or April it'll it'll it'll sandwich the March case up
It with being prosecuted by your old office the Manhattan DA and it'll be before the May date which again
I think is said in very wet cement with judge cannon and then throws it down
There is no way I will stake my reputation on this. There is no way judge Tanya Chutkin is putting this case
after the November election.
No way.
What do you agree with me?
Totally agree.
Okay.
So there could be God forbid something
that happens outside of everyone's control, right?
That's some unforeseen thing,
but but borrowing some unforeseen thing,
yes, I agree with you.
So let's move to, let's end the podcast today.
I know I know the people in the chat are like,
no, don't ever end it.
But we have to end it.
And we had a lot of different choices.
You know, we really do curate what we're gonna talk about.
And we try to come up with the right mix and match of things
that both we think our audience is going
to want to know more about in depth than even we can do
in hot takes.
And we have to use our judgment about what we think,
what we want to talk about.
And so there were a lot of different things
we could have talked about for our last story.
We could have talked about Rudy Giuliani
about to get handed his head in the defamation case in Washington because the judge is not buying his, I admit liability,
but I don't admit liability about defamation. He's got big problems there. A lot of head
wins there. We could talk about the ghost gun decision, a rare win at the Supreme Court
level for Joe Biden and his administration about
trying to keep the ability to 3D replicate guns without serial numbers out of people's
hands in the Supreme Court for now on the shadow docket as decided to side with the Biden
administration.
Could have done a whole thing about that. But just yesterday in Ohio,
we had another example,
another data point that the people
are not gonna take it anymore.
They're mad as hell,
and they're not gonna take it anymore
to paraphrase network
about having their rights
and women's rights,
particularly stripped away from them
by MAGA GOP houses, you know, legislate tours
and state houses.
And the good news for the Democrats, just a one minute of the minus touch podcast, the
good news about these special elections and off-year elections and ballot initiative elections
is almost every one of them have gone in the direction of the democratic position in advance of whatever's going to happen in November.
And that's a good sign for democracy. And this is another data point. The Republicans in Ohio and led by a candidate of theirs that's running for the US Senate, who's currently their secretary of state, Mr. LaRose said point blank, he said the
quiet part out loud. He said, we know that there's going to be a November when there's
going to be, of course, a lot of voters going to the polls, right? Total voter activation,
including Democrat and women. So we know they're going to put on the ballot to enshrine in the state
constitution of Ohio a woman's right to choose. This is the way we're trying to
fix the dobs decision and the stripping away of the constitutional right from
Roe v. Wade state by state block by block. And so knowing that and knowing that
under longstanding Ohio law all it takes is 50%
plus one vote just over 50% one vote more to get something onto a ballot to be
decided by the people a voter initiative an amendment to the Constitution 50
most states it's actually 50 plus one and knowing that the state, MAGA, House members, put up for a off-year election when very
few people they thought were paying attention and very few Democrats would go to the polls
because it was sort of get lost in the shuffle.
They put on the ballot yesterday what was called issue one, which was they said they didn't mention abortion,
except when the Secretary of State mentioned it.
They just said, well, we've got a lot of out-of-state interest
that are trying to influence policy in Ohio.
By the way, I don't think that's an Ohio accent.
I just, whenever I do an accent,
it sounds like somebody from Loonie Tunes
or from Warner Brothers.
So, like a cartoon.
Oh, so we don't want out-of-state cartoon. So we don't want out of state influence.
So we want to increase the percentage
for having an amendment to our Constitution
from 50% plus one vote to 60%.
And we want to increase how many signatures you need to get
in order to even get that ballot
and initiative onto the ballot.
It has to be 5%, which is a ridiculously high number,
of registered voters have to
sign that petition.
And the voters of Ohio smelled a rat and that this was an effort to try to defeat the abortion
bill, the abortion constitutional amendment in November, and resoundingly defeated it.
I love the fact that we use hot pink and light pink in that graphic. 57% to 43%. 57% of Ohio
said, no, we're not doing that. We're not changing 100 years of constitutional history in Ohio.
We know what you're doing. You're trying to take away a woman's right to choose by coming
up with a ridiculous high percentage. They're not the only state, Karen. There are many states that are
using this attempt to shut down off ramps and shut down the ability of progressives and
Democrats and just independent people to give a woman a right to choose in state constitutions
by creating these barriers, these tremendous barriers. So for instance, and I'll leave it on this for me, for instance,
Arkansas and South Dakota both wanted to use super majorities, even above 60% and those both were
shot down in those states and Missouri, the legislators wanted to do a super majority and get it to 57% before you could even, you could get a
constitutional amendment in the state. And that died in the legislature house and it didn't end up
going to the voters. But this is their trick. This is what they're trying to do. Fortunately,
all of the groups in favor of a woman's right to choose figured it out, mobilized in an
off-year election and got their voters, our voters to the polls.
And that's why we're talking about it. What did you think about the strategy that the GOP's using,
this really underhanded strategy, and Ohio's sort of response to it?
I've always loved the Midwest. I've always loved Midwesterners. And what I love the most is, you know, Ohio went
for Trump and voted for Trump. I think an eight point margin in 2020. And most of the statewide
elected officials are Republican in Ohio. But, you know, they're real authentic people who
are like, I think part of this was about abortion and women's right to choose, but part of
it was like, you know, don't pull, try to pull the wool over our eyes. Like, we know what you're doing. You're sneaky,
you're underhanded, and that you're not doing that, right? We're going to protect our
popular vote. You're not going to undermine our popular will. If we want to outlaw abortion
in the Constitution or put a right to abortion in the Constitution, that should be up to
abortion in the Constitution or put a right to abortion in the Constitution. That should be up to the people of Ohio and not try this sort of like fake way of selling
a bridge to whatever.
Whatever.
Like you said, a snake oil salesman, right?
It's just ridiculous.
And they saw right through it.
And it just reminds me of every jury trial that I've ever had, where,
you know, the jury figures it out, you know, they don't necessarily, some people think,
oh, they like you better, they, you know, whatever, all, it's not about that, it's not a personality
contest, it's, juries have a way of figuring, of like sifting through the, the shiny objects
and the stick and the, you know, all the things that lawyers try to do.
And they really go back and they really try and figure out what happened, what's the right
thing.
And jurors are made up of everyday regular people, just like the people in Ohio who voted.
And they figured out exactly what was happening here.
And they basically said, you're not making this decision for us.
We're making it for ourselves. And plus, we believe believe an abortion and women should have a right to choose.
So this just, every once in a while I need someone to show me that there's still hope and faith
in this country and the American people and to me that's what this was for me here.
Well, this is the model in the template for how we win in 2024.
You mobilize the voters who have been most threatened, most disenfranchised by the policies
of Maga and Donald Trump, and you make sure they get to the polls.
And if this is any indication, what happened in Ohio, what happened in Kentucky, what happened
in many other states, including ones that are Ruby Red as far as
the electoral map, but that the women, and independence, and young people got to the polls
and cut them off at the pass.
If this is what's going to happen, I just can't imagine that the voters that watch the
Midas Touch Network aren't going to be as if not more enthusiastic and activated about
boating in November when literally lives and our way of life are on the line.
Then now the fact that we're winning time and time again, special elections, you know,
runoff elections, constitutional elections, abortion rights issues.
We've won, the Democrats have won every major abortion rights issue that's come up since
St. Stobbs as the Republicans try to overreach and try to enforce what they think is the will
of the people, what exactly it's actually the exact opposite.
So we've reached the end of another midweek edition of legal AF.
We supplement what we do here, as Karen said earlier in a number of ways.
Karen, Ben, and I do regular, I mean, sometimes two and three a day, Ben even more hot takes
analysis only on the YouTube channel for Midas Touch.
And then in this kind of ecosystem
that the MidasTouch founders, brothers have created
and biofeedback system, the website will now serve,
frankly, as sort of the reef upon which all us
various tropical fish can hang out
because it's gonna be the place, hopefully,
for people to go to for their news,
just as the
YouTube channel, the hot takes, the podcast have been in the legal and political world, and
it will cross-feed with each other, right?
It'll, you'll go to the, if you go to the website, might as touch.com, you'll see all the
podcasts, all the watching opportunities, all the written material by people that you enjoy like Karen Freebini,
Knifalo and other people, and updated on a minute-to-minute basis.
And then, of course, we've got our hot takes, and then we've got, we pull it together
on those Wednesdays and Saturdays for the show that we're doing now.
And the way you can help is, every time we mention it, besides supporting our sponsors,
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And then if you like, you know, I really like when Karen does hot takes, I like Ben's hot
takes.
I don't like Pope Box.
Well, whatever, whatever you like, right?
Everybody has their own likes and dislikes.
You can go over to playlists in YouTube and you'll find us broken down by, I wonder
which ones are Karen's?
Oh, it's right there, Karen, Freeman,nick Follow contributor, Michael Popak,
contributor Ben, my Salis contributor,
and you can pull from our library,
our ever growing library of hot takes
to stay up to speed.
And that's it, and that's it, and stay in the chat.
We'll chat back with you on shows like this one,
and reach out to us as you've always done,
and make that personal connection,
because we love it and we'll do it. We'll do it right back to you. Karen, always a pleasure to us as you've always done and make that personal connection because we love it and we'll do it.
We'll do it right back to you. Karen, always a pleasure to be with you on Wednesdays.
I love watching your work for the network and for LegalAF when you're not here, both in writing and in interviews and videos and all of that.
And I can't wait. Lord knows what's going to happen between now and next Wednesday.
You and I will have it offered. I couldn't even, I can't even envision
what's going to happen as soon as the show is over.
Let it know what's going on between tonight and tomorrow.
Right.
But I think we're going to have next Wednesday
another indictment to talk about.
We'll look forward to that.
All right.
We'll see everybody next Wednesday post indictment
on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF.
Shout out to Legal AFers and Midas Mighty.
on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF.
Shout out to Legal AFers and Midas Mighty.