Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump CAN’T HANDLE the HEAT of Even MORE Indictments

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

The 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
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Starting point is 00:00:00 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?
Starting point is 00:00:35 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
Starting point is 00:01:02 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
Starting point is 00:01:42 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
Starting point is 00:02:07 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
Starting point is 00:02:45 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
Starting point is 00:03:18 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
Starting point is 00:03:55 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,
Starting point is 00:04:43 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?
Starting point is 00:05:15 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
Starting point is 00:05:38 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.
Starting point is 00:06:04 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,
Starting point is 00:06:28 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.
Starting point is 00:07:03 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
Starting point is 00:07:24 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.
Starting point is 00:07:56 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
Starting point is 00:08:29 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
Starting point is 00:09:08 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
Starting point is 00:09:47 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
Starting point is 00:10:30 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.
Starting point is 00:10:48 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.
Starting point is 00:11:28 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,
Starting point is 00:11:48 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
Starting point is 00:12:24 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
Starting point is 00:13:04 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.
Starting point is 00:13:37 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.
Starting point is 00:14:02 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
Starting point is 00:14:38 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,
Starting point is 00:15:11 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?
Starting point is 00:15:46 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?
Starting point is 00:16:25 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
Starting point is 00:16:49 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,
Starting point is 00:17:14 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
Starting point is 00:17:50 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
Starting point is 00:18:29 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
Starting point is 00:18:59 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
Starting point is 00:19:32 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
Starting point is 00:19:57 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.
Starting point is 00:20:17 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.
Starting point is 00:20:40 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
Starting point is 00:21:14 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
Starting point is 00:21:39 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
Starting point is 00:22:07 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,
Starting point is 00:22:25 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,
Starting point is 00:22:49 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.
Starting point is 00:23:19 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.
Starting point is 00:23:36 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.
Starting point is 00:24:26 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
Starting point is 00:25:09 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
Starting point is 00:26:07 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
Starting point is 00:26:48 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.
Starting point is 00:27:12 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
Starting point is 00:27:34 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.
Starting point is 00:28:16 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. But first, we have some sponsors that also support the show.
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Starting point is 00:32:22 5 free AG1 travel packs and a free one year supply of vitamin D with your first purchase. Go to drinkag1.com slash legal AF. That's drinkag1.com slash legal AF. Check it out. 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
Starting point is 00:32:44 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
Starting point is 00:33:18 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.
Starting point is 00:33:53 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
Starting point is 00:34:13 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
Starting point is 00:34:45 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
Starting point is 00:35:04 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.
Starting point is 00:35:20 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.
Starting point is 00:35:52 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
Starting point is 00:36:38 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.
Starting point is 00:36:56 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
Starting point is 00:37:34 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
Starting point is 00:38:33 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
Starting point is 00:39:10 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
Starting point is 00:39:58 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.
Starting point is 00:40:26 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
Starting point is 00:40:47 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.
Starting point is 00:41:29 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.
Starting point is 00:41:49 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,
Starting point is 00:42:10 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.
Starting point is 00:42:43 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
Starting point is 00:43:04 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
Starting point is 00:43:39 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,
Starting point is 00:44:11 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.
Starting point is 00:45:06 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.
Starting point is 00:46:07 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
Starting point is 00:46:39 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.
Starting point is 00:47:11 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
Starting point is 00:47:57 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
Starting point is 00:48:31 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
Starting point is 00:49:06 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.
Starting point is 00:49:40 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,
Starting point is 00:50:08 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
Starting point is 00:50:25 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
Starting point is 00:51:13 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.
Starting point is 00:51:38 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?
Starting point is 00:52:22 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.
Starting point is 00:52:42 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.
Starting point is 00:53:31 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
Starting point is 00:54:12 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.
Starting point is 00:54:33 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. But next a word from our sponsor is Michael Pope,
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Starting point is 00:58:15 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
Starting point is 00:58:56 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
Starting point is 00:59:43 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,
Starting point is 01:00:46 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
Starting point is 01:01:24 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
Starting point is 01:02:03 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
Starting point is 01:02:24 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
Starting point is 01:03:14 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,
Starting point is 01:04:01 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
Starting point is 01:04:45 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,
Starting point is 01:05:28 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
Starting point is 01:06:15 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?
Starting point is 01:07:00 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,
Starting point is 01:07:30 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
Starting point is 01:07:55 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.
Starting point is 01:08:22 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
Starting point is 01:08:57 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.
Starting point is 01:09:38 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,
Starting point is 01:10:10 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.
Starting point is 01:10:45 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
Starting point is 01:11:33 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
Starting point is 01:11:59 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.
Starting point is 01:12:17 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.
Starting point is 01:12:37 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
Starting point is 01:13:12 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
Starting point is 01:13:35 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
Starting point is 01:14:03 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
Starting point is 01:15:02 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.
Starting point is 01:15:49 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.
Starting point is 01:16:05 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
Starting point is 01:16:26 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
Starting point is 01:17:12 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.
Starting point is 01:18:06 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
Starting point is 01:18:55 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.
Starting point is 01:19:20 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.
Starting point is 01:19:59 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.
Starting point is 01:20:36 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,
Starting point is 01:21:19 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.
Starting point is 01:22:03 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
Starting point is 01:22:25 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,
Starting point is 01:23:03 which are important, is all free. Free subscribe to the Midest Touch Network. Get us over to one and a half million and then two million as quickly as possible because that helps make us the powerful force for you, for good, for the progressive ideals on the network. Now support the website. Again, free. Just use it like you did whatever you were currently using as a website to get your information from, add this to it. And then you'll be able to stay in that universe that's been created by MidasTouch. And then go over to our audio platform and pull audio versions of this podcast and other podcast, which you can get everywhere at Google Spotify and the like. And then which you can get everywhere, Google Spotify and the like.
Starting point is 01:23:46 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,
Starting point is 01:24:06 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,
Starting point is 01:24:24 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.
Starting point is 01:24:51 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.
Starting point is 01:25:06 Shout out to Legal AFers and Midas Mighty.

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