Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump FEELS THE HEAT as Jack Smith SMOTHERS HIM
Episode Date: December 14, 2023Defense attorney Michael Popok & former prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo are back with a new episode of the midweek edition of the Legal AF pod. On this episode, they debate: developments in the Tru...mp Election Interference criminal case, including new briefing to the DC Court of Appeals to put Trump’s attempt to stop the prosecution on a fast track, and the US Supreme Court’s interest in the same issue, as the Special Counsel’s office moves forward with new “phone hacking” evidence against Trump; the Second Circuit Court of Appeals finding that Trump (and his lawyer Alina Habba) cannot raise “presidential immunity” to avoid the next E Jean Carroll defamation and punitive damages case because they were late almost 3 years in raising the issue; Trump’s latest attempt to have the NY Civil Fraud case ruled in his favor at the end of his defense case, as Trump elects not to testify in his own defense; Rudy Giulani’s horrible performance in the Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss $50 million dollar defamation case against him, as the Judge contemplates finding that he has perjured himself, and Plaintiffs’ attorneys raises to stop Giuliani from forcing a “mistrial” and delay a jury verdict against him, and so much more at the intersection of law, politics and justice. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS! AURA FRAMES: Visit https://Auraframes.com/LegalAF and get $30 off their best-selling frames with promo code LEGALAF MIRACLE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. HUMANN: Thanks to our sponsor HumanN! Get a free 30-day supply of SuperBeets heart chews and a FREE Full - Sized Bag of Tumeric Chews valued at $25 by going to http://legalafbeets.com 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 MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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When you are Trump and you have to cite in your legal brief to that imaginary case of
Grinch V. Christmas as grounds to stop the DC Court of Appeals from putting your own appeal to have
the DC election interference case dismissed on a fast track, you've entered the world of
the unserious, just hours in record time after that Trump filing, and I'm not making it
up. The DC Court of Appeals granted the special prosecutor's request to expedite the appeal
to keep the March trial
on schedule so that the American people know whether they are voting for a convicted criminal
or not.
All while the US Supreme Court is also interested in deciding whether they should take direct
a pellet jurisdiction and decide whether Trump can dismiss his DC prosecution on immunity
grounds.
Speaking of immunity, the second circuit,
the top appellate court in New York ruled today
that Trump waived his presidential immunity,
whatever that is, and his defense
to the E. Jean Carroll defamation and sexual battery case
because he waited, well, Alina Haba waited, three years to raise
the issue in one of his filings.
Trump is apparently so busy preparing to write his Christmas legal briefs to try to stop
the March trials since the DC appeals court put a big lump of colonists stocking that
he couldn't bother to show up and testify in his own defense in the New York civil
fraud case. Even though judge Engoron will decide how much of Trump's business empire and assets he will be allowed to keep.
The civil fraud case has come to an end as the judge was evacuated from the courthouse based on death threats
no doubt by Trump's MAGA supporters. This show goes dark for a month and then we pick up
with closing arguments in a rule and a ruling in January.
And now the S show that is Rudy Giuliani. We are just three days into his trial to decide just how big
a check a DC jury will write to compensate mother daughter former election workers, shame
moths and Ruby Freeman for defamation, assassination threats, and personal attacks they have suffered
because of Rudy Giuliani's lies against them about committing voter fraud.
And Giuliani has already been told by the federal judge that he risks a mistrial and perjury charges
as Ruby and Shay look the jury and Rudy straighten the eye and tell their heartbreaking authentic story of pain and suffering
at the hands of Rudy and his henchmen. We discuss the likelihood
that the jury will award more than the $50 million requested by their lawyers. All this
and so much more on the collision corner of law, politics and justice, only on the midweek
edition of legal AF, on exclusively the Midas Touch Network with your co-anchors, Karen Friedman, McDiffalo,
and Michael Popock. Karen, it's the holiday season. And the appellate courts are holding
up their end of the bargain with their rulings against Trump. But forget it all, forget all
that. How are you? How's the family? Let's start it off right.
Hello, Popock. I'm great. Everything is good here. The family is great.
Everything is really, really good.
I have to say, though, tonight's going to be a tricky one for me because there's so much
going on.
I'm actually finding it hard to keep it straight.
And so hopefully we can break it down for people so that they can understand it because there
are so many cases going on that are asserting presidential immunity
in different levels, right?
We've got civil cases, criminal cases,
appellate cases, the Supreme Court,
you've got requests to go fast, requests not to slow it down.
It's just, it's so hard to keep track of
and hopefully we can simplify it so that everybody
can understand what's happening and keep track of and hopefully we can simplify it so that everybody can understand
what's happening and keep track of it because it's important.
I'm going to check the chat.
I want people to say things like if Karen can't figure it out, there's no hope for the
rest of us.
We will figure it out and we will present it here on legal AF.
Let's kick it off. Let's talk about because it's on
everybody's front burner. We're getting decisions left and right from the US
Supreme Court, the DC Court of Appeals. We got a ruling just before we just before
we got on the air. I'll tell everybody later why I'm laughing. We have a sidebar
chat among salty me and Karen while we're doing the live, and he wrote
something funny, which I will share at the appropriate time.
Okay, now, let me frame it and turn it right back over to my illustrious partner, Karen
Friedman-Ignifala.
We worried, and there was some misreporting earlier in the week, that the computer generated
order that spit out a pellet or an appeal schedule for Donald Trump's appeal of Judge
Chuck Ns ruling a couple of weeks ago, finding that he had no presidential immunity or immunity
to dismiss the indictment in Jack Smith's DC
election interference case.
He took that up on appeal.
Okay, no surprise there.
So far, so good.
Everybody's following along.
And we expected that appeal.
We also expected that at the appropriate point that Jack Smith, if the court of appeals
didn't do the right thing and kind of expedited on their own, he would file some sort of paper somewhere
and maybe in multiple places to expedite the appeal.
To put it on a fast track,
was we got a March 4 trial date
and we know that Donald Trump is just trying
to burn the time, right?
Burn the candle at both ends
between now and March 4th to avoid the trial, right?
He wants to push this out and kick this can
so far past November that he's up for that he's the voters have voted.
That's exactly the opposite of what the public demands, what justice demands,
which is that the voters know when they go to the polls. Are they voting for a
convicted criminal or one that got exonerated and acquitted? Who knows? We don't
know yet. That's the beauty of our justice system.
I mean, I can hazard a guess
what's gonna happen at a jury trial,
but that's just my speculation.
And so when the first order came out,
like, that's my printer, printer noise.
I was like, oh crap, they're gonna require the appeal,
not even get started until late December.
It's too late, Donald Trump is won. All hope is lost.
And people on legal AF like me, you and Ben relax. There's no panel yet. The three judge panel
hasn't even been selected. They're the ones that make decisions on the briefing schedule, not the
clerk or not the clerk's computer. And let's wait to see what happens. If they don't form on their
own, then I assure you, as I said, on legal AF recently,
Jack Smith will file a piece of paper to make it happen.
So he filed two pieces of paper, his office, one with the DC Court of Appeals, which is
the intermediary, intermediate, a pellet court that sits over Judge Chuck and Judge Chuck
and his bosses in the District of Columbia.
And they also filed a paper with the US Supreme Court, hoping that one or both of them would
bite and both of them bit.
The DC Court of Appeals said, this is a very interesting issue now that we have three
just judges in place.
And I'll let you care a comment on the judges.
It's a great panel.
Great for democracy, not terrible for Donald Trump in terms of who's been selected.
And at the same time, they said, this is really interesting.
Let's hear from the parties as to whether there should be ex-buddyed briefing on this faster
than normal, normal being six, eight months to a year.
Obviously, we need faster to keep the trial date.
And tell us why.
And we'll make a ruling.
And then at almost the same time, on the same day,
the US Supreme Court said, this is very interesting.
Your request to have the US Supreme Court
be the first court of appeal.
Let us decide on original jurisdiction right now
without going through a lower intermediary court.
It's unusual.
We get where you're going with this, special counsel.
We like to have that briefed.
So we got simultaneous briefing going
on a very close calendar here, very fast track.
Tell us at the US Supreme Court level why we,
in the nine people in black robes,
why we should make this decision firsthand
without having the benefit of a lower intermediary
of pelvic court.
And the appellate court going,
we're gonna, we're,
let's hear the briefing on the,
on the expedited appeal, which closed today with a final brief by Donald Trump, citing Grinch,
that stole Christmas, Arbor Collins 1957, I'm not kidding. On their brief, they wasted ink on that
and said that was one of the reasons they couldn't have this case go so fast because Jack Smith was a big big fat Grinch. And within
hours, the appellate court ruled, the DC court of appeals ruled. And I'm going to let you take it
from there. What happened with the DC court of appeals? What's happening with the US Supreme Court
next on these two parallel worlds of appeal related to whether Donald Trump is ultimately going to be able to use immunity of some sort to dismiss his indictment.
Yeah, so the DC's circuit Court of Appeals granted the expedited briefing essentially and so
Everything's due in December with a rep, you know the the balance brief is due late December
the app heli's brief is due December 30th and the reply briefed
The app heli's brief is due December 30th and the reply briefed January 2nd and then they'll talk about when oral arguments is and hopefully it'll be done very, very quickly.
But if you, if the reason, look, look, think of this kind of, I like the way you were talking
about this and how you were explaining what's going on and really what the stakes of this are.
And I want to just really simplify it for people
so that they understand why this is so critical.
The big issue here is presidential immunity, okay?
And what he's saying is, because I was president at the time
and I was doing my job as president,
I should be immune if I got it wrong, you know,
like that that's essentially what it is, you know, if I make a mistake or whatever, I should be free
when I do my job to make tough decisions and therefore I shouldn't have to worry about
watching my back because I could either get sued or get prosecuted and that that's really what he's
saying. And there is a presidential immunity in the civil context.
And because of that, right?
Because of that, if you're acting as president within your job
or within the outer boundary of what could be your job,
you know, we're going to stretch those limits a little bit
because we want you as president to act freely
and not worry about whether or not someone could sue you
or would sue you.
And that's what the civil presidential immunity is.
But the question about, is there criminal
presidential immunity?
And I think ultimately, the Supreme Court
is going to have to rule that there is not.
It makes no sense that there would be,
otherwise, you know, just think of all the things one could do as a president and never
have to be held accountable. It would fly in the face of everything this country stands
for. But it's never been ruled on before. So as a result, it is something that is going to have to be ruled on.
But let's just have a little academic exercise. If he is immune from prosecution, criminally,
then this case goes away. 100%. If he's not, then the case proceeds. So this is truly foundational,
right? Foundational. It's whether or not the case can go. And that's why he is permitted
to appeal midstream while the trial is going on. He doesn't have to wait until after he's
convicted or if he's convicted to appeal the way you typically do with most appellate arguments.
And so what Donald Trump is doing, because this is so foundational, right, what he's doing here,
and this is why this is such a critical, important juncture
that we're at.
He's his long game, his chess game is,
don't go to trial, don't let anyone see what the evidence is,
don't get convicted, get elected, right?
In November, get elected, become president,
and install my own, a elected, become president, and install my own Department of Justice
head, the Attorney General, who will dismiss the case,
and I'll pardon myself.
Period, full stop.
It's terrifying.
What is that state here?
And if this case doesn't go in March,
because we're still waiting on the appellate courts
to determine this foundational question,
what will happen in March?
March, then March 24th comes around,
and Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney,
his case will be on the calendar
in front of Judge Juan Mershon,
and they'll come to court.
And the prosecutor will say my three favorite words,
the people are ready.
And that means the people are ready for trial.
And in New York, we say the people in federal court,
we say the government.
So that will go to trial March 24th.
And because that's gonna go,
and so for all the people who are like,
why this case, why, why did he bring this case, why is this the first case, this might be the only case.
We are all going to look back and say, you know what, thank God for Alvin Bragg and this case. Because
that might be the only case we see that holds him accountable. Because we all know that Eileen Cannon has no desire to
bring her case in May, right?
But she's not going to also say, hey, you know what, let's put it off.
Even though we know that's what she's going to do.
And so if this judge-chatkin case doesn't go forward in March, on March 4th, the way
she was trying to get it to do, she won't be able to put it into March, into May, because that's where
Judge Eileen Cannon
is, right?
And so it would get pushed to what?
June, July, and then it gets so close to the election.
And then it becomes really complicated and it can't go before the election.
And so there's no way you're going to have a criminal trial right in the heat and heart
of a presidential election.
And so this is really, really important. And what's happening right now is Jack
Smith is basically saying to the Supreme Court and to the DC Circuit in parallel, which is unusual.
So highly unusual, the way it always goes in 99 out of 100 times is you go to the district court,
you go to the appellate court, and then you go to the Supreme Court.
That's the way it always is.
There's been I think 45 or 50 times in our lifetime that was reported this week, where
the Supreme Court allowed them to leapfrog the middle portion of this, right, the circuit,
and go straight to the Supreme Court.
And since 2019, the Supreme Court has done it many times.
I think it was almost a dozen or two dozen times,
have allowed that to happen in some really foundational,
fundamental cases that have been faced with.
So they do this, unlike in the past,
where this wasn't ever done.
This current Supreme Court does this.
And so hopefully they'll take it and take it quickly
and keep the March 4th date.
Because if it doesn't go March 4th,
I would venture to say it's likely to not go before the election.
And then we just played
out the long game that Trump is looking to play.
So this is extremely, extremely difficult and this is extremely important.
And so I want everyone to just really understand what is at stake here.
Okay, let me be the devil's advocate in a couple of those points, because, you know,
I got to hold up my end of the conversation.
First, I think the DC court of appeals, I think the Supreme Court's going to back out and let
the DC court of appeals make the, make the initial ruling. I think that ruling is going to come
based on the briefing schedule that they've set or going to set is going to come very, very quickly. I think they are going to be working over Christmas, despite Donald Trump's
citation to the Grinch that stole Christmas as the reason by one of the reasons why they shouldn't
be forced to work over their Christmas holiday. Here's the quote on page 13. I'm not making this
up everybody. They wasted valuable ink in one of their key arguments to cite to Dr.
Suce. What comes next? Hop on pop. Green eggs in ham. I mean, you're, they're, they're just
exhausted intellectually. And this is what you're left with. They led in that brief just so
you know, this is why it only took the Eiffelic Court, Mitt Hours to decide. They were like,
let's see what Donald Trump has to say. First paragraph in Donald Trump's brief was, this was a partisan attack by Joe Biden over the number one person who
will beat him in November. Okay. And the public are saying like, okay, can we get to the point
as to why there's not a substantial public interest in having this appeal and the decision on your immunity that you've raised
yourself and the fact that you've asked for expedited appeal and got it for the gag order,
why we shouldn't grant expedited appeal, especially since there's some there's some precedent
that I think is pretty close to being on all fours, which has to do with the water gate
days in which they ask the DC court of appeals during the water gate times to hurry up and rule on immunity and other executive privileges so they could get the water gate trial started.
Sort of on point. And so the panel took one look and said, what else has he got? And he looked at the brief and they said, no, that case doesn't apply. And the argument about there's a primary coming up and super Tuesday and
the argument about there's a primary coming up and Super Tuesday and Donald Trump, you know, there's a first amendment, right, for the public that likes Donald Trump to hear
what he has to say.
We're not talking about a gag order anymore.
We're talking about.
And I also thought it was insulting.
And I said this in a hot tick.
I thought it was insulting to the three judge panel that's been picked to imply or to
actually say that you're too stupid to make a decision quickly based
on full briefing.
And you should give a more del- you need more time.
You've got to be more deliberate.
Okay, this is an appellate court at the highest level.
This is like V major leagues of courts of appeal.
This is their job.
This is what they get paid to do. Fast, slow,
normal track, fast track. They read briefs, they conduct oral arguments, they do the legal analysis,
and they make a ruling. It doesn't matter if it's a week, it's a month, it's six months or a year.
And so to insult them and say, you need more time. So they love this argument. Give judges more time.
It's not that they want to give the judges more time. It's as you said, Karen, they want to just burn more time
off the clock because they want to get closer
to and burn through March.
And so I think the Supreme Court backs out,
the Court of Appeals on fast briefing,
I think ultimately rules that he is beyond the outer boundaries
of any argument of immunity here,
and they do not dismiss the indictment.
Because that's the question. How do you do you dismiss an indictment? And so, yes, Judge
Chutkin today, just today. See, we had a lot of things happen just today. Just today ruled that,
she agreed with both sides. Both Department of Justice and Donald Trump said to Judge Chutkin,
while this appellate issue is in place, you must stop
and not do anything else in this trial.
Don't decide anything else.
I mean, the Department of Justice was a little bit different.
There's a couple of things you can still decide, but anything that deals with immunity,
you got to stop.
You got to just put a pin in the trial.
And she's done that just so everybody knows.
As of right now, as of this time at 821 PM Eastern time, there is no further activity in the trial
to prepare for trial. I mean, Jack Smith's team can prepare for trial. But in terms of
her making decisions, rulings, there's still motions that are pending all stops, which
then gives additional weight and credence to the decision by the DC Court of Appeals to do this
quickly, because they don't want it to stop. Remember, we, or this might be news to people just joining last week, another three-judge panel of the
court of appeals buried on page 47 of their decision about the gag order, regagging Donald
Trump, basically implored their colleagues on this panel, the current court of appeals,
not to delay the trial, do everything that could to get the trial back on track. That was like a voice. They were sending a message. They
rather just passed them in the hallway or the cafeteria. They wrote it in their opinion
last week. And so the court of appeals, I think, is taking this very seriously in the
historic moment of it. Now, let me just talk briefly about the date in March, May and
self-parten. Just, okay, just to throw it out there.
Can I add one more thing for you to also say?
I want you to also weigh in on whether this will stay,
like, say, Fani Willis sees the writing on the wall and says,
oh, you know, let's move up my trial.
Do you think the supremacy clause will require a stay of her case as well given that it's the same subject matter?
So I just want to add that to your list of things to comment on please. Yeah. Thank you. It's like speed. It's like speed chess. Okay. Go.
I'll do that with less on the March May issue, you know, I
Think if it's if she needs another month to get her trial going, Judge Shuckin under the judicial canon,
she can pick up the phone and call Judge Alene,
I think it's pronounced Alene canon.
And Judge Shuckin can say, hey, Alene,
I need to move my trial ahead.
You've been jerked, this is my paraphrase.
You've been jerking around with the moral logo thing
long enough, time to you know what or get off the pot
Are you taking the trial date in May or can I'm where I'm gonna take my April date?
So there there is a dialogue same dialogue that went on between Judge Shuttken's chambers and the
Chambers of Judge Mershan up in New York for the Stormy Daniels case that you talked about and Judge Mershan said I'll step aside if you do me too
All right, and then and then before I get to the Georgia thing, the, you know, this issue is not clear because
no president in our republic has ever tried it to pardon themselves.
Now, I don't think it gets to pardon themselves.
I think Donald Trump pulls the plug on the Department of Justice if he can.
Now, if a special counsel is appointed,
it's a little trickier under the special counsel law.
That's why Bill Barr raced to put that,
the guy in place, John, what's his last name,
it'll come to me, somebody help.
The special counsel looking at all things related to,
salty say, which case, I'll get it. It's the special counsel that Bar put in place
to protect him from being dismissed by Joe Biden
and by Marik Garland to go after whether,
you know, the Russia hoax and all of that.
And so there are protections within the independent.
Don Durham.
John Durham, I was gonna say, Raleigh,
I knew it was in North Carolina.
Oh, so, I'm like, he can't mean Mueller.
So, I know.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, a fan friendly Donald Trump friendly attorney general. But we'll see that.
But that's what he'll try to do.
Surely you're right about that.
He'll try to gut the Department of Justice,
hollow out, cut off resources,
and not allow that case to go forward if it's not complete.
And then we'll have to debate the issue
whether he has the ability to pardon himself.
And then what happens if he tries to,
of course, that'll go up to the Supreme Court
in various ways.
And we'll see what they may not even like that, like self-partening for crimes that have
been convicted. So we'll see. As the Georgia, you raised a very interesting issue, and I've
seen various debates about it. I know that Trump's lawyers think the supremacy clause applies.
I know Trump's lawyers, like John, like Steve Seidow has said in court that he thinks the supremacy clause would eventually
bar our ban this.
I'm not sure about that.
And I'm not sure this is complete.
You're trying to think of what the supremacy clause is just in case they don't know what
it is.
Well, I mean, where there is an overlap between subject matter and the federal, the federal,
in our federalist system of states and federal government, the federal
government can oust the state. And in this case of justice, criminal justice, can, as you
said, make them stop their state case because they have a federal case overlapping subject
matter on the same. There's going to be a fight over whether it's overlapping subject
matter. There's going to be a fight over whether the indictment could be narrowed, for instance,
for funny well as to do less, because they even though there is obviously overlap between
the two. So that's the way that shakes out. Mac if he hasn't ruled on that in Georgia,
it hasn't been brought to anybody's attention. We'll talk about whether there's waiver related
to that.
When do you bring the supremacy clause up?
How far along do you have to be?
We're pretty far along in Georgia here
and all of that.
Why don't we pick up with your view
on waiver supremacy clause and all that.
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So we have, listen, there's just to turn it back to you.
Kim P in our chat asked a very good question.
She said, if the DC court of appeals makes a decision that Trump is not immune from prosecution,
what's the next step?
All right, well, that's a good question.
I think what we have is, if I'm right
that the Supreme Court backs out,
there'll be some briefing, or maybe Jackson Smith withdraws
his request for direct appeal to the US Supreme Court.
Now that he's got the attention of the DC Court of Appeals
and they're putting this on the fast track that he wanted.
It's all he wanted, it was fast track gets to a ruling.
Then if that's what happens,
DC Court of Appeals rules,
whoever loses will take an appeal
to the US Supreme Court.
Hopefully, again, on an emergency fast track,
a writ of cert basis.
The first stop on that train is John Roberts,
the chief judge who presides over all things
District of Columbia.
He'll decide, yay or nay,
whether there's an emergency appeal,
if he wants to be sort of transparent.
He'll turn it over to the full nine member group instead of making the decision on his own.
And then I think that all still gets shoved into before middle to the end of January,
one way or the other.
Because I think they're call me the Cacaid Optimist.
But I think there is a fair number of judges who are federal judges
on all sides of the spectrum that think that the public policy and the public's interest of having
Donald Trump tried. And they're being a decision whether it absolves him or convicts him before
people vote matter. I may be wrong. We'll find out what the Supreme still. One way or the other though to answer Kim
Peas question. It's getting to the Supreme. The question is
direct or one stop at the DC quarter of a field.
I hope you're right, because if it doesn't happen before
January, then Trump wins no matter what the answer is because
he doesn't have a trial. And then he's not held accountable.
Of course, if he loses the election, then the trial will proceed.
But at least it's not before the election.
So that to me is really the key here.
What do you think about your service, I'm serving back the supremacist, it's like pickleball.
I'm serving back the supremacy question, yes, me.
What do you think happens with the supremacy argument?
Yes, so I dealt with it think happens with the supremacy argument?
Yes, so we dealt with it all the time in,
because I was the state prosecutor for 30 years.
It came up fairly regularly.
Mostly came up when the city council,
which goes like federal, state,
local in terms of the hierarchy of who makes laws. And it came
up a lot when the city council tried to pass laws. And we would argue that it's preempted
by state law, which is essentially a similar preemption and, you know, is the legal framework
that would apply if the supremacy clause applies, meaning that
the Supreme Court's law would preempt the state court law on the same topic, or the
same ruling, and that's a presidential immunity.
So what would happen here?
I think you were spot on.
It all depends on what exactly they're talking,
like what law and what conduct, right?
And whether it's the same or whether it's different.
Now, you know, Bonnie Willis' indictment,
you'd have to analyze it and really look at what were things
that are alleged in there that was done when he was president
and then things done when he was not president.
And, you know, I think that will be part of it, but also to look at both the facts and
a lot of make that determination.
I do think, however, that it will get stayed.
I do think an appellate court in Georgia will say that it is stayed until the Supreme Court
rules.
That's what I think. I agree, I think we've got four, five appellate courts
that matter in a particular order related
to all things Donald Trump as we close out the year
and the next year.
The DC Court of Appeals is gonna be making a lot of decisions
about a lot of things because they're the bosses
for the judges that sit in DC.
Georgia Supreme Court, highest court of the land in Georgia, and whatever the
intermediary court for Fulton County is, is that we're going to be hearing a lot about
them or than we ever thought we would. We're going to know a lot about them, those judges
and who they are and how they got there. The second circuit court of appeals in New York
for all things related to civil matters related to Donald Trump. The court of appeals, I
guess I'll add one more, the court of appeals, the highest state court of Pellet Court in New York for things related to the civil fraud case.
And then the 11th Circuit for things related to the Florida matters, because that's the
Florida federal bosses for Judge Cannon, and they're making decisions also.
So we're going to track this.
Well, we do a pellet, state, you know, a pellet know a pellet trial level state federal and the intersection interplay of all those things
That's what we're trying to follow every week for you and sort it out
And it's not easy. I mean to credit and we joke about it
But to credit what my colleague Karen said at the top of the podcast it is confusing
It's confusing for you even people like Karen and me that were trained have been trained for over 30 years to
Dissect and digest and understand these issues.
And so, we're all in this together.
We're using our expertise and our knowledge,
whereas I joke down one of my hot takes.
You like lawyers who know what they're talking about
during podcasts, you're gonna love what we do.
On legal AF, and we try.
And sometimes it's a head scratcher.
And we gotta go back and forth, and we do.
I mean, some people might wanna see maybe if we ever do Patreon, Yeah, and we try. And sometimes it's a head scratcher. And we got to go back and forth. And we do.
I mean, some people might want to see, maybe if we ever do Patreon, we'll show them the
back and forth how we prepare for this show.
We do a lot of prep, and it because it is hard, and our goal here is not to dumb it down,
not to patronize, speaking of Patreon, but to have a good understandable simplification, a simplex, I think I read somewhere
as the word for it, of these complex dishes and that's what we're doing.
I mean, one of the reasons, you know, we do do it sometimes is because in that back and
forth, we will say, oh, I think this and the other person will say, I think that and
we say, let's have the debate or the discussion, you know, together and we'll do a duet.
And that's what goes into some of those why we do duets a lot of the time.
Right on cue, my colleague, let's talk about a duet that you guys did.
I'm not talking about the duet, but an issue that you use that method, that's so
critic method to sus out the analysis using Ben or me, both of us all three of us,
is that we've got another appellate decision,
federal, this time the highest court in New York,
the second circuit court of appeals, ruling today,
I mean, I don't like to wrench my shoulder
padding ourselves in the back,
but we did say that this was gonna happen,
which is the E. Jean Carol case
Donald Trump finally got around after three years to try to assert late
Presidential immunity. I'm immune. You can't sue me for the things that I said when I was president when I said these terrible Horrible horrific the famitory things about the person that I have been a judge already to have raped in
In April of or the spring of 1996. Can't do that.
I have immunity to which we, you, me, and Ben,
all did hot takes because we got the oral argument
off the second circuit and listened to Alina Haba,
Gurgle, Gurgle, Flounder.
I know I'm mixing metaphors here, drown in response
to questions from a very hot bench.
And one of the questions that was asked particularly,
which showed up now in the ruling,
which is that Donald Trump waived,
bye bye waived any argument that he's immune from soup
because he raised it too late,
that it's a wavable thing.
You either use it or lose it,
and you gotta use it fast early on in a case,
and don't get three years into it.
And then you say, oh, I just remembered.
I used to be the president.
Presidential immunity may apply.
And there was a back and forth with one of the judges for the panel to Alina Haba.
And she said, well, your argument then is that presidential immunity in the civil context
can never be waived.
No one can ever waive it.
It's no. Alina, no, it can never be waived. No one can ever waive it. It's no. It's automatic. It's almost
like it's self-executing. Who would ever waive? It can't be waived. And the judge said,
well, I could think of some scenarios where a president, maybe not your client, wants to waive
any aspect of immunity because he wants his day in court to clear his name about allegations and doesn't
want to just rely on immunity.
And she's in to Alina Habba.
That was such a foreign concept that somebody would actually want to go to trial, testify
and clear their name.
But she was like, uh, so I was like flatlined.
You could see the smoke coming out of Alina Habba's ears on that.
And that became an animating force when the judge today,
I think it was Judge Cabránis, right?
Yeah.
I think Jose Cabránis used to be on the Southern District
of New York at trial level judge as most of them are
and they get elevated to the second circuit,
along with Danny Chinn and one of the judges
just escaped me.
He wrote, it's wavable.
It is a way, which is the third one.
Can I?
Yeah, can.
You're right.
And I think it was con that got into with Alina Haba during the oral argument.
And right out of the box, they said, this is a case of first impression.
And the fundamental question is, do you have to raise the affirmative defense of presidential immunity early on in a case?
Or have you waved it?
And they said, you waved it.
Three years into a case is way too long for you to say that you are now asserting the
privilege after you've lost the prior trial and all the other and on your third filing,
your third pleading two and a half years into a case,
you finally got around to growing a brain
and figuring out that maybe, oh right, I was president.
Maybe I should raise that as an immunity.
And they didn't buy that.
And they don't, there's really no good explanation.
One of the reasons that as a trial lawyer,
you don't sometimes do your own appeals,
and you let another law firm or lawyer do your appeals is because sometimes
there's some very difficult questions that are asked about what you did at the trial level.
For instance, why didn't you file it earlier? Now, if you're the appellate lawyer, you can say,
well, the record is unclear as to why the trial, that's of no moment. Here, you've got to go,
I didn't do it because, and it becomes problematic. I've
been in a pellet arguments about cases in which the pellet court actually said, I know it's
not in the record. Now, they're not supposed to do this, but they do it all the time. I know
it's not in the record, but what really happened? You know, was there a posting on social media
or wasn't there? You know, and I'm almost like, you're not supposed to ask me that question.
It's not in the record, but they do.
Their human beings are trying to reach a proper decision.
How did you read?
I know you invented a hot dick on it.
Jump in.
Tell me why, for instance, some of the people now,
like tonight are saying, I don't get it.
They're in criminal immunity land.
In the world of a criminal prosecution, everything stops
while the immunity issue gets decided on appeal.
That's what you just told us, Popeye, Chuck, and stop the trial.
Why then, if it's so fundamental to the jurisdiction of the court, why then, at least in the civil
context, does the former president have to raise it at all?
Why isn't it automatic?
Why doesn't matter when he raised it?
He raised it and therefore it should have
divested the court of subject matter jurisdiction.
I say, good question, Chad.
Turning it over to Karen.
Yeah, this was a head scratch here.
Just because there's, what did we get three or four decisions
on presidential immunity or opinions on
presidential immunity in like three days? I mean, it was just crazy that these are all coming down
at the same time and talking about the same issue. So, you know, don't forget we had Blazing
Game, right, which is the, the civil case in Washington, DC,
where it was Capitol police officers
and others suing Donald Trump for January six
and that presidential immunity,
and that's a civil case.
Finally, that decision came down
like an hour before Judge Chukkin's
criminal presidential immunity decision came down.
And then now we're getting the second circuit
in another civil case in the E. Jean Carroll case. And that's so the D.C. circuit and the
second circuit are parallel. They're the same level and they are both ruling on
presidential immunity in the civil context. And the reason I to to me, this was like a little confusing
or a little bit, I felt like it was a little bit
of a head scratcher was because on the one hand,
the other case is, right, the blashing game civil case
and then the Chetkin criminal case
when they talk about presidential immunity.
It's all about how, you know, you've got Jack Smith arguing,
gotta go to the Supreme supreme if this is so important
This is so foundational. It's such a big deal. You got Chuck and staying the proceedings
You got Jack Smith arguing that the supreme court should rush this and hear it and
And we can it's such a foundational important thing that we're gonna leapfrog
over the the DC circuit and go straight to use Supreme Court.
And similarly in blashing game, right?
Everything is about how this is such a foundational premise.
And it's an all or nothing thing, right?
It's if you're immune, there's no case.
If you're not immune, you can go forward.
I mean, it's truly that important,
that foundational. This is not, you know, this is not some like, interim small thing. And in fact,
it's so important, which is why you're allowed to appeal while the case is pending, and you don't
have to wait until after the fact. So you've got all these arguments being made by everybody about this issue being so incredibly
important and foundational, et cetera.
And then in the E. Jean Carroll case, I don't know how else to kind of sum it up, but
the second circuit almost basically ruled on a technicality.
I mean, that's what lay people would say, right?
They didn't rule on whether or not what Trump when Trump defamed E. Jean Carroll, you know,
while he was president.
They didn't rule on whether that was in the outer boundary of, you know, the, his job
as a president.
They didn't say, you know, he's therefore not immune or, you know, whatever.
They didn't rule on the merits.
What they said was basically that you waved it.
You waved it, you waded three years to raise it, which again,
and if that was Alina Habba, you know,
I know that there was some issue that she didn't check the box,
you know, and therefore didn't get a jury trial in the,
the Angoraan case.
And she got a lot of flack for that. And, and Judge Angora get a jury trial in the, the, and Goron case. And she got a lot
of flack for that. And, and Judge and Goron actually came to her defense and said, you
know, that she did, you know, he said she didn't forget to check the box. She got a lot
of flack for that. But if she did this, this is a huge mist. Like this is like, this is
like potentially, you know, career ending kind of mistake.
I mean, you represent a former president of the United States.
This is all or nothing premise, and you don't raise it for you forget, or for some reason
you don't raise it.
I don't know who made that decision, or if it was a decision.
But the second circuit basically said it was waived because he waited too long
and they held that presidential immunity is waivable in the defendant waived this defense
by waiting too long.
They cleared the way for the E. Jean Carol case.
It's really, I think it's just damages, right, the EGN Carol one, because he was already found to be defamatory.
Yeah, 200 damages and cost-quential damages.
Yeah, so they ruled that that can go forward in January, you know?
So, you know, but then they go on to say this is a case of first impression, and it's
a vexing question, a first impression about whether presidential immunity is
wavable. And I don't know, there's by calling it vexing, to me that just kind of, the whole thing
opens the door to the Supreme Court saying, no, you know, if you, if you can wave it, you can wave
it, but it has to be intentionally waved. You don't wave it by not raising it. And you know,
it's not like forfeited, this isn't this isn't you can't
rate like you can't lose something so foundational on a technicality I don't
know if the Supreme Court will rule it that way but I what I was hoping that
they would have done was they would have done which they do all the time which
is we find that it's waived but in the alternative if it turns out it
wasn't we also rule on the mayor you, like courts do that all the time.
I don't know why they didn't do that here.
And so that's, I didn't love that.
Yeah.
Well, we had a ruling last week by another court of appeal.
Maybe this doesn't set up a conflict.
The highest court in the land without a conflict to rule on the issue of civil immunity for a, at the
time, president that doesn't exist beyond the boundaries of his color of his office
is blasking him. The case that came down by the DC Court of Appeals, the second circuit
is not at variance with blasking him because it found as the first court in the land to
rule that that is that extending blas him, that it's wavable.
The issue for me is not as important or fundamental
because it doesn't deal with criminal justice
and it doesn't deal with somebody's liberty.
If you force, I talked about this before,
you and I got on the air.
Donald Trump's name is so suffused with extra baggage
that you almost have to eliminate him from the discussion
in order to try to get some clarity in the analysis.
If I said, for instance, John F. Kennedy,
should he be forced to go through a trial
that in where he was, for things related to him being president,
even things that may have been criminal,
or should the issue of immunity be decided first, people might say, well, maybe he shouldn't go
through a trial, lose, lose his liberty, and then find out whether he was immune or not.
When it comes to money, which is all that, frankly, yes, it's justice. I don't want to, I don't want
to belittle at all. E. Jean Carroll would be Ruby Freeman, shame moss, those that are using the civil justice system,
appropriately to recover recompense money,
which is really as shame moss Ruby,
I think shame moss said it so eloquently and heartbreakingly,
you gotta hit them in the pocket,
because that's where they live,
and that's why we have to do this.
Then I'm less concerned about how big of a chequeous to write to E. Jean Carroll,
and whether they got it right on immunity or not.
And I think they had a set, for me, I don't think you can wait forever.
Let's take it to an extreme.
You go all the way through the trial.
Go all the way through the trial.
You go all the way to jury deliberation.
And while the jury is deliberating,
you stand up and say presidential immunity.
Sorry, I don't like the way the trial went,
I don't like the way that jury looked,
I don't like the way the notes coming out of the jury
looks for me, presidential immunity, everybody.
That's pretty late in the game.
And if it's not waveable under this theory,
then you just let it,
and that's I think what they're worried about.
They're worried about this pocket immunity
that only pops up like they want it both ways.
They want a person like Trump would want a double dip.
I want to try to convince,
I want to use the platform of this trial
to convince the world that I didn't do
those bad things to E.G. and Carol.
Oh, it's going south for me presidential immunity.
Do it early.
Well, a judge, but I'm fairness. And again, a judge could, and they do this sometimes,
you know, a judge could put in an order that says if you have, if you're going to, if you happen
to have someone who was president, you know, you're sewing a former president in those limited
cases, a judge could say and force them early on.
If you're raising any immunities, including, you know,
these, you must tell me now, yes or no,
and make them say yes or no.
Okay, so do you waive that?
Like you can force them on the...
Well, yes, but no, I didn't mean to cut you off, go ahead.
No, no, I just think it's, you know,
I'm thinking of all the other reversible errors
that exist in the law, I just think it's, you know, I'm thinking of all the other reversible errors that exists
in the law, and many times judges what they do is they will make sure that those rights
are taken care of so that type of thing doesn't happen.
Yeah, but you also had the unique situation where you had double eging carol cases going
on at the same time.
One guy.
You're right. Civil is different than criminal. You are right.
You got through E. Jean Carol case is going on. One was frozen in time. The other one
went forward for a trial. Same judge. He never he went through an entire trial and lost.
You and I on vacation reported about it in May and lost E. Jean Carol, the other E.
Jean Carol case about statements he made after he was president.
And of course, he didn't raise immunity then,
because he couldn't.
And then we restarted the case,
but the case had been sitting around for two and a half years.
And then he said, oh, that's a good time
to be the raised presidential immunity.
I think they're worried about the president, of course,
of Halicore.
So he's worried about the president.
How long can you wait for somebody to stand up,
not play both sides
and assert their privilege?
And I think they fell in love right or wrong or indifferent with the argument that was
raised by one of the judges in the oral argument, which was, I could see a president wanting
to waive, as you said, not win on a technicality and win on the merits about something that happened
to him.
I wanted my day in court.
And so that's now
the law. Now the Supreme Court will figure out whether they were right or wrong. I don't
think it gets decided, frankly, they'll know what's the next step people are asking.
The final Trump will move for a stay. And I asked the trial judge to stay at the trial judge,
Judge Kaplan's going to say no, F and way. They're going to go to the back to the second
circuit, the second circuit's going to say no, F and way. And then he's going to have
to try to take an emergency appeal through, isn't the second circuit so the second circuit's gonna say no F in way, and then he's gonna have to try to take an emergency appeal
through, isn't the second circuit so to Mojora or Kagan? See the Satsang Mojora Kagan, we'll look at that.
It's a it's a Mojora. Yeah, so we can write because she's the more senior. So to Mojora's gonna go, sorry,
and I don't think she sends it over to the full panel. She's like, click, no, sorry, flush, no appeal,
see you later, you can take it up later after you lose.
And I think that's where this is going to go.
So that's the good news about EG and Carol.
Let's, in the time remaining, the two things I'd like to cover with you for sure is the
New York civil fraud case, of course, and the conclusion of that case after 11 weeks, or
to power phrase, what are the New York Attorney
Generals, Deputy Attorney Generals,
we don't want more time, Judge.
We just want this case to end.
We can ask you one more question.
Sure, of course.
Sorry.
Sorry.
Supreme Court sometimes combines multiple cases
on the same issue and decides that.
Yes.
Can they do that with criminal and civil?
I only ask because they're really going to have
three different cases involving Trump and presidential
immunity, two civil and one criminal literally at the same time.
Can you combine criminal and civil?
I don't think so.
I don't think they would from a jurisprudential standpoint.
I think that's a danger zone to do that.
I think they'd keep the bright lines between them,
but you're right, they can say,
yeah, these are similar issues.
Let's throw them all together,
we'll make one big fat decision,
and we'll watch them do that.
You know, we're halfway through their term,
it started in October,
plenty of time left on the clock to make these decisions,
and we don't have time today to talk about it,
and it's not right yet for us,
but they've just decided to take up a case related
to Jan 6th, and whether obstruction of Congress is an appropriate charge, often appealed by one of the Jan 6th insurrectionists,
which if they rule against it would vacate hundreds of plea deals and convictions resulting
in the Jan 6th insurrection world. So we're going to keep a close eye on that. And coming up next,
I want to talk to you, of course, in our audience about the New York civil fraud case, what happened there, and the judge having
to be evacuated. And then finally, we'll wrap up with Rudy Giuliani, um, under, you know,
fortunately doing terrible in his trial so far with a jury who's sitting riveted watching
a Shea Moss and Ruby Freeman testify about how their world has been turned upside down completely.
I Rudy Giuliani tears in their eyes and tears in the jury's eyes as a result. We'll do all that.
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Okay.
No, but you made me in the mood for my super beats.
So I went to get a super beat. I love them. They're so yummy. I'm going to go wrap myself
at a miracle sheet. Let's let's finish off today with our goodness of all things that
are going really people are getting a little bit despondent in the chat. Don't get
to spawn at things are going fine. This is the year, the wrap-up year of the pellet courts and into 2024 and then trials. 2020, the year of crimes, 2021 and 22, the year of
investigations and indictments, 2023 and a half appeals and 2024-ish trials. And that's just what
we're going to do. Continue to follow the life cycle of all these cases involving Donald Trump and others
that followed him.
Let's figure out Donald Trump and losing everything.
The New York Civil Broadcast has finally reached its conclusion 11 weeks in.
There was no Donald Trump testifying in his own defense.
There was no Eric Trump testifying in their defense.
There were four experts, none of them were were very convincing except one got into a shouting match with the New York Attorney General in which a lot of how dare you and
Unhand me sir and whatever else was going on there was going on because he didn't like the fact that he was called a paid
What's the word? I'm looking for it starts with a W and ends with an e you guys can figure it out
But that's what that was basically you applied.
That he took $900,000 to say anything about things that he knew nothing about, which
was whether banks actually rely on statements of financial conditions and making lending decisions.
That's been the problem with the experts that have been so-called experts that have been
presented by Donald Trump.
They don't go to the heart of any of the issues that the judge has to decide. How you buy insurance, that's not the issue.
If you don't know how Deutsche Bank relied or didn't rely on the statements of financial
conditions, then get out of here. Go. If you don't know those fundamental fact questions,
or you've based your expert opinion on things that are outside the record or are not consistent with the record, you are going to be shot down. It's a waste of time. And as I
tell people about jury science in teaching my lawyers about trial practice, jury science tells us
that juries make the decision about who wins and who loses in the first week of the trial.
This is about how long the trial is. It could be a 12 week trial. First week, they are ready.
Now, they'll continue to test their theories
as the trial progresses,
but they have a knee jerk gut reaction early on
about the case.
And now this is even more acute
when it's just a judge making the decision.
And so if cherries are just waiting for the lawyers
to shut their pie holes so they can make their decision, what do you think the judges doing?
And you saw the frustration of the New York Attorney General at one point Mr. Wallace said out loud as they were wrapping up some logistics and
Chris Keiss the lawyer for Donald Trump was going off the rails in this case really in a embarrassing fashion as a fellow
Florida bar member. I will say that. Chris Kice said, uh, uh, Judge, uh, now that we rest and we want to move for direct
a judgment, we win.
We win.
You don't even have to make a decision.
We win.
And we want to file a motion about winning.
And Mr. Wallace said, what's going on here?
The New York Attorney General already won the persistent fraud count, the first count of
the, of the petition of the complaint.
We're just here trying to figure out whether there's more fraud and more counts of fraud.
So another pointless PowerPoint presentation, masquerading as a motion for directed judgment,
coming out of waste of time.
And Judge Angora and already said, Chris, you can make it, but I'm going to deny it.
Not because he's not giving it reflective thought.
He's thought about it now for weeks.
It's because it has no merit.
It's the fifth time that Donald Trump and his lawyers have jumped up and down and called
for it, directed verdict or directed judgment.
Michael Cohen testified, oh, Michael Cohen, oh, directed judgment.
You know, another thing, oh, direct stop.
You're not getting directed judgment.
You're gonna wait for the judge next month
after oral argument to the final presentation
a closing argument to make his ruling.
And if you don't like it, go take it up
with the first department of palliative vision.
And if you don't like that,
go take it up the New York court of appeals.
And that's what's gonna happen.
And they're gonna be on the losing side.
And this is one of the reasons
that I'm Trump didn't show up.
What did you think about sort of the last, we'll do it briefly.
Your take away from that, and what do you think, and Goron does next month in this civil
fraud case about Donald Trump's empire, is ability to hold on to it?
Yeah, like this case, they kind of flamed out at the end, the defense, you know, they didn't
call their star witnesses, you know, Trump, the Trumps.
And but I do think they actually made a little bit of hay with the remaining counts.
They put on the two Deutsche Bank people who said, hey, we didn't rely on it.
We did our own, we, you know, it was not material essentially. And we didn't rely on these documents.
And you don't need that materiality or intentionality
or reliance for the count that Judge Angora
on has already found him liable or found them liable
for the persistent fraud count.
But the other ones, actually, the remaining ones
require some kind of intentionality or materiality
and also have that added element
that they committed certain crimes, right?
It's civil, but it was crimes that Alvin Bragg
got a lot of flack for not charging.
But I have to say, when they testified
and you heard what the Deutsche Bank people
said about how, you know, we did our own analysis and we would have loaned to money anyway.
We were looking for the whale or whatever.
They said, you know, I started to really think about Alvin Bragg's case and why he didn't
bring that case.
It makes a lot of sense now because, you know, there's going to be, they're having,
they're struggling with proving that those remaining counts for a lesser standard. And so, to
have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt when you've got people from the bank, basically
saying what they said, I do think that makes a lot more sense now, while then Bragg
was reticent and hesitant in bringing that case. And again, you got a lot more sense now why Alvin Bragg was reticent and hesitant in in bringing that case
And again, he got a lot of flack for that because of the
Loud resignation of the prosecutors who did think the case should be brought
And and so a lot of people gave him a hard time about that
But but I thought that the defense case really showed that there are some questions about it
I also think that judge Angoran is going to
potentially, and I've said this before and you've said this before, he's going to potentially
split the baby, if you will, and not necessarily give the attorney general the rest of the
accounts, maybe give them some and say some for Trump, so that on appeal when Trump says this was biased and no one was listening
to me and he had his mind made up from the beginning, they could, the pellet courts can say,
no, it's clear he was listening because he actually found for you and, you know, it protects
the record. And I think that's what they're going to do. I also thought it was interesting. I expected
that the attorney general on
Rebuttal would have put other Deutsche Bank people higher up. You've always been,
you've done a great job at educating us, myself included, about how banks work
and how the people that Trump put on aren't really the decision makers, that it's other people.
And so I expected the attorney general's Office to put those other people on rebuttal to
just say no, it does matter.
I think they would have not to interrupt you.
I think they would have if there was a jury.
I think with the judge, there's already documents in place about what underwriting did,
which is the processing place for the loans and what their requirements were.
And I don't think you need it.
But I am about to start a trial on Tuesday.
It's a different thing.
I have an arbitrary fight of jury.
I'll make different.
And so will you calculate a decisions
about presentation of evidence.
I think they think that they have a very strong case.
They do have a strong case,
but you still have to prove your case, though.
Anyway, I'm just, again,
I'll give you an example.
I'll give you an example of the six counts that are remaining. You've
got insurance fraud and the conspiracy around insurance fraud. Deutsche Bank doesn't help
with that. I think they, I think I pull it across. I think they've won on that in terms of
the evidence that they were able to present on business record fraud, very similar to what
Alvin Bragg is doing and the conspiracy around business record fraud. I think they've got
a problem with the records of the company related to those issues,
regardless of whether Deutsche Bank relied on it or not, pulled that across.
Now you're just left with statement of financial condition fraud and the conspiracy around
that.
And maybe that's where, as you said, he throws him a bone and says, that one I'm not so
sure about, unintentional and materiality and reliance. That one I'm not so sure about.
Maybe that's what I'm talking about.
But don't forget with business record fraud for Alvin Bragg.
It's only a misdemeanor unless you were doing it to cover up another time.
But this is civil.
But this is civil.
No, I know.
I'm just, yes, I'm just answering the Alvin's question.
Of course.
I'm just saying it's a business, I'm sorry, I don't mean to talk over you.
No, no, you're not.
It's a, having a discussion, Pope, I love it. it right and we're in a different room and a slightly different camera angle
And so although in the same city I will say that if we could figure out a way to answer a question
Nobody ever asked city more remember that time Karen and Michael got together in one room one time
But we didn't once it was a terrible studio will never do it again
But if we could find a way salty to be in the same room at the same time with two mics a la
Joe Rogan or something we would do it. I would do it. It would be a lot of fun
I wouldn't even write what that's rude salty
And I can by the way
And I can, by the way. Okay.
So,
it's all he's going to break in a minute.
Like, wait a minute, that's not what I meant.
Sorry, let me, I got the good old fashioned giggles there for a minute.
But no, my point was that of, we keep talking about insurance, six, six
fraud counts left.
Those are the fraud counts, insurance, business record and financial statements
and the conspiracies around each of those.
I think the one that, if you're right
that the judge is looking for a place to give,
it's gonna be on the Deutsche Bank financial statement fraud
that they didn't prove the elements that are required, which is intent
and materiality slash reliance. That would be good. I didn't hear anything that
counter the insurance fraud. I didn't hear anything from experts or otherwise that countered
the business record fraud. And so for me, there's going to be five total counts at least.
Four, four total counts in four plus the one five, five total, five
fraud counts total that this judge is going to find in January. And then just on the first
fraud count, he could give all the relief probably that the New York Attorney General
was looking for, which is, as I did in a hot tick, dissolve all of the companies for Donald
Trump under a monitor and receiver, liquidate the assets
in order to pay whatever the
Discouragement amount is and forget the $250 million we talked about a year ago. This is 500 or more million
Dollars based on the numbers that were put up on the board by the experts for the New York Attorney General about how much
Il got and gains how much overborrowing they did how how much benefit they got from lying, and that's the measure.
And so, $500 million liquidate assets removed Donald Trump as a trustee for his own trust,
bar and ban Donald Trump and his children, and the other executives from ever being New
York, corporate officers or directors, ever again, the Trump organization in New York corporate officers or directors ever again, the Trump organization
in New York could never borrow money in New York and can't transact real estate in New
York.
That's is what is that is the the dystopian apocalyptic world that judge and go on holds
in his hands.
If that happens, will Trump look like like I love saying that by the way?
No, but I love I love learning these things
because it's fascinating to me. So let's say that happens and Judge Angora on says $200 million
and then they appeal. Well, he have to park that money in the bank the way he's doing with
E. Jean Carroll already had to put $5.5 million in the bank while they have.
Yeah, there's going to be an argument that in order to get what we call a super-seediest bond
to stop the enforcement of the judgment,
you gotta put up money
unless the attorney general agrees.
They already parked certain issues.
I don't know if you remember that, right around the time
he issued his ruling on the first count,
he was ready to dissolve.
He was like, okay, let's go to dissolution of the companies
and all their certificates
and their ability to operate in New York and even the attorney general was like, let's go to dissolution of the companies and all their certificates and their ability to operate in New York.
And even the new Attorney General was like, let's do the trial.
Why don't we do the trial first, Judge?
Zagari, we'll do the trial.
Okay, but I'm ready.
That's why I think this ruling comes.
He's going to be just to give Donald Trump's January.
He's going to be in some sort of primary.
At the same time, he's deciding, again, not to testify in the
second E. Jean Carroll case. At the same time, at the ruling in the New York Attorney General
case comes out against them for hundreds of billions of dollars. And that's just January
civil. And then, and then all the criminal stuff. But, but you're right. I was laughing because
you were like, yeah, I'm not used to this civil stuff. Yeah, you're just used to putting
people to rot in jail for the rest of their life,
which is great.
I appreciate that as well.
I've never had that power.
I only had the power to take money.
That's why I love civil.
Civil is like, I feel like it's the greatest thing.
It's like you're a private prosecutor,
but with a much better burden of proof.
No, it's like, it's the burden of proof issue.
It was just so much.
Can you imagine as a prosecutor if you could work on commission and take a contingency
fee?
Well, you know, right? For like for for civil forfeiture, you get 10% of whatever you bring
in.
Well, then the mode the motivation there becomes a problem becomes problematic.
Well, I know. Well, speaking of problematic,
let's finish our podcast talking about Rudy Giuliani.
He only is right.
And so I'll give one minute,
I'll turn it over to you for three or four
and then we'll call our legal AF today a show.
Rudy has gotten sanctioned so many times by Bar howl by with both ends of the stick.
I don't think he knows if he's coming or going,
even his own lawyer Joe Sibley had a confess to the judge
not in front of the jury that his client is losing it.
He literally said to his,
in response to a question from the judge when the judge said,
I understand that your client was out on the courthouse steps
denying everything that he has to admit as true
and I've already ruled upon what is going on?"
And he said, a judge, he's 80 years old.
I think this is taking a lot out of him.
In other words, he's lost his fastball and he can't make decisions and then he said,
I can't control him.
The issue is I can't control him because he said to Joe Sibley, who's the latest and long
line of trial lawyers for some reason lining up to represent Rudy Giuliani. He said to the jury
to try to curry favor with them, let's be honest. He said Ruby Framitt and Shea Moss are very nice
people. They did not deserve to have happened to them. What's happened to them? It's just not my
book guy's fault. You know, he has, you know, you've heard from the judge that he defamed them.
And Fossil, he said that they committed voter fraud and two million people jumped all over them as a result.
But it wasn't their fault to which Ruby Friedman said in her testimony,
he was driving the bus and everybody was just jumping on board.
And so he should not be able just to say, I'm not responsible for what other people do,
which I thought was a very eloquent way to put that.
So he said to the jury that and then the next day, or the beginning of the end of the
first day of trial, Rudy Giuliani said, I didn't do any of it.
It's all a lie.
They'll be proof one day.
They did that fraud, that voter fraud, and the judge got wind of it because there's a
video which we played on the Midas Dutch network.
And the judge said, what is going on?
And then of course, the lawyers,
see, here's what's going on from the Popok perspective.
There's a race going on that we're watching.
And it's a race against Rudy Giuliani's either crazy
as a fox or he's just that shit crazy.
And the plaintiffs lawyers who like their jury
want to get done with their case and have
the jury write a big check for $50 million or more want to outrage Giuliani's attempts
inadvertent or otherwise to mistry this case.
And so Rudy saying things that he's not supposed to say that the judges ordered him not to
say that is perjurious, that's perjury, and the judges warn the lawyer about it.
And so if I'm on the other side,
and I've been in cases, Karen, and civil,
where things were going really well for me,
but not great for a co-defendant,
and they weren't really prepared either.
And they didn't like the jury,
and I loved the jury, and they wanted a mistrial.
And something a couple of things happened that I like ignored
because they were mistrial technically,
but I didn't want to mistrial.
Until one time something happened in one of my trials
and the judge said,
Mr. Pope-Pock, for those that know Judge Barkthal
in Florida, that's Judge Barkthal.
Mr. Pope-Pock, will there be a motion on that?
And I was like, oh, Jesus,
I don't want to have to do this.
And so we had a whole thing
and I convinced the judge not to mistry the case because I don't want it, Mr. Al, And so we had a whole thing, and I convinced the judge not to mispronounce the case,
because I don't want it, misdrop.
And then I got a great result.
Here, same thing.
These lawyers don't want to misdrop.
And they're willing to put up with a level of crazy
by Giuliani to try to stop this case
and start all over again, because he doesn't like the jury.
He was not gonna like any jury,
but he doesn't like the jury, anything.
So bad things are happening,
make them happen really, really slow.
And so that's what that's the race we're watching right now.
If I were the plaintiffs council, hurry up.
Yes, give Ruby Freeman and Shane Ross all the time in the world.
But if you have a point made,
don't bring in five more witnesses to make the same point.
Move on, close your case, let the defense do whatever
limited thing they can do, and then get to that
jury.
Because otherwise you're going to be doing this all over again three months from now.
With Rudy, maybe in jail, because he's perjured himself on the stand and violated court
orders.
What are you making of where they are right now on day three?
I'm exhausted telling this story about Rudy Giuliani, and he's three days into his
Trump.
Yeah, now this is, you know, look, he thinks he's Donald Trump.
He thinks he wants to be Donald Trump.
He thinks he can, you know, say one thing in court and then walk outside and just say
whatever he wants and have nothing happen to him.
And that's one of the problems that Donald Trump, who keeps doing that and no one holds
him to account, right?
I mean, yes, they're gag orders now, but no one, you know, anyone else, and we've said this so many times, anyone else, any other criminal defended who acted like
Donald Trump and did these things would have been put in, you know, would have been incarcerated
pending trial and would not have been allowed to get away with this, but since he does get
away with it constantly, and he does it all the time. I think it sends the message to
Rudy who wants to be Donald Trump and you know is completely enamored by him
and is going to go down with the ship to the end. And you know it's so that's what I think he
thought he could just go and say whatever he wants outside of court and have nothing happen. But
thank God Judge Barrel Howell is a real judge. She's you, very, very smart and just a fantastic judge is not going to let him
get away with it and is going to let Shay Moss and Ruby Freeman have their day in court. And
you know, at the end of the day, you know, Giuliani is kind of a clown and you know, there's so
many things he's done that you can, you you can talk about with the hair dye running down his face.
He looks kind of pathetic and old and whatever.
But I'm sorry, I think he's actually kind of evil.
And when you are reminded of what he said about them and what it is done to their life,
and when they testified at try, I think Ruby Freeman testified, was the only one who
testified today so far.
It was absolutely, you're just reminded again of how horrific and dangerous what Giuliani
did and is still doing today when he went outside of court and said the same thing.
And, you know, it is absolutely just, you know, he deserves, they deserve all of his money and every
other thing they can get from him because of what he did and said to them and what the consequences
were. And, you know, look, the jurors were shown these racially charged threats
that they received after Giuliani made the accusations that he's still making. And you
know, they did a very much like Giuliani said this. And then right after we got emails
flooding our inbox and talking about lynching and the KKK and one
email came from an account called the Grand Wizard and said the safest place for you is
prison or you'll swing from the trees.
Another said her daughter and she should hang from the capital dome and I pray I'm sitting
close enough to hear your next snap, right? People began showing up at her house and she had to call the police.
One, people were banging on her door while she was on the phone with the police.
I mean, you know, at one point, I mean, you know, those are like, when you hear that,
that is just utterly chilling.
And, you know, it's these things have consequences on real people.
And I, I'm so grateful and thankful that finally, that is coming out in a court of law,
under oath, you know, there'll be cross examined, you know, whatever it is.
And, and they get their day in court, we get to hear about it and remind it of what it was.
And he is going to face the music.
I wish Donald Trump was a defendant as well and he
deserves to be here. I also Freeman showed that the the USB drive you know that he accused her of
passing that was a gingerman, you know, right? Yeah, I think you're on mute, Popok. It was a
gingerman and she actually gave one to the judge, you know, and she says yeah and she passed
one to the judge who said she's going to use it,
you know, it's just really sad. She said she used to go by Lady Ruby, you know, that was what her
name was, but she said, you know, she can't go by that anymore. She says, I don't know who I am
anymore. Like, this is real, the consequences here are real, and, you know, I'm glad that there's no
mistrial. I think as a matter of precedent, I don't think a defendant should be allowed
to cause his own mistrial.
I think that's bad precedent because for the reasons you said,
but also, look, that would incentivize.
If they don't like the jury that they got
or the judge is ruling, what are they gonna do?
They're going to do whatever,
try to cause his own mistrial.
So I'm glad that that did not happen and isn't happening.
And I hope that they get, they deserve everything.
Alex Jones tried to mistribe his own case
and it didn't work and got Chastis
along with the lawyers who violated court orders frequently
in front of that jury to try to see what would happen.
And I'll leave it on this.
Barrel Howell is the right judge for the right time
presiding over this case.
She was the chief judge of the DC,
all the DC courts of DC trial courts. She was the one administratively that made sure
that all the Jan 6 defendants were tried and how they were tried. She also presided over
the secret grand juries and the grand jury process. She's the one that made all the rulings
that stripped all of the attorney client privilege away from Donald Trump's lawyers and
forced them to testify and turn over their documents.
She knows Jan 6th and things related to it inside and out.
In fact, she said to Joe Sibley, the lawyer for Rudy Giuliani,
how can, given the fact that the Georgia,
it shows you how much she knows from presiding and just being a carbon-based human.
She said, given that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation,
Secretary of State of Georgia,
investigative unit, all looked into this and cleared Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss, how can
your clients say those things out loud?
And wouldn't it be a perjury if he took the stand here?
So this is going to be a high wire act, white knuckles for Joe Sibley.
I don't feel sorry for him, I'm just giving you where he's at.
It's like that old Snickers commercial, not going anywhere. It's time for a Sibley. I don't feel sorry for him. I'm just giving you where he's at. It's like that old Snickers commercial not going anywhere. It's time for Snickers bar.
To see Rudy elbowing him to take the stand, Rudy is not going to follow the script.
He's not going to follow the judge's prior orders in the case. He's going to violate it.
And then we're going to be in the world that you would describe care. And which is, can you
mistry your own case? If I'm the plaintiffs, knowing that they have the jury probably firmly in their hands, especially after, I got choked up preparing a hot
take about shame-os' testimony. That's how powerful it was. I had to like clear my eyes to do the
hot take. That, you can imagine what's the impact on a jury? Okay, so they know they got this jury,
and they know they're going to get a huge check. I think it could be more than the 50 million they
asked for. 43 million tops. I think it could be 60 million, and they want they got this jury and they know they're gonna get a huge check. I think it could be more than the 50 million they asked for.
43 million tops.
I think it could be 60 million
and they wanna get to that jury verdict as quickly as possible.
And I agree with you, the public policy
against having a defendant try to throw over the game board
because he doesn't like it.
And let's try it again.
You'll never get a trial done.
And he could be, and now some people are saying,
why does he have to be in the courtroom at all?
He doesn't.
And if he continues, especially civilly, if he continues to violate the court's orders,
he can be bound gagged, removed, and precluded from his own trial and tried an abstentia,
effectively on the measure on the amount of damages. And that's he's he's he's heading for that
quickly. And didn't the judge find already defamation but not on the merits but as a sanction?
No both both and I I misspoke myself on a hot ditch did both. merits but as a sanction? No both both and I
misspoke myself on a hot stitch did both she found as a sanction because
all because of all his violations of her various orders that he had he was
going to be found in default and defaulted him on the issue of liability but
she also found as a matter of law that what he said about them was the
family and so it was sort of a twin order and which is good for appellate purposes
and then only issue is for the for the the jury to decide is punitive damages and actual damages
and if you were for our audience she's giving the jury another instruction at the appropriate time
before they deliberate that they are to assume that Rudy Giuliani was hiding his assets and hiding his financials
from the plaintiff in order to lower his financial net worth in front of them when they made their
decision on how big of a punitive damage award. They are to assume based on an instruction by the
judge that will come before deliberation as a penalty that she put on Rudy Giuliani for prior
court violations.
And his fellow to turn over documents about how much money he makes on his podcast,
how much money he makes in his consulting fees,
and how much money he makes on the internet, whatever, his sources of income.
He didn't do it.
So now she's telling the jury, you were to assume that he's lying to you,
he's lowering his net worth in order for you to write a lower check.
That's a beautiful jury church.
But how does she keep him from hiding that like how do we get how to say they get awarded
the money?
How do they get the money without him?
It'll score a little bit.
It's called discovery at eight of execution.
So the people that get the piece of paper called the judgment.
Well, by the way, I'm not I'm not man-splating you
I'm just doing our normal
Explanation. It's not you. It's not you. It's me. I'm thinking this is look good. I'm telling you all this stuff
I love running this stuff. I know I know they get a judgment and then and then when I get a judgment
I then have to go get the money and And you're entitled to discovery and aid of execution, which means you get to put that person
in a chair.
He has to turn over all of his assets, bank statements, checking account offshore.
If he lies, it's a crime.
He'll go to jail, which is the other penalty here.
And if he doesn't show up, he can go to jail.
He doesn't want to be the deposition.
Oh, he'll be in jail until he gives them what they want at that point. And then, you know, he's got the apartment on the upper
east side of New York. He's got the condo down in Florida. He's got, he makes money. He
can guardish his wages until he pays the pays off the $60 million or more judgment. But
we'll follow it. There'll be so much better. I'll pick up on some on Saturdays, additionally, go lay up, but that trial
will be going on next week.
And you and I will, we'll follow up with that.
And on hot takes that we've been doing all along the way
about every hour here on the my-
You have a ferry to catch.
I know.
People don't know this, but I almost missed my ferry.
The last ferry at a Manhattan, to where I live.
And I sent sent salty and
carrot a video of me and the Uber literally racing the ferry to the next stop and I did it.
I don't want to do it again. So we've reached the end of another edition of the midweek at this
shouldn't of legal AF on the Midas Touch Network. You know how to support us.
Leave comments. Thumbs up. Really go back out and do the thumbs up. It helps with the ratings.
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Buy the shirts, fly your flag related to legal a efforts.
Till the next episode, which is going to be on Saturday.
And this one with Karen Midweek,
next Wednesday, it's Michael Popuck,
and Karen Friedman, Ignit Flos, saying,
shout out to the minus Mighty and the legal A-affors.