Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump GETS CRUSHED in Court as TOTAL DEVASTATION Nears

Episode Date: October 15, 2023

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back with a new episode of the weekend edition of LegalAF. On this episode, they discuss: week 2 of the Trump Fraud Case of the Century, with more Trump “insiders��� testifying and confirming the fraudulent business practices centered around Trump’s assets; developments in Trump’s efforts to delay the Mar a Lago criminal trial, with the presiding Federal Judge getting angry with prosecutors over simple requests; Special Counsel Jack Smith making his request in advance of the March 2024 trial for an anonymous jury in the DC Election Interference case against Trump to protect them, and filing motions to smoke out Trump’s flimsy “ I relied on my criminally-indicted lawyers for advice” defense; a Federal Judge further sanctioning Rudy Giuliani in the Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss defamation and intentionally infliction of emotional distress case he has already lost, with a jury now being instructed on Day 1 that Rudy is hiding money and assets to avoid a large jury award, and more from the intersection of law, politics and justice. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSOR! LOMI: Lomi: Visit https://Lomi.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF and checkout to save $50! HENSON SHAVING: Visit https://HensonShaving.com/LEGALAF to pick the razor for you and use code LEGALAF for 2 years worth of free blades! 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://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 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 Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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New York, New York, skyscraper, soar, and fraudulent enterprises crumble. Week two of the New York Attorney General's civil fraud case, and it was devastating against Donald Trump as the Trump Organization insiders like former CFO Alan Weiselberg and others testified during trial. Not only did we see smoking gun after smoking gun evidence laid out in court by the New York Attorney General's office, but the testimony by Trump's former CFO, Alan Weisselberg, who has a very suspicious severance agreement, was abruptly halted when it revealed during the testimony, serious criminal exposure for him and Donald Trump.

We will discuss never a good thing when civil cases become criminal cases very quickly. Next, we compare two federal criminal cases against Donald Trump being prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith. One, in Washington, DC, for Donald Trump's attempt to overthrow the 2020 election and the other in the Southern District of Florida before Judge Eileen Catton for Trump's willful retention of classified documents and other national defense information. It's a tale of two judges, isn't it, and Washington DC, federal judge Tanya Chucken runs a tight ship and important motions were filed this week by both Smith and Trump's teams.

On the other hand, Judge Eileen Caden threw a temper tantrum, blew up a hearing over potential conflicts of interest involving Donald Trump's lawyers called the Garcia hearing while it was taking place in court because she said that she got upset with special counsel Jack Smith's team. And so she yelled at them and she stopped the hearing and said, go away, shoot. And she postponed it indefinitely. She's really making a fool out of herself and our judiciary next.

We go to Georgia, Fulton County, where this month we start the first criminal rico case against Donald Trump's co-defendants, two of them, Ken Chesbro and Sydney Powell who tried to call district attorney Fonney Willis's bluff and they demanded a speedy trial. But it don't seem they wanted to be all that speedy anymore. Rule number one of Rico Fight Club. Don't call Fonney Willis's bluff and they're learning that right now. She's ready. Judge McAfee is also ready. And Fanny Willis is so ready. She doesn't have time for that

Maga Mosquito, Jim Jordan, trying to interfere with her case. Get away, Jim. And from Maga Mosquito to Maga Mosquito excrement, Rudy Giuliani. Not only did a federal judge in the defamation case filed against Giuliani by Georgia election workers, Freeman and Moss find that Rudy was liable for defamation. The federal judge just ruled that based on all of the discovery abuses engaged in by Rudy Giuliani during litigation and his clear attempts to cover up his financial condition. Oh, another mega covering up their financial condition. The jury is now permitted to make an adverse inference in assessing damages and specifically

punitive damages that Rudy Giuliani intentionally concealed and hid his assets to try to avoid the jury from knowing his true net worth. I'm and my cell is this is the legal a F podcast Michael popok the wheels of justice turn and they turn and they move in the right direction. How are you doing, sir? Michael Popeye, how are you doing, sir? Oh, we're playing Ben and Popeye, pop culture bingo and you had Fight Club, New York, New York, Tale of Two Cities, All Add Mosquito Coast and Rudy, you just won bingo based on Ben's opening. Ben, I love the pop culture references and tying it all together today. Two observations before we jump all into it. I want to answer questions, often gets asked. Mara Lago is not a complicated case and does not take

More than the time allotted from now until May to try New York fraud case is not a complicated case Donald Trump does not do complicated things You can make your own assumptions as to why you could try two Mara logo cases in the time that's left on the clock between now and May You could try two New York fraud cases in the time that they've had. Hiding documents from the government and using half a dozen people to do it is not a complicated case. Changing your numbers and just artificially inflating them and adding 20% or 30% onto your net worth in order to defraud insurance companies and banks and using half a dozen people to do it is not a complicated case Donald Trump does not warrant long trials or long preparation sessions No matter what his lawyers say in all of these cases. There's no reason for any delay and these cases should go off

Unscheduled just as scheduled in March and May and whatever we get to Farni Willis's case in Georgia. I agree with you. You know the one, if you want to say which one of all of them is the most complicated, the Rico criminal conspiracy in Fulton County, Georgia, where the judge is handling it perfectly, ably, steady, and also the case in Washington DC before Judge Tanya Chutkin, right? Where Judge Chutkin handling the case perfectly, moving the case along, and she's, it's not like she's special counsel Jack Smith, whatever you want, file in my court and you'll get expedited briefings. She's even, both sides, they file things, she she moves the case along and you can see that the litigants

respect her for doing that. That's what you want in a judge. Someone who conjures respect. And let's be real though like with Judge Cannon you have Donald Trump in his motions in the Southern District of Florida, treating her like she's a buddy. You can see it in the filings that there's the wink and the nod right there. Like, we need you to do this for us. It doesn't say it. So expressly, but that's what's going on. And then you have her at these hearings that shouldn't be complex hearings. And we'll talk about it later in the show. But you have a conflicts of interest hearing over Donald Trump's lawyers and whether the lawyers being paid for by political action committees who are also representing other

co-defendants and who are representing witnesses, whether there's these conflicts of interest that are unwaivable or that there should be some other remedy, but like, you got to go through with the hearing. And I get that judges could be mad at litigants and just assume for the sake of argument that Judge Cannon was validly upset at Jackson's team, which I don't believe. Hold the hearing, get the evidence out, and then if you think there's a sanction or something you want to do once the hearing is completed, then you do it. It's like, you don't start the sports game. You don't like the way it's going.

So in the first inning of a baseball game, you go, you know what, let's not do these nine innings. I don't want to do it. I'm upset. You go through the process and then you let the chips fall where they are, but we'll talk about that later in the show. But let's go to New York, New York. This was week two of the New York Attorney General Civil Fraud Case against Donald Trump. And just because Trump isn't there and only lasted two and a half days of ranting and raiding like a lunatic, the first week of trial where a gag order was imposed, I know the media loves that.

And then they move their attention elsewhere. But it's important that we focus on what's happening with the evidence on a weekly basis, so that false narratives are not created, and that we follow the evidence. Wherever that leads, we follow the evidence. So this week, we had testimony, again, from Donald Trump's former CFO, Alan Weiselberg, some bombshell testimony there about his severance agreement

and the amount of his severance agreement matching the criminal fine in his criminalance agreement and the amount of his severance agreement matching the criminal fine in his criminal plea agreement and whether that constitutes obstruction of justice. Potential purgery of Alan Weisselberg on the stand when it became clear that he was not being forthcoming and then outright lying about his involvement in calculating the properties and some Forbes reporters got the documents and data and emails to back it up that they went to the New York Attorney General's whiff.

You had an ex-risk manager at Deutsche Bank, testify some of the name Nistnickel is Hague, who kind of rebutted all of these kind of Donald Trump talking points that the bank just blindly accepted whatever Donald Trump's statements were and that the bank was relying a lot on these statements made by Donald Trump. There was a due diligence process and where fraud was being committed, that could change their determination about whether they would have made a loan or not. And then you had the testimony from a current Trump organization person, Patrick Bernie,

who went through the fact that Alan Weisselberg, who claims he wasn't involved in a lot of things, would provide these notations that presumably came directly from Donald Trump, but these notations on statement of financial conditions that talked about adding brand premiums from 10, 15 up to 30% brand premiums that were based on Donald Trump claiming, oh, former president residents or presidential residents, add a brand premium, add a brand premium for the fact that it's Donald Trump lives there. Donald Trump saying, my brands were never added into brand premiums were never added. They were. There are notations. There's evidence that backs that up. So evidence, evidence, evidence. Popoq, what'd you think about week two? I liked week two a lot. And what we're seeing,

let me take the plane up 20,000 feet. What we're seeing is a masterful presentation of evidence over a trial that's going to last up to 100 trial days. This is only the first two weeks. We can talk later in this segment about the order of witnesses or who's going to be coming up next. And what I like so far is this nice momentum that's being built in the narrative in front of the trial judge, no jury, of insider witness, outsider witness,

insider witness, outsider witness, insider witness, no longer with the company, outsider witness, no longer with the company. None of them, all of them, kind of different pages in the hymnol that's being presented of the fraud. So you start in week one with the ultimate outsider in Don Bender, the 12 year long accountant auditor for everybody related to Trump, including personally, who knows where all the bodies are buried and pointed the finger at the Trump organization, Donald Trump, Alan Weisselberg

and McConee, the controller for fraud, that they misled the auditors, they did not provide proper information and focusing in on Trump tower. We spent a lot of time talking about the Trump penthouse and why it's only 10,999 feet and not 30,000 feet, not because it's an ego thing. It's because there is criminal or in this case,

fraudulent conduct that started in 2017. And that Michael Cohen will testify to and the others have testified to when Forbes magazine, which you already mentioned, got the floor plans from the fire mars Marshall and the building department and the department of buildings in New York and figured out very quickly that the apartment on three levels is only 11,000 less than 11,000 square feet. And that created a once they outed Donald Trump on the size of his apartment. That created a hole in his balance sheet of a substantial amount

that had to be made up some other way. Now, normally, when you have a hole in your balance sheet, you want to increase the value of it, you go buy and you acquire more assets, not Donald Trump. Donald Trump gave the instruction to keep the existing assets and just inflate them artificially by making up numbers, putting premiums on them, a 20% presidential premium. I have 30% ex-presidential premium. But I say premium just here, I just made up a number. Be like you taking your own personal balance sheet.

Let's say you've got $1,000 in the bank. You just add 30% on and you tell somebody that you have $1,300 in the bank. You only have 1,000, but you've added a 30% on and you tell somebody that you have $1300 in the bank. You only have a thousand, but you've added a 30% premium. Now, do that to Donald Trump with a lot more zeros and you get the sense of what's happened here. Michael Cohen will come in and support that. So, insiders, the first two, the money men, 30-year, 50-year-plus organizational money men in McConee, the controller who reported

to Weiselberg, the disgraced felon chief financial officer who doesn't understand what generally accepted accounting principles are. That he testified on how you can be in a control position within a company that's got money flowing through it if you don't understand that. More importantly, during the testimony of Alan Weisselberg, the reason that the attorney general calling this hostile witness, which is what Alan Weisselberg and even Makani are

because they're on the other side of the V, their defendants. But she's swinging for the fences here and she's doing a masterful job, the attorney general, and bringing in these adverse witnesses, but knowing that she has their testimony from the New York Manhattan District Attorney's Tax Evasion case that went terribly for the Trump Organization last year with 17 felony counts conviction by a jury against the Trump Organization last year was 17 felony counts, conviction by a jury against the Trump Organization and all of its entities. And Alan Weisselberg, particularly 17 felony counts, and he went to jail for it.

So they had the testimony from that, the conni attestified in the tax case under an immunity deal with the Manhattan TA. So he's the most honest of all of them, but they were ready for Weisselberg. And Weisselberg did not perform the way he was expected to on that stand, but they were ready that he would try to not remember things,

which is what he started doing. I don't remember that, I don't recall that. I don't remember that, I don't remember that. He had to admit the things that were in writing, like isn't that Donald Trump's signature on the bottom of a representation to banks that he would not include brand value and brand percentage as part of his balance sheet as part of his net worth. Yeah, that's his signature. He had to do that. But in the places where he wasn't being cooperative and a signal to the judge that they

that there's a credibility problem here. When this witness that you want to track suddenly goes off the track, then you have to punish them. And the way that you punish them is the way the New York Attorney General did, which is let's talk about your separation agreement with the Trump organization. They committed to paying you two million dollars, didn't they? Yes. And that's the same two million dollars number as you have to pay or pay it in a fine related to your tax evasion conviction, right, sir? Yes, coincidence. I would say it's coincidence, okay? And let's go through the payment schedule. You've gotten one point, you know, you've gotten $750,000 in payments, but you're owed $1.2 million left, right, sir? Right. And it says here, you can't voluntarily cooperate with anybody.

It has to be by subpoena, right, sir. And if you violate this agreement, you're not going to get your money. Are you? The only reason that came out that way with a witness that they called is because Weisselberg wasn't playing ball. And he was not giving them what they want. And now they don't need Weisselberg to nail Donald Trump in this fraud case. That would have been icing on top of icing on the cake. But when he started effort with the cross-examiner for the New York Attorney General, that's when they decided

they needed to punish him and bring that out. Fortunately, you're in front of a judge. And the judge is always evaluating credibility of witnesses. And so that was a signal to the judge. We, he's saying some things that we think he remembers. He says he doesn't remember, but I want you to know judge why he may be doing that. And that's why that thing came up. The only witness so far that currently works for the Trump organization, everybody else, either getting severance payments or waiting on them is Patrick Bernie, this poor guy, he's been there for nine years. He's an assistant vice president. Donald Trump testified in his deposition.

He didn't know who the guy was. He's like, I don't know any of these people personally. I really don't know who that person is. He's gonna go out, he went on the stand and basically said, you know, Trump through Weisselberg and McConney made me do it. They made me add 30% values onto numbers and add $20 million on to the value

of the Trump Tower building for no good reason. And so he's just going through, and they interviewed him, and they know what he's going to say, and he's just going through that all of that. Next week, they're going to bring up another employee who's a assistant controller that reports the Weiselberg. And I assume based on the debriefing in her interview she's going to be very supportive of the fraud case. I love the inside outside of witnesses and the momentum that they're building through the first two weeks of a trial that's going to go on for three to five months and I don't really care if Donald Trump shows up or doesn't show up. it's all a distraction. It's, as I said, in a hot take, it's the circus comes to town, it brings the giant elephant, giant elephant

craps over everything, and then you got to clean up behind him and he leaves. That's what's going to happen. It'll have no impact on the witnesses that are testifying. He already said he doesn't know most of the witnesses for the Trump organization who are testifying. And the only thing we're waiting on that I'm sure you'll have your opinion about is when Michael Cohen finally testifies. And if Alina Habba is the one that's going to cross examine him, I mean, that's where I buy my popcorn. It'll be interesting to see if Alina Habba does the cross of Michael Cohen.

Michael Cohen has requested based on health conditions that his testimony not take place next week But I'm sure it will be taking place within the next few weeks and we all wish Michael Cohen well Alina Haba took his deposition And so will she do the cross examination? I'm interested in a point that you made popok which I'll touch upon before moving to the federal criminal cases is Alan Weissselberg when he was there as a witness brought upon himself, the fury of the cross examiner by saying, I don't remember, I don't remember, I don't recall and trying to play that game I don't recall and trying to play that game. Because of that behavior, the cross-examiner, the lawyer, who's been doing a great job from the New York Attorney

General's office, grilled Weisselberg on his severance agreement, as you mentioned. Now, the criminal penalty for Weisselberg, when he took the plea agreement in the Manhattan District Attorney Criminal Case for the fraudulent tax benefits he received. Remember, he served time on Reich-Resiland. In addition to the sentence that he had for a carceration, he had to pay a $2 million fine.

The severance agreement was for $2 million. If there was a quid pro quo payment by the organization to pay him off and to hide that as severance for compliance with what Trump and the organization wanted him to do in that case and in other criminal investigations, that is classic textbook obstruction of justice crimes. Now, with Weiselberg just basically, instead of going, I don't recall it, I don't recall, was forthcoming and he acknowledged the existence of a severance agreement and just answered the questions the New York Attorney General

Lawyer would not have spent the focus proving very credibly that another crime was convicted. Right? Weisselberg looked like he was guilty and trumped it as well of obstruction of justice. And guess who's watching this other than us here at the Midas-Mighty and Legal AF and the rest of the country, but clearly them and hadn't district attorney's office is watching their waiting. It's still within the statute of limitations to charge Donald Trump or to charge Waiselberg or some of these other people again. And I predict that they are going to do that

after there is a final resolution or close to it. In this civil case, I think it will lead to more criminal cases and more exposure. That's why Manhattan and District Attorney Alvin Bragg, I think strategically was waiting. He brought the case involving Trump's unlawful characterization of the payment to Stormy Daniels as the first case, but he didn't.

Wave his right to bring a future criminal case. So I want everybody to watch for that. And then Weiselberg seems to have committed perjury on the stand. Another crime, one of the reasons his testimony abruptly ended as well as the Forbes writers said, wait a minute, Weiselberg is saying that he had no involvement with the triplex and that he doesn't remember having these detailed discussions with us. The flex.

Well, well, well, well, well, there is a raging debate about that. Not in New York. I'll, I'll, I'll leave it. And go and go and correct it. The witness three time when he said tryplex. It's triplex in New York. All right. We'll see. We will see. So, so we've got that going on in New York. And then then in the and with respect to Forbes The Forbes writers reached out to the New York Attorney General's office and hey look We've got all of the evidence right here. Let's talk about what's going on in the federal case in Washington DC and in the Southern District of Florida both being prosecuted by special counsel Jack. The DC crimes against Trump relate to his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election.

The Southern District of Florida crimes relate to Trump's willful retention of national defense information, obstruction of justice, making false statements, his co-defendants in the Southern District of Florida, case include Walty Nauta, his valet, and personal assistant, as well as Carlos Day Olivera a maintenance worker who works at Mar-a-Lago and is still employed at Mar-a-Lago apparently.

Okay, so in Washington, D.C., a number of motions were filed both by special counsel Jack Smith's team as well as by Donald Trump. Special counsel Jack Smith's team, these were all opposed by Donald Trump. Jack Smith wanted to bring a questionnaire or log a questionnaire to be sent out to the jury, a written questionnaire in advance of trial so that they could start the jury selection process early and promptly. So there's no delay. And Jackson Smith also wanted to protect the identities of jurors receiving the questionnaire from public disclosure. We're not talking about an anonymous jury yet. That request hasn't been made. It's just prohibiting the public disclosure of jurors who received this potential questionnaire, Donald Trump opposed that.

One of the other things, Jack Smith requested is that there be a requirement that Donald Trump determine or make clear if he's going to be asserting an advice of counsel defense, because that has implications on the waiver of attorney, client, privilege. And Jack Smith wants to get ahead of Donald Trump playing games where once trial arrives in March, then Donald Trump goes, oh, now I'm blaming my lawyers, and then it becomes more difficult to deal with the waiver of attorney, client, privilege that that would trigger,

because you then have to then release all of these documents, which are currently being withheld under attorney client privilege. So Jack Smith's like, look, I want these attorney client privilege documents now. If Donald Trump's going to assert advice of counsel, because that's a consequence of asserting advice of counsel as a defense. So those are on the Jack Smith side. Want to hear your thoughts on that, Pope, but But then on the Trump side, Trump filed a motion to issue various subpoenas that are part

of these deranged conspiracies that are being spread about saying that the January 6th Committee like deleted evidence, which is totally false, I want you to talk about that. And then Jack Smith's Lawyers filed a motion requesting attorneys' eyes only access to CEPA section 4 documents. There are classified documents in the DC case as well as the Southern District of Florida and Trump's lawyers wanted to get access to the section 4 documents.

These are documents that were submitted by the prosecutor to Judge Chutkin for her to allow a summary of the documents because they're so sensitive. They don't want to turn them over to the criminal defendant in this case, Donald Trump. See, the section four provides a process for that. And Trump's lawyers are saying, Judge, you have discretion. We've been good, haven't we? We've been good lawyers. We've been nice to you. We've treated you with respect.

Can't we get attorney's eyes access to that for now? So we can be involved in the process. And of course, I'm being a little bit facetious there when the lawyers are saying, hey, we've been good. These are the lawyers who are claiming Donald Trump's threats against witnesses against the judge. The judges received death threats.

These lawyers have said, that's perfectly acceptable speech before. So a lot of motions, but Popeye Judge Chutkin is moving her docket along. And she said expedited briefings for all of these motions. She's not going to have any delay in her court. But I wanted to give the framework of the various motions because it's a lot and then get you to really bring us into the weeds and what's going on here. Whenever I hear Judge Chutkin when I do a hot take, I automatically put in it so it doesn't go stale that she will set a very fast briefing schedule and get to this issue right away.

And especially whenever Jack Smith's team does it, she wants to bring these issues to ahead very, very quickly. She's, she has a very strong executive function in her brain, unlike Judge Cannon. She makes decisions very quickly and efficiently that matter to keep her case ultimately on track for a March 2024 date to pick a jury, a jury that's on the minds of Jack Smith already, which it should be. You and I speculated a week ago about how or so, maybe as a week and a half ago, how would or if the federal prosecutors

would bring to the attention of Judge Chukkin that Donald Trump was at it again and a week one of the trial, the fraud trial, had attacked in social media judge Engoran's principal law clerk as staff and got gagged, a gag order placed against them in real time by judge Engoran as a result. And they found a way to slip it in. They slipped it in not as a supplemental to the gag order that she, Judge Chutkin, is considering and having a hearing this coming week over about whether on the issue of jury involvement, Donald Trump should be limited and go through the court system about how he's going to do interviews interviews and a mock jury process and also to stop him from continuing to attack witnesses,

staff, family, and prosecutors. They left off the judge, but I think they would also like him to stop bashing Judge Chutkin. I think Trump should want to stop bashing Judge Chutkin because whatever he thinks it's doing in terms of inside the courtroom, it's not it's having the opposite effect. I think it's just concentrating the minds of everyone that's a professional to just do their job and leave no stone unturned.

And that's what we're seeing with Judge Chutkin. So they slipped it in with the reference when they asked for a jury questionnaire and that the jury be anonymous. Now, the Donald Trump is no stranger to anonymizing a jury. It happened to him, whether he wanted to or not, in the civil case in New York with Judge Kaplan in the E. Jean Carroll rape and defamation case, it happened again to him just a week or so ago with Judge McAfee, who in a very, you know, one-page order granted, Fannie Willis has requested the jury be anonymous, and having seen what happened to the grand jury whose names were released per George

of law, and then everybody in Trump's world having bashed them, docks them, posted there, Trump's world, having bashed them, docks them, posted there where they live and the coordinates of their work addresses. The judge was like, yeah, where do I sign? So now we've got a third judge. It's gonna have to consider and making the jury anonymous. And I gave the Jack Smith's team a lot of credit

because in a footnote, in that motion, they actually said, not only are there are there appropriate grounds based on his recent behavior and pointed to New York and the doxing of that poor law clerk. Again, judge, but we think there's appropriate grounds to even go as far as sequester the jury. I mean, that's the S where you rarely hear anymore, especially in a case like this, but they've actually said, we think there's enough grounds for sequestration, meaning

putting the jury up in a hotel for the next four to five months, not letting them see their loved ones, nor connect to the world through social media or otherwise, and their new best friend is a Marshall, is a a federal marshal, taking them in and out of the room into the courthouse and back. Nobody wants that. That does not make for a happy jury, either for the prosecution or the defense, but the fact that they even kind of put that out there to then have the judge walk it back and say, we're not going to do the sequestration thing, but I am going to do the anonymous

thing. And I think that's where they're trying to get the judge to end up. On the advice and counsel issue, on the advice of counsel issue, they're just calling out Donald Trump and his lawyers for all their BS that they've been running on right wing social media and in interviews. Every time they get the chance, last month's talking points to end September was Donald Trump took advice of counsel. He had very competent counsel, constitutional counsel. He just listened to his counsel.

Now, may I remind everybody on this podcast that almost every one of that quote unquote counsel are his indicted, co-conspirators in Georgia at least and unnamed co-conspirators in Jack Smith's case. I don't think relying on the guy that's also, you know, potentially going to wear stripes with you in jail is going to give you a defense. But because that defense is out there, which is only, it's a judge made defense.

It's what we call in trial practice and affirmative defense. It's not found in the federal rules of criminal procedure. You're not going to find a chapter or a section on advice of counsel, but the law, the precedent of case law has developed it. But it's up to the judge to allow it if she thinks the facts support it and then give the jury an instruction over it. And so it's very serious. And there's a gatekeeping function for the judge to keep out bullshit, pardon my French, attempts to assert this because it'll just confuse the jury. If there's really no evidence to apply it, it could lead a trumper on the panel

and go, well, vice-accounts, we have a lot of lawyers around them. Where do I check the box for a hung jury? We don't want that to happen. And then it's having an impact on the discovery, meaning the subpoena process, the obtaining of documents, testimony and information, because Jackson Smith's team is getting hit by at least 25, they've identified 25 subpoena parties, including somebody related to Donald Trump. If I had a guest, Jared Kushner, I don't think it's Ivanka. Jared Kushner, who's saying Donald Trump is asserting as attorney client privilege, I can't produce those documents to you.

Well, if he's taking the advice of counsel, affirmative defense, he's effectively waived his attorney client privilege. There are no documents with these people that wouldn't end up in the hands of the prosecutor to be used to trial. And they want to know now in October, not in March or April. They want to know now whether he is going to try to assert that privilege and let the judge and let the judge decide the issue. And then that has the ripple effect through the discovery process, because if he says yes, and she says, okay, you can try it, and then the waiver happens, and they get all the documents and testimony, that they want, pardon me.

So they're trying to bring all of that up. And then there's nobody on this network that knows CEPA better than my co-anchor, Ben Myself. I'll let you do the CEPA part, the co-anchor, Ben Mysos. I'll let you do the CEPA part of the ins and outs of that before we move on to what's going on with Judge Cannon. Yeah, I mean, you know, CEPA section four, as I mentioned before, has a portion where if they're super sensitive documents

within the classified documents themselves, because remember, there's what's,'s what's under the due process clause of the Constitution, under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution. There are all these rights that criminal defendants have, and we want criminal defendants to have these rights. One of those rights is you get the documents, you get the discovery against you. There's something called a Brady right where you get, which is based on a case where you get exculpatory information. The government has to make that available to you as well. When it comes to classified documents, that's layered on the

discovery obligations as well. And there's something called CIPA classified information procedures where you're dealing with classified information that has to be turned over in a case. However, there could be some documents that post such a national security risk that you have to balance the defendant's discovery rights obligations due process rights with our national security interests. Like do you turn over the nuclear secrets that the criminal defendant was trying to steal? To the criminal defendant in a case does that make sense? And I'm giving that as just a hypothetical example and that's probably some of the issues that are being grappled with in the Southern District of Florida case But they're clearly are very sensitive documents as well that special counsel Jack Smith wants to avail himself of this very specialized

procedure in SEAPA, classified information procedures, Act Section 4, that deals with providing the document through a special procedure to the judge alone. The judge can then allow that to be removed from the government's discovery obligations, but a summary of the document or some other means of transmitting the info, but not showing the highly sensitive document to the defendant. That takes place. And Trump's lawyers are asking for access to perhaps even challenge the CEPA for Section for Designation of these records.

And they want access. They're like, well, Judge, we think that Donald Trump should be able to see it, but even if Trump can't see it, trust us as the attorneys. We'll do what's called attorney's eyes only review, and we won't tell Donald Trump what we look at, but we want you to exercise your discretion, Judge. Do us a solid and let us look at the documents as well,

so we can assess the claim here about seep a section for. So that's being brief now and ultimately as I said before, it's like on Monday, there's going to be a hearing on October 16th over Donald Trump's threats against the judge, against witnesses, against all these people, where these same lawyers who are asking the judge to exercise her discretion because they're trustworthy people, were these same lawyers who are asking the judge to exercise her discretion because they're trustworthy people. They're submitting briefs saying that Donald Trump's threats where he's threatening to execute a witness, the former top general of the United States, Mark Milley, where they're saying Donald

Trump's behavior. They're telling the judge and their briefs that that's good, that's acceptable, normal behavior that litigant should engage in. So when the judge is trying to balance our national security interests and lawyers are saying, Hey, just trust us, judge. It'll be attorney's eyes only. They don't exactly come off as fair arbiters and and members of the bar acting in good faith. But that will be briefed. We'll see what happens there. And as I mentioned, of course, there's that big hearing on Monday, where probably one of the biggest hearings, yet on the gag order, over Donald Trump's threats,

and I'm very curious to see how that case, how that hearing is. I'll ask you a question too when you're done, sorry. Talk about that. Talk about gags. I'm of two minds. I want them to stop. You know, there's a big part of me that's like, put them in. I want them to stop. Gag them. And let's talk about the repercussions of

that. Then you got to find them in contempt. And then a judge has to have the brass ones to put the person in jail. Okay, I'd love that. I also love when Donald Trump talks without any restraint and has bad things happen to him and generates and creates new evidence because that also helps the case. As prosecutors like to say, you keep developing the evidence in your case and investigating right up until trial

because you could find really good things there late in the game. Where are you on the spectrum? Gagum contempt and try to put him in jail as a candidate for office, given his bad conduct or let him talk. Treat him like everybody else. That's where I stand on it. There is no favor that should be afforded him.

There should be no different treatment. If his conduct is the type of conduct that would result in any litigant being remanded to jail, remand him to jail, and you show that nobody is above the law. You know, one of the things with Donald Trump is that he's a very weak person who gets away with things because people mistake his below the aiding behavior as strength and it absolutely isn't. When he is and by the way, our enemies know that. Authoritarians know how weak he is and they know exactly how to pray on that. Heck, all you got to do is call him Sir, Sir, and he goes, they called me Sir, they called me Sir.

He's as weak as you can be. So you have to confront a weak wannabe authoritarian like that who violates our law with the full force of our law. No favor at all, no difference. There is a massive body of evidence against him, and I'm not worried about whether they'll be more or less developed. He shouldn't be allowed to threaten anybody. He shouldn't be allowed to behave like that. I always see in our comments, I see when people speak to me when I'm walking on the street,

one of the things that people are upset is that why isn't he being held accountable for his conduct and the conduct within the litigation? If you don't hold someone like that accountable, it creates a view that prevails, that our laws and our rules and our norms don't apply to him. So, you know, to me, I'm with you. Do I like that there's more evidence developed? I mean, you know, sure, but ultimately you got to hold him fully accountable. I want to talk about Judge Cannon, what's going on in the Southern District of Florida. I want to hear about what's going on in Georgia. We're gearing up to have a trial that is going to be broadcast on our YouTube channel of Trump's co-defendants in the next 10 days. Think about that, Popok. Then we got to talk about who I refer to as magna mosquito,

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That's 100 free blades when you head to hensonshavng.com slash legalaf and use code legal AF. And now back to the video. Welcome back to legal AF. We are live Ben Myceles and Michael Popak. So we go from fairly organized docket in the federal case in Washington, DC to kind of utter chaos in the docket in Washington, D.C. to kind of utter chaos in the docket in the Southern District of Florida,

in the case involving Donald Trump's willful retention of national defense information and other classified records and top secret records, is also being charged with making false statements and obstruction of justice. He's got two co-defendants as well. Waltean, Nauta, and Carlos Dail, a very that case. In the Southern District of Florida being prosecuted by Special Counsel Jack

Smith is before Judge Eileen Cannon. Remember how we were talking about CEPA section 4 as it relates to Judge Tanya Chutkin and how Judge Chutkin is creating a very kind of expedited but very normal way of handling CPISX4 issues and Donald Trump's lawyers as a result have to respond as lawyers do. They have to basically say, judge please, can we be a part of the CPISX4 process and they're making the appropriate, you know, they're making the requests, they're acting inappropriately, but they're making requests to the judge. The judge can evaluate their requests and their conduct and ultimately make a determination on the merits based on evidence. But then you go to the Southern District of Florida before Judge Cannon.

We reported how, again, it's a fairly straightforward case. And as you mentioned at the outset before Judge Cannon did Trump steal the records where they national defense information, right? It's kind of like that. And did he have the requisite intent? Did he have the requisite mens rea? Almost what the documents themselves say is kind of irrelevant, right? Because the issue is just where they national defense information. Did he steal it? Did he obstruct justice? Did he make false statements?

So actually the content of the document itself in the DC case is probably more relevant than that in the Southern District of Florida case, even though the Southern District of Florida case involves classified information. But last week, Judge Cannon on her own, basically, I have to well, Trump requested it, but she didn't make a ruling. She basically said that for purposes of CPISection 4, rather than even like, have a CPISection 4 hearing or even like, deal with the documents, she like extended the CPISection 4 deadline indefinitely. There is no date. She just ordered that those dates be continued. And as she put it temporarily stayed,

so she stayed herself. Oftentimes we hear about like, the court of appeals or the Supreme Court issuing a stay. She issued a stay on herself, right? That was two weeks ago. And as we reported, you go back to the last weekend legal app we were like, okay She's doing that so that she doesn't have to issue a final order on the issue that then Jack Smith can appeal

This Jack Smith has to wait for there to be an order and then he appeals and order But when she like stays herself and delays the deadlines stays herself and delays the deadlines. Trial supposed to be set in May of 2024. She hasn't moved that date yet. She's doing enough to create confusion without issuing an order that Jack Smith can take the order that you can then go to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to get her reversed.

And so she's, you know, my view that I said last week and I think Popeyes you agreed is that she seems to have been doing that on purpose to try to incrementally move the chains and or keep the chains where they are if you will and just cause delay delay delay And so this week there was a big hearing over the potential conflicts of interest of the lawyers that Trump is paying for for co-defendants his co-defendants Walteen Nauta the valet his co-defendants. His co-defendants, Waltee Nauta, the valet, his co-defendant, Carlos Dale Lavera, represented by a lawyer's name, Stanley Woodward and John Irving, respectively. And those individuals also represented, keyword, as represented, no longer represent a bunch

of witnesses who want to testify against their clients right now. So that creates a bunch of potential conflicts. And one of the grounds that a litigant can make after they're convicted to try to appeal their conviction is ineffective assistance of counsel. And ineffective assistance of counsel is a ground that cases get reversed on all the time

under constitutional grounds and criminal cases, not really civil cases, but in criminal cases. My lawyer was ineffective. So to protect against that lawyers, prosecutors, hold what's called Garcia hearings where there's conflicts of interests, where a conflict of interest could be used after a conviction by a criminal defendant

to basically say, I didn't have effective assistance of counsel. So the question becomes, is the criminal defendant aware of potential conflicts of interest? Do they knowingly wave the conflicts of interest after knowing all of the potential issues regarding the conflict of interest? And is it even a waveable conflict of interest

in the first place? There are some conflicts that are law and ethics of being a lawyer hold are so deeply rooted conflicts that they're unwaivable conflicts of interest and a lawyer has to be disqualified. And what you do is you hold a hearing called a Garcia hearing. It's based on a seminal case involving someone

named Garcia. That's why it's called a Garcia hearing. You ask the questions of the Criminal defendant in an adversarial way the prosecutors ask questions then the lawyers Representing the criminal defendant can ask the questions to try to rehabilitate them or show that there's no conflict And then the judge ultimately makes a decision, but there's a hearing so with these lawyers right here who are representing Trump's co-defendants You'd ask him questions like one, hey, are you aware that Trump's political action committee is paying for your legal fees?

And they may say no, imagine if they said no, and they go, so you haven't been informed who's paying for your lawyers and you could explore that avenue, or maybe they say yes, they are aware. Are you aware that that could potentially create a situation where because they're getting paid by Donald Trump's political action committee their loyalty may be split and they may be wanting to help Donald Trump. They can answer that question. Are you aware that you have the right to have a federal public defender?

Are you aware that you don't have to be forced to be represented by those people? Are you aware that the government may be interested in entering into plea negotiations and discussions with you? Are you aware that your lawyers are also representing other witnesses who may have testimony against you? Are you okay with that? Are you aware that your lawyer may not be permitted to do certain portions of this case because there may be conflicts presenting that, and you may not have the full council, the full attention of your council to your case. Are you, you go through the questions, and then you determine, is this an unwaivable conflict

that the lawyer should be disqualified? Should the lawyer just be walled off from certain portions of the case like cross examining a former client who's a witness? Because obviously they may have learned client confidences in that situation. So you can you wall off the lawyer from that portion of the case. Is there no conflict at all? And we could just go along with the case. But once a decision is made after the Garcia hearing, a ruling is issued by the judge.

And if the ruling is the wrong ruling, that's where Jack Smith or whoever the prosecutor is, can go to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal. So that hearing was on Thursday. Carlos De Oliveira had his first hearing and that went fine. But then it went to the next co-defendant Waltee Nauta. And Judge Cannon was asking questions

of the prosecutors and the prosecutors. We're saying, well, one of the things we're going to ask for, Judge, potentially is to bar Walteen Nauta's lawyer, Stanley Woodward, his name of the lawyer again, from potentially being in the case, if that's where the evidence leads, we want a full bar or bar him from being involved in certain portions of the case. Which by the way, Ben, came up in the earlier hearing with De Oliveira. One follows the other. That issue was addressed and easily dispatched by the judge with De Oliveira. And then it came up again with now. Go ahead.

Well, because that's what a Garcia hearing is. So when Judge Cannon then got livid at the prosecutors and she said, you're springing on this for the first time. I feel sandbagged right now. Jack Smith's team of lawyers for the very first time. You're telling me that you want to potentially bar Stanley Woodward. What's the precedent? Sight me the case. And just they had just discussed it three hours, two hours earlier in the deal. They made a decision and both parties agreed in front of this same judge.

Just two hours earlier that that Irving would not be able to cross-exameter handle some part and that the local council in Florida would instead handle that part. And that's fine, everybody went to lunch. They came back, this judge looked like she had a lobotomy and it forgotten, and this is the exact same issue. We don't want Stan Woodward to cross examine

this particular witness, let somebody else do it. And now the judge is throwing the temper tantrum that you're describing. And the whole point of the Garcia hearing, right, Popoq, is you go through the hearing. What if there wasn't a conflict at all? Or what if the conflict was egregious? Whatever the outcome is, you do the hearing.

You go through the questions that I just shared, you know, and other questions like that. And then you decide what the remedy is. She got angry at the remedy that was addressed earlier in the day before doing the hearing. So she angry at the remedy that was addressed earlier in the day before doing the hearing. So she yelled at the prosecutors and kicked everybody out of the courtroom and then said, we're postponing this and that she was just angry and then that ended the hearing.

Like that was, that's very bizarre behavior and I want to get your thoughts on it. It's not appropriate judicial temperament at all. And it's what we've come to expect of Judge Cannon, but it's like, even if you had a basis to be upset at the prosecutor, which you shouldn't hear, go through the hearing, get the data, and then you could do whatever it is that you want afterwards.

Right, you don't take your gavel and go home, which is what she effectively did. Let me do it backwards. Let me go back to the first part that you started talking about, because it looks like the prosecutors even narrowed the case even more in the Mar-a-Lago case, because I know I did a hot take on it

and Ben, I think you discussed it maybe with the other podcast that you do. So the government had a respond because once again, for the third time, Donald Trump, and his lawyers asked for a delay in the case. They didn't like it earlier. They asked the judge to set the trial of this matter after the election. Just remind everybody the government said, how about January and the judge says, I'm going to do it in May. At time, we were like, okay, she's gotten the memo. The memo that says, this guy's got to be tried

before voters go to the polls, not after. And we were okay with that. We're like, okay, it's a little bit, we can live with that. And then Judge Shotkin said, March, I'll take March and things are falling into place, but ever since that moment, as you said at the top of the podcast,

the defense has sensed that they have a friend in an alien cannon, and they keep trying to use her as a bull work against a judge-chutkin and against the other cases, and they constantly run to her like she's mommy to get something that they want, which is a delay in another case. They know Judge Chutkin is an movable object, but they don't have a rock on the other side. They have Judge Chutkin, who's like a beanbag chair,

and so they keep running to her to ask her for something. Help, help us, and she doesn't come right out and say it, but she acts out in certain ways to just naturally, her natural instinct is to delay decision making, delay briefing, delay, fundamental rulings that she needs to make to keep this case on track. And we know she's doing that because we see that her 180% polar opposite in judge Chuck in a more seasoned and experienced judge who really isn't letting politics interfere or the federalist society interfere with her decision making and is making decisions quickly with briefing

schedules that are quick and then ultimate decisions that are that are there and and keep the case on track for her March date. So when the Jack Smith's team caught that in a reply brief submission, you did a nice hot tick on this one. Donald Trump threw in another footnote request for a continuance. We can't try this case, do process.

And it's obvious that the prosecutors, heller high water, even overrunning rough shot over our due process, writes just want to trial before the election to which, by the way, we say on this podcast, yes, yes. The voters need to know whether they're voting for a convicted felon or not. It's that important. That's more important than a slight delay here or there. And I reminded people on my own, on my own hot take,

there's seven months from now until March. There's enough time to try two Mar-a-Lago cases. This is not a complicated case with a lot of moving parts. At all, it's a handful of classified documents. There's 30 in number. Yes, there's a batch of national defense information documents. But even the Jack Smith team conceded that their heart of their case,

the centerpiece of their case, is not even the national defense information to figure out what is or what is it. It's the 30 classified documents. And I know that because they put it in their own filing, which they just filed five days ago. And they said as follows, and I quote, from their brief,

that the classified materials that issue in this case were taken from the White House and retained at Mar-a-Lago is not in dispute. What isn't dispute is that occurred? Is that an occurred? Why it occurred and what Trump knew and what Trump intended in retaining them? All issues the government will prove a trial with unclassified evidence. Whether the highly classified documents Trump retained at Mar-a-Lago contained NDI, national defense information, is a fact Trump can try to dispute, but it will

hardly be the centerpiece of the trial. Centerpiece of the trial is the 30 classified documents. He's gotten 21 of them. There's nine more to go, which he's complaining about, which is awaiting the construction of this facility and some other protocols to be set in place by a foot dragging Judge Chutkin. And he'll get those with plenty of time left on the clock. Got seven months. I've been in cases where the government handed me new information, the day of for a witness that was on the stand. It happens in federal court. It happens all the time.

So there is no appropriate thing here for delay. And then you have all of that. And then you have, we're trying to explain being practitioners and being in federal court houses regularly what we're observing with Judge Cannon. Now, I'm not here to say that I've never been on the receiving end of an annoyed, irritated judge or magistrate, and either you, Ben, or Karen, we have, you know, they wake up on the wrong side of the bed. I used to have a judge who will remain nameless in New York, who started every

hearing and not just my he starts every hearing with, I hate this case. This case has been here too long. I'd rather not. That's how he started every hearing. And I knew he liked me because we had other interactions. So it wasn't me, but that's how he started. Judge Barrel Howell tore into the lawyers for Twitter when she sensed that

they were trying to bend over backwards for Elon Musk to protect Donald Trump. I mean, ripped into them right away, but you also knew her order was going to rip into them. Canon, I don't get it. I get she's never held a Garcia hearing before. She's only had like six trials or eight trials and most of them were during COVID. And this issue, these complexities of these issues she hasn't addressed. Neither, neither, neither now or when she was at a assistant, assistant department of justice attorney,

primarily on the appeal side, she never handled them in there either. And you don't handle these things in drug cases, which is primarily what's coming through Southern District of Florida. You know, political corruption cases, espionage and national defense information, trust me, is not in the judicial training academy for any place let alone in Southern Florida. So I get it. She doesn't really know, and her staff probably doesn't know how to prep her either. She can make some phone calls to the chief judge. That probably would help.

But when you have a hearing earlier in the morning, where the very issue that is now pissing you off and you're throwing the book at the prosecutors for no reason comes up and gets easily resolved, okay, that guy's not gonna cross examine that, that former witness. We're gonna use another lawyer, good day. And I'm sure the prosecutors were looking at a chief, Tom Wyndham, who got the brunt

of Judge Cannon's attacks or reprobation, probably said at a break with his fellow, what happened there? It's the exact same thing we just did earlier with D'Aloy Vera. What's the problem with Stan Woodward not cross-examining at the end of the day if it's possible? Walt Nauda, we really don't get all of, or in this case you see Elte Vera, sorry, the IT director who's now going to testify that he was in on the conspiracy to try to delete the server footage at the behest of Donald Trump. And he said the exact opposite of that when he was represented by Stan Woodward in front of the DC grand jury. So I don't get why that issue triggered her so much.

Now I'm still a cock-eyed optimist that despite their constant requests that there's plenty of time left on the clock to try two Marla-Lago cases, and that we're not gonna see any real movement from the trial date that's now scheduled in May, remembering that Judge Chutkin was like, I don't know what she's doing with her courtroom. I'm taking March, and they point to that too. Oh, there's an overlap, and they know it. Chris Kice, he won't be able to do two trials at one time.

They're back to back. I've been in back to back trials, by the way, and you just do it and you prepare. So, we're going to have to, as we've always done, keep a very close eye and try to interpret what we're watching with Judge Cannon, but there's no other way to interpret it, which is an inexperienced judge who seems to be bending over backwards for the defense. And the defense knows it. Inexperienced, I believe corrupt and lacking the judicial temperament to even intelligibly conceal, in my opinion, the corruption that's taking place and the lashing out, it's so obvious what's going on. And it's very just, it's embarrassing for our judicial system

to have a judge like this. I'll leave it at that. Let's talk about what's going on in Fulton County, Georgia, Michael Popack, we're gearing up for trial in less than 10 days of Trump's co-defendants, Ken Chesbro and Sydney Powell, you know, we see some of the strategy unfolding by Fulton County District Attorney Fony Willis, who was ready for this trial when they made their speedy trial demand under George a law, which basically meant the case had to go to trial before November 1st and

you can see the strategy and folding that Fony Willis knows exactly what Ken Chesbro and what Sydney Powell are going to try to do like especially which Chesbro it's brilliant because you know Chesbro's this like especially with Chesbro, it's brilliant because you know, Chesbro's this appellate lawyer who kind of went full maga and got radicalized, but all of the kind of defenses he's tried to assert, you can tell his lawyers is going to be arguing, he just sent some memos, he sent some emails, he was asked to give some legal advice, and he provided it and you may not like the advice, but he's sitting in his ivory tower just writing these emails. Well, if the email is a

plan to overthrow our democracy and overthrow our government, I don't care if it's 16 emails, one email, a crime is a crime, is a crime. But you notice this pop-back that they're requesting the Fulton County District Attorney's Office is requesting subpoenas from Ron and McDaniel the head of the RNC and also Alex Jones. I want you to talk about everything that's going on in Georgia. But I just wanted to hit the Alex Jones one at the top about Fulton County District Attorney Fony-Wales' strategy because Ken Chesbro was partying with Alex Jones the day before the insurrection. He was buddy buddy with Alex Jones and proud boys and oath keepers and all these right wing terrorists organized. He was literally hanging out and partying with them.

So she wants to call Alex Jones in and and compel his testimony, show the videos of Chesbro like hanging out with Alex Jones and immediately crush exactly what Chesbro's lawyer is going to try to present him, I'm going to be in his nice little suit and he's going to say, oh, look at him. Go really, you're partying with Alex, frickin freaking Jones. So tell us what else is going to judge McAfee a superstar as well. Yeah. Let's stay on Jones for a minute. They got footage of Alex Jones with Chespro on Jan 6th at the Capitol with Chespro wearing a MAGA hat and walking around. Now there's no evidence that they were there or participate in the actual insurrection of the

violent attack on the Capitol. But she's going to show that video as well. He's in bed with just the wrong kind of people. QAnon election, denier, sandy hook, denier, defamer, Alex Jones. Alex Jones says he's going to fight it, but he's been subpoenaed. And the courts in his state will honor the subpoena for Georgia and he'll be forced to testify and validate the footage, the video footage that you're talking about, which is going to shrink Ken Chesborough down to size and undermine all of his arguments, as you said, as that he's just some sort of leather, patch, tweed coat wearings, you know, legal scholar that it just came down and typed

up some memos. He's trying to suppress the evidence of those memos from even being shown. He wrote not one, not two, but four separate memos in which he encouraged the use of alternate electors, we call them the fake electors, whether there was an existing valid court case in Trump's favor or not. The memo sort of take a turn halfway through as they got more desperate and his argument that they could be used got more desperate as he circulated it to Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and other lawyers to use. And those are the object of the crime. Those are the evidence of the crime, and he wants them suppressed, not because they were illegally obtained, which is normally the foundation for a suppressing evidence or excluding

it from trial. It's not because of that. It's because they are real and they were used, but he wants to argue that he was only providing legal advice. There's somehow covered by some sort of privilege and some sort of justification in law. And Fannie Willis said, first of all, you're probably participating in a crime fraud

which strips any attorney client privilege away from whoever you were sharing it, whether whoever has that privilege. And that's likely to win. fraud, which strips any attorney client privilege away from whoever you were sharing it, whether whoever has that privilege. And that's likely to win. And that's the argument that Jack Smith used to strip the attorney client privilege away the last time Donald Trump tried to assert it over a lawyer, which was Evan Corcoran, his lawyer for Mar-a-Lago.

But he's also going to argue, which I think is a very good argument. And that's where the videotape and the Alex Jones thing comes in, that these aren't legal memos at all. These are political memos. And if you're doing, you know, a lawyer can serve a lot of different roles. I've been inside of a company as a deputy general counsel, as a head of litigation.

Sometimes I was the senior vice president managing director doing business things, and I don't get the, in my client in that case, the company doesn't get the benefit of a privilege when they talk to me when I'm wearing that hat. Sometimes I was the head of litigation, head of employment matters, and therefore that conversation was privileged

and my email exchange is related to it. So lawyers can serve in different functions and sometimes the privilege applies and obtains and sometimes it doesn't. And she's arguing, this is all political strategy. He just wants to overthrow the country and try to pull levers in the state electoral process and federal electoral process. This isn't just the lawyer.

He's gone beyond that. And therefore he doesn't get the benefit of the privilege. So she's got a belt in the suspenders way to go after Ken Chespero. This is again, again, desperation that we're watching with, with these two people who are going to be tried. And we keep saying it. But until the day that we're on live television, commentating and doing analysis for the Midas Dutch Network, it's hard to believe. We keep talking about it, like we used to talk about one day, Trump will be indicted, we promise. And then he is, and it changes the weather in the room.

But Cindy Powell finally woke up and started filing her own motions, but they're laughable. I actually said I want my hot tics. Was this created by chat GBT? This can't be real intelligence. This has to be artificial intelligence that wrote this. She's actually claiming she wants the judge to take judicial notice effectively that she was allowed to coordinate the break-in of the coffee county election office.

Use several people to go in there and download illegally, break into the voting machines and download illegally the computer software data for confidential voter data so she could take it off in a thumb drive and use it in lawsuits or in hearings or otherwise. And she's saying, she wants the judge to recognize that there are statutes in Georgia that dictate how a election office man repairs, maintains, and keeps their equipment in good working order. Okay, okay, Sydney, what does that have to do with your break in? The fact that they have the right and the obligation and then she mistsites every stat, I didn't know how to take every statute that she cited she left off key language That both Fony Willis and Judge McAfee will zoom in on I've already seen we've already seen how he writes the judge and say

Yeah, that's great, but you forgot the first sentence you forgot you forgot that that and so that's gonna fail You know the statute about how to clean the machines doesn't give you a defense for criminal liability for breaking into them and taking the software with you. You've got that going on. Then the judge has got a couple of loose ends. He's got a couple of motions out there by Ken Chess Burwon, the supremacy clause for the US Constitution should give him a defense. None of this is going to work.

None of this is going to get the majority instruction either. They are gonna start picking a jury on the 10th of October. It's gonna take them two or three weeks, it's much slower in the state process than it is the federal process. We've read in reporting in Atlanta that the judge is gonna bring down 900 potential jurors. That's a lot. And then start bringing them in, I guess,

as much as the room can hold, 2030 at a time, until they get their 12 in the box with the challenges that each side is allowed to have. It's going to take a while. I mean, we'll open up the show, and we'll talk about, oh, jury selection has started. Whatever's in the public record, we're going gonna report on, but in terms of an opening statement, that's gonna be at least two weeks away. There's some juries in Jury selection in Georgia that takes like months,

but because of Speedy Trial, this might go much, much quicker, but I don't think we're gonna see an opening statement until week two, which would put us like right around Halloween in Georgia for that, isn't that appropriate or mischief night? You've got that going on in Georgia and then related to Georgia because Ruby Freeman, Shay Moss, undoubtedly playing a important part for the prosecution in the criminal case against the Rico conspiracy for all the threats that they endured.

There's a civil component of the defamation and threats they experienced taking place in Washington, D.C. before federal judge, Barrel Howell, where Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss filed a defamation case against Rudy Giuliani. The courts already found Rudy Giuliani liable based on the fact that he's engaged in all of these discovery abuses over and over and over again. So already found liable, but it went from horribly bad to even worse, if you can imagine, because Giuliani's been trying to hide all of his financial conditions from the most basic discovery over like produce your bank records,

produce financial statements, produce all of these things, and he refuses to do that. So finally, Judge Barrow howl warned him first before this like, hey, I'm going to issue an instruction against you to tell the jury if you don't turn over the financial records you're supposed to. The jury can infer for all they care that you're hiding tens of millions of dollars when they assess damages and punitive damages against you. So let the jury decide that you're hiding massive amounts of money because you're not participating in the, you know, in, in, in discovery over financial condition, which is, again, one of the ways you compute the multiple for punitive damages as well. So Popak, Giul is, again, one of the ways you compute the multiple for punitive damages as well. So, Popak Giuliani, again, acting like he's above

the law, doesn't produce the most basic records. So you had Judge Barrel Howell take action and take authoritative action. And she issued a ruling that has a devastating adverse inference against Giuliani. Pope, I could go through this with us, but Giuliani's, I would not be shocked if Giuliani on the low end gets hit for like $10 million on the high end. I think it'll be close to a billion dollars and then maybe have to be reduced. Right. They may hit him with the, you know, he won't be able to, like, he's not going to be

able to pay a billion dollars if it's anything over $10 million. He's going to be totally bankrupt. But this is non-dischargeable in bankruptcy as well because it's intentional. Giuliani from a financial standpoint, this, he's over. He's ruined. And then what it's going to come to is a constant collections game over getting the money from him and chasing him for the rest of his life. Yeah, agreed. I said at a hot take that'll be posted soon that the judge has brought

down the hammer and the curtain on Rudy Giuliani. For the best we can see from his assets that are out there, he owns a property and that hadn't any owns a property and Florida one has a tax lien on it. He probably has net net that he can, if he sold all of his assets, putting aside his common sense, whatever that show is called on his podcast and whatever he can generate from there. He's got maybe seven or eight million dollars, which sounds like a lot,

but it's not a lot when you're facing legal fees, that'll be drained for the 13 count indictment in Georgia. All the other defenses he's had to do. And now the case, the ultimate judgment in this case, which will be well in excess. I agree with you with $10 million. If E. Jean Carroll out of a New York jury got 5 million impunitive damages, including for a rape and defamation, the defamation here, given the instruction that the judge as a punishment for Rudy Giuliani's bad behavior is going to give to that jury, a jury who's sole function, having been told

already by the judge that liability, defamation, intentional fliction of emotional distress, conspiracy, and punitive damages have already been determined by the court before you even sat down in your chair. Your sole purpose, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is to decide how big an amount to award Ruby Freeman and Jay Moss for the defamation, intentional inflection that they suffered and putative damages to pay back and to punish the defendant in an amount enough that he actually feels that that's your job here today or find that there's no damage which of course they're never going to find. And the judge warned

Ruy Giuliani, I don't, just a moment here of personal exception, I don't know what's going on Ruy Giuliani, I don't know what's going on in that gray matter of his. He defaulted and stopped participating in New York at the moment he was about to lose his law license and lost his law license in large part, not only because he did bad things, but because he defaulted. He stopped participating in the process and he did it all over again down with Judge Barrel Howell, who among all federal judges, Barrel Howell does imply. Barrel Howell was the chief judge who presided over every one of the grand juries Jack Smith has used in Mar-a-Lago at the beginning and the Jan 6 case

in election interference case related to all things. She, because she was the chief judge at the time for a year and a half, she presided over and heard all the evidence. She made all of the decisions about all the bad people in Trump's world. She stripped Evan Corcoran of the attorney client privilege, finding that it was more likely than not that Donald Trump and Evan Corcoran committed a crime or a fraud. She knows Jan 6th and everything related to the cling to power better than anybody, better

than Judge Chuckhead. And yet and because judges in the federal court federal court hear civil cases and criminal cases, and when they're the chief judge, grand jury matters, she got the short straw or or Giuliani did to get her assigned to his case. Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss are two tremendously authentic compelling victims here of Donald Trump's cling to power. Ruby Freeman was mentioned 18 times by Donald Trump in his call, the perfect phone call to Brad Arathensberger to try to steal the election, the Secretary of State of Georgia. Giuliani incessantly bang these two people and cause Donald Trump supporters to dox them.

I mean dox them cause them to do violent rhetoric, racist rhetoric, attack them. They had to move out of their houses and get police protection. They're also involved in Georgia because at least three of the defendants in the Georgia case, a some sort of pastor, Willie Floyd III, who was the head of Black Voices for Trump, and a Travian cutie, who was a stylist for Kanye West,

went to Ruby Freeman to try to get her to admit that she committed a fraud in the electoral telling that she didn't commit and pressure to do it. That's why they've been charged over there. So Ruby Freeman is Unfortunately, she didn't ask for this. All she wanted to do is be an election worker Accounting election votes for low or no money with her daughter, okay? Or the other way around. She's the mother and the and the daughter of shame off, but Enough is enough and they sued

Another right wing media company that already settled with them and Rudy Giuliani. Rudy Giuliani has defaulted on every obligation that he's had. He's violated and flattered. Every order of this judge, that's how he got the sanction against him that he has no defenses and she found liability against him without a trial as a sanction. She was in the order that she just issued, which I've never seen in 32 years of practice in order like this. She said, this is on top of page two, consistent with his prior track record in this matter.

By the way, note to our followers and listeners and watchers. When a judge refers to a track record, it's never a good thing. It's never like secret secretary it, just one, the triple crown, no. It's, she did a really bad series of things that judges commenting on it. Julie Annie failed to file any response

to plaintiff submissions, despite being permitted to do so by her order in September. And he did the same thing in October. The judge said when she ruled against him and said, as a sanction for your misconduct, you don't have a trial on liability. I am finding you liable for defamation, inflection of an emotional distress conspiracy and even punitive damages. Now you'll only have a trial on liability. And that's not all. If you screw up again and don't provide by this deadline that you gave him a deadline, all of your financial information about your podcast, its revenue, all of your businesses,

their revenue, how many times you mentioned shame, awesome, Ruby Freeman, add rates for those shows. You don't give that all over so people can calculate punitive damages and whatever I am going to. I'm telling you now, I am gonna instruct the jury that they should infer, meaning they have to assume that you're hiding your financial information

in order to lower the potential judgment. And if you wanna play that game, go try it. Now you'd think, at least that would be the wake-up call for Rudy Giuliani, okay? I don't want that to happen. And he violated the order again and missed the deadline or is the judge put so eloquently at the top of page four, given that defendant Giuliani has failed to comply with any part

of the August 30th order or file any opposition or objection to plaintive submission and proposed adverse instructions, that's it. You're done. Here's the instructions. This is what the jury is going to be told in the first hour after they're selected. After they're told, this case is only about the amount of damages. And Rudy Giuliani and these two.

The jury will be instructed that it must, when determining an appropriate sum of compensatory presumed and punitive damages infer, meaning assume that defendant Giuliani was intentionally trying to hide relevant discovery about his business's finances for the purpose of shielding his assets from discovery and artificially deflating his net worth, ladies and gentlemen of the jury too, you are instructed that you must infer that defendant Giuliani was intentionally trying to hide relevant discovery about the viewership of the common sense podcast and his social media reach for the purpose of artificially deflating the reach of his defamatory statements. Three, the jury will be instructed that it must infer that defendant Giuliani receives substantial financial benefits from the defamation of the plaintiffs. They have to assume that.

And four, the jury will be instructed that it must infer that the Giuliani businesses continue to generate advertising revenue and other income from their operations. But it goes beyond that. Now she bounds and gags and ties one hand behind Giuliani's back because of his own misconduct and by also barring his lawyers or him from making any arguments in front of the jury as follows. One, defendant Giuliani will be precluded from introducing any evidence through any source document witness testimony that has not been already disclosed in discovery. And he disclosed very little in discovery.

So he's not going to be able to rely on anything else. Two, he'll be precluded along with his counsel from making any argument, or introducing any evidence, or stating or suggesting that he received no financial benefits, or in material or in substantial financial benefits from the statements he made against the plaintiffs. And lastly, they will both be precluded from making any argument, or introducing any evidence that Giuliani is insolvent, bankrupt, judgment proof, or otherwise unable to defend himself, comply with the court's orders, or satisfy a judgment. Rudy just needs to sit there, let the evidence be presented by the plaintiffs, and let the

jury pull out his checkbook and write a giant check. The only thing the judge gave Rudy Giuliani, and it's not even, it talk about ice and winter, is that he's also failed to pay over $235,000 in attorneys fees in sanctions along the way in three separate orders. And so the lawyers said, look, this guy seems to be doing everything

he can to avoid paying a judgment. Can you give us a judgment for the $235,000 right now so we can at least go try to garnish his wages, get a share of to go seize property, put a lien on the two pieces of real estate that have already been identified in the press. And the judge said, why don't we wait two months for the trial. And then I'll give you one big fat judgment that you can use against Rudy Giuliani. That includes in it $235,000 running with interest and whatever the jury awards. And then you can go take that and go try to chase Mr. Giuliani.

But I don't see anything in the law that allows me to give you an early judgment on attorney's fees only. So that's the only thing Rudy got. And I'm not even sure who do you think's gonna represent Rudy at trial? Nobody wants to represent him. And he owes every lawyer in town. Exactly.

I don't know who, but it will probably be another mega make attorney get attorney representing him, which proves the make attorney get attorney adage that we've coined here at the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. Look, here's the important thing to note about Rudy Giuliani also. Judge Barrel Howell didn't just wake up one day and go, I don't like you, Rudy Giuliani.

And therefore, sanctions, adverse inference. It's why we have this show, Legal AF, and do the work that other media networks don't do, refuse to do. It is important that yes, on the Midas Touch Network, are we going to cover the shiny objects here and there? Yes, we're going to cover it in detail, but it is critical that we stick with stories. and we go through in pain, staking, detail, all of the intricacies of these cases, all of the evidence that's being presented, we provide point counterpoint, and then we could all reach conclusions together.

And our opinions may wind up being the same. Our opinions may wind up being different. All of that is fine, but ultimately we have to follow the evidence. And Judge Barrow Howell gave Giuliani not one chance, not two chance dozens, close to 50 opportunities. And you know by watching this show, we've covered all of those times, where hey, Rudy, can you please submit that, you know, response in opposition? Rudy, can you do this? Rudy, can you do that?

And what did he do each and every time? Diso-bade the order. And then he would agree to an order and then he would try to wiggle out of it. And then enough's enough. And the judge went through the process. I'm sure it took far longer than anybody would have liked. And people were going to say, well, when's justice going to be here? When is there going to be accountability? And I'm sure it's

the same questions you're asking about with the Donald Trump cases as he tries to do all of these maneuvers. But look, when you have good lawyers, when you have good prosecutors, when you have law and order judges, yes, can wealthy, powerful people take advantage of our system? Yes, are there times where they get away with things? Yes, but ultimately, do I feel confident that while our system of justice is not perfect and is lots of problems. It's one of the best out there.

I do feel that way and the wheels of justice turn in the right direction and we're going to be there with you each step of the way. So if you want to help support this independent media network, check out patreon.com slash might as touch as well. P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com slash might as touch. We don't have outside investors here on the might as touch network or legal AF. So one way to support the growth of this platform is by going to P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com slash M-E-I-D-A-S-T-O-U-C-H. Go there now, check that out, become a member if you can. Check through the archive. We have the origin story of Michael Popock, of Karen Friedman

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