Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Gets VERY BAD NEWS in DC Civil Lawsuit

Episode Date: April 20, 2024

A DC JUDGE had DENIED Trump’s latest attempt to stay the civil rights case against him and the Proud Boys for causing the injury and death of police on Jan6. Michael Popok reports on Judge Mehta’s decision to deny Trump and what it means for next week’s Supreme Court oral argument on whether Trump has immunity for “official acts” while in office. Thanks to Lomi! Head to lomi.com/LEGALAF and use the promo code LEGALAF for $50 OFF your Lomi! 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 Coalition of the Sane: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coalition-of-the-sane/id1741663279 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Does he have immunity from civil suit brought by the Metro and Capitol police for the injuries and deaths that they suffered during Jan 6th? Will the United States Supreme Court in its decision about immunity impact the civil cases? That's something that Judge Mehta in the D.C. Circuit Court has resolved, at least for today, in denying Donald Trump's attempts to delay further the civil lawsuits, the ones seeking monetary relief and damages under the KKK Act for civil

rights violations committed as alleged by Donald Trump and others, including Enrique Tarrio, the proud boys. We got a beautiful coupling there of Enrique Tarrio and the former president of the United States both asking Judge Meta to stay the civil case. Don't let it go forward any further for an indefinite stay until we figure out what's going on down in the DC election interference case, which hasn't even been set for trial. In other words, don't ever call us judge. We don't want to participate in this civil case.

All judge has applying the factors that are appropriate, which I'll go over in this hot take, has denied that request. Let me first back up and tell you what this case is about or refresh your memory about it and then I'll dive into the connection between this case and the United States Supreme Court. And it's April 25th oral argument, an ultimate decision about whether Donald Trump has immunity for official acts while he was in office. This is a case brought by the Metro and Capitol police. It's two different cases that have sort of been

joined together in front of Judge Mehta. Both are seeking civil damages, monetary damages from Donald Trump, and others like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and that type of thing. That case had been sort of held up in a twilight area while the circuit court of appeals in the DC circuit court was determining whether immunity applied

to Donald Trump's actions and what information or record they needed created from the trial court level in order to make that determination. And eventually, I say about six or eight months ago, got returned to Judge Mehta with instructions that he was to continue with the case, develop the record about, and again, you're gonna get a deja vu

all over again moment here, about whether Donald Trump's actions that day on Jan 6 that caused the injury, bodily and sometimes grievous bodily injury to the police officers and others, was the result of official acts while he was then president of the United States. This is exactly the only and sole issue on appeal with the United States Supreme Court, because the United States Supreme Court is considering with oral argument on the 25th of April, right here on the Midas Touch Network, whether the following question, whether a former president, somebody now, has immunity for official acts while he was president.

That's all the United States Supreme Court cares about. All the other arguments Donald Trump raised about, oh, I needed to be impeached and convicted by the Senate first before I could be a criminal case can be brought against me. I have absolute immunity about everything. It's all out the window. The only thing they want to know is, is there such a thing as official act immunity? And was anything that he did an official act or was it outside of it? This is an issue, this official act issue that all of the courts have been struggling with. Even Judge Mata, as instructed by his bosses at the intermediary appellate court, has had

to struggle with were there official acts by Donald Trump and is there immunity for those official acts. It sort of dovetails, fits together with the United States Supreme Court argument. And what Judge Mata said in his order, which I'm going to read to you in a minute, is that I'm going to allow, as directed by my bosses at the DC Court of Appeals, I'm going to allow discovery in this case, which is the exchange of information, depositions, requests to produce documents. I'm going to allow that on the issue to get to the

bottom of official acts of Donald Trump and whether there is immunity. And on the official acts, particularly Donald Trump is worried about his tweets, no surprise. He's worried that he's taken the position that his tweets, even though from a personal account, were official acts. It's the same position, as the judge noted in his order, that he's taking, were official acts. It's the same position as the judge noted in his order that he's taking in the criminal case. He's saying everything he did was an official act, no matter how he did it, what platform he used, private or public, everything, campaigning or not campaigning, everything he did as long as he was drawing a paycheck from occupying the Oval Office, was an official act.

All right. So the judge said, I can resolve all of that without implicating your Donald Trump's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. You're not going to have to give a deposition about the merits of the case. We're only trying to get to the bottom of what was an official act. Maybe you have immunity for that, maybe you don't, what wasn't an official act? Because everybody agrees if it's not an official act,

there's no way there's immunity for it. Even the United States Supreme Court ultimately will concur with the DC Court of Appeals in their decision led by Judge Pan that found exactly that. What they're struggling with, where the rubber meets the constitutional road, is over what is or what is not an official act. Judge Mayda said, we can sort all of that out about your tweets and the impact on the attacks on Jan 6th on these plaintiffs and their surviving relatives. We can sort all that out. It doesn't implicate your criminal case.

And you've asked for an indefinite stay. This is a new trick of Donald Trump's. In every court, he wants an indefinite stay pointing to another of his criminal cases. So in Mar-a-Lago, he tells Judge Cannon, I can't get around to participating in the Classified Information Procedures Act process, the SIPA process, at the heart of the Mar-a-Lago espionage and obstruction of justice case until, I don't know, eight or nine months or sometime after I'm done in New York with the Stormy Daniels election interference case. I mean, of course, Jack Smith said that's ridiculous

and that is basically an indefinite extension of time for no reason. He's got different counsel. He can do things simultaneously. He can walk chew gum and review classified documents at the same time. Mother's Day is coming soon. And if you're looking for a gift for mom,

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Whenever we get around to that case, Your Honor, we'll come back to you on the civil case. And Judge May has said, no way. That is such basically an indefinite extension. And under the factor analysis of whether I'm going to grant or stay or not, I'm not going to grant that. But it's just another example of these overlapping Venn diagram issues coming back over and over again in different courts. So here we have the Twitter account and whether that was official or not official. We've got

immunity in this case, the case of the Capitol and Metro police against Donald Trump and others. We've got Donald Trump requesting another stay, trying to play one case off the other. We've got all the elements, all the makings right here. Let me read to you why Judge Mehta denied it. And particularly he said, on the immunity issue, I am not going to get to resolve the immunity issue about whether Donald Trump had immunity for any of these things until after the United

States Supreme Court, which is his boss, makes their ultimate ruling about immunity. So I will have the benefit of that because Donald Trump was saying, well, you'll be tied up because you'll be making decisions. We're still waiting for guidance from the Supreme Court. He says, yeah, I'm not making my decision before the United States Supreme Court. My bosses make their decision. So let me read to you from the salient portions. It's a relatively short order. Judge Mehta has been presiding over lots of cases. He presided over the Oath Keepers case, both of them that led to the convictions of the leaders of the Oath Keepers. So he's got a vast experience about Jan 6. In his memorandum and order, he says there's four factors in evaluating a stay,

the relationship between the civil case, which is this case, and the criminal case, which is the DC election interference case with Jack Smith, the burden on the court, the hardships or inequalities the parties would face if a stay was granted, right? It's harder on the plaintiffs because they've been waiting a long time for justice and the duration of the requested stay. You can see where these factors cut, right? As to the first one, the judge said the relationship between the civil and criminal actions does not overlap as much as Donald Trump says because he's only going to be giving discovery and deposition testimony about official versus non-official acts. And that doesn't implicate the Fifth Amendment privilege and it's consistent with

what he's doing in the prosecution. The burden on the court, the judge says, I'm not burdened by any of this. This is what I get paid to do. I resolve constitutional issues every day and I'm willing to take it on. Three, the hardship on the parties, obviously that tips well in favor of the plaintiffs. It's a tremendous hardship for them to have their justice delayed. And four, the duration of the request that stay. It's unlimited. It's not like he's asking for 90 days. He's asking for, I'll get back to you whenever I get tried in the other case, maybe. And the other case hasn't, as I said, even been set for trial. in the other case, maybe. And the other case hasn't, as I said,

even been set for trial. So the judge said that his Fifth Amendment privileges are not being implicated, because the only thing, this limited discovery in the case is over, based on the directions of the appellate court, is on immunity and official versus unofficial acts. Basically one major element

at the United States Supreme Court level for the April 25th argument. I talked to you about burden on the court. Let's talk about duration of the stay because this keeps coming up over and over again with Donald Trump. Here that he says on, Judge Maeda says on page seven, defendant contends that an indefinite stay is warranted because he is the, quote, the first former president and major party nominee in history to be criminally charged for conduct that occurred while in presidential office. No, that's true.

The special counsel's case, he says, constitutes an extraordinary public moment and that he relies on language from a case involving Bill Clinton versus Paula Jones, which the Supreme Court said, especially in cases of extraordinary public moment, a plaintiff may be required to submit to delay, not immoderate in extent and not oppressive in its consequences if the public welfare or convenience will thereby be promoted. And that's what the judge took issue with. He said, right, if you can suggest a delay that's not immoderate in extent and not oppressive in its consequences. He says, but you've proposed a delay that is immoderate in its extent. In other words, it's unduly long and it's oppressive in its consequences to the public

welfare and doing justice. So of course he uses their own case against them in that. He talks about the criminal immunity case, Donald Trump up at the United States Supreme Court. And on page eight, Judge Mata says, defendant believes that a resolution of that issue before the United States Supreme Court may inform the scope of discovery

or may dispose of this case altogether. But Judge Mhta says, there is no reason to wait on the Supreme Court's decision. This court is unlikely to make an immunity determination by the end of the Supreme Court's term, which ends in June. Thus, if the court's ruling on criminal immunity is relevant to the outcome here, it can easily be applied. And then finally, he's ordering them to move this case forward. As a starting point of discovery, here's the new dates set by Judge Mata as of this week. By May 1, 2024, while he'll still be on trial up in New York, defendant Trump shall provide plaintiffs with a detailed

description of the basis for his immunity defense, identifying witnesses and documents. This is all on the final page, page nine, identifying witnesses and documents presently known to his counsel and what limited discovery he will require by April 26, 2024. That's a busy week. I'll talk to you about that in a minute. The party shall submit a proposed protective order that at a minimum ensures that any discovery responses from defendant Trump Charmin under seal further order of the court and submit a joint status report about a proposed schedule for completing discovery relating to the immunity inquiry. Standard stuff, but let me just talk about that April 26 date for a minute, because it's going to be a very busy time on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF, and more importantly for Donald Trump. April the 20th, if you're playing at home, take these dates down. April the 22nd is going to be the hearing in front of Judge Angoron about

whether Donald Trump's alleged $175 million posted bond is legitimate or not, and is sufficient or not to stop the enforcement of the $465 million civil fraud judgment against him and his companies. That's on the 22nd. On April the 23rd, Judge Mershon in the New York election interference criminal case is holding a hearing that Donald Trump needs to attend on whether he should be held in criminal contempt and potentially jailed in the New York criminal case for gag order violation. That's the 23rd, the 25th of April,

the United States Supreme Court is hearing oral argument in the case involving immunity and whether Donald Trump has any for official or unofficial acts while he was in office. Now we have the 26th, Judge Mehta is ordering them to prepare the Joint Status Report and other discovery obligations in this case brought by the Metro and Capitol Police.

You know where to follow all that? The 22, 23, 24, and 25 major events in Donald Trump's life and for criminal justice right here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. It's a podcast we do on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Join us, you'll find out why we call it Legal AF and then we put it on audio podcast platforms,

whatever your choice. And then I do hot takes like this right here on the Midas Touch Network. I'm Michael Popok. If you like my work, give me a thumbs up, leave a comment, keeps the lights on, tells the algorithmic gods you like what we do. Go over to the YouTube channel for MidasTouch and look for Michael Popok under playlists. You'll find about, I don't know, 1200 hot takes just like this one. So until my next hot take, until my next Legal AF, this is Michael Popak reporting.