Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump HIT with LEGAL BOMBSHELLS before DEBATE

Episode Date: September 8, 2024

Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok are back for the weekend edition of the top-rated Legal AF podcast. On tap? A bad week for Trump in Courts, as he criticizes his legal team; has his attempt to remove his state criminal conviction case to federal court to avoid sentencing denied, and Judge Merchan signals that he is likely to sentence Trump to jail time; also, another Trump lawyer has a rough outing trying to convince a New York federal appellate court to give him a new trial concerning the jury verdict that he sexually assaulted and defamed E Jean Carroll; and yet another Trump lawyes confess that they are taking direction from Justice Clarence Thomas directly about which motions to file in his criminal cases, as Judge Chutkan gives the Special Counsel 2 opportunities before the election to air new evidence to the American Voter, against Trump in the DC Election Interference criminal case, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF Thanks to our sponsors: Green Chef: Go to greenchef.com/legalafclass for 50% off your first box + 50 FREE Credits with ClassPass with code legalafclass. OneSkin: Get started today at https://OneSkin.co and receive 15% Off using code: LEGALAF Magic Spoon: Get this exclusive offer when you use promo code LEGALAF at https://MagicSpoon.com/LEGALAF 3 Day Blinds: For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to https://3DayBlinds.com/LEGALAF Zbitoics: Head to https://zbiotics.com/LegalAF to get 15% off your first order when you use LEGALAF at checkout. 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 MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial 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://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Ontario only. Gambling problem? Call Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600. BedMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This episode is brought to you by CIBC. From closing that first sale to opening a second store, as a business owner, you've hustled to accomplish a lot. But the rewards don't stop there. When you earn two times more points on things that matter to you and your business, easily track those business expenses, and experience flexible Aventura rewards, you'll realize

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Blockbusters like A Quiet Place Day One, originals including Yellowstone, and hits like Dexter. Paramount Plus, your eyeballs equals entertainment. Stream Paramount Plus from $ 6.99 a month. So I first came to Edward Jones with a great deal of trepidation. When I first met with my advisor and I really was feeling vulnerable about what I would have to share,

I was of course pleasantly surprised to find that there was absolutely no judgment and a lot of support. And when it was time to get serious, he really took my hand and helped me to do that there was absolutely no judgment and a lot of support. And when it was time to get serious, he really took my hand and helped me to do that. Edward Jones, we do money differently. Visit edwardjones.ca slash different. A very busy legal week. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument

in Donald Trump's appeal of the E Jean Carroll jury verdict against him. Let's just say Donald Trump did not get a very warm reception. Then Donald Trump held a bizarre press conference in the lobby of Trump Tower, where he further defamed E Jean Carroll and further defamed his other victims as well. He also said that he was very disappointed in the job his lawyers were doing. We'll show you those clips. A significant order was handed down in the Manhattan district attorney criminal case

by justice Mershon regarding Donald Trump's sentencing, which was scheduled for September 18th. It's not going to take place September 18th anymore. We'll let you know what the order says and why this order was made. We'll also have a brief discussion about what we think was behind this order and what we think the import of it is. And then finally, another very big hearing this week, this one before federal judge Tanya Chutkin in the Washington DC criminal case against Donald Trump for trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 election.

We all know now that a superseding indictment was unsealed recently against Donald Trump, which made slight tweaks to the underlying indictment that was unsealed back in August of 2023. Federal Judge Tanya Chutkin made a major ruling regarding the briefing on Donald Trump's absolute immunity motion to dismiss. And the good news there is, is that a lot of that briefing is going to be taking place forth with September and October, that briefing is going to be taking place forthwith in September and October, and we're going to get a bunch of new facts that probably have not been revealed

to the public yet. A special counsel, Jack Smith, lays out why he believes Donald Trump should not have absolute immunity for any of these allegations, notwithstanding the Supreme Court's ruling. I'm Ben Misalasas joined by Michael Popak. Michael Popak, the good, the bad, the ugly on Legal AF. We bring it to you, the straight facts, and we'll happy to have discussions, debates on them, you know, and it's certainly a mixed bag this week with, I thought, real positive developments.

bag this week with I thought real positive developments, E. Jean Carroll, Washington DC case, um, a setback in the New York criminal case. Um, although you've done a hot take on it where you've seen that as the glass being half full, which we'll save for when we get to that topic. But Michael, it's great seeing you. You too. You too, my friend. I was literally not figuratively salivating when we did the lineup for today about what just happened during a week. I don't want people to get and they

don't I don't believe in legal AF get any kind of Trump or criminal justice or civil justice fatigue. I think our our audience, our unique audience is here for it. And just going through what I think at bottom, and as reflected by that press conference in front of, I don't know, near the golden escalator again, but might as well have been, and the face on Alina Haba will show that video clip at the appropriate time. I think it was a terrible on balance week for Donald Trump, especially leading into Tuesday's debate with Kamala Harris, who now has her perfect fulcrum set up for prosecutor versus felon. E. Jean Carroll, we're going to talk about.

Denny Chin, the judge there of the three-judge panel. I think I had his first case. He's now about to retire. I think I had his first case when he was a district court judge 30 years ago. Let's just put it this way, he roasted the lawyer, John Sorrow, representing Donald Trump, who's like his go to appellate lawyer. He did a lot of the Supreme Court arguments. We'll talk about that.

I don't think that E. Jean Carroll attempt to overturn it. And for good measure, as you pointed out, and I think this is a terrible look optically. He's attacking women, attacking E. Jean Carroll, attacking other people, basically admitting that he committed other sexual assaults on people. They just, according to his lawyer in the oral argument, just weren't crimes at the time he groped people. It's a terrible look before he has to line up to debate Kamala Harris, a debate that he doesn't seem to be taking seriously as she's holed up in debate prep in a hotel room with a revolving door of advisors getting her ready, including Hillary Clinton doing a little side advice. He's out doing whatever he's doing, appearing at oral arguments that he shouldn't appear

at, not appearing in court appearances where he should appear. The sentencing postponed will get there. I think that shadow of being a convicted felon with no real avenue for appeal at the moment and not yet been sentenced, but knowing the public, knowing before they finish registering to vote early or registering to vote and voting that he will be sentenced two days before Thanksgiving. I think that is a, and that the immunity decision, there's two decisions postponed by Judge Mershon we'll talk about. Immunity decision by him, meaning no immediate avenue of appeal for Donald Trump. That's just a shade cast on top of Trump by Mershon. If he thought it was a gift, it's a Trojan horse. We'll talk about it when we get there,

at least from my perspective. Chuckkin hearing went also terribly, this time led by John Loro. I was wondering where that lawyer was being hid because he's from Florida. We haven't seen him in a while. I thought we're going to see one of the other guys again handling it that we normally see in criminal court, like Todd Blanch. No, they rolled out John Loro, not ready for prime time, said a couple of ridiculous things out loud that even got the judge's eyebrows up. We'll save it for the segment, including signaling that Justice Thomas did something else unethical, which we will explore in that particular segment. And then we've got Donald Trump effectively losing on his way to losing related to trying to drag the New York criminal case over to federal court.

He's lost with Judge Hellerstein already and he's about to lose and we'll talk about it when we get there at the Second Circuit. And everything that came off of this week is equally bad. It's like if you're a pool player, you try to set up your next shot. The next shot is all set up for the Democrats and for Kamala Harris.

The briefing that we'll talk about, that's gonna be publicly airing of evidence by the prosecutors in the DC election interference case, that's gonna be the September 26th, well before we get to the end of registering to vote and voting. Same thing with a number of the other deadlines that are coming up.

And lastly, we've got a hearing, not just the debate on the 10th, we've got a hearing at the Second Circuit, we'll talk about that three-judge panel, which is not bode well for Donald Trump at all, about whether the removal of taking the case, the state felony conviction case over to New York federal court is going to work at all. Very busy guy Donald Trump is and now you know why he said that quiet part out loud

that we'll show later where he said, I don't think my legal talent was up to the task in any of these cases. He even knows it was a terrible week for him. Well, Donald Trump's lawyer argued before Judge Tonya Chutkin that the reason she should dismiss the case and find as Judge Cannon did that the special counsel is an unconstitutional position, Trump's lawyer said, Justice Clarence Thomas directed me to bring this up to you, to which

federal judge Tanya Chutkin was like, are you saying that you speak to Justice Thomas? He actually literally told you to say that to me. And then Donald Trump's lawyer, no, I mean figuratively, he didn't actually direct me. He said that. Then she goes, you realize that in this circuit, in the DC circuit, there's binding precedent as there was throughout the United States for decades. That special councils appointed by Republican and Democratic administrations are constitutional. And then she also took a shot at judge Eileen Cannon and say, I don't think

there is anywhere near anything persuasive about that ruling by federal judge Eileen Cannon. I thought that was a funny statement by Judge Tonya Chuck. And I want to show you this press conference though that Trump gave after the second circuit court of appeals argument. I want to frame it like this first. Here's why it's important that we continue to grow the Midas Touch Network and platform

because every corporate media platform pretty much out there normalize this. But could you imagine if president Biden or former president Barack Obama was up there giving a press conference about women who they've had consensual sex with? We're not saying even women who have accused them of sexual assault, but consensual sex and giving a press conference for 45 minutes making misogynistic statements about the women. Now, Donald Trump spent 45 minutes saying things like, I would not have sexually assaulted her because she's not, and this is an exact quote from Donald Trump, the chosen one. She would not be quote my

chosen one. There he was referring to another sexual assault victim who alleges Trump sexually assaulted Jessica Leeds who said Donald Trump did it on a plane. And then Donald Trump says So so explain to me that I just go up to women and you're saying I just start making out and kissing him And they'll just let me do it. That was part of his press conference Let's recall there's actually audio tape of Donald Trump introduced in the E Jean Carroll case Where Donald Trump quite literally says that as a rich person, he just goes up to women, grabs them by their vaginas, and sexually assaults them and sticks his tongue

down their throats without their consent because he says when you're rich, they let you do it. Donald Trump is also on audio recording and videotape saying one of the favorite things for him about outing beauty pageants and remember he owned teen beauty pageants and other beauty pageants was he would go in while the girls were changing and inspect their bodies naked and because he's the owner of the pageant He says you're allowed to do that.

And that that was one of the things that he enjoyed about running beauty pageants as one of the things he did for his businesses before the presidency and, you know, before the apprentice or right around that same time. Donald Trump is someone who is close friends, was close friends with Jeffrey Epstein currently, but Donald Trump's flying around in close friends, was close friends with Jeffrey Epstein. Currently, Donald Trump's flying around in the Epstein jet, right? They wrapped Epstein's jet that he used to traffic girls and women, and they call it the Trump jet, not a peep from corporate media.

I'm not going to play the clip from CNN where after Donald Trump's press conference, they had someone say, look, we saw Donald Trump really articulate a powerful defense of himself right now. I was like, what? That's what you took out of this? Let me show you clip number one. Here's Donald Trump with Alina Jaba looking on, saying he's disappointed with his lawyers.

Play this clip. And I'm disappointed in my legal talent, I'll be honest with you. They're good, they're good people. They're good people. They're talented people. Today at the trial, they didn't mention the dress. So the Monica Lewinsky type dress was a big part of the trial.

Big big part of the trial. I said, why didn't you mention that? And I heard there was a dress involved. And I want to show you this next one here where Donald Trump doesn't one know that he was not the president in 2023 when the E. Jean Carroll trial took place and then he further defames her. Here, play this clip. I wanted to show up to the trial, to the first trial. My lawyer who's not up here, not with us any longer, sir, you should not show up.

You're the former president or the president. I don't even know when the trial was, but you're the president of the United States, sir. This is beneath you. I've got this 100%. The dress is negative, but he wasn't able to use it. Sir, it's beneath you to show up. I said, but wouldn't that be bad for a jury?

Wouldn't that be sort of bad for a jury if I don't show up? He said, sir, you don't have to show up. I've got this. You shouldn't do it. It's beneath you. It's beneath the office of the president. I understood what he meant by that. This was last year. He was not the president. He should know when it took place, quite literally a year ago.

Donald Trump fled to Scotland and Ireland. He held a shovel and pretended he was building something there, which he was not. Donald Trump was asked when he was in Europe if he was going to show up, and he said, yeah, I'm going to show up and confront E. Jean Carroll. The judge gave Donald Trump extra time to return and show up. Trump refused to show up. And there he's throwing Joe Takapena under the bus. And we told Joe that that's what was going to happen to him.

And he's blaming Takapena for it, who's no longer on the team. But Michael Popak, why don't you break that down and tell us about the Second Circuit Court of Appeals argument. Yeah, let's start with that press conference, just so people don't think we do what corporate media does, which is just, as you said, I think so eloquently normalize it. Joe Takapina was not the original lawyer in the E. Jean Carroll case. He came in the last

three months before trial. The lawyer for the case who made all of the decisions, including about the evidence related to the dress was a person named Alina Habba. You might've heard about her. She's standing next to Donald Trump during most of that quietly allowing Joe Takapina's reputation such as it is to be thrown on the altar and sacrificed in the altar of Donald Trump's ego and greed. She's the one that screwed up the, if there was a screw up in terms of how that evidence was precluded or not about whether, and let me back up so people, I don't want to talk in

shorthand here. E. Jean Carroll claimed that she had a black coat dress that she saved for over 30 years, that she wore the day that she was sexually assaulted as proven by a jury Nine-zero in New York not once but twice in Bergdorf Goodman Department stores dressing room when she bumped in she had the misfortune of bumping in to Donald Trump who she knew from around town she being an Esquire an Elle magazine editor her husband being a well-known newscaster, and Donald Trump being Donald Trump.

And living across the street from this particular department store as he was shopping for a gift reportedly for Marla Maples when he was still going out or romancing her. That whole dress issue was not necessarily like the Monica Lewinsky keeping of the blue dress, which she said had Bill Clinton's DNA on it and we'll leave it at that. This was just to show it was an emotional psychological issue for her that she did not want to get rid of the dress. She did not make the decision until much later in life and after she was allowed to by a

change in New York law, she was not initially going to bring her sexual assault by Donald Trump to light, even though in real time she told two witnesses, we call them outcry witnesses in our business and the law, which is given an added measure of credibility as evidence when somebody, if it happens in real time, close in time to the traumatic incident, and you tell someone, we call that outcry, as if you were being attacked on the side of the road, and Pastor Byes heard you cry out, that's an outcry witness. She had two legitimate, very credible witnesses, both being in the media, one being Carol Martin, who was on CBS News. I grew up with Carol Martin as my local news anchor,

and Lisa Birnbaum, who wrote, I think, the guide to being a preppy or preppy handbook. And so they testify that in real time that day, the issue that was disclosed, the dress and whether it should have been, quote unquote, tested for DNA that would have survived 30 years, was an issue before Judge Kaplan, the federal judge. Because Alina Jaba screwed up the issue, Judge Kaplan ultimately denied the DNA test, the requirement of a DNA test. Donald Trump would have had to provide his DNA in order for that to be tested, and he refused throughout missed deadlines all along the way. And the judge says, I've had enough.

And you're not at the last minute, right before trial, now gonna say you're willing to give us your DNA. That should have been done a year ago. So the dress doesn't come in. Nobody gets to mention the dress, but that is on Alina Haba. One of many professional malpractice screw ups by Alina Haba in various cases.

Joe Takapina, and I'm not here to defend Joe as a member of the New York bar, even though I could. Joe Takapina came in 90 days before trial. And I've taken over cases, I think you have too, Ben, where you basically have to wear somebody else's clothes because everything in the case is over, but you're being asked to try the case. But now he's got a scapegoat, Donald Trump, on the issue. The reason the dress never came up is because in the first trial,

Alina Haba made those evidentiary issues, mistakes, and the dress never came up. That was not the focus, and we'll talk now about the Second Circuit, the Second Circuit oral argument. How it works is Donald Trump took an appeal from one of two of the E. Jean Carroll cases. Everybody should recall, or if they don't, I'll tell them now,

there were two cases. The original case, Carroll one, is E. Jean Carroll suing before one jury, nine person jury, and she won nine zero. They found that she was sexually assaulted. They almost found that she was raped by Donald Trump, except for technicality in New York law at the time. They couldn't determine from the evidence that was presented whether how she was how she was penetrated, to use the lack of a better word, whether digitally with a finger or something else. And so they they left it at sexual assault, which is pretty is still pretty bad.

I mean, I would not want to go down in my history, have it written in my obituary or something else. And so they left it at sexual assault, which is still pretty bad. I mean, I would not want to go down in my history and have it written in my obituary that I technically raped somebody, but Donald Trump seems to have no problem with that. So the jury found that and awarded her economic damages and some punitive damages for a total of $5.5 million. Donald Trump appealed that, arguing all sorts of things.

The judge didn't like me. The judge allowed in evidence that he shouldn't have, including primarily the primary focus of the, if I understood it from having heard it, the primary focus of Trump's argument had nothing to do with the dress. That may have been news to Donald Trump who decided to attend that oral argument,

but the focus was on whether the other, what we call propensity witnesses, other witnesses that were similarly attacked by Donald Trump and the Access Hollywood clip that you talked about, the Hot Mic clip where Donald Trump in a production van with Billy Bush of Access Hollywood said exactly what he just said he never said before

at his press conference, which was, oh, I get to kiss women and jam my tongue down their throats because I'm a celebrity and I can grab them by the P word because I'm a celebrity and get away with it. That was the hot mic moment. It tanked Billy Bush's career. Donald Trump ended up getting elected president because we didn't know about it until the very, very end. That got played and two pieces of evidence got played. Natasha Stojanovic, who worked for People magazine, who was doing a puff piece about the new marriage of Donald and Melania. Visiting as soon as Melania left the room, she testified that Donald Trump pushed her up against the wall and tried to jam his tongue down his throat. That sounds familiar. And Jessica

Leeds, who had the misfortune of being given a first-class upgrade on a flight sitting next to a guy she had no idea who it was, but it turned out to be Donald Trump who eventually, according to her testimony in front of the jury, put his hands on her breasts and molested her. To which John Sauer, during the oral argument before the three-judge panel led by Judge Chen said, there wasn't a crime on the books back in that time for touching a woman on a plane. To which Robbie Kaplan, who is representing E. Jean Carroll said, it's always been a crime to sexually assault somebody on a plane now and then. I mean, that's their defense. He sexually assaulted her, but it wasn't technically

a crime. This is what Donald Trump is left with at this point. And that may be one of the reasons that Donald Trump's not happy with his legal talent because they make arguments like this. Chin also, to stay on the second circuit panel for a minute, I've been in front of a couple of those judges before, it was a hot bench. Sauer has a technique, I guess it's a technique. First of all, he sounds like if you gargled with broken glass and washed it down with a pot of bourbon, that's what John Sauer looks like. He's almost unlistening.

Now I know that he wants clerk for Judge Ludic, Judge Ludic, should have been Justice Ludic, Ludic, and I know he's allegedly smart, but when he's an oral advocate at the appellate level, he's terrible. He's almost unlistening. At one point, Judge Chin said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. Slow down when you're making your arguments because we can't follow them. Sauer almost thinks he's getting paid by the word. And he crams in, you know, 100 pounds of stuff into a 10 pound sack.

And I guess he thinks he's effective. It's so distracting. And there's so much that he vomits out that almost the appellate panel can't keep track. But they kept track because this was brief before. And so at the end, Denny Chen, who's probably going to write this opinion, you have to get a majority vote out of three on the panel, he said to him, look, everything that you seem to be complaining about seems to be focused on evidence and decisions that Lewis Kaplan, the trial judge made, the district judge made about evidence. But you'll have to acknowledge, won't you, sir, that when it comes to evidence, that is something that we give wide berth to the trial judge on an abusive discretion standard, which is very hard to overcome. We let them run their courtroom and evidence decisions in real

time. And it's going to be an uphill battle for you to tell me that this evidence made a difference and or was necessary to the verdict and or even it should have been precluded. I mean, when Robbie Kaplan argued, and she got some hot questions too, it wasn't like there wasn't a hot bench for both of them, but it just on balance,

it was definitely a turbulent bench for both of them, but it just on balance, it was definitely a turbulent bench for John Sowers. And we're going to get a decision there. I'm a betting man, betting person. They are not going to order a new trial, which is what they asked for. They're not going to vacate the decision. They're not going to chastise Lewis Kaplan. They're going to deny the appeal, dismiss the appeal ultimately. And it does dovetail to the second case, the Carroll II case, in which he's facing an $88 million, now almost $100 million with interest, judgment brought by a second jury in New York, also nine zero against Donald Trump. They're all 9-0, 12-0, 9-0. I did the math the other day on a hot take.

It's like 54 to 0 in jurors against Donald Trump, state and federally, criminally and civilly in the last two years. And that doesn't include grand juries. Seriously, he's never won. He acts like it was Joe Takapena's fault. Joe Takapena didn't lose the federal criminal case for tax evasion against his companies. Joe Takapina didn't lose the 34 felony count conviction. Joe Takapina didn't get him indicted in all these other places. The only person that Donald Trump has to blame for that is Donald Trump. And so we're going to get a decision probably in four to six months from the Second Circuit

panel. If anything, Takapina probably did the best of any of Trump's lawyers. He was probably right. Right. If he told Donald Trump not to show up, I mean, look, Five million. Yeah, exactly. Trump to be found liable for sexual assault and defamation and only

have a $5 million verdict against you. Whereas the second case was just one or two defamatory, not just, but one or two defamatory statements. And now it was, you know, it's close to close to $100 million. Yeah. What's the big difference? Wait, wait, wait, don't leave. What was the big difference?

Trump testified in the second case, the jury hated him. And even though he had Todd Blanch, he got hit with an 80. They said, you don't like 5.5? How about 86 million? Well, remember, Alina Habbo was actually the one who was the lead lawyer in that second case. I want to take our first quick break of the show. Remind everybody about patreon.com slash legal AF. Next week, we'll do another partner associate meeting Michael Popok. You and I will be there with all the legal AFers. We'll come up with a day that works for both of our schedules.

So if you ever wanted to meet Michael Popok and support the growth of this independent media platform, patreon.com slash legal AF is the place to go. I want to thank of course all of our sponsors that also make this show possible. Don't go anywhere. We have a lot more show. Let's take our first break of the day. Look at my recording studio. You don't think I worry about window treatments? You don't think I care about privacy? Look at the windows behind me. I need window treatments. And now finally there's a better way to buy blinds and window treatments. It's called 3-Day Blinds.

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election and Justice Mershon explicitly says he's moving it because of the election and it's too close to the election. Um, but there here are just some of the maneuvering that was done. Donald Trump tried to remove the case to federal court before Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who was previously assigned the case when Donald Trump tried to remove the case for the first time back in 2023 in July, and it was rejected by Hellerstein in July of 2023. That's why that's the judge. When Trump tried it again, it went to judge Alvin Hellerstein.

First, he denied it on a technical ground. Donald Trump did not attach the certificate that was required to show that the judge gave consent and found a good cause for the removal and the district attorney never gave consent or an agreement to remove it to federal court. Trump cured the technical defect. And then very swiftly thereafter, Judge Hallerstein said, well, you've now cleared the technical defect,

but you haven't shown good cause, denied. You can't remove the state case to federal court. I'm bringing this up because Trump's whole plan of moving this to federal court was all about delaying the sentencing and removing it from Justice Mershon. So the fact that Justice Mershon has moved the sentencing date, not necessarily makes it fully moot what Trump was trying to do with these removals, but I'm trying to let you know what the strategy was here.

So then Donald Trump tries to ask Judge Hellerstein to stay all of the proceedings, federal and state, while Donald Trump appeals to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Hellerstein rejects that. Then Donald Trump goes to the Second Circuit to request emergency expedited hearing from the Court of Appeals. It would be a different panel than the panel, because different panels get randomly assigned to cases. So it would be a different panel than the panel

we just discussed that heard the E. Jean Carroll case, but it's that same appellate court, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, because they oversee New York Federal Court. So there's that going on. And then on Friday, Justice Mershon made the ruling, adjoining the sentencing. And you know, like Justice Mershon said in this, I asked the party's positions, the Manhattan district attorney's office kind of punted and they claim

they were taking no position, but by acknowledging that Donald Trump, because these issues that are still before the court, because Trump is raising the issue of absolute immunity based on what the Supreme Court recently decided in creating a new law, this absolute immunity doctrine, that Trump could take an interlocutory appeal, meaning an immediate emergency appeal to the state appellate division, not the federal, the state appellate, that would automatically stay the sentencing anyway. And so if I, Judge Mershon, Justice Mershon, were to say, I'm going to have to rule on Trump's absolute immunity argument. And if you want me to, I don't know, try to organize my docket and continue the

hearing on the sentencing, say by a week or two, well, then that's going to be pushing my sentencing literally right against the election and given these unprecedented times, Justice Murchon said, I don't even want there to be an appearance of politicization, even though there is none, all of the accusations are frivolous. I don't even want an appearance of that. So I'm going to go and make a ruling on the issue of absolute immunity in November.

And then shortly thereafter, specifically November 12th. And then on November 26th, there will be sentencing taking place. That's what Justice Murchon ruled. Meanwhile, you still have this second circuit court of appeal in the federal system, now gonna be hearing Donald Trump's issues about removing it to federal court.

Um, but it's, it's less, I think, significant in the sense of there's no sentencing before the election. I'll give you my take, then pass it to you again, Popak. I mean, I'm, I'm thinking here that this is, you know, it, it feels like he was a little bit bullied in my view, you know, and you may think he's being strategic, but you know, I think they went after his daughter. They subpoenaed the daughter. They sued him.

They sued the daughter, all the magas, the house of, you know, the house magas, the trumps, you know, they put her photo out there, you know, and, and then when the district attorney's office did not take a definitive position, they even had to acknowledge that Trump now because of the Supreme court that Trump would still have this interlocutory right. Justice Marshawn's like, uh-uh, don't put this on me. You didn't take a position DA. I'm, I'm going to push this out until after the election.

I thought that was the driver of the decision. I'll give you a couple of quotes from the letter that I think support that theory. And I wanna ask Karen when she's on with me at Midweek about why she, we didn't really get into the nitty gritty. Now that we see it was such a driver of the decision by Judge Marchand to postpone. Well, I don't think at the end though, this is the strategic part or the glass, the hopium or the popachium or whatever we like to call it here. I don't think this is helpful at all to Donald

Trump. And I know the corporate media was like resounding wind for Donald Trump and delay of sentence. It's not that delayed. And it's still going to be, yes, it's after the election, but it's before the inauguration. And it leaves a overhang, which I'll go over, a shadow over him. One of the reasons that you want quick dispatch of jury verdicts in a public justice system and sentencing is that so people don't fill the vacuum with thoughts that are worse than the actual event. I mean, people could be thinking, oh, he's going away for 10 years.

And you know, Mershon, although I think this indicates he's going to sentence him to jail, I also think that's the indicator here for some jail period of time. And maybe a year or two in jail doesn't matter to people when they're voting on the MAGA on the right wing side. And maybe it does. I don't think he did him any great favors.

I think he cut off some avenues of appeal between now and then at the end of the day by also postponing and kicking the can on the immunity decision. Here's a couple of highlights for the letter that I thought for me were pertinent to my analysis. Firstly, it was the judge, as you said, saying, don't put this on me. If the Manhattan DA thought there Firstly, it was the judge, as you said, saying, don't put this on me.

If the Manhattan DA thought there was compelling reasons for me to sentence now, then they should have told me that. Because they haven't, it makes my job a lot easier than I can just factor in all of these other things. And I think with the maelstrom of things that the judge is on about the bullying part, but certainly the attacks on him and his ethics coupled with the notice of removal getting filed and an appeal being taken at or around the very same time. The recognition that the two days between the original immunity decision, which was supposed to come out on September 16th and the sentencing on the 18th may not have been sufficient amount of time, although set by Judge Bershaw to

allow for the obvious appeal that Donald Trump might have been taking. And then basically, what's the rush if the Manhattan DA doesn't think there's a rush? The judge tied two things together. He said, I have to sentence under New York law, under the criminal procedure law, CPL, I have to sentence without undue delay, but that comes after I've made the decision about immunity. So, if I kick the immunity decision, the pressure on me under the New York criminal law to sentence without undue delay, sort of I take the pressure off me, because I'm now going to postpone immunity decision till the 12th of November and the 26th.

That's going to be a fun time around the Trump Thanksgiving table. Two days before Thanksgiving, the Donald Trump is going to get is going to get sentenced. And he also said, at the end of his order, that Trump's motion to stop the Manhattan DA from filing on the docket their pre-sentencing memo, which is going to be the parade of horribles and the recommendation by the people about how much jail time Donald Trump should get. Right. We looked at 300 cases over the last 30 years in which people similarly convicted of similar counts, in this case 34 of them, of this particular statute got one to four years and outlining and then listing all the bad things Donald Trump did inside the courtroom,

outside the courtroom, in other cases and all of that. They were really worried about that. And the judge denied stopping the people from filing that. He just is going to seal it. So that's the signal. You better get your sentencing memos in. I'm going to protect you from the public for now. It'll be unsealed after I sentence you. That's why I think also in Rashaan's mind, he was already leaning towards incarceration. And he thought, you know what, if I'm going to do incarceration and stay it, and allow the appeal anyway, because I'm sure that was going to be the one, the one two step movie was going to do. Why don't I just since the Manhattan DA doesn't seem to mind,

kick it till after the election. I'll then incarcerate him. And I don't have to stay it. And he can go run off to the appellate court. Here's my two favorite lines from the, from the letter. This is how, for those that are joining late into New York practice, this is the way we practice in New York. Judges write letters, they become the orders in the case on stationary. We write letters to the judge,

a lot of dear your honor or your honor kind of letters, and then we get emails from judges about that are major decisions. No other court that I've practiced in front of does it quite this way. But here's the letter from Judge Murchon, which is actually his order. And here's my favorite part on page two,

he said, were this court at the second to last paragraph, were this court to decide after careful consideration of the Supreme Court's decision in Trump that this case should proceed, which he's going to deny the motion for immunity, immunity preclusion. It will be faced with one of the most critical and difficult decisions a trial court judge faces. And I leaned in on that one. I was like, oh, here we go. Sentencing a presidential candidate during the middle of an election. No, that's not what he wrote. He said it's one of

the most critical decisions. Sentencing of a defendant found guilty of crimes by a unanimous jury of his fears. He's like, he's from the Chutkin school. I don't want to hear about the election calendar, nor what the guy in front of me who's been convicted or indicted of crimes, what he does for a living or what he wants to do for a living, i.e. president or wants to be president. All I care about is the fair administration of justice. Same thing here with Judge Mershon, which is I've got the weighty decision of a unanimous conviction and how to sentence that person. And then he goes on to say, towards the end on the third page of his order, he's basically earlier lamenting in the decision, He's basically earlier lamenting in the decision. I should have just sentenced him in July, which would have avoided the whole timing issue.

We're now 40 something days till the trial or whatever it is. But I couldn't because on July 1, there was this immunity decision by the United States Supreme Court that I have to address. I mean, I'm bound by it and how it maps on or applies to this particular case. So I couldn't sentence on the 16th. So I pushed it all off to an appropriate time. And now there's complaints, but the other side, Manhattan D.A. doesn't seem to be complaining about a further delay. I think it's the smart move by Mershawn. I think my boil away of this, my takeaway on this is Judge Mershawn knew he was going to, he's likely to incarcerate Donald Trump or recommend incarceration, you know, sentenced into incarceration jail time.

He didn't want to do it right now and then stay it and have that be a deciding factor for the electorate before they go into the polls and vote. Since the Manhattan DA didn't oppose it, he's telling everybody, get your sentencing memos in because I am sentencing because I also think he's going to be denying that motion for immunity, preclusion or immunity defense and dismissal on the 12th of November, a very busy November. The only thing is there's going to be the shadow on Donald Trump. He goes into the debate on Tuesday as a convicted felon, as an indicted defendant and multiply indicted

defendant who hasn't yet been sentenced and Kamala can make the argument that he should go to weigh for a long, long time, lock him up in jail. And there's no avenue for appeal in the interim between now and Tuesday or now and even November 5th. It's sort of been cut off by Mershon. One last comment about the federal two-step. Donald Trump tried to jump the tracks, pull the emergency brake on the state court case to stop the sentencing. That, as Ben, you've outlined, I've outlined, has been stopped already, postponed already by

the trial judge. But the issue of whether the entire case should get over to the federal judge for a federal judge to make the ultimate decision, which is not what Trump really wants. He doesn't want Judge Hellerstein, who's been terrible for him to date because he's been applying the law against Donald Trump. He doesn't want Judge Hellerstein. He doesn't want the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that we talked about earlier, the E. Jean Carroll case. He wants the US Supreme Court to make a decision about their own immunity and this garden variety prosecution that he was on the losing end of. And so he rather than it's almost impossible to take it up through the

appellate process in state court and then jump the tracks to the Supreme Court. So he's trying to lateral over to the feds, just like Mark Meadows has been trying to do in Georgia, along with the other defendants and Fonny Willis's case. And that's going to be up before the Supreme court this coming term, whether that's allowable or not out of the 11th circuit. So that's what we're watching. And with the hearing, that's going to be the day of the debate, which again, advantage Kamala Harris, if we're, if we're, if we're scoring at home is, there's a three judge panel.

It's, it's, uh, Myrnarna Perez, who before she became a judge was the head of the voting rights project at the Brennan Center, a progressive Democrat, was never a judge before, but is now on the Second Circuit, and she focuses on voting rights. Judge Nathan, who was in Obama's White House as an associate White House counsel working for Obama, so nobody on that panel knows president's immunity and presidential politics better than Judge Nathan, although she just recently got on, and the chief judge of the Second Circuit, who in the past has helped out Donald Trump about his tax returns, but I think she gets outvoted two to one by this panel.

The only question, and not to get too deep into the weeds, although that's what I think our audience and our legal AF, Patreon people like, is that the question for me is, is the Tuesday hearing gonna be about the merits of the removal or just about the stay? And if it's just about the stay to round out the segment, I think that's sort of been almost mooted by the fact

that the judge has stayed himself. So if they don't take up the merits, which they may not, they may say, we're not the merits panel, we're the stay panel. Then I think it's another lose loss for Donald Trump and the headwinds of that as he goes in to the debate. Last comment on the debate. I know one person who's getting ready for the debate and her name is Kamala Harris. They're bringing in Anita Dunn and everybody else that's prepped every other candidate for Democrats. She's a

prosecutor. You and I do opening statements and closing arguments for a living. I know what I know what that trial binder, that debate binder that she's working from looks like. They've got all the clips of Donald Trump. They got Hillary Clinton, and I'm sure they've watched her debates with Donald Trump six ways to Sunday. And Donald Trump is less disciplined, if that's the right term, than he ever was with Hillary Clinton. And they got to find ways to trigger him and bring it up a losing week at all these different cases by an effective prosecutor in chief in Kamala Harris is one way to do

it. Can't wait to talk about federal Judge Tonya Chutkin's hearing because there were fireworks there. We've got a lot more to discuss on that. Let's take our last quick break of the show. Support for today's episode comes from one skin. Did you know that your body starts accumulating senescent cells as early as your 20s? They're also called zombie cells and these cells stop producing collagen and hyaluronic acid like they used to and they start secreting an inflammatory substance that makes neighboring cells dysfunctional too. There is an answer for these zombie cells though and it comes from our

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So Michael Popok, a big hearing in the Washington DC federal criminal case against Donald Trump, a superseding indictment was recently unsealed. Special counsel, Jack Smith, and paneled a grand jury in secret that reindicted Donald Trump with some slight tweaks in how the indictment was pled, some different language, if you will, to conform to the Supreme Court's ruling on absolute presidential immunity. I mean, look, Donald Trump appointed three right wing Supreme Court justices who teamed up with the other far right wing Supreme Court justices. And they've made a lot of chaotic rulings and you can argue which one is

the worst of the rulings. This, uh, six super majority, uh, Supreme Court justices have done, but arguably this is the most egregious saying that there are Kings and monarchs and people are above the law. If you can say there's core constitutional functions or official acts, and they even gave Donald Trump an evidentiary immunity as well. When Trump wasn't even asking for that, that you can't even introduce these things into evidence. So special counsel, Jack Smith, it impacted that case, right?

It impacted the New York case that we talked about earlier as well, since the Supreme court came up with this evidentiary immunity concept. And so if you introduce evidence of things that happen while Trump is in the White House, can that require a new trial in New York? Is that harmless error or is that reversible error? That's the issues that are before Justice Marchand in New York and here in Washington, DC, the issues are more along the lines of Jack Smith having to frame this indictment in terms of Donald Trump is a citizen, he's a candidate.

And he did this not in his official capacity, but in a unofficial, non presidential capacity to try to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. So, Jack Smith knows that Donald Trump's going to bring this motion to dismiss again. Everybody knows that following the Supreme Court's ruling and based on how this superseding indictment is pled. So Jack Smith wants to be very efficient about it. So Jack Smith was saying to Judge Chutkin, here's an expedited briefing

schedule that we should follow. Donald Trump was saying, yeah, let's not expedite this. Maybe we deal with whether there is a legitimacy behind the special counsel. Like Judge Cannon made the ruling that special counsels are unconstitutional only as they relate to Donald Trump. They're apparently constitutional when they're prosecuting Hunter Biden, because that's fine. But when they're against Trump, special counsels are eliminated. So Judge Chuckin, can you maybe look at that first? And then maybe later we'll get to the

absolute immunity issue, which I think we talked about in the last Legal AF. You could obviously tell what gamesmanship that is, because if you truly thought you had immunity, wouldn't you want immunity to be addressed right away? Would you want to, if you were accused of something and you believed you were immune, would you want to be like, yeah, let's save immunity for 2025. Let's deal with some other issues first. That's kind of what Donald Trump was arguing. So the parties went before Judge Tonya Chutkin. It was like the first time they were before Judge Tonya Chutkin.

Jack Smith's team, Tom Wyndham on behalf of the DOJ, John Morrow and others for Donald Trump. First time they were in front of judge Tonya Chuck in and about, but since December of 2023, when there was a hearing on Trump's motion that she denied before it went through the Supreme court and all of these delays took place. So Pope, why don't I hand it to you? Tell us what went down at this hearing and what was the order by Judge Tanya Chukin? What's the import of that in terms of the filings?

Yeah, we waited eight months for this hearing. A lot of orders in between getting us here. The judge was working overtime last month, once the case got returned to her by the United States Supreme Court in a mandate. She had some work to do. She did some chopping some wood beforehand and denied some motions, set some briefing schedules. We know that Jack Smith asked for three-week extension to turn it as midterm, turn it as term paper. The judge says, all right, it seems to be no objection to that. We'll give you the three weeks. Then Jack Smith went out and went to a sitting grand jury and got a superseding indictment

in the interim to defend the superseding indictment against the immunity decision by the Supreme Court, not his original indictment. This hearing did not go well for Donald Trump, not just because Judge Chutkin basically adopted, as you and I predicted and I predicted on a hot take, the entirety, virtually the entire schedule and scheduling process logistically that was proposed by the special counsel through Tom Wyndham was adopted by the judge, including letting the prosecutor go first to defend the indictment against the immunity decision, which is a little bit unorthodox.

Usually a motion dismissed goes first by the defense, and it gives an extra brief to the prosecution. But she went that direction. Donald Trump said before the hearing, why don't we schedule all this out so it's in late 2025, like beyond even the inauguration. Maybe we never get to it. And the judge was like, no, we're going to go with the briefing schedule ultimately that the prosecutors proposed. And the reason is, and I wrote a note on this, she didn't quite say it this way, but this is the imagery I had in my head. She wants at high velocity to get to that brick wall at the end of the road. What I mean by that is she admitted, as we all knew,

that the loser of any of her rulings about immunity, or the person that comes in second, Trump or the prosecutors, are going to take an appeal. And the quicker we get the trial court decision making done, appropriately, but expeditiously and quickly, the quicker the party can take the DC Court of Appeals' appeal, which we know takes a month or two months or three months, depending upon what's going on in their lives, and then up to the United States Supreme Court to see

if she did it right. So rather than stretch out all of her proceedings so that the inevitable, as she admitted, the inevitable immunity decision we're all hurtling towards gets made like in the 2026, let me get my work done here with the lawyers here quickly. So she set all these dates that we talked about earlier. She wants the first brief to be the prosecutor's brief, which is a bad, bad look for Donald Trump

as the prosecutor has said, in the brief, which means filed on the public docket, which means you, me, Karen, and the rest of the network get our hot little hands on it on the 26th of September, in which they're going to put up new evidence that we've, they're going to air new evidence that we've never seen before. And Donald Trump hasn't seen before. I mean, it's somewhere buried in the discovery he's been given, but he doesn't know how it was going to be used and all in an effort by the prosecutors to defend

their superseding new indictment from a new grand jury against the immunity decision, arguing that none of the facts, none of the evidence that they plan on using at the trial falls into any of the immunity buckets. And if they do, that they'll be able to rebut the presumption of immunity or it's not immune from prosecution. The evidence or the acts, anything that's listed in the new superseding indictments. First brief is the 26th of September. Actually, the first issue will be on the 19th of September when Donald Trump has to finish up his arguments about why he's entitled

to more discovery, more data and documents and information and witness statements from the special prosecutor. She wants him to conclude his discovery motion practice on the 19th. Again, this is Judge Chutkin effectively adopting the prosecutor's position that all of these issues should be done simultaneously so that when she makes the immunity decision, wink wink, nod nod against Donald Trump and the superseding indictment survives, that may go off on appeal but everything else is sort of done in the case and can go up on an omnibus an omnibus appeal almost at the same time rather than sequentially which is what Donald Trump wanted right he rather than concurrently he wanted it

sequentially like well let's do immunity first, and then we're gonna file the motion to say that, if that survives that, then we'll turn to Jack Smith being illegitimate, and then we'll file our motion to dismiss, and we'll do all that seriatim, and we'll be in 2026 by the time that's over. Judge says, no, you're all taking appeals.

Let me get my work done quickly. I'll adopt their schedule. That sounds like a good idea. That immunity briefing by the government is you're in my, we refer to it sometimes internally as prime rib, prime roast. We can't wait to get our hands. I'm gonna put my napkin around my neck

and a knife and fork and so are you. We're gonna dive into that. There's gonna be a whole bunch of new stuff, some of which we may have sensed from the Jan 6th report that was issued. But some of it, we probably have never heard of before in our lives. And we'll hear about it for the first time, which means the electorate and the voting public on the 26th of September, while voting registration and early voting is both still going on, will be out in the ether, out in the water supply for voters. Really, really important. It's not the mini

trial that I never thought they were going to do, but if they feel they got to defend their evidence against the aspect of the immunity decision of the Supreme Court that goes towards evidence. Then we've got the two, that's one golden nugget, as I talked about it in a hot take. The second one is this back and forth, this cat and mouse between John Lauro, and I can't for the life of me know why they brought him out of mothballs to argue here. John Lauro is a Florida criminal defense lawyer. At best, I thought I would have seen him in the Mar-a-Lago case. But I guess since the Mar-a-Lago case has gotten dismissed and is on appeal, there was nothing for him to do. And maybe they thought people like Todd Blanche and Emil Bové are tied

up in some other issues with sentencing, and they wanted to try a new voice in front of Judge Shetkin. So they brought out John Loro, not to be confused with John Sorrow, who's a wholly different appellate lawyer that we talked about at the top of today's podcast arguing as an appellate lawyer for Donald Trump in New York. Loro comes out and I don't know if he's rusty or he just hasn't advocated for Donald Trump recently, but he's had some really stupid shit out loud. That's a term of art we talk about on patreon.com or patreon.com legal AF and patreon. For instance, when he said, well, judge, we're going to file a motion to disqualify and find illegitimate the prosecutor under the appointments clause of the US Constitution, just like Judge Cannon's ruling that just came out. And there, the judge kind of sat back, you know, this is people that were in the courtroom, kind of sat

back with their hands folded and set a version of, I didn't find Judge Cannon's ruling particularly persuasive. And I think it's again, it is against the weight of precedent in my, my bosses at the DC Court of Appeals, the United States Supreme Court. That's that higher archical, United States Supreme Court, that's that hierarchical jurisprudence or starry decisis that the Department of Justice has complained, the judge can and ignored, which means in simple terms, she's ignored the rulings of her bosses in making her decision. They work within a hierarchy of appellate courts above them, which of course Cannon ignored. So the Cannon motion, what I call it, she basically laughed out of court. He can file it, but you already see he's climbing Mount Everest without oxygen with Judge Cannon,

to which he decided he needed to double down on it and reinforce it and show that he had some credibility by saying, well, Judge Justice Thomas invited us to file that motion. She said, excuse me? Justice Thomas invited you? But what he's referring to is in his concurrence, and for no other reason, because he didn't have to write a concurrence. It is two page concurrence. He set the table for Judge Cannon basically improperly. He did two things improperly. He communicated to the parties where he stood on a certain issue that could be in front of him in the future, which is a violation of his ethical duties as a judge. You're not supposed to signal to parties who may have a matter in front of you in the future

about what your position is before you've rendered your position. But instead, he laid out the strategy. He said, file the motion. I think the issue of the legitimacy of the appointment of the special prosecutor is one that should be addressed because he's a stranger to the case. Why is he even prosecuting this case? And how is he funded? Nobody else on that Supreme Court, even Alito, even Gorsuch,

who regularly sides with Clarence Thomas, even they were like staring at their shoelaces like, hmm, we're not siding with them on that one. And what did they do? That was the signal. You and I talked about it in hot takes as improper messaging by Clarence Thomas to both Donald Trump and to Judge Cannon, who sat down at the table that was set by Justice Thomas,

put on her little napkin and knife and fork and had a meal and decided that was a great idea and found for the first time in federal jurisprudential history that a special prosecutor, special counsel, whatever you want to call it, is an invalid exercise of inferior office appointment by the Department of Justice head, the attorney general, even against the weight of United States Supreme Court president from 1974 in a case involving Richard Nixon. So she said, you're telling me that Thomas communicated with you? Well, that's a figure of speech. What I meant is it was an invitation that we accepted. Right. That is exactly what should not have happened. And it is a signal by Justice

Thomas before he gets the case in front of him about where he stands. That's a cardinal sin of judges and it's yet another in a heaping pile of ethical violations by Justice Thomas that have happened. The end result of this hearing, terrible for Donald Trump. Evidence that wasn't known to the American public and the voting public is going to be made public on the 26th of September. Donald Trump's going to probably lose some motions along the way with Judge Chuckin at the rate he's going. There's going to be another brief by the Feds on the 17th of October with more evidence after they see Donald Trump's brief. So two bites at the apple by the prosecutors because Chuckin allowed them to go first. That's terrible. She adopted their expedited briefing schedule. Terrible, but great for the American people and the American electorate because I've always said, I don't care which side of the aisle you're on. I don't care about red versus blue. I care about

red, white and blue. And the American people should know before they go behind that curtain, electronic or otherwise, and pull that lever, who and what they are voting for. Data and knowledge is power. The more knowledge they have coming out of the criminal justice system and the civil justice system that we just spent an hour and 10 minutes talking about, the better for the American people. Let them decide.

I put my faith and trust in the American people to make the right decision, especially now that the other choice is the only choice, which is the one party who's the protector of the rule of law in our constitutional republic. You know, in the court system, it's all about data, admissible data, referred to as evidence. And when juries, going back to your point, Michael Popak, have heard the evidence against Donald Trump in the environment, sterile environment, if you will, of the court where all of the propaganda is removed.

Right? Our legal system is about admissible evidence, not the crap, not the lies, not the hearsay, not the propaganda. Boom. Give me the facts before the jury. Unanimous jury after unanimous jury. If you factor in the grand juries that have been indicted in addition to the juries that have convicted, you know, when you have polls, right, I mean they take samples of hundred, three hundred, two thousand ten thousand people but just imagine a poll where quite literally a hundred hundreds of citizens now if you factor in the grand jury special. You know the jury's have come together and essentially have unanimously found that don Trump is a criminal or that Donald Trump is liable for sexual assault, liable for these civil cases

over and over again, when they're given the data, it is incumbent upon us. We, the people to make sure that Americans get the data that just like the jury gets admissible evidence that we are making sure that the American people are armed with the data that just like the jury gets admissible evidence that we are making sure that the American people are armed with the data. There are so many ops, thigh ops that are out there that the right wing is running right now.

Whether it's RFK wants to be on the ballot in these states, but not on the ballot in these states. Whether it's Fox and all these right-wing propaganda networks, spewing all of that, whether it, we didn't talk about it on this show, but I'll just give a hat tip to it right now. The department of justice, indicting Russian nationals for using an American media company as a front for Russian disinformation to use right wing influencers to divide we the people and spread Russian propaganda. What a compelling indictment, detailed facts, but even with an indictment like that, Fox

comes out and like mocks it. Russia, Russia, Russia. Here we go again. Democrats are weaponizing the justice system. Oh, they're claiming that Russia's the reason for all of these. I mean, that would be like during Watergate, if you had a media network out there going,

Watergate, Watergate, Watergate, breakin', breakin', breakin', looks like the DOJ's being weaponized against Nixon. But that is exactly what Roger Ailes wanted when he created the concept of Fox and found a Australian billionaire in Rupert Murdoch. They created this entity together and now there's been so many models like that, right-wing media models that have spread these lies and disinformation. So the best way to deal with that is by putting out

the facts and the truth. And my view is that facts and truth aren't liberal or progressive or conservative. They should just be the facts. And that's what we try to cultivate here at the Midas Touch Network, an audience of informed viewers, pro-democracy viewers. And that is what we are going to be focused on here each and every day. So with that, I wanna thank everybody for watching Michael Popok.

Always great spending these weekends with you. I want to remind everybody to hit subscribe. Let's get to 4 million subscribers. Subscribe to Legal AF also wherever you get your audio podcasts. You know, you can listen to this in the car when you're jogging, if you're on the bus or a train or plane or wherever, download the audio podcast, you know, you can listen to this in the car, when you're jogging, if you're on the bus or a train or plane or wherever, download the audio podcast search Legal AF.

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