Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump KEEPS LOSING in EVERY Court, DESPERATION GROWS
Episode Date: November 16, 2023Michael Popok & Karen Friedman Agnifilo are back with a new episode of the midweek edition of the Legal AF pod. On this episode, they debate: developments in the NY Civil Fraud case against Trump and... others, with Trump attacking the law clerk (again) in a new motion for mistrial and Don Jr. taking the stand again; developments in the Georgia Election Interference case against Trump in others, with a lawyer confessing that he leaked the video proffers of convicted criminals and former Trump lawyers, Sydney Powell and Jena Ellis, and the likely trial date of the Trump Georgia trial; updates in the DC Election Interference case with the DC Court of Appeals about to rule on whether Trump should be gagged; and more from the intersection of law, politics and justice. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSOR! LOMI: Visit https://Lomi.com/LEGALAF and use code LEGALAF and checkout to save $50! MIRACLE MADE: Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shop NEW LEGAL AF Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Renewed attacks on Judge Angoran's Law Clerk are featured prominently in a brand new
motion for Miss Trial filed today by Trump and the New York Civil Fraud case.
Is it a violation of the gag order against attacking the Law Clerk or does it just skate by?
Is there any merit to the motion for Miss Trial?
And what are the chances to trial judge, and later the appellate court will rule for Trump
as the case continues into its seventh week. And why did Trump pick Don Jr. to be his lead off
road map witness and why did the judge declare that most of his testimony was irrelevant?
The mystery of who leaked to the media, the Georgia Fulton County DA proper videos of all those lawyers that got convicted
and why it was done has been solved by a hearing today
with presiding judge Scott McAfee on the district attorney's
emergency motion for protective order. Why did someone confess
during the video hearing and what did judge McAfee let slip about
his inner thoughts about having
to be the trial judge in the case.
And earlier in the week, the district attorney revealed in a TV interview that she does not
see her case against Trump going to trial any earlier than early spring with no chance
that it concludes before the presidential election.
What does that mean for the timing of Jack Smith's
DC election interference case,
the Mar-a-Lago obstruction and espionage case,
or even the Stormy Daniels hush money cover-up
business record fraud case in New York?
Speaking of the DC election interference case,
we are full steam ahead with Judge Chutkin,
presiding as she gets ready to pick the jury on time
for a March 2024 trial, while the DC Court of Appeals considers the special counsel's opposition
to Trump's appeal to permanently block the gag order from applying to him to allow more violent
rhetoric to continue. All of this and so much more that will pop into our head at the appropriate
time when we see the record light on this midweek edition of Legal AF with your co-acres,
Michael Pope-Bock and Karen Friedman-Ignifalo, Karen, DC, Florida, New York, Georgia, how many of
these criminal cases get tried in your view before the
November election? One. I say one, possibly two, but really one. We'll be lucky to
get one. Yeah, and what's your, I totally agree with you. What is your, people think we plan this one?
She had no idea that was coming. What is your second if there was a second? It would be Alvin Bragg's Stormy Daniel election interference case.
You and I, you know, they say people as they get to know each other and they grow old together,
they start to look alike and sound alike. It's so right. I so totally agree with you.
All right, well, that's a good way. That's a good opener for our first segment.
Let me just adjust my head as our producer likes to say. Line them up a little bit better. Of our first segment,
let's talk about New York. We were going to start the podcast talking about Don Jr. But then,
as often threatened, the Trump side finally got around a filing a motion for mistrial. There was
some clamor in the courtroom about a day or so ago
and some wild speculation that they were talking settlement
up at the front bench as the judge
and Goran likes to call his caucuses with the lawyers.
And I made it clear from practicing here
that I did not think that was a settlement discussion.
If that was going to be a settlement discussion,
that would take place in the courts chambers
away from prying eyes as well as ears.
But now we speculate that what was going on up at the front bench was a discussion about
the motion for mistrial being filed.
And Alina Habba making some sort of representation that it would be very delicate.
They were going to very delicately raise the issues because the judge was concerned that
they were going to violate the gag order by some of the things that they suggested
they were going to raise. I did a hot take on this particular filing, but now it's time
for Karen to weigh in. Karen, you've had an opportunity to read the 30 pages or so with
supporting affidavits. It's got to right here in my hot little hand of the motion for
mistrial and who features
prominently in it.
Well, for me, it's two things.
The concept I've never heard of and became a drinking game for me on my hot take of co-judge
that the principal law clerk is the co-judge.
They fell in love with that term.
They used it over and over again in the brief.
It really has no real meaning to me.
We'll talk about it.
And, of course, front and center is a frontal assault
on the lock clerk by name, by political donations,
by photo, in order to argue that there's some sort
of nefarious thing going on, because oh my God,
the principal lock clerk in New York sits next to the judge
and helps them do their job, which is to maintain continuity
and track seven.
No, it'll be 14 weeks of trial testimony and evidence and thousands of pages.
What if as if they expect the trial judge to just keep it all in his head before he renders
his opinion as the trial effect?
My one last comment for I turn it over to you.
The people on the Trump side who filed their affidavits,
trying to argue like there were some sort of experts
about New York procedure,
don't know what the heck they're talking about.
They've never tried a multiple week trial
in front of a judge in the New York Supreme Court,
because if they had, and I have,
you would know that he needs help front of a judge in the New York Supreme Court, because if they had, and I have,
you would know that he needs help
in keeping track of all the evidence
and all the record, the testimony, the transcript,
and that's the role of the principal law clerk.
Karen, what did you make, give your spin
and your hot take here about the filing,
and then what do you think the odds are
that either Angoran and or the
appellate court is going to find a mistrial because of the issues raised in the motion?
Yes, so let's just remind people what a what a motion for mistrial is. Is there a different
motions that that the defense will make? One is a motion for a directed verdict at the end of
the government's case, which is made after all of that evidence
is put on, and then they say, look, there is no evidence against me.
Can you dismiss it?
But another motion that you can make at any time, if you are a defense attorney, is a
mistrial motion.
And what you're basically saying is something went amiss.
That's really not a play on words.
I just made that up.
But it really is saying something isn't going right.
Something is prejudicial and that the trial,
something happened during the trial that makes it
so that it cannot go on.
Something just really inappropriate.
Now I can't get a fair trial.
You can also get a mistrial if,
if some hat for some reason someone gets sick
or a jury can't reach a verdict. There are many reasons for a mistrial if, if some hat for some reason someone gets sick or a jury can't reach
a verdict. There are many reasons for mistrial, but it means the trial has to end for whatever
hat, for whatever reason, it can't go on and you either, it is either dismissed with prejudice
or without prejudice. And so here they finally did the mistrial
motion that they said they were going to do. And they basically are saying this case should there should be a mistrial.
So this particular trial shouldn't continue and it should be with prejudice.
And it's because the judge and the clerk are biased against Trump.
And that's the kind of long shot legal maneuver
that they're hanging their hat on.
And you know, look, they're basically asking the judge
to say that the judge is biased
and that his clerk is biased.
So of course, that's never gonna happen
in a million years.
Whether or not they have made a sufficient record
for an appellate court, I highly doubt
they will see that as well. I think the judge has bent over backwards to be lenient in giving
a lot of leeway to the defense who has now started presenting their case. And I think
the judge will have shown there were lots of objections that the government made that the judge overruled in favor of Trump and the
Trumps, etc., the defense.
And I think there will be sufficient record that the judge and the clerk were not biased
against them.
But, you know, interestingly, what really stuck out here in my, was the fact that this mistrial motion that they made really seemed to have
at hominem attacks again on the clerk and gratuitous naming, including with photos of the clerk,
which, you know, my first reaction was this is clearly a violation of the gag order.
You know, the gag order that don't forget
that Trump has already been,
already been found to have violated twice
and one of the times, he was actually found not credible.
If you remember, he went outside
and he made a speech about the person sitting next
to the judge, you know, and that was clearly a violation
of the gag order. And the defense attorney
came in and said, no, no, they weren't referring to the law clerk. They were referring
to the witness. I think it was Michael Cohen at the time. And the judge said, no, no, no,
put, I want to put Donald Trump on the stand under oath. And he did, he testified under
oath. He said he meant Michael Cohen, not a lock clerk, and the
judge found him not credible and find him like $15,000, I think, total in these fines.
But it doesn't matter. They are, they don't seem to think that the gag order applies to
them. And they went on and on about how the evidence of bias is tangible and overwhelming
and it is tainted the proceedings. And you know, look, they went back into a high school alumni
news letter and they looked into the Lockheirks political donations, which interestingly I thought
when I first saw that, you know, Lockheirks aren't supposed to give political donations, but apparently
there's an exception because she's trying to run for judge.
And so apparently she's allowed to do that.
Now in New York, if she's running to be on the ticket for a judge, it's almost all democratic.
So it wouldn't be surprised if New York's very democratic. I wouldn't be surprised
if that were the case, but I don't know that that's, I don't see how anything they wrote
in there would be a basis for a mistrial, and I don't think that the appellate courts
who all have clerks by the way that help them. I don't think they're going to take lightly
to this. What about you? What do you think?
Yeah, I don't think the appellate court is going to take kindly, as you said, to Judge
Angoran or our entire, I'm going to defend now, you and I are New York barb members.
The entire New York State Supreme trial court system is under attack by outsiders who
don't know a darn thing about how things work here.
Chris Keisle works in Florida.
Alina Habba is a New Jersey lawyer that works out of a Regency co-sharing space in Manhattan.
It's not her primary office.
So she's not a New York lawyer.
She doesn't like head down to 60th Center Street on a regular basis, employer trade, and
Cliff Robert, the other lawyer that I think they lean on for New York practice, practices at a Long Island.
Nothing wrong with Long Island.
It's just not Manhattan.
And the fact that they don't understand the role of the principal law clerk in a long bench
trial where the judge is the trial of fact to manage the documents, to even forget
manage the documents.
As I said, in my my hot take, to go further
to say to the judge in terms of a human being, not artificial intelligence, but real
intelligence, to say to the judge that thing that Don Jr. just said this week doesn't comport with what he said two weeks ago
in the New York Attorney General Hadam on this stand and here are the two transcripts that show the mismatch judge.
Adam on the stand and here are the two transcripts that show the mismatch judge. That's not advocacy.
That's not co-judging.
That's being a proper law clerk.
Just like when my law clerk's working for me, and I'm in a courtroom because it takes
a village to put on a trial and alone to side a trial, hands me the right document at the
right time for the right witness.
It's not, oh, the, the Michael Popock's Law Clerk
is co-leurying.
No, they're doing their job to assist the professional.
These are power professional positions.
And the Law Clerk has a defined role
that's completely different than in most places.
And a lot of, as I said on a hot take,
at a real court, they have Law clerks who generally
just came out of law school or recently had a practice. They're usually members of the bar and they work for a couple of years for that particular judge
They write a lot of the orders. It would be the equivalent of you and me in federal court saying we object to the law clerk for the federal judge
Writing the first draft of the order the judge should be doing that. Oh my God. And making everything that's ordinary and mundane sound nefarious, which is what they're
doing here in their attacking brief.
And I agree with you.
I think that the ridiculous criticism of how and Goron is running his courtroom consistent
with New York practice, the principal law clerk is different than in most states here in
New York.
Every principal law clerk is a lawyer.
This principal Locklark was a senior trial lawyer for the Corporation Council of the City
of New York, meaning she was the municipal lawyer doing civil litigation.
She's very skilled.
She didn't get the judge ship this time.
She'll probably based on Donald Trump will probably give her enough brand pump that she'll get the election
next time.
But they're not, I haven't observed a darn thing that's inconsistent with my experience
in these courtrooms.
And they're, but everything to them is, oh, she sits next to the judge.
Every staff sits next to the judge.
Could be the bailiff, could be the deputy, could be the clerk, could be the law, the principal law clerk.
They all sit there. It doesn't make them a co-judge. That's what that's he's not like he's not sharing his chair
There is another desk up there that was built for a reason and so with them when the first department gets this
It's gonna be a whole lot of
Well, I'll use an example from my own career. I once had a judge who with my opponent who loved this one piece of evidence in this case
and fell in love with it and kept bringing it up at every hearing.
And finally, at summary judgment, they lowered the lights and they put on this presentation,
this PowerPoint presentation, featuring this key piece of evidence, sort of like the
attack on the Lawler.
And then they were all breathless about it.
Oh my God, judges, the worst thing.
And the lights came up and the judge, like Judge Engoron, looked at my opponents and said,
tell me that's not your entire case.
Tell me you have more than that.
And you could just hear the deflation.
It was like somebody popped a balloon, psh, in art.
And they ended up losing the trial.
This was a preacher, like now, like a pre-hearing issue.
The first department is going to hate the attacks
on the law clerk and on the judge.
And it's going to deny this.
And nothing is going to stop the completion of this trial
sometime before Christmas.
And then the person they're
attacking, the two people they're attacking, we're not going to get replaced, are going
to write the decision, likely, as you and I talked about last week, to nail Trump for at least
five out of six of the remaining fraud counts and then take away his buildings, his real
estate, his houses and his money.
And so I don't think this is a great place to be if you're the defendant to be attacking
the judge and then hoping you get a reversal from the first department, or ultimately the
court of appeals, the highest court in New York, based on something this judge did wrong.
If you're banking on that, you're going to lose your company.
I have a question, Popeye. Sorry, little frog in my throat. you're banking on that, you're going to lose your company.
I have a question.
Popo.
Sorry, little frog in my throat.
I have a question.
You said I have, you said, you started this with,
I have to defend our New York court practice.
So unlike me, who's really spent their career in New York,
you have you practiced in Florida and other places.
Are you saying that the practice of law clerks really aren't?
I just assumed that's everywhere because that's so entrenched and ingrained in New York practice.
I just assumed that's what all courts and judges do. Is that not interesting?
Okay. Well, I'll give you an example. I learned something every episode.
I'll give me two from you. I give you an example of Florida, because I practice a lot in Florida,
practice there for 20 years in practice here,
for 30 years, and so Chris Kaisenair
sort of have a similar background in that.
In Florida, in the trial level,
there is no principal law clerk.
There is a, there's no clerk.
There's no, most judges don't take on a clerk from a law school.
They have what's called a judicial assistant or a J.A.
They are a paralegal or administrative person.
That is like a, it's like a air traffic controller.
Controls all the scheduling and the briefs.
Now, you got to make sure you're on the right side of the J.A.
Or you're not going to get that emergency hearing that you need.
Or you got to get that briefing to the judge and it's a little bit later, it's missing something and they're the gatekeeper for the judge.
But other than a different title, what is the difference?
In other words, it sounds like it.
They're not right.
Well, they're only doing the administrative things that I just outlined.
The J.A. in Florida is not writing first drafts of opinions.
It's not sitting with the judge and handing notes in generally
and saying that guy there he said something different three weeks ago. You know the judge is
sort of on their own and they don't rely on the J.A. for that. In federal court it's a little
bit closer, you know, as you know, in federal court the law clerk which is not a lawyer
is usually a law student who just graduated and has this plum position that they want this
federal clerkship, they take notes during all of the hearings or trials.
The judge will often ask them, like Judge Engoron is doing at a break or even during the
trial.
That last comment that that person, is that consistent with what the appraisers said
two days ago?
Wasn't there a document?
Oh, yes, Judge Holdon, there wasn't exhibit.
That's the clerk.
And the clerk will often write the first draft
of the decisions by the judge.
And I know a lot of law clerks,
and they will tell you very little of what I wrote
got changed by the judge.
He'll say, I want the ruling to be in favor
of the plaintiff on this issue.
Go right to go right to decision.
And they write the decision.
And then the judge said, okay, his major or her major addition to it is adding the signature.
So that's the federal law clerk system.
New York is sort of a high bread.
The principal law clerk is not a co-judge, but handles almost like a federal magistrate.
Handles a lot of the discovery and pre you rarely see your judge
Until way late in the case on some major issue until then your quote unquote judge is your principal locklark Who meets with you who sits and tries to decide on discovery disputes that deposition scheduling very little gets through to the judge
Except major major issues
But if you don't treat that person like they are a judge,
and a lot of them become judges,
that is a stepping stone in New York to becoming a judge.
Principal Law Clerk.
I'm in front of a judge right now in the commercial division.
Her last job was Principal Law Clerk.
So they have a unique role that sort of federal magistrate,
sort of federal law clerk, a little bit administrative,
but not co-judge. And so all they're pointing out is their ignorance, the Trump side,
about what that role of that position is in a civil practice or even criminal in New York State
Supreme Court. Did I get that? Did I answer that? I answered that. You did, no, it's fascinating,
actually. It's fascinating. I find it fascinating. You can have
in practice in multiple jurisdictions around, but it is unique.
I mean, if people who don't know principal, Locklark, New York, just don't get it.
And they don't want to get it. They want to point out the obvious.
It's like the old Casablanca, when they were astonished that there was gambling going on in the casino.
Oh, there's gambling going on. You know, same thing here. If any
New York lawyer worth assault standing next to these two, he would say, you can't make these
arguments. All you're doing is commenting on normal garden variety New York practice.
Exactly. Yeah. So, so much other things have been going on in this case too this week.
Yeah. Talk about Don Jr. What you think about six hours of hearing about how Grand Pappy
Trump built brothels in Canada, in the Yukon, who cares?
I'll start it this way.
Don Jr. for me, disqualified himself as a precipitant witness with knowledge about anything relevant
to the case, which is a defined time period and the use of fraudulent or
Cooked statements of financial conditions by his father because he kept saying I don't know I'm a I'm
I swear I hire other people I don't I wasn't involved with that. I didn't know I don't know how much that's worth
I didn't was involved with the appraisal. So what's he doing being the number one witness?
Which is usually your best witness, your
rope map witness, why him, and how effective was that, Karen?
Well, I think they wanted to try to charm the judge and get out all the things that Trump
senior wanted to get out, but was unable to, because it was largely irrelevant to the
case, most of what Don Jr. did and said on the stand.
And, but the judge allowed it. He the judge said, you know what, I'm letting them try
their case. I'm going to let them put in as much as they want to put in. And I think
they're going to be hard pressed to say that he was biased against the Trumps or against
the defense, given how much leeway he gave them and how much irrelevant stuff that they gave him.
I'll start by saying he is creepy AF. Okay. I read about what the way he thinks he's charming,
but in the grossest way. Okay. Apparently he said to the sketch artists who are like the nicest, I know most of the New York sketch artists,
they're the nicest women, they work really hard,
and he walks up to them and he's like,
hey, you know, make me look sexy.
I'm like, ew, like why do women have to deal with that?
Why do women have to like hear men talk like that to them?
As if that's somehow charming.
And another time he was the sexy word again,
another time I can the sexy word again, another time, I can't
remember in what context because I was so grossed out by him. He's just so like just creepy,
you know, but anyway, apparently he was quite charming and, you know, the judge thought he was,
he was a showman, if you will, but let him do what he wanted to do. And he was like a commercial for his family.
He was, you know, my father's an artist.
My father can take a swamp and see the vision.
My father invented the luxury apartment building
and invented combining hotels with apartments
in the same building and putting gyms in there.
I mean, maybe his father did, I don't know,
but, you know, he's a visionary and he invented everything.
And the judge let him do it.
I mean, I thought it was a little,
it was telling that one of the things they put into evidence
was their marketing materials that had lies in it.
It had that 40 Wall Street was I think 73 stories high
when it's only like 60
something, like 61 or 62 stories high, something like that. They just they lie so
much they can't keep track of them. They don't even know what are lies anymore
because just everything they do is so just off the top of their head, however
they want to do anything. And you know, it's just interesting how it's clear that the way he just reveres his father.
And I just, again, I don't know how that really helps the case very much, other than it was much more of the finger pointing towards others.
You know, why nothing to do with it. If there were mistakes, it's the experts that relied on it.
But, you know, look, the meat and potatoes part of the trial is also starting
to happen, right? I mean, they put on what an expert witness today. You know, this name is
Whitcoff or something like that. He's like this big, huge New York real estate guy who met Trump
in the 80s and I guess Trump didn't have any
money so he bought him a sandwich. I don't know. He's every building in New
York, especially the Lower Manhattan, where I'm very familiar with that area.
He apparently is the guy who built everything, right? He's like the rival
Trump in New York, but unlike Trump, I've never even heard of him. I don't know
his name. I can't even remember of him. I don't know his name.
I can't even remember his name. I'm sure at it. He's not that big. He also was a lawyer that
represented Trump back in the day. All right. Well, what's his name? Whitcuff. Whitcuff.
Oh, I just got it. Yeah, he's got it. He's not that big. He thinks he's a he's not that big.
Didn't he? Does he like own the Woolworth building or something? I mean,
I mean, he's like a little, a little mean, like a little mini-Trump, but.
Yeah, but unlike Trump, his name isn't everywhere.
Everything, you know, you can't walk it like back in the day,
every building had the name Trump on it,
every park had Trump on it.
Like Trump cleaned up the friggin' the freeway
and had said, you know, this part of the freeway
is you know, cleaned up by Donald J.
I remember that, I had to hear Hudson. Yeah, this part of the freeway is, you know, cleaned up by Donald J. I remember that. I had to hug him.
Yeah, he's exactly the highway.
He wants his name everywhere.
And Whitcough seems to be quite different than that.
But, you know, he started going into, you know, the nuances of evaluating assets.
And how it is more of an art and not a science and how, you know, and judge Angkor on, apparently,
he was quite charming.
He has a thick New York accent,
he comes across as very credible, and, you know, and it appears that Judge Angoron was really listening to him,
and thought, you know, I want to hear what this guy has to say, because he does seem to have a lot of information
that could be useful on how it's done in practice. But interestingly, and we'll see what happens
when we get to read the transcripts of the cross
when it happens later.
It'll be interesting to see how he's crossed
because I am sure, if I were the attorney general,
I would say things like, okay, yeah,
maybe some people take this into consideration
while other people take this into consideration, while other people take this into consideration.
But what about putting factual details that are
outright wrong when you're making the determination?
You can't get around that.
That's the part of this that really drives me crazy.
Like at one point, he was being questioned
and what he basically said was,
if you have a statement, a financial condition
and it has two properties on it,
and in one, you make a lot of money
and in one, you lose a lot of money,
they wash each other out.
And so then therefore, it doesn't matter
if it's one's wrong and one's right,
they wash each other out.
And Judge and Gordon was like, do you have any evidence of that?
Can you show me any proof of that?
And he was sort of trying to dig into that a little bit
which I thought was which I thought was sort of interesting but the cross examination of him I think
will be very very telling because he I really think he's going to have to at the end of the day
even if you value you consider valuations done with this mix of information instead of that
mix information no matter what it has to rely on accurate information, right? Like, square footage, you know, has to be accurate when you're doing
the math or, you know, and, or other, other numbers that were objectively, objectively wrong. So,
I, I do think that they're starting to put witnesses on that are actually substantive,
unlike Don Jr., who I don't think was that substantive.
What about you?
What did you think?
Well, I think you have to start with the,
you have to start from a place of where judge Angora is.
The New York Attorney General jumped up and down
and said, why are we even putting on experts?
You, judge, have already determined pre-fortrial
that there was persistent fraud in the books
were cooked already.
And the only issue was intent. And none of these witnesses, whether it be in a
praser or a fellow developer, used to be the lawyer for Donald Trump or an accountant or an insurance
person, is going to be able to get into the hearts and minds of the critical issue in the case,
which is intent. So why are we bothering doing this?
And the judge didn't say they were wrong.
He just said, is this the hill you want to die on?
Why don't I just let it in?
Give it the credibility or the weight that it deserves.
And if it's, I'll keep them on a short chain in terms of relevancy, but do you really
want to give them a reversible error issue to raise on appeal and do this trial all over again?
If you're wrong and the New York Attorney General sat down, in other words, the judge signal, let me handle this.
I'm the gatekeeper. It's my trial. I don't have a jury to worry about, you know, experts in front of judges is different than experts in front of juries.
You don't want an expert in front of a jury on irrelevant issue,
because it'll just blow their mind,
and they'll be distracted from what they need to do,
which is to apply the facts to the law
as charged by the judge.
But when you're a judge,
you got your big boy and girl pants on,
and you're like, I'll handle it.
So let it all in.
I'll keep them on track on anything that I think is relevant.
And the judge has already said so that New York Attorney General on two occasions, I'll keep them on track on anything that I think is relevant.
And the judge has already said to the New York Attorney General on two occasions, do you
really want to die on this hill?
For instance, they raised the issue of Don Jr.
Why is he testifying it all about things that are outside the time period and not relevant
to the judge's fact-finding, which is what he's doing now as a trial of fact,
about properties and the years that are relevant to the almost-set indictment, to the complaint
or the petition in the case.
And why is he talking about grandpa, peat, trump, building brothels in Yukon in the 1900s?
And the judge said, again, do you want to mistrial on this issue?
Why don't we just let them talk?
And I'll deal with it.
And then later, when there was an objection that was raised,
I think yesterday by the Trump side, by Kys,
by Chris Kys, who stood up and said,
why do they get to bring in some issue about 40 Wall Street,
one of the buildings that issue?
And the judge turned
to Chris Kice, and with his withering style said, I just listened to an entire morning of
irrelevant information from your client, Don Jr. Really?
You're going to argue relevancy in front of me, which is a quick flash of what's going
on in the judge's mind. I don't think any of this charm offensive,
trying to reposition the case,
trying to get the judge on this is going to work.
This cement is hardening quickly
from 25 witnesses for the government,
for the state attorney general,
all of the documentary evidence
and the judge's 30-page decision on summary judgment,
it would take not just a Hail Mary,
it would take some bombshell evidence that doesn't exist
and a witness's testimony that will never be created
in order to turn the tide on this case.
What if one of the bankers, though,
that gave them these big loans off the bit misinformation came in and said
We never relied on that it wasn't material
Nothing to do with our decision. We wanted to go into business with Trump
Don't you think it could impact counts two through six? It won't impact count one or the damages
But don't you think that could impact count two?
Did we do this already we the New York Attorney General we didn't this already? We, the New York Attorney General, we didn't,
didn't this happen already?
The New York Attorney General called in,
Deutsche Bank's banker, and said to them,
how did you make the loan?
They said, well, there were two requirements.
One of them was, everybody's excited in the city today.
There were two requirements.
One was that Trump keep a $2.5 billion net worth,
and the other one is he have is he have certain amount of liquid assets
and all of that. And that went back and forth with the texting with Ivanka. And yes, they said,
we'd like to do business with Donald Trump, but the underwriters, which are the ones in the back of
the bank that makes the decisions about loans, not the bank, like the bankers or salespeople,
you and I have dealt with them in our own personal life and also, you know, with cases and they'll, they can sell ice and
winter, okay, they're great. But then they got to deliver that loan package to an underwriter
who's got, you know, who's got compliance and control issues and a committee that has
to approve the loan. And, you know, it's not, we're not talking about local,
chemical banks, you just go in and go, I'm Donald Trump. And I have money now.
I mean, there's a whole process for this. I just don't think they're going to find
that banker. If they had that banker that was going to say that this didn't
matter what he told us, we didn't need financial statements. We didn't need
personal net worth. We didn't need liquidity. His name was
enough. That would have been witness number one.
But did it promise that it promised these bankers?
Where are they? Why aren't they? What's number one? Why is it Don Jr. talking about the Yukon
and doing like he's got a like he's doing a bus tour in Hollywood pointing out building shiny
buildings that his father did. I mean, why is that witness number one?
You and I practice trial law.
It's primacy and recency.
You put your best witness on first.
You put your second best witness on close to the end,
and you sandwich everybody in the middle.
Best witness is Don Jr.
The one, the sink of fan.
I mean, what, what, what was the selection process?
Who's gonna kiss Daddy's ass more?
Well, Ivanka won't come back from Florida.
So who's left?
You knew it was going to be Don Jr.
There's no bigger ass kisser in that family than Don Jr.
He fancies himself another Donald Trump, except he's,
well, he's not grosser, because Donald Trump is pretty gross.
I called him, smarmy, you hit the nail on the head
with your description. He's yuck disgusting. You know, I got. I called him, smarmy, you hit the nail on the head with your description.
He's yuck disgusting.
I gotta take a shower every time I do a hot take
about Don Jr. and I don't mean that in a good way.
So, so.
And where's Tiffany in all this?
She went to law school.
She went to Georgetown law school, right?
My alma mater.
Where is she in all of this?
Why isn't she out there defending her?
I'm just saying.
Tiffany's first thing she's going to do is a lawyer is doing name change. She's going to be,
was it her mother Marla Maples? She's going to be Tiffany Maples at the right. We're going.
If that whole one, and then I loved in the cross examination of Don Jr., by the way,
speaking to name change, where they did what you and I do when we want to show strength.
They almost did no questions or honor,
which indicates that they didn't,
he didn't lay a glove on our case.
They said, very brief cross, your honor.
And all the cross was, wasn't there at a golf course?
Wasn't there one of your holes, the 18th hole?
Didn't it fall?
Didn't it fall off into the ocean?
Didn't it fall into the ocean?
And he was like, yes, yes, it did.
And is it there a whole YN property
that's spending millions of dollars
to take the Trump name off the property?
Yes.
And I mean, it was like, I mean, you know,
they picked the five things and they left the most
that they're lunch break, which I love,
which is another way to signal this guy
didn't do a darn thing to to us.
And I want to watch Cross, because you and I'll do it
next week or the end of the week.
I want to see what they do with this appraiser,
who's the buddy, other than you used to represent
Donald Trump as his lawyer, right?
Okay, and so you're here not, you don't have any knowledge
factual as a fact witness about the intent of Donald Trump
when he cooked the books, which has already
been determined by the judge, right? You have no knowledge, no information. You can't comment
on that, right? Right. And so you're just here to try to teach the judge about New York
development and appraisal process, right? Right. That's, that's all you're here at about the art of it,
right? Right. And they're going to do the same thing with the insurance guy. You're just here to teach the judge about how insurance is obtained, right?
I mean, just sort of shrink them down.
Boom.
You know, the honey I shrunk the expert.
And that's what you do.
You know, going back to the creepy comment, I just because I have to.
We have become, just our society, we're so conditioned.
And but this was like 20 years ago
Men used to talk like that, right? It's this 2023 almost 2024
I don't know any men who still talk like that. Can you imagine a woman like can you imagine salty if I said to
Salty a salty make me look sexy. He'd be like gross get Get this creep out of here, you know, like
women don't talk like this ever and
Men used to but they don't do that anymore like who what planet is he living in?
You know what I call the court reporter at any room when I enter or anybody there like that happens to be a woman
I've done it's top of my career even though it's gonna sound a little old-timey madam court reporter
I've done it's top of my career, even though it's gonna sound a little old-timey,
Madam Court reporter.
Not their name, I don't know them,
but they have a role in the Arjustic system
and they deserve respect.
So it's always Madam Court reporter,
should we take a break now?
Do you need a break?
Because you're the one banging away
on your equipment there.
Now, you don't go over and like try to date
the sketch artist or like you said, breathe on them in
order to make them look, make me look handsome and sexy. Like you said, I can't even get it
out. But this isn't the last thing we'll talk about about Donald Trump and all of his
SMARMY kids that are going on. Another four or five weeks of this, and we'll cover it
here on the Midas Touch Network.
And on legal AF, we're gonna turn next
to talk about Georgia big developments
and Georgia's new things, new breaking things
that happened even since we've been on the air.
There we're gonna talk about with Fannie Willis
not taking any guff.
That's a legal term from the defense
or any of the defendants.
And then we'll also talk about, of course,
DC election interference case with Judge Chuckkin,
as she moves that case towards trial in March
and the DC Court of Appeals considers the gag order,
whether it's gonna be reinstated,
and if so, in what fashion.
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Let's talk about Georgia before we launch into what we thought
was the latest news, I'll just do two little quick updates.
I did a hot take a while ago about Harrison Floyd,
who was the chair of Black Voices for Trump.
He was the guy that couldn't get out of jail originally on bond because
he couldn't find a lawyer when he got indicted. And then we also learned that he was up on charges
for assaulting a federal officer when he was being served with a subpoena to appear in
front of a grand jury for Jack Smith's DC election interference case, you know, that guy.
And then he's just, he spent the last two months or three months using social media to
bash Fony Willis, attack her appearance, and then go after witnesses.
And Fony Willis has had enough as the Fulton County DA, and she has filed a motion today
to revoke his bond and send him back to jail where he can sit in the Rice Street jail right next to the courthouse from now until his trial maybe in 2024 maybe in 2025
We'll find out but she's had enough her her hand is under her chin and it's now time to teach these defendants who are out on bail and bond. A lesson. In addition, speaking of Georgia, we now have based on new filings, Ruby Freeman and
Shea Moss, the mother and daughter team who are not only sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation,
but have already won because Rudy Giuliani was found basically in default and a judgment
entered against him by the judge in district of Columbia
pardon me judge barrel how
on defamation and
punitive damages and the only thing left for a trial is going to be how big of a check the jury
is going to make Rudy Giuliani right and we now have the numbers and the numbers that Rudy
Ruby Freeman and Jay Moss these Fulton County election workers who were defamed accused of voter fraud when they were doing nothing of the kind.
They were just doing their civic duty is somewhere between 15 and 43 million dollars,
which I know what little I know about Rudy Giuliani's finances, he doesn't have all of that money,
but they will take everything that he does have,
including his apartment in New York
and his condo near Mar-a-Lago in Florida and everything else.
So that was, that's the quick update.
Let's go to the event today, Karen,
you had a chance as I did, but you take the lead
on the hearing, on the emergency motion
for protective order, filed by Fawney Willis, because a whole bunch of proper videos of
Sydney Powell and Jenna Ellis and the bail bonds, as I like to call them, were leaked, you
know, these hour long videos of the testimony they gave to the state attorney in order to
support their case and to get their
plea deal was leaked to the media. At the time, we were like, who leaked these? I mean, they're
goldmine for us. We got to talk about them, who leaked them, and why? And we learned today in
the course of that hour-long hearing. I want you to tell everybody Karen out there what happened
at the hearing and what was the confession that was made during it?
Sure, I'd be happy to, but I want to go back to something you talked about just now, which is how Fanny Willis asked the court to revoke the bond of Mr. Floyd.
Only because this one really, really just gets under my skin, because when you read the reasons
Fanny Willis asked that his bond be revoked.
So really what she's saying is, this is a defendant who's out on bond or bail, meaning he has paid
a certain amount of money to go to be allowed to go out with certain restrictions. And those
restrictions are, and there's always like different ones for different people, you know, and
whatever they are here, the restrictions
are basically you can't threaten witnesses, you can't attack them, and you can't do inappropriate
things on social media. And then in her motion, she cites to the various social media postings
that she said violate his conditions, right? Things about threatening witnesses where he says things
like it's over.
Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffinsberger
needs to call his lawyer.
He's about to go through some things
or things like, you know, just going on and on, right?
Different things.
And at one point, there's even, you know,
we have to shout out to Midas Touch.
There's even a Midas Touch posting here
where it says during her
proffersession before Georgia prosecutors, Jenna Ellis, if you can see it, it's
great, right? I love that mitus touches is making its way into the D.A.
Fondie Willis' motion papers on page eight, but really what upsets me about
this and what gets me gets under my skin about this is it shows the way Donald Trump is being treated differently than everybody else and every other defendant because what he does is just as bad if not worse than what Mr. Floyd does and but somehow nobody puts him in nobody incarcerates him they just not only that we're fighting over gag orders because he can't be stopped.
So if he's going to be out there saying things like, if you coming after me, I'm coming after you, he's setting the tone.
You can't put the lower level guy in jail or in prison waiting trial.
And Donald Trump continues to get away with it.
There are two tiers of justice in this country,
but not in the direction Donald Trump talks about.
And so this really bothers me
that it just demonstrates how he is once again,
just getting away with things
that nobody else would get away with
because of course Mr. Floyd should be put in
for doing this.
So would every other defendant
who would ever do something like this,
that's exactly what a judge would do and should do. But the fact that we're not doing it with Donald Trump just really
just shows to me how somehow he is being treated differently than everybody else. And that's
just not right. And if I were a judge, I don't know that I would do one and not the other,
especially if the one that I'd be doing is a much lower level person in all of this,
right? Donald Trump
is the ringleader. He's the boss. And so they really, I think, and I know everybody,
there's afraid to put Donald Trump in, you know, put him in, but he's not stopping. And
somebody has to stop him because lives are in danger as a result of what he does. And
Mr. Floyd is doing nothing more than following the lead of his ringleader Donald
Trump. So I just wanted to comment on that. The interesting thing is that Donald Trump doesn't
bash the people that are necessarily the Georgia witnesses. He stays relatively quiet. He only
bat because of back of fee. He only bashes the in places where he knows he can get away with it until he can't, which is the democratic
judges like Chuck and Gauron, you know, Judge Mershonup in New York or the one, you know,
the one that he thinks he's gotten his back pocket. Judge Cannon will talk about in another
time in down in Florida. He really hasn't, you know, surprisingly, even though there is a gag order per se
by Judge McAfee about intimidating witnesses
or making comments about witnesses,
and remember, McAfee's already decided to make,
I think all the trials, they're anonymous,
mainly because of Donald Trump.
Not the truth.
I'm sorry, all the jurors down, they're anonymous,
mainly because of Donald Trump.
It's amazing how quiet Donald Trump is
and does very little, does no bashing of McAfee's judge
and doesn't really go after the other potential witnesses.
Like, if this was in New York and Powell and Jenna Ellis
leaked things came out, you would see Crackpot, Sydney Powell, Crackpot, Jenna Ellis's leaked things came out. You would see crack pot, Sydney power, crack pot,
Jenna Ellis corrupt right wing, racist vermin.
He doesn't do that in Georgia, which is very interesting.
One of the reasons I don't think he does it in Georgia
is because there is a real fear
that that is a place where he could get convicted at some point and not be able to have a pardon from a Republican president.
I'm not sure he can self pardon.
We'll leave that for another day.
But let's, let's keep going.
Sorry, we'll go back to the.
Let's keep going on Georgia and talk about, you know, do a quick summary of the motion for protective order emergency, the hearing particularly
that already happened today, and what we learned from the hearing and how Judge McAfee
runs the courtroom?
Yes.
So, Fanny Will has turned over Discovery, which is witness statements essentially that
she has in all forms, and she turned it over to the remaining 14 defense attorneys
like she's supposed to do.
And there were some what they were called unauthorized leaks from, I think it was ABC first
and then the Washington Post and now it's everywhere from at the time an unknown source
and Fannie Willis did an emergency application for a protective order and she said it must be one of the
defense attorneys who leaked and she was very disappointed by this.
And by filing an emergency order, she got a hearing on a much, on a fast pace, which happened
the next day.
So today there was a broadcast hearing that we all could watch where all the defense attorneys were present.
And it was via Zoom and it was on whether or not there should be a protective order.
Now there was an application for a protective order previously by Fannie Willis on the discovery,
but Judge McAfee did not rule on it.
So by releasing this information, I don't think it was a violation of anything
because there was no order in place.
And so what Fannie Willis was asking for
was for a protective order because what she said
was there's no reason to be leaking this
other than to intimidate witnesses, right?
That's what will happen.
And not only that, there will be inappropriate information that is out there in the public
realm.
And the reason it's inappropriate, and basically what was leaked were video recordings of the
processions or of the conversations between prosecutors and the defendants who have now
pled guilty and are cooperating.
So what the prosecutors did and this is done in certain jurisdictions and in certain cases,
is they put them under oath, made them swear to tell the truth, and asked them questions, and
videotaped it so that there's a record for all time of what they have said.
And normally those video recordings, those would be considered hearsay at trial
because they are out of court statements being offered for the truth of the matter asserted.
They are just pure hearsay. And so those typically wouldn't come in to evidence. So why would
you record them? You would record them because if they change their testimony later, you
can confront them with it because it's under oath,
you can cross-examine them with it.
And so it's a good, you do it for a reason, right?
You preserve their testimony for reason, and it's a good thing that you did it.
But funny will is this upset that it was released because there are, when you go to trial, when
you ask questions, there are lots of objections, right?
And the judge may or may not allow certain information in.
But if that information is already shown to the public and out there and the jury knows
about it, you run the risk of a jury considering extraneous evidence in the jury box, which
is not allowed to do.
They're only allowed to consider the evidence that's before them.
And so as a prosecutor, you want to do everything you can to prevent all this information to come out so that you
don't somehow poison your jury pool, you don't make it harder to picture. And you just
you don't want it, that's just not a good thing to have information out there that might
not ever come in at trial. So she did the right thing by asking for a protective order and for asking for one on
an emergency basis.
Her protective order that she asked for was a limited one.
It wasn't just for all discovery.
It was for things that are sensitive or have personal identifying information or confidential
business records, the proffer videos, that kind of stuff.
Most of the defense attorneys said we don't think that, and McAfee, who every time I see him,
I am more and more impressed with him.
I think he's an excellent judge.
I like the way he's not at all in temperate.
He's very much respectful, smart, knows the law,
gives people a chance to speak, but is completely in control.
He's kind of exactly what you want a judge to be, frankly.
Most of the defense attorneys, and he went one by one to ask them.
Most of them said, look, judge, we don't think a protective order is necessary, but if one
is, then we consent to the one that Fanny Willis has proposed and will abide
by it because it is narrowly tailored, right?
It isn't, she's not just saying everything, we think it's as reasonable.
And you know, as a lawyer, why fight about everything, right?
When you can, you want to show your reasonable to a judge so that somehow they'll give you
certain things too.
So that, that sort of seemed like what was going on there.
You know, every once in a while,
you'd have a defense attorney say something like,
you know, like, this isn't necessary because X, Y, and Z,
and if it's wrong, what they're saying,
they just corrects them.
You know, he's like, well, you're not, you know,
it's not exactly true because that's already taking care of.
Like, he made sure that the record was absolutely correct.
And I love that he did that. Then we get to the defense attorney who for Mr. Miller,
for Misty Hampton. We just thought, I thought this was just going to be a okay,
judge, okay, judge, no problem. One by one, they were saying, we don't object, it'll be fine,
it'll be fine. But this one was a little bit, I don't want to say dramatic, but it was like, you know, it was like he confessed, you know, he said,
he basically said, you know, I want to be transparent with the court so nobody else is blamed,
you know, he said, he said, first of all, this is not necessary and I won't consent. So that was
your first hint that he was going to be a little bit different from the rest of the pack.
But he said, but you know,
I want to be transparent with the court.
So nobody else gets blamed for this.
I did it.
I released the videos to one outlet.
And he's like, I did it because the four people
who did the proffers, who stood in front of you judge,
they pled guilty, and to hide these Prophers
to show all that went into the police misleading
and it misleads the public about what goes on
and two people actually helped my client
and the public needs to know that.
So please keep that into consideration
and Judge McAfee shot him down and said,
this isn't a trial that the American people,
this isn't a trial that you American people, this isn't a trial
that you do, you know, it's not a trial of public opinion, basically.
You know, and he said to him at one point, that's a good slogan, you know, that the public
has a right to know.
But we have, is there any case law that says that pre-trial discovery should be part
of the public record?
And he's like, no, you know, that's not, that doesn't exist.
Anyway, it was just, it was the way he kind of, the way McNacka did it was basically like,
like, this is supposed to be a trial in court of law, not a trial of court of opinion,
nice slogan.
But he didn't yell at him or say anything.
He just kind of said, you know, he just sort of held his feet to the fire a little bit.
But then we got to, it was interesting.
It was a lawyer for media organizations who they did not want to protect the border because, you know, look,
they like these leaks, frankly. And that was an interesting legal back and forth about what
the law is there, and the 11th Circuit Law about there's no public right to discovery, and
back and forth, back and forth, and you know, the press,
you know, they really, really want it. And so I thought that was also a very interesting
back and forth in the judge today's going to rule. I think tomorrow on this, I think there's,
you know, at one point the judge basically signaled that he would do the full protective order,
but because he says there's so much information and why argue, why come back and
forth about, is this one protected or this one not, you know, this just leaves it up not
only to subjectivity, but to litigation. Why not just blank it all of it? So we'll see
what he does. I think not only is he going to grant a protective order, I think there's
actually a chance that he might, he might do the full protective order, not just
the one Fanny will has put in, but what do you think, Popok?
First of all, he's granting the protective order because the party's already submitted
an agreed order.
I think the interesting, the things that triggered other things during the hearing is we started
with David Schaeffer's lawyers who was the former head of the GOP for Georgia before he got indicted, getting
together with the other defendants, including Donald Trumps, to submit and work through
with the Attorney General, with the Fulton County District Attorney's Office, a proposed
agreed order. In retrospect, based on the comment that you just mentioned about the judge,
the DA probably should have just swung for the fences and went for the whole,
as you said, protective order, which is what they originally wanted as they filed it,
was all of the discovery information was going to be covered by the protective order.
They wouldn't have to pick and choose which pieces of it, and even certain highly
sensitive pieces like video evidence, people would have to not and choose which pieces of it. And even certain highly sensitive pieces
like video evidence, people would have to not get a copy
of it, sent to them.
They would have to come down and watch it
in the DA's office.
When they saw the proposed agreed protective order,
which the judge doesn't have to adopt,
but generally would, he has in the past year,
they agreed to kind of split it down the middle and let the DA designate some categories of things,
some subset of things as sensitive and then let that issue go to the judge if people don't agree
with the designation. And sensitive things would get a certain type of treatment away from the prying eyes, the public, and the media.
The judge said, you really want to go through all that?
All the way through your documents, D.A.
It was almost like, I'll give you the full one.
But then, you know, the D.A. to their credit, they were like, now we've agreed upon this,
and if the court is okay with it, we have a procedure in place that we think will be
fine.
A small, very small handful of people said, no, we think we should be able to disseminate
all of the discovery information.
This is Donald Trump's talking point here to as wide an audience outside of the courtroom
as possible.
And the judges, you've noted said, why?
The trial takes place inside of a courtroom.
I get why you need the information to defend your case.
I get why, but why before I've even ruled on the admissibility of any of this information?
And before we're even at trial, why do you get to widely disseminated and try your case
in the public? And none of the lawyers, including the one from Misty Hampton, who's the coffee county former election
supervisor, who was involved with the break in, in which they
downloaded confidential voter data and just handed it out to
Sydney Bell and other people to use inappropriately in lawsuits.
Why, what's the case all you have for that?
The judge, of course, Misty Hampton's lawyer, so we don't really have any judge.
You just think it's a good idea,
because the DA has had the lectern all this time
and we want to be able to get our message out there.
Like, well, this is not a compelling argument
for due process or the right to a fair trial.
I think the reason that he felt compelled
and had a moment of where it became a confessional
for him, for the lawyer for Miss the Hampton is because just before him, the lawyer for
Floyd, who we just talked about at the top as being the subject now of having his bond
revoked and being sent back to jail, was all took tremendous umbridge and was clutching his pearls, as we
like to say, about the fact that the district attorney used the typo in one of their emails
against them.
Like, they didn't write it.
They wrote it.
The lawyers for Floyd.
Lawyers for Floyd were trying to write, apparently, an email to the DA that said, we did
not leak the videos.
And instead they wrote, we leaked the videos.
You can't make this up.
Yes, they claimed it was a typo
and they sent an email right after
or some point after and pointed it out.
They don't like the fact that the DA embarrassed them
and told the judge see they're the leakers.
They admitted it right here, you know, whatever.
It was like, okay, so he decided on the phone call
with the judge, a Zoom box, as we have pictures of it,
you know, 16, 18 lawyers surrounded here,
is to say, I was aggravated by the fact that the DA
you know, wrote about this typo of ours,
and I've been fielding phone calls from the media,
and I wanted apology, and I've been fielding phone calls from the media and I
wanted apology and I want the DA to say that I wasn't the leaker to which the judge said,
well, when we signed up for this case, a certain amount of aggravation went along for the ride.
In other words, I love that because it's the judge indicating I've been aggravated too,
but I'm not complaining about it because he's, because he's usually seems very unfloppable
to judge in the courtroom.
So right after that, after this whole big kerfuffle
over who's the leaker, who's the leaker,
then Miss the Ampton's lawyer, just as the judge was about
to turn the page and move on to the next lawyer
to ask if they agreed or disagreed with protective order,
he said, I gotta get something off my chest, your honor.
I was the one.
And if you would have bet me which lawyer representing which client would have been the leaker,
Misty Hampton was not on my bingo card at all.
That is the one I thought would lay low, try to cut a deal, get out of there with whatever dignity she has intact, cut
a deal with Fondi Willis.
Not be the leaker and piss off the very prosecutor that she should be cutting a deal with Ben and
I did a hot take on it.
I happen to go over to her GoFundMe page or whatever she's using.
I mean, we won't mention it.
Just go find her GoFundMe page.
And on that GoFundMe page, where she says she needs to raise
$300,000 to pay this lawyer, she's raised $6,000.
And all she does is this faunting thing about out
what a wonderful, selfless person she is
and she needs, and she needs help.
If I, here's a note of advice.
People get upset sometimes that we get free advice.
I'm gonna get free advice to Misty Hampton.
A, don't be the one that pisses off the prosecutor
and you shouldn't be the one continuing to do
Donald Trump's bidding by leaking discovery information
and trying to try your case in the public.
Here's a better idea.
Go cut a deal as fast as you can
while there's still deals being handed out
by the prosecutor and get the heck out of there.
You're not gonna try this case.
You're gonna lose.
There's video evidence of her.
I almost gagged, speaking of gagging Karen.
I almost gagged when her lawyer said at the beginning
of his little speech, I represent my client and she really wants transparency. She's very
into transparency. Really go watch the video of her deposition in another case in which she
completely lies and it's obvious until video came out showing that she let in
The cyber ninjas and the bail bondsman and other people to go rummaging around the equipment the election equipment and
tampering with it under her watch where she lied through her teeth on the deposition under oath until the video came out and it showed
She did exactly the opposite of what she said.
So I don't want to hear about transparency,
my client is so interested in having the media have access to this.
So listen, I agree with you.
He's going to grant the protective order.
We're not going to see these kind of leaks again
or we're going to be right back in front of this judge
who I think will be a little bit arseer with his rulemaking now that he sets the order in place.
Make sense?
Totally.
Let's go to some place that we think makes sense, but Donald Trump hates, which is the
DC, the DC election interference case, presided over by Judge Chutkin. We got two things to talk about as we wrap up our midweek edition.
One is, and you did a nice hot take on this.
And so I'll let you lead there on the, we got the briefing that's going on at the DC
court of appeals or the, yeah, DC court of appeals about the gag order.
Yeah, TC Court of Appeals about the gag order, Chuck and Reminder put in a gag order,
reinstated it to stop violent rhetoric
and attacks by Donald Trump on witnesses,
prosecutors, family, staff, and the like.
She left herself out of it,
even though she's been violently attacked,
including by one of Donald Trump's followers
who left an assassination message on her chamber voicemail.
But, you know, she's like, I got
my own federal marshal's protection. I'm okay. But that issue as to whether that's a
first amendment right for Donald Trump to violently to attack Jack Smith, including what he's
been doing right up until the moment of their decision. There's one more brief left. It's
Donald Trump's then on the 20th of November. There's going to be oral argument.
It's not going to be televised,
but we will be able to get an audio recording of it.
And we'll talk about it at that time.
Talk about that.
And the second thing we'll talk about before we wrap
is the judge getting ready, including the motion
to dismisses that she has on file,
and getting ready for her jury trial in March.
Go ahead, Karen.
Yes, so Jack Smith's team filed an appellate brief and you know, they put, I love when
they put the question before the court so perfectly and so clearly and concisely,
because then we all know what we're looking at and what the issue is.
And you basically wrote, did Judge Chutkin permissibly issue an order under
a local criminal rule 57.7 sub-C prohibiting parties in their council for making extra
judicial statements, meaning outside of court, targeting certain trial participants while
expressly leaving the defendant free to make statements, quote, criticizing the government
generally, including the current administration or the DOJ statements asserting that the defendant is innocent and the charges against him,
or that his prosecution is politically motivated, or statements criticizing the campaign platforms
of or policies of his current political rivals.
And so what he's basically saying is what we're here for a judge is is or to the court is this very
limited gag order that prohibits Donald Trump from speaking and targeting certain court and trial
participants is that illegal, especially when it still allows him to criticize
lots and lots of people, including my pens, who is going to be a witness in this case because he's a political rival.
So I think they characterize this very well because they set the issue out very clearly that this is narrow.
This restraint on speech, this gag order is very narrowly tailored and they put it right up front. So, so their brief is I thought really good. It reminds it reminds the court that you know,
it's one defendant for charges and although he's not charged with an insurrection,
the indictment absolutely alleges that he's responsible for the events of January 6th and the
lives that were lost. And you know that the are going to start March 1st and we're
picking a jury February 9th that is right around the corner. I mean I can't believe how quickly
that's going to come. We're about to hit Thanksgiving, the holidays, new years and then boom,
here we are. So they also lay out the defendant's extra judicial or outside of court statements. And they did a really good job summarizing exactly where we are.
So he said that the judge has reminded the parties
that we have to ensure the integrity of the case,
but we also have to prevent a carnival atmosphere
and prevent an unchecked trial by media
rather than a trial by impartial jury, right?
That's really important and that the judge admonished a general word of caution
to Trump in the beginning, basically saying in order to ensure the orderly administration
of justice, we're not going to allow you to intimidate witnesses and threaten or prejudice jurors.
Entirely reasonable, most judges don't need to remind
defendants of that, but she felt she needed to.
But before, both before and after the admonition
and Smith points this out, that the defendant,
that Trump persistently used the social media platforms
that he's on to make comments.
And three days after the indictment
is when he made the
famous, if you go after me, I'm coming after you.
And also used disparaging and inflammatory language to
target the court, the special counsel trial witnesses.
He called and Jackson Smith doesn't name anyone, but he
describes who they are when he puts in his motion this
information.
So he called, he puts puts in that Trump called Judge Chuck
Kenneth Fraud in a hack called Smith D'Arrange Thugs
and Luna Ticks, was gone after his wife and family.
He accused, lies about Smith going to the White House
when he knows that was false.
He called Penn's Delusional, not a good person,
who made up stories about Trump,
and he called the former Joint Chiefs of Staff, you know, who's a trial witness, that he
should be punished by death and that meadows is a liar. So, you know, he sets up all of
the various statements, kind of like I wrote something actually on MidasTouch.com with
all the threats, et cetera. And Jack Smith, the same kind of things that Jack Smith was doing, just in order of who he's
going after, what he's saying, and also pointed out what has happened as a result of Trump's
comments.
So, for example, the day after Trump wrote, I'm coming after you posting, that's when one
of his followers called Chuck Kins used call to her a stupid slave inward
and we're gonna kill you, and you're gonna be personally
targeted and all this kind of stuff.
Call to the B word.
And Smith also, again, went on about all the other threats,
like Ruby Freeman, Sheamus,
and talked about how so many people
have needed extra police protection security.
And even talked about things happening not in this case, he talked about Alvin Bragg
and the baseball bat and the threats and the stuff to him.
Also talked about Fanny Willis and those threats.
And also talked about how Trump has said in Caitlin Collins on CNN Town Hall that his
followers listened to him like no one else.
So I think Jack Smith just did a great job, or I should say his team, did a great job spelling
out all of these issues for the appellate court and making sure that it's in the record. And then really went into the law.
And it was really interesting to read about this,
because it's kind of a history of the First Amendment,
and all of the different parameters of the First Amendment,
and how the court said that, well,
law speech, critical of the state lies
at the heart of the First Amendment at some point a defendant's targeted
disparagement of government officials can go from permissible criticism to encouraging harm against them and
That this targeted disparagement poses a danger even when it does not explicitly call for violence and use
Popoq you are your favorite quote that you you have mentioned many times
you have mentioned many times that the King Henry, the Seconds remark, will no one rid me of this medal some priest
which resulted in the death of Thomas A. Beckett.
So Smith, and he quoted that in his appellate brief,
and basically, as they pointed out that
there's an uncontradicted evidence showing that when the defendant has singled out a particular
person in his public statements, it has led to them being threatened and harassed. And, you know,
he should he should be free to say things, but not no matter what, and not about whoever he wants.
And that this is no longer speculative
the way Trump likes to say it is,
because every time he says something happens, right?
People get threats, people get death threats,
people need security, and that Judge Chutkins
narrowly tailored gag order allows him to still criticize
Mike Pence, who's his political rival, but also protects the administration of justice
and potential witnesses.
And so, you know, as you know right now, the gag order is paused, and that's because,
you know, while they get ready to argue this and to see what happened,
but during this pause, right, since it has been paused, Trump called Smith, Jack Smith
deranged and crooked, and also included his wife and family in the attacks.
And I think that might have pushed, might actually push things over the edge.
He also warned, again, very recently, in the middle of all of this appeal, that Jack Smith
and other DOJ officials, if he's elected, President will end up in a mental institution.
He also called these really excellent public servants who, I have so much respect for, they're lawyers who have worked in the Justice Department.
Andrew Weisman and Lisa Monaco, he's called them a team of losers and misfits.
And I have to say, and then he said they're going to end up suffering a horrible disease
and an mental institution. I don't know. I just think he's going after everybody
and I think that potentially that they're going to find that this gag order is actually narrowly
tailored and appropriate. And you know, one of the things that will be interesting that's
that I think will be what test does, will the DC circuit apply to this gag order?
Because since it's the first amendment case, right, it has to be narrowly tailored.
That's a, that's a term of art when you're talking about the first amendment.
And Jack Smith says that the test is, is whether these extra-digital speech poses a substantial
likelihood of material prejudice.
That's to the trial. That's typically what the standard would be when restricting speech in this kind of setting.
Trump, however, is saying that no, this should be a higher test to meet, right?
Which is one that when you want to restrict the press, not just regular people, and that's the clear and present danger test,, we've got it, we made it,
and so therefore this should stand.
And so I thought it was really, really, excellently done.
What did you think?
I did.
I think they're going to lose.
I think they're going to get gagged again.
I think that there are, as Judge Chutkin has laid out, there are bright lines that there are just certain, there
are just certain amount of extra judicial outside the courtroom rhetoric that is not protected
by the First Amendment.
As the First Amendment comes in the conflict with the Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial,
Donald Trump doesn't realize it, but with the courts are really trying to do. Part
of me is protect Donald Trump from himself. He's polluting the jury pool. He is polluting
the justice system in a way that will ultimately, could ultimately backfire in him by having
jurors that are afraid of him. And that is a mean they're going to hang, um, no pun intended, that they're not
going to rule, uh, on one of the counts. It just means that they may actually rule against
them because they're so afraid of him, um, and that he comes off as such a, um, tyrant
and, and unhinged, that he's actually undermining his own right to a fair trial every day and every way.
That is what Judge Chutkin has made clear. From day one, as the trial judge heard primary concern
is the protection of the process, the judicial system, and to make sure there's a fair trial that
results from it. I don't think anything that she has ruled with her narrow gag order
about violent rhetoric based on the evidence that was presented to her and that she observed
is going to be overturned or that decision is going to be overturned by the DC Court
of Appeals. Certainly not the three judges that have been chosen. I think it's a very
put it this way. It's a very favorable panel of three judges on the DC court of appeals to hear this issue
and I would be to continue a phrase from tonight shocked, shocked if the gag order wasn't put
back in place.
I don't care what test you use.
Ultimately, as you said, during the Georgia election interference segment, why does he
get away with what a normal, a normal
defendant would never be able to get away with or to paraphrase Judge Chutkin in that
same hearing where she made the comment about the assassination of the Archbishop of
Canterbury? What name for me, Mr. Loro, the lawyer for Donald Trump, tell me a case in which a defendant,
such as yours, would be able to attack the prosecutor
and make all these comments and not be remanded back
into the custody of the federal marshals
and be back in the jail.
Give me that case, I'm not aware of it.
And to which he said, well, Udo, candidate,
leading candidate, leading candidate could
win the presidency and the judges already cut the legs out from another argument from
day one.
Doesn't care a wit, but the day job for this defendant is he is as she likes to remind everybody
every time she issues an order, he is a four time, at least in her courtroom, indicted, felony, indicted, participant
on the wrong end of the V in the criminal justice system,
which continues his freedom and liberty
at the very moment is at her discretion.
And it's always, whenever she does her docket entry,
she always reminds everybody,
he's out on a personal reconnaissance bond that could be revoked at any moment if this, if he continues to act
out in a way that undermines the justice system.
And we know he's going to do that and that's his plan because he's been trying to undermine
every branch of our government, every system of our democracy.
That's how he got indicted.
He was undermining the electoral process
and the peaceful transfer of power
in a way that our founding fathers could never have envisioned
that a former, then losing president
would ever try to cling to power
by throwing over the game board of our democracy
to try to stay in power.
People might say, well, why can he run again?
Why can he run if he's convicted?
Why can he run if he's in jail?
Because our founding fathers as much foresight as they had,
as many things on that hot summer that they built into the
the Bill of Rights and to the Constitution,
they couldn't envision this.
And so we're going to have to reshape our democracy, reinstall the guardrails to protect against
the next Trump or Trump, the restoration God forbid of Trump.
But what does the Supreme Court do though?
I mean, the Supreme Court has not generally ruled in favor of Donald Trump on many things.
John VI.
I mean, there's always two holdouts.
I mean, I could write it now.
I could write the dissents right now.
It's Alito and Thomas.
Everybody else, because Roberts is able to hopefully get them there. Including Kavanaugh, including Amy Brown, no, Amy.
Amy Coney Barrett.
Amy, there's so many, Amy Berman Jackson is another judge.
Amy, right, Amy Coney Barrett, they're like, hmm, I don't think that's appropriate for
a president.
It's the next president to do.
So he's never really won there on things that matter.
So I'm hoping if that history is prologue, they will continue to think this is an out of
control lunatic, except for Alito and Thomas to think it's totally appropriate and everything
he does doesn't matter what he, he could set the White House on fire.
And I think Alito and Thomas would find some way to say that was appropriate political
first amendment speech
So I've exhausted my partner. We've reached the end of another edition of legal AF midweek
Between that and all the hot takes the Karen bed and me three leaders of legal AF do
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Look at those shirts.
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Let's get out of Unisex world.
Get some nice cut shirts that people get get pink, get rid of that logo
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We love when people walk around I can't tell you Karen probably happens to you all the time
I can't tell you how many times during a regular week I get somebody that's a follower or listener to come up to me
And give me and give me
some sort of fist bump or high five.
Happened again today.
I was getting my beard trimmed.
And the barber shout out to Ryan at the barber shop told me I gave him one of our, I have
a card and his wife and his in-laws are now huge legal a-f-ers as a result.
And that's all we gotta do.
We like what we do here.
We think our content is good.
Just introduce it to other people and help the network.
Karen, you love when I give you the final word.
I will give you the final word.
I'm gonna shut off my microphone.
What is it?
I'm in Palm Desert, California visiting my dad
and my stepmom who are both huge, huge legal a-F-ers, so I want to shout out to them.
I love very much. Yeah, that's terrific. We love family here on Legal A-F. So until the next Legal A-F,
until one of our next hot takes or all of our next hot takes, this is Michael Pope-Bock, Karen
Friedman-Igniflo, shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal A-Effors.